Need to Treat Naxalites with Iron Fists, not Kid Gloves

Dr M N Buch, 

Dean, Centre for Governance and Political Studies, VIF

On 11^th March 2014, Naxalites ambushed a Road Opening Party of the Chhattisgarh Police and the Central Reserve Police in Bastar Division of Chhattisgarh killing fifteen policemen and an innocent civilian. This happened in the Jhiramghati area, very near Darbaghati where last year much of the senior leadership of the Chhattisgarh Congress was wiped out in an ambush, which killed twenty-six people, including members of the police escort. Earlier still, when the Collector of Sukma was abducted and held hostage, the Naxalites shot dead in cold blood the two personal security officers of the Collector, one a Muslim and the other a tribal. This region saw the deadliest ambush on the police ever, when 75 jawans were killed in one incident alone. Even at the height of the Nagaland insurgency, this magnitude of casualties in one incident had not been suffered by jawans of the Army or the Police. In the fight against Naxalism, more than 3000 policemen have been killed, about 1500 in Chhattisgarh alone.

The Naxalite dominated districts have the local population, largely tribal, living in remote areas, with poor infrastructure and with considerable poverty. In old Madhya Pradesh, the southern part of which has become Chhattisgarh, there was always the Ryotwari system of tenure, which meant that there were no intermediaries between government and the agriculturist, who was the Bhoomiswami or owner of the land. In 1951 even the intermediaries for revenue collection and management of common lands, the Malguzars, were abolished. In Bastar, later extended to the whole State, the Aboriginal Tribes (Protection of Interest in Trees) Act was in operation and this ensured that the tribes would be protected from exploitation on account of timber standing on their bhoomiswami land, with felling being permitted only under strict control and that, too, only by the Forest Department, with the permission of the Collector. There was also a total ban on transfer of tribal land to non-tribals. In other words, the exploitative Zamindari system which prevailed in neighbouring Telangana, formerly a part of Hyderabad State and then Andhra Pradesh, did not prevail in Madhya Pradesh which, before 1956, included Chandrapur and Gadhchiroli Districts of what is now Maharashtra. As a result of this, whilst Bastar and other tribal areas may have been poor, they were not in ferment caused by iniquitous land tenure. In trying to understand Naxalism, it is important to bear this fact in mind.

Long before Naxalbari, extreme left violence prevailed on a large scale in Hyderabad State in the Telangana portion because the peasants, largely tribal, were mercilessly exploited by the Zamindars. The resistance movement became so violent that in 1943 the Government of the Nizam of Hyderabad banned the Communist Party. When Hyderabad State was taken over by India after the Police Action, Telangana was marked out for special attention in order to restore the rule of law there. V. Nanjappa was appointed Special Commissioner and with great vigour he pursued the extremists and brought the area under control.

When the State of Andhra Pradesh was formed, it embarked on land reforms on the pattern of Madras Presidency and extended them to the Telangana Region. Various rural development programmes were also introduced. However, because the People’s War Group remained active, there was considerable violence. The Andhra Pradesh Police introduced three different tactics to deal with the situation. The first was to substantially increase the police presence in the disturbed region, establish fortified police stations which were impregnable to Naxalite attack and which provided a safe zone from which police counter measures could be launched. Once this exercise was completed, not a single police station in the region was successfully attacked by the extremist. This gave a boost to police morale.

The second measure was to set up a Special Task Force called the Greyhounds. This elite force had an integral intelligence wing, its officers and men were trained in jungle warfare and taught to be self-sufficient while operating in small units. By aggressive patrolling for area domination, by conducting strikes against Naxalite bases on receipt of credible intelligence, the Andhra Pradesh Police was able to restore command over the areas and bring the Naxalites under tremendous pressure.

