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Vulnerable Tribal Livelihood and Shifting Cultivation: The Situation in Orissa

with a

Case Study in the Bhuyan-Juang Pirh of Keonjhar District

Bikash Rath

Programme Officer

First compiled: January 2004 Partly Revised:November 2005

©VASUNDHARA 15, Saheed Nagar Bhubaneswar-7

Orissa(India) e-mail: vasundharanr@satyam.net.in

www.vasundharaorissa.org

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Note from the author

The general conclusion by the foresters worldover has been that shifting cultivation is a very harmful practice and the practitioners thereof are therefore culprits or criminals. Social activists and anthropologists however have different views in this regard as they do not ignore, unlike foresters, the livelihood aspect of the practitioners of this system. This difference of opinion has sometimes led to some kind of confrontation between the two groups, but more important is the fact that despite more than a century's effort that includes legal restrictions & punishments, a permanent solution to the problem of shifting cultivation is yet to be available or implemented in India and elsewhere. This clearly suggests that mere a conservationist approach can not address this issue properly. In the following report we have tried to analyse the factors responsible for shifting cultivation, and have concluded that except in some cases, the real culprit in this case is the vulnerable livelihood of the hill tribes. The archival evidences have very clearly substantiated to this conclusion in case of the Bhuyans of Keonjhar district. Unfortunately, the vulnerability of the tribal livelihood is increasing, thanks to inadequate policies of the government. Non-forest use of forest lands by corporate sector has increased significantly, and this has got an excuse in the name of development while shifting cultivators are blamed for what they do for their survival. Unless an integrated approach is adopted with all sincerity, the issue of shifting cultivation can not be resolved effectively. We hope that this study will help motivate policy makers, social activists, foresters and other stake holders to have a delicate and comprehensive approach to find a solution to this socio-ecological impasse. Despite my desire to fully update this report, I have not been able to do so due to several constraints; and hence most part of the report actually contains information collected upto 2003(unless otherwise specified).Population statistics and many other kinds of information may be updated if the reader so wants, but as the basics have remained unchanged during 2003-05, the message and conclusion of this report remains the same as yet.Hence, I hope, the lacuna in updation will not affect the objective behind this study. Bikash Rath

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Contents

The Study 4

Shifting Cultivation: The Situation in Orissa 5 Vulnerable livelihood and shifting cultivation: 41 A Case Study in the Bhuyan-Juang Pirh Annexure-1: Hill slope survey Annexure-2: Survey and demarcation of forest lands Annexure-3: Kadalibadi: exposing the fake development policy

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Acknowldegement

Our sincere thanks are due to:

• Action Aid, Bhubaneswar • Aniruddha Rout • Anthropological Survey of India, Kolkata • Asiatic Society, Kolkata • Birakishore Mahakud • Board of Revenue, Cuttack • DFO, Keonjhar • Directorate of Census Operations, Bhubaneswar • Govind Moharana • Hadibandhu Pradhan • Indramani Barik • Kanhei Dehuri • Keonjhar-Dhenkanal Major Settlement Office, Keonjhar • Madhu Mallik • Maheswar Patra • Natabara Chakra • National Archives, New Delhi • National Library, Kolkata • Nehru Museum and Library, New Delhi • Nirmal Kabi • Office of the PCCF, Bhubaneswar • Padmanabha Barik • Pandit Madan Mohan Mishra • Rakshakar Barik • Ramesh Chakrabarti • Ratani Dei and Sarat Dehuri • SC & ST Research Institute, Bhubaneswar • Sudarshan Barik • Tahsil Office, Telkoi • Tilottama Mishra • Villagers of Gonasika, Kadalibadi, Hatisila, Sukadala, Balarai and Adala • West Bengal State Archives, Kolkata

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The Study During the year 2002-2003, VASUNDHARA, along with an independent researcher Mr.Kundan Kumar, had taken up a study to understand the relationship between livelihood insecurity and environmental degradation. It was sponsored by IUCN(World Conservation Union)1, and case studies had been taken in one of the most backward tribal districts of the state, i.e., Koraput, to investigate the matter. The present author was at that time asked to provide inputs to the said study, and he compiled his findings in the form of the current report so as to enable various stakeholders to realise the facts. This compilation basically focussed on the archival information to substantiate the understanding. Methodology: Archival information was collected from various libraries and the West Bengal State Archives.The author’s earlier work on the system of forest administration during pre-independence Orissa(available at www.vasundharaorissa.org) also helped in this endeavour. Besides, field visits were undertaken to take a stock of the actual position.Interaction with several stakeholders helped a lot to understand things. Period of study: The study was done primarily during 2003 and the drat report was ready by January’04; but due to one or more reasons, it could not be formally finalised till 2005.The incident in Kadalibadi village(see annexure-3) triggered a revision, and accordingly the report was formally finalised by early November 2005.

1 Under the project ‘Sustainable livelihood, Environmental Security and Conflict Mitigation in South Asia’

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Shifting Cultivation: The Situation in Orissa Orissa as a state: Orissa is an eastern state of India having a rich tradition of history and culture. The state is situated off the Bay of Bengal and has an interesting geography. It is also one of the most mineral-rich states of India. The language is Oriya though regional variations are found, particularly in tribal- and border areas. The population as per 2001 census is 36804660 (http://orissagov.nic.in/stsc/about.htm). Total area of the state is 155707 square kilometres. There were 13 districts earlier which have been now divided to form total 30. Orissa became a separate province on 1st April, 1936. Prior to that, most of its eastern, western and northern parts remained under the jurisdiction of the provinces of Bengal, Central Provinces and 'Bihar & Orissa' during different periods. Similarly, most of its southern part was under the Madras Presidency. Hence, the administrative procedures/regulations also varied in these areas. After the formation of a separate state, different parts of Orissa were brought under uniform administrative procedure/regulations though it took many decades. Tribal population and scheduled areas: Orissa has been the most populous state in India so far the tribal population is concerned. As per 2001 census, 22.13% of the state population are tribals(ST) (http://orissagov.nic.in/stsc/about.htm) though district-wise variations could be much more (or less) than that since most of the tribals are found in districts other than those in the eastern part. 62 tribal communities have been designated as scheduled tribes in the state, of which 13 have acquired the recognition of PTG(Primitive Tribal Groups). These figures are also highest in India (Govt of Orissa: Scheduled Caste & Scheduled Tribe Research and Training Institute, Didayi Development Agency: Baseline Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th five-year Action Plan for 2002-03 to 2006-07, June 2002, p.1). The scheduled areas of India have been declared under the fifth schedule of the Constitution and as such these are also known as Schedule V areas. The criteria for selection of such areas are preponderance of tribal population, under-developed nature of the area, marked disparity in economic standards, etc.. During British period, sensitive tribal areas were specially administered as Scheduled Districts, Excluded Areas or Partially Excluded Areas.For instance, in Orissa Angul,Sambalpur, Kandhamal and Koraput were known as Partially Excluded Areas where the administration was to essentially focus on the socio-economic as well as political development of the tribals. With the declaration of Scheduled V areas the old terms are no more used and also the tribal areas under special administrative privileges have since been reorganised.

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Following are the Scheduled Areas in Orissa:

Mayurbhanj district Sundargarh district Koraput district(undivided) Keonjhar and Telkoi tahsils2 of Keonjhar sub-division and Champua & Barbil tahsils of

Champua sub-divn. (Keonjhar district) Kuchinda tahsil ( Sambalpur district) Khondmal tahsil of Khondmal sub-division, Balliguda & G. Udaygiri tahsils ( Boud-

Khondmal district) R.Udaygiri tahsil, Gumma & Rayagada blocks of Parlakhemundi tahsil of

Parlakhemundi sub-divn., Surada tahsil(excluding Gazalbadi and Gocha GPs3) of Ghumsar sub-divn. (undivided Ganjam district)

Thuamul-Rampur block of Kalahandi tahsil, and Lanjigarh block of Lanjigarh & Kalahandi tahsils, in Bhawanipatna sub-divn. (undivided Kalahandi district)

Nilagiri community development block of Nilagiri sub-divn. in Balasore district (Govt of India, Scheduled Tribes, Scheduled Areas and Tribal Areas in India, undated, p.67).

These areas cover more than one-third of the state since the districts of Koraput, Mayurbhanj and Sundargarh alone comprise about 30.24% of the state area. The Tribal Sub-plan areas are co-terminus with the Scheduled Areas. Loss of forest cover: a major environmental concern for the state: The forests of Orissa are mostly of deciduous type though the mangrove patches of coastal areas are a pride for the state. The forests are Sal-dominant in many areas, but miscellaneous forests and Teak forests are also found. During the last fifty years, the forest cover of Orissa has been drastically reduced. For instance, the forest area in 1962 was about 65868.9 sq. km. which was reduced to 57184 sq. km. in 1997 as per legal status though satellite pictures suggested a much lower figure i.e., 46941 sq. km.(30.1%) (Forest Survey of India, State of Forest Report 1997, p.29). In tribal districts 25760 sq. km. (1993) of forests were reduced to 25424 sq. km. in 1997 (State of Forest report 1997,p.61). Shifting cultivation verses forest degradation: Forests land and water not only support the sustenance of one another, but also support the existence of life on earth. It is though the balanced utilisation of these vital resources that man is able to lead a healthy and harmonious life. Among the various man-made factors/developments (like mining, industrial use, timber extraction, etc.) responsible for spoiling this harmonious relationship between natural resources and human life, shifting cultivation has been alleged to be a significant one. In its destructive role, it affects land, water and forests in the following ways:

2 Tahsil is an administrative unit within a district, comprising of one or more Blocks. 3 GP or Gram Panchayat refers to a group of villages. GPs are administrative units under Blocks.

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• Destruction of rich forest cover • Degradation of land though soil erosion and decreasing the availability of floral

waste which, due to the presence of a good forest cover, used to enrich the soil fertility.

• Affecting the catchment areas of rivers and hill streams in a number of ways like decrease in rainfall and ground water level and increasing siltification and consequent burial of river channels due to soil erosion.

Shifting cultivation and livelihood: Shifting cultivation is practised by the hill tribes4 world over. Hence, the first impression in the mind of a forest officer about these people is that they are the major culprits who destroy valuable hill forests by their evil practices. In fact, when colonial forestry first devised its strategy in India to protect & conserve forests, it certainly aimed at controlling this practice of the hill people. For example, while advising the feudatory chiefs to take steps against the destruction of forests in their states, the Superintendent of Orissa Tributary Mahals5 in his letter dated 27-02-1872 mentioned Toila6 cultivation as the number one chief cause of useless destruction of timber, and said:

"The profit derived from such cultivation is very small to the ryots and generally little or nothing to the Rajah or Zamindar. xxxxxxxxx Toila cultivation should be brought under the Raja's supervision. There are already vast tracts of scant jungle previously cleared available for Toila cultivation; with which the rajahs should not interfere or prevent cultivation; but in future no Rajah should permit any new land to be cleared on which good timber is growing. Those tracts most remote from villages and where fine timber exists, should be carefully set apart and cutting of timber within fixed limits should be strictly prohibited xxxxx." (quoted in Rath, B.2005,Aspects of Garjat Forestry, pp.51-52)

Attempts were thus made to stop the hill tribes from shifting cultivation by demarcating and reserving some hill forests, but it was soon realised that this would not do even if force were applied. The reason for this failure was simple, that is, the affected people could not just grasp this kind of restriction as their culture and livelihood was centred round shifting cultivation and they were not in a position to visualise life without it. The superficial approach of the forest officials towards shifting cultivation and its practitioners was challenged even during those early days of colonial forestry in India. For instance, Captain Thomas Lewin, Dy. Commissioner of Chittagonge, Bengal made a satire of this approach at the Forest Conference held at Allahabad in January 1874 as follows:

"If this was stopped in the forest, there would be no population, for the people could not live, and therefore there need not be a Deputy Commissioner !" (Govt of India, Report on the Proceedings of the Forest Conference:1973-74, p.67, 1974)

4 In some cases by non-tribal people also though their number is negligible in Orissa. 5 Refers to the princely states of Orissa which merged in 1948-49. Their rulers were known as Rajah, and Zamindars were landlords. 6 Toila and Podu are local terms for shifting cultivation.

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As situation forced the conservationists to have a more careful approach in this context, anthropologists and social workers were unveiling the other side of the truth. Verrier Elwin, the noted anthropologist, was the pioneer of this latter group in India and his remarkable study on tribal matters created a hope in the administrative circle that his consultancy might effect a more successful strategy for checking shifting cultivation. He was thus appointed as Honorary Anthropologist to the Govt of Orissa. Such developments during the early decades of 20th century commenced a new era in the approach both towards shifting cultivation and its practitioners on the basis of two major conclusions as under:

• That, in its ideal nature shifting cultivation is a technique for the utilisation and development available/reclaimable land for cultivation under unfavourable geographical conditions:

Mr. M.D. Chowdhury, Inspector General of Forests, Govt of India made an investigation on forestry problems in Assam (a north-eastern state then under the region known as North Eastern Frontier Province or NEFA) in 1953 and advised to regard 'jhuming' (shifting cultivation) not as an evil practice but 'as an agricultural practice evolved as a reflex to the physiographical character of land' (quoted in Govt of India, Report of the Committee on Special Multipurpose Tribal Blocks, p. 48, 1959). The justifications for his

Shifting cultivation: Exaggerated apprehensions

In the year 1870, Captain Johnstone remarked about the forests of Keonjhar State that the noble forests had been destroyed and that it would take 20 years for their careful conservation ((Proceedings of the Lt. Governor of Bengal, Jud(Pol), July 1870, proceeding # 33.7)). He was certainly exaggerating because the State took some marginal prohibitory measures almost 20 years after this statement was made, and there were still good forests despite lack of stringent measures for many decades. Similar exaggerated appraisals were made by others regarding the impact and extent of shifting cultivation. For instance, Dr. M.L.Bor, then a Botanist working with ForestResearch Institute, Dehradun, while addressing to the Botany section of Indian Science Congress in 1942, said:

"Of all practices initiated by men, the most anxious is that of shifting cultivation." (quoted in Govt of India, Report of the Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes Commission, Vol.I,p.146, 1961) On the contrary, ground realities were suggesting something else as reported by C..F. Mac Cartie who, while commenting on the devastation of the otherwise impenetrable forests of Parlakhemundi hills, urged in 1881 for "not the abolition of Saora axe-cultivation - but absolute protection from the axe of the low country speculator xxx" (quoted in Elwin V., Saora Fituris, Man in India, Vol.XXV,1945, p.255). Similarly, the then District Collector of Koraput Mr. R.C.Bell refuted in 1930s the claims made by H.G. Turner in 1872 that shifting cultivation accounted for the bare hills of Koraput plateau, and that the destruction of forests by it would greatly reduce the natural water supply; because he(Bell) found the fact otherwise (Bell R.C., Koraput District Gazetteer, 1945, pp.104-5).

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recommendation are found in the statement of Mr. M.S. Sivaraman, Advisor to the Programme Administration of Planning Commission, who made the following remark on shifting cultivation during his visit to NEFA in 1957:

"It is a mistake to assume that Jhuming xxxx in itself is unscientific land use. Actually it is a practical approach to certain inherent difficulties in preparing a proper seed bed on steep slopes where any disturbance of hoeing or ploughing will result in washing away of the fertile top soil. The tribal people therefore take care not to plough or disturb the soil before sowing. The destruction of weeds and improvement of tilth necessary for a proper seed-bed are achieved with the help of fire. Seeds are dibbled ahead of monsoon so that these may not be washed away and this produces a light cover of protective vegetation, which reduces erosion of soil when heavy rains begin. xxx" (quoted in Report of the Committee on Special Multipurpose Tribal Blocks, p. 48).

• That, it is the 'civilised people' of the plains who have deprived the tribals of

their resources and have forced them to search for an alternative place of sustenance in the hill-forests, thus leading to shifting cultivation:

This was realised even in 1872 when Mr. H.G.Turner, then the Special Assistant Agent posted in what is now known as the undivided Koraput district (one of the worst affected parts of the country under shifting cultivation) admitted that "While civilisation pushes back xxxx the hill tribes into the yet unconquered jungle, they commence upon it by felling and burning virgin forest on the side of the hills' (quoted in Bell R.C., Orissa District Gazetteer: Koraput, p.104, 1945). Hence, as the Committee on Special Multipurpose Tribal Blocks observed in 1959, "The tribal is criticised for unauthorised felling of trees in forest areas for shifting cultivation, but he does so because of unsatisfied land hunger." (Report of the Committee on Special Multipurpose Tribal Blocks , p.44)

The 'unsatisfied land hunger' of the tribals, which is the main culprit of shifting cultivation, is an outcome of the insecure land rights of the tribals which, in turn, results in alienation of their valuable (if any) lands. This alienation of tribal lands takes place in one or more ways, like: • Forceful dispossession:

This has happened almost every where in the tribal history. Those tribes who failed to reconcile with the 'civilised races' of the plains were forced to leave their area. For instance, Hunter cites the legacy of the Kandhas of the Kandhamal area that was acquired by the British from the Raja of Boud for more effective control, as follows:

"Through out this wild tract, the Kandhas claim an indefeasible right in the soil. They assert that the whole of Bod, and all the neighbouring country, was once theirs, and that they have been gradually pushed back into recesses in the hills by unscrupulous invaders. They deny that they ever acknowledged the rule of their oppressors, and consider themselves as wrongfully ousted, so that no length of time can bar their inalienable right to the soil. xxxx The Kandhs say that they were pushed eastwards from Salberia, in Sambalpur, the ancient home of their race."(Hunter W.W., Orissa, Vol.II, Appendix, pp.82-83, 1872)

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A more vivid picture is found in the following observation of Mr. C.A. Henderson which he made on the Saora hill-men's position in this regard, in the Ganjam Administration Report of 1928-29:

"The normal history is that the Saora starts on a bit of waste land, levels it with skill and a great deal of labour; and when the fields are nicely prepared for cultivation the Mutha7 head hands it over to a Paik or some similar friend of his and turns the Saora out. This of course is gross injustice to the Saora whom the Patro is supposed to be protecting and controlling and the most fertile source of extensions of Podu, to which the Saora is driven."( quoted in Elwin V., Report on the Tribals of Ganjam and Koraput Districts, unpublished note preserved in Nehru Memorial Museum & Library as a part of Elwin Papers, 1945, p.14)

This kind of forced dispossession of the tribals of their lands was effected not only by non-tribals but also by other tribal groups. The discontent currently found among the original settlers of Jujumara area in Sambalpur district is due to the latter cause.

• Faithful and friendly alienation: In Patamund and Phuljhar areas of north-eastern Bonai sub-division, the Pauri Bhuyans cleared forests and made swiddens that they used for two years and later gave away to the Mundari immigrants for money, goat and feasting the whole village (Mohapatra L.K., From Shifting Cultivation to Agriculturist: The Pauri-Bhuiyan in Transition, Adibasi8, October 1965, p.34).

• Alienation under economic pressure, sympathetic attitude or other socio-economic compulsions:

The Kandhas are the largest tribal group in Orissa and have been known for their daring and assertive attitude since centuries. It is for this reason that their lands remained unassessed for long in many areas. Hence, it quite surprising to know that these people allowed the non-tribals, particularly the Panos(lower caste Hindus), to be parasitic on them(Kandhas) as Elwin found during 1940s. For instance, in Belgarh area 40 HHs of 'idle' Panos did no real work but supported themselves on three or four Kandha villages (Elwin, Notes on a Kondh Tour, p.51, Man in India, Vol. 24, 1944). Similarly, they paid in cash and kind to the Patro, their village-in-charge, who were non-tribals and often belonged to the Pano caste. What then made the Kandhas obliged to tolerate such people in their own country? The answer is better found in those British correspondences of 19th century, which formed the basis of a regulation9, the first of its kind in Orissa, that was later promulgated with an objective to prevent alienation of tribal lands. Reproduced below are extracts from the letter

7 Administrative units that existed in the Agency(hill) areas of southern and central Orissa till 1960. The in-charge of such unit was usually a non-tribal known as Patro. Paiks used to be the local police loyal to him or the landlord. 8 Journal of the SC & ST Research and Training Institute, Bhubaneswar. 9An order to this effect was issued in 1902 which said that mutation on account of alienation by sale or gift would be valid only with prior sanction of the Dy. Commissioner. The provisions were subsequently improved in the enactment of Angul Laws Regulation, 1913 (Boudh-Khondmals District Gazetteer, 1980, pp.216-17).

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of H.P.Wylly, then the Dy. Commissioner of Angul, which he wrote to the Superintendent of Orissa Tributary Mahals on 13-12-1895:

"There was a time, and that not over 50 or 60 years ago, when the Khonds could not understand any language but their own. As their country became known, and they had to hold intercourse with the outer world, they found it convenient to put on an agent who knew Uriya. Each moota or Purjunah10 therefore appointed its sardar11, who was called Bissoi, Naik, Dal Behera, & c; according to his own caste. These men were really appointed as officials or servants to the Khond community. They have since acquired an influence and authority not ever intended, but is still paid by the Khond community they serve12. These Bissois, Naiks, Dal Beheras, & c, , who by caste are Sudhs, Khondayats, Gawalas, & c, obtained a footing, their families increased and settled also in the Mals13, and have naturalised there. That they should have acquired some lands is a matter of no surprise; the wonder is that they have acquired so little. The Sundies were originally brought into the Mals by the Khonds, as they could distil better liquor then could the Khonds. The Gawalas also were imported by the Khonds to guard their cattle, and the Pans to be their village watchmen. All these castes have undoubtedly obtained lands from the Khonds, either by purchase or permission to hold and cultivate, but the areas they hold must be collectively very small in comparison with that in possession of the Khonds." ((Proceedings of the Lt. Governor of Bengal, Jud(Pol) July 1896, File K/10 6, para 8))

Since Wylly estimated (in his above-mentioned letter) that the Khonds retained 75% of their reclaimed lands by that time, 25% of their lands had been lost to others. Explaining further, he says:

"I find xxxx that the Khond is by inheritance and possession a cultivator; that he is proud of his calling and tenacious of his rights, He calls himself a Zamindar14 when asked as to his caste, and he resents any encroachment onto his village boundaries by even neighbouring Khonds. A people of this description are not likely to alienate their hold on their lands in a hurry, even for their beloved food. But the Khond recognises the rights of brothers to share in the father's immovable property, and this as well as the tremendous facilities and temptation placed in their way to obtain liquor have tended to bring about reduced and smaller holdings, as well as to make some of the Khonds sell their holdings." ((Proceedings of the Lt. Governor of Bengal, Jud(Pol) July 1896, File K/10 6, para 7))

As Wylly said, the Khonds were 'habituated' to mortgage lands for ready cash. The term was that the mortgagee should hold and cultivate until such time as the mortgagers could redeem his land by paying his sum raised, without any interest. The extent to which lands were mortgaged is understood from the finding of Wylly at Nuapara where a Sundhi held over 50 khets or agricultural fields of which he had already sold one to a Deccan dealer (see para 9 of the concerned proceedings).

10 Mutha or Parganna 11 head-man 12 Some other reports suggest that the feudal authorities appointed non-tribals from the plains for tax collection in the tribal areas and that is how these people, who were quite clever than the non-tribals so far intelligence is concerned, could be able to exercise so much power. 13 Hill-forests 14 Literally meaning big land-holder

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When Elwin visited the tribal areas of southern Orissa almost 40 years later, he found striking instances of the Kandhas' perception of ownership over their lands. The Saoras were their neighbours in certain areas but they had to pay a higher rent to the Patro than the Kandhas simply because it was not their(Saora) area. It is also interesting to note that the Saoras occupied the Khandhas' area not always through a permission of the latter because in Dengma village their rehabilitation was originally opposed by the Kandhas but the Patro allowed them to settle in lieu of Rs.15 per year (Elwin V., Supplement to 'A Brief Survey of the Aboriginal Tribes of the Districts of Ganjam and Koraput', pp. 5,10, 1947). There have been a number of cases in which the first settlers allowed a share in their land to the immigrants out of sympathy and considered the latter as their tenants. In Mahulpada village of north-eastern Bonai, the early settlers were the Pauri Bhuyans who called themselves 'Matiali' as against the 'Parja'(tenants) who were Cherenga Kols. The latter acknowledged the former as their land lords to such an extent that though they had equal rights in forests, still they would not collect thatch grass before the Bhuyans did, where interests clashed (Mohapatra L.K, op.cit., pp.32, 44).

• Tactful dispossession:

Rout has described in detail how the Doms(lower caste Hindu) exploited the Kandhas of Laxmipur and Kumbhikotta area in the undivided Koraput district. The Kandhas lost their valuable lands to these people in a number of ways including the one in which the Dom would provide liquor to a Kandha on some ceremonial occasion; and when he gets heavily drunk, the Dom would take his thumb impression regarding selling out some land on false pretext (Rout S.P., Dom Exploitation in the Kondha Villages of Koraput District, Adibasi, 1964-65, No.1, p.24). There have also been cases in which non-tribals have got some tribal lands recorded in their name by bribing settlement officials. For instance, in the Banapur mals that extend over 3 districts(Khurdha, Nayagarh and Ganjam) 5322 acres of land have been acquired by plantation companies in this way which includes ryoti lands as well as 'govt lands' under use of the tribals (The Samaj, 4-12-03, p.5). This has been possible due to lack of revision settlement in these areas since 1962 which has put the tribals in a weaker position so far their land rights are concerned, and the plantation companies have taken advantage of it.

