Not seen, not heard: In slum evictions, children are some of the worst hit

“The first time a bulldozer came to our place, I was scared and kept sitting near our belongings that had been thrown out,” says Roshni, a ten year old whose family migrated from Bihar to Delhi looking for employment. Roshni and her family have been living in a slum in Yamuna Khadar’s Belagaon in the capital’s eastern region. The settlement is right behind Rajghat, the memorial dedicated to Mahatma Gandhi. Between 2011 and 2018, the houses and the small farms of the dwellers had to face frequent eviction drives by the Delhi Development Authority (DDA).

Children in these fragile communities are amongst the worst hit by slum demolitions. They miss out on education, dropping out of school due to homelessness, uncertainty, and the stigma they face in schools as “slum children”. Caught in a cycle of poverty and growing up with the violence of forced displacement, their future is one of unemployment or poorly paid jobs, not to mention underage labour.

Lakshya Aakriti Foundation (LAF), a not-for-profit, runs informal schools for them in Belagaon because often having to shift from one place to another severely hampers schooling. Diptesh Singh of LAF explains, “We have been associated with this place since 2012. The area faces around four demolitions per year. One demolition takes place in a staggered manner over several days. So for the entire period the families, including the children, stay around their homes in case the bulldozers return. And it is not as if children’s school calendar is taken into consideration when homes are demolished. Children end up missing many days of school at a stretch or dropping out altogether.”

Children of Belagaon attending a school run by LAF

This year Roshni saw DDA officials in her area again. But this time she was quick to act: “I carefully dismantled our makeshift home, carried the lighter things outside the house with my younger brother, called up my older brother, and waited for him to come and take the heavy stuff out.”

Despite the trauma associated with demolitions, some children feel it is better to stay on and claim their rights to the land their ancestors have lived on since before Independence. Being close to the Yamuna river, the area is different from most urban slums in its greenery and fertility, and many residents depend on farming for their livelihood. Abdul and Rohit, both about 13 years old, are friends reluctant to shift to another locality. Abdul explains: “There is open space for us to play cricket. Neighbours share fresh vegetables they grow.” But he rues the fact that it takes months for families to get back to farming after bulldozers have run over their crops.

When the JCB machines come to raze the houses to the ground, Abbas, 14, feels like “hitting those people till they run away”. “It would be so good if we can retain this land. Anywhere else we will have to pay rent, and buy cooking gas, while here we can use the wood available around.”

Abbas’s father, Shafiq, has an elder son who works in another city as a shop assistant. With the family facing either homelessness or the threat of it, the son had given up on education years ago. Being illiterate himself, Shafiq wants that at least Abbas should study well. In answer to a question about the line of work he wants to pursue later in life, Abbas replies with a blank eyed stare, “I’ll become whatever is written in my destiny.” Constant displacement has made him lose faith in the surety of anything and he believes that fate would decide his future.

With their right to housing taken away, children lose out on the right to education too

Sunayna Wadhwan has been an activist with organisations like Hazards Centre and Mobile Creches. In her experience of working with communities in slum clusters, she noticed many families don’t send children to schools so the kids can call and inform the parents if a demolition drive seems imminent: “When we conducted meetings, children would join and try to learn about what the future of their homes would be. Those who go to schools are often discriminated against. The school authorities feel these children won’t be able to stay in one area consistently and are reluctant to take them in. Once admitted, they have to face social stigma, like being made to sit on the last seats of the bus, because of living in slums. The proportion of students in higher education from such localities is low. A common trend for those who do study is to get enrolled for open or correspondence courses once they reach the college level. They realise that a college degree can be helpful in getting them jobs, especially through NGOs active in their area.”

Working with the Centre for Policy Research (CPR), Mukta Naik is an urban planner and architect. Remembering an incident of relocation of a community, she says, “The shifting took place close to children's board exams [considered a crucial test in an Indian child's school life]. Some children ended up losing the documents needed to appear for the examination.”

Resettlement also affects livelihood. Women working as domestic workers within the city are not able to find opportunities in the far flung areas where they are resettled. This affects the amount of spending on children's education, whether it’s about admission to a new school or traveling to attend the old one. The minute it becomes a question of a long commute, girls are made to drop out even quicker because of safety concerns. Sometimes they stay back to take care of the house or siblings, without being safe themselves in the cut-off areas they have been moved to.

Evictions also lead to absenteeism because there is so much damage to property that every member pitches in to put the household together. Children lose uniforms, bags and books. At a time when they have been rendered homeless, parents find it difficult to buy these things.

Rights groups say slum evictions make children vulnerable to violence, trauma and neglect

For the teacher in the school run by LAF in Belagaon, absenteeism is a regular concern. Once evictions/demolitions start occurring at regular intervals, children start dropping out. He says, “These children have to live in the constant fear of getting uprooted.” Shivani Chaudhry of Housing and Land Rights' Network, an NGO, recalls meeting a boy who broke down and started crying each time he saw a bulldozer. Demolition drives in Delhi’s slums have led to some children getting injured and others getting killed.

“The city sees adolescents in slums as potential abusers. But what about the tacit violence these children live with?” asks Enakshi Ganguly of HAQ Centre for Child Rights. “They grow up seeing their parents getting beaten up for fighting for their rights. The threat of children getting abused increases when resettlement takes place in remote areas and the jobs parents get closer to the city keep them out all day. Children are left to fend for themselves.”