The third measure was that the Andhra Pradesh Police identified the top leaders of the Naxalite movement, located them and then proceeded to eliminate them. Simultaneously the police also targeted the sympathisers of Naxalism who were playing an active role in giving them strength. Many of these persons were arrested and brought under judicial process. The net result of relentless policing by Andhra Pradesh was that many of the Naxalites fled the State and obtained sanctuary in neighbouring Odisha, southern Madhya Pradesh (now Chhattisgarh) and Maharashtra. In Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, Naxalism was not home grown, but the foreign elements who came in organised the tribals and because the reaction of the State was tardy and weak, this imported Naxalism soon took roots. The Naxalite leaders were ruthless. Anyone who opposed them locally was liquidated and soon a reign of terror was established whereby the question of resistance by local people was not allowed to rise. In Madhya Pradesh, two officers, L.K. Joshi of the IAS, Commissioner, Bastar Division, through his outreach to the people and A.N. Pathak of the Indian Police Service, through his own leadership, personal bravery and continuous presence in the field, were not only able to keep Naxalism in check but had brought the situation to a stage where Naxalites would soon have been pushed out. At this stage, Digvijaya Singh, then Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, under the misguided impression that the problem was socio-economic and should be dealt with accordingly, ordered the extra police out of Bastar, thus leaving a vacuum. The Naxalites flooded in to fill the vacuum, all the good work of the past was undone and now violent extremism had a firm base in southern Madhya Pradesh. In 2000, the new State of Chhattisgarh was carved out of old Madhya Pradesh. It was too small, too parochial, too bereft of administrative resources, for handling Naxalism, which the larger State of Madhya Pradesh could have done. Today, despite large scale injection of the Central Reserve Police, large swathes of southern Chhattisgarh are under the total control of the Naxalites. Once again, this fact of territorial loss must be borne in mind if we are to understand the true nature of the problem.

There is a group of activists, whose names are well known but which need not be repeated here, who argue that Naxalism is only a reaction to the traditional and age old exploitation of the tribal people, who are denied access to education, health and basic services, whose lands have been taken away from them and who are even under the threat of having their ethnicity destroyed. It is to protect the downtrodden that the Naxalites are there. Every organ of government is a part of the exploiters and, therefore, the Naxalites are justified in eliminating government functionaries by physical liquidation. Every successful action against the security forces is welcomed by these people, every attempt by the State to restore order is decried and an environment is created in which the Naxalites are heroes and State is the villain. A hero can do no wrong, a villain can do nothing right, or so say these activists.

There is a standard response to every incident, every ambush, in which policemen are killed. Ministers and government functionaries always say that this is a dastardly act of desperation of cowards. The activists laud every ambush as a victory of the people, a natural response of the tribals against exploitation. The fact is that the ambushes are not acts of desperation of cowards. They are deliberate, designed, well planned actions of motivated and highly organised groups of terrorists whose sole objective is to so demoralise the security forces so that the Indian State loses control over territory. One fact of which special notice must be taken is that every single attack by the Naxalites is aimed at killing every single policeman and then to booby trap the dead bodies of the policemen so that rescue parties may suffer injury or worse as they try to recover the bodies. No quarter is given to any policeman, no mercy is shown, so much so that even the basic fundamentals of the Geneva Convention are not followed. No prisoners are taken, no respect shown to the bodies of the slain and all that is aimed at is the disintegration of the police. Has anyone, the sympathisers of the Naxalites, the so called activists, the intellectual mentors of the extremists, ever said a condemnatory word about this extreme violence? However, even legitimate police measures to restore order are immediately condemned by the do-gooders as police brutality and unfortunately even our Courts and Human Rights Commissions fall prey to this temptation to attack the police. It is even more unfortunate that within the government itself, there are so many people, including P. Chidambaram, who refuse to see the true nature of the Naxalite terror and still harbour a feeling that the problem is socio-economic and not one of law and order. It was shocking to hear E. Rammohan Rao, former DGP, Border Security Force, stating on TV that the problem was not amenable to a police solution and that the question must be asked, “What led to the emergence of Naxalism?” At some stage this becomes relevant, but today we are faced with a situation in which law and order has broken down, the writ of government does not run, large chunks of territory are not under the control of government and ruthless murderers are calling the shots. The causes of Naxalism can be gone into later but today the government can have only one objective, which is to regain territory, reestablish the rule of law and restore law and order.

In order to restore governance to the Naxal affected areas, first and foremost the government must understand the nature of the Naxalite movement. The Naxalites do not want development; which is why they do not allow roads to be constructed, they blow up school buildings and do not allow schools to function, deployment of normal civil administration staff is not permitted, trade and commerce are hindered and money is collected through loot. Under these circumstances, the institutions of democracy and of decentralised local government cannot prosper or gain strength. If development and good governance are not the objective of the Naxalites, if the destruction of the security forces is considered the normal method of interaction with government then, by reductio ad absurdum, the only objective of the Naxalites can be the destruction of the Indian State. What is shocking is that even today government refuses to acknowledge that it is engaged in a war, a war which it cannot win unless it acknowledges the enemy to be an enemy and to deal with him as one would be in a war, that is, with no holds barred. The might of the Indian State has to be used to restore the presence of the Indian State in the Naxalite hit districts and let there be no pussyfooting around the problem The very government which established the National Investigating Agency using Entry 1, List 1 of the Seventh Schedule by stating that anything which threatens the State must be treated as an attack on the State and falls within the general definition of Defence of India, cannot simultaneously use Entries 1 and 2 of List 2 of the Seventh Schedule to claim that law and order is a State subject and the Naxalite threat falls within this definition. Now is the time to stop pretending that everything is normal in the Naxalite areas and stating that a slightly higher police presence which, nevertheless, treats Naxalites as fragile objects to be handled with care, can succeed. War is cruel. War may cause collateral damage, but losing the war destroys the nation itself. Can we afford to lose the war?

