Children - Terre des Hommes

97
Impact of Displacement and
Resettlement on Adivasis in Panna in
the Context of Mining
From the claws of the tiger to the clutches of the mining
mafia, the adivasis in Panna fell prey to India’s development
policies that pit conservation against human rights. Villages
displaced by the Panna Tiger Reserve were either forcibly
relocated by the government or had to migrate out and find
land for themselves. Whereas earlier the adivasi communities
had large areas of land to cultivate and were traditionally
involved in agriculture and forestry, they are now confined
to small patches and are unable to sustain their livelihoods
through farming alone.
Besides, the resettlement area is uncultivable land, unlike
their earlier fertile lands. The money that was allocated for
land development was barely utilised for this purpose as
the government retained the money and did not implement
the activities properly. There were two phases of relocation
and different packages of rehabilitation that left some
with only monetary compensation. In the first phase, the
local organisation, Pathar Khan Mazdoor Sangh (PKMS)
informed the study team that, each displaced family was
given Rs.36,000 and 5 acres of land. In the second phase
Rs.10 lakhs was given as cash compensation, but only Rs.
9 lakhs was directly given to the people and a lakh was
retained by the government for land development. However,
the people complained that they did not receive most of
this money which was lost in paying the different levels of
administrative machinery that processes their compensation
money.
Displacement, has adversely affected the livelihood of the
communities as many of the families including children,
now work in the stone quarries and diamond mines or are
migrating to far off places like Delhi, Amritsar and other
towns in Punjab, or Goa.
Status of Adivasis After
Displacement
The Gonds, who are the main adivasis here, have to now
live with other mainstream castes like Yadavs and Mahars
who are more dominating and have better access to land as
the Gonds came here only recently and are a more diffident
community. A village elder stated bitterly that as there is
no work in the village, many of the younger people were
migrating to other areas. In addition, with the introduction
of NREGA there has been an increase in corruption that
has destroyed the peace in the village. The people seconded
his comments adding that they do not get even 10–20
days of work in a year, so it really does not provide them
any guaranteed employment. Moreover, the Thakurs and
Yadavs dominate the villagers and grab whatever schemes
reach their village, whether it is BPL cards or NREGA job
cards. Wages according to the NREGA is currently Rs.85
per person day.
Adivasi child from displaced family, axe at his side, has a frugal meal before
leaving for the mines (Photo August 2009)
Umraban village is a stark example of what displacement
means to people. This is an adivasi village having a population
of around 200. According to the villagers about 15 families
migrated out of the village. Most of the youth here work as
construction labour or are involved in other manual labour
in mining.
Another example is Janawar area gram panchayat, which was
the first to be displaced by the Panna Tiger Reserve. There
are 54 families here, and, at the village meeting that was
attended by most of the adults and children, people spoke
about the poor rehabilitation. They said that 17 of the
displaced families are yet to be rehabilitated. New Jhallar
village, which is a resettlement site of the displaced from the
tiger reserve area, is an example of how the adivasi farmers
have been left completely landless and without any livelihood
after losing their lands. They had to shift close to forest land
which is not considered ‘legal’ for them to own and they do
not have the skills of working in the mines either. Hence,
they have no alternate source of livelihood and may end
up as mine labour very soon if government does not take
up rehabilitation, or if the forest land is not given to them
under the recently enacted Scheduled Tribes and Other