What prompts the tribals to side with the Naxals

Some 100 km away from Ranchi, close to a ‘Naxalite-infested area’, is Jhano Devi. Six years ago, she and her community were keenly supportive of Naxalites.  After all, she had little to lose, and lots to gain by sympathising with them.

She had around 10 acres of land.  Being a tribal, she was protected by a law which prohibited non-tribals from acquiring her farm. But the law which was supposed to protect actually helped impoverish her in two ways. First, the value of her land plummeted.  It was worth less than one-hundredth in the market when compared with non-tribal land. 
Second, banks would not accept her land as collateral, because they could not dispose it. So like many other tribals, she had to depend on moneylenders for even the smallest of amounts that were needed during emergencies. Finally, she approached another wealthy tribal (dhani) — begged and pleaded with him to start some enterprise on her land and give her a job so that she could feed her family. The dhani started a brick kiln, and she became a carrier of bricks on her own land. 

Luckily for her, an NGO and Netafim (the world’s largest micro-irrigation company) came to her rescue.  They persuaded her to get back just 1,000 square metres (quarter acre) of land back from the dhani. Netafim taught her to grow vegetables, which fetched her a mind-boggling Rs30,000 every three months. Today, almost 500 of her tribal friends have become agriculturists, instead of slipping away into the clutches of an ideology which makes terrorism so very appealing. And more tribals have tried doing what Jhano Devi has done.

At least some individuals had been weaned away from Naxalism. But Naxalism has tremendous appeal for tribals. And the roots can be traced to two warped laws, and one unfortunate development.

The first is the law which does not allow tribal land to be acquired by non-tribals (or Shimla land by non-Shimla-ites, or Kashmiri land by non-Kashmiris). At first blush, the law appears to protect. In reality, however, the law devalues the market price of the land.  It impoverishes the tribal, because he cannot get working capital against his land, and when he wants to sell, he gets a pittance.

The beneficiaries are the rich tribals who are well connected politically, and who have sources of funds that ordinary tribals cannot have access to. They acquire the land of other tribals at distressingly low prices and becomes a wealthier landlord. A probe into the landholdings of almost all tribal or Kashmiri politicians will show that their holdings have increased year after year. Moral: Any law that reserves land is good for the powerful. But it further impoverishes the weak.

Second, all common rights granted to tribals look good on paper.  Tribals do have rights to forest produce.  But, they cannot prove their ownership of the lands or the produce, hence remain exploited by politicians and forest guards. And they cannot even sell their lands to illegal miners because they have no title deeds. Rights without title deeds are a cruel joke the government has played on tribals.

The unfortunate fact is that almost all terrorism is funded by illegal mines. One area ripe for Naxalism is the North East where the erosion of tribal rights is compounded by both illegal mining and erosion of tribal franchise caused by vote-bank resettlement of immigrants.

The author is consulting editor with dna.