Undoubtedly government has professionals to advise it on strategy and tactics. Much of the action takes place in afforested areas and here it might be worth recollecting the doctrine whereby Field Marshal Sir William Slim, after being crushingly defeated by the Japanese in Burma, went about the task of laying the foundations of victory and training the XIV Army for this purpose. The nature of warfare in Burma was somewhat similar to that in Bastar in that there are the Naxalites, who know the terrain and are buoyed up by a series of successful ambushes against the security forces who, in turn, are increasingly demoralised as they lose large numbers of men. In Burma, of course, the Japanese were the enemies and it is the British who were on the run and thoroughly demoralised. In his book “Defeat Into Victory”, Slim says, (i) “The individual soldier must learn, by living, moving and exercising in it, that the jungle is neither impenetrable nor unfriendly. When he has once learnt to move and live in it he can use it for concealment, covered movement and surprise. (ii) Patrolling is the master key to jungle fighting. All units, not only infantry battalions, must learn to patrol in the jungle, boldly, widely, cunningly and offensively. (viii) If the Japanese are allowed to hold the initiative they are formidable, when we have it they are confused and easy to kill. By mobility away from roads, by surprise and offensive action, we must regain and keep the initiative”. The police in the Naxal affected areas must operate by the same principles. These include terrain familiarisation, aggressive patrolling, deep penetration into Naxalite areas and bold strikes which inflicts heavy casualties. Unfortunately, today’s position is that the Police still moves in a conventional manner, thus making it vulnerable to successful ambush. In an ambush, the ambusher chooses his ground, generally occupies high ground and then lures the ambushed party into a killing ground which can be enfiladed with fire. In the Jhiramghati incident, a forty-five strong patrol first went to investigate a burning vehicle and then, bunched up as it were, the patrol was subjected to heavy fire. Obviously we have not trained our men to go to ground, to attempt to reach high ground behind the enemy and then to engage the Naxalites on an equal footing. When Narendra Prasad, IPS was commandant of the Thirteenth Battalion, MPSAF in Nagaland at the height of the Naga insurgency, his unit was never successfully ambushed because it followed all the classical steps necessary to ensure the safe movement of troops. The camps of the battalion were so located that they commanded a height and the outposts could intercept any lurking Naga attack. Movement of Road Opening Parties was not only along roads and instead patrols went up on the high ground flanking the road and, by occupying it, were able to prevent Naga ambushers from attacking the road. We need to train the Chhattisgarh Police and the Central Reserve Police in these tactics so that ambushes can be taken on successfully.

Even today the police is armed with light weapons. When the enemy fires from high ground he must be dislodged by bringing heavy ordnance to bear on him. This means projectiles with explosive warheads fired from rocket launchers, armoured fighting vehicles with quick firing cannon of 20 mm or 30 mm calibre and helicopter gunships which deluge the high ground with fire from automatic weapons. Every successful ambush bring hordes of recruits to the Naxalites, every ambush that is broken raises the morale of the security forces. Why is there hesitation on the part of government to train and arm the police appropriately so that it can fight the new war?

Once the Naxalites are on the run, normal civil administration must be quickly established and development programmes accelerated, but in a way in which the local tribal can be both participants and beneficiaries. Till then let the police go on the offensive and, by successful ambush, by aggressive patrolling, by deep penetration into Naxalite areas by parties which are trained and equipped to overwhelm even larger groups of Naxalites and inflict heavy casualties, the Indian State has to carry the war successfully to the door step of the Naxalites. The activists, the media, even the human rights organisations and authorities have to be told very categorically that nothing will deter government from the main objective of destroying the Naxalites . Let this message also go to the Naxalites so that the sensible among them surrender themselves and the fanatics can be isolated and liquidated.

Dinesh Trivedi, DG, CRPF, has angrily stated that he will not leave the massacre of his men go unavenged. How? By brave words? The slog will be hard, but if Slim could rebuild the XIVth Army, then let the Chhattisgarh Police and CRPF rebuild themselves. If even one unit of the two Forces can spontaneously and successfully attack a Naxalite stronghold and virtually wipe out an entire dalam, that would be a start. Are you game, Dinesh Trivedi?  

