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CHIKAPAR
(Koraput): Mukta Kadam wept as she herded her five children
in front of her, luggage on their heads, leading them through a
jungle in darkness and rain. Her village, Chikapar, had been
acquired for the MiG project of the Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd.
(HAL) and her family was evicted on an angry monsoon night.
"We
didn't know where to go. We just went because the saab log told
us to go. It was terrifying. I was so frightened for the children
on that night," she recalls. That
was in 1968. Mukta, a Gadaba tribal, didn't know then that she,
along with her entire village of 400-500 large joint families,
would have to go through the same experience two more times.
Chikapar
is like almost any other village on the Koraput map.
Almost. Perhaps no other village anywhere has the dubious
distinction of being targeted for displacement three times. In the
late '60s, it was the MiG project. In 1987, Chikapar residents,
many of whom had not even received the compensation
due from
the first
eviction, were
dishoused from
their second
location --
which, too,
they had
nostalgically named Chikapar.
This
time, Mukta wended her way down the road to
nowhere with a grandchild.
"Once again, it was raining, we took shelter under a
bridge and
stayed there for some days," says she. "This time (in
1987)," says Arjan Pamja, also from the same tribe,
"we had to make way for the Upper Kolab multipurpose project
and the naval
ammunition depot."
And
now, the villagers, who have reorganised Chikapar once more
in several little
pockets in
yet another
area after
the second
uprooting, have
received eviction
notices for
the third
time. Chikapar is being chased by development.
Jagannath
Kadam, one
of the village's few educated
members, is
a school teacher who works in
another village (there has been no
proper school in
Chikapar for years).
He says, "The reasons being given for the third eviction
vary. Minister Harish Chandra Bakshi Patra, said at a public
meeting here that we had to make way for a poultry
farm. Another explanation is that the present set-up of the
village poses problems for the Military Engineering Service (MES)
in the area. We
don't know. We only know that the villagers are receiving eviction
notices."
If
the latter reason is true, says one official, "Little
Chikapar will have, in succession, taken on the air force, the
navy and the army. If it weren't so tragic, it would be almost
comical. And all in the name of development."
Jagannath
Kadam stayed
on in what might be called Chikapar-2, the
village's location
after it was evicted the first time to
facilitate the MiG project, but before its eviction for the
Upper Kolab project. The
waters of the Kolab did not quite reach his house, so he defied
orders and stayed put. "Since my family has been
alone here,
we've had to
face dacoities, but I'm not leaving again," he
says firmly.
Chikapar
was not a village of very poor people. They comprised Gadaba and
Paroja tribals, some Doms (Harijans) and a few OBCs.
Originally located in Sunabeda
(literally translated as golden land), the villagers owned
big tracts of land. "My joint family of seven owned 129 acres
in 1963," says Balram Patro. "Of these, we were
compensated for 95 acres only and got a total of Rs 28,000
many, many years later.
But there was no help with house sites, materials or any
kind of rehabilitation," he says.
"My
family owned 60 acres of land,'' say Jyotirmoy Khora,
"and we
got Rs 15,000 - Rs
150 per
acre of hilly land and Rs 450 per
acre of Class
I land. Again, the money came much later. And that was it: not a
single paisa towards rehabilitation, not even a home site."
"They
promised us one
job per
house, one
home for
each displaced family," says Narendra Patro, speaking
to us at what can be
called Chikapar-3. "People did not even resist on either
occasion, but the authorities went back on every assurance."
Less
than 15 people found employment,
at very menial levels, in HAL. Another group made it, with some
difficulty, as casual labourers
with no security
of tenure.
Khora, despite being the village's first matriculate in 1970, and
obtaining a diploma of
proficiency from
a technical training school, remained unemployed for eight
years before finding
a placement with
HAL. Even
for casual
labour, "the contractors
always bring people from outside," says Madan Khasla,
a Harijan,
"and the recruiting agents want
payments from us for other
jobs, but
what money do we have? We have lost our homes twice, but
they want us to go yet again."
The
revenue inspector of Sunabeda, Purnachandra Parida, confirmed that
eviction notices
had been
issued for the third time.
"They are
encroachers and must go," he said.
Khora
laughed when told of the inspector's assertion: "Each time
this village has been shifted we have moved, mostly, to our own
lands. Remember, we owned a lot of acres in this region. They have
made us
encroachers on our own land by declaring it the property of
the state. If
the government declared your house as its property
tomorrow, you
would be an encroacher in your
own home, too."
When
the villagers of Chikapar
village found that they
were to be
evicted for a record
third time, they weren't quite sure what to
do. "What can
we do?"
asks Pammia Das, a Gadaba
tribal, in
despair, "Wherever we go,
some project
will come up and we will have to move again."