• Flaws in the govt policy on land settlement: During early 20th century, land under Podu cultivation by the tribals either remained unsurveyed or were assessed with some vague estimate like a tax on plough, kodki(small spade) or axe in some parts particularly in the zamindaris and princely states. While miserable condition of the concerned people was one of the major causes that saved them from systematic rent assessments for a long time, survey and settlement in such tribal areas was found unadvisable due to the fact that the govt would get little or no revenue from such areas. Also, possession of Podu lands being not regular in nature, preparation of record-of-rights for such lands was not considered logical. In an interesting and rather exceptional development the tenants of Dompara Estate expressed their unwillingness to have the Toila lands recorded in their names (Board of Revenue, Orissa; Final Report on the Survey and Settlement of the Dompara Ward's Estate:1905-07, undated, p.19) probably to escape regular assessment on these lands though in some other areas toila lands were recorded in the name

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of tenants. However, in the Pal-Lahra settlement of 1932 the toila lands were surveyed and assessed and the Settlement Officer was not in favour of total and immediate prohibition on and non- recognition of such type of cultivation as that would mean a significant decrease in the land revenue which otherwise accrued from such lands (Board of Revenue, Orissa; Final Report on the Settlement of Pal-Lahara State:1932, undated, p.15). However,by 1950s the stance of the administrative authorities against Podu cultivation had gained such a strong base that the Govt of Orissa decided to adopt procedures during survey and settlement operations that would help stop such cultivation. On the other hand, the authorities were also not in a position to totally ignore the cause of the people dependent on it since findings of Elwin and others had highlighted the humanitarian side of Podu. Hence, the Orissa Govt took a decision to not recognise Podu cultivation in the upper slopes of hills so that forest conservation measures could be ensured thereon. Podu lands were thus to be recognised only on the lower slopes. However, there was some technical limitation. The survey was to be done with the Plane Table method so as to avoid the more expensive Theodolite method, but at the same time the Plane Table method was not convenient for measuring slopes beyond 10 0 gradient (otherwise mentioned as 1 in 10). Hence, for the users of Plain Table all slopes beyond 10 0 meant 'upper slopes'. So the govt took a decision to take this gradient(10 0) as the criterion for distinguishing upper slopes from the lower ones. Ironically, slopes with a gradient of 10 0 and less actually are plain lands, so recognising Podu within such limits did not mean a concession for the hill tribes who practised Podu on much higher slopes. Instead of admitting its limitations to give the tribals rights over their lands in hilly areas, the govt rather displayed stubborn attitude through some of its officers in this matter, as reflected in the following example. The hill zamindaries of Kalahandi ex-State were surveyed during 1953-54 to 1961-62. Most of these areas remained unsurveyed during previous settlements owing to difficult terrain conditions and other reasons, but the Settlement Officer appointed in Kalahandi was asked to use Plane Table method while surveying such tracts. He however advised the govt to adopt some more convenient technique:

"Though this system of traverse is good enough for revenue purposes it can not be said to be very accurate. It was also seen that this survey was very time-taking and not commensurate with the cost and trouble. In view of xxxx the difficulties pointed out above it may kindly be examined whether the traverse work of this area shall be done with plane tables xxxx." (J.Das, Settlement Officer, Kalahandi to the Additional Under Secretary, Board of Revenue, Cuttack; letter dated 28-7-1953 quoted in Final Report on the Survey and Settlement of the Kashipur, Karlapat, Mahulpatna and Madanpur-Rampur Ex-zamindaries …:1963, Appendix 3)

The reply that came from the Under-Secretary of Board of Revenue was not very encouraging:

" With reference to your letter xxxx I am directed to say that it is not possible to arrange theodolite traverse survey in ex-Zamindary areas of Kalahandi district. Plane table traverse by picked surveyors with previous experience in traverse survey should therefore be taken up without waiting for theodolite traverse. If carefully done, plane

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table traverse will produce equally good results." (Final Report on the Survey and Settlement of the Kashipur, Karlapat, Mahulpatna and Madanpur-Rampur Ex-zamindaries …:1963, Appendix 4)

This Plane Table method was employed almost in all hilly tracts though there was no assurance that the surveyors would use it accurately. Unlike in plain areas, this technique caused great difficulties to the surveyors in the hilly regions because the ground level measures to be done are difficult to be carried out on undulatory tracts. Hence, the repercussion of decision of the Board of Revenue for not using Theodolite method was that the field staff carrying out settlement operation tried to ensure their own convenience at the cost of the rights of hill dwellers so as to abide by this decision, as evident from the letter dated 15-12-1953 of the Settlement Officer of Kalahandi:

" If the hill on which 'Podu Chas' is carried on be included within the boundary of any village then the following difficulty will arise to find out the boundary line and do traverse survey.---

1. The hills continue in a straight in chains .xxxx To fix up the boundary of a village

with the hills, basing on the statement of the villagers, several hills have to be climbed and jungles cleared. The demarcation work itself is impossible not to speak of doing traverse work of such boundary with the help of plane-table. The labour, cost and time may well be imagined xxxxxx.

2. Except getting a rough boundary of a village in the map for the purpose of interal(?) boundary of villages interest there will be no benefit either to the tenant or to the Government. We are going to give no occupancy rights to the tenants for cultivation on hill slopes which changes in every three years and sometimes are wholly abandoned. I, therefore, do not see any usefulness in including the hills within the village boundary with such a huge cost and labour. The revenue of some villages as a whole in hilly area is very small and xxxx the Government will xxx not get any income as land revenue by undertaking such an arduous survey. Moreover we area concerned with land revenue administration and not with hills and forest which are not connected with land revenue.

In my opinion the portion of a village which are actually cultivated with the help of ploughs and over which occupancy right will only be given should be surveyed. For the hill slopes a separate Khasra known as 'Dongar Khasra' as was done in last settlement may, however, be prepared.xxxx" (Final Report on the Survey and Settlement of the Kashipur, Karlapat, Mahulpatna and Madanpur-Rampur Ex-zamindaries …:1963, Appendix 6).

The Board of Revenue approved of these proposals and instructed that hill slopes under Podu cultivation be shown on map but not recorded in the Record of Rights of the tenants (Ibid, Appendix 7).

The lackadaisical attitude of the Revenue Department to not survey and settle areas which would not benefit the government resulted in the fact that till 15th March 2003 about

15

638944.5 acres15 of land still required preparation of Record-of-Rights and most of such lands belong to the tribal districts of Koraput, Ganjam, Phulbani and Kalahandi.

• Unlawful reservation of their village lands as forests:

In the areas under feudal administration, the word of the ruling Chief was the law and hence rights of the tenants over their lands and forests had but little/no meaning. For instance, in Khariar zamindary(now in Nuapara district), 14 forest blocks were declared ‘reserved’ in 1903 but mostly without demarcation and survey (Govt of Orissa, Forest Department; Working Plan for the Forests of Khariar Division:1980-81 to 1989-90, p.93). The zamindars were Estate-holders and did not enjoy sovereign powers though they had ownership rights over their Estate lands including forests. They were not empowered to promulgate their own Forest Acts(or any other Act), hence when the Estate Abolition Act was passed in 1951-52, the forests declared by them as 'reserved' did not get recognition from the Govt of Orissa as Reserve Forests due to want of proper legal procedures. However, the princely states had more powers and thus they promulgated their own Forest Acts towards mid-1940s though many of their forests had already been declared "Reserved Forests' either under the Indian Forest Act, 1927 or through an administrative order of the ruling chief or his authorised officer/department. Not only the latter was legally objectionable, but also the former process(notification under IFA, 1927) was not properly followed, as found by Mr. R. Ramadhyani, the officer on special duty appointed by Govt of India to enquire into system of administration in these princely states in 1940s:

" xxxx Reservation of forests have so far been made with little consideration for the interests of cultivators and probably by summary orders. Only in rules framed in last two or three years have any principles been laid down xxxx and rules other than the latest xxxx do not contain any provision for consultation with revenue or land records officers. None of the rules contains provisions for previous publication of intention to make a reservation similar to those contained in the Indian Forest Act. As all, or nearly all, reservation has already been made the new provisions are not likely to be of much practical use. xxxx" (Ramadhyani R., Report on the Land Tenures & The Revenue System of the Orissa and Chhatisgarh States,Vol.1, undated, para 42, page 34)

Notwithstanding these disapproving remarks of Ramadhyani, all the so-called Reserve Forests of the former princely states that merged with Orissa in 1948-49, were given legal recognition in 1954 as Reserve Forests under the Indian Forest Act, 1927 through an amendment in the said Act. The amendment inserted Section 20(A), which read as follows:

1. "xxxx any forest land or waste land in the merged territories which has been recognised by the ruler of any merged state immediately before the date of merger as a reserved forest in pursuance of any law, custom, rule, regulation, order or notification for the time being in force or which has been dealt with as such in any administration report or in accordance with any working plan, or register maintained or acted upon immediately before the said date and has been continued to be so dealt

15 Based on the statistics provided in Revenue Department(Govt of Orissa) letter # S-189/2002/13494/R, dated 15-3-2003.

16

with thereafter, shall be deemed to be reserved forests for the purposes of the Act.xxxx" (Ray P.K., Laws of Forest in Orissa, 2003, p.150)

This way the rights of the tenants of these merged territories was formally relinquished using the Indian Forest Act without addressing their grievances. However, this kind of violation of the tenancy rights was not new in the state even in areas directly under the control of the British who always tried to be 'lawful' atleast in their outer dealings. For instance, in the government estate of Khurda (now in Puri district) many areas were declared as 'forest land' though they had nothing to do with forests:

“In Khurda, there are in all 461 sq. miles of land recorded as forest. Of this area 117 sq. miles constitute the RFs, 91 sq. miles the DPFs and 253 sq. miles a further aggregate tract known as the UDPFs. The last category which includes roads, ponds, rivers and even a part of the Chilika lake, has, it is interesting to note, an euphoric name given to it, and merely serves to create an exaggerated idea of the total extent of the forests available in the Estate. A vast area of it is simply barren waste land without any trace of forest.” (Govt of Orissa, Khurda Forest Enquiry Committee Report, para 15, 1938)16

The most interesting and detail account of undue reservation of tenants' lands as 'forest' has been furnished by Elwin on the basis of the findings of his visits to the Kandha areas of southern Orissa during 1940s. In several villages he came to know that the forest officials demarcated village areas as Reserve Forests simply because the poor villagers failed to satisfy them with bribe. To quote Elwin for the details on what happened in one such village:

" xxxx At the time of reserve, 3 Guards came. The Khonds were building new huts and making new clearings. When the Guards saw new houses they said," We will give you plenty of forest, but give us Rs.20". Villagers said, "Where can we get Rs.20. Do as you will." So Guards drew reserve line near village, erecting pillars. In fact, large tract of almost level land adjoining village is reserved. That year people had to cut new clearings: they worked there for 3 years. Next year they lived on roots and then driven by hunger cut clearings in reserve. Last year Surendro Forest Guard came and said, "You have cut in Reserve, I will report to Ranger and you will be put in Jail. But if you give me Rs.10 I will not report. Villagers collected Rs.5 and gave him, begging him not to report." (Elwin V., Notes on the Khonds, pp.267-68, unpublished field notes kept in Nehru Memorial Museum and Library as a part of Elwin Papers)

16 Irregularities of the 1915 settlement of the DPFs(Demarcated Protected Forests) brought about hardship on the tenants by inclusion of their lands in the forest area, and the Khurda Forest Enquiry Committee enquired on this matter. It recommended that boundary lines be shifted to a distance of 15 to 20 chains from the village proper both in case of DPFs and RFs, and in pursuance of that the lines of certain DPFs were shifted back where too close to the villages(vide para 58, Annual Progress Report on Forest Admn. in The Province of Orissa:1943-44), but it is not known what happened in case of the RFs.

17

Similar incidents happened in Duppi(?17) and Sirki(?) areas (see pp.264 and 271 A of Notes on the Khonds). Elwin further observed that during the demarcation of Reserve Forests in areas where no land settlement operations had been carried out, tracts allowed for the use of villagers had not been equitably distributed:

"It has allowed considerable tracts of the territory for axe cultivation, although in many places it seems to me that the divide-up of the country has been done rather carelessly. Great areas have been given to Panos and Paiks while hill-sides consecrated in Kondh sentiment by centuries of use has been reserved." (Notes on a Kondh Tour, p.41)

This kind of inequitable demarcation of forest/village lands was probably the result of the poor hill tribes' lack of capacity to 'adequately' bribe the forest guards, unlike the Panos and Paiks.

• Acquisition of their lands under the rule of law:

The Land Acquisition Act empowers the govt to acquire any land for public purpose, though with ‘adequate’ compensation wherever necessary. Accordingly, the Orissa Government acquired large areas of tribal lands for industrial, mining and other purposes, but except in a few cases the displaced people were left in lurch owing to inadequate/delayed compensation and/or inadequate rehabilitation measures. The displacement from their land actually caused displacement from their livelihood because some of them lost best quality agricultural lands while some others lost forests rich in minor forest products. Some people lost established markets for their products while others lost scope to work as agricultural labourers. Following table shows the displacement of scheduled tribes by some major development projects during 1950s:

Project

Total number of persons displaced

Number of scheduled tribes displaced

% of scheduled tribes displaced

Number of scheduled tribes rehabilitated

Rourkela Steel Plant(then under Hindustan Steel Ltd.), Sundargarh district

2333

1126 48.26

76

Hirakud Dam, Sambalpur district

14352

1636 11.39

1636

Machhkund Hydel Project, Koraput district

2406 1309 54.40 89

(Source: Govt of India, Report of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Commission for 1956-57, Part-1, 1957, p.45)

17 Words in Elwin's hand-written notes are sometimes indecipherable. It may be noted here that he has also used acronyms for certain words and has thus written K's for Khonds.

18

No proper statistics seems to be available to indicate the extent of tribal lands alienated during the last 50 or 100 years. The findings of a study that was conducted by the Harijan and Tribal Research-cum-Training Institute(now SC & ST Research Institute) in late 1980s in the tribal sub-plan areas of Orissa can be taken only as a symbolic presentation of the situation all over the state. This study covered 19 villages where 6.25% HHs had alienated total 125.64 acres of land as per the following details:

Process of land alienation

Extent of land alienated (in acres)

% of land alienated

By sale

80.95

64.43

By mortgage

30.95

24.63

By forceful occupation

10.74

8.54

By land acquisition

3

2.38

(Source: Harijan and Tribal Research-cum-Training Institute, Report on the Study of Tribal Land Alienation, undated, pp.87-88) Prior to this the Universal Bench Mark Survey conducted in 1978 by the same Institute revealed that 1.96% of the total tribal HHs transferred land to non-tribals and 2.10% HHs to the tribals in the tribal-subplan areas (Report on the Study of Tribal Land Alienation, p.21). The implications of such kind alienation of the tribal lands are many, particularly in context of unlawful reservation of tribal lands as forests or recording of lands under their use as govt lands. First: they lose legal rights over the lands which they considered as 'theirs' since centuries and hence are not liable to get compensation if the govt acquires such lands for any purpose and displaces them. Secondly, lack of occupancy rights over such lands will make them 'encroachers' as per govt procedure. And thirdly, as per the Forest Conservation Act of 1980, all those people 'encroaching' forest lands after the date of enactment of this Act will be liable to eviction though, as we have seen, many lands were demarcated as 'forest' though they actually belonged to the village area. By 1st April 1999, the Forest Department estimated total 75696.1982 hectares of forest land to be under encroachment in the state of which the pre-'80 encroached area has been detected as under:

Name of the Forest Division

Forest area(in hectares) encroached prior to the enactment of Forest Conservation Act,1980

Angul

520.477

Athagarh

300.19

Athamallik

44.375

19

Dhenkanal

201.406

Keonjhar

8364.67

Sundargarh

3011.176

Baripada 1678.26

(Source: Govt of Orissa: Forest Department, Status Report 2000 on Orissa Forest, pp.107-108)

Similarly, the Revenue Department has recorded many encroachment cases during the survey and settlement operations.

Elwin reported to the Govt of Orissa about several cases in which the tribals 'encroached' lands in Reserve Forests due to insufficient lands for their use in the village areas, and even recommended for loosening the Reserve line around the villages so that the affected people could get sufficient land for next five years (see Elwin V., Supplement to 'A Brief Survey of the Aboriginal Tribes of the districts of Ganjam and Koraput', 1947).

The relationship between ownership of good agricultural lands and shifting cultivation/forest destruction is evident from the following two findings of 1970s. The first one that provides an estimation of the dependency of tribals on shifting cultivation with reference to the Census of 1971 shows that of the total tribal population of 1092064, 691412 (63.31%) practised shifting

'Encroachment' cases detected in the Keonjhar hills The survey and settlement of 164 villages of Bhuyan-Juang Pirh in 1970s recorded most of the land in the name of government and the users of such lands were booked as 'encroachers'. Following are some of the details of the concerned records:

Name of the police station

No. of villages covered

Total number of plots under encroachment

Number of encroachers

Number of scheduled tribe encroachers

% of the scheduled tribe encroachers

Sadar 51 4707 1534 1065 69.42 Harichandanpur 8 377 140 100 71.42 Daitari 5 573 161 125 77.63 Pandapada 14 417 252 150 59.52 Telkoi 2 4 4 0 0 Kanjipani 84 5948 1949 1375 70.54

(analysis based on the figures provided by the Keonjhar-Dhenkanal Major Settlement Office, Keonjhar) Most of the 'encroached' plots are under the scheduled tribes, for example 4254 plots(71.51% ) in villages under Kanjipani P.S. and 288 plots (76.39%) in those under Harichandanpur P.S..

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cultivation in the state. On basis of this study, 8 most populous tribal groups can be ranked as under:

(based on Mohanty B., Shifting cultivation in Orissa, with a Case Study among the Juang, Adibasi, Vol.XXVI, No.4, Dec.1986, p.18)

On the other hand the Universal Bench Mark Survey that was conducted in 1978 in 9 districts where 21 integrated tribal development projects had been commissioned, revealed that among the 15 most populous tribes 22.84 % were landless and 40.46% possessed land up to 2.5 acres only. The findings of this study can be summarised in the following two tables:

Category of land

Most dominant land-holder community(tribal)

% of HHs

Marginal (upto 2.5 acres)

Bhumij 73.30

Small (2.6 to 5 acres)

Oraon 33.4

Big:I (5.1 to 7.5 acres)

Oraon 15.27

Big:II (7.6 to 12.5 acres)

Oraon

13.89

Big:III (12.5 to 25 acres)

Oraon 6.53

Big: IV (25 acres and above)

Poroja 1.15

(Source: Mohanty et al, Pattern of Land Holding among Major Tribes of the Tribal Subplan Area in Orissa, Adibasi, June 1993, Table 9, p.15)

18 For convenience both tribes have been mentioned in a single entry because in the original table(source) both of them have been mentioned in a single entry for Dhenkanal district whereas separately for Keonjhar and Sundargarh.

Tribal community Population in state Population dependent on shifting cultivation

% of the population dependent on shifting cultivation

Kandha 688722 472002 68.53 Saora 147621 99000 67.06 Bhuyan and Juang18 143074 47410 33.13 Koya 58912 57000 96.75 Gadaba 46237 9000 19.46 Bonda 5334 5000 93.73 Didayi 2164 2000 92.42

21

% of HHs vis-à-vis land-holding Tribal community Landless Marginal Small Big-I Big-II Big-III Big-IV

Kandha

30.49

53.59

27.24

7.90

7.18

3.26

0.63

Saora

31.11

69.64

20.09

5.03

3.58

1.41

0.25

Bhuyan

15.82

55.48

25.03

8.31

7.46

3.12

0.60

Santal

10.24

54.84 29.30 7.51 6.54 1.65 0.1

Kisan

16

48.13 31.41 9.96 7.72 2.49 0.29

Bathudi 13.35 66.25 23.62 5.19 3.95 0.94 0.05

(Source: Mohanty et al, op.cit., Table 9, p.15) The above tables reveal that communities that possess maximum land are not those who are maximum dependent on shifting cultivation. The Kisan, Bathudi and Santal

communities have least/no share in shifting cultivation and even if their land holding is not much better comparatively, they compensate it with alternatives other than shifting cultivation, like wage labour and forest collection, etc. Particularly, the Kisan and Bathudi people are socio-culturally in such an advanced stage that they retain little of their tribal life-style and the Kisans are not a hill-tribe in the strict sense of the term. When scarcity of level lands compels the hill-tribes to resort to hill cultivation, their method of developing the hill slopes varies from tribe to tribe and also from area to area partly due to socio-cultural/religious reasons and partly due to the economic conditions again. Here are some examples:

Socio-religious factors: Some tribals practice hoeing/ploughing of the hill slopes, thereby increasing the risk of soil erosion, because they see it as an important stage of developing such lands whereas some others avoid it due to religious taboo. The Baigas believe that tearing the breast of earth by ploughing/hoeing will

Where shifting cultivators do not deserve sympathy During his visit to the tribal areas of southern Orissa in 1940s, Elwin found some cases where the tribals continued shifting cultivation despite having sufficient agricultural lands. He therefore recommended for reservation of such hill forests like that of Dhondamera and also a few other hills near Guimera. About the Hill-Saoras of Dhondamera, he said:

" xxx these Saoras xxx have reached a point of development considerably xxx. There is really no cultural or economic necessity for them to practice axe-cultivation which xxx now to be forbidden them. They will make a lot of fuss, but I do not think the prohibition will injure them and they have sufficient land to subsist and even grow prosperous, provided they learn to develop it." (Elwin V., Supplement to 'A Brief Survey of the Aboriginal Tribes of the Districts of Ganjam and Koraput', pp.2-3, 1947)

22

get them eaten by tigers whereas the Juangs do not have any such fear or prohibition (Elwin V., Notes on the Juang, Man in India , Vol.28, p. 51, 1948)

Economic pressure: This is created chiefly by exploitation of the non-tribals, local

administrators, govt officials and money-lenders. It is worth-mentioning here what the Madras Estates Land Act Committee remarked on this based on their findings in the hill regions of Ganjam, Godavari and Vizagapatam districts:

" If the rules observed by the ancestors of present hill-tribes have been strictly followed, there would have been no danger of denudation of forests, which is frequently pointed out by some who are opposed to podu cultivation. Owing to the restrictions imposed on the original inhabitants and the illegal exactions made from them by the officers as well as visitors, they have become so much frightened that they would be tempted whenever they get opportunity to cut off forests on a larger scale. xxxx Hill-men have deposed that the officers who had been going there or even other visitors had been compelling them to do service without remuneration and that, illegal exactions had been made at every turn, if they make any attempt to take forest produce into the plains for putting them in the market and getting money in return." (Govt of Madras, Report of the Madras Estates Land Act Committee, Part-1, pp.255-56, 1938)

Further, as these compulsions habituate them in this practice through generations, it becomes difficult for them to abandon it even if they are provided with sufficient level lands. For instance, as Elwin pointed out, " xxx for the Saora and Khond, terraced and irrigated fields are not enough; they must have rougher soil for their beloved millets, several pulses, beans and maize." (Elwin V., Supplement to 'A Brief Survey of the Aboriginal Tribes of the districts of Ganjam and Koraput',p.3, 1947) Insecure livelihood has thus been the major factor behind shifting cultivation. That however does not necessarily mean that shifting cultivation compensates all their losses and makes their livelihood comparatively secure, because with increasing population pressure, per- capita availability of the area under shifting cultivation is decreasing and at the same time the rotation period has been drastically reduced thereby degrading the soil further. Hence, production capacity of the lands under such cultivation is decreasing. If the tribals still stick to it then that is chiefly because they had no other option (so far cultivable land at their possession is concerned). Orissa has been one of the worst-affected Indian states under shifting cultivation. A 1951 estimate suggested that as high as 53.6% (more than 80 lakh acres) of the total forest area of the state was affected by Podu practised by more than 9 lakh tribals (i.e., 53.5% of the total tribal population of the state). Satellite imagery indicated in 1975 the affected area to be 49.7% of the total forest area (Mohapatra P.M. and Mohapatro P.C., Forest Management in Tribal Areas, table 8.2, 1997). An estimate of early 1990s shows that area under shifting cultivation in Orissa is 60.80% of that in India (based on Govt of Orissa: Forest Department, A Decade of Forestry in Orissa:1981-90, table 2.4.4, p.25).

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Other impacts/trends of the dominant insecurity: The insecure livelihood in tribal areas has had various trends in the manifestation of its impact some of which are discussed below: 1. Violent conflicts (intra/between community, government, settlers):

In 1947, tribals of the Nilagiri (ex-)state(now in the Balasore district of Orissa) forcefully cut and took away paddy from the lands of non-tribals saying that the latter had taken possession of many of their lands in an unlawful way (The Prajatantra, 18-11-1947). Recently, the incident was repeated in the Malkangiri district where in Kaudiguda and Chaulamindi villages of Mathili block more than 400 tribals did the same thing (The Samaj, 16-11-2003, p.2). Manifestation of tribal anguish in the form of violent attacks/revolts is not a new thing in Orissa. From south to north and east to west of the state, many such incidents have taken place during the last 200 years. The Mundas of Gangpur state(now in Sundargarh district) launched a no-rent campaign against the administration's move to assess their formerly rent-free uplands, and claimed ownership over the local forests. The campaign turned violent on a day in 1939 when police tried to arrest their leader and more than 30 protesters died in police firing (Rath B., Aspects of Garjat Forestry, pp.152-54). The Saoras of Jeranga mutha in the Parlakhemundi hills threatened violence in 1912 if reservation of the local forests was not stopped, but were tactfully controlled until 1927 when males of Taraba invaded the Velladi block and cleared forests for cultivation. They were sentenced to jail for six weeks though after their return the govt allotted them their clearings with generosity which they misunderstood and thought that punishment would give them legal right of possession of their clearings every time, thus repeating such attacks in the Reserve Forest areas in 1937, 1938 and 1940 after which the Forest Department adopted a distasteful policy of uprooting whatever crops were shown in the forbidden area (Elwin V., Saora Fituris, Man in India, Vol.XXV,1945, pp.256-57). Similarly, in Kalahandi state(now a district) the Kandhas rebelled in 1882 against their exploitation by the Kultas who had been brought to the state by the Raja for the improvement of agriculture. The Kultas deprived the Kondhs of the best of their lands and the revengeful Kandhas killed a large number of these people during the rebellion which was suppressed with British troops (Govt of Orissa, Kalahandi District Gazetteer, 1980, p.61). Recent decades have seen bloody conflicts between the Kandhas and the Panas in the Phulbani district, the latter being accused by the former of exploiting them in a number of ways including alienating their lands. Besides, tribals of Kashipur confronted with the administration when the govt tried to alienate their lands to a mining company and three protesters were killed in the incident. The insecurity in the tribal minds regarding their land rights has also been used for political ambitions. For instance, in Dasapalla state(now in Nayagarh district) Baishnab Charan Deo, the cousin the of deceased Raja Narayan Deo tried to dethrone the new Raja(then a minor and the adopted son of Narayan Deo) in 1913 with the help of the local Kandhas. In fact he met the Kandhas with this objective when Narayan Deo was still alive, but the latter said they would not come to any decision since the Raja was still alive. When Narayan Deo died , Baishnab Charan met the Kandhas again and "excited their passions by telling them that if the

24

Minor become chief, their lands would be measured and they would have to pay rent, and they would no longer be able to do as they pleased in the Forests and Jungles. On the other hand, if he, Baishnab, become Chief, he would not interfere with them, and would divide amongst them half the savings of the late Chief. He took an oath to this effect and the Khonds in return swore to make him Raja, and to kill the Dewan if he stood in the way" (Para XI of the Judgement of John Gruning19, dated 5-07-1915). The move however could not succeed though the Kandhas did try and had even resolved that any of them who would not help would be outcasted.