Nazdeek is an NGO fighting for the rights of communities in slums. Jayshree Satpute, Nazdeek’s co-founder and lawyer, talks about litigation’s role in helping eviction affected people, “When the court comes up with a favourable order, like ordering authorities to make anganwadis (day care centres) for children, it happens after a year or so but also with results like two centres being close to each other, rather than in different localities.” 

The staff of these anganwadis are also not motivated. They have been fighting for better wages and recognition as government employees, and not volunteers. Working in slums is not lucrative because they get incentives if children have regular attendance. “In an area facing forced migration, this regularity takes a toll,” Jayshree adds.

Bipin Rai is a member of the Delhi Urban Shelter Improvement Board (DUSIB), a government body in charge of looking after slum clusters and their resettlement. He says, “Evictions are not legal. That is why we resettle and rehabilitate. But DDA and the Central Public Works Department do not cooperate or partner with us when it comes to land under them.”

However, like Rai admits, DUSIB too is not directly engaged with looking after the social aspects but is involved more in the infrastructure of resettlement colonies. Sudeshna Chhatterjee is the CEO of a trust called Action for Children’s Environments. In her paper ‘Children’s Role in Humanizing Forced Evictions and Resettlements in Delhi’, she describes the active participation of children in resisting the Gautampuri evictions in the year 2000. It had brought to attention children’s problems and gained them greater participatory space. But to look after the complete social, educational and psychological well being of children facing displacement, special focus on children in city planning for changes to be made at the policy level is something urban planners, researchers and activists continue to advocate for.

India has ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. But in the current Draft National Child Protection Policy framed by the Ministry of Women and Child Development, the mention of children in vulnerable circumstances, like those exposed to evictions or forced migration, remains missing. This gap reaffirms lawyer-activist Jayshree Satpute’s statement, “The elite classes want every opportunity for their children. But they don’t extend the same principles to other classes.” CPR’s Mukta Naik has something similar to say, “The Delhi Development Authority's perception of the city is elitist . . . and slum children have no place in this vision.”

(Names of children have been changed to protect identities.)

Firs published in Beyond Headlines, 31 Jan 2019.

Chhattisgarh Farmers Protest on Rail Tracks Demanding Jobs Promised by Railways

Even as thousands of farmers from Maharashtra head towards Mumbai, their compatriots in Chhattisgarh have also been protesting since March 5, demanding jobs in lieu of their land acquired by the Railways.

In Bhanupratappur, situated in Kanker district in the North Bastar region, farmers whose land had been acquired for the Dallirajhara-Rowghat-Jagdalpur rail project have been sitting on the railway tracks since the past week demand jobs promised to them. Resolved to stay put till they get job appointments,  hundreds of protesters have spread tarpaulin and durries over stones on the tracks.

The rail line project would be carrying iron ore from Rowghat mines to the Bhilai Steel Plant (BSP). Rowghat had also been in news earlier because of the local resistance to the mines.

Chandrashekhar Yadu, one of the protesters, said those whose land ownership is covered by the Forest Rights Act have not got any compensation or even the application forms for jobs. “The few farmers with revenue land who have jobs have got meagre amounts in the name of compensation. More than 400 farmers are waiting to get jobs. When we met officials from the Railways, the local administration and BSP on March 8, 2018, in the office of the sub-divisional magistrate, we were told that in 2012 there was a change in the 2011 policy, which now covers only those whose 75-100% land was impacted by the project. But the public wasn’t informed of any such change. We would believe the papers we have in our hands right now, which talk of jobs and compensation for all whose land was affected to any extent. Amendments can keep taking place.”

The farmers are against the provision, as listed in the notification issued by South East Central Railway on April 8, 2011, of jobs being granted only to the landowner, the spouse or their sons/daughters. People of the 28 affected villages feel it excludes those who don’t have children but may want jobs for other family members.

The 2011 notification also doesn’t take into account the fact that many elders own the land so it would be their grandchildren, and not their sons and daughters, who would be in the right age group for jobs. The prescribed age bracket is 18-33 years, relaxed by five years’ for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes, and for three years’ for other backward classes.

The farmers are demanding that the affected people should get appointment letters first and then should be sent for the technical training required. They do not want the candidates to be first sent to pass the training in an industrial training institute (ITI) and then kept under training again in BSP as they say the actual appointment in this case takes years.

Nandlal Jaiswal, a participant in the protest, said, “The government talks of sabka sath, sabka vikas. But how is this development for all? It is only for the government. It is also unfair that the Dalli-Rajhara farmers in Balod district were given jobs and we have been discriminated against.”

First published in The Wire, 11 Mar 2018.

Understanding Uranium Mining in Meghalaya: Perils, Pushbacks and Politics

When asked about their views on uranium mining in Meghalaya, most local people started with, ‘You know it is a very sensitive issue here’, and they were not exaggerating. The Atomic Minerals Directorate (AMD) found uranium in Domiasiat, Meghalaya, in 1984, and in 1991, the Uranium Council of India Limited (UCIL) first started drilling in the area. But during the next couple of years the project faced a roadblock. Many name the late Hoping Stone Lyngdoh, a legislator in the Hill State People’s Democratic Party (HSPDP) of Meghalaya, as one of the first to have started studying about uranium mining and its possible adverse effects, and then rallying people to oppose it. Khasi Students Union (KSU) was another resistance group at the forefront. Since then UCIL has been constantly trying to resume operations full throttle and, after a lot of back and forth, earlier this year the Khasi Hills Autonomous District Council (KHADC), which represents the region’s autonomy per the Sixth Schedule to the Constitution, withdrew the No Objection Certificate issued to the company.

