LAST week, when 20-year-old Shimul Soren protested against the desecration of a tribal shrine by alleged CPI(M) activists, he paid for it with his life. He was shot dead. Says one angry resident of Astigram: "There was no provocation from us but the armed gunmen told us that the Jharkhandis will be taught a lesson." In neighbouring Jamboni, veteran CPI(M) worker Kshudiram Murmu has been forced to go into hiding—he has been receiving death threats from his own partymen. "We are CPI(M) supporters but the party must protect us against antisocials led by some local leaders. Our only fault is that we dared to protest against some leaders who have become rich overnight, illegally. Some have even settled their kin from Bihar, displacing us, the tribals," he says.
Terror stalks large parts of Jhargram in tribal Midnapore district, thanks to a relentless battle for land. As evening gives way to night, Santhals stand guard against armed attackers on the prowl. What is ironic is that both the attackers and their victims belong to the same political party, the CPI(M). A closer scrutiny, however, reveals the familiar undertones of a San-thal-non-tribal conflict.
The Midnapore Santhals have much to be angry about. Once the soil was their domain, but the progress of technology has left them trailing far behind, as the poorest of the poor. And until the late '80s, they had at least a party to cling to—the CPI(M). Now even that consolation is being denied.
Says a local college lecturer: "Over the last few years, outsiders (non-tribals) have been settled on the Santhals' land, their villages attacked repeatedly, their hutments burnt. Even their tribal gods and customs have been insulted. A section of the local CPI(M) leaders has been involved in all this, with the full knowledge, if not the active connivance of, the district administration. No wonder the Santhals now turn to local Jharkhand leaders for protection, and put up their green flags as a sign of protest." The tribals have responded in the only way they know, resorting to a phase of militancy to hit back against a planned process of pauperisation. "What is a tribal village without some land, in this arid zone, where vegetation is low as it is? And if that too is taken from them, what remains for them?" asks a police officer in Midnapore town.
It is not as though the CPI(M) headquarters in Calcutta, its hands full with the threatened Gorkha agitation in the hills, is not alive to the latest danger from the plains. Says Biman Bose, member, Central Committee: "We are aware of the developments and have already taken some steps. There is some misunderstanding between us and a section of the people. I will visit Midnapore for a stock-taking." Local party sources pin a lot of blame for the Santhal-non-tribal rift on Basu Bhakat, the CPI(M) supremo in the area. Naren Hansda, the lone Jharkhand MLA in West Bengal and president of the All-India Jharkhand Party, agrees. "Bhakat, apart from his active involvement in the attacks against us, announced in some parts of the district that all marriages proposed between Santhals and others would have to be referred to him. At least 400 marriages were delayed for months because applications sent to him remained pending. If this is not direct interference with our fundamental rights, what is? The administration knew what was happening and so did the party bosses.
It is only now that the people are defying him." The CPI(M), too, took the Santhals for granted. Says Bhiku Tudu of Jhargram: "The party office was our second home and the Left leaders gave us protection from moneylenders and landlords. But from 1977-78 onwards, they began to treat us as cheap labour and our complaints fell on deaf ears. It was only a question of time before outsiders, even from Bihar and other states, were settled on land that belonged to us. Last year, over 20,000 tribals were driven out of their villages by Left cadres with help from the administration. They took shelter in Chakulia area of Bihar near the border." Hansda thinks the real deterioration set in from the late '80s—under Bhakat. Since 1987, armed gangs have disrupted even Santhal protest meetings with impunity. Says Hansda: "The Santhals, who fought the British with bows and arrows, are determined to protest against this onslaught on their villages, if necessary by going Jharkhandi, and seeking more autonomy." The first attack on a meeting at Gidni on September 24, 1987, was a signal of the trauma to follow, according to Hansda.
Through the years, the violence has become routine: armed attackers, shouting party slogans, disrupt Santhal meetings, open fire on the people to scare them away, then set fire to the huts, and take away everything—livestock, grain, clothes, utensils. "They often burn our books and threaten teachers not to admit tribal children in their classes. There is no use complaining to the administration." Neither Basu Bhakat nor his brother Buddhadeva, an MLA, could be contacted. District CPI(M) secretary Dipak Sarkar says the tribals are to blame for the trouble: "I wonder why they do not come to us. Before last year's elections, we distributed 15,00,000 leaflets, appealing to people to file their complaints against our men, against the administration. We welcome their views." But he also made it clear that their militant ways would only bring them trouble: "As for the Jharkhandis, we do not think much of their violent tactics and would certainly not welcome trouble from them.
If the need arises, we will respond to their challenge politically and the administration, too, can play a role." This is indication enough that the Santhals and local CPI(M) leaders are on a collision course. The state leaders will have to intervene to quell the trouble. Says Kesto Murmu, a Naxalite activist at Jamboni: "Now we have reached the point of no return. Regardless of whether they come with guns and the police, we will fight back, everywhere, with our bows and arrows. The attacks will not go unpunished." No empty boast, this, for at least five Left supporters were killed in clashes with Jharkhandis in the past eight weeks.
GIven this backdrop of souring tribal-non-tribal relationships, Biman Bose has quite a task at hand. For, if the CPI(M) wants to hold on to the Santhal vote, it has to embark on immediate damage-control exercises and assuage the fears of the troubled tribal psyche.