2. Social disruptions: Social disruptions that are/were associated directly or indirectly with the insecure livelihood have manifested in a number of ways some of which are discussed in the following:

☀ Scarcity of or differential use of resource leads to a division in the society: This has happened from Keonjhar to Koraput. The Juangs have been divided into two socially heterogeneous groups viz., the Thania and the Bhagudia, and the Kandhas into more than two (the Kutias, the Dongrias and the Deshias, etc. of which the former two forest-dwelling groups do not marry with the latter who are plain dwellers20). The Suddha Savaras (i.e., the Saoras of the plains who have abandoned the nomadic practices) think themselves as superior to their brethren in the hills i.e., the Lanjia Saoras. The Hill Bhuyans have their own distinctive emblem (wooden carrying-pole) when compared to the Bhuyans of the plains who do not practice shifting cultivation. Even intra-community disruption is not entirely absent. Clans and sub-clans have restricted access in one another's area. The taboo is so strict that in the Dongria Kondh area if the buffalo kept by a particular village for the purpose of meriah sacrifice is somehow captured by the people of neighbouring village who in turn use it for their own meriah sacrifice and then cook in new earthen pots, then the land under the possession/access of the loser village comes under the control of the latter village causing conflict between the two (Chinara B.K., Dongria Kandhanka Andhabiswas, Rabibar Sambad, 10-4-1990). ☀ Forced abandonment of customary practices leads to socio-economic disruptions:

The Paburi Pargana of the Pal-lahra ex-state was the area where the Bhuyans, Juangs and some other tribes practised shifting cultivation. It was as if an extension of the Bhuyan-Juang Pirh of the neighbouring ex-state of Keonjhar. This area was first surveyed and settled in 1932 and two significant forest areas, the central portion of Paburi Pargana and the Malaygiri hill forests to the east were reserved, shifting cultivation being still allowed in other parts (Board of Revenue, Orissa, Final Report on the Land Revenue Settlement of Pal-lahra State:1932, undated, pp.1,14,15). Gradually shifting cultivation was totally restricted and the Juangs were asked to resort to settled cultivation. However, the wet lands allotted were not sufficient enough to sustain their livelihood as a result of which they tried their luck in basketry (Govt of Orissa, Dhenkanal District Gazetteer,

19 Available along with Elwin's Notes on the Khonds (unpublished draft kept in Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi) 20 Govt of Orissa, Boudh-Khondmals District Gazetteer, 1983, p.71

25

1972,p.117), but this shift in the livelihood was actually a symbolic manifestation of some socio-economic disruption:

" The Juangs of Pal-Lahra presented a melancholy contrast to those in Keonjhar. In the second decade of the present century the forest round the slopes of Malaygiri was reserved and the Juangs suddenly found themselves cut off from their normal means of livelihood. They were given cattle and land xxx at the foot of the mountain, but they could not take to the unfamiliar plough, wild elephants destroyed the crops, and the cattle xxx died in a year or two. The Juangs swiftly fell into the position of landless serfs in the economic bondage to their neighbours, got more and more into debt, lost their fields and, when I saw them, were making a miserable living by weaving baskets xxxx.

The economic condition of these Juangs was deplorable. xxxx Even worse than their economic decay was their complete religious and cultural collapse xxxx. The Juangs of Pal-Lahra were the worst possible advertisement for a policy of stopping axe-cultivation or of moving people down to the plains. xxx" (Elwin V., The Tribal World of Verrier Elwin, 2002 reprint, pp.172-73)

The Juangs of Pal-Lahra thus were forced to divert themselves from the tradition, which they had inherited originally from Keonjhar. The impacts of such divergence can be realised from the fact that when the Juangs of Dhenkanal (ex-)state agreed to abandon leaf-dress for cloth towards 1871, their brethrens in the neighbouring (ex-)state of Hindol criticised this move and treated the former as outcasts (Dhenkanal District Gazetteer, 1972,p.121). Elwin records elsewhere how the 'reforms' imposed on the Gadaba people caused socio-economic loss to them. Those were the days when Gandhi was symbolised by his charkha (spinning wheel) and his message of getting self-reliant by growing own cotton and weaving own cloths was spreading. The Gadabas were habituated to wear cloth made from a kind of bark-yarn which their women prepared themselves, but when the 'reformers' went to them and told them that by doing this they were in fact not following Gandhi's teachings, these people were frightened and tried then to grow cotton and spin it. However, they failed in doing so successfully as a result of which they had to purchase low cost clothes from the market for which their fellow treated them as outcasts since they had lost their useful and traditional home industry (Elwin V., Report on the Tribals of Ganjam and Koraput Districts, p.20).

☀ Growing individualism leads to intra-village/intra-clan conflicts: The survey and settlement principles adopted by the government do not recognise community ownership over land and encourage individual ownership. Individualistic attitude has not been very beneficial for the hill-tribes so far their resource utilisation is concerned. The Juangs escaped for long the system of land revenue assessment based on individual property simply because community control was dominant in their life unlike the Bhuyans. Community control is very useful particularly in case of those tribes who decline to abandon nomadic practices because it saves them from the chaos that would have resulted from decisions. In Bonda hills some of the customs are so individualistic that the people are at risk of suffering its impact. For instance, at the time of distress kinsmen do come for help but they

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demand heavily for it. The family in distress thus ends up incurring debt. Every Salap tree in the village belongs to some individual and being regarded as the most valuable private property, can be mortgaged but once made so, it can't be got back21. Elwin found that many conflicts and murders were caused due to uncertainty over the ownership of such trees or the theft of its juice. Similarly, competition for acquiring rice lands has led to intra-family conflicts (Elwin V., The Bondo Highlanders, 1950,p.55; Bonda Development Agency: Baseline Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th five-year Action Plan for 2002-03 to 2006-07, March 2002, pp.15,16). The situation caused by an insecure livelihood is further worsened by two important factors as described below:

Lack of access to basic environmental services:

Under ideal conditions the hill-tribes enjoy living under the physical environment(s) they are bestowed with. Forests, hill streams and valley lands are their bases of livelihood and culture. However, cases are not ideal always/every where and either the forest or the source of water is too far causing difficulties in life. In the Juang Pirh of Keonjhar, the water(stream) passing through several villages is reportedly contaminated due to the practice of open toilet system, but lessons learnt from other kinds of reformatory measures in tribal areas do not encourage to immediately introduce septic latrines in such areas as that may result in some more serious trouble. Many Juang HHs throw cow dung and house-hold refuges in their backyards thus turning it into a feeding ground of many insects and flies that causes diseases, and in this case they can certainly be trained in making green compost from such garbage. Out of the 40 tube wells in the area under the jurisdiction of Juang Development Agency, 25 are defunct22 (Juang Development Authority: Baseline Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th five-year Action Plan for 2002-03 to 2006-07, March 2002,p.3) which shows the extent to which govt agencies implement their objectives sincerely. Similar cases can be found in other tribal areas. As regards socio-psychological environment, education, when used properly, certainly helps in bringing some clarity in the mind and also creates scope for switching over to some more reliable means of livelihood. Unfortunately, the hill tribes remained without access to schools for a long time. The Christian missionaries did make an endeavour in this direction, but the effort rather resulted in more bizarre situation in some areas. For instance, the Panos who had been exploiting the Kandhas accepted Christianity more easily and extensively than the latter, and the conflict caused between the two groups over disputes relating to resources and exploitation now appeared, though superficially, to have taken communal colour the Kandhas being mostly non-Christians. Furthermore, a change in religious environment directly effected an accelerated change in the physical environment, as Elwin found in some tribal villages of south Orissa. The most determined cutting in Reserve Forests took place in the neighbourhood of mission schools at Sinkulipadar and Chodangapur, and Elwin was explained that this was the result of assurances given by the missionaries:

21 because the mortgagee would not like to return its possession even if the money is paid back . 22 by 2001-02(?)

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"Fathers could get them all the forest they wanted and that if they became Christians they would cut as much as they liked". (Supplement to 'A Brief Survey of the Aboriginal Tribes of the Districts of Ganjam and Koraput', 1947,p.6)

However, the most widespread impact was that of the presence as well as dominance of non-tribal shylocks, the Patros. Besides effecting an accelerated practice of shifting cultivation through the economic pressure created by their exploitations, these people also directly instigated the tribals to cut in the Reserves because they knew that unless the tribals did this they would not be able to pay their dues to them(Patros). In Bodokhemundi (ex-)zamindary, the Saoras told Elwin that the British govt would never be able to stop axe cultivation so long as they had the Patro of Udaygiri (Supplement to 'A Brief Survey of the Aboriginal Tribes of the Districts of Ganjam and Koraput', 1947,p.6).

Lack of access to infrastructure: Access to infrastructure can either deteriorate or improve the situation depending upon the type of the infrastructure. For instance, although the Bhuyans were allowed to sell Sal logs in the Keonjhar town without any restriction for many decades, they could make the best use of this opportunity if their villages were not very remote from the town. Otherwise, villages like Adala are so distant that it would be virtually impossible for the Bhuyans of such villages to bring logs on their shoulder upto Keonjhar town because about 40/50 years ago when this privilege was available to them, communication was not developed to the extent than it is today. Development of communication has opened up the scope for the remote villages for interacting with outside world, but at the same time has reduced their privacy with increased intervention of the outsiders. Infrastructure facility is not uniform throughout the scheduled areas. Road communication is an example. The Kutia Kandhas of the Belghar area do not have road communication for 20 settlements whereas in the Juang pirh of Keonjhar number of such villages is only 4. Similarly, in Juang Pirh, total system of electrification being completely disrupted, there is apparently 'no scope' for electrification whereas in Belghar area this facility is totally absent for the Kutia Kandhas23 (Juang Development Agency: Baseline Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th five-year Action Plan for 2002-03 to 2006-07, pp.2, 42; Kutia Kondh Development Agency, Belghar: Baseline Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th five-year Action Plan for 2002-03 to 2006-07, p.6). Irrigation is one of the most important facilities required in such areas because this helps in turning Goda(upland) lands into wet lands thereby increasing their production capacity, but this again is not uniformly available despite development activities carried out under various micro-projects. Earlier Large Area Multipurpose Societies(LAMPs) had their branches in many such tribal areas for the collection of minor forest produce, etc., but now these are almost in a defunct state due to lack of capital. Similarly, the Tribal Development Cooperative Society used to purchase a number of minor forest products from the tribal areas, but it has almost stopped doing so except for a few items particularly after the implementation of the NTFP policy of 23 many such statements about the status of tribals or their condition should be considered valid upto the year of publication of the source cited against the same although radical changes are not expected in several cases during 2001 and 2005.

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2000 which handed over more then 60 MFP items to the Gram Panchayats and abolished monopoly of TDCC and other agencies over such items. Veterinary services have been made available by the govt in many such areas, but there are people like the Juangs of Keonjhar who are yet to take up animal husbandry on commercial basis. This suggests that simply infrastructure can not help in some cases due to a number of reasons. One more example to this is the facility for postal communication. Presently there are very few post offices in the hill areas, like only one for the whole Kutia Kandha villages of Belghar; but increasing their number by three or four times will be of little use unless people's dependency on postal communication increases accordingly. A more detailed analysis, as in the following, shows that insecure livelihood could have impacts on education and criminality etc. while certain other factors like unemployment only worsen the situation:

Criminality: Although hardship bears a pressure on the tribal minds(particularly in the males), the probability of its manifestation in the form of criminal activity actually varies according to the temperament of the individuals as well as communities. For instance, the Juangs and the Bondas face almost equal difficulty to sustain their livelihood; but while the Juang is hardly known for even small crimes, the Bonda(males) have been known for their high aggressiveness since decades and as Elwin found in 1940s, they(Bondas) were twice as murderous as the highest recorded elsewhere if the fascist genocide was ignored (Elwin V., Report on the Tribals of Ganjam and Koraput Districts, Elwin Papers, Misc. Files, Serial No. 147, p. 23, unpublished draft kept in Nehru Memorial Museum & Library). He found the annual homicide rate over 1000 per million, in the Bonda hills.

Some criminal activities in the tribal areas are/were directly related to economic rights and harvest. Elwin describes some examples from the Bonda hill area:

" xxx The more serious crimes xxxx are the result of hot-tempered disputes or the desire to prevent economic loss. Some one takes a jack fruit and the argument about it ends in his head being broken. Cows wander into a field and when the ploughman injures them as he drives them out, he gets beaten up for his pains. xxxx

Murders over the possession of land are of more interest to the economist than to the student of crime. The mortgaging of land is a constant source of dispute, for the Bonda's attachment to his fields is such that even when he knows that he has forfeited his right to it, he can not bear to see some one else in possession, and often tries to take it back. xxxxx

The Dumiripada murder of 1939 illustrates the same feeling of dispair at the sight of another man using one's field. Mangla Sisa sold a bit of land to one Sania Mundli for three rupees. He took the money and allowed Sania to cultivate the land. But when the crop was ready he took it away. Village opinion supported Sania, but Mangla would not submit; there were frequent quarrels and this time it was the new owner who got his blow in first. Sania

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stabbed Mangla at dawn after an all-night dance xxxx. "( Elwin V., The Bondo Highlander, 1950, pp.247-9)

Quarrels about the repayment of debts sometimes results in physical attacks. However, the most infamous criminal activity in the tribal history of Orissa is meriah or the human sacrifice which many tribes, more particularly the Kandhas, used to practice just because they though that unless Dharani penu (the earth goddess) was offered human blood crops, both agricultural and forest, would not be satisfactory. The British took various measures to stop this practice and established meriah agencies for this particular objective during the 19th century. After much difficulty the effort succeeded to a great extent24 when the Kandhas agreed to substitute animals for human life in the sacrifice and also,

" In consideration of their abandonment of the meriah sacrifices, they received sanads giving them the freedom of the country, permitting them to practice their axe-cultivation and excusing them from the payment of all taxes." (Elwin, Notes on a Kondh Tour, p. 41)

However, there are some doubts if this practice has been completely stopped because while Elwin himself heard of it still going in 1940s, a local newspaper The Samaj also reported, three years ago, that the practice was still in vogue in some parts of the undivided Koraput district in the remote areas. Insecure livelihood, needless to say, is the major factor behind it. Lodhas are a Primitive Tribal Group of Orissa who are mostly concentrated in the Mayurbhanj district. They have earned a very bad name for their practices of robbery and other criminal activities. The 1978 the Universal Bench Mark Survey reported that among the 15 most populous tribes of Orissa, the Lodhas recorded highest % of land less HHs (Mohanty et al, Pattern of Land Holding among Major Tribes of the Tribal Subplan Area in Orissa, Adibasi, June 1993, Table 9, p.15). The poor land-holding situation of the tribe probably forced them to resort to criminal activities because they do not practice shifting cultivation. Prison life has had differential impact on the tribals as Elwin found himself. For the Bondas who were jailed for various crimes, prison was a quite and peaceful place providing 'excellent' food and hence it changed their temperament making them now well-mannered, obliging and informative (Report on the Tribals of Ganjam and Koraput Districts, p.25). However, the case was different in the Kandha area where, in a village named Bum, 14 Kandhas were jailed (there were total 18 HHs) for clearing forests in the Guimera Reserve. The village was situated in the heart of this Reserve and the Reserve line being too close to the village, they soon found their lands, already insufficient, exhausted due to practice of shifting cultivation under a lesser cycle of rotation. They were thus in despair about their economic future:

"It was sheer hunger that drove these people to cut inside the Reserve". (Elwin V., Supplement to 'A Brief Survey of the Aboriginal Tribes of the Districts of Ganjam and Koraput', 1947, p.7)

24 The extent to which this practice was in vogue can be known from the fact that in 1848, Lt. Col. Campbell, the then British officer in charge of the operations against meriah in Ghumsur (in south Orissa) rescued as many as 235 meriahs(boys bought for sacrifice) while the Kandhas themselves handed over to him 150 meriahs (Behera D.,The Bhanjas and the Khonds of Orissa, 1987, p.113).

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However, this act of theirs was seen as a crime and they were jailed, but the punishment made the situation only worst because they took it(punishment) as crime against their own livelihood. One of them was the Manji (village headman) who, in the jail, 'was transferred from an honest and descent aboriginal into sophisticated and dangerous agitator'(Supplement to 'A Brief Survey of the Aboriginal Tribes of the Districts of Ganjam and Koraput', p.7). Elwin writes further:

"Today furtive, shift, cynical, he looks the typical criminal; he believes himself the victim of injustice and has no more faith in Government xxxxx. And I am not sure that we can blame him; civilisation has done damn-all for people like him; it has taken away his lands, but has done nothing in return. It has afforded them no protection against the shylocks who exploit him; it has given him no compensation, no education of any kind xxxx." (Supplement to 'A Brief Survey of the Aboriginal Tribes of the Districts of Ganjam and Koraput', p.5).

The Manji said that he would rather die in the jail than drop his axe or leave his home. Others jailed like him also said the same. Moreover, they thought that jailing gave them the right to cut in the Reserve (Supplement to 'A Brief Survey of the Aboriginal Tribes of the Districts of Ganjam and Koraput', p.5). Hence, prison life had an adverse impact on these people.

Education:

One of the earliest as well as historically significant attempts to use education as a tool to manage the affairs in the tribal areas efficiently was made by Captain Johnstone after the Bhuyan rebellion of Keonjhar in 1868. He thought education would be able to control the Bhuyan temperament, and hence established as many as 7 schools in the Bhuyan Pirh area. The Bhuyan parents hesitated to send their children to the school saying that since they themselves had not received education, why their children? Still, Johnstone managed somehow to get some students in the schools including few girls ((Capt. Johnstone on 1-4-1870 and 27-1-1871, Proceedings of the Lt. Governor of Bengal, Proc. No. 33, Jud(Pol) July 1870 and Proc. No. 34, Jud(Pol) July 1871)) and found the Bhuyan children very intelligent, displaying great aptitude in learning ((Proceedings of the Lt. Governor of Bengal, Proc. No. 12, Jud(Pol) July 1871)). However, as revealed in a report compiled 30 years later, the Bhuyans did not support this endeavour in their heart: "The village schools that were established by Colonel Johnstone xxxx were in existence till the last revolt, when they were swept away by the Bhuiyans, who had long cherished a hatred for education xxxxx.

They preferred seeing their sons assist them in their domestic business or in beating the jungles for roots etc., for their subsistence to wasting their time at the school. The short-sighted police of those days would often compel the people to send their children to the school, so they took this to be another hateful 'bethi'(forced labour) the State was exacting from them, and with an unprincipled set of school masters, they soon learnt to hate the infant institution that Colonel Johnstone had taken so much pains to establish. Since then it has been considered politic to leave the Bhuiyans in

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this matter as they are for the present. xxxx" (Govt of Orissa, Settlement Report of Keonjhar State for 1305 Amli Year25, 1964 reprint, pp.28,29).

Captain(later Colonel) Johnstone had introduced a school cess for the Bhuyans so that schools in their area could be maintained, which of course was not a reconciliatory measure. But the irony is that even after the closing of these schools after the 1891 revolt, the cess was continued to be realised from them with a fear that once stopped it would be difficult to reintroduce it(Settlement Report of Keonjhar State for 1305 Amli Year, p.29). The only school comparatively nearest to the Juang area was at Kuanr, but it was still too distant for villages like Kadalibadi. When all other schools were closed, the only one that was operational was the residential school at Suakati where 20 pupils(boys) were on roll during 1943-44. They were taught carpentry also and an agricultural supervisor reportedly trained them how to grow flowers and vegetables, in the small garden attached to the school (Annual Admn. Report of Keonjhar State for 1943-44, pp.56-57), but this was also closed in 1948. However, since 1951 an Ashram School is running at Suakati (per comm.., Ramesh Chakrabarti). During the last 50 years, significant changes have taken place so far establishment of schools and the interest of the people in them is concerned. For instance, the Juang people have been provided with 6 primary schools, 7 upper primary schools, 2 middle english schools and 4 high schools. Besides, there are 6 primary school hostels, 3 residential Sevashrams, I Kanyasram and 1 Ashram26 School, all these being run by government (Juang Development Agency: Baseline Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th five-year Action Plan for 2002-03 to 2006-07, March 2002, p. 3) as a result of which the literacy rate has improved, but livelihood still plays a major role in the education as we found during our field visits(in 2003). While the school at Hatisila was running normally, the one at Kadalibadi was closed on the same day and we were explained by a lady social worker appointed at Kadalibadi by the government that since the villagers preferred sending their children to the toila fields rather than the school, the teacher also saw no reason to come to the school and hence it remained closed (per comm.., Mrs. Tilottama Mishra, 29-09-2003). We were further told by an ex-employee of the Juang Development Agency that each year they(the JDA officials) had to persuade the Juang children for enrolment in the residential schools (the govt was to bear all costs), but about 50% of them used to leave the school since their parents wanted them to work with them in the fields (per comm.., Nirmal Kabi).

25 1897 AD 26 Ashram schools are residential schools established particularly in remote or tribal areas. Sevashrams and Kanyashrams are but kinds of this arrangement and the latter is meant exclusively for girls.

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Literacy rate among the female children are still lower than that of the males because girls get the least opportunity to go to the schools regularly due to household work, etc.. In the Bonda hills, for example, out of the total 1202 children (6-15 years age group) only 9.31% are girls enrolled in the schools as against total 29.20 % of enrolment (Bonda Development Agency: Baseline Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th five-year Action Plan for 2002-03 to 2006-07, March 2002, p. 83). Even in the Lanjia Saora area where the situation is comparatively better (30.99% literacy as against 6.35% in the Bonda hills), female literacy is 22.57% as against male literacy rate of 39.80% (Lanjia Saora Development Agency: Baseline Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th five-year Action Plan for 2002-03 to 2006-07, March 2002, Abstract).

Unemployment: The census of 2001 indicates that 38.88% of the state population are workers (cultivators, labourers, service holders, etc.; see Census of India 2001: Orissa, Provisional Population Totals, Paper 3, p.4), but in areas affected by shifting cultivation the % of workers is usually high due to miserable financial conditions and various other limitations. For instance, in the Pauri Bhuyan area of the Sundargarh district, this is as high as 59.19% (Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Research & Training Institute, Pauri Bhuyan Development Agency: Baseline Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th five-year Action Plan for 2002-03 to 2006-07, March 2002, p. 63). Almost all HHs of the tribal families depending on shifting cultivation have to depend on wage labour either as primary or secondary occupation. Similarly, children have to

Improved literacy: statistical examples

Village Phulbadi Jantari Mudulipada Baunsapada

Particulars

1951 2001-02

1951 2001-02

1951 1991 1951 2001-02

Dominant tribe

Juang Juang Juang Juang Bonda Bonda Bonda Bonda

Total population

166 246 157 408 472 427 109 85

No. of literates

4 60 0 88 0 51 0 1

% of literates

2.40 24.39 0 21.56 0 11.94 0 1.17

(Source Lanjia Saora Development Agency: Baseline Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th five-year Action Plan for 2002-03 to 2006-07, March 2002, Abstract: Census of India, District Census Handbook: Keonjhar, 1951, p.133; Census of India, District Census Handbook: Koraput, 1951, p.245; Juang Development Agency: Baseline Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th five-year Action Plan for 2002-03 to 2006-07, March 2002, pp.54,64,65; Bonda Development Agency: Baseline Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th five-year Action Plan for 2002-03 to 2006-07, March 2002, p.54) Note: The 1951 figures are that of the total population whereas the 2001-02 figures are that of the dominant tribal group.

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work with their parents at a very young age. In short, the whole family works with its maximum possible strength only to sustain itself somehow whereas in many villages of the plain areas the primary occupation (service, business or agriculture) of one or two male members of the family is more or less enough for sustenance. Unemployment is a serious problem in tribal areas with far reaching consequences. Usually getting an appointment in any public sector or private concern is considered to be the most preferred form of employment, but due to lack of proper education/training, communication and other such limitations very few people in the areas affected by shifting cultivation get this kind of opportunity although some quota is reserved for the ST people in various services. For instance, in the area under the jurisdiction of the Dongria Kondh Development Agency in the Rayagada district, only 0.15% of the total population depends on service as the primary occupation as against 96.97% dependent on shifting cultivation( Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Research & Training Institute, Dongria Kondh Development Agency: Baseline Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th five-year Action Plan for 2002-03 to 2006-07, March 2002, p.121). Similarly, in area under the Pauri Bhuyan Development Agency in the Sundargarh district service-holders constitute only 0.33% of the total population (Pauri Bhuyan Development Agency: Baseline Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th five-year Action Plan for 2002-03 to 2006-07, March 2002, p.63). On the other hand, lack of capital does not enable them to do full-time business. Hence, they have to depend on wage labour or forest collection when there is no work in the swiddens or settled wetlands. When these options do not work within their village limits, they migrate temporarily or permanently to promising areas. Even in 1940s or earlier, some Bonda individuals went to Assam to work in the tea gardens there (Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Research & Training Institute, Bonda Development Agency: Baseline Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th five-year Action Plan for 2002-03 to 2006-07, March 2002, p.8). Elwin stressed on the fact that education in the tribal area must be linked with employment:

" The aboriginal looks on education simply and solely as a means to getting a job as a Chaprasi or forest guard. Why should we not frankly accept this, deplorable as it sounds?" (Elwin V., Report on the Tribals of Ganjam and Koraput Districts, unpublished draft kept in Nehru Memorial Museum & Library, p.27)

And there is hardly any doubt that a good service can work as a substitute for settled cultivation and can thus be used as an important tool against Podu cultivation. Lack of employment of any kind makes the situation worse. It is for this reason that the contractors working in the Bhuyan Pirh area of Keonjhar were asked by the authorities to must employ the local Bhuyans (Rath B., Aspects of Garjat Forestry, p.66) during 1930s. In fact, latest reports from the Lanjia Saora area suggests that when alternatives are available, dependency on shifting cultivation is reduced because 47.98% and 4.17% of the population have scope for depending on agriculture (settled) and service respectively as primary occupation and only 13.04% depend on shifting cultivation (Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Research & Training Institute, Lanjia Saora Development Agency: Baseline Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th five-year Action Plan for 2002-03 to 2006-07, March 2002, p.49).