I visited Meghalaya in May 2017 to understand the situation better, and most people I spoke to vehemently opposed the project. But there were also some who felt mining would have brought development to the State and contributed to nation building. Such people said that because elections were approaching, those who opposed the project were doing so to gain political mileage. I heard about a journalist who spoke in favour of mining and got assaulted. HS Shylla, ex-chief executive member (CEM) of KHADC, had also supported the project at one point. Having initially agreed to a meeting with me, he changed his mind later and sent a statement, ‘Rightly or wrongly, I don’t know for sure, but the people of Meghalaya in general and Khasi and Jaintia hills in particular have been made to accept that mining of uranium will cause deadly health hazard. People, especially youth, are ever ready to die for this’. I tried to contact UCIL and AMD for interviews but I was told the UCIL chief was travelling, and AMD did not respond.

There is one part of the project which interests even many of those who are staunchly against mining. This is the 68 km Nongstoin-Pambriew-Wahkaji-Mawthabah stretch, which UCIL was to make into a two lane road. Many among the general public had waited eagerly for this as it would have connected remote areas to the more developed ones. With the company currently out of the picture, this too has come to a standstill though the council has now taken up the task.

Ground Realities

Laitduh village, Sohra

In Laitduh, a village around 60 km away from Shillong in Sohra, UCIL had first made its presence felt around 2003. I travelled from Shillong to Sohra where a couple of KSU members accompanied me to Laitduh. The Khasi Students Union has been in Meghalaya for a long time now, and has a strong hold in the villages as well. The village secretary, Jingkyrmenlang Lyngdoh, met us in the village and showed us the old drilling holes, some of whose locations he remembered.

Some of the rusted metallic pipes in the ground had their mouths open. This was a cause for concern for the villagers. They feared such places might still be radioactive and could then contaminate the air and the water. Some others were just holes in the ground. At places they had been partially covered with big stones or cement lids, bearing the initials of the village. There were also spots which looked as if they were well covered by these lids but they could easily be lifted, exposing the holes.

I started talking to a group of construction workers and some villagers also gathered around. Richmond Kharmalki said that if mining took place in their area it would turn out to be another Jaduguda (in Jharkhand) where UCIL’s mining of the ore is known to have caused serious health hazards for the people. Golden Star Kharchandy added, ‘Since we have not been told by the government about what exactly the effects of the mining could be, people are scared’. To the development question, Apilattues Kharchandy’s answer was, ‘First people have to know what sort of development is being talked about’.

Apilattues continued, ‘In 2003, the company had taken the village’s permission only for a survey but they also conducted drilling. Around 15-17 people went with the survey team’. One of the men present remembered carrying a machine for the team as a teenager. At that time the company had taken the village headman’s permission. The company officials were seen taking some rock samples. But none of the villagers recalled any official having spoken about what exactly they were doing.

In the year 2015, Damil Bynnud, the district KSU President, had read in the papers about the AMD’s plan to come to the area and had told local people about it. They had a meeting attended by about 300 people and had decided that they would approach the CEM of KHADC to prevent the AMD from coming.

The local residents believed that after UCIL’s initial work in the area, even though it had not continued, some villagers had developed cancer and tuberculosis. I asked if such diseases did not happen earlier. ‘No, but we think in these cases it was the air from the open drilling holes’.

In a tea shop nearby, some women shared their thoughts. Bullina Kharchandy, now retired, used to teach in the lower primary school in Lummawshken village nearby. ‘When UCIL came, nobody knew it was for uranium. We learnt about this only after the drilling. We did not want it to continue because we want health, not wealth’. She laughed, proud of her knowledge of the proverb, and repeated the phrase. ‘Even if the government promises us safety, response from other elders, surrounding villages and NGOs has to be taken into account’.

Another woman in the group, S. Skhembill, said, ‘We do not want development if it comes only with uranium mining. It would affect our health. We are farmers; we cannot afford for our animals to fall sick either. And we have heard they would build nuclear weapons with the energy produced. We are not in its favour’. This concern for ‘all things both great and small’ is also found in traditional Khasi stories that begin with ‘When man and beasts and stones and trees spoke as one . . .’

I asked the shop owner for water and KSU members queried with a half smile if I would drink the water of this region. I asked KSU if they would. ‘We have to live here. What option do we have?’ I talked a bit about Amitav Ghosh’s book Countdown which mentions how government officials did not have the local water around Pokhran (Rajasthan), the site of India’s second nuclear test. The union people wanted to know if Ghosh had it. I didn’t remember that bit but I added that the author had also not been claiming that the water was safe to drink.

......

Domiasiat village, Ranikor

KSU members agreed to accompany me to Domiasiat in West Khasi Hills, around 130 km from Shillong, and help me with the Khasi to English translation. I expected one or two members but on the day there were two jeeps full of them. Though nobody else I had met had mentioned this, KSU said they found it safer to go in big groups as the area has insurgents and there had been some recent kidnappings.

