People's Democracy

JHARKHAND

 BJP Govt Persists With Anti-Tribal Move

D D Ramanandan

CORNERED by the political pressure brought about by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), recently the BJP led Arjun Munda government of Jharkhand has to stage a retreat for the second time. The first time it had to stage a retreat was when the Jharkhand High Court passed an order on the petition filed by the CPI(M)’s state secretariat member Rajendra Singh Munda. The order then directed the state election commission and state government to hold panchayat elections in the state within March 31, 2004 (see People’s Democracy, September 28). And now the government has to retreat again. The development has taken the state government and the BJP by surprise.

On September 2, the panchayat raj department of the government of Jharkhand issued a circular to all heads of the district administration in the tribal dominated fifth schedule area. The order directed these district administration heads to elect the ‘pradhans’ (chairmen) of all gram sabhas within September 30 and send their lists by October 16, through special messengers, so that the chief minister could review the list of pradhans on October 17. The circulars were marked urgent and special, and were sent by courier service.

When the issue came to the notice of the Jharkhand state centre of the CPI(M), its state secretary J S Majumdar wrote to the secretary of the concerned department of the government, talked to him on phone, met the governor in a delegation, submitted to him a memorandum and called a press conference to oppose this move of the state government. By September 24, the governor consulted the advocate general and stepped, in giving direction to the chief secretary “to take action” on the memorandum presented by the CPI(M). The chief secretary called an emergent meeting of the deputy commissioners of 12 districts in the scheduled areas on September 26. After the meeting, the government revoked the said circular and, wherever action had been taken, cancelled its implementation. In the meantime, every district administration had issued a press notification, mobilised the government officials in massive numbers and started holding village meetings.

Though the government has retreated temporarily and given the excuse that it was a clerical mistake by which the election process had unwittingly started, etc, it is learnt that it intends to issue a fresh circular. The CPI(M) has written to the chief secretary, warning the government against taking any such step before the panchayat elections are held in the state.

The dispute arose when the Arjun Munda government tried to undemocratically elect pradhans in village meetings. It will be recalled that it is the Panchayat Raj (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act 1996, enacted by the parliament on the recommendation of the Bhuria committee, that applies to the scheduled areas in eight states of India. (The 73rd constitutional amendment on panchayati raj does not apply to these areas.) As for the state of Jharkhand, it has both scheduled areas consisting of 12 districts and 113 blocks and non-scheduled areas that include 10 districts and 97 blocks. The Jharkhand Panchayat Raj Act 2001 was enacted for both the areas as per the 1992 general act and the 1996 extension act enacted by the parliament.

As per the Jharkhand act and in consistence with the general act, the mukhias (chairmen), upmukhias (deputy chairmen) and members of a panchayat cannot preside over the concerned gram sabha’s meeting. It is presided over only by the traditional tribal chief, or by another tribal by the unanimous opinion of the gram sabha. There is no post of pradhan as a permanent presiding officer of the gram sabhas, which the Arjun Munda government tried to create by its September 2 circular. The intention was to create a network of pradhans in the scheduled areas, such as would be under the command of the chief minister and could be used to subvert the elected gram panchayats. Through this parallel network of pradhans, the Arjun Munda government not only tried to control the panchayats but also wanted to use these men for this party’s electoral purposes just before the Lok Sabha elections.

The CPI(M) has taken strong exception to the Arjun Munda government’s move at the political level as well as on the constitutional and legal grounds.

But the game of the BJP government did not stop here. The third round of the battle is on. A special session of the Jharkhand state assembly was called from October 8 to 10, 2003, to consider a certain amendment to the Panchayat Raj Act in the state. The main purpose of this amendment was to de-reserve the post of mukhias in scheduled areas --- a post that is currently reserved for tribals. The Arjun Munda government is under immense pressure for this change, from his alliance partners. As per the central act, all posts of the chairpersons, i e mukhias at panchayat, pramukhs at panchayat samiti and chairmen at the Zilla Parishad levels are to be tribals. But the BJP government wants to remove this reservation right of the tribals in scheduled areas in all the three tiers of the panchayati raj institutions. If the amendment is passed, someone will challenge it in the High Court and this will be precisely the plea on which the Jharkhand government intends to postpone the panchayat elections so that they do not take place before the Lok Sabha and assembly elections. The reason is simple. This government is mortally afraid of its rout at the grass roots level. The BJP has a high stake in Jharkhand, as it has 10 MPs from the state and 31 MLAs in the assembly. Any adverse impact of panchayat elections before the Lok Sabha elections will naturally have a serious impact on its electoral prospects.