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Health: Elwin found the highlanders generally of good health. Some eye trouble, wounds and sores are of course seen in them, but these are usually curable. And the country liquors which they usually take helps them stand up well against malaria, hence complete prohibition on such liquors (in absence of adequate substitutes like medicines and nutritious food) might lead to an immediate enervation and a high mortality, he said (Report on the Tribals of Ganjam and Koraput Districts, pp.4-5). Abundant resource and unfettered rights usually help these hill-tribes lead a tension-free life. Although they are not very aware and careful about their health, herbal medicines are used by them which show some remarkable ethno-botanical experience among them or their medicine men. The problem starts when resources are extremely limited and they are forced to spend almost all their energy in search of an income source. Malnutrition and anaemia are but signs of the miserable condition that they live in many areas. Alcoholism and smoking deteriorate their condition further. The low fecundity and fertility of many of them like the Juangs are said to a result of this27. Child mortality and maternal mortality rates are usually high in such areas though adequate statistics are not available. Their own unhygienic practices and superstitions facilitate this. For instance, the Dongria Kandhas used to kill their 8th issue (Chinra B., Dongaria Kandhanka Andhabiswasa, Rabibar Sambad, 10-4-1990) with a fear that this child might one day kill his/her maternal uncle(as Krishna did with Kansa)28.

Their food habits sometimes create problem for them. Anthrax has been reported from some hill areas of southern Orissa during recent years and the affected people got it after taking

some rotten meat. Similarly, tubers of Dioscorea spp. which are among their major supplementary food items reportedly contain anti-fertility steroids that reduce the reproductive capacity in the females (Swain N., Birala Jiva Talikare Manisha, The Samaj, 29-10-1989).

27 An analysis of the Juang food in Keonjhar showed that it was deficient in Protein, Fat, Calorie, Vitamin C and common salt (Patnaik N., The Juangs of Orissa, Their Work & Food Intake, Demography and Fertility, Adibasi, July-Sept. 1986, p.31) 28 This practise is reportedly not in vogue now and a buffalo is sacrificed in place of the child.

A bitterly tale Pittalu (Dioscorea bulbifera) and several other forest tubers become major food items for the hill tribes during lean seasons. E. A. Samuels, then the Superintendent of Tributary Mahals, Orissa visited the Juang area in Keonjhar during mid-19th century and with curiosity cooked few such tubers like Tonga, Karba and Paneee aloo: "xxx but the experiment was not encouraging. Without being absolutely nauseous, they were all insipid and had an earthly flavour which were decidedly disagreeable." (Notes on a forest race called Puttooas or Juanga, inhabiting certain of the Tributary Mahals of Cuttack, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. XXV, 1856,p. 299)

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The primitive tribes have suffered after learning to wear mill cloth because wearing it for several days without washing causes skin diseases. In Assam, it even led to pneumonia29 (Elwin V., Report on the Tribals of Ganjam and Koraput Districts, p.18). While the Koyas of undivided Koraput district have been suffering from Yaws since many decades, recent reports reveal that TB is spreading in an alarming rate among the Bondas. Such kind of critical health problems are partly caused due to their own habits, but at the same time we should not ignore the fact that when the situation forces them to lead a nomadic life under constant economic pressure the original harmonious life is lost gradually to give place to chaotic affairs of which health problems are but a manifestation. Hospitals have been opened in the area of hill tribes, but on one hand the people are yet to fully accept this non-traditional system of health care and on the other hand the facilities provided are either inadequate or the doctor does not turn up regularly the area being remoter. Dependency on magico-religious practices and herbal medicine is still in vogue but with depleting forest resources availability of herbal ingredients has been(or has to be) affected. Hence, primary health care is still at stake not to speak of traumas. Insecure livelihood vis-à-vis gender & equity: As in all marginalised and poor sections the income of men-folk alone is extremely inadequate as a result of which the womenfolk have to work and earn somehow. The situation is often so critical that even if the whole family works to get some income, still their status changes a little so far the economic standard is concerned. Almost in every hill-tribe community women dominate in household affairs (but not in village matters) and toil hard to sustain their families simply because, by nature, they are much more sincere, earnest in family matters and strongly attached to their family than the males. And most of the taboos on them are also common like, they are supposed not to plough, not to cut big trees, not to climb trees when mature, etc. (Elwin V., Notes on the Juang, 1948, Man in India, Vol.28, p.36; Bonda Development Agency: Baseline Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th five-year Action Plan for 2002-03 to 2006-07, March 2002, p.39). Some of these common taboos are based on the perception of difference between masculine and feminine nature while some others owe their origin to purely socio-religious concepts. An example of the latter type is the ban on Juang women for basket-making who are allowed for mat work (Notes on the Juang, p.36). Extraordinary cases are also found. Women were seen ploughing and the female children driving oxen in Boud (Patnaik quoted in Vasundhara, Aspects of Garjat Forestry,p.14). The Bonda woman would never wash dishes used by her husband (Bonda Development Agency: Baseline Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th five-year Action Plan for 2002-03 to 2006-07, March 2002, p.14). A rather ironical episode is found in the history of the Juangs. These people used to wear only leaf-dress even during the 19th century and were hence known as Patra30 Saora or Pattoa. Almost all large and smooth leaves were used for this purpose and the 'dress' was changed daily (Samuels E., Notes on a Forest Race called Puttooas or Juanga, inhabiting certain of 29 This might have been caused when a person continues to wear wet clothes in the rainy season. 30 Patra means leaf

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the Tributary Mahals of Cuttack, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. XXV, 1856,pp. 296-7). They were encouraged by the British to wear clothes which the men accepted but their women still avoided it. In fact, the Juang men tried to justify that wearing clothes would result in attack of tigers on the women though the British officer who tried to persuade them believed that the husbands did not allow their wives wear clothes with a fear that once provided(clothes), women would require it continuously((Captain Johnstone dated 1-4-1870, Proceedings of the Lt. Governor of Bengal, Jud(Pol) July 1870, proceeding # 33.56)). This suggests that the Juang men did not support wearing of clothes by their women simply because they thought they could not afford it (particularly because the size needed by women is greater than that by men). The taboo was such that no blanket or covering was permitted to women at night for whom sleeping between two fires was the remedy for winter (Samuels E., op.cit., p.297).Afterwards, when the British renewed their persuasion it succeeded, but the Juangs blamed that after the women started wearing clothes their livelihood had been in danger (for more details, please refer to the case study on Bhuyan-Juang Pirh). Usually women do not inherit land and property though a widow can be allowed to inherit the homestead land. This creates a major problem for them after the death of their husbands unless they have male children, and it is extremely ironical that those who do so much for the family and surpass the males in their contribution become destitute without a husband or son. Women play a major role in the collection of minor forest produce. They also help the males during forest clearance. Besides household work, they also sell their produce in the local markets. Their contribution to the household income can be judged from the fact that they constitute 50% or even more of the working force in the tribal areas. For instance, in Lanjia Saora villages of Rayagada district, they constitute 52.29% of the working force and among the earners 58.59% are females. Similarly, as dependents they constitute 21.17% of the population as against 21.90% males (Lanjia Saora Development Agency: Baseline Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th five-year Action Plan for 2002-03 to 2006-07, March 2002, pp.44-4531). So far equity is concerned, the tribals do not see their different communities with equal status and even regard other clans superior or inferior within a single community(particular tribe). They also behave differently with different non-tribal people/caste, like, as Elwin found, the Kandhas would not eat from the Lohars or Doms (although the latter two castes have no objection in eating from a Kandha) and this is because they fear that if they eat from a Lohar(iron smith), their crops will burn up as his iron is burnt in fire (Elwin V., Notes on the Khonds, Elwin Papers, Serial No.160, p.417, unpublished draft kept in Nehru Memorial Museum & Library). Still, they have been kind enough to give a share in the swiddens and wetlands to the people belonging to other clan/caste/tribe when they found these people deserving this due to their socio-economic conditions. Some of their lands have been alienated in this way as found in case of Bhuyan-Juang Pirh. Had they been strict enough to not allow any outsider to share their lands, the problem of tribal land alienation would not have assumed such a serious turn as it is now.

31 % of dependents has been calculated by the author.

37

Conflict mitigation:

Both individuals and the government agencies have discovered that without a solution to the basic problems of land scarcity and economic pressure, all other efforts to stop Podu cultivation would be but in vein. Earlier attempts for the mitigation of conflicts between the govt and the tribals dependent on shifting cultivation were often used to be temporary in nature and also very limited in the approach. For instance, proposed extension of Reserve Forests in the Parlakhemundi hills(now in Gajapati district) was not approved by the authority in charge of these hill areas because the Saoras throughout the concerned Forest Division were 'clamouring for areas of forest reserves for shifting cultivation on the grounds that the unreserved areas have become sterile" (Govt of Orissa: Forest Department, Annual Progress Report on Forest Administration in the Province of Orissa for the Year 1938-39, 1940, p.37). Similarly, on the basis of Elwin's report(Supplement to 'A Brief Survey of the Aboriginal Tribes of the Districts of Ganjam and Koraput) demarcation work in the

Sanokimidi(Sanakhemundi) hill-forests was temporarily postponed (Annual Progress Report on Forest Administration in the Province of Orissa for the Year 1945-46, p.ii). However, it is also learnt from Annual Progress Report on Forest Administration for the years 1936-37(p.35) and 1945-46 (pp. i, ii) that the Forest Officers still preferred forest conservancy than tribal livelihood and were ready to take the risk of confronting with the tribals. Needless to say, such deterrent attitudes and short-sighted approach could not solve the problem permanently. This lacuna in approach was tried to be eliminated through the Integrated Tribal Development Projects which have been started in various districts. Under these projects, 17 micro-projects are working for the development of specific tribal groups(PTG) the earliest of them being the Bonda Development Agency, the first of its kind in India, that was started in 1976-77. These projects, particularly the micro-projects, have been successful to some extent in bringing about a change in the tribal situation, but still a lot is to be done and so far Podu is concerned, very little has been achieved through these interventions. In fact, the Podu Prevention Programme that was started in the Juang Pirh of Keonjhar in late 1980s was withdrawn after a few years since it could not have an impressive impact on shifting cultivation and on the economic development of the Juangs though plantations were raised under this programme with a good coverage (Govt of Orissa: SC & ST Research and Training Institute, Development Handbook for the Juangs of Juang Development Agency, 1991-92, pp.74-75). This fact has resulted in an ironical situation at Gonasika where the HQrs of Juang Development Agency are situated but where shifting cultivation is still carried on because though the Juangs have been provided with houses, their problem of land scarcity could not be solved by the JDA authorities due to lack of surplus agricultural land. In fact

Tribal reserves Bell, the District Collector of Koraput in 1930s, suggested that "A Better policy would be to set aside in each village certain limited area within which Podu cultivation will be permitted and to prohibit rigidly elsewhere" (Bell R.C., Orissa District Gazetteer:Koraput, 1945, p.106).In mid-1940s J. Nicholson, then Conservator of Forests, Orissa suggested to the govt for the constitution of 3 aboriginal reserves with a hope that the execution of this scheme 'would help enormously towards the better preservation of forests in tracts populated by tribes addicted to shifting cultivation' (Annual Progress Report on Forest Administration for the year1946-47, p.29) but no information could be available to ascertain if this was ever implemented. Particularly, the Annual Progress Report on Forest Administration published for the following year is just silent about it.

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non-availability of surplus cultivable land compelled the authorities to reclaim other lands for this purpose, but this is still inadequate. In their report the Committee on Special Multipurpose Tribal Blocks recommended the following measures so as to effect prevention of shifting cultivation:

Survey of tribal areas be taken up on priority basis 'in order to discover the amount of cultivable land available and the extent to which the tribal people have no established rights in the areas they cultivate'.

"xxx this should be followed by a vigorous and sincere attempt to establish the tribal people in their rights to the land which they have cultivated traditionally."

Land Alienation Act and other protective measures should be carefully examined.

The aim should be to ensure a minimum 2.5 acres of wet land or 5 acres of dry land for cultivation for a tribal HH. (Govt of India, Report of the Committee on Special Multipurpose Tribal

Blocks, 1960, pp.45-46) However, after 40 years the Bondo highlanders have an average of only 1.09 acres of settled land per HH and the Lanjia Saoras, 1.74 acres (Bonda Development Agency: Baseline Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th five-year Action Plan for 2002-03 to 2006-07, March 2002, p.66; Lanjia Saora Development Agency: Baseline Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th five-year Action Plan for 2002-03 to 2006-07, March 2002, abstract). Except in a few cases, where terrain conditions are favourable or other facilities exist, the situation is more or less the same in all other areas dominated by hill tribes. Besides land scarcity, economic pressure caused due to exactions by local shylocks plays such an important role in facilitating shifting cultivation that Elwin suggested to the Orissa Government, for certain areas of southern Orissa, even to buy the Patro temporarily for a lump sum so that he could remit all dues payable(by the hill-men) to him and his agent for five years. This would result, Elwin expected, in a significant decrease in the pressure from the Patro who would no more disturb the Saoras for his dues and would not incite them to cut forests. Once free from the land rent payable to the Patro, the Saoras would not like to cultivate the hill slopes so widely (Elwin V., Supplement to 'A Brief Survey of the Aboriginal Tribes of the Districts of Ganjam and Koraput', p.3, 1947). The Government first abolished most of the mamools(payments in kind which were of various types and were a burden on the hill tribes) in 1949 and then abolished all the village offices (beginning from Muthaheads like Patros and their sub-ordinates, etc.) that were the root cause of this mamool system, in 1971(Govt of Orissa, Ganjam District Gazetteer,1995, pp.568-572) relieving thereby the poor tenants of the hill tracts. Prevention of alienation of tribal lands was attempted in British Orissa through the Angul Laws Regulation, 1913. In areas under the Madras Presidency, the Agency Tracts Interests and Land Transfer Act,1917 was in force. The Orissa Scheduled Areas Transfer of Immovable Property(By Scheduled Tribes) Regulation, 1956 and Orissa Land Reforms Act,1960 with its subsequent amendments replaced the concerned provisions of these old Acts and provided for validity of the transfer of the land belonging to any scheduled tribe only if the transfer is made in favour of a scheduled tribe or with previous permission in writing of the Sub-Collector . Accordingly, lands alienated by scheduled tribes have been

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restored to them in a number of cases some updated details of which are furnished below. It may be noted here that these figures, which are by courtesy the Board of Revenue, Orissa, are cumulative32 and data for certain other districts are yet to come(2003):

Under Orissa Scheduled Areas Transfer of Immovable Property(By Scheduled Tribes) Regulation, 1956:

Name of the districts covered

No. of cases decided in favour of scheduled tribes

No. of persons benefited

Extent of land ordered to be restored

Extent of land actually restored

No. of cases dropped

No. of cases rejected

No. of cases in which permission was granted for alienation

Balasore, Mayurbhanj, Koraput, Rayagada, Malkangiri, Nowrangpur, Kalahandi, Ganjam, Gajapati, Phulbani, Keonjhar, Sambalpur and Sundargarh

18292

18721

16675.731 acres

15375.451 acres

7516

8728

9621

Under Orissa Land Reforms Act, 1960:

Total number of cases in which permission has been declared void (for Scheduled Tribes)

Area ordered for restoration

Number of persons benefited

Area actually restored

9063

14804.210 acres

12923

9849. 406 acres

An important provision of the Land Reforms Act is ceiling and disposal of surplus lands. Lands in excess of the ceiling area of any tenant are thus resumed by the government, and some of these surplus lands have been distributed to the land less persons including scheduled tribes. Besides, the govt is planning to allot occupancy rights to the 'encroachers' of forest lands if they belong to scheduled tribes and also if the encroachment has been made before 1980. However, the most important step is going to be what is known as the Hill Slope Survey which will help increase land holding of the hill tribes and will also save them from being booked as 'encroachers' to some extent.

32 The period of the estimation being not available, some confusion is created. For instance, the Roy Burmen Committee reported that by February 1986, 34212.98 acres and 6708.540 acres were actually restored to the tribals under the Regulation of 1956 and Act of 1960 respectively(Govt of India, Report of the Study Group on Land Holding Systems in Tribal Areas, undated, p.28).

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Among the various suggestions which the Commission on Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes received regarding the prevention of shifting cultivation, one was that the hill slopes and steep slopes with a gradient of 450 be kept permanently under afforestation, gentle slopes upto 100 be terraced and in-between shifting cultivation be allowed leaving enough land for the purpose so that the cycle of rotation would not be less than 10 to 12 years (Govt of India, Report of the Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes Commission, Vol.1, 1961, p.147). The Govt of Orissa decided to take up a Hill Slope Survey so as to give occupancy rights to the hill tribes on slopes beyond 100 but upto 300. The Dongar Khasra which has been prepared or is under preparation in the areas of hill tribes, provides details of the lands under their use on the hill slopes. A pilot project of this Survey was taken up in Kashipur (Rayagada district) and its extension to other areas is being planned.33 However, the Planning Commission of India reportedly expressed their dissatisfaction over that fact that eradication of podu cultivation through the provision of suitable alternatives had been often implemented more on pen & paper than in the field.The Commission found the realities to be far distant from the claims of the implementing agencies(The Samay, 13-5-2004; p.5).This indicates how sincere the authorities have been to implement this programme.

_____________________________

33 On 10th April 1992 the letter issued to the Project Director, Orissa Tribal Development Agency, Kashipur by the Director of Tribal Welfare Department, Govt of Orissa said, "Revenue Department should issue instructions to record royati rights on land within 300 slope. Permanent patta should be given beyond 300 slope with usufructory rights. This norm should also be extended to other tribal areas." It may be mentioned here the Soil Conservation Department has planted Cashew trees on hill slopes in many areas and the landless local poor have been distributed such plantation areas for the sustenance of their livelihood only with usufructory rights, i.e., they have no occupancy rights over such lands but have a right to collect and sell Cashew in their respective plots.

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Vulnerable Livelihood and Shifting Cultivation: A Case Study in Bhuyan-Juang Pirh

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Introducing the district ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Keonjhar or Kendujhar is a district in the northern part of Orissa. It lies between 21º 1´ N and 22º 10´ N latitude and 85 º 11´ E & 86º 22´ E longitude. This district is very interesting from both the geological and anthropological point of view because one of the oldest rocks of the world is found here (Govt of Orissa, Kendujhar District Gazetteer,1886, pp. 1,2) and also found are some primitive tribes like the Juangas. Besides, extensive deposits of minerals resources like iron- and manganese ores have also made this district quite an important one in the resource map of Orissa and India. Traditionally, Keonjhar has been divided into two major divisions, viz. Upper Keonjhar and Lower Keonjhar. Upper Keonjhar represents the highland country while Lower Keonjhar is a region of valleys and low lands. Forests are concentrated mostly in the former portion. History: Keonjhar did not exist as a separate state atleast before 12th century AD. The most authentic account of its creation is based on an oral tradition of the local Bhuyan tribe which says that the region originally formed a part of a country known as Khijjinga Mandala. The tribes of this region faced great hardship to have access to the headquarters of the King because they had to travel through a perilous hill-forest path for this purpose so as to obtain justice from the ruler. Hence, they invited a boy from the ruling family to take charge as the independent ruler of their own region (Hunter W., Orissa, Vol. II, Appendix, p.86, 1872). Since then the Bhuyans have been playing a very active role during the coronation ceremony of each of the Keonjhar rulers. In 1803, the British conquered Orissa and the feudatory chiefs had to enter into treaty engagements with them. The King of Keonjhar signed this treaty in 1804. Subsequently, the state remained under the direct administration of a British agent whenever the state was under Court of Wards (i.e., the successor was a minor). Raja Balabhadra Narayan Bhanja, who was installed as the King in 1929, was the last ruler of the state. He, like many of his contemporary rulers, merged Keonjhar with the parent province of Orissa on 1st January, 1948 following the independence of India in August 1947. After merger, the feudatory state was converted into a district of Orissa. Geographical area: Total area of the ex-state of Keonjhar was 8018.64 sq. km.(as in 1929) whereas that of the present district is 8240 sq. km.. Although there has been no major territorial change after merger of the ex-State, the difference in the figures can be attributed rather to accuracy/inaccuracy of the calculation. Obviously, the latest figure, which has been supplied by the Survey of India, seems to be more correct (Govt of Orissa, Kendujhar District Gazetteer, pp.2, 27).

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Demography: As per the census of 2001, the population of this district is 1561990, of which that of scheduled caste and scheduled tribes are 11.6% and 44.5% respectively. Non-aboriginal classes belonging to both higher and lower castes of Hinduism have been dominant in the Lower Keonjhar region whereas aboriginals have a majority in the Upper Keonjhar region. The contrast is basically due to two reasons as under:

• Non-aboriginals find the malarious climate and the difficult terrain of Upper Keonjhar extremely uncomfortable whereas the aboriginals are accustomed to the same.

• Access for outsiders is easier in Lower Keonjhar area than in the Upper region. However, few exceptions were there, particularly in case of the non-aboriginal Gaudas(milk-men). These Gaudas have been residing in significant numbers both in Upper – as well as Lower Keonjhar areas. As per their custom, they are neither dependent on agriculture nor on forest directly since milk is the core item of their business. However, some of them chose to adopt the highland forest region particularly because of the availability of grazing materials for their buffaloes & cows in this area and in course of time, preferred settled cultivation as their primary occupation.

Forests and other natural resources: Tropical moist deciduous and Tropical semi-evergreen forests are found in the district. Some of the common flora are Shorea robusta, Terminalia tomentossa, Bauhinia vahlii and Mesua ferrea, etc. and among the ‘common’ wild life leopards, elephants, deers, monkeys, etc.. Other natural resources include major rivers like Baitarani and Aradei. The soil quality varies according to the topography, and while red lateritic soil is common in the highland area the Lower Keonjhar region has alluvial loamy soil. This creates a major difference in the pattern of agricultural land use in the two divisions. As said earleir, the district is rich in economic minerals. Iron ore and manganese mines are operating here since many decades on an extensive scale. Exploitation of natural resources: Forest was the first major resource detected as being unsustainably exploited. As early as 1870, Captain Johnstone, the British agent in Keonjhar pointed out that the Keonjhar forests were being damaged due to three reasons as under:

• Ringing trees for the sake of resin • Shifting cultivation • Forest fire.

The royal administration introduced some restrictions in forest use by 1890s which were basically aimed at preventing the indiscriminate felling of kamasara (valuable or first grade) timber.

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By 1901-02, 51.67% of the State was under forests which got reduced to 24.4% in 1930 (Kendujhar District Gazetteer, p. 28) as per legal status. The 2001 assessment based on satellite data shows that 40.68% of the district is under forest cover(Forest Survey of India, State of Forest Report 2001, Table 6.21). The result of heavy forest destruction is that the mouth of Baitarani, the largest river of the district which originated in the Gonasika hills of Juanga Pirh, is getting buried thus increasing the risk of flood in the Lower region. Also, ground water level is decreasing considerably. Another major problem is mining which is mostly confined to the Upper region. Extensive mining has caused environmental degradation in the following ways:

• Destruction of forests (almost all the mines being of open cast type) • Degradation of soil quality • Pollution of land and water • Damaging the ground water system.

Area under reserve forests:

Year % of the state/district area under RFs

1929 23.2

1945-46 14.25

1959 22.04

1984 22.20

2002 22.33

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Overview of the focus area ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Bhuyan-Juang Pirh is a mountainous country with two broad divisions: the Bhuyan Pirh that is to the west and north-west of the Keonjhar town; and the Juang Pirh that is to the south of the town. Total area of this country is 456 sq. miles i.e., 1181.34 sq. km.. Pirh is an English version of the original term Pidha which, according to Pandit Madan Mohan Mishra, has been derived from the Sanskrit word Pitha. Pitha means abode and the Bhuyan –Juang Pidha is the abode of these hill tribes. Although some Bhuyans and Juangas are also found in other places, but this area is supposed to be their major as well as ancient place of concentration. Geographical location of these two Pirhs is given in the following table34:

Name of the division

Latitude

Longitude

Bhuyan Pirh

21.29 ' to 21.51' N 85.15' to 85.38' E

Juang Pirh

21.25' to 21.30 ' N

80.20' to 80.25' E

There are 165 villages in these two Pirhs which were traditionally known under many individual names varying from place to place. Thus, Kathua Pirh was a group of villages in the Juang area whereas Charigad Pirh was another group of villages in the Bhuyan areas. Though both the Pirhs overlap in some areas, the Bhuyan Pirh covers more than 70% of the total area and hence the whole Bhuyan-Juang Pirh is often known simply as the Bhuyan Pirh. There are some villages where both the tribes reside. About the people: The Bhuyans are dominant in the Bhuyan Pirh while the Juangs are in the Juang Pirh. However, some other tribes like Mundas and Kolhas, some Harijans(scheduled caste), some Gaudas(other back ward class) as well as few general caste people also reside as their co-villagers among whom the Gaudas have a distinguished relationship with them. Elwin distinguished three categories of tribals, two of which are the real tribals as evident from their culture and practices and the third one being those who are tribals only in name since they have abandoned almost all the traditional tribal practices. The Bhuyans and the Juangs are the real tribals in that sense, but to follow Elwin they can be still distinguished according to the following criteria35:

34 The latlong figures may need slight updation. 35 It must be noted here that Elwin neither said that these apply to all Jaungs & Bhuyans nor did he say that the Bhuyans had lost their tradition of communal life completely. What he suggested was on the basis of the general trend seem among these people and he never forgot to mention that the Bhuyans still retained something of the past in the form of village dormitaries.

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Juangs

Bhuyans

• Members live a largely

communal life. All the houses built in a single enclosure open to one another.

• Economically they share with each other. Land revenue is paid by the village and not by individuals.

• For them, axe-cultivation is more than a form of agriculture; it is a way of life. They can't visualise their life without it.

• Their village life has become

individualistic, each house built in a separate compound.

• They no longer(or hardly) share things with one another. Spirit of competition has entered, and rich & poor are distinguished.

• Axe-cultivation is more a habit than a part of their life. Its customs are no longer clear and mandatory.

• They are more accustomed to outside life.

( Source: Elwin V., The Aboriginals, 1943, pp.8-10)

The Bhuyans are comparatively stronger physically than the Juangs. A legend tells that the Bhuyans were born of the elder sister while the Juangs of the younger sister, and although they share the same geographical region, the Bhuyans, like other castes, treated the Juangs as untouchables probably because the latter used to eat almost whatever was available to them, including the most dreaded beef. The Bhuyans are more conscious of their rights, and revolted a number of times when they found their rights violated. On the other hand, the Juangs remained a submissive race and are never known to dare fight for their rights with the administrators. They are simple, hospitable and receptive; more conservative and inward looking (Govt of Orissa, SC ST Research & Training Institute, Development Handbook for the Juang of Juang Development Agency, 1991-92, p.2). The Bhuyans speak Oriya and have adopted the local Hindu culture more extensively than the Juangs who, though speak Oriya, have a dialect of their own. Till recently, the latter were considered to be a semi-nomadic race unlike the Bhuyans. There are more than 12 sub-divisions among the Bhuyans. The hill dwellers are usually called Pauri Bhuyans while those claiming a royal connection are known as the Rajkauli Bhuyans. The plain dwellers are usually known as Rautali Bhuyans. (Roy Sarat Chandra, The Hill Bhuiyas of Orissa, 1921, pp.28-29). The Juangs distinguish themselves as either Thaniya or Bhagudia. Thaniya implies to those who stick to their original homeland in and around the Gonasika hill in the Juang Pirh of Keonjhar while Bhagudia means those who have migrated from there to other areas like Pal-Lahra. Each group considers itself to be the superior one and as such, they do not line with each other nor do they intermarry(Bose N.K., Juang Associations, Man in India, Vol.IX, 1929).

