Tag: Tribal Identity

June 21, 2020 /

It has been eight years since my father departed from this world on 3rd May 2012. Gurucharan Murmu, who entered the hallowed IPS (Indian Police Service) in 1972, is the first ever Santal to serve the Union Civil Services. Being his daughter and having to see him suffer all his life for his integrity and for upholding an incorruptible moral universe has been an agonizing experience. While it was personal pain earlier, it is more of anger towards gross violation of social justice that triggers me these days. The persistence of the skilfully devised myth that the thirty four years of left front rule in West Bengal has somehow abolished caste based discrimination is due to the pervasive dominance of the forward caste Bengali bhadralok over political, social, economic and cultural domains and academic discourses. Dismissal, oppression, deprivation, injustice, contempt and most importantly stigma and trauma of humiliation and harassment, violation of dignity and human rights on account of caste disparity remain brutal everyday realities for adivasis in this state.

December 13, 2019 /

A big shot editor while explaining the CAB and situation in Assam and its neighboring states, puts the majority of Tribes of Assam under the Hindu religion. And when taking about the Tripura he accepts that tribes over there have been pushed to minority by immigrant Hindu Bengalis who rule the place now. And he calls it a democracy, the logic of numbers! And he also go on saying that how people from northeast are now working in main land India which is good sign and it should happen both ways.

September 24, 2018 /

In case of New Shillong Township, the state presents the case as a possible way out for congestion, which it says is a consequence of population rise, migration and the lack of space in the city. However, the plan of the state is not oriented towards meeting these required objectives. Rather, the plan of the state is to allot the land so acquired to a class of people who work for the state such as bureaucrats, government officials and the army. This is an open violation of the Sixth Schedule provisions that aim at protecting and safeguarding the interest and welfare of the tribal people. The people are not opposed to urban development but at the manner in which it is being executed. In the case of New Shillong, there has been a severe misuse of the law and power in favour of the state and private forces and players. There is a deep divide between the state’s manner of executing urban development and the people’s aspirations and their expectations from the state.