January 31, 2009

Against the lush green background of Saeed Ganj village in Madhya Pradesh, hundreds of khaki-clad officers belonging to the forest and police departments have their work cut out for them.

Some of them are driving tractors, destroying crops that have been grown here by tribals of the Bheel community, while the others, with lathis in their hands, are aggressively chasing away residents of the community who have inhabited this land for the last 18 years.

What catches one’s attention the most is their (officers’) adamant refusal to hear anything these adivasis have to say—they seem to be interested in only one thing: getting the land cleared out. Even the incessant bawling of toddlers and children, who cling to their mothers, and in some cases, form motionless clusters with tears streaming down their cheeks, doesn’t seem to have any effect on the authorities.

Some of the more outspoken women shout at the officers pushing them out of their homes, while the others stand and watch in disbelief, at what was once their home, being turned into a piece of barren land. However, this was just the beginning of the brutality that the Bheel community would have to face in the coming days.

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The above incident, which took place almost 10 years ago, can be seen playing out in the video below which Newslaundry has got exclusive access to.

The Forest Department officials returned to the area again in September 2009, but after the tribals showed them a stay order that they had obtained from the court, they went back without creating any sort of a ruckus. However, once the court order was rejected in December the same year, officials returned to the village and destroyed all houses and standing crop, and got everyone evicted.

Forest and Police authorities used tractors to destroy the crops

The echoes of the January horrors had barely died down, when, on the fateful day of December 24, 2009, seven people belonging to the Bheel community in Madhya Pradesh were illegally detained, assaulted, and later jailed by forest officials. The arrested community members were kept in jail for the next three months without being produced in court. Their fault? Demanding that a piece of land in Behruplan area of Saeed Ganj village, which 40 Bheel families had been living on and cultivating for the last 18 years, be handed over to them. The land, located in Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan’s constituency, is their sole source of livelihood, their home, and their only source of security.

Thirty-seven-year-old Supriya Bheel, a tribal man who lives just 15 km away from Chouhan’s ancestral village, Jait, in Budhni constituency, was one of the seven people illegally arrested and detained on December 24, 2009. Nearly a decade after the incident has occurred, its horror still reflects on Supriya’s face as he recalls and narrates the ordeal that he and the others went through.

“It was three in the afternoon. We were sowing seeds at the farm when a forest official and told us that a senior forest officer had called us. We were first taken to Khatpura forest chowk where we were made to sit till 6 PM, and then, taken to Bashapur range where they (authorities) gave us food. They even made us sleep there. We still didn’t even know why we were called there. Then, at around 11 PM, they started beating us. Two to three officials kept beating each one of us in the same pattern for more than hour. They tied my legs with a rope and starting hitting me with lathis (sticks) on the sole of my feet. They kept hitting me on legs, toes, and on my back. The brute force used while beating me was so strong that the skin on the bottom of my feet remained ripped for the rest of the year. I couldn’t keep a track on the number of slaps I received on my face…”

Some of the more outspoken women tried to reason with the authorities, but to no avail

In order to muffle the voices of dissent amongst the area’s tribals who were demanding their constitutional right that they are entitled to by virtue of belonging to a tribal community, the administration used the oldest trick in the book against them, by booking them under a fake case. They were booked on the alleged charges of killing a Blackbuck—something that turned out to be false after a three-year legal battle in court.

Besides these seven people who were illegally jailed, the police were also on the lookout for two other individuals. One of them was 46-year-old Mansoor Singh Bheel, who was leading the fight for ownership of the land under the First Rights Act, 2006, after the tribals were forcefully evicted from around 250 acres of forest land, which was their habitat for 18 years. Three months later, Mansoor Singh Bheel, who was booked under a total of 32 cases—including the Blackbuck hunting case—along with other members of his tribal community, approached the Nasrullah Ganj court in Sehore district.

While talking with Newslaundry, Mansoor said: “In 2008, when the Forest Rights Act became operational, we applied for the rights of the forest land which our families have been living on and cultivating cultivation since 1990. After our application was submitted, officials from the Tribal Department, Forest Department, Revenue Department and Gram Panchayat, came to Behruplan for a survey. They told us that all of us would be receiving three-to-five acres of land (patta) each. They assured us that they would give us the land—but ended up removing us forcefully from there.”

Mansoor goes on to describe what went down at the village on January 31, 2009, when 40 families of the Bheel community were removed from their habitat. “Around 500-600 people from the forest department and the police came here. They brought dozens of tractors along with them, which they ran over our standing crop of chana (gram). They set our hutments on fire and demolished them. They assaulted us, bundled up the families and our belongings in the tractors, and then dumped us at Khatpura.”