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Rights, privileges and concessions enjoyed: The Bhuyans and Juangs enjoyed almost unfettered rights over their resources in their area(Pirh). When prohibitory orders for felling valuable timber were implemented in other parts of the ex-state during the initial phases of forest conservancy in late 19th century, the Bhuyan-Juang Pirh was exempted from its operation owing to the livelihood concerns of the people there (Settlement Report of Keonjhar State for 1305 Amli Year,1964 reprint, p.82). While unrestricted toila cultivation was allowed to them, the contractors working in the Bhuyan areas were asked during 1930s to must employ them so that these people could find an alternate source of livelihood to depend on and hence refrain themselves from the practice of toila to some extent.The Bhuyans and Juangs used to bring Sal logs and firewood for sale in the headquarters at Keonjhar, and to regulate such supply without troubling these people, the Forest Department of the ex-state opened a special depot at Keonjhar where the Bhuyans and Juangs were asked to sell their timber to the tenants of the state. While outsiders were required to pay full royalty to the state on such timber purchased by them, the local people were required to pay one-third of this royalty (per. comm. Natabara Chakra). This depot is said to have been closed some years after merger, but the Bhuyans and Juangs still continue bringing the timber to the town. Topography: From the plains, the whole Pirh would appear as a hilly country; but actually there are plain lands as well as gently sloping lands inbetween the hills, and as one moves from Suakati towards Upar Jagar, extensive plains are seen below. Similarly, many hill tops that first appear as sharp peaks actually turn into flat tablelands as one can find while moving from Hatisila towards Gonasika. This Pirh is the catchment area for Baitarani, the most important river of the district. Climate and rainfall: The climate is subtropical monsoon type. Average rainfall is 1712.40 mm as per the Baseline Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th Five Year Action Plan Report (p.1) compiled by the SC ST Research and Training Institute for the Juang Development Agency in March 2003, but Saradindu Bose found this figure to be 1534.5 mm during his study in 1961-62(Carrying Capacity of Land Under Shifting Cultivation, p.91). Soil characteristics: Except for the low hills in the western fringes of the Bhuyan Pirh where sandstones and conglomerates are more common, the predominant rock of the area is quartzite which assumes a specific form in association with the ore of iron as Banded Hematite Quartzite(BHQ) in the areas rich in iron ore. Sills of epidiorite are widespread and contribute to the availability of good agricultural soil (Revised Working Plan for the Reserve Forests of Keonjhar: 1969-70 to 1988-89, para 850). Flat tops usually have black soil too shallow for successful cultivation. The hill slopes also have a thin cover of soil that is mostly lateritic and red. Under a good cover of forest, these slopes are usually rich in organic materials like plant leaves, etc. that are washed down during

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the rains and as such, materials are deposited in the depressions and valley bottoms, and the soil therein is more richer than that of the slopes (Bose S., Carrying Capacity of Land Under Shifting Cultivation, undated, p. 89; Govt of Orissa, Settlement Report of Keonjhar State for 1305 Amli Year,1964 reprint, p.21) Food habit: Boiled rice(bhato) is the staple food supplemented by dali (prepared from pulses) and vegetables/curry. Millets like mandia(Eleusine coracana) are sometimes used to prepare cakes (pitha). Oil seeds like sorisho(Brassica campestris) and rassi(Sesamum indicum) are usually for sale and oil to be used for cooking is prepared from the seeds of mahul(Madhuka indica). Among the fruits, mango, jackfruit and kendu(Diospyros exsculpta) are important. Forest tubers also assume an important share in their dietary particularly during the lean seasons and pitaalu(Dioscorea wallichii) is common among them. Meat and fish are also preferred. Agricultural calendar and land development: Saradindu Bose has given the following agricultural calendar for the Juangs that is more or less applicable in the Bhuyan areas:

• Sowing:

May (upland paddy, maize, biri, rassi)

August June (mustard) (wet land paddy

and millets like gangei and mandia)

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• Harvesting: (based on Bose S., Carrying Capacity of Land Under Shifting Cultivation, table-35, pp.103-04) The farming is usually organic and cow dung manure is applied to bila- and badi land, while goda and toila land are not cared of so much partly because the cow dung produced is not sufficient enough and partly due to preference to the wet land cultivation. However, chemical fertilizers have been introduced to such areas by govt agencies and their use has been reported as in Adala village. Agricultural production: Oil seeds like sorisho (mustard) and rassi have been the major cash crops of this area since centuries and people from the plains purchase the same. Paddy and millets etc. are not produced in surplus quantity and are usually consumed at domestic level in most part whereas these oil seeds are meant for sale. Wet land cultivation is much limited in area and production due to scarcity of good agricultural lands and inadequate manure potential. Paddy thus produced is mostly of the upland variety which is of comparatively inferior quality. However, the production of maize and millets is not affected to such an extent. The hill slopes rich in plant debris facilitate the production of oil seeds. A notable produce of the area is pejua(scummy) biri which is a special variety of biri(Vigna mungo) very much

January August (rassi and mustard) (maize and fast-

growing upland rice)

December November (wet land rice, (toila paddy, mandia and gangei (Melastoma malabathricum) biri)

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suitable for the production of badi(dried nodules of biri-paste) for which Keonjhar town is famous. Land tenure system: There existed diverse types of land tenures in the Keonjhar ex-state like Niskar Lakhiraj (rent free tenures granted to temples, Brahmins, service holders, relations of the ruler, etc.), Tanki Lakhiraj(paying quit rent), Zamindari and Ryoti, etc. but in Bhuyan-Juang Pirh the system was fairly simple and the following tenures existed:

• Ryoti • Dehuri jagir (lands granted to tribal priests) • Devottar(endowments granted to Hindu temples)).

There were very few Dehuri jagirs and these did not cover any significant land area. Similarly, Devottar tenures were also very few like that of Sri Pateswar Mahesh at Suakati (Bhuyan Pirh) and Sri Brahmeswar of Gonasika(Juang Pirh). All these tenures were recognised during the survey & settlement operations. Sri Pateswar Mahesh, the deity of Suakati, has about 8 acres of paddy land in his name. He also has about 20 she-buffaloes which are kept by Gauda servants known as gothia.The gothias keep the buffaloes at two places viz., Suakati and Upar Kainpur where good grazing area is available, and supply to the temple some milk & milk products(of a small quantity) during certain festive occasions of the year, and enjoy the surplus milk themselves. The agricultural lands are cultivated by bhaga-chasis who take a share of the harvest as their remuneration. A person designated formerly as Bissoi and now as Koth Tahsildar supervises the maintenance of these properties of the temple and gets Rs.165/month as remuneration from the Devottar Department of the govt..(per comm. Sudarshan Barik and others, Suakati) Similarly, the Juangs had been asked to supply firewood to the temple of Sri Brahmeswar during the premerger days (Mishra Pandit Madan Mohan, Kendujharara Paramparika Vananiti, unpublished note prepared for Vasundhara in 1999). However, the most important land tenure was what the Bhuyans and Juangs themselves 'created' without any formal recognition of the same by the ruler. The guide book published by the Board of Revenue of Orissa for carrying out survey and settlement operations categorically says that since there was no system of sikim(sub-tenant) tenancy rights in this area, hence no such right will be recognised during the settlement operations(Bhuyan O Juanga Pidha Paain Atirikta Khanapuri Niyamabali, p.13); but this was true only in case of a formal system and hence a major aspect of the land revenue administration in Bhuyan-Juang Pirh, that existed in an informal manner, was lost sight of. The sub-tenant system did exist in this area because the Bhuyans and Juangs considered themselves to be autochthonous in their respective Pirhs, and hence all other people who used their village/territory land were regarded as sub-tenants by them. Accordingly, the Bhuyans and Juangs realised a rent mostly in kind in their respective areas. The produce to be realised as rent usually consisted of milk & milk products which were realised from the Gauda in lieu of the permission granted to them for grazing their cattle and of paddy and/or rice from the Gaudas and all others who cultivated some land in this area. The amount/quantity varied from village to village and also from year to year in some cases on the basis of the following:

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• Extent of the land cultivated by outsiders. • Number of cattle possessed (in case of Gaudas). • Quantity harvested.

If the outsider was invited to use the land, then he was supposed to pay less than what he should pay in case he approached the Bhuyans/Juangs for permission. Usually, maximum rent was realised who practised both agriculture and dairy farming.

The landlord Bhuyans and their tenant Gaudas of Suakati Suakati is a village only few kilometres away from the Keonjhar town, and is situated by the side of NH6. There are three hamlets viz., Bhuyan sahi, Gauda sahi and Munda sahi. Needless to say, the Bhuyans dominate here and treat other villagers as their tenants. The rent they used to realise from the Gaudas of their village was as under:

• Tax imposed on the occasion of mundabhiza parba: This parba literally implies to the festival of drenched heads and is celebrated in winter (magha).For this celebration, the Gaudas were required to supply paddy the quantity of which varied from 5 kg to 30 kg per HH according to the size & capacity of the HHs. In addition to that, those having herds of buffalo were to supply, per HH, all the milk collected in a day, curd of all the milk collected in another day and cheese of a day's collection(milk). The Gaudas had to take oath that they would not keep with them even the slightest amount of these productions.

• Kilakata ghee: This was charged annually against the facility provided to keep herds in a fixed place. The rate was 1 man (approx. 600 grams) per HH.

In addition to the above, they collected milk and milk products from the Gaudas as per their requirement during other occasions and if anybody tried to cheat them in supplying the required quantity, then he was humiliated and might even beaten up. After the last settlement operations, the Bhuyans are no more in a position to confidently demand from Gaudas what they used to do earlier since the latter are now recognised by the govt as tenants of the village with equal rights(except for those applicable for scheduled tribes), but at the same time the Gaudas can not totally ignore the earlier relationship that was symbiotic, and hence still provide some milk and milk products to the Bhuyans when they ask for that. Fruits of tamarind and mango trees on communal lands are enjoyed by all, but more than half of the number of jackfruit trees on abandoned private plots, that are known as gaunria gachha, are seized by the Bhuyans .

(per comm. Rakshakar Barik and others, Suakati)

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Land revenue: Before 1868 the Bhuyans and Juangs only paid tributes to the Raja and rendered free service to him whenever required. Captain Jhonstone, the then British agent in charge of Keonjhar, found this system caused great harassment to these people as the King's demand from them had no limits. Hence, he introduced fixed rents for these areas so that people would be able to commute their customary services and tributes (Govt of Orissa, Kendujhar District Gazetteer, 1986,p.266) . Agriculturist Bhuyans were now required to pay a tax charged on the number of plough possessed by them while non-agriculturists had to pay a house/poll tax. In addition to that, a school cess was also to be paid. However, in the Juang area a different system was adopted and the villages were asked only to pay a produce rent keeping in view their miserable conditions and communal life. There was no Record of Rights for the tenants and some villages in the Bhuyan areas where the village headman possessed only the ekpadia or rent roll enlisting the names of tenants and the amount to be paid by them. Hence, there was no assessment on the basis of the area under cultivation. However, in actual practice the Bhuyans and Juangs still continued or rather forced to do free service to the state on various occasions. For instance, the Bhuyans were liable to supply timber for furniture work in the palace, thick ropes made of grass, and a sal log of specified size during the Indaparva festival, and to construct a great leaf wall at the state headquarters using sal leaves, sal timber and siali(Bauhinia vahlii) ropes during the Dussehra festivals, etc. Similarly, the Juangs were liable to supply broom grass and honey etc. to the palace, to thatch the state buildings and to supply two thick Siali ropes for the Car festival, etc.. ( Aspects of Garjat Forestry, p.143). While in the Bhuyan villages the tax was imposed on the basis of individual capacity, produce rent in the Juang Pirh was based on a standard enumeration of the village community i.e., for villages having HHs numbering 20 or more, the tax was fixed at Rs.66.25 while for those having less than 20 HHs the rent was Rs.45 (Bhuyan O Juanga Pidha Paain Atirikta Khanapuri Niyamabali, p.4); but as Saradindu Bose found in 1961, the ground reality differed in some cases. The old system of land revenue collection continued in the area till 1st April, 1967 when it was suspended temporarily (Kendujhar District Gazetteer, 1986, p.271) and was finally replaced with that(in which there is no middlemen or commission agent and rent is assessed on the basis of quality & area of the land) adopted for other parts of Orissa after the settlement operations. Land revenue and other levies were collected from the people through their village headmen known as Padhans who enjoyed some service land on payment of a rent at concessional rate. The Padhans worked under the supervision of a Sardar and both were entitled for a commission from the land revenue collected All these systems were relinquished after the settlement of 1965-85.

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Interesting information was shared with us by some villagers of Adala who said that the old people of their village told them about the prevalence of a tax known as tangiya kar (i.e. the axe tax). However, no such tax was formally introduced and it is not known if the system was an essentially local one. Forests: The whole Bhuyan-Juang Pirh was considered as an Undemarcated Protected Forest not only due to lack of proper survey & settlement, but also because attempts to create Reserve Forests in this area failed a number of times: " Blocks like Gandhamardan, Sapalianta, Taramakanta, Khandadhar, and several other blocks were demarcated for reservation on various occasions during premerger and postmerger periods but these were lost sight of36 and could not be reserved due to political pressure and vested interests particularly Mahajans who are interested in shifting cultivation for their selfish gains. Hesitation to take legal action against the tribal people, not conforming to the rules and regulations, contributed to the failure of reserving these blocks." (Govt of Orissa, Forest Department, Revised Working Plan for the Reserve Forests of Keonjhar: 1969-70 to 1988-89, para 855). The Bhuyans and Juangs practised unrestricted podu during the post-merger years as during the premerger days. The Forest Department very cautiously handled this area so as to avoid any kind of repulsive action on the part of the locals. As such, while in all other forest areas

36 Natabara Chakra, who joined the Keonjhar State Forest Department in 1946 as a forester and now(2003) resides in Keonjhar town after his retirement, confidently says that by 1949 Taramakanta was already known as a B-class Reserve Forest (per comm.). However, as his colleague Maheswar Patra points out, there was no mention of any such RF of the Bhuyan Pirh area in the Working Plans(per comm.) thus suggesting that probably the process initiated to reserve these blocks could not be finalised. This is further supported by a statement in the

A cautious approach for reservation of forests in the Bhuyan-juang Pirh

While stressing on the fact that the forests of this area needed adequate protection, the Revised Working Plan for the Reserve Forests of Keonjhar: 1969-70 to 1988-89 also said that it would not be wise to go for wholesale reservation of a particular block because that would mean displacing people of their livelihood in a particular area. Hence, it prescribed that rather the upper part of the hills be reserved so that on lower slopes shifting cultivation could be practised (para 856).

The Mahajans' interest

The Mahajans are professional money-lenders who mostly belong to the Teli caste and have earned a bad name for their exploitive interest rates. These people from whom the Bhuyans and Juangs take loan (or, advance in the form of rice or money), know that without using the maximum potential of toila cultivation(particularly, oil seeds), the poor tribals would not be able to repay the loans. Secondly, failure in repayment often leads toseizure of crops by the Mahajans who, taking advantage of the situation, bargain enough to price the harvest at a much lower rate so as to get maximum benefit from that by selling the same in the plains. (per comm., Nirmal Kabi, retired official, Juang Development Authority).

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of the district the MFP units were sold for annual collection, in the Bhuyan-Juang Pirh the collection was made through centres operating under TDCC and LAMP, which were govt agencies created to secure a fair price to the primary collectors of MFPs in tribal areas. These centres however are now in a defunct state due to a number of reasons. Survey & settlement operations during 1965-85 helped demarcate forest blocks clearly and a number of these DPFs(Demarcated Protected Forests) were then proposed to be declared as Reserve Forests. One such PRF(proposed reserve forest) is the Gandhamardan hill forest where mining is taking place. However, with proposals for all other blocks(more than 18 in number) still pending with the govt awaiting final notification, only one i.e., the Saharpur block(proposed area: 834.75 hectares) has been declared as a Reserve Forest very recently, i.e., in March 2003. The forests of this area, which are Sal(grade III) dominant, have been considered of low value having consisted of saplings & pole stocks and in some cases, even reduced to scrubby growth due to shifting cultivation. Being a most tract the area can sustain good forest but not a superior one due to shallow soils(Revised Working Plan for the Reserve Forests of Keonjhar: 1969-70 to 1988-89, paras 851 and 852)) . But the potential value is still high and as one travels through the Bhuyan Pirh, scattered patches of regenerated Sal forests are met with not infrequently though in the Juang Pirh the situation is rather discouraging in many areas like Jantari and Kadalibadi etc.with very few patches of forest growth on hill tops in comparison with extensive tracts of weeds and toila lands. The Bhuyans and the Juangs were never required to pay a formal nistar(forest) cess that is charged against collection of timber, bamboo and MFPs from the forests for bonafide purposes. Minor forest produce: The MFPs of the area that have importance in the livelihood of the people include fruits like tamarind and myrobalans; seeds of char(Buchanania lanzan), mahul, sal and kusum; flowers of mahul, leaves of kendu, sal and siali(B. vahlii); tubers like pitaalu; thatch grass (daba); broom grass; sabai(Eulaliopsia binata) grass; tassar; tree(bahada and girdhini) gums; bark of khandakhai(Litsea glutinosa?) etc.. Some lac and arrowroot was earlier produced but are no more reportedly collected. (Development Handbook for the Juang of Juang Development Agency, 1991-92, p.72; Maheswar Patra, per. comm.; Hadibandu Pradhan, per. comm.). Shifting cultivation: Usually the whole area of Bhuyan -Juang Pirh was considered to be under shifting cultivation since there was no control over it in this area. However, after land survey and assessments made by the Juang Development Agency, a more accurate picture has emerged particularly for the Juang Pirh. The Bhuyans and the Juangs practice the same method of shifting cultivation which is of two types, as described below: Working Plan prepared by B. Lal(1944-45) which just cites the example of reservation of Bhuyan Pirh as a remarkable progress achieved by the Keonjhar State Forest Department.

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• Goda/Gora: This upland cultivation is practised on the lower slopes and comparatively level lands, and usually occurs at a higher level than the wet lands and at a lower level than the toila/kamana lands. Such a land is first cultivated for two years. After allowed rest for three years it is cultivated again for another two years and then is abandoned for about 15 years.

The land is ploughed after clearing and burning the saplings, bushes and undergrowths etc. in April.

• Toila or jhuming: This is usually practised for higher slopes and no ploughing takes place. After two years of cultivation, the land is abandoned for 15 years. (Revised Working Plan for the Reserve Forests of Keonjhar: 1969-70 to 1988-89, paras 190-91)

However, the above two descriptions seem to be that of some past practices because abandoning lands for 15 years is hardly possible for the people now and many of the so-called Toila lands are also ploughed though Goda lands are still distinguished from Toilas. Ploughing is done to the maximum possible height if the surface is not rocky or bouldery. Rocky slopes need hoeing. For the men of plains, it is almost impossible to think of ploughing such steep slopes, but the hill men take it easily though the job is no doubt a tough one. Settled cultivation in the hill slopes is not possible as the slopes can not retain water unless terraces are made and bundhs are constructed. Terracing is usually not practised in this area unlike some other parts of Orissa. Fertility of the soil on slopes is reduced to its minimum after two or three successive years of cultivation and hence the fields are to be abandoned for some years till it(fertility) increases. Fire is a major damaging factor in all types of burn-and-slash cultivation, but depending on the method adopted next for growing crops the impact of shifting cultivation on the environment varies. For instance, the Maria or Baiga tribals do not plough the fields and just sow the seeds in the ashes or at best dibble a little for their pulses shifting cultivation in this area has been severely criticised, but the Bhuyans/Juangs practise a more harmful method because by ploughing the ground or digging it with hoe the risk of soil erosion greatly increases and recovery of forest is also delayed. Again, they leave large number of trees standing which they deliberately kill either by girdling or by heaping combustible matter around them. Such trees are first used as bean -stalks and are later sold for firewood or building. Even in case of Gora cultivation, the area recolonises extremely slowly on account of lack of seed trees and adverse soil conditions (Elwin V., Notes on the Juang, Man in India, 1948, vol.28, pp.50-51 and Revised Working Plan for the Reserve Forests of Keonjhar: 1969-70 to 1988-89, para 190). Previously when the customs were strictly adhered to in context of shifting cultivation, the impact on environment was negligible. These customs compensated the negative impacts of the methodology adopted in various ways. For instance, a Juang rule says that unless the new trees become as thick as the pillars in the Darbar37 , they would not be considered ready for

37 usually the term implies to the King's court room or hall of audience but the Juangs also call their village dormitory as Darbar.

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felling (Elwin, Notes on the Juang, p.51). However, with increasing population the pressure on the available areas has increased to such an extent that the people have no other choice but to ignore these customs. As a result, toila lands were earlier cultivated on a rotation of 22 years (Bose Saradindu, Land Use Survey in a Juang Village, Man in India, July-Sept. 1961; p.174) which has now been reduced to as low as 5 years in some cases. What we get now are the simultaneous effects of good and bad practices. On one hand, the destruction of forest and erosion of soil has caused increase in the frequency as well as intensity of the floods in river Baitarani thus damaging life and cultivation on a more extensive scale in the lower parts of Keonjhar as well as in the coastal districts through which it flows and on the other hand, extensive areas of well-stocked even-aged Sal crops have been created as seen in the Rebena and Kalapat areas (Revised Working Plan for the Reserve Forests of Keonjhar: 1969-70 to 1988-89, paras 192 and 841). Impact shifting cultivation on flora and fauna: The flora and fauna of the Bhuyan-Juang Pirh have been affected variously due to loss of forests. The impacts of deforestation can be categorised as under:

• General: Invasive weeds have taken over some parts of the deforested areas as one can see near on the way from Hatisila to Kadalibadi. These weeds do not allow regeneration of forest crops. Similarly, mature timber trees have become scarce and wild life has been reduced drastically.

Shifting cultivation and/or overexploitation has also reduced the availability of forest tubers (as we were told at Kadalibadi38), bamboo and daba ghas (per. comm., villagers of Gonasika). Similarly, among the wild life bison and tiger etc. are almost out of sight and in villages like Upar Jagar wild elephants create havoc as their forest habitat has been extensively destroyed by mining activities.

• Species-specific: Impacts on individual species are due to two reasons: insecure livelihood and negligence of the Forest Department. So far the first one is concerned, population of a plant species locally known as khandakhai (most probably Litsea monopetala and/or Litsea glutinosa) has been drastically reduced due to overexploitation of its bark for commercial purposes.

Coming to the second reason, the Forest Department has neither identified the threat status of the flora and fauna nor has tried to spread awareness about such species for their protection. An example is that of Gnetum scandense, a plant species that is met with only 'occasionally' and hence is of botanical interest in the area. Maheswar Patra, a retired forest officer, was delighted to notice only one such plant in this area at Gonasika sometime in 1980s but during a second visit two years ago, he found the plant existing no more. He admits that he never made an attempt to make the local people aware of the botanical significant of this plant in their area (personal communication).

38 The villagers said there is hardly any pitaalu left in the nearby hill forests after the wild boars take their share.

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Survey and settlement: Almost the whole area(Bhuyan-Juang Pirh) remained unsurveyed till 1960s when the Revenue Department of Orissa decided to carry out proper survey and settlement operations there. The results were finally published in mid-'80s. This settlement had both positive and negative impacts on the local people as decribed below:

• Positive impact: The benefits of this settlement are as under:

1. Loans can now be available to the tribals since they possess legal documents of their land ownership.

2. Shifting of houses and cultivation sites to distant areas has now been reduced since people do not want to carelessly leave the homestead lands and paddy fields over which their ownership is now recognised, in fear of loosing the same to others (Development Handbook for the Juang of Juang Development Agency, 1991-92, p.14).

3. Proper survey has in a way facilitated distribution of land to the landless by

the govt from the area under its possession. 4. The whole area, particularly the Juang Pirh, was previously taxed unevenly in the absence of proper demarcation of village boundary and right assessment of agricultural lands/homesteads which has now been corrected. Thus, Kadalibadi, an extremely poor Juang village earlier paid Rs.68/year in comparison to Raidiha, another Juang village with almost double the area & population and better financial capacity, that paid Rs.47 (Bose Saradindu, Land Use Survey in a Juang Village, Man in India, July-Sept. 1961; pp.182- 183); but after settlement the total rent assessment of Kadalibadi has been reduced to Rs.45.10 (Source: Record of Rights, Kadalibadi).

• Negative impact:

1. The major disadvantage of the settlement is that the rights of the Bhuyans and Juangs over the land in their respective areas of dominance has been curtailed significantly with most part of the area being recorded in the name of the government. As observed by Justice D.M.Sen, a member of the ‘Study Group on Land Holding Systems in Tribal Areas’ that was constituted by the Govt of India in 1985 to enquire into the situation of land alienation and other related problems in tribal areas, this was just unfair:

" We found that after the settlement operations, only such land that was under individual or family occupations was recorded as holdings of members of the two tribes; the rest including all community lands, waste lands and forests were recorded as state property. There was, thus suddenly an erosion of most of their existing rights over the land and forests which they had been enjoying from time immemorial. xxxxxx

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We were told that after the settlement operations land ranging from only 2.48% to 23.5% in the Juang- and Bhuya- areas had been entered in the names of the tribals in the Record of Rights. Such an abridgement of their existing rights over the lands and forests traditionally held by them so far, is pregnant with dangerous consequences. (Govt of India, Planning Commission, Report of the Study Group on Land Holding Systems in Tribal Areas , Annnex. IV)

2. With their former control over the local resources gone, the Bhuyans and Juangs suffered some economic loss because they were no more in a position to firmly demand a rent from others who used their village resources.

3. Recording of lands under their access/cultivation in the name of govt now made them 'encroachers' in their own village. Encroachment cases for revenue lands are settled in lieu of certain fees if the land itself can be legally allowed for reclamation, but for forest lands transferred to the Forest Department it may have more serious implications (see annexure-2).

4. The settlement operation overlooked community ownership over land, and encouraged individual ownership the latter being more prone to intra-village conflicts.