Naxalites Deserve No Sympathy, No Concessions

Dr M N Buch, Dean, Centre for Governance and Political Studies, VIF

This article is being written with great sadness because what has happened at the Darbha Ghati of Bastar region is heart- rending. Vidya Charan Shukla and I go back a long way, because I first made friends with him fifty-one years ago when I was District Collector. of Betul. Nandkumar Patel, Mahendra Karma and Laxman Karma are politicians I knew when Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh were one and I was still in service. Ajit Jogi was then a young officer who had just started in the IAS. Despite all the criticism by so-called activists, Mahendra Karma’s Selwa Judum was the right approach of consolidating scattered villages and taking the fight to the Naxalites through the tribal people.

Looking at my own records, I find that I have been writing to the Prime Minister. about Naxalism for over three years now. In an interview my wife Nirmala, gave to The Hindustan Times, she said that Naxalite terror has now reached a stage where there is virtually a declaration of war against the Indian State and the nation’s territorial integrity by well organised groups of armed and trained insurgents whose avowed objective is to destroy the Indian Union. The defence of India is the duty of the Union Government as per Entry 1, List 1, Seventh Schedule of the Constitution. Under Chapter 2 of Part XI of the Constitution, the executive power of the Union under Articles 256 and 257 extends to ensuring compliance with the laws made by Parliament and for this purpose give any necessary directives to the States, which will be binding. Equally important is the fact that it is the mandatory duty of every State Government to ensure compliance with the laws of Parliament and the State Legislature as provided in Article 256. Under Article 51-A, it is the duty of every citizen to uphold and protect the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India. The Naxalites are acting in violation of this fundamental duty and, therefore, it is the duty of the Executive to treat them as enemies of the State and take every legal step to suppress and eliminate them. In addition, we have section 121A, Indian Penal Code which defines the offence of waging war against the Government of India and providing for it the same penalty as that for murder, that is, death or imprisonment for life. The Naxalites are certainly waging war against the Indian Union.

This background is important because there are certain fundamental changes we need in our thinking about the Naxalites, their philosophy, their modus operandi and our own attitude towards them. The Naxalites have been looked upon as poor tribals fighting against injustice, whose movement cannot be suppressed through police action. At least that is what the so-called activists would have us believe. The tribals are poor, they are exploited, the development programmes of government have bypassed them and, therefore, they are entitled to an armed struggle. The fact is that at least in Madhya Pradesh (I include Chhattisgarh in this) they are nothing of the sort. This State has, by and large, been a ryotwari area and the tiller of the soil has always been its bhoomiswami (land owner). Even in old Central. Provinces. and Berar, this was true. Regarding land ownership, in the combined State of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, village commons, including village forests, were all managed by the Malguzar and the partially elected village Patel, but the rights of the villagers were governed by the Nistar Patrak prepared at the time of Settlement and subsequently updated from time to time by the Collector of the district.

In 1951 when the State enacted the Abolition of Proprietary Rights Act, the Malguzar had no control left over the village commons and for ten years these lands remained virtually without any management. The State lost more than four million hectares of ex Malguzari forests from which the villagers were given their nistar requirements that is concession granted for removal from forest coupes on payment of stipulated rates, specified forest produce for bonafide domestic use, but not for barter or sale, such as their requirements of fuel, fodder, bamboo and timber. 2.8 million hectares came under straight encroachment and massive deforestation of these lands led to the villagers turning to the reserve forests for their nistar requirements, thus bringing them into conflict with forest officials. The problem of our tribal districts is not an iniquitous tenure system but rather the push by politicians to regularise the encroachment of 2.8 million hectares of what should be forest land. The system came under some control in 1961 when the ex Malguzari forests were notified as protected forests and made over to the Forest Department for management, but the damage had already been done in those ten years between 1951 and 1961 in which we lost our village forests and our reserve forests came under increasing biotic pressure. It is touted that in the matter of land, an unthinking State has exploited the tribals. Madhya Pradesh never had the Telangana type of iniquitous land holding pattern and, therefore, this is not the cause of tribal unrest in Chhattisgarh.

