Opinion The raging battle

The Mahabharata questions neither the mindless burning of the forest nor its immediate possession by the Pandavas. The Aryans battled the local natives for land across the vast expanses of north India and this is just one of the episodes. The marginalisation of the local people,the aborigines—Adivasis—of North India is the underlying theme of the spread of Vedic Brahmanism. As the Aryans spread eastwards and southwards from their first settlements in the North-West Frontier Province,they conquered and displaced or absorbed the local communities.

The more attentive readers would have guessed that what I am writing about really is the ravaging of the Gondwana tract,which is the locus of the many tribes whom the Naxals are recruiting for their battles. The central issue is not just inclusive development,but restoration of the rights of common property to the hundred-plus tribal communities. In a sense,the government has to do what Indra failed to do—protect the tribes while also doing what Krishna did,which was to harness virgin tracts of land for ‘civilisation’.

The issue is not that such ‘civilisation’ is in some sense wrong,but that as it is extended,the original owners who are being ‘civlised’ by force need to be looked after. The common property rights of the Adivasis extend to the mineral resources. One only has to study how Australia has revised its policies rather belatedly and recognised the rights of the aborigines,to see that this is not an easy task for those who have force on their side. Last Thursday,the US Government formally and publicly apologised to five tribes—or ‘nations’ of American Indians or Native Americans as they are called. As a tribal chief said,“It is difficult to issue an apology and sometimes it’s difficult to accept one.”

India has to learn from the experience of these two democracies. I still firmly believe that it’s the democratically elected government and not a self-appointed army of ‘liberation’,which should decide what the solution should be. But the solution has to be just and equitable and generous.

Mining rights have been sold to many Indian and foreign national companies. Thousands of crores of rupees have been no doubt embezzled by the political system. But the bribes and the sales are bygones. There is still the task of diverting some of the development gains from such mining to the original owners of the earth’s resources. Legislation is waiting to be approved to rethink these problems—the Land Acquisition (Amendment) Bill and the Rehabilitation and Resettlement Policy Bill.

The urgency of getting these Bills through is something that should be dinned into its coalition partners by the Congress. If not,more lives will be lost before the elections come around.