A major contradictory step of the settlement authorities was the arbitrary demarcation of hill slopes. There were clear instructions for leaving the Podu-affected areas out of the purview of survey and the hill slopes were required to be divided across into two parts, the upper portion being reserved for forests and the lower part for gochar (pasture). However, there was no standard criterion specified in the survey-guidelines for demarcation of the boundary between so-called upper- and lower parts of the hills, and hence the measurements thus made were purely based on arbitrary assumptions. Such kind of arbitrary demarcation creates scope for alienation of community rights because increased area under the 'upper portion' at the cost of a decrease in the reasonable area of the 'lower portion' would imply that community access will be variously affected in a large area, particularly when the 'upper portion' is transferred to the Forest Department. The Roy Burmen Committee (officially known as the Study Group on Land Holding Systems in Tribal Areas) therefore found this kind of subjective demarcation of hill slopes quite objectionable particularly because there are some slopes which are too gentle for distinguishing the upper reaches from the lower parts (Report of Study Group on Land Holding Systems in Tribal Areas, p.51) 39. Ownership and classification of land: The Bhuyans and Juangs classify their agricultural lands as follows:

• Bila: wet lands in valley bottoms close to streams where paddy is grown. • Guda: uplands generally situated at foothills where upland paddy(Goda dhan), maize

and minor millets are grown. • Toila: uplands under shifting cultivation. In toila lands, the 1st year's cultivation is

known as bringa or biringa, and pulses & oil seeds are sown this time. Under the 2nd year cultivation, when rice and millets are sown, the land is known as toila or kamana/koman; but usually these names are hardly distinguished now-a-days.

• Nara or Nada: toila lands under third year cultivation where paddy, maize and some vegetables like cucumber are grown.

39 As described in annexure-2, even the lower slopes were not spared in the Kadalibadi village, and a considerable area was transferred to the Forest Department for compensatory plantation.

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• Badi or Bakadi: small lands attached to the houses preferably on the backside where vegetables, maize and mustard etc. are grown. (Carrying Capacity of Land Under Shifting Cultivation, undated, pp.114-115; Development Handbook for the Juang of Juang Development Agency, 1991-92, pp.101-102; Mishra Pandit Madan Mohan, Kendujhara Vana Samparkita Prashnabalira Uttara, unpublished note prepared for Vasundhara in 1999; Elwin, Notes on the Juang, p.51).

Among all these categories only bila and badi lands are owned by individuals and can be inherited, sold or mortgaged. Other lands are regarded as community property which is distributed among the villagers by the village headman. However, as we came to know in Hatisila, a kind of semi-permanent individual ownership is allowed in some cases i.e., the allottee is allowed to get possession of the same plot that was allotted to him before the period of rest (abandonment). In such cases, the individual allottees often demarcate their plot boundaries with stone, etc., but if any of them dies then the community head is to decide about the new possessor. Records of the latest settlement show that some guda and toila lands have been recorded in the name of individuals and in such cases, naturally the community has no legal power to intervene. The toila plots are distributed along the slope and not across of it because distribution across the slope may result in encroachment into the portion coming under the boundary of some other village (per comm., villagers of Hatisila) when the hill slope fails to accommodate some villagers. Plot size depends on the capacity of a family i.e., one is to get as much as he can cultivate/manage himself. Bigger families have more members to afford protection to their plots, hence they get their lands in the more exposed parts whereas small families get theirs in the middle. If in the first year a man gets a poor site, he is likely to get a better one next year. If the crop fails or is damaged by elephants, then next year the allottee is to get the best place (Notes on the Juang, p.53). In the community life of Juangs, the Padhan (village headman) and Dehuri(village priest) lead the villagers for toila cultivation. Plots are distributed on the occasion of magh puni(a winter festival) for which the Padhan takes his sacred axe kept in the village dormitory(mandaghar) and the Dehuri offers prayer. Then they move to the forest. The first tree to be felled ( by the Padhan) is Terminalia tomentosa or Asan. The clearings are first fired with the sacred fire kept in the mandaghar, in the month of Baisakh (April) on an auspicious date selected by the village elders after which ashes are more or less evenly raked. When the ground is cooled, it is either dug over with hoe or ploughed. Seeds that are distributed to individuals by the priest from the Darbar store are sown after the first rains, and unlike in some other tribal areas different seeds are not fixed up for simultaneous sowing. First sown is the pulse muga (Phaseolus radiatus or Vigna radiata).Harvesting takes place on a lucky day (Notes on the Juang,pp.53-54). The plots are usually square-shaped. Pulses grow inside and yellow oil-seeds round the borders. Juar and other millets are put along edges while paddy is sown in long strips down the slopes (Notes on the Juang, p.55). Mango, kendu, mahul, palas and Jackfruit trees are spared during the fellings (Notes on the Juang, p.55). On the other hand, abandoned toila lands are sometimes planted with mango

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and panas (jackfruit), and the fruits collected therefrom are regarded as community property(Kendujhara Vana Samparkita Prashnabalira Uttara). Availability of different types of land: Good agricultural land is differently distributed in different villages of the Bhuyan-Juang Pirh, but overall assessment shows that it has a comparatively smaller area. Following table and the chart based thereon show the availability of different types of land in the Kanjipani area as per the settlement records though it must be remembered that many lands under the use of the tenants were recorded as govt waste:

Varieties of land Area in acres Total area

sarad:1 292.06 sarad:2 1454.79

Wet rice lands (winter crop)

sarad:3 974.29

2721.14

beali (autumn crop i.e. paddy)

130.58 goda (uplands)

do-fasli (double-cropped i.e., paddy and other crops)

0.44

131.02

Class:1 9.68 baje-fasal (agricultural land suitable for growing crops other than paddy)

Class:2 50.9

60.58

Class:1(best) 387.50 toila (land reclaimed from forests) Class:2 (rocky) 802.85

1190.35

Class:1 0.58 jalashay (ponds) Class:2 0.94

1.52

gharabari (homestead)

_____ 219.58 219.58

anyanya (other miscellaneous lands, like ant-hills, brick-kilns, etc.)

_____ 200.17 200.17

Class:1 2.51 bagayat (orchards) Class:2 7.04

9.55

Class:1 3.70 pal (alluvial agricultural lands incapable of growing winter- or autumn crop of paddy )

Class:2 5.21 8.91

bibhagiya(under use of various departments)

6.99 govt lands

anabadi (waste) 9155.68

9162.67

(Source: Sri Madan Mohan Chakra, Keonjhar-Dhenkanal Major Settlement Office, Keonjhar)

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Symbiotic relationship with the Gaudas: Like many other tribals the Bhuyans and Juangs were not in the habit of milking cows since they considered that only the calf had a right to the cow's milk. Moreover, their possession of cattle, particularly cows, was not of any significant extent and whatever they possessed was not capable enough to yield any considerable amount of milk. It was in context of this lacuna that the Gaudas built up a symbiotic relationship with these tribal people. The Gaudas or Goalas are traditional milkmen by profession. They possess herds of buffalo since in difficult terrain conditions these animals sustain themselves better than the cows, and also produce more milk. The Bhuyans/Juangs allowed these people to use their area for grazing as well as cultivation purposes and received in return a rent in kind.

Land varieties in Kanjipani area

2%

1%

9%

2%

1%

66%

19%

Sarad

Goda

Toila

Other agriculturallands

Gharbari

Govt lands

Others

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For the Juangs, the Gaudas meant a lot more. Since the Juangs were long regarded as untouchables, they used the help of Gauda co-villagers to supply drinking water, etc. to the guests revered by them. Being more clever and habituated to the dealings in the outside world, the Gaudas also worked as their liaisoning agents. It is for the above reasons that there is hardly any Bhuyan or Juang village where there is not a single Gauda resident. Land alienation: The Gaudas and other outsiders were given some land by the Bhuyans and Juangs for cultivation purpose for their sustenance in lieu of some rent and as hence these were rented lands. In poor villages particularly in Juang areas, such rents helped the village community pay the land revenue (see Bose S., Carrying Capacity of Land under Shifting Cultivation, undated, p. 112). However, urgent need of cash or paddy forced many of these tribals to mortgage their permanent paddy lands with the Gaudas who were more prosperous than the former. The mortgaging was on the basis of mutual trust and not in writing. The Gaudas originally came in search of pasture land for their herds, but later switched over to agriculture on a priority or at least equal basis:

“Finding agriculture more remunerative than cattle tending, they have expanded the area under cultivation by occupying fertile Juang lands and reclaiming fallow lands available near their settlements in the valley bottoms. Thus started alienation of land from Juang to Gaud hands, and it is increased considerably during the course of time causing great concern and tension in the Juang area." (Development Handbook for the Juang of Juang Development Agency, 1991-92; p.18)

The alienation was possible because of two reasons as under:

• Because of their hospitable nature and symbiotic relationship developed with the Gaudas, the Bhuyans/Juangs hardly like to prevent their Gauda co-villager from expanding his cultivation area.

• Many of the mortgagers were never able to repay the loan taken from the Gaudas and hence lost their land to them.

It is likely that many of the lands thus alienated unofficially were finally recorded in the name of Gaudas during the settlement operations. What is important is that the Gauda is not interested in the toila lands and he can at best accept some Goda land in case his preferred wet lands are not available. Only a few months before merger, the Keonjhar State authority passed an Act known as the Bhuyan and Juangapirh Immigration Act, 1947 which said that immigration of or attempt to immigrate into Bhuyan and Juangapirhs by any people other than a Bhuyan or Juanga would henceforth be unlawful unless under special permission obtained from the ruler. However, it exempted the non-Bhuyans and non-Juangs from its operation who had been residing in the Pirh for the last seven years or over since the promulgation of this Act(Bhuyan O Juanga Pidha Paain Atirikta Khanapuri Niyamabali, pp.36-38). During the survey and settlement

64

operations, this was taken as a criterion for recording lands in the name of non-Bhuyan or non-Juang residents. Dependency on resources: The livelihood dependency of the people on local resources vary from place to place and also from family to family depending on a number of factors like scarcity of wet lands, and availability of toila lands, etc.. Shifting habitation: With a change in the cultivation site to comparatively distant places, the Bhuyans and Juangs also used to change their habitation sites also40. Even the Gaudas distinguish two sites of habitation viz., ghara and gotha. Ghara means the village where they settle down permanently primarily because of their wet paddy land there. On the other hand, gotha literally means cowshed and practically speaking, it is the area where sufficient grazing land is available for their buffalos and they settle there temporarily. This double-habitation system is known as doghara (Kendujhara Vana Samparkita Prashnabalira Uttara). After the recent settlement, shifting of habitation is hardly found among the Bhuyans and Juangs while the Gaudas still practice the doghara system. Forest and stream used to be the criteria for the selection of a site for the establishment of villages. The Bhuyans planted panas trees in the fallow lands of abandoned villages and mango trees near the streams of such villages. The mangoes thus collected are known as jharanasudhi which are regarded as community property and are enjoyed after some rituals (Kendujhara Vana Samparkita Prashnabalira Uttara). Resource utilisation: traditional intelligence: The Bhuyans and Juangs showed some remarkable examples of optimum utilisation of resources as under:

• Thatching substitute: Straw/hay produced from upland cultivation is shorter and less durable than that produced in the wetlands, hence these people used a forest grass locally known as daba to thatch their houses. This grass is quite durable as a thatching material.

• Binding substitute: After harvesting the straws require binding for transportation and wet-land straw itself serves as a good binder, but upland straw can not do in this case. Hence, the locals use the bark of a climber locally known as budhi naha (per comm., Ratani Dei and Sarat Dehuri, Danla)

Date palm leaves are used in mat-weaving. Different crops are grown in a systematic manner so that the plots can be used to their maximum potential. 40 The habitation sites were also changed due to frequent deaths, calamities etc.

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Forest protection by the communities: If an insecure livelihood forced the local tribals cut the forests, then it is for the same reason that they have started protecting forests at some places in the Pirh after realising the danger of increasing scarcity of timber, firewood and MFPs. The Forest Department is said to have facilitated such protection activities in many cases, but the important thing is that these people have decided to afford protection to their local forests. In Suakati village, the forest of the hill locally known as ‘palabania khalo’ is under the protection of the villagers and the Bhuyans do not go there for Podu. We were told by the local Gaudas that the Bhuyans have agreed to join the effort because their requirement of timber(for domestic as well as sale purpose) is fulfilled in another side of the Gandhamardan hill where mining is consuming more and more forests every day. Rationale for selecting the area for case studies: The Bhuyan-Juang Pirh was selected for some case studies because of the following reasons:

• The area is among the Schedule V areas of the country. • It is the domain of two important hill tribes of Orissa/India among which the Bhuyans

are more important from a political perspective than the Juangs who are more important from the anthropological perspective.

• It is the area of Keonjhar district where shifting cultivation is mostly concentrated. • The history and rights regime have been well documented in most part for this area. • The government is working here for the development of these tribals with an

objective to refrain them from doing shifting cultivation. • There have been cases in this area where rights of the people have been violated.

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Situation in the Juang Pirh The Juang villages were also under the operational area of the Special Multipurpose Tribal Development Blocks established in the Bhuyan Pirh in 1950s. However, given the extremely miserable condition of this primitive tribal population of the state, a micro project was started in 1978 under the name of Juang Development Agency with its headquarters at Gonasika. After years of 'development work' at the cost of crores of rupees the survey report of the Agency stated that only 8.96 % of the population was above poverty line (Base Line Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th Five Year Action Plan prepared for the Juang Development Agency by the SCST Research and Training Institute, March 2002, p. 13). Why this is so? What keeps the Juangs of this area live in such a miserable condition? The first major factor seems to be the scarcity of adequate land for cultivation (and even, habitation). Accordingly, Saradindu Bose, who visited this area twice in 1961 and 1962 as a cartographer of the Anthropological Survey of India, divided the Juang villages into three categories on the basis of wealth ranking as follows:

Category

Criteria

Villages (examples)

Rich

Have more levelled and terraced land under cultivation; produce sufficient food for their consumption all the year round and provide scope for employing hired labour in their fields.

Raidiha, Jantari and Dumuria

Well-to-do

More or less self-sufficient in food; depend equally on settled- as well as shifting cultivation.

Gonasika, Barura(Baruda)

Poor

Deficient in food; economy supplemented by working in rich villages as hired labourers and by collecting root crops from jungles; dependency on shifting cultivation is more than that on settled cultivation.

Kadalibadi, Phulbadi, Budhighar

(Bose S., Land Use Survey in a Juang Village, Man in India, July-Sept. 1961, p.173) This classification is supported by an analysis of the entries made against the land settlement done in this area in 1970s. Following are the findings:

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(analysis based on the data provided in the Record of Rights revised upto 2003, of the corresponding villages; and also on Table 2.8 of Base Line Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th Five Year Action Plan prepared for the Juang Development Agency) The three "rich' villages already mentioned are situated below the hill country. As one moves from Naranpur towards Kadalibadi, Jantari comes first with Dumuria and Raidiha in the background and extensive wet land cultivation is seen in their areas. The land scarcity has increased to some extent (though negligible it may be in some cases) by giving a share to the non-Juang co-villagers who are equally in need of shifting cultivation like the Juangs. As per the Juang customs the villages used to be uniclan ones and the migrants, even if they are Juangs themselves but belong to some other clan, were not supposed to get any share during the land distribution (Development Handbook for the Juang of Juang Development Agency, 1991-92, p.3); but now the situation has changed and to accommodate other co-villagers out of sympathy the land area under the possession of Juangs is decreasing further. The following table shows the increase in the population of non-tribal people in 31 villages of the operational area of JDA (which has now 35 villages under it):

Caste/tribe

1971

1981 1991

Scheduled tribe

5833

7157

8378

Scheduled caste

181

314

373

Others 918 (13.24% of total population)

1243 (14.26% of total population)

1673 (16.04% of total population)

(based on Table II:1, Development Handbook for the Juang of Juang Development Agency, 1991-92) The Juang Development Authority tried to improve the condition of the people through various means. On one hand, lands were reclaimed and developed after which these were distributed to the landless and on the other hand infrastructure facilities were developed, schools were opened, free health care services were started and improved agro-techniques were introduced. With the financial help received from TISCO, a steel giant of India which has iron ore mines in this district, houses were constructed in many villages. Despite all this, 20.32% of the total HHs in the operational area(35 villages) are still(2003) landless and

Village Land revenue assessed

% of tenants' recorded agricultural land in the total area of the village

% of HHs practising shifting cultivation

Jantari Rs.400.30 23.24 17.28

Gonasika Rs.399.55 8.96 90.56

Budhighar Rs.60.05 2.30 100

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56.71% HHs have land holding upto 1 acre. And the % of HHs practising shifting cultivation is as follows: Fully practising: 34.42 %

Partly practising: 65.58 %

Total: 69.92 % (Tables 2.8 and 2.9, Base Line Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th Five Year Action Plan prepared for the Juang Development Agency) Occupation: The following table displays that occupational pattern of the HHs: Occupation

Primary dependency (% of HHs)

Secondary dependency (% of HHs)

Cultivation

70.86

15.57

Agricultural wage

11.90

65.57

Forest collection

14.24

15.17

Business

1.60

_

Service 1.40 _

(Base Line Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th Five Year Action Plan, p.9) What forced the Juangs to resort to toila cultivation? The simple men have a simple answer for it that is self-justified. As their legend goes, Mahaprabhu, the great god, sent the first human couple to earth but they had nothing to eat. So they cried with hunger and the Mahaprabhu showed them how to collect pitaalu tubers. But finding this tuber extremely bitter to eat, they again prayed for some solution and then the god showed them that the only way to grow better food for them was to reclaim forests for cultivation purposes (Elwin V., Notes on the Juang, Man in India, 1948, vol.28, pp.51-52). Infertility of the lands under cultivation is the next important factor. Earlier, when the pressure of population was low and toila lands were allowed rest for 18 years or more, the lands under hill cultivation were more fertile than the wet lands (Bose S., Carrying Capacity of Land Under Shifting cultivation, p. 118) . Even Saradindu Bose found a Jaung village Bali corresponding to the well-to-do category of his classification because though this village did not have any considerable land under permanent cultivation, still it produced enough food from toila due to abundance of good soil (Land Use Survey in a Juang Village,p.173). Also,

69

the Juangs were used to cultivate their lands with the help of hoe as they were not able to possess ploughs, but with increasing use of plough the fertility might have been further reduced due to accelerated soil erosion. The third important factor is the callous attitude of the people themselves, particularly of the males who are not labourious enough. They do ploughing and cut down trees, and most of the other jobs are managed by women while their men indulge themselves in gossiping or drinking(per com., Nirmal Kabi). The miserable condition is further due to indebtedness of the people which is not only caused by the genuine need for cash but also by the habit of spending money for drinking and merry making purposes. The interest rates are high which may be even 100% (Carrying Capacity of Land under Shifting cultivation, p.117) and failure in repayment worsens the economic condition. Malnutrition and alcoholism has increased mortality rates particularly among the males, and their fertility & fecundity is said to be very low thus accounting for the critical population status of the tribe. The males live upto 40 years on an average and their high mortality rates have created maximum number of widows in villages like Guptaganga, Tala Baruda and Tala Raidiha (per comm. Nirmal Kabi). It is only recently that an improved trend in the population growth has been seen which has increased from 11.39%(1961-71) to 26.62%(1971-81). During 1980-92 the tribe has shown an annual growth rate of 1.77% which is low in comparison to that of the total Juang population of the state during 1971-81. As per the census of February 1992, the total Juang population in the operational area of the JDA was 5490 (Development Handbook for the Juang of Juang Development Agency, 1991-92, pp.20-21) which increased to 7120 as mentioned in table 2.1 of the Base Line Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th Five Year Action Plan prepared for the Juang Development Agency by the SCST Research and Training Institute, March 2002.41 Marketing of agricultural- and forest products: The produces of the Juang country are not well-marketed. Usually, money-lenders bargain a lot, or the Juangs sell their produce in exchange of rice where there is ample scope to cheat them. Following are the exchange ratios (2003) for certain agricultural products: Produce Price in rupees per kg Exchange ratio

(produce : rice) rassi (sesame) 15 to 16 1:1.5 sorisho (mustard) 20 1:2 ruma seeds (a kind of bean) 12 1:1 harad (pulse) 10 to 11 1:1.5

41 The Juang population has been mentioned here generally with reference to the villages under the operational area of the JDA. This can be termed as the population of the core group of the community. Otherwise, the total Juang population of the state is quite large (for ex., 30875 in 1981). As a whole their growth rate during 1971-81 was found to be higher than that of the state’s tribal population (Govt of Orissa: Harijan and Tribal Welfare Department 1990, Tribes of Orissa, p.126).

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biri (pulse) 12 to 13 1:2

maka (maize) 2 to 3 1:0.5

gangei (millet) 2.50 to 3 2:1 (per. comm. Hadibandhu Pradhan, Naiguda; and Nirmal Kabi, Keonjhar)) The loss in cash value is evident from the above table when we compare it with the average price of rice at Rs.9/-. Moreover, volume measures are often used during exchanges which cause further loss. However, if they sell their rice it fetches them Rs. 3 to 4 for arua (prepared by husking the paddy without prior boiling) and Rs.5 to 6.50 for usuna (par-boiled rice) per kg. Non-timber forest products are sold for cash at the following rates(2003): Produce Price in rupees per kg khandakhai bark(semi-dried) 2

gurudhei gum 16 to 17

bahada(Terminalia bellirica) gum 9 to 10

harida(Terminalia chebula) fruits(dry and mature)

2

lac 20

patal garud(Rauvolfia serpentina) roots

8 to 10 (raw) 16-22 (dry)

(per. comm. Hadibandhu Pradhan, Naiguda) Among these NTFPs, the collection of khandakhai bark has been almost stopped since 3 years due to unavailability. The people of Hatisila suffered loss during the year 2002-03 because they were assured that the leaf-plates made by them (from Sal leaves) would be purchased by traders, but no body came to take the 5000 to 6000 plates thus made. Hatisila is comparatively more remote than Jantari, and traders come upto Jantari which seems to be an explanation to the problem though at the same time the question that naturally arises is: why then the people of Hatisila did not go to Jantari to approach the traders? But this is how things take place here. Relation with other caste/tribes: The Juangs of Juang Pirh have still not forgotten that all the non-Juangs of their area had the status of sub-tenants under them. For instance, at Hatisila we asked some of the Juang villagers if the Bhuyans of their village still treated them as untouchables, and somebody replied with anger that the Bhuyans were their praja (tenants/subjects) and hence if they(Bhuyans) ever dared to treat them as untouchable, then they would be evicted. The Gaudas of the area also used to tame the cattle of Juangs and in return either got some paddy or enjoyed the milk of the cows. This custom is no more in vogue (per comm. Ramesh Chakrabarti and Nirmal Kabi).

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Some Pano(scheduled caste) families are also there in this Pirh who do menial work for others (Development Handbook for the Juang of Juang Development Agency, 1991-92, p.12). Study in two villages of the area revealed further details of the situation as described in the following:

1. Kadalibadi: It is among the poorest villages of the Juang Pirh. Average land per HH is 0.55 acres here as compared to the total average of 1.36 acres of the 35 villages. Total number of Juang HHs is 36(out of the total HH of 43 which include some Gauda families) of which only two have land holding ranging between 1.1 to 2.5 acres, 31 have lands upto an acre and 3 are landless. The population(Juang) is 189 among which 86 are males and 103 are females42 (Base Line Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th Five Year Action Plan, Tables 2.1 and 2.9). The occupational pattern is as under: Occupation

Primary dependency (No of HHs)

Secondary dependency (No of HHs)

Agriculture 3 12 Agricultural wage 2 18 Forest collection 31 5 Service - - Others - 1

(Base Line Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th Five Year Action Plan, Table 2.7) As evident from the above table, 86.11 % of the total Juang HHs are dependent on forest collection as primary occupation. Similarly, 15 HHs(41.66%) are fully dependent and 20 HHs are partly dependent on shifting cultivation (Base Line Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th Five Year Action Plan, Table 2.8). The meagre dependency on agriculture(settled) is mostly due to acute scarcity of cultivable land. The following chart shows this: 42 As per the 2001 census, the total population of the village is 244(118 males and 126 females) out of which 200(82%) are tribals(Juang). 87 are cultivators, 8 agricultural labourers, and 23 other workers. The % of cultivators to total workers is 73.7. Literacy rate is 14.7%. However, there is some confusion regarding the population of Gauda HHs in the village as some people say that the Gauda HHs encountered while entering the village actually belong to some other village.

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(based on an analysis of the Record of Rights, Kadalibadi village)

Increase in population pressure has changed the land use in the village significantly as evident from the following two charts:

Land settlement :Kadalibari

5% 1%

94%

Ryoti Abadi(Tenants'private agriculturallands)Ryoti Anabadi(Tenants'homestead lands)

Total Anabadi(GovtLands)

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(based on an analysis of the data furnished in Table 41, Carrying Capacity of Land Under Shifting cultivation. For convenience, area under 1st year and 2nd year has been taken as a single entry so as to calculate the total area under shifting cultivation; belaw land has been shown as permanent paddy lands; settlement as homestead lands; and other land use except forests as 'others'.)