In December 1983, Arjun Singh, then Chief Minister of Madhya Pradesh, asked me to extensively tour South Bastar because some signs of Naxalism were becoming visible. I found that Naxalism was not home-grown and that antisocial elements from Andhra Pradesh, uncomfortable because they were under pressure from that State, were trying to spread their wings in Madhya Pradesh. Administrative measures could be taken to counter them but in my report to the Chief Minister I told him bluntly that there was no political presence of any party in the area which could counter the Naxalites at a political level and that my officers were neither in a position nor would be permitted to look at Naxalite philosophy and advise people against it. That is not the job of a civil servant, nor is he equipped for it. Bastar has a political vacuum into which the Naxalites have entered. Most of the Naxalite leaders are non-tribals and their entire support system consists of people like Swami Agnivesh, Nandini Sunder, Binayak and Ila Sen, B.D, Sharma and a whole host of so-called activists who are busy exploiting the situation for their own advancement. The reaction of the State is weak, hesitating and not clear about how it views Naxalism and, therefore, it is the activists who are winning the day. This prepares the ground for almost unfettered Naxalite violence against which State action is so weak as to be almost laughable.

The Naxalites are not protectors of the tribals because that is not in their agenda, nor is it their objective. In fact in all the tribal districts where there is Naxalism all development has halted. My institute, the National Centre for Human Settlements and Environment, conducted an evaluation study for the Government of India of five Naxalite hit districts in Chhattisgarh to see the progress of development schemes and their effect on the tribal economy. Broadly speaking we found that: (1) All development programmes were halted, but with schools being a major target. (2) Such activity as was permitted by the terrorists carried a price. (3) Unless peace was restored there could be no development.

Let me give two examples. The first relates to construction of a road in Dantewada District, the contract of which went to a person from Nagpur. Before he started work he had to pay Rs. 20 lakhs to a Naxalite Dalam (armed squads). Thereafter, another Dalam made a further demand which he obviously could not meet. He was shot dead by that Dalam. His outraged wife travelled to Dantewada and confronted the Naxalites, who had no answer to her searching questions. The second example is of a person whose name and location I am keeping confidential because his life could be endangered if the facts are in any way broadcast. Though hailing from Raipur District he lives outside the State. He has taken a tendupatta (Tendu leaves) contract in the Bastar area, for which he has paid a handsome bribe to the Naxalites and continues to pay protection money. He says that so long as he meets their demands, he is not only free to collect tendupatta from the contracted area, he is even free to collect it from outside the area but under Naxalite protection.

In Bastar Division, no bus or taxi can move except with Naxalite permission, which has to be purchased. The Naxalites seem to have an unending supply of weapons, rations, clothing and other equipment. Where does it come from? The Naxalites are not social activists. One can safely say that they are not ‘Maowadi’ (Maoists) but ‘Hinsawadi’ (Practitioners of Violence). It is, therefore, essential to remove from the government’s lexicon any reference to the Naxalites as people fighting for the rights of the tribals. They are murderers and traitors and they must be treated as such, with no mercy and no compunction at extreme action against them. This must be instilled in every official who is dealing with the Naxalites or administering Naxal affected districts so that there is no confusion in their minds about how to deal with Naxalite terror. All the statements and actions of so-called activists who sympathise with the Naxalites must be swept aside as chaff.

In Jammu & Kashmir, separatism and militancy are Pakistan inspired and fuelled. In fact there is active and live support by the Pakistan Army. Despite this, neither the police nor the army have ever been in a situation where they seem to have lost control. In the Naxalite affected areas, government has effectively lost control. This is what unleashed and encouraged an attack on the convoy of Congress leaders, which resulted in so many deaths. This situation must be corrected forthwith and though I have made many suggestions in the past I am repeating them.here.