Shagun Bai, 40, who was also beaten up that day, said: “I was trying to stop them after which they bashed me up with lathis. When they started destroying our crops we reasoned with them no to do so. We begged them not to run tractors over the crop—but they didn’t pay any heed to our requests. They illegally and forcefully evicted us and since that day, our entire community has been displaced. There is no scope of educating our children as people from our community now have to go to different states and seek employment as labourers to earn their livelihood.”

Shagun Bai’s family was one of the 40 families that were evicted from the village 

Mansoor informed us that after he approached the local court at Nasrullah Ranj in April following their first eviction in January, a stay order was issued in the matter, after which, the tribals once again began farming on the forest land. However, come September, the officials from the forest department returned to Behruplan to evict them but returned back once they saw the court’s stay order.

If anything, this was just a momentary victory for the Bheel community. “They (authorities) returned on December 2, 2009, and once again destroyed all the crops that we had grown. On December 24, 2009, they made a fake case against nine people of our committee, stating that they were involved in hunting a Blackbuck. The authorities came and illegally jailed seven of our people. I managed to escape and was in Bhopal.” He added: “The administration and the government didn’t like the fact that we had approached the court. we were booked under multiple cases of forest crimes. We went on the back foot because the BJP people who were running the administration in Budhni, and in the state, had harassed us a lot by putting fake cases on us—simply because we were demanding our rights as tribals.”

Supriya was one among the nine people who were booked for allegedly hunting a Blackbuck. “After being beaten black and blue on the night of December 24, 2009, we were kept at the Bashapur range till 5 PM the next day. But instead of taking us to court, they directly took us to Nasrullaganj we were jailed without even being produced in court. We weren’t even aware at that time as to why had we been arrested in the first place…”

Supriya and others who were jailed only came to know about the charges against them in connection with hunting a Blackbuck another member of the Bheel community, Sajan Singh Bheel, came to court to apply for bail for the seven people who had been illegally jailed. However, he too got arrested.

Sajan Singh’s recalls his ordeal. “After reaching Budhni court to submit a bail application, my lawyer told me to sit aside as the forest officials were searching for me. The moment I sat on the bench, I was captured by around a dozen forest officials. They took me to Budhni forest range, locked me inside a room, and started beating me. They tied my legs and whipped my feet, and kept asking me about hunting a Blackbuck—all the time, beating me. It was only while they were beating me and simultaneously started telling me of the charges of Blackbuck Buck hunting against the other community members that I realised this is what had actually happened. After being beaten up for 40 minutes, I was taken to the Bashapur forest chowki and kept there for the entire night. The following day, I was straight away taken to Nasrullaganj jail.

Sajan too was not taken to court. “They (authorities) instead dumped inside the jail where I informed the rest of the community members that they had been booked for hunting a Blackbuck. I was also booked for stealing forest wood. If they would have taken me to court, I could have exposed the deeds of the first officials in front of the judge…”

Supriya and others who were arrested were released on bail after three whole months. However, a day after his release, when Supriya went to court for a hearing, he was arrested again and kept in jail for a day till Mansoor came and finally bailed him out.

Mansoor said: “They conspired against us as we were demanding our rights as tribals under FRA, 2006. They had planned to keep us in jail forever for allegedly hunting a Blackbuck but failed to do since they couldn’t find a single Blackbuck in the jungle that night. If they would have found one, they would have killed it and framed us instead. We fought the case in court for three years and were finally declared innocent. They are denying us our right because the locals here, who are from the ruling party, don’t want the administration to hand over the forest land to us.”

“We are troubled by these acts committed by the administration, and on behalf of the government. But soon we will try again, and this time, we will go to Jabalpur high court for justice,” said an adamant Mansoor.

According to the rules of FRA, in order for forest-dwelling tribes to claim rights under it, their community must be a scheduled tribe in the area where it is claiming the forest land. The community should have been living in the forest land before the date of December 13, 2005, and should have been primarily dependent on the forest land for their livelihood needs.

The homes of the 40 Bheel families were completely destroyed

According to documents, the 40 Bheel families who were farming in the forest area and were also using forest produce as a source of income. They have checked all possible boxes of eligibility all the prescribed in FRA, 2006 for a forest-dwelling scheduled tribe.

