State, forest and Adivasis at crossroads: Netarhat field firing range and contestations over rights

ABSTRACT

Recent trend in researches within the global south focusses on indigenous movements and contestations over rights. In an era where the ideology of state-sponsored development often threatens indigenous rights and identity, and converts Adivasis into victims rather than beneficiaries, forested communities find it increasingly more difficult to come to terms with it. Reflection of this trend is felt in Netarhat, an area of Jharkhand. In 1990s, Netarhat became witness to contestation over rights over forest and landscape between the state and the Adivasis over converting the area into a field firing range by the army through a proposed pilot project. The paper sets the study on a historical backdrop which has its reverberations in the post-colonial protest movement and conversion of the area into a strong bastion of Naxalism (left wing extremism) in recent decades. The first section of this paper seeks to throw light on colonial and post-colonial policies and debates. The second part discusses the shifts in state policy from the ‘line of fire’ to the launching of grand projects of elephant corridor, tiger reserve and wolf sanctuary and finally to an eco-sensitive zone. It bases its narrative on the struggle by the indigenous groups against dehumanisation and violation of basic human rights.

KEYWORD:

• Adivasi

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Asoka Kumar Sen for his guidance on the paper and addition of fine details. The author gratefully acknowledges the support of Anil Manohar Kerketta and Kishore Tirkey in understanding the lives of the Adivasis of Netarhat.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Case No. 3/19 of Netarhat Police Station, Latehar district, 2019.

2 Kendriya Jan Sangharsh Samiti, earlier known as Jan Sangharsh Samiti was an organisation, that played a major role in organising the protest movement. It carries out sensitising Villages of the area on the issues of displacement and development and also helps in their legal battles.

3 Army claims that the area was notified for firing field practise by the army in 1956, but since 1964 to 1994, the region was regularly used for firing practise by army. For details see Jerome Jerald Kujur, Jaan Denge Jamin Nahin (Ranchi, Jharkhand Indigenous People’s Forum. 15, 2015), 13.

4 Census of India 2011, Latehar district, 9.

5 Asoka Kumar Sen, Indigeneity, Landscape and History: Adivasi Self Fashioning in India (London: Routledge, 2018).

6 J. R. Bowen, ‘Should We Have a Universal Concept of “Indigenous Peoples” Rights: Ethnicity and Essentialism in the Twenty-first Century’, Anthropology Today 16, No. 4 (2020): 12–16; B. Kingsbury, ‘“Indigenous Peoples” in International Law: A Constructivist Approach to Asian Controversy’, The American Journal of International Law 92, No.3 (1998): 414–57.

7 See. Asoka Kumar Sen, From Village Elders to British Judge: Custom, Customary Law and Tribal Society (Hyderabad: Orient Blackswan, 2012), 173. For an elaboration of the independent existence of custom and law and their later hybridisation.

8 While in 1901, the Commissioner of Chotanagpur criticised the Adivasis of Jharkhand for recklessly denuding the state forest of valuable timber, contemporary forest officials in its Kolhan region held the view ‘If left to their own devices the aboriginals will clear everything in less than one generation’ (Cited in Asoka Kumar Sen, Representing Tribe: The Ho of Singhbhum During Colonial Rule (New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company, 2011), 214)).

9 Ramachandra Guha, ‘The Prehistory of Community Forestry in India,' Environmental History 6, No. 2 (2001): 213–238; Virginius Xaxa, ‘Transformation of Tribes in India: Terms of Discourse,' Economic and Political Weekly 34, No. 24 (1999): 1519–1524; in the Census report of 1881, the term used to denote Adivasis was not ‘tribe’ but ‘forest tribe’ and that too under a broader category of agriculturist and pastoralist castes.

10 Amit Prakash, ‘Contested Discourses: Politics of Ethnic Identity and Autonomy in the Jharkhand Region of India', Alternatives 24 (1999): 461–496.

11 Ibid; Verrier Elwin, The Muria and Their Ghotul (Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1946); Vinita Damodaran, ‘Indigenous Forests: Rights, Discourses and Resistance in Chotanagpur, 1860–2002’, in Ecological Nationalism: Nature, Livelihoods and Identities in South Asia, eds. Gunnel Cederlof and K. Sivaramkrishnan (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2005), 115–150.

12 After independence the development model for Adivasis was debated in the Indian parliament. Two models broadly, ‘assimilative’ and ‘integrationist’ were debated. On the consul of PM Jawaharlal Nehru, integrationist approach was adopted which suggested respect and protection of Adivasi rights in land and forest.