The road to Domiasiat is a long and arduous one and the students carried whatever they thought they would need, an auxiliary cable, to begin with. When it started working, there was a jubilant cry in the car. The soft hum that began to play made me think it was a Khasi love song. A student member, Phulchand, explained what it said, ‘Before it is too late, let us stand up to defend what is ours’. KSU has a group of people with whose help they compose such patriotic songs and sell the CDs. Even if the sales just cover the costs, they are happy to get the message across to people.

Once we reached Mowronong view point, the road started disintegrating. The conversation inevitably turned to the subject at hand. Pulljohn Wannianj was clear, ‘Constructing a two-lane here can mean one thing and one thing only: mining. If it's repair and proper road building for the sake of development, we would have been ok with that’.

As we neared Domiasiat, we came across the abandoned buildings where workers employed at the mining sites would have stayed. Near the entrance, a sign warned against leaving the campus after 9 pm, deforestation, alcohol, noise, bringing wives and children, and marrying indigenous people. The last bit reminded me of how some of the people interviewed had said that the main fear of the people (including KSU who have also been against railways) opposing mining was that of outsiders coming in. Starfing Pdahkasiej, editor of SP News Agency, who had told me his uncle Dominic Pdahkasiej was the first person to have been deputed for drilling, had also mentioned similar concerns among local people, “There is a limited number of government jobs available. People with MA degrees are applying to be peons. When companies like UCIL come, there is talk of employment generation but they always keep the locals in the lower rungs, not in decision making positions.”

Going further into Wahkaji, another abandoned construction is the primary health centre that was supposed to function while UCIL conducted its operations.

I was informed that after one point cars cannot go in and we would have to trek through the forest for about thirty-forty minutes to reach the site. The jeep almost miraculously made its way through the rugged terrain to the point where the forest began. The small plate of rice and meat the others had in the morning seemed like an old story at this point, everyone getting even more exhausted with the hot sun. With some reluctance, they agreed to share the packet of biscuits I had. With the renewed energy brought by four biscuits each, we started walking, trying not to be slowed down too much by mossy stones and brambles covering our way.

The now closed drilling sites shown to me seemed like big water tanks almost at ground level, now cemented and covered. What bothered people were the many cracks that had appeared. Where repairs had been undertaken to fix them, after people’s protests, they had not been to people’s satisfaction. Phulchand said, ‘If there are cracks there would be a leak. I've read that concrete can't stop radioactivity. Only lead can’. The other thing that made them uncomfortable were open pipes that apparently had been installed to release effluents. KSU people took care not to fill water in their empty bottles from streams around this area and kept insisting I cover my face with a mask even in the heat. For a long time after, we made do with the half a bottle of water that I, after a moment of hesitation about whether I’d be left with any and subsequent shame about the inadvertent thought, invited them to share.

Not far from the site is Nongtynger village, where UCIL’s engraved stone talks of its ‘donation’ of something like a small, open water tank-well. Covered on three sides, the opening showed water on the surface which two girls were using to the wash their hair and utensils. We filled our bottles with the water.

Our next stop was the house of Spleity Langrin, an elderly matriarch, around 90, who has become the face of the anti-mining resistance. The early evening light was still clear as it fell on the green fields around but inside the hut it was almost completely dark. Kong Spleity was not too well and we decided not to disturb her but she said she would like to meet us considering we had come all the way. I was wary of asking the usual questions about her opposition to the project, feeling she must have already narrated the same story to so many people. But she said, ‘If it is about asserting my right over my land, I can do it any number of times. We belong here and we won’t give up our land till death’. Of her experience with people involved in the project, she said, ‘The people who had come were very rude. They did not interact with the people here’.

Her daughter Silnola Langrin describes the various health effects due to mining that people, especially women and children, of the area had to endure. ‘One of them died at childbirth. My sister suffered too’. However, there are still people who are willing to sell their land to the company. KSU admits that in the Nongjri area many people did not want to talk to them because they were upset with KSU for opposing mining. KSU said in these families too there were children born with deformities but the parents were not ready to see uranium mining as the cause. But such people did not change Silnola Langrin’s opinion, ‘I know because I have seen the effects first hand’.

Silnola’s brother, Flavour Langrin, was happy to welcome anyone who came to meet them to offer support. With reference to their dark hut, he said electricity had reached them but after the first two months it never returned and complaining to the electricity board did not help.

Karmel Thongni, 45, is another resident of the Wahkaji area. ‘We definitely oppose mining, though people in villages supporting it are upset with us’. This area is so cut-off. What kind of development would be most helpful for people here? Karmel laughed, ‘There is so much we need. I don’t even know where to begin’.

The dhaba in Wahkaji where we stopped for dinner was run by the family of a traditional musician. His nephew, Ehbok Langrin, worked in Shillong and was visiting. About uranium mining, he said, ‘Some say it is good and others oppose it. But what we do know is we don't want to get displaced and leave our home. I am an engineer and I was getting paid better in Mumbai. Yet I came to Shillong to stay close to home’.

The Council

In an interview, the CEM of KHADC, P.N. Syiem, asserted, ‘Land is a state subject so how can the state pass a law against people’s wishes? The MoU we had with UCIL was only for the road. In 1993, they had been allowed some construction. But some paragraph in it talked about mining which we missed. Anyway now the MoU has been withdrawn’.

What happens now to the two-lane project proposed by UCIL? ‘At times there are so many complications. The outgoing CEM had opened a joint account for KHADC with UCIL for this project. First we had to close the account’.