Actually,
the problem is even more complex.
This twice-evicted
village is unlikely
to receive any compensation at
all when it is
uprooted for a third time to make way for either a poultry farm or a Military
Engineering Service depot.
"Even
in our second location,"
says Pakalu Kadam, also
a Gadaba
tribal, "We have been told we are occupying land
illegally. Actually,
this is
our land.
But they want us to vacate
in 60 days. Our
ownership was
never recognised on record. So we have no rights, no
domicile certificate, not even caste certificates."
But,
asks Jyotirmoy Khora,
"What happened
to the over 400 hectares
they took from Chikapar in the '60s and the thousands of acres
from 17 other villages?" In the '60s too, Mr Biju
Patnaik was chief minister
"and he had this grand idea that all the units of HAL would
come to
Koraput." So huge tracts of land were acquired towards that
project.
In
fact, nothing
of the sort happened. The other units
came up
in Bangalore
and elsewhere. As a result, much of the land forcibly
taken over from
the 18 villages remains unutilised to this day.
"They are
neither returning
the land, nor leasing it for cultivation.
We are
prepared to pay such ‘compensation' as we received if we get
back our land,"
says Khora.
That,
however, seems unlikely to happen. "I can't move again, let
them do what
they like,"
says Mukta Kadam, the
oldest woman in the village and
one of the
first to be
evicted in 1968. "Why
does this always have to happen to
us?"
Possibly
because they are Adivasis and Harijans and because
this is
Koraput, which includes some of the poorest parts of the country
(two of which have emerged as new districts).
When
the National Aluminium Company Ltd. (NALCO) came up in 1981
in Koraput, more than 47.7
per cent of the 2,500 displaced
families were
tribals and
9.3 per cent were Harijans, points out
Prof LK Mahapatra,
former vice-chancellor
of Utkal
and Sambalpur
Universities. Over 55 per cent of the 3,067 families displaced by
the upper
Kolab project belonged to either Scheduled Tribes or
Scheduled Castes.
The
Machkund hydro-electric
project in
Koraput district
had displaced almost 3,000 families by 1960. Of these, 51.1 per cent were adivasis and 10.2 per
cent were Dalits. "It is a pity,"
notes Prof
Mahapatra in
a major study
on the subject, that "out of
2938 families displaced, only 600 were rehabilitated, including
450 tribal
families. Not
a single Scheduled Caste family was rehabilitated." The list
of such victims in Orissa
is endless. Of nearly 22 million people across the country
estimated to have been direct victims of displacement since
independence, over 40 per cent are tribals. In Orissa, that figure is probably much higher, though clear
estimates are hard to come by.
At
the national level, less than 25 per cent of those displaced
by development have been rehabilitated in the past four
decades. Again,
the scenario in Orissa is probably worse.
Within this depressing picture, Koraput plumbs the depths.
In a study funded by the Union ministry of welfare, Walter
Fernandes and Anthony S Raj, of the Indian Social Institute, New
Delhi, note that in Koraput, "around one lakh
tribals have
been deprived of their land,
including 1.6
lakh hectares of
forests on which they had till then depended
for their
livelihood.
"More
than six per cent of the district population, a majority of them
tribals, have been displaced (by projects). This trend seems
to continue even today."
In
Sunabeda (literally,
`Lands of Gold') region alone, since the disintegration of
Chikapar began, "nearly 5,000 families or 40,000 people have
been displaced by different projects," says Jyotirmoy Khora.
"And all promises of rehabilitation have proved false."
The
process of
displacement has been
accompanied by the disintegration of many families and the
destitution of thousands. "Many people couldn't take the
waiting period for the compensation and just went away elsewhere
to survive," says Kanum Gadaba.
"When
the refugees from erstwhile East Pakistan came into Orissa in the
`60s and again in '71," says Jyotirmoy Khora,
"nearly a lakh of rupees was spent on the benefit of each
one. Less than Rs 15,000 was given
to whole
joint families
who belonged here and were
losing land, not gaining it like the refugees. Better to be
a refugee."
Meanwhile,
the various fragments of Chikapar await their third displacement
-- some individuals have apparently already been evicted. Whether for a poultry farm, or the depot, or yet another
development project, nobody seems to know for sure.
"Whatever
it maybe," says Khora, "basically, they don't want us to
be around like an eyesore, sticking out here, telling our tales of
woe to others -- especially the minister, if he ever comes.
"They
have got their development and the land.
We have got no development, not even a proper school, and
have lost our lands," he adds.
And
so, the `Golden Lands' await their gloomy harvest.
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