13 Alpa Shah, In the Shadows of the State: Indigenous Politics, Environmentalism, and Insurgency in Jharkhand, India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2015).

14 Daniel J. Rycroft, 'Looking Beyond the Present: The Historical Dynamics of Adivasi (Indigenous and Tribal) Assertions in India,' Journal of Adivasi and Indigenous Studies 1, No.1(2014): 1–17.

15 In this context Vinita Damodaran cites an example of Tana Bhagats whose land would also be a part of the proposed pilot project of Netarhat field Firing range. William Archer, a colonial officer inquired about the title deeds for claims to legitimacy over the land Tana Bhagats were cultivating. To which they replied that ‘my spade, my axe, my ploughshare are my title deeds … .ploughing is the writing of the golden pen on the golden land’. For more on this see Damodaran, ‘Indigenous Forests’, 115–150.

16 Nandini Sundar, ‘The Rule of Law and Citizenship in Central India: Post-colonial Dilemmas', Citizenship Studies 15, No. 3–4 (2011): 419–432.

17 Carol Upadhya, ‘Community Rights in Land in Jharkhand', Economic and Political Weekly 40, No. 41 (2005): 8–14.

18 Sen, Indigeneity, Landscape and History, 189.

19 Matthew Areeparampil, ‘Displacement Due to Mining in Jharkhand,' Economic and Political Weekly 31, No. 24 (1996): 1524–1528; Uday Chandra, ‘Beyond Subalternity: Land, Community, and the State in Contemporary Jharkhand’, Contemporary South Asia 21, no. 1 (2013): 52–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/09584935.2012.757579

20 Chandra, ‘Beyond Subalternity’, 59.

21 Ajay Skaria, Hybrid Histories: Forests, Frontiers and Wildness in Western India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999).

22 Felix Padel, 'Resisting Cultural Genocide in an Age of Investment Induced Displacement,' in Dissent, Discrimination and Dispossession: Tribal Movements in Contemporary India, eds., K.K Misra and N.K Das (New Delhi: Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya and Manohar, 2014), 73-92.

23 Vinita Damodaran, ‘Colonial Constructions of “Tribe” in India: The Case of Chotanagpur,' The Indian Historical Review 33, No.1 (2014): 44–75.

24 Ajay Skaria, Hybrid Histories: Forests, Frontiers and Wildness in Western India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999).

25 The act enabled the government to acquire land for industrial use, by issuing a notification undersigned by the secretary. This was an Act to amend the law for the acquisition of land for public purposes and for Companies. Whereas it is expedient to amend the law for the acquisition of land needed for public purposes and for Companies and for determining the amount of compensation to be made on. The Land Acquisition Act of 1894.

26 The State Government may constitute any forest-land or waste-land which is the property of Government, or over which the Government has proprietary rights, or to the whole or any part of the forest-produce of which the Government is entitled, a reserved forest in the manner herein after provided. Indian Forest Act, 1921.

27 The Manoeuvres Field-Firing and Artillery Practice Act, 1938, https://indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/2305/1/A1938-5.pdf

28 Gunnel Cederlof and K. Sivaramkrishnan, eds., Ecological Nationalism: Nature, Livelihoods and Identities in South Asia (Delhi: Permanent Black, 2005).

29 Ranjit Tigga, ‘Netarhat Field-Firing Range: Tribals in Danger’, Economic and Political Weekly 29, no. 8 (1994): 410. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4400817

30 Forest Cover, Forest survey of India, fsi.nic.in>isfr2017 (accessed October 20, 2019).

31 ‘Netarhat Project: Biggest Ever Tribal Displacement’, Economic and Political Weekly 29, no. 18 (1994): 1055–1056. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4401124

32 Kujur Jaan Denge Jamin Nahin.

33 The Manoeuvres Field-Firing and Artillery Practice Act, 1938, https://indiacode.nic.in/bitstream/123456789/2305/1/A1938-5.pdf

34 Palamau tiger reserve was one of the first national parks to be notified in 1974 as tiger reserve under Project Tiger in India. Incidentally, ‘Project Tiger’ for conservation of tigers in India was launched by Indira Gandhi in 1973.

35 For the present enumeration I have drawn on Sen, The Making of a Village: The Dynamics of Adivasi Rural Life in India (Unpublished). I am grateful to Dr. Sen for allowing me an access to its final draft.