Land use in Kadalibadi: 1961-62

13%

1%1%

5%

80%

Under shifting cultivation

Permanent paddylands(wet cultivation)

Homestead lands(housesites )

Forests

Others(including landsrented to Gours andhouse gardens or Barilands)

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(based on an analysis of the statistics provided in Table 1.2, Base Line Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th Five Year Action Plan. However, the village area furnished therein seems to be erroneous as revealed from the sum of the areas under different land use, and also from the Record of Rights. As per Record of Rights the area should be 282.88 hectares whereas the above cited Action Plan suggests it to be 289.019 as evident from the sum of the entries made under different land use.The census data of 2001 however mentions it to be 283 hectares.) A comparison of the above charts would show that while forest area has been decreased by 80%, area under shifting cultivation has also been decreased by more than 30 %. The population was increased from 89 in 1961-62 (Table 37,Carrying Capacity of Land under Shifting Cultivation) to 189 in 2001-02, thereby increasing the land area under non-

Land use in Kadalibari:2001-02

9% 3%1%

1%

86%

Under shiftingcultivation

Permanent paddylands(Net area sown)

Homestead lands(Landunder non-agriculturaluse)Forests

Other waste lands

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agricultural use(homesteads, etc.) from 1% (actually 0.84%) to 1.26% (calculated with respect to the total area as 289.019 hectares43). Area under permanent paddy lands has increased from 1.62 hectares to 9.63 hectares (recorded even during the settlement operations of 1970s) i.e., by more than 366 %; but as we found, most of these fields are situated in the narrow valley created by hill slopes from two sides, and the stream(locally known as jamunali) flowing through this valley overflows during the rains causing damage to the crops (per comm. Sankadia Juanga and others). That is to say, wet land cultivation is vulnerable to damage every year due to lack of more secure areas. Even the houses of the villages are situated along/across a hill slope and not on a levelled land. Land is even not available for Goda cultivation. The toila lands are situated on the Chhataamba pahada, a hill slope facing the hamlet (per comm. Sanatan Juanga and others). Insufficient cultivation forces the villagers depend greatly on forest collection but the forests are also gone in most parts, so forest collection is difficult44. 24 families have been provided with new houses (per comm., Raya Juanga and others) which is again inadequate. During 1961 the per capita land use was as under:

• Forest: 0.15 hectares • Toila: 0.40 hectares • Permanent paddy: 0.018 hectares (analysis based on Table 41, Carrying Capacity of

Land Under Shifting cultivation) Under these circumstances, the month-wise provision of food in the village was as under:

Sources Months in a year

toila 3.5 permanent paddy 1.5 maize and mustard fields 0.5 forest collection (tubers, etc)

3

orchard 1 labour 2.5

(based on Bose S., Land Use Survey in a Juang Village, Man in India, July-Sept. 1961, p.178) Even during the 9.5 months when wage labour was not a source of food, they were not fully fed. Fasting being a regular practice, a family of 3 persons would take maximum 1 mana (1.5 pounds i.e., approx. 680 grams) rice and 1 pound (approx. 450 grams) root crops on a happy day (Land Use Survey in a Juang Village, p.179). 43 calculation on the basis of actual village area as per Record of Rights gives the figure of 1.29%. 44 refer to annexure 3 for more details

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Such a miserable situation forced 22 persons of the villages to migrate to other villages during the last two years of the concerned year(1961-62). On the other hand, the villagers tried to increase the area under permanent paddy by converting more than 28 acres(11.34 hectares) of those lands that were mostly bad in quality and were regarded as fallow earlier (this explains how the land under permanent paddy was increased) though yield capacity of these new lands were not promising due to low fertility. The new lands were found unusable for wet cultivation due to lack of irrigation and the villagers even tried to divert the stream for finding a solution to this (Carrying Capacity of Land Under Shifting cultivation, pp.121, 129), but in the absence of good fertile soils the benefits of irrigation can not be properly achieved. After 40 years, the per capita land use has changed significantly. Forest area has been reduced to 0.018 hectare and land under shifting cultivation to 0.13 hectare. Only permanent paddy lands have increased to 0.05 hectare which is still meagre. The impact on livelihood is thus obvious.

2. Hatisila: Hatisila is more easily accessible than Kadalibadi from the Naranpur side. It is a Juang village formed on a hill slope and has two hamlets: Juang Sahi and Bhuyan Sahi. The Juang HHs number 29 (Table 2.1, Base Line Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th Five Year Action Plan while in the Bhuyan Sahi there are about 22 HHs45(per comm. Bharat Juanga).46 When Saradindu Bose visited this village in 1961-62, he found the condition of the people here more better than that of the people of Kadalibadi. It had richer soil, and unlike Kadalibadi, had abundant semi-plain areas suitable for conversion into wet cultivation. The land was more capable of supporting the village population than in Kadalibadi as evident from the fact that the 1st year toila lands were able to produce 7.5 mounds47 of paddy as compared to 5 mounds in Kadalibadi(Carrying Capacity of Land under Shifting Cultivation, pp.118-120, 129). However, after 30 years the situation had altered. Total income of the village was found to be Rs.95310/- as compared to Rs. 133165/- of Kadalibadi (Development Handbook for the Juang of Juang Development Agency, 1991-92, table IV:8). As compared to the 2001-02 assessments, the forest area has increased from 18.63 hectares to 71.200 hectares, and land under permanent cultivation has increased significantly from 8.91 hectares to 54.23 hectares since 1961-62. To believe the latest(2003) assessment, area under shifting cultivation has drastically reduced from 43.74 hectares to 26.50 hectares over the last 40 years. This suggests that the conditions of the people have improved as a result of which the area under shifting cultivation has been reduced so significantly while forest area has increased. However, a visit to its neighbouring village Tankajoda revealed the actual fact. Tankajoda is a Gauda village next to Hatisila. It has about 66 HHs of which 7 belong to the Juangs, 26 to the Gaudas and 33 to others. The Gaudas are the dominant community here. Their home- 45 This figure may be erroneous because as per Table 2.1 of Base Line Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th Five Year Action Plan there are total 33 HHs in the village. 46 As per 2001 census, the total population of Hatisila is 326(169 males, 157 females) of which 300 are ST. 47 Mound or mahan was a system of measure more or less equivalent to 40 kg.

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village (ghara) is at Kantapada (another village of some other area) where they have most of their agricultural lands concentrated and Tankajoda is the gotha for them (per comm. Padmanabha Parida, Tankajoda). In 1961-62, the tribals of Hatisila had rented out 39 acres or 15.79 hectares (Carrying Capacity of Land Under Shifting cultivation, Table 40) of their land most likely to the Gaudas; but now, as we were told at Tankajoda, most of the recorded paddy lands of the Juangs ( Hatisila) have been under the possession of the Gaudas of Tankajoda being a mortgaged property (per comm. Padmanabha Parida). The customary practice is that the mortgagee will not charge any interest and would be allowed just to cultivate the land and enjoy its harvest. Still, the loss of wet lands is not ignorable so far the Juang economy is concerned. As a result, 27 HHs out of 29 are either fully(10 HHs) or partly(17HHs) dependent on shifting cultivation, Total area of the plots under the shifting cultivation of such people is 26.50 hectares (Table 2.8, Base Line Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th Five Year Action Plan). A minor irrigation channel has been constructed for the Hatisila people, but needless to say the benefit actually goes to the mortgagee Gaudas (per comm. Padmanabha Parida). The Juangs usually did not like to work as daily labourers for other communities (Development Handbook for the Juang of Juang Development Agency, 1991-92, p.47), but in Hatisila they have to work as agricultural labourers for the Gaudas. The wage is meagre i.e., for approx. 6 hours(7 a.m. to 1 p.m.) work a Juang (man or woman) gets 3 man paddy which is less than a kg in the form of rice and has a cash value of Rs. 6 approximately (per comm. Padmanabha Parida). On the contrary, he should get Rs.37.50 as per the wage rate(Rs.50 per 8 hours work) fixed by the govt.. In Kadalibadi, 5.55% of the Juangs are primarily dependent on wage labour whereas in Hatisila their % is 6.89. Similarly, in Kadalibadi 50% Juang HHs are dependent on wage labour as secondary occupation as compared to 62.06% in Hatisila (analysis based on Table 2.7, Base Line Survey & Needs Assessment and 10th Five Year Action Plan). This shows the difference in the economic conditions. There may be a number of factors responsible for this, the most significant one being the pressure of population. In Hatisila, the Juang population increased from 72 in 1961-62 to 164 in 2001-02 i.e., by 127% as compared to 112 % in Kadalibadi. Though the land holding pattern is still better in Hatisila than in Kadalibadi, mortgaging reduces the benefits of this advantage significantly. . The lessons are many, but before going into their details let us recall what the Juangs perceive(d) themselves about their insecurity. These people were earlier known as Pattoas owing to their leaf dresses. Captain Johnstone tried to change their life style by encouraging them to wear clothes, but the attempt was partially successful as only the Juang men accepted it, women still following the old custom. Then, Johnstone's higher authority Mr. Revenshaw visited the area and persuaded the women to abandon the leaf dress. The successful attempt of Revenshaw was however seen by the Juangs(men?) as a violation of their religious norms, and they now took it as a sign of misfortune as evident from one of their songs as follows:

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"xxxxxx Kataka saiba asithilaa Gunasika badi thana kalaa Tirila mananku luga pindhaila, tirinka sata hudila ho Mahapuru.... xxxxxx" (per comm. Ramesh Chakrabarti) This song has been translated by Elwin as under: " the Cuttack Sahib came xxx He made the women wear cloth Since then the Pathar Saharoni's Sat has sunk down xxxx Who is mother, who is father, who is sister? The son cares not for his father xxxxx Axe cultivation is stopped, And the children in the house die of hunger48." (Notes on the Juang, p.45) It is not known exactly when this song was originally composed by the Juangs, but in the first place it suggests that they perceived the attempt of the outsiders to change their life style as a threat because, as said in the song, while imposing their 'civilised culture' on these primitive people, the outsiders also introduced complexities in their mind which was otherwise simple and pure. Feeling uncomfortable, by women, without clothes, and selfishness among the people has been regarded as a sign of this degradation of 'pure' mind. The statement that axe-cultivation has been stopped seems exaggerated so far Keonjhar is concerned, particularly because till date no agency has forced them to do so; but it certainly reflects their apprehension that persuading them to stop shifting cultivation would result in starvation of their families. In 1940s Elwin visited this area and found the Juangs happy in their Pirh because they, unlike their brethrens in Pal-Lahra and Dhenkanal of that time, were not 'forced' to abandon shifting cultivation and adopt other means of livelihood (Notes on the Juang, p.132). They were not ready to accept any intervention by outsiders because they feared it would only mean economic loss to them along with oppressive measures. But after so many years, the perception seems to have changed to some extent as we found at Gonasika, the headquarters of JDA. Earlier, the Juangs of Gonasika area used to make good quality bamboo wares that were sold in the weekly markets at the district headquarters i.e., Keonjhar due to better demand (Mishra Pandit Madan Mohan, reply to the questionnaire prepared by Vasundhara, 2003, unpublished draft), but now there is hardly any bamboo left for use for this purpose and hence bamboo-ware is no more prepared. There is no mahul in the forests, honey is also no more available due to lack of big trees. Podu is practised in two hills viz., Jamupidha pahada and Gahamabuna pahada; and people go to other places to work as wage labourers. Some of the HHs have been provided with houses but agricultural land is their major requirement. Under such circumstances they feel that the Juangs in Pal-Lahra are better of than them (per comm. Sukra Juanga and Dhena Juanga, Gonasika). This change in perception may be due to the fact that the Juangs of Pal-Lahra are now more accustomed to and 'comfortable with' their

48 Explanation: Cuttack Sahib: Revenshaw; Pathar Saharoni: Juang goddess; Sat: truth or purity.

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'new' life style that was introduced more than 60 years ago, whereas Juangs of Gonasika are still in an uncertain state as they have neither abandoned their old practises completely nor have been able to adopt new practises completely. Impact of population pressure and unfavourable geographical conditions has been further intensified by socio-anthropological factors. Had the Juang men been as sincere and laborious as their women, their condition could have improved a lot. Interesting information has been shared by a smith belonging to the Kharuda community that resides in the old Keonjhar town. This community specialised in making certain heavy brass ornaments that the Juang women liked a lot and used to come to the town to purchase the same. Particularly, the ornament that was worn in the leg was extremely difficult to wear, but the Kharudas had their own technique to put it into the legs of Juang women though the process was extremely painful for the latter. These ornaments were so popular that the Kharudas even visited the Juang country to sell their products at the doorstep of the customers though they were not allowed to charge extra for this facility and the Juang customers rather compensated their(Kharuda) labour by giving them some food. Govind Maharana, a Kharuda by caste and profession and now 74, has significant experiences of the Juangs. He says that it is wrong to believe that the Juangs were in extremely miserable financial condition because they used to spend a lot for this passion (Kharuda ornaments). A pair of ornaments worn in the leg used to cost Rs.12 to 14 during those days when the old system of coinage was in vogue and hence Rs.12 of those days would now mean much more(three to four times or even higher). As he himself has seen how the Juangs used to keep money underground, his argument is that those capable of spending so much for ornaments can not just be poor. Even though we consider Maharana's argument not applicable to all Juangs, still it seems to suggest that either their economic condition was comparatively better about half a century ago or, they used their income for their passions while ignoring other necessities in life. It is the latter which seems to be more acceptable.

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Situation in the Bhuyan Pirh ________________________________________________________________________ The Bhuyans have been the king-makers of Keonjhar, but little did they realise that future generations of whom they bestowed as their king would rather like to see them as their ordinary subjects, as it happened later. Otherwise, the initial aggrement assured them a different status of their own:

" To enable Adi Bhanja to keep up his dignity, the Bhooyas agreed to make him an yearly allowance of grain(which is to this day the only tribute they pay), and also to carry his baggage on the march, and accompany him on state ocasions, in return for which they were to be presented with flowers and head dresses by the Rajah on certain occasions, and to be considered as superior to the rest of the inhabitants of Keonjhar ((Captt. Johnstone, in charge of Keonjhar, to the Superintendent of Tributary Mahals, Cuttack on 13-4-1869; Proceedings of the Lt. Governer of Bengal, Jud.(Pol) July 1871, 12.13)).

However, after a few centuries the Rajas of Keonjhar seemed to just ignore the historical role of the Bhuyans, and liked therefore to treat them as ordinary subjects considering it as their(Rajas') right to collect taxes from them as in case of other tenants. In 1825, a tax was thus tried to be imposed on them, but the Bhuyans reacted angrily. The resurrection was suppressed with treachery after which the Raja made terms with them (Captt. Jhonstone, op. cit., Lt. Governer of Bengal, Jud.(Pol) July 1871, 12.14). However, the mutual trust between the two parties was no more existing and whatever balance of power appeared to have been created, was in fact vulnerable to a collapse any time. In 1860s, the then King of Keonjhar Gadadhar Bhanja died. One of his queens Rani Bishnupriya, who was the chief queen, wanted to make her adopted son Brundaban Bhanja as the next successor which the British govt did not recognise. The Rani then seeked the assistance of Bhuyans in her endeavour, but the British managed somehow to make them agree to their decision and somebody else(Dhanurjay Bhanja) became the king. Shortly after this, the Dewan (superintendent) of the state started oppressing the Bhuyans as they had supported the Rani. The Bhuyans were in no mood to tolerate this and revolted. When the rebellion was out of the control of the state authorities, the British sent troops to quell it and the rebels were severely punished, some of them being sentenced to death (Kendujhar District Gazetteer, pp. 49-50). It was under such circumstances that Captain Johnstone was stationed at Keonjhar to supervise the matters so that such events could be avoided in future. He made tours to the Bhuyan and Juang Pirhs to develop better understanding of the situation and it was then that he found the very reason that forced the Bhuyans practice shifting cultivation:

" The Bhooyas at present cultivate the hill sides, but neglect the plain land in the valleys; this, they say, is because they are afraid of its being taken from them if they bring it into cultivation, and they point to several fluorishng Gwalla villages, which, they say, were taken from them within last ten years. I am now doing my utmost to induce them to take to plain cultivation and settled habits, as at present every village community changes its residence about once in ten years, and as long as they continue this practice, they will never be permanently improved. At present they chiefly cultivate hill dhan, Indian corn, several kinds of pulse, mustard seed, rassie & teel, but they seldom have enough rice of their own, and generally obtain it from the

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traders in exchange of oil seeds, They do not seem to care amass wealth, and are continent to lead a hand-to-mouth existence. This is the result of former insecurity of property, and the system of paying by personal service, which left them no time to attend their own concerns ((Captt. Johnstone, to the Superintendent of Tributary Mahals, Cuttack on 1-4-1870; Proceedings of the Lt. Governor of Bengal, Jud.(Pol) July 1870, proceeding number 33.48)).

The result of this practise (of not cultivating plain lands) was a remarkable contrast that Johnstone found between the cultivated hills and the uncultivated valleys. He then tried to secure their rights by introducing taxes to be paid in cash. The Bhuyans were now required to pay a tax per the number of ploughs possessed by them so as to get hold of their lands. Besides, a school cess was also imposed as Johnstone established schools in the Bhuyan Pirh so that education might change their life style. However, tributes in kind and rendering services as soldiers when called upon continued as before ((Proceedings of the Lt. Governor of Bengal, Jud.(Pol) July 1871, proceeding number 34.2)). In two rent settlements of 1881 and 1890, the Raja enhanced the plough tax and the school cess imposed on the Bhuyans by 62.5% and 50% respectively (for original figures see Kendujhar District Gazetteer, p.266). Already dismayed by the oppressive measures, the Bhuyans launched a mutiny that was in no way unjustified:

" The origin of the disturbances is chiefly attributed to the brutal treatment of the Maharaja towards the Bhuyans xxxx. His monopoly of all their corns which he purchases at a very low rate and does not allow them to sell elsewhere and frequent harassments caused by gratuitous labour and digging of a hill for diverting the course of a hill stream towards his gur49 have excited the Bhuyans who consider these acts as revenge taken by the Maharaja after their last rising." (Letter dated 24-5-1891 of Baboo Gaurachandra Sen, Offg. Manager of Pal Lahra State; quoted in Aspects of Garjat Forestry, p.152)

The rebels seized the palace and captured the Asst. Dewan of the state in the absence of the Raja who had gone to another area for leading the operations against them. However, heavy gun fire from the side of the Raja's army and military help received from the British again succeeded this time to suppress the resurrection (Kendujhar District Gazetteer, p.51) Subsequent rent settlements did not lower the rates that the Raja had fixed, and Bhuyans had no choice but to accept that particularly because their Sardars and Pradhans now had to give in writing that they would collect the taxes from the Bhuyans and deposit the same with the treasury. The independence of India in August 1947 and the merger of Keonjhar state with Orissa in 1948 brought some major changes at policy level since the feudatory rule was no more recognised. Consequently, the Bhuyans and the Juangs were no more required to do bethi & begar to the 'state' and were free from all those liabilities which they were burdened with in lieu of the concessions enjoyed by them. Although it took some time for them to totally stop doing what they were habituated with, gradually the supply of Siali rope, thatch grass and timber etc., free of cost, for the temples/festivals of Keonjhar came to an end, and the

49 fort-palace

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Devottar50 Department had to purchase such materials now from them. The Devottar Department of the former state(now a district), which remained under the control of the Raja for some years even after merger as per his agreement with the Govt of Orissa, suffered huge loss as the people, particularly those who cultivated lands meant for the sustenance of temples/religious institutions in different parts of the ex-state, were no more bound to pay, in cash or kind, their liabilities for the sustenance of the temples/festivals. "The Tahsildar provocated them not to pay/supply any thing(to the temples)...," said Pandit Madan Mohan Mishra (per comm.) , who served the Raja as his Temple Inspector during those post-merger days, in an interview with this author while recalling the situation then in the Bhuyan-Juang Pirh area. Finding the maintenance of the temples extremely difficult, the Raja finally decided to hand over the Devottar Department to the Govt of Orissa. However, this did not mean that the tribals of the Keonjhar hills now found themselves in a relaxed state. A new kind of threat was emerging with the government authorities trying now to 'develop' this backward and resource-rich part of the district, and Bhuyan Pirh had been selected as one of the four 'special multipurpose tribal blocks' of the state for this purpose under a scheme sponsored by the Union Government. But to the Bhuyans themselves, all this appeared like an intervention by the 'outsiders' in their own matters, as reflected in the observation made by the Committee on Special Multipurpose Tribal Blocks that was constituted in 1959 under the chairmanship of V.Elwin (hence the Committee is popularly known as the Elwin Committee). Referring to the situation in other tribals areas of the country where people, already in shortage of land, were threatened with increasing cases of the alienation of their land to outsiders in the absence of proper settlement and record of rights; and feared that opening up of communication might cause more encroachment of their land by the outsiders, the Committee said:

"In the Bhuyanpirh Block the tribal people have no records of rights and they suffer a similar anxiety. They are bewildered by the rapid changes all around them, and are apprehensive about their future. They are only examples of a widespread malady which demands urgent and effective care."(Report of Committee on Special Multipurpose Tribal Blocks, 1960, p.45)

On the basis of their appraisal, the Elwin Committee recommended for the survey of the tribal areas 'on priority basis' as they observed that inadequate and insufficient land ownership was among the most important reasons that forced the tribals depend on hill/shifting cultivation. In their view therefore, the survey and settlement of such areas was to be carried out "in order to discover the amount of cultivable land available and the extent to which the people have no established rights in the areas they cultivate" which should be followed by " a vigorous and sincere attempt to establish the tribal people in their rights to the land which they have cultivated traditionally" (Ibid, pp.45-46). But their expectations from the survey and settlement operations hardly remained satisfactory. On one hand, the settlement operations were guided by quite different principles and on the other hand the law meant to safeguard the land rights of tribals was prone to be invalidated by a number of existing rules and regulations like the Land Acquisition Act. Hence, the Renuka Ray Commission which preceded the Elwin Committee, found the situation otherwise:

50 looks after religious endowments, temples, etc.

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"xxx the extension of the rule of law in the field of land rights has resulted in the progressive extinction of the original rights of the tribals which were theirs, at least by virtue of first occupation xxx" (quoted in the Report of the Committee on Special Multipurpose Tribal Blocks, 1960, p.44)

And this is what became precisely true in the Adala village of Bhuyan Pirh. Adala is a fairly large and heterogeneous village in the Jatra Gram Panchayat. It has three hamlets with a population of 193 HHs of which almost 99% are Scheduled Tribes among which almost the same percentage is that of the Bhuyans (Vasundhara, PESA: Myths & Realities, Experiences from Orissa; 2002,unpublished draft, p. 6051). Agriculture has been the preferred source of livelihood for most of the villagers of Adala like many of their counterparts in the Bhuyan Pirh, but the availability of good lands(plain) has been a major problem for them as in other areas. During the settlement operations, the lands under their ‘legal’ possession were found to be meagre as shown in the following table and chart: Legal status of land Area in hectares

Rakshit (reserved land) 403.5730

Sarbasadharan (communal lands like village roads) 4.9050

Abadajogya Anabadi: Category 1(Abadi or land 'encroached'/reclaimed)

20.5700

Abadajogya Anabadi: Category 2 (Anabadi or land free from encroachment)

1074.3920

Abada-ajogya Anabadi (non-reclaimable waste) 60.4050

Ryoti Abadi (tenants' agriculture lands) 161.1470

Ryoti Anabadi (tenants' homestead) 14.9600

Education Department 0.2300

((source: Record of Rights(2003), Adala village))

Among these different land categories all except the ryoti lands were recorded as government lands. As shown below, the surveying party found only 10% of the total village area recognisable legally as tenants' lands: 51 However, as per the 2001 census data Adala has 188 HHs with a total population of 1079. Population of ST is 1022(94.71%). Total area of the village is 1740 hectares.

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As per the principles adopted, hill cultivation was not regarded as a criterion for ownership rights and hence the Podu lands remained unrecorded, the hills being recorded in the name of government under the rakshit category. This was done so as to reserve the 'lower' part of the hill as 'gochar'(pasture) and the 'upper' portion for forest growth, thus reflecting the policy decision of the government to discourage Podu for environmental security. The villagers practised Podu in Biringathodi, Bahnithodi, Nedipidi and other such hills in and around their village (per comm. Kenhei Dehuri and others, Adala). Wage labour was another major source of income while some 'rent' was realised from the Gaudas of Balarai( a neighbouring village) and other non-Bhuyan people who depended in one way or another on the lands of Adala. Community life was still not abandoned and the hamlets have their common oil expellers made of large logs that was(and is) shared by the residents of each hamlet. This way, the villagers managed their livelihood somehow. In 1982 the villagers of Adala came to know that a large portion of their ‘village land’ has been leased out to a tea plantation company known as OTPL(Orissa Tea Plantations Ltd.), a joint venture of some private entrepreneur and a govt concern. The joint venture was in fact an eye wash because the private entrepreneur exercised all control practically. Total 610.4710 hectares of the so-called waste lands of Adala, that were recorded in the name of government,

L a n d s e ttle m e n t : A d a la v illa g e

9 0 %

9 % 1 %

G o vt la n d s

R y o t i A b a d i(Te n a n ts 'p riva te a g ric u ltu ra lla n d s )

R y o t iA n a b a d i(Te n a n ts 'h o m e s te a d la n d s )

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were leased out to OTPL without consulting the village community. As the original records show, this so-called waste land was actually covered with open and dense forests in most part, and the villagers of Adala and a number of neighbouring villages depended on this area not only for timber, fuel wood and MFPs but also for the grazing of their cattle. There was no human habitation but the residents of Gunduri Sahi, a small hamlet near Kandakala in Adala, cultivated some lands in this area. After OTPL established its control over this part, the forest(where Sal was dominant) was cleared to plant Tea along with some other species like Eucalyptus, thus destroying the biodiversity of the area. The local people who depended on it for various purposes were variously affected. Grazing by the cattle was no more possible, and finding it difficult to maintain larger herds of cattle(particularly buffaloes) in the absence of adequate pasture land, the Gaudas of Balarai sold out almost 50% of their stock. Previously, they used to pay a rent in kind to the Bhuyans of Adala @ 2 man paddy (approx. 1 kg) & 1 man rice (approx. 600 grams on average) per HH annually in lieu of the access allowed to use the Adala lands for grazing their cattle as well as to collect forest produce therefrom; but now they no more found it worth - paying (per comm. Birakishore Mahakud and others, Balarai). The Bhuyans of Adala could no more confidently ask the Balarai Gaudas for a rent and as such their collection from the latter now decreased to its minimum. But the Adala people themselves were least bothered about the financial losses ('rent' from Gaudas) accrued to them since it was comparatively of small amount. Similarly, the loss of pasture land for their cattle hardly bothered them because the land that was leased out to OTPL is comparatively far away from the core village area as a result of which the cattle of Adala usually avoid going to that area and graze in the nearby lands. What therefore actually irritated them was that without their consent a large chunk of their village land was alienated to some alien party, that too at the cost of various losses to the surrounding villages who

Land distribution: Adala village

55%

10%

35%

Land leased out toOTPLOther govt lands

Tenants' holdings

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variously depended on this land. Such a step by the government was a violation of the kind of autochthonous rule of theirs which they had been informally exercising like other Bhuyans of the Pirh. Hence, the villagers launched protest against OTPL under the leadership of Kanhei Dehuri. They were joined by the villagers of Karlaposhi hamlet of Kushkala-Karlaposhi village which had also lost some of its land to OTPL. The state responded in an unsympathetic manner and 39 women & 11 men among the protesters were sent to jail. The most tragic incident was the death of Haladhar Dehuri, a villager of Adala who was arrested on charges of grazing his cattle (though unintentionally as he himself said because he did not know that grazing was prohibited there) in the 'OTPL area' and who died in jail. However, his poor family was not given any compensation (Vasundhara, PESA: Myths & Realities, Experiences from Orissa; 2002, pp.62-63). Then other kinds of tricks were used to subdue the protest. False promises were given and money was used to lure the villagers. However, the most important trick was the divide & rule policy. The company(OTPL) employed some persons from the village who belonged to the 'Tala Sahi' hamlet. These people filed false cases against their co-villagers of the Upar Sahi hamlet where the leadership of the movement was concentrated and this created a division among the villagers leading finally to the collapse of the movement (per comm. Kenhei Dehuri and others, Adala; and Vasundhara, op.cit.). Although more than 10 villages were supposed to be affected by the land alienation to OTPL, the protesters came partly from Adala and partly from Kushkala- Karlaposhi, others having decided not to dare for a protest. The situation was such that people from other villages avoided the road that passes through Adala to the weekly market of Taramakant, the village where the tea estate was indicated to be situated though the land did not belong to Taramakant itself. The Record of Rights of Adala village, that is with the Tahsildar of Telkoi, shows that though the village comes under the Kanjipani Police Station, the land under OTPL has been mentioned to belong to another PS (Nayakot?). Such manipulations suggest the motive behind the alienation. The story does not end here. Sometime after the protest, the private entrepreneur who practically owned the tea estate, decided to stop working in the area and abandoned the plantation. This left about 600 to 700 persons of the neighbouring villages in lurch who had been employed by the company. The 'owner' left without paying their dues which is said to be more than rupees 10 lakhs (per comm. Indramani Barik, Balarai). Moreover, the land is yet to be returned to Adala. This OTPL case has a clear message for the policy makers and that is this: either refrain from any kind of intervention in the affairs of the tribals, or implement all your schemes for their wellbeing with full sincerity and capacity. Standing half way will do more harm to them than good as it happened in Adala. Unfortunately, the tradition of the govt agencies has been rather to stand half way, i.e. achievement of target is managed somehow without ensuring the fulfilment of the objective. And this is what the Administration Enquiry Committee of the Govt of Orissa found during a visit to the Saharpur Bhuyan colony in the late '50s. Saharpur is a village in the Bhuyan Pirh area where 50 Bhuyan families, who came from 3 villages including old Saharpur, were tried for settlement in a colony specially constructed them for their rehabilitation against an irrigation project and better livelihood opportunity. However, the Committee found the

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shifted people disgusted with the arrangement made. Things that were urgently needed for them but were lacking in some part or another were as under:

• There was no facility for supplying drinking water. • The tiles supplied for roofing were inadequate and at the same time were

discriminately distributed to the families. • Houses of many families lied incomplete because although they were given financial

help to purchase construction materials like bamboo & timber for building the 'model houses' themselves, they had not been able to complete the same due to a number of reasons and had rather used up a part of the house grant under the compulsion of the situation.

