In this column we will be featuring the writings by award winning women journalists in India found in the collection of the book ‘Making News Breaking News Her Way. It is a publication by Tranquebar Press in association with Media Foundation, New Delhi which instituted the annual Chameli Devi Jain Award for an Outstanding Women Mediaperson in 1980.
Vasavi Kiro
Tribal women’s struggles in Jharkhand
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Chameli Devi Jain Award was the first time I ever received any such recognition in my life. I was more than delighted and cannot quite express my feeling in words. Just before this, I had won a McArthur Fellowship, which had given me a sense of self-confidence. However, it is the Chameli Devi Jain Award that fired me with the energy to achieve much more through the media.
I began my career in journalism during the struggle for Jharkhand. One of my major assignments was to cover the rallies and strikes called by different outfits fighting for the cause of statehood. I later turned my focus on the role of women in the movement. This stimulated much debate in intellectual circles and artistes portrayed women who had died in the campaign. Then followed important contemporary issues -water, forests, wildlife and the Forest Rights Act –on which I have concentrated for the past twenty years.
Reporting from remote villages in Jharkhand was no easy matter then. Rarely did any journalist venture to do so. However, I persevered and began writing on tribal issues when I came to mainstream journalism. The topic of displacement came to the fore in the coverage of the Koel Karo Jan Sangharsh Samiti that fought against the possible displacement, by the proposed Koel Karo hydel power project, of a large number of villages in the Torpa area. Police-firing on a gathering in Torpa triggered debate on what constitutes ‘development’.I also gave voice to the struggle of the tribal people against the proposed field-firing range in Netarhat. This was literally a battle for survival and for keeping ancient repositories of Oraon identity, culture and tradition alive. Had the proposed firing range been established, it would have displaced as many as 245 Oraon villages. The firing range has not been approved to this day and Netarhat remains a pretty little hill station that can compare with Darjeeling and Simla. My reporting on tribal issues again stimulated much debate and Harivansh, chief editor of Prabhat Khabar, for which I wrote, supported the cause. Tribal development has now become part of the agenda of mainstream society.
I also wrote extensively on the migration of tribal girls to metro cities, especially Delhi, and of their physical, mental and even sexual exploitation at the hands of their employers. These girls are lured to Delhi by middlemen with the promise of good jobs, and this phenomenon, in a sense, constitutes what can be termed trafficking. But this is a complex issue and has to be seen against the socio-economic background of tribal families in the villages of Jharkhand today. Apart from writing in journals, I have also worked at other levels for the protection of these girls. The chief minister of Delhi, Sheila
Dikshit, has taken the initiative to pass a law for their’ protection.
The tribal people of Jharkhand suffer from land alienation at the hands of non-tribal’s. Under the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act, non-tribal’s Cannot purchase tribal lands. Yet the law is grossly violated. I have written extensively on this subject.
Primitive tribes are probably the most backward and neglected group in the country, sodally, educationally and economically. Those in the mainstream have little knowledge about these unfortunate people. It was while listening to the tales of woe of the Pahadia primitive tribes in a faraway village, that I heard about my selection for the Chameli Devi Jain Award.
Pahadias live deep in the hills, secluded from the plains people. Their population has dwindled with every census since 1901. Due to poverty, many in this tribal group die of prolonged hunger. Yet, eventual death from prolonged hunger and malnutrition is not a ‘hunger death’ in the government’s lexicon!
Owing to their extreme economic and social backwardness, the Jharkhand government has formulated a policy of giving jobs directly to the graduates of this tribal group without any examination. However, a large number of graduates still await the promised postings. Soon after Independence, the first chief minister of Bihar set up a special cell for the welfare of the Pahadia people. Alas, the cell has done precious little for the well-being of this community.
The Pahadias are way behind their better-educated Chotanagpur tribal brethren. This is why they fail to take advantage of tribal reservations. Even in the field of politics, all Assembly constituencies reserved for tribal candidates in Jharkhand, are grabbed by the relatively better-off tribal groups. This is why Shiv Charan Mahto, a pahadia social leader, argues that unless a few Assembly seats in Jharkhand are reserved specifically for the primitive tribes, they will never get a seat in the legislature. There are eight primitive tribal groups in Jharkhand and both the Centre and the state governments keep aside substantial funds for their development every year. This, however, has made little difference to the lives of the primitive tribals.
Witch-hunting is another shameful issue that the tribal community in Jharkhand confronts. Under this heinous practice, widows and single women are often branded as witches and killed. 1 have sought to expose this barbarity in my media writings. The Anti Witchcraft Act of 2001 is weak and fails to curb murder in the name of witchcraft. 1 have the satisfaction of having, in some small way, been able to direct public attention to such issues of social importance that are generally neglected, and have been gratified by the support received from readers and others for this.
Dr Suresh Singh, the lAS officer-anthropologist who has written books on the tribal hero, Birsa Munda, once told me that though he had collected a good deal of information about the part played by tribal women in the freedom struggle, he had been unable to work on this data. He used to say that it was most important to research and write on the role of tribal women movements. Subsequently, during the period of my KK Birla Fellowship, 1 wrote a book. Taben Jom, (Taben Jom is a customary law which designates land for daughters which her husband cannot lay claim to) on the rights and place of women in tribal society.
I realised in my career that I needed to work in villages. Following this, I created a Trust and am presently working on issues such as the preservation of medicinal herbs, the food habits of tribal people, traditional healthcare practices, preservation of bio-diversity and the like.
I am currently a member of the Jharkhand State Commission for Women and my priority here is to ensure that the state government soon comes up with a women’s policy to ensure the overall development of women in the state. One lives in hope.
Vasavi Kiro was a career journalist for seventeen years. She now writes on special issues in newspapers and magazines in Jharkhand and other parts of the country. She has a rich experience of working among tribal and non-tribal women in Jharkhand, and in issues of tribal health, ethno-medicine, forest, land, environment, herbs and traditional food heritage. Winner of many national awards for journalism, Vasavi Kiro received the Chameli Devi Jain Award in 1998. She) shared the award with Pamela Philipose and Homai Vyarawalla.