36 It was in 1820 this form of settlement was introduced by Thomas Munro in the Madras Presidency. In Chotanagpur division this was functitonal in Kolhan region of Singhbhum.

37 Nita Mishra, ‘Tribal Resistance in the Chhechhari Valley: A Field Report’, Economic and Political Weekly 31, no. 24 (1996): 1539–1540. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4404279

38 Nandini Sundar, 'The Rule of Law and Citizenship in Central India: Post-colonial Dilemmas,' Citizenship Studies 15 (2011): 419–432.

39 Sergio Sauer, ‘Land and Territory: Meanings of Land between Modernity and Tradition’, Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy 1, No. 1 (2012): 85–107.

40 Ibid, 87–96.

41 Times of India, Patna, January 11, 1994.

42 Hindustan Times, Patna, January 14, 1994.

43 ‘Netarhat: In the line of fire’, Report of People’s Union For Democratic Rights, Delhi, October 1994.

44 Navin Kumar Mishra, ‘Rajya Sarkar Va Pratiraksha Mantralaya Ke Beech Takrav Ki Naubat’, Ranchi Express, Ranchi, January 12, 1996. Bihar government proposed to give space for firing range in Champaran which was rejected ny defence ministry. The Defence Ministry demanded land to establish firing range either in Netarhat or in Gaya-Palamau or in Hazaribagh-Aurangabad range.

45 Faisal Anurag and Dayamani Barla, ‘Samudayik chetna Ka Sanvahak Bana Netarhat’, Prabhat Khabar, Ranchi, 26 March 1996.

46 The movement succeeded to attain its goal finally in 2003 when Chief minister Arjun Munda announced scrapping off of the project. For more on Koel –Karo movement see. Chandra, ‘Beyond Subalternity’.

47 Ram Dayal Munda & S. Bosu Mullick, 'The Jharkhand Movement: Indigenous People’s Struggle for Autonomy in India,' Copenhagen, IWGIA (2003), Document No. 108.

48 The initial name of this organisation went changes and ultimately after bringing diverse elements into its fold it was named Kendriya Jan Sangharsh Samiti (KJSS).

49 Ibid., 58.

50 ‘Netarhat Field Firing Range Ke Khilaf Bharka Gussa’, Hindustan, February 4, 2004.

51 Kujur, Jaan Denge Jamin Nahin, 67.

52 Report of People’s Union For Democratic Rights, ‘Netarhat: In the line of fire’, Delhi, October 1994, 16.

53 Tana Bhagat movement was an identarian movement amongst the Oraon Adivasis of Bishunpur block of Gumla district. It was opposed to the Zamindars, the moneylenders, the missionaries, the Muslims and the British state. Based on principles of non violence it was opposed to the worship of spirits and sacrifice in the Adivasi communities. See, Sangeeta Dasgupta, ‘Reordering a World: The Tana Bhagat Movement, 1914–1919’, Studies in History 15, no. 1 (1999): 1–41. http://sih.sagepub.com, 1–41.

54 In Santhal Hul a branch of Sal tree showed support which in case of Tana Bhagat movement was a branch of Karam tree and in case of Netarhat it was mango tree. Torch procession was also a method followed by the Tana Bhagats. Whereas beating drums in fixed tunes is a feature of Birsa movement, Santhal Hul and other anti colonial movements in Adivasi areas of Bihar/Jharkhand.

55 ‘Netarhat Firing Range mein Stithi Visfotak’, Aaj, Ranchi, March 22, 1994, ‘Sainyabhyasa Ke Khilaf Aandolan’, Navbharat Times, Patna, March 26, 1994, ‘Ne Khali Karab Gaon’ Prabhat Khabar, Ranchi, March 26, 1994.

56 For details see P. Sainath, Everybody Loves a good Draught: Stories From India’s Poorest District (UK: Penguin Books, 2000).

57 Voices of protest were heard in Bokaro, Hatia of Ranchi, Koel-Karo, Singhbum and other places. It intended to correct the historic injustice of illegal occupation of Adivasi lands by the Non Adivasis individuals and corporate groups. For more on this See Sen, Indigeneity, Landscape and History.

58 For a detailed study of this transformation, see. Sen, From Village Elders to British Judge, 192.

59 Kranti or revolution here has not been used in its violent sense but in a sense of overall change the Adivasis aspired.

60 Apparently, Santal Hul and Birsite Ulgulan met failure as these were finally suppressed. But these struggle succeeded in forcing the colonial government to introduce pro-Adivasi acts like the Santal Pargana Tenancy Act of1876 and Chotanagpur Tenancy Act of 1908.

