Most of the time, our concern over ‘eviction’ and the stories around them ends within a few days, or sometimes, a few weeks. Take the Sipajhar evictions last year: national media descended upon the region, only to vanish a week later and never return.
The Sipajhar evictions at least made it to the national media. The Lumding Forest Reserve evictions last November did not even get that. No wonder then, when this correspondent visited the people at the receiving end of the evictions, he found them living in squalor.
Take the story of Noor Jamal, 59, for example. He shares his abode with five family members at the Changmajhi relief camp, a government reserve in the Hojai district.
“I have six mouths to feed, the debt is mounting, and I have no income,’’ Jamal, crippled due to an injury sustained while working in Meghalaya as a coal miner, told EastMojo.
“Sometimes I manage salt but no rice, and sometimes I manage rice but no salt. The condition is worsening,” he added.
This is not just Noor Jamal’s story. Over 300 other families, all Bengali-speaking Muslims, have been living in excruciatingly poor conditions in crumbling huts since their eviction from Lumding Reserve Forest in November last year after a Guwahati HC order.
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The story of similar suffering for these evicted families, however, finds resonance with two tribal communities — the Chakmas and Garos — in addition to the Muslims of Bengali ancestry living in impoverished conditions in Hojai’s Deka Basti and Janju Bazar — two villages bordering Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council (KAAC). Tadho Chakma, 35, who lives in Deka Basti with about 108 Chakma families, says he has been out of work since the eviction and is ‘surviving on crumbs.’
For Arun Marak, the Gaon Bura for the Garo families resettled in Janju Bazar, daily wages for his community members have been most difficult to come by post eviction. Locals here only employ workers for turmeric cultivation, and there has been no Turmeric cultivation of late. “We have no work or land. The government also promised us land, but it has failed to live up to its words,” the 58-year-old said. He added that though the Lanka Revenue Circle has demarcated land for them as per the demand by Garo Sahitya Sabha, the community finds itself in limbo as there has not been any official confirmation from the government.
The eviction of three communities came on the back of a petition filed by Shiladitya Dev, a former MLA of the Hojai constituency from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Dev is a firebrand local leader who has been quite popular among his supporters for his anti-Bengali Muslim stance. Speaking to the media, Dev had claimed about 20,000 people were staying in the reserve forest area and “all are illegal migrants from Bangladesh.” When he visited the forest area, he said, “I saw that about 1,000 hectares of the reserve forest are being encroached upon by these communities. I moved the high court, and the court immediately has given an order that a proper survey should be made by the government and found that more than 1,600 hectares of land are being encroached upon,” Dev added.
His claim, however, drew a sharp rebuttal from the opposition. Ziaur Rahman, a spokesman for Assam Jatiya Parishad, stated that the government is within its legal jurisprudence to evict these communities if they are illegal encroachers and that his party will support the Himanta-led government on this. However, the state’s recent wave of evictions reeks of a nefarious political agenda. “If they are illegal immigrants, why has the government not deported them?’’ he questioned.
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The aftermath of eviction
Sania Jannat, a 3-year-old gaunt-looking girl, has been eating a morsel of rice with dried chilli chutney for a week now. Her mother, Alek Jaan, 40, says her husband, the only bread-earner in the family, is bed-ridden since they resettled in Janju Bazar after their eviction from Pagla Basti at Lumding Reserve Forest, and she has nothing to feed her. “I am starving so I can feed her whatever I can,” the evictee said.
Minara Begum, a representative for these families, said they have received no rations for months. In Changmajh and Deka Basti too, the cries of hunger, communities alike, echo through the ramshackle shanties.
“Eleven people died here, of which five were elderly, rest were children as old as 4-5 days, all due to hunger and cold,” Saddam Hussain, an evictee in Changmajhi, said. “Even stray cattle live in better conditions. We are left here to suffer, with no food, water or basic sanitation,” he added.
In all three camps, among other worries that these communities are grappling with, lack of access to toilets seems to be taking a toll on them. Minara Begum says men and women in their camp climb up the hill to defecate in the open. Udayanta Chakma, a monk in Deka Basti, says he is ill “but I have to walk a long distance to defecate.”
This ordeal becomes even worse in Chanmajhi as women there have to hold their bowel movements for days since toilet facilities in the camp are scarce, and mostly crowded by men.
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Lost sense of belonging
Amid separate demands to rehabilitate them with land Patta and compensation, the three communities now find their hopes and sense of belonging hang in the balance. The gaon bura for the Chakma community, Indrajoy Chakma, says they have written to the government of Assam to accord them one bigha of the land but “so far they have not received any confirmation from the government.”
He also added that their community of 108 families are now being denied basic rights, let alone schooling. Several children from the other communities who had to drop out of schools because of the eviction now cannot be admitted to schools for financial reasons. The tribal rights organisations representing them have so far written to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to intervene in the matter and fulfil their demands citing the eviction has violated their rights.
Dilip Kanta Chakma, a lawyer who runs the Indigenous Rights Advocacy Center (IRAC) that advocates for the rights of indigenous people in India, said the NHRC has not responded to their complaint yet. “The Chakma in Assam enjoy the Scheduled Tribe (ST) status and as ST, they are entitled to certain rights, including the ownership of Forest land under the Forest Rights Act,” Kanta said. “The FRA recognizes the rights of tribals to live in Forest areas, even areas they claim. It has nothing to do with citizenship and encroachment, “Kanta added, also invoking Chairperson of NHRC Justice A. K. Mishra’s statement that a tribal should not be evicted without the settlement of his/her claim related to land rights. The community, the gaon bura, are staring at a bleak future. “We are dumped here on pretexts. We find the eviction unjust,” Indrojoy Chakma said.
Asutosh Chakma, president of the All Assam Chakma Association, said that these people living in the reserve for 3-4 generations are not “encroachers” as per tribal rights, and the DC of Hojai district said Chakmas living here do not enjoy ST status unlike the Chakma diaspora in neighbouring Dima Hasao, Karbi Anglong and Cachar Districts, and therefore they will be evicted.
“It is clear apartheid and racism,” Asutosh Chakma said.
“No tribal community of a district can be determined non-tribal for specific reasons when they are recognised as tribals in other districts. We were assured compensation, but each family was given only Rs 5000 and nothing else since the eviction,” he added.
For now, people across all evicted communities are staring at yet another cold and unpleasant winter season.
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