As per the Schedule Tribes and other Traditional Forest Dwellers ( recognition of forest rights) Act 2006, commonly known as Forest Rights Act, 2006, it is the Gram Sabha that has the most important role to play in facilitating the claims of forest land. In this case, it was the Gram Sabha who initiated the process of determining the nature of the land that may be given to forest dwelling scheduled tribes and other traditional forest dealers within the local limits of its jurisdiction, by receiving claims, consolidating and verifying them, and then preparing a map delineating the area of each recommended claim.

It is also important to note that the Gram Sabha, under Khatpura Panchayat, had repeatedly recommended providing forest land at Behruplan area of Saeedganj to the 40 families belonging to the Bheel community.

More importantly, after their forceful eviction, Mansoor and other members of his community went to meet Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan consecutively for three years, ranging from 2009 to 2011.

Mansoor said: ”I have met the CM thrice. Once, he asked me whether the land belongs to me, to which I replied that the land belongs to the state and as a tribal, I am requesting you to allocate the forest land to 40 families of the Bheel community under Forest Rights Act since we had been living there for the last 18 years. We also informed the chief minister of the atrocities committed on us by the forest officials, but none of our requests was addressed.”

Besides meeting the chief minister, Behruplan’s Bheel community has also written to the top bosses of the Tribal Welfare Department, Social Justice Department and Forest Department. In turn, the Tribal Welfare department sent a letter to the district collector of Sehore to look into the matter. “But nothing has come out if yet,” said Mansoor. He had also met the then Minister of Tribal Affairs Kantilal Bhuria, after which Bhuria and his office had written to the Chief Minister Chouhan and the then chief secretary Avni Vaishya, as well as to the principal secretary of the social justice department.”

If all these attempts at grievance redressal weren’t enough, Mansoor also approached the Prime Minister’s Office, after which, the PMO has written to the chief secretary of Madhya Pradesh, directing him to take appropriate action in the matter. However, nothing changed for the displaced 40 families.

“After approaching each and every person, when we didn’t receive our constitutional right, we stopped following up on the matter. We were worried about our families since we had lost our source of income, which was farming and forest produce. That’s when we started going to the big cities to search for employment as labourers. It’s been nine years since we were evicted from what was our home. In this time frame, our community has changed from being one that earned a decent enough earning from farming in our village to a community that works as contractual labourers in cities.”

Displacement and migration

Thirty-four-year-old Munna Bheel, who went to Ahmedabad and other cities in Gujarat to work as a construction labourer said: “I used to farm in the forest but now I don’t have anything to earn from there, therefore, I go to big cities in search of work as a labourer. 90 per cent of people from our community—including women and children—have started working as daily wage labourers. During the harvest season, we work in the nearby fields, and after that, we go to other cities for work; it would be difficult to survive if we didn’t do so.”

34-year-old Munna Bheel now looks for work as a labourer

Munna informed Newslaundry they used to have a decent life earlier, thanks to the farming activities and forest produce. “We used to collect tendupatta, mahua, natural gum and chironji from the forest, which we used to sell in the market. With these earnings, we were able to live a happy life in the jungle where we belonged. Now, we have to go to big cities and are forced to sleep on footpaths with our children so that we can earn Rs 150-200 as daily wages to take care of our family…”

He also said the names of many people from the Bheel community had been removed from the voter lists since they went to other cities for work.

Forty-five-year-old Mahesh Bheel, another person who was assaulted and jailed for visiting the Behruplan area after the forceful eviction, said: “I generally go to Hyderabad to work as a labourer. Since 2013-14, we have had to live in cities for almost half the year, searching for work as a labourer. Doing so has become mandatory otherwise we will not be able to survive. The displacement has also affected the lives of our children and their education as we are not able to stay in one place. I don’t when this is going to end…”

Rakesh Ratan Singh, a volunteer at Ekta Parishad, an organisation that works for issues related to land and livelihood resources, said: “We met the chief minister in 2013 and requested him to allot pattas (land) to these tribals as they rightfully deserve it. However, he said that if he is going to allot pattas to these tribals, it could disturb the harmony in the area. Nothing finally ended up coming out of the meeting.”

When Newslaundry reached out to the office of Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan regarding the issue, Principal Secretary to Chief Minister, S.K.Mishra said, “It is not possible. It cannot happen. The Chief Minister is extra sensitive about such issues. I will get the information from the collector and will give it to you.”

But in the meantime, what is the fate of the Bheel families who were displaced? What happens to their sense of home, their source of livelihood, and the quality of life of their children? Time may heal scars, but it definitely cannot replace the need for a permanent home, and in this case, cannot give the tribals their basic constitutional right.