The CEM was perplexed that despite the council’s supposed autonomy so many nods still have to come from the State government before decisions can be taken. ‘We have asked the government for an NOC to repair the road as 18 kms of work has already been done by UCIL of a total of about 70 kms. Once it comes through work would be resumed’.

What the Experts Say

Professor Om Prakash Singh teaches in the department of environmental studies in the North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong. When I raised the point of people’s concern over open drilling holes, he said, ‘That is a genuine point. When it rains, the same uranium goes downstream and during drilling the chances of leaching (which could release toxic effluents in the environment) increase’. Another issue that had come up in my discussion with NGOs was that there was only a small percentage of uranium in Meghalaya and the quality was not that good either. Singh shrugged, ‘UCIL seems to believe differently’. Responding to reports of deformities and diseases found in people living around mining sites, he said nothing had been proved.

In 2004, Singh was part of an environment impact assessment (EIA) group and had visited the concerned areas in Meghalaya. ‘The area-the flora and the fauna-seemed normal. The method involves generating baseline data which is later compared to the data of that place after mining is done. We can predict possible adverse effects and the mining company has to follow guidelines on the basis of which clearance is given’.

Do companies adhere to these guidelines and is there a strict check on them? ‘The state pollution board is supposed to get regular reports from them but, yes, I would say that implementation is not done properly’. What about the safety measures for the workers on the site? ‘Those too have been neglected in our country in the past; it’s true’.

Over email, I invited the views of some other academics on the subject. Craig Hart, associate professor in the Department of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of British Columbia (UBC), shared, ‘Generally, open drill holes are not a problem. The only issue would be if there was water coming out from it, as it could cause an adjustment in the water table. In these cases, concrete could be used to fill them’.

Bern Klein is an associate professor of Mining Engineering in the same institution. He was of the opinion that ‘the risk would also depend on the concentration of uranium at depth.‎ However, drill holes can fill in over time so I really don't believe there is a radiation issue. To test, you could measure radioactivity near the drill holes and some distance away’.

Another mining engineering assistant professor, Marcello Veiga, UBC, said, ‘The main concern of uranium is not in the mining step but in the nuclear energy plants’.

The problem with scientific takes is that both in India and outside, the community has often been divided about the mining of uranium. Not enough has been done to break down this information in a layperson’s terms for people to understand. NGOs and unions are accused of propaganda but they are the ones who succeed in having conversations with people while companies share information mostly with selected urban, educated groups and officials.

Where do the Tribal Chiefs Stand?

An 1853 report on the Khasi and Jaintia Hills by AJM Mills, sent on deputation to the Northeast frontier by the British government, documents treaties between the then government and the ‘Khasia chieftains’. While the chiefs agreed to accede to the Company in a lot of matters, they also put up a fight to retain their autonomy wherever possible. The very first clause of one such treaty reads, ‘We (the chiefs), in conjunction with those who reside and trade in our territory, shall continue to conduct the business of our territories, keeping the ryots contented, in conformity to the former rules and customs. This country will have no concern with any of the courts of Government . . .’

Today too the tribal chiefs continue their efforts to assert their independence. The chair of the grand council of chiefs of Meghalaya (Federation of Khasi States), John F Kharshiing, isn’t one to mince words, ‘Kashmir was lucky to have article 370 grant it autonomous status. We had nobody to speak for us when these decisions were being taken’.

But isn’t the KHADC precisely there for this purpose, to protect the autonomy of the Khasis? Kharshiing rejects this claim, ‘Our chiefs are not represented by KHADC. The council is a political body’.

Kharshiing has been active in mobilising support against mining activities. Around 2007-08, he travelled to rural Mawkyrwat, taking a television set and a copy of the film Buddha Weeps in Jaduguda. ‘We should focus more on other advanced technology rather than atomic power. Look at the cyber attack on Russia; everything happened through computers’.

Coming back to the uranium rich areas in question, he recalled a British map that shows the presence of thick forests and special birds in the region that could get endangered. He also mentioned proximity to international borders and the requirement of huge amounts of water in the process of mining. ‘If the centre tries to forcibly do anything here, they would have a Kashmir like situation at hand’.

...............

In India where companies are granted EIA waivers and penalties are not paid even upon proof of violations, scientific studies and their results have not been the only basis of whether a company gets to launch operations that might impact the environment. In Meghalaya too, the issue of uranium mining is fraught with the apprehensions of student bodies and NGOs; the tensions between the State, the district council and the tribal chiefs; and the concerns of the people about land ownership and displacement, health, environment, the true purpose of nuclear energy, and whether mining is the mandatory cost they have to pay in order to be the benefactors of some much needed development, including the basic services of roads and electricity.

First published in EclecticNorthEast, July 2017. Subsequently published in The aPolitical, 15 Aug 2017, and DiaNuke.org, 17 Aug 2017.

Doctoring Evil: The Making and Hunting of Witches in Assam

In 2016, India celebrated the Olympic medals brought home by PV Sindhu and Sakshi Malik. But women who make unconventional choices like becoming sportspersons do not always get rewarded. Assam's Debjani Bora, who has won gold at the national level for her javelin throws, was targeted as a witch in 2014 in the state and assaulted, of all the places, in a community prayer hall. Debjani's case puts into question one of the biggest myths around witch-hunting, that it takes place only due to superstition, ignorance and lack of education in far-flung remote villages, and among poor, uneducated people. Superstition might be one of the causes of branding women as witches and the subsequent attacks on them, but talking to one survivor after another, or the families of those who succumbed, brings to light many incidents that have been perpetrated with clear motivation and deliberate planning.