1. Every police station in the Naxalite affected areas should be fortified, armed and equipped to become a stronghold which cannot be breached by Naxalites under any circumstances. Andhra Pradesh has done this.
2. The police station be made a point from which the police aggressively patrols the area under its jurisdiction. Every patrol must be composite in that it should have a representative of the Revenue Department, Forest Department Agriculture Department, Medical Department, the Development Block or Panchyat and any other government organisation necessary so that every patrol establishes in the villages not only a police but a civil government presence.
3. There must be fighting patrols sent out from police camps which can bring Naxalite Dalams to encounter.
4. The police must be equipped and trained with weaponry which can break an ambush. These must include armoured personnel carriers (not so-called mine protected vehicles) mortars, rocket launchers and other infantry weapons which can bring heavy fire power to bear on a Naxalite ambush, together with helicopter gunships which can strafe an ambush from the air.
5. Every ambush which succeeds raises Naxalite morale and brings them more recruits. For example, the Darbha Ghati ambush is probably worth five hundred recruits to the Naxalites. Every ambush which is broken lowers Naxalite morale and raises that of the police. The objective of all police action should be to inflict very heavy casualties on the Naxalites, preferably resulting in the complete wipe out of an entire Dalam The day an entire Dalam is destroyed and the bodies with their weapons are available for public viewing Naxalite morale will take a nosedive and we shall begin to win the war against them. Great care must, of course, be taken to avoid innocent casualties, which means that every operation has to be well planned and ably commanded.
6. These measures are defensive, but wars require offensive action if we are to win them. My suggestion is that in the Bastar area we should organise one or more corps level training exercises in which an entire army corps with all its tanks and guns is asked to stamp around the jungle like a herd of elephants, driving everything before them. The Naxalites who are flushed out should be driven on to police guns waiting for them, resulting in their capture if possible or their death if they attack the police. Dilution of the level of exercise should not be allowed at any cost because the terrain is hilly and heavily afforested and a fewer number of troops would be swallowed by the jungle.
7. The corps level exercise would have two components, plenty of noise and movement in order to create confusion and fear in the area and stealth when some definite intelligence is available about the location of a terrorist group so that the forces can silently infiltrate the area and then launch a massive strike on the identified target.

It is about time that our armed forces realise that the war against Naxalism is a real war being fought by the country, as important as the Kargil campaign. Let us stop pretending that everything is fine and let us deal with this in the most effective manner by using the entire power of the State against persons who are traitors. A change of government’s mindset regarding Naxalism has one more requirement, which is that Union Minister Jairam Ramesh should be told very firmly that he will not open his mouth in sympathy for the Naxalites, he will not tout development as the panacea for Naxalism till law and order is restored and he will stop making theatrical gestures such as riding around the area on the pillion of a motorcycle after the District Magistrate of Sukma was abducted. It is not his dramatics which resulted in Alex Paul Menon’s release. It was the hard-line negotiations of Nirmala Buch which brought the Naxalites to their senses. We are fighting a war, so let us fight it.

The Police, Too, Have a Case: Need for Police Reforms

Dr M N Buch 

(Visiting Fellow, VIF)

Coming from the pen of a retired IAS officer this paper may appear to be a little strange, but as a young officer in the districts I have interacted with the police in happy times and in times of stress. I have witnessed the strength and the weakness of the police, observed its shortcomings, but also experienced the difficult duty of a policeman, his loneliness, his devotion and his willingness to take even those risks which endanger his life. Therefore, despite all the salvoes of abuse that a police man has to face from so-called civil society, I thought it deem and proper to try and present a policeman’s perspective also --- just to set the record right.

Do we need the police? That question was answered for me about 53 years ago when I was a young Assistant Collector in Morena, then the very epicenter of dacoity in India. This was the land of Man Singh, Lakhan, Rupa, Gabbar, Amritlal and Putli, all dacoits of ill-famous renown or notoriety. There is a remote police station at Birpur (now in Sheopour District) which formed the constant focus of complaints by the local MLA, one Nawal Kishore. Every complaint had been inquired into, including through a magisterial enquiry conducted by the Sub-Divisional Magistrate and all had been found to be exaggerated, false or worse.

The MLA obviously wanted to dominate the police and the complaints continued. One morning E.B. Reinboth, the D.C. and D. M., who was my boss, told me to sit in his jeep and we drove off for Birpur, about 180 kms from the district headquarter. On reaching Birpur Police Station, he sent for the MLA, who again launched into a tirade against the Station Officer. Hearing him out Reinboth told the Inspector, “Thanedar Saheb, it is obvious that you and your men are not welcome in Birpur. Therefore, I am ordering the police station to be closed. You and your men should pack your things and report to the Police Lines in Morena. Meanwhile, you should announce by beat of drum in all the villages in your jurisdiction that the D. M. has closed the police station and now Birpur will have no police presence. When it sank into the MLA that Reinboth was really serious, he said that this was an open invitation for dacoits to pour in to Birpur because there would be no police presence there. He then virtually fell at Reinboth’s feet and begged him not to shut the police station. The drama ended only when Nawal Kishore promised never again to make false complaints. But for me the lesson become indelibly printed in my mind --- civilised society needs the police. The question is does society realise this?

The recent rape and murder of a 23 year old girl in a bus in Delhi has, very rightly, aroused anger, focused attention on the fate of women, on sexual offences and the feeling of insecurity in our towns and villages and the extreme callousness of large sections of society towards women and disregard for their dignity. Sexual crime is symptomatic of a deep rooted malaise, of disregard of law and the rapid growth of a feeling that we can do what ever we want, free of both a sense of guilt at wrongdoing or fear of dire consequences for misdemeanor and worse. Where sin does not invite retribution how does one build a society of laws? Anger has spilt on to the streets and government has been forced to take action. Whether the anger will last and action will be sustained remains to be seen.