• There was no officer to guide and supervise. The said Committee found all this after 4 years of the etsblishment of the colony and remarked, " it has the dismal appearance of an infructuous endeavour" (Report of the Administration Committee, 1958, pp. 658-59). And history repeated itself in another form in the Sukdala village of the Pirh where TRIFED has acquired some(of comparatively lesser extent than that under OTPL) from the villagers who expect a lot from the project. While some patta land has been given to the agency by the villagers for this purpose, they are yet to receive full compensation for it. On the other hand, the villagers also agreed to leave for the plantation about 14 hectares of land under their cultivation(upland) which has been not recorded in their name, but the said agency is yet to utilise this area. In short, nothing has been done except raising a nursery for the plantation and the villagers are waiting when their contribution (land) will provide them employment and financial income (per comm. villagers of Sukdala)52. Forest protection: Realising the impact of forest clearance on the availability of timber and firewood etc. for bonafide purposes, some hamlets of Adala have started protecting few patches of forest. For instance, in Biringathodi hill where Podu was practised, the forest disappeared totally some 20 to 25 years ago, but after the villagers started protecting it 10/12 years ago the forest growth is recovering well. However, a particular side of this hill is still under shifting cultivation by the Tala Sahi hamlet of the village where people are in need of it though they do not come to that side of the hill which is protected (per. comm. Naran Nayak, Laxmidhar Dehuri and others). Scarcity of land and threat of chemical farming: We were told that while the goda lands were previously left fallow for 5 years after two years of cultivation, some of the owners of such land are now trying to cultivate their lands permanently through the application of chemical fertilizers. This seems to be the result of the 52 The Regional Manager, TRIFED, Bhubaneswar clarified to this author on 1st November’05 that the Sukadala project is almost abandoned now due to the unavailability of sufficient land from the government. Accordingly, the uplands of the villagers are no more required, and whatever lands of the local tenants have been aquired on rent basis(the rent is being regularly paid), will be returned to them. However, he was confident that the project, if implemented, could have actually benefited the locals particularly because unlike the private entrepreneur in the OTPL case, TRIFED is not supposed to cheat the public and the government.

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measure taken by the govt agencies to stop shifting cultivation through land improvement techniques.

_________________________

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Annexure-1 Hill slope survey

Survey and settlement operations carried out by the Revenue Department in Orissa were based on the plane table method which was not capable of surveying beyond 10 degree slope. Hence, agricultural lands beyond 10 degree slope were generally not granted pattas and people, mostly poor tribals, who had been cultivating lands in hilly areas above the 10 degree slope were deprived of their tenancy rights over such lands. This is a great injustice to them as their lands have been recorded in the name of govt.. The Kashipur block of Rayagada district earlier belonged to the Kalahandi district being a zamindary under the Kalahandi Maharaja. Hence, this area was not covered during Major Settlement Operations in Koraput district(undivided). Rather, survey and settlement took place here by the govt under the Kalahandi settlement operations during 1953-62. During the survey and settlement of 1953-63, hills and waste lands with shrubby growths were left unsurveyed. However, details of dongar lands were separately documented in what is known as Dongar Khasra (a kind of documentation) and those practising Podu were granted Kodki patta because they cultivated hill slopes with the help of Kodki or small spades. The Kodki patta did not give ryoti rights though a nominal rent was levied on the dongar lands53. It contained the following particulars:

1. Name of the occupant(dakhalkari) 2. Father's name 3. Caste 4. Residential address 5. Local name of the hill(dongar) 6. Crops raised by the occupant54

The dongar lands thus identified were not assigned plot numbers and also lacked mention of their extent(area). Hence, the such lands were assessed taking the seed capacity (locally known as bihanapada) as the unit, like one putty bihanapada, two putty bihanapada, etc. where putty implied to a local measure in volume(of seed or other items). The Orissa Tribal Development Project that has been operating in Kashipur, proposed to the govt to give permanent occupancy rights to the cultivators of Podu so that they would abandon this practice through the practice of agroforestry. Accordingly, the govt first surveyed dongar lands upto 10 degree, but OTDP requested to extend it upto 30 degree slope. The Survey and Settlement Department took up such survey work since 1992 and with 'cutting the chain' method the slopes were surveyed upto 30 degree. This means, the plane table was used in this survey and suitable and careful adjustments were necessary for this kind of hill slope survey. Since the hill tops coincided with the boundary lines, the slope was divided into 9 segments so as to presume 10 degree slope for the lowest segment. It is interesting to note that the survey was easier for terraced fields.

53 The patta itself contained a note to this effect as per the Settlement Report. 54 And also the number of Kodki possessed by him and the rent thus assessed (vide the Settlement Report).

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During the survey it was found that some dongar lands have been mentioned as 'gochar/jungle' the legal status of which does not allow authorities to allot such lands in the name of individual tenants. So the Revenue Department was requested to convert this status into that of Abadajogya Anabadi(cultivable waste), vide letter dated 16-2-1994 of the Project Manager, OTDP, Kashipur to the Director, Land Records and Survey, Orissa. The hill slope survey and preparation of Dongar Khasra in Kashipur was confined to such areas where the OTDP had raised plantations for agro-forestry purposes, so that only such lands could be recorded in the name of tribals. Even Agragamee, an NGO active in this area, requested(letter dtd.4-11-97) the govt to include the watershed areas developed by it during the survey. The lands that were to be settled upto 30 degree slope were subject to the following condition:

Land above 30 degree slope to be used only for perennial crops. Land upto 30 degree slope is not transferable but can be mortgaged in favour of a

financial institution for receiving loan for agricultural purpose. Any violation of the above rules would cause revocation of ryoti rights.

Such lands(upto 30 degree slope) were to be shown in the Record-of-Rights as 'dongar kisam' (i.e., belonging to the dongar class of land) and the rent to be charged was one rupee per acre. Subsequently, the govt decided to extend the hill slope survey to other areas. The authorities said, main objective of long term action plan in KBK(undivided tribal districts of Koraput, Bolangir and Kalahandi) districts is eradication of poverty through efficient use of land, forests and water. The tribals have taken to Podu cultivation under various unfavourable situations and prevention of Podu is possible through hill slope cultivation of horticultural species and use of SALT technology:

"In order to improve the living condition of the tribal population and for the efficient use of land, forest and water in the hilly regions of 8 KBK districts, Govt have decided to take up survey of the unsurveyed areas in the hill slopes upto 30 degree in the selected watershed areas for grant of pattas like the IFAD assisted project, Kashipur on long term action plan." (Tentative Scheme submitted to Govt in Revenue Department in connection with implementation of long term action plan for surveying the hill slopes upto 30 degree for grant of patta on IFAD pattern, Kashipur; attachment to the letter dtd.26-3-1996 of the Director, LR & S55, Orissa to the Special Secretary to the Govt, Planning and Coordination Department).

However, as the authorities admitted themselves, surveying of mountain slopes upto 30 degree slope was a 'new item' for the Survey and Settlement staff since they were not accustomed with it. Another constraint was the lack of resources (manpower etc.) and the unwillingness of the concerned officers & technical staff to move to the KBK districts for carrying out this survey. The Under Secretary, Revenue & Excise Deptt. in his letter dated 25-4-1998 said that the due to lack of time and resources, survey was to be confined only to those hill slopes or

55 Land Records and Survey

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watersheds where Podu was practised56. However, the Director, LR & S, Orissa clarified in his letter to the Additional Secretary to the Govt, Planning & Coordination Department on 16-10-98 there had been no policy decision by the govt in Revenue Department for survey upto 30 degree slope and to give any right over such lands. He stressed on the fact that any decision or communication to this effect should be like that for Kashipur which was issued on 10-4-92 (by the Director, Tribal Welfare Department). However, the District Collectors of KBK areas were asked to furnish details of the unsurveyed hill areas and watersheds and also the tentative area suitable for Dongar Khasra. Accordingly, such information was provided except for the Nuapara district because the Collector said that neither was there any area under Podu nor were any beneficiaries to get dongar patta in his district(letter dtd. 20-3-1999 of the Collector, Nuapara to the Director, LR & S). For instance, following data was provided for the Kashipur and Koraput blocks:

In Koraput Tahsil, 35000 hectares of land and 230 revenue villages have been identified for the hill slope survey beyond 30 degree. Similarly, in the Khajuripada P.S. area(Phulbani district) the map area of 'hills' in 148 villages (out of 168 among which there was no hill in 20 villages) excluding RFs and PRFs was estimated to be 10455.900 hectares of which 172.348 hectares was under encroachment of 333 ST, 189 SC and 44 other caste people and around 800 hectares was available for Dongar Khasra. The Director, Land Records & Survey, Orissa in his letter # 21(Con)/LRS, dated 23-3-2000 suggested to the govt to replace the conventional method of survey (plane table) showing reason that in Kashipur area the hill slope survey had been done through this method but the result had not been accurate. He further clarified that an accurate hill slope survey was now possible by using what is known as the Total Station Theodolite, an electronic instrument. Total Station Theodolite is an improved and digital version of the normal Theodolite and has been in use since 10 years. A Bhubaneswar-based company M/S. Geo Informatics was then asked to estimate the budget for a hill slope survey in the Dasamantapur block using this new instrument. The company estimated a cost of approx. Rs. 73500/sq. km. i.e., Rs.735 per hectare. On the other hand, plane table survey would cost Rs.1000/hectare. However, much more reliable, highly accurate, and cost effective is a new method 'Stereophotogrammetry' developed by Brig. Dhal and his colleagues of the Survey of India, and successfully experimented in the Angul region. This new technique has been adopted not only by some states of India(like AP) but also by some other countries. It is highly unfortunate that Orissa, where this technique was first developed and tried, is yet to adopt the

56 RFs and PRFs were excluded from this survey.

Block Area recorded as 'Pahad' in hectares

Tentative area suitable for Dongar khasra in hectares

Kashipur 49550.18 46609.01 Koraput 36567.04 35860.96

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same. Late Mr. Dharmalingam, then Director, Land Records and Survey, was keen on implementing this technique, but due to his premature death things could not progress.

Annexure-2

Survey and demarcation of Forest Land in Orissa: Evidences in support of the irregularities/unlawful systems adopted

Orissa became a separate province on 1st April, 1936. Prior to that, the southern part of it was under the Madras Presidency and the rest in the province of ‘Bihar & Orissa’. Again, the province had a major portion of it under the control of princely rulers in the ex-state areas which had their own rules & regulations. In some of the western parts, the Central Provinces Land Revenue Act,1881 was being followed because such areas were formerly under the Central Provinces. The Indian Forest Act was in force in areas directly under the control of the govt except in the southern parts where the Madras forest Act was followed. After independence, 24 princely states merged with the parent province of Orissa in 1948-49 thereby increasing both its geographical area and forest areas significantly. The merger process was complete in 1949 and the ex-states added an RF area of 7293 sq. miles (18893.78 sq. km.) to the existing state(parent province) RF area of 2874 sq. miles (7445.59 sq. km.) thus making the total RF area as 10167 sq. miles(26339.37 sq. km.). (Source: A Note by Sri P.K.Deo, member, Forest Enquiry Committee, Govt of Orissa, 1959) The next important phase was the abolition of Estates(Zamindaris) in 1951-52 by which the state acquired a large area of ‘forest land’ previously under the control of zamindars. The total area of such ex-zamindari forests was more than 7000 sq. miles (i.e. more than 18000 sq. km.). Except in a few cases (like, in case of the zamindaris of Bonai, Mayurbhanj and Kalahandi ex-States) all such ‘forests’ were first transferred to the Revenue Deptt. which in turn, transferred a part of the same to the FD in and after 1957. That the Govt of Orissa acquired a major portion of its currently claimed ‘forest land’ from the princely rulers and zamindars.This was done through a settlement with the ex-state rulers/zamindars (i.e., the compensation was paid to them and not to the local people).This way the Govt formally legalised the status of all such so-called ‘forest land’ either as Reserve Forests or as Protected Forests (Vide Chapter IV of the Report of the Forest Enq. Committee, GoO, 1959) However, the so-called owners of these ‘forest lands’ from which the GoO acquired the same did not often follow the adequate instructions of the Indian Forest Act,1927 for declaring any land as Reserve Forest(or other such ‘forests’ which practically had the same implications as the RFs). In most cases, they just arbitrarily made such declarations without any proper settlement with the local inhabitants. Thus, a major portion of the so-called ‘forest land’ inherited by the GoO from the erstwhile rulers/zamindars and now under the possession of the Revenue Deptt. or the Forest Department has been unlawfully given the status of ‘forest land’.

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Irregularities in forest land demarcation

A. Areas under the direct control of the Govt

1. Khurdha (coastal Orissa):

a. “It has been found xxx that the boundary lines, as laid by the

Forest Officers xxxx are not in exact accordance with the notification.” Comments of the Settlement Officer on the RFs of Khurdha Govt estate, Report of the Khurda Settlement of 1897-98, para 426, GoO, year unknown)

b. “In Khurda, there are in all 461 sq. miles of land recorded as

forest. Of this area 117 sq. miles constitute the RFs, 91 sq. miles the DPFs and 253 sq. miles a further aggregate tract known as the UDPFs. The last category which includes roads, ponds, rivers and even a part of the Chilika lake, has, it is interesting to note, an euphoric name given to it, and merely serves to create an exaggerated idea of the total extent of the forests available in the Estate. A vast area of it is simply barren

Legal provisions Some of the princely states/estates were temporarily under the admn. of the British and during that time the British administrators had tried to reserve some of the forests of such areas under the provisions of the IFA or MFA. This had been done in Keonjhar ex-state and in Parlakhemundi Estate. But these are exceptions. During 1945-46, many princely states promulgated their own Forest Acts(mostly based on the IFA, 1927), but almost all the reservation process had been already completed by that time (for ex., more than 40 % of the total forest area of Patna State had been reserved by 1936-37). Hence, such Acts had practically little meaning for the local people so far a legitimate reservation process is concerned. After merger of the Princely states, the IFA,1927 was extended to all these areas and the GoO established its right over the acquired RFs and other forests through an amendment in the IFA in 1954. By this amendment both the A-class and B-class RFs of the ex-state areas now became Reserve Forests in Orissa. This caused a loss to the people since in the B-class RFs(which were equivalent to the DPFs) they were enjoying certain rights/concessions not admitted in the A-class ones and by converting B-class RFs into the RF of the IFA, 1927 all these rights/concessions were abolished. Another great loss was the declaration (by GoO) of Khesra forests as Protected Forests although the IFA, 1927 provided for a declaration of village forests. Thus, all kinds of non-RF forests were declared as PFs without any distinction of village forests.

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waste land without any trace of forest.” (para 15, Khurda Forest Enquiry Committee Report, GoO, 1938)57

2. Reservation policy in the Balliguda area (Phulbani district): “”When the Agency tracts were in Madras the policy was to select and demarcate isolated blocks of forest close to the roads. The new policy is to treat the whole area as forest and to demarcate the boundaries of the villages as enclosures within the reserve. This policy will enable a much bigger area of forest to be demarcated at a lesser cost.xxx This new policy will be carried out until more densely populated tracts are reached where the area of reserves will be les than that of villages.” (para 75, Forest Administration in Orissa:1937-38, GoO)

B. Areas not under the direct control of the Govt

I. Princely States

a. Reservation process: please refer to Ramadhyani R.R., Report on Land Tenures and the Revenue System of the Orissa and Chattisgarh States, Vol.I, p.34 b. Wasteland settlement: vide p.71 of the above-cited report c. Narsinghpur state: As per the Forest Rules of 1933, consideration has to be given to the amount of khesra forest left before reservation can be made. However, all reservations seems to have been made before the rules were framed. (Ramadhyani Report, Vol.III, p.47) d. Kalahandi state: ‘Reserve forests are simply those which may be reserved and the rules58 do not prescribe any matter to be taken into account in making the reservation.” (Ramadhyani Report, Vol.III, p.115) e. Hindol state: “ The Indian Forest Act may be shown as in force but reservation does not seem to be made in the manner required by it.” (Ramadhyani Report, Vol.III, pp.97-98 f. Daspalla state: “ xxx in practice trees standing on cultivated lands have been regarded as forest.” (Ramadhyani Report, Vol.III, p.75) g. Ranpur state: (during the early phases of forest conservation) Without any demarcation certain areas were ‘considered’ as reserves.(Working Plan for the RFs of Ranpur State:1947-51; p.16)

57 Irregularities of the 1915 settlement of the DPFs brought about hardship on the tenants by inclusion of their lands in the forest area and the Khurda Forest Enquiry Committee enquired on this matter. It recommended that boundary lines be shifted to a distance of 15 to 20 chains from the village proper both in case of DPFs and RFs, and in pursuance of that the lines of certain DPFs were shifted back where too close to the villages(vide para 58, Annual Progress Report on Forest Admn. In The Province of Orissa:1943-44), but it is not known what happened in case of the RFs. 58 Forest rules of 1923

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II. Estates(zamindaris)

1. Parlakhemundi Estate:

There were two kinds of forests: Reserved Lands(RL) and Unreserves. The Reserve Lands were notified under various sections(like, sections 4, 16 and 26) of the Madras Forest Act, 1882 and were practically managed like the Reserve Forests. There were atleast 14 such Reserve Lands in the Estate of which the ‘Jami’ Reserve Land , that was notified under section 26 of the Madras Forest Act, was declared as such without any survey. Thus, even the area of this Jami RL was not known to the ruler, not to speak of rights settlement. (vide the agreement paper signed between the Maharaja of Parlakhemundi and the Governor of Orissa in 1946). Source: Acc. No. 657, Collection of the Yubraj of Khariar, Orissa State Archives

2. Sambalpur zamindaris:

a. Khariar: 1n 1903, 14 forest blocks were declared ‘reserved’ but mostly without demarcation and survey. (p.93, Working Plan for the Forests of Khariar Division:1980-81 to 1989-90)

b. In estates like Kolabira, Rampur, Rajpur, Borasambar and Bheran, certain areas of the village were being managed as ‘zapti jungle’ in which the villagers were not allowed to exercise any right free of charge. Such zapti jungles were more or less practically implying to the Reserve Forests. The Sambalpur Land Laws Committee objected to this and recommended for the exclusion of such zapti jungles from the surveyed village areas. (p. 66; Report of the Sambalpur Land Laws Committee, Govt of Orissa, 1939)

“The Committee noted that the officers of Forest Department have started demarcating all forest growth near the villages with a view to reserve the same. The villagers unanimously complained that this would affect them very adversely by depriving them of one of their chief means of livelihood. In case forests area reserved the necessity of creating another forest becomes till greater and immediate action is required in this regard.” (Report of the Mutha Head Abolition Committee, Govt of Orissa, (Year not known), pp.25-26 Note: Mutha means a group of villages in many parts of southern Orissa, particularly in the hill forest areas. The Mutha-heads were enjoying various rights under their rulers and were like sub-zamindars. These rights were abolished sometime after independence.

Comments of Ramadhyani on the forest policy of the Princely States “State policy so far has, as already indicated, been rather sweeping in forest matters. It seems to be actuated by the idea that with the exception of the State personified by the Ruler, none else has any right in the forests or forest-growth except as a matter of favour or concession. Thus it is that all forest-growth is claimed by the State and forest rules apply to all land in the State.” Ramadhyani Report, Vol.I, p.91)

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Annexure-3

Kadalibadi: exposing the fake development policy

(Note: Action Aid, an NGO working in the Juang areas of Keonjhar, came across an incident in the Kadalibadi village when the villagers informed its workers that one of their important area under shifting cultivation had been almost forcefully used by the Forest Department for plantation purposes.The incident exposed the blunder in the development policy adopted for the Juangs, as without taking any sustainable(or atleast, temporary) alternative measures for these half-starved people, an important source of their livelihood was taken away from them.For the government, it was partly legal as the lands are recorded in its name; but several other constrituional provisions were violated at the same time.The author was invited by Action Aid to assess the situation, and on the basis of a site visit on 29th of July’05, a note was prepared by him for a comprehensive description of the facts.Following are excerpts of the same, and due to want of information some other aspects(like views of the Forest Department) have not been possible to be incorporated.) “xxxxx Shifting cultivation provides them food for about 4 months as against 1-2 months from settled cultivation. Rest comes from wage labour and forest collection. Hence, shifting cultivation is very important in their livelihood. Unlike all other sources, it provides them a food security for about 4 months. Although the pressure of population demands a larger area for cultivation, simultaneous cultivation on all sides of the hills would mean simultaneous fallowing for 4-5 years, which these poor people can not afford. Hence, they have divided the hill lands into 5 or more parts so that shifting cultivation is practiced in different patches phase by phase, and this provides them one or more patches every year for cultivation of upland paddy when other patches are either left fallow(like Telchua) or under secondary crops like sesame(like Kukurchua and Chhatamba59). Bagiatal is probably the largest patch where both hill slopes and gently sloping land are available for upland cultivation. The turn of this patch came last year when sesame was cultivated here, and upland paddy was to be cultivated this year. The villagers also planned to divert the stream water to convert a part of the gently sloping land into permanent paddy lands. Most60 of the villagers had depended only on this patch in the current year for production of upland paddy as other major patches61 were either left fallow or were under secondary crops. However, the Bagiatal patch was transferred to the Forest Department by the revenue authorities and the land was converted to a plantation site under a compensatory

59 Examples are from current year’s practice 60 Few have cultivated a small patch on what is known as the Budhima pahad located just before the village settlement begins. Agricultural activities towards this side appear extremely limited. 61 Total four in number, viz. Bagiatal, Kukurchua, Telchua and Chhataamba. The Parijharan patch was a matter of dispute between Kadalibadi and its neighbouring poor village Phulbadi for several years, but now both the villages share this patch.

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afforestation62 programme. The protest by the villagers did not yield; rather they were threatened of police action. Several NTFP- and timber species have been planted in the Bagiatala patch by the Forest Department. Large number of stumps is found here to indicate that the jungle growth had been cleared by the villagers for cultivation. The Forest Department has managed to form a VSS in the village, and an area distant from the village and not under agricultural activity of the villagers since one or more generations, has been converted to a plantation site under the FDA scheme.Rs.15000/- has been provided to the VSS by the Department, out of which Rs.11000/- has been sanctioned as loan to the villagers(10 HHs).Few plastic chairs have also been provided to the village community hall. However, the villagers do not seem to accept their responsibilities in the VSS overlapping with their interest in shifting cultivation. Being a psychologically vulnerable tribe, they can’t protest strongly; and hence are not in a position to hope too much to get back the Bagiatala patch.

A rough sketch of Kadalibadi

62 Mining companies are required to pay compensastion against the loss of forest cover due to their activities, and this money is utilized to grow ‘forest’(plantation) at a suitable site which may be far away from the concerned mine itself.

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Select Bibliography

• Adivasi(journal of the SCST Research Institute), different volumes • Bose S.(undated) , Carrying Capacity of Land Under Shifting Cultivation,Asiatic

Society, Kolkata • Govt of Orissa, Development Handbook for the Juang of Juang Development

Agency(typed copy), 1991-92 • Elwin V., Notes on the Khonds, unpublished field notes kept in Nehru Memorial

Museum and Library as a part of Elwin Papers • Elwin V.(1945), Report on the Tribals of Ganjam and Koraput Districts,

unpublished note preserved in Nehru Memorial Museum & Library as a part of Elwin Papers

• Elwin V. (1947), Supplement to 'A Brief Survey of the Aboriginal Tribes of the Districts of Ganjam and Koraput', Elwin V., The Tribal World of Verrier Elwin, 2002 reprint

• Govt of India: Planning Commission(1986?), Report of the Study Group on Land Holding Systems in Tribal Areas

• Man in India, different volumes • Ramadhyani R. (undated), Report on the Land Tenures & the Revenue System of the

Orissa and Chhatisgarh States,Vols.I-III • Rath, B.(2005 web edition63), Aspects of Garjat

Forestry(www.vasundharaorissa.org) • Govt of India(1959), Report of the Committee on Special Multipurpose Tribal Blocks • Roy Sarat Chandra(1921), The Hill Bhuiyas of Orissa • SCST Research Institute, baseline survey reports prepared by different tribal

development agencies 63 Referred to in this report is the draft prepared in 2000. Pages numbers have slightly changed in the 2005 web edition.

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