While not the only one, Assam is one state where witch-hunting cases have been taking place for years; it is also the state in the northeast with the lowest gender development index. Witch-hunting in Assam is supposedly more common among the Rabha, Hajong, Mishing, Bodo and other tribal groups. Women are not the only targets but it is worth noting, as shared by Chitralekha Barua of North East Network (NEN), a women's rights group based in Guwahati, that when men are targeted, their wives also get embroiled by association. On the other hand, if a woman is supposed to be practising witchcraft, it is considered possible that she may be doing so without the knowledge of her family. That is why at times the spouses or families of such women, in trying to protect themselves, dissociate themselves from the woman who is then left to fend for herself. A report by the organisation Partners in Law and Development (PLD), taking into account data from different states, says that 86 per cent of the primary targets of witch-hunting are women, and of these most fall in the age group of 40-60 years. So not just those women who are typically seen as vulnerable, such as single women and widows, but also the ones 'secure' in their marital families face the threat of witch-hunting. In a study focusing on witch-hunting in Assam, PLD also discovered that in 12 out of the 16 cases they were examining the victims had had no formal education.

The Making of a Witch

Women have been the face of evil in fairy tales and folklores for centuries, like Tejimola's evil stepmother in one of Assam's folktales. There are male ghosts too but in literature or motion pictures, the fear invoked by the woman with supernatural powers remains unmatched. Power in men is supposed to be a part of their natural being. There is a matter-of-factness about it. But women are inherently supposed to be defenceless and fragile. For them to have strong powers is an aberration. At times they are allowed to be wonder women, in ways that retain their attractiveness under the male gaze. But more frequently media and mythology suggest that they tend to get consumed by their own prowess more often than men. It is Eve who has to bite into the apple for all hell to break loose.

There are many ways in which this mystery, and then mistrust, around women's capabilities gets built. In villages or cities, when there are programmes to raise awareness around reproductive issues men would keep out of it or would be asked to stay out. What happens is that instead of understanding there is fear or contempt for the reproductive capabilities of women's bodies. One woman was targeted as a witch because during her menstruation she noticed some other emissions and when she went to a doctor about it, it became a matter of public knowledge and, soon, fear.

Then there is this hostility towards the hungry woman. She is the antonym to the woman who starves and fasts for others in the family and never says she is hungry even if she is malnourished. A woman who acknowledges this hunger and wants it satiated becomes a witch who feeds on the flesh and blood of others to strengthen herself. Anita Rabha, 58, lives in Baida village in Lakhipur block of Goalpara district. Years ago, a boy in her area suffered a dog bite. His father consulted a kobiraj, who acted like a traditional doctor for villagers. The kobiraj said that he would not be able to cure the boy. When the boy died, another kobiraj said that he had been eaten by a witch and pointed to Anita's house. It seems too much of a coincidence that this second kobiraj was related to Anita and her spouse, and had been in dispute with them over a piece of land. At this juncture, Anita received the support of her maternal family, who brought the couple to their home after they got driven out of their own house, but Birbal Rabha, her spouse, decided to separate from her. She now works at the local thana, the police station, washing utensils and clothes. She talks of how her younger son is finding it tough to pass the matriculation exam. Once he does, she says, he could get a driving licence and a job as a driver. Anita's daughter, 22, is in her third year of college and had also been going to computer classes but is not studying at present because of a problem with her hand. One doctor has diagnosed her with arthritis. Wrenched away from her home and village and fending for herself and her children, Anita worries as her own age diminishes her capabilities. When she does get some time, she tries to attend meetings of AMSS, the Assam Mahila Samata Society, which has been staunchly fighting the practice of witch-hunting.

Anita Rabha, driven out of her village on suspicion of witchcraft

Identifying and Targeting ‘Witches’

I meet AMSS members in Goalpara, where they work in five blocks. Goalpara also receives funds from the government because it is listed as a backward district. A number of women from neighbouring villages have been well trained as active members of the Society, which now has a strong network, and so the coordinator has to intervene only in extreme cases. AMSS has a long list of witch-hunting cases they intervened in. In 2012, Dukhumoli Daimari, a widow with children, was finally able to get her house built. Her son had also become independent and had been doing well. This prosperity of an ‘unfortunate’ woman became unpalatable for some relatives in the family who consulted an ojha, a kind of an astrologer-doctor-priest, who declared Dukhumoli a witch.

An ojha performing a ritual in her temple

Ojhas are important because they supposedly put the final stamp of identification on the witches to be targeted. The ojha I met, however, an old woman living in as much poverty as her next door neighbour in the village, did not come across as such an all-powerful figure. Surrounded by several of her grandchildren in her dimly lit hut, she showed me the small temple of mud where she had established the idol of a goddess. She plaintively remarked that ojhas are maligned for naming witches, while all they do is give a vague description of the person and the area to people who have already decided who they wish to target.

AMSS's intervention process involved a big meeting with all the villagers who had turned against Dukhumoli. Yet for about a year she had to live in a separate house outside the village, protected by the police and supported by groups like the Rabha Students Organisation and the Bodo Mahila Samiti. Finally an agreement was signed with the villagers where they said they would not trouble Dukhumoli again after she returned home and she, in turn, would not take any action against them.