Almost coterminous with the rape case was the ambushing of a routine army patrol on the LoC in the Mendhar sector of J and K and the killing of two jawans by Pakistani troops. The body of one soldier was mutilated and one corpse was beheaded and the head taken away in an act of barbarity which one could attribute to Genghis Khan’s Mongols, but not a 21st century army which accepts the Geneva Convention. Naturally the nation was outraged and up in arms to an extent that it would have supported government if it decided to go to war on this issue. Even the usually reticent Manmohan Singh gave a strong message to Pakistan and we put further confidence building measures on hold. One felt happy that India stood behind its soldiers. Even activists from so called civil society, except for a few who have always put India in the dock and have advocated abject surrender by us on all issues, expressed their horror.

However, one did note four discordant notes. When Parliament was attacked by terrorists and nine persons, including five policemen, were killed in defence of parliament, the accused who masterminded the attack were arrested, tried and sentenced. Afzal Guru, the ringleader, was awarded the death penalty, which was upheld by the Delhi High Court and the Supreme Court. Activists led by Arundhati Roy mounted a campaign to save Afzal Guru and he has not been executed to date. This shrill campaign on behalf of a convicted terrorist had not one word of remorse, neither condolence, nor sympathy, nor compassion for the policemen who died defending parliament or for their widows and children. 76 CRPF men were killed in Bastar in a single ambush by Naxalites. Did civil society activists sympathise with the victims? One of them had the nerve to tell me that policemen should know that when they join the police they are inviting death. It is only because the gentleman was a guest in my house that I refrained from strangling him.

No act of barbarity is acceptable and one against a soldier doubly so. But what about the recent killings of 11 C.R.P.F jawans in Latehar District of Jharkhand? Their bodies were booby trapped and when the relief force picked up one it exploded, injuring many jawans. In one case the stomach of a corpse was cut open, stuffed with explosives and re-stitched. The body was sent for post mortem examination and but for the alertness of a doctor who noticed the tampering of the body and notified the police the body would have exploded in hospital and more people would have been killed or wounded. Is what the Naxalites did to bodies of the slain policemen not an act of vandalism and barbarism at par with what the Pakistanis did to the jawans murdered near the LoC? But our civil society members did not bat an eyelid and they certainly did not utter a word of sympathy.

The fourth incident besides the three cases stated above is of the brutal murder of two policemen deputed for the security of the Collector of Sukma when he was abducted by Naxalites. One was a Muslim and the other a tribal. I am sure they must have had families and loved ones who must have survived on the wages of these two men. Do they not bleed when they are cut, feel the cold in the winter and heat in the summer? Are they not human? My stomach turns with revulsion at the utter callousness of our activists, who look on the policemen as Untermenschen, or lesser beings.

Why is the police looked upon this way? I have already given an example of how much people really need the police for their own protection from anti-social elements. Therefore, the police must introspect on why so many people are either indifferent to the police or positively dislike it. There is a general perception that a police station is an unfriendly place, policemen are rude and corrupt and that they torture people. Starting with the negatives, I agree that many police stations are best avoided. Let me give a personal example from 1979, when I was head of the Delhi Development Authority and was, therefore, a man of some consequence and authority in Delhi. On an evening walk near Tuglakh Road Police Station I found a person lying in a gutter. Not knowing the state of the person I walked into the Police Station and went to the desk of the Head Constable Moharrir, or station writer. I reported the matter to him and requested him to send someone to find out if the man was dead, drunk or otherwise incapacitated and to render necessary aid. The policemen’s reply was, “Tu ney mara hoga” (You must have hit him.) I was furious at this and shouted at the man.

Hearing the commotion the Station Officer came out to see what was happening and, recognizing me, asked how he could help. I narrated the Head Constable Moharrir’s behaviour and told the Inspector that if this is how his officers behaved how he could ever expect people to help the police. Of course, the Station Officer was apologetic, sent a constable to look at the man in the gutter, who reported that he was a drunkard and that the police would look after him. The fact remains that not only are Police Stations places to be avoided, but also that there is a command failure because senior officers do not educate their subordinates about how they should behave with citizens. More on this later.

