KHEDUT MAZDOOR CHETNA SANGATH ALIRAJAPUR, JHABUA, M.P.
In Jhabua people are not being displaced directly due to development like dams or mines. Acts of commission and omission in the name of development have reduced people to a state where they cannot survive in the village. Their lot is to carry on a threadbare existence or do mazdoori in the industrial belt outside Jhabua. Jhabua is known as the fortress of the Bhils. There are other communities here with their own distinctive lifestyles like the Naiks. Some villages on the banks of the Narmada lie in the submergence zone of the SSP. That apart, a dam is being planned on the river Hathini, where adivasis will be submerged and the waters will go to Patidar villages. In addition, the area has seen a massive destruction of forests. Dense forests were first cut down by the British for the setting of railway tracks. The first railway line in the Delhi-Bombay route was the reason why valuable saag was chopped down from here. After that, trees on the banks of the Narmada were cut down to feed the needs of industrialisation in Gujarat. Logs were taken by river to Bharuch to make ships around 150 years back. People still managed on the resources of the forests. According to sarkari jargon these are degraded forests. People say, we have been living here, farming on these lands for years. Sarkars say this is sarkari forest land. And the forest department comes here to cut down trees, take other resources every year. When this happens, people confront them, because they cannot live without forest land cultivation. There is no alternative therefore but to confront the state. This is displacement, when people are ousted from their forests.
Migration is another feature of life here. Surat, Kota, Navsari, Indore, Delhi and Bhopal are some of the places where adivasis of Jhabua can be spotted doing mazdoori on the streets. The costs of this kind of migration are borne mostly by women. Women say that kadiya kaam (masonry work) is very strenuous, they cannot do it for more than 10-12 years. Older women work on the fields, they get only Rs. 8 as wages. Often, they are driven off empty-handed by contractors after having worked. Many have had to walk all the way to Chota Udaipur to get back home. Last year when the plague scare hit Surat, the adivasis of Jhabua were the worst affected. Because they were living in the filthiest of conditions. People fled from there and walked all the way back, they left their belongings, their wages…to return back after 2-3 months.
Women can be seen constantly struggling. In some areas like Sorwa or Ankut, women can also be seen wielding the plough…We do not face a real problem organising women. It is we who are not able to do it…Sarkar knows that the worst effects of the new economic policies will be borne by the poor and that they will be the ones to rise in protest…