AMSS fights witch hunting through direct intervention and awareness programmes

Ruma Kalita, AMSS, says, ‘I cannot think of a case where a woman went to the police directly. We intervene in a case if we get to know of it from our members or a woman could come to us if she knows of the group. Acceptance of the ostracised person finally happens by the village, though it does take time.’ This reconciliation often comes on the condition that no action would be taken against the villagers who had earlier assaulted the so-called witch. Something similar happened with Onila Basumatary.

Onila offers a guesstimate of 45-50 years upon being asked about her age. She had come to Assam from Noakhali after her marriage. Onila, along with two of her friends, had lent money to a person belonging to the Santhal tribe. Santhalis in Assam are often viewed with suspicion and distrust and considered outsiders. Because of their interactions with the person, all three women were suspected of being involved in witchcraft and were brutally attacked with lathis by about eighty people. Onila was later called the ‘luckier’ one because another friend of hers, already weak due to an illness she was going through, succumbed to her injuries.

Onila still continues to take medicines for the joint pains that had started after she was beaten up. A month after the attack she was not even able to move from her bed. All of this happened within a day in the Brahmo temple in the village and she never got a chance to refute the allegations foisted upon her. She did not file a police case because later people of the village gave her a thousand rupees for her treatment. She smiles sadly on being asked if that much money was enough. ‘Someone from the village came with me when I was going to the doctor. I had to pay for his food and conveyance, along with mine. For a week every day I had to go to the doctor and still have to continue those visits to the civil hospital in Udalguri. I feel like I have been ill for ever. I don't feel like a healthy person any more.’

Around 80 people attacked Onila Basumatary with lathis, after having branded her a witch

Onila does not have any land herself and works as a daily wage labourer. Her daughter-in-law weaves clothes but the output is just about enough for their own domestic consumption. Does she feel angry with the villagers about the injustice meted out to her, ‘I am not upset. What is the use? You have to live with these people. Now they talk to me like nothing had happened.’

The Prejudice of the Educated

It is believed that lack of education is the cause of witch-hunting in villages. But are the educated free of prejudice? The headmaster of Baida Junior College, Listiram Rabha, is also the honorary founder principal there. When asked about the practice of witch-hunting he says, ‘When a dakini, the witch, commits malpractices, she gets beaten up by the public. I would say they should not be killed. They should get a chance to rectify themselves.’ He recalls having acted as a mediator in many cases and saved the practitioners of witchcraft from the public, and the public from the law.

He continues to talk about the practice of dark rituals, ‘There is an oppodevata, a god with a supernatural, malevolent force that some people tame. If this force is sent to harm someone, the person would fall so ill that no doctor would be able to cure him. The patient would then have to offer some sacrifice. Content with this offering, the force will then help the practitioner again in the future when they summon the god. I saw on television that in a lady's house in Guwahati, curtains get set on fire. Such things are the work of the gods that I speak of. To tame such gods is a big art and Rabhas are experts in this.’

While he condemns the violent methods of witch-hunting, he speaks of the importance of education not in reforming the hunters but in transforming those he calls the practitioners, ‘Education is increasing. Tantric practices around here have gone down by about 60 per cent. People are going out to study but there aren't as many women doing this. They should.’

Working with Witch Hunters, Against Witch-Hunting

The mention of DGP Kula Saikia and his Project Prahari keeps coming up as an example of a campaign against witch-hunting. When I meet him at his office, it is easy to notice his pride in the campaign he had initiated, as in the Fulbright scholarship he had received for education in the US where he had studied models of community development. He fondly speaks of how this helped him connect better with people, ‘Recently a village woman called me up and said, “For us, you are our God” . . . these things are not common in the life of a police officer.’

Saikia talks about how witch-hunting is not a new phenomenon and traces its history in European countries. ‘In 2001, I was DIG, Kokrajhar. It is situated in lower Assam, which has a lot of tribal areas.’ When he read cases of how several people were murdered as part of witch-hunting, he felt it would need something more than traditional policing. ‘I learnt that before the crime the people of the village had held a meeting. I had to see it as a societal crime.’ Saikia found it a pity that community strength was being used in the wrong direction and wondered if it could be mobilised for a more constructive purpose.

When he questioned the villagers about the murders, they said they had been having several issues like crop failures and illnesses. So when the priest told them of the ‘witch’ responsible for their misfortunes, they decided to eliminate her. Saikia talks of how earlier people were afraid of the police but his project started a dialogue with the people and people began inviting Saikia to their villages voluntarily.

He decided that the villages need development, in the absence of which, people had started attacking their vulnerable fellow villagers due to frustration about their own conditions. He started creating what he calls a change agent-led growth model, roping in women's groups, students' groups, science clubs and doctors. The villagers resolved to take up productive activities like weaving. Project Prahari brought in designers from the National Institute of Design, agricultural experts, conducted health camps and sports like football. ‘The idea was to facilitate participation by local people in their own progress. We got people together to build their bridges and canals themselves, instead of always having to wait for the government to come in. Women got empowered and got confident enough to approach us for information about government schemes for them. If children were dying in a village in large numbers, I would get their blood tests done and it would turn out to be something like malaria. Terrorists would ask villagers not to interact with me but people would pay no heed.’ The campaign against witch-hunting thus spread to around hundred villages, led by the first village which had once been the perpetrator of the crime.