In a meeting held in the CPI(M) state office on October 6, the Left parties decided to put up a joint opposition against this anti-tribal move of the Arjun Munda government.                

AUGUST CAMPAIGN IN JHARKHAND

RESPONDING to the call of the CPI(M) Central Committee and in pursuance of the 15 points demands charter concerning the all-India and the state level issues, the Jharkhand state committee of the CPI(M) decided to organise a movement in three phases during August-September 2003. In the first phases, groups of 3 to 4 party members ran the campaign door to door with handbills. In the second phase, block level demonstrations were staged. In the third phase, two regional rallies and district rallies were organised.

In the first phase, there was good response from the people during the door to door campaign. In Dhanbad district alone, about 20,000 families were contacted in this phase of the programme. In the second phase, demonstrations were staged in many blocks. The biggest demonstrations were held at Hunterganj block in Chatra district, Silli block in Ranchi district and Barhagora block in East Singhbhum district. After about two decades in the Left extremist affected area of Hunterganj, a massive really was held here. It mostly consisted of Dalits and other rural poor, including a large number of women. It is in this constituency that one of the district committee members and the CPI(M) candidate for legislative assembly election, Comrade Santu Das, was killed by the extremists earlier.

Recently the atrocities committed on the landless Dalits by the forest officials, including the assault on and arrest of 8 party functionaries in the name of an anti-encroachment drive following the 1998 central government circular, galvanised the rural poor into action under the banner of the CPI(M), which was reflected in the massive block level demonstration at Hunterganj on August 28.

At Silli, more than 1500 rural poor including a large number of tribals, youth and women staged a massive demonstration on September 24. At the instance of the local MLA and PWD minister, the police tried to terrorise the youth. Some of the youth were even arrested after the rally on false charges. However, they were released on bail due to effective intervention by the CPI(M) district committee. The supervision report of the DSP submitted to the court revealed the nexus between the minister and the local police against the CPI(M). It is from this assembly constituency that CPI(M) candidates had won three times earlier.

At Barhagora, thousands of the rural poor staged a massive demonstration on September 29. Here, Devipada Upadhayay, four times MLA from this assembly constituency, and a large number of other CPI functionaries had left their party and later joined the CPI(M).

Demonstrations were staged in August in many other blocks in most of the districts as well. Demonstrations were also staged at the district headquarters in Sahebgani, Pakur, Gadda and Dumka. After many years the party organised an effective demonstration at Dumka.

Two regional demonstrations were also held --- one at Dhanbad on September 1 and the other one at Ranchi on September 12. Participants from Bokaro, Koderma and Jamtara districts joined the rally at Dhanbad which was one of the biggest rallies held by any Left party at Dhanbad in recent times. The Dhanbad rally was addressed by Basudev Acharya, MP. The Ranchi rally was joined by participants from Ranchi, Hazaribagh, Chatra and Latehar districts. Here the rallyists paid floral tributes at the martyr Birsa Munda’s statue at Birsa Chowk before the meeting. The meeting was addressed by Sambhu Mandi, MLA from Binpur in West Bengal, who was the main speaker. A 15-point charter of demands was submitted to the chief minister.

The CPI(M) state committee of Jharkhand had also decided to continue the movement with its 15-point demands from October 7 to 15 through a door to door campaign, leading up to submission of memoranda to the block development officers on October 15. This will be followed by a state level rally being organised by Jharkhand state Kisan Sabha at Ranchi on October 17.