61 Ranjit, ‘Netarhat ke do sau gavon mein jabardast tanav’, Ranchi, Ranchi Express, July 28, 2004.

62 Basavi, ‘Adivasiyon Ne Gandhivadi Tarike Se Andolan Ki Thani’, Jansatta, Netarhat, April 8, 1995.

63 Raj Kumar, ‘Defence Dumps Site at Netarhat’, Ranchi, The Telegraph, December 1, 2006.

64 For more on Pathalgadi see. Anjana Singh, ‘Many Faces of Pathalgadi Movement in Jharkhand’, Economic and Political Weekly LIV, no. 11 (2019): 28–33.

65 In the month of August in 2004 army once again declared its intention to do field practise here.

66 ‘Ne Khali Karab Gaon’, Prabhat Khabar, Ranchi, March 26, 1994. While at few places Adivasis said that they get compensation at the rate of Rs. 2 and Rs. 4 a day. ‘Char Rupaye Roz Mein Adivasiyon Ko Gaon Se Bahar kar Deti Hai Sena’, Jansatta Calcutta, April 2, 1994.

67 In my field work I met locals, activists and NGOs working in this area who narrated tales of such atrocities. I also met a women who had collected these unexploded shells from her field and kept it as reminders.

68 See Alpa Shah, In the Shadow of the State: Indigenous Politics, Environmentalism and Insurgency in Jharkhand (New Delhi: Oxford University Press).

69 Stuart Corbridge and John Harris, Reinventing India: Liberalisation, Hindu Nationalism and Popular Democracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).

70 Alpa Shah, In the Shadows of the State: Indigenous Politics, Environmentalism, and Insurgency in Jharkhand, India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2015).

71 Lidia Guzy, 'Landscape as Resistance: The Gandhamardan Environmental Movement of the Bora Sambar Region,' in Dissent, Discrimination and Dispossession: Tribal Movements in Contemporary India, eds., K.K Misra and N.K Das (New Delhi: Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya and Manohar, 2014): 148–159.

72 In my field work done in the month of October 2019 in Netarhat and Mahuadanr areas especially villages of Bijaypur, Gutwa, Gopakhand, Pandra and others, I came across several notices that had been issued to the Adivasis for using forest products. Many times they were booked under several sections about which they had no understanding. They even found it difficult to procure a copy of the cases that were registered against them. Some of them had been waiting for it since 2010. Vyotor Kujur and Sakinder Oraon of village Bijaypur under Garu police station somehow procured it by paying Rs. 1800 to the lawyer.

73 ‘Jharkhand: Almost 3.5 lakh trees to be felled in Palamau tiger reserve’, The Wire, September 2, 2019 (accessed October 21 2019).

74 The railway track from Sonnagar to Patratu was originally created in 1924 to transport coal. Then, it was doubled, and now a third line is being created, which is meant for coal transportation from the North Karanpura Thermal Power Station, which lies in the adjacent Chatra district.

75 According to the latest tiger census, there were no tigers present in the reserve, the oldest and the biggest reserves for tigers in India. Chotanagpur which had been rich in wildlife in colonial period saw near extinction of them due to the policies of British.

76 Deepanwita Gita Niyogi, ‘Third Railway Line Through Palamau Tiger Reserve Threatens to Increase Human- elephant Conflict’, May 10, 2019, Down to Earth, https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/wildlife-biodiversity/third-railway-line-through-palamu-tiger-reserve-threatens-to-increase-human-elephant-conflict-64476 (accessed October 21, 2019).

77 Gazette of India, Extraordinary, Part 2, Section 3, sub section (ii), No. 2638, August 9, 2019, New Delhi.

78 Vishwa Mohan, ‘Four Wildlife Sanctuaries of Jharkhand Come Under the Ambit of ESZ’, Times of India, August 14, 2019, https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/four-wildlife-sanctuaries-of-jharkhand-come-under-the-ambit-of-esz/articleshow/70679846.cms (accessed October 21, 2019).

79 Vinita Damodaran, 'Colonial Constructions of "Tribe" in India: The Case of Chotanagpur,' The Indian Historical Review 33, No. 1 (2006): 44–75.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anjana Singh

Anjana Singh is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History, Nirmala College, Ranchi University, Jharkhand, India. She works on issues related to Adivasis of Jharkhand, their contemporary movements – linguistic, political and cultural.