Gaps to be Mended

NEN isn't quick to buy Saikia's claim. ‘If the project was so successful, why was it not continued?’ asks NEN's Anurita Pathak. ‘Why didn't they raise funds, integrate anti-witch-hunting lessons in education and health in regional langauges?’

Chitralekha Barua of the same organisation underlines the media's role in encouraging regressive attitudes to women: ‘TV serials still keep women within the confines of their homes. Local channels would advertise which babas or priests you can go to if you are tamed by dakinis.’

NEN has been vociferous in demanding an anti-witch hunt legislation for the state but the bill has still not got the final approval. There are also other concerns around the present bill like a lack of nuanced understanding of the terms witchcraft and witchhunt, bez and ojha (both loosely used as terms for those who identify a certain person as a witch), and the differences between Assamese and Bodo languages. Activists worry that it does not focus enough on prevention. Professor Upen Rabha Hakasam of the department of folklore, Gauhati University, has personally faced the menace of witch-hunting as his own cousin, married in a well to do, highly educated household, had fallen prey to it. He says, ‘The British had been able to abolish the abhorrent practice of Sati by law. Why can't our government use the law to abolish witch-hunting?’

The Silver Lining

Outside of the law there have been attempts by artists to focus on the implications of witch-hunting, while activists use art to bolster their campaign. AMSS has travelled twenty villages with its play, along with putting up 200 awareness camps. There are films like Aei Maatite, Witch-Hunt Diaries and Jangfai Jonak on the subject. 

Working for years now on ground zero, through village level branches called sanghas, AMSS members say that there has been a decrease in the number of murders because of witch-hunting, though many cases of ostracisation and assault are still there. The survivors who would previously hesitate to report cases are much more confident now. They talk of instances when the police demanded affidavits from women saying they would not withdraw their complaints. Some survivors also end up joining the organisation. Women have started demanding property rights. AMSS members visit the homes of women employed as labour, as carpenters and stone cutters, and get them registered so they have economic stability and are not completely vulnerable or dependent. AMSS adds that the power wielded by ojhas has weakened, and people have started going more to doctors; health centres in villages have helped.

AMSS itself has faced assault by villagers, who feared that the organisation would report them to the police. They called the women working with AMSS witches and their leaders like Mamoni and Birubala head witches. But the organisation did not take legal action against them because they wanted people to realise what they were doing was wrong, which they ultimately did and apologised.

Going beyond Black-and-White

In trying to understand witch-hunting, if we look at each case carefully, there seem to be some immediate causes like deep-set prejudices against women, poor health, education and economic status, inter- and intra-familial rivalries, ignorance and superstition. But a superior, patronising approach of relegating these features only to certain sections of society, marginalised in terms of gender, social or economic status, won't help. There are enough incidents to show that the practice also goes on in families with ample money and education. Something like non-conformism by women is punished across classes. In villages, women whose spouses treat them well, as equal partners, have been called witches. In cities, if a woman is loved and respected by her partner, she is asked what magic she had to resort to in order to keep the man in her ‘control’.

Similarly, rather than assuming that witch-hunting takes place in certain societies because they are ‘backward’ and uneducated would be taking a myopic view of things. In his paper 'Assam’s Tale of Witch-hunting and Indigeneity', Debarshi Prasad Nath makes some important larger connections, like linking witch-hunting to an aggressive, revivalist effort to establish cultural identities in a state where identity conflicts over resources are a common feature. Nath talks of how Bodo history doesn't have records of witch-hunts. He relates the frequency of witch-hunting in Bodo communities to a possible attempt by Bodo people to integrate themselves with an ancient part of Assamese history. Nath's paper points to the possibility of witch-hunting being a skewed way in which some members of the community try to resist a homogenisation imposed by majoritarian groups. The infamous witch-hunting incident that took place in Majuli in Assam comes to mind where for three days in 2013 even the police could/did not enter the area to intervene.

Then there is the case of the ex-principal of Udalguri College, Prafulla Kumar Basumatary. His wife was named as a witch by Basumatary's niece. The niece had been pursuing her MBA in Mumbai and had come to her village in Assam at that time. Her aunt, the accused, says there were two reasons for this targeting: jealousy around the fact that Basumatary's own children were doing very well in cities in terms of education and work, and because the said niece was in love with someone her own family was not allowing her to marry, and she found this an easy way to vent her frustration. So, here, along with familial rivalry and socioeconomic insecurities, for the niece there was the pressured and uncomfortable coexistence of an aspirational city life along with the traditional expectations of her family.

Blamed by their own relatives, the Basumatary family had to rebuild their home elsewhere

Along with a nuanced understanding of the triggers to witch-hunting while working with perpetrators, there also needs to be a patient unearthing of unsaid narratives of the survivors. NEN's Anurita Pathak points out that in many cases the victims can hope to get some kind of justice only after they are dead. But witch-hunting is not just an isolated incident. It is often a protracted process that can also include sexual violence, stalking, disrobing, molestation, acid attacks and public humiliation, rejecting sexual advances being one of the causes. Due to stigma and resignation to the fact that the survivors have to continue to live amongst their attackers, many of these stories never come to the fore, leading to not just a denial of justice but also a never-articulated demand for it.

First published in Eclectic NorthEast, January 2017. Subsequently published in India Resists, 3 Mar 2017. Photos by Jadeed Hussain and Nasreen Habib.