The cutting edge level of the police is the police station. Under Chapter XII Cr.P.C. the entire scheme of investigation of offences centers around the police station. The Station Officer is the most visible symbol of the police, which is why the Thanedar, or Station Officer, is so feared, especially by wrong doers. The Thanedar is the backbone of the Police, just as the Tehsildar is of general and revenue administration. One example will illustrate the point. The place of landing of the ten Pakistani terrorists who held Bombay to ransom in 2008 was in the jurisdiction of the Colaba Police Station. The terrorists were sighted by a fisherman, but being unchallenged they dispersed to their designated destinations, resulting in 166 deaths and several hundreds of injuries. Had the Colaba Police Station been adequately manned, trained and equipped with transport and communication facilities, with proper modern weapons and a proper beat system, the terrorists would probably have been seen and questioned by the beat constable. Sensing something suspicious he would have called up the police station which, if it had responded swiftly, could have brought the terrorists to encounter at or near the place of landing. The history of 26.11.2008 would then have been different. Our neglect of Colaba Police Station, of all police stations throughout India, cost us dear then and costs us even more now. It is only Andhra Pradesh which fortified its police stations in Naxalite areas, which is why a successful attack on a police station there is a rarity and Naxalism has been brought under control.

Behaviour apart, the Police has to face a really critical shortage of manpower. Even against existing vacancies there are approximately 4.5 lakh posts which have to be filled. Internationally, perhaps the standard strength of the police is approximately one policeman for 160 people. Delhi is the only city in India which has an approximate strength of one policeman for 168 people. In Madhya Pradesh the proportion is approximately one policeman for 834 citizens. The total strength of the Madhya Pradesh Police is about 89,000 whereas if we were to aim at one policeman for every 250 citizens the State would need a Force of approximately three lakh policemen. The cities of Indore and Bhopal should have police strength of 8,000 each, whereas there are just about 3,000 personnel per city. The position in most States is that the Police Force just does not have the numbers to provide for adequate policing. Rural India, by and large, is still peaceful, which is why in a State such as Madhya Pradesh a police station can look after approximately 100 villages with a standard strength of one Station Officer, two Head Constables and twelve Constables. Nevertheless, whether it be a city, a town, a cluster of villages, there is hardly any police presence. Without an adequate force the district head of police cannot organise proper beat patrols, manage traffic, have men posted to sensitive or critical locations and patrol the public transport system with sufficient manpower in order to deter crime.

The question is not that rapes, dacoities and murders take place. The question really is why the number of heinous crime is still manageable despite the fact that there is inadequate police presence. I can think of two reasons, the first of which is that by and large we are a law abiding nation. The second, equally important reason is that our police is a great deal more efficient than civil society credits it to be. To quote just one case, in 1963 when I was D.M. Betul, a lad of about nineteen years made some indecent advances at a teenaged girl, who was the daughter of a leading local advocate, as she was returning home from school. A passing Constable immediately caught him and brought him to the police station. The Station Officer, a wise experienced officer, saw to it that the challan was put up within twenty-four hours and the Magistrate remanded the man to judicial custody. Three days later, without any provocation, a local trouble maker tried to foment an agitation in which he roped in the students of a college. The Superintendent of Police and I were sitting in my house having a cup of tea when we heard that there was trouble in the bazaar and shop keepers were downing their shutters. We immediately rushed to the site and what we saw greatly reassured us. There was a menacing crowd of about 300 people being confronted by a single unarmed Head Constable. He warned the crowd to stay put and angrily told the ring leaders that if they advanced one more step he personally would break their heads. No one dared to advance because this single jawan, confident in his moral and legal authority, stood like a rock.

Today the position is that we have systematically engendered disobedience of laws, contempt for laws and constant disempowerment of the forces of law and order. In section 188 of the Model Police Bill drafted by the Soli Sorabji Committee the following words have been used, “The State Government shall take effective steps to ensure that the average hours of duty of a police officer do not normally exceed eight hours a day provided that in exceptional situations the duty hours of a police officer may extend upto twelve hours or beyond. In such cases adequate compensation and facilities shall be provided to the police personnel”. What is the ground reality? In 1978 there was an unusually heavy monsoon in Delhi and there was fear that there would be large scale flooding. I was head of DDA and the Lieutenant Governor asked me to take charge of large parts of Delhi, especially East Delhi. Near the DDA headquarters (then at Vikas Minar) a Constable stood on duty at the crossroads from where one moved towards the IP Bridge. The Constable stopped my vehicle and requested information about the flood situation in Kingsway Camp Police Lines where his family lived. He told me that he had been continuously on duty for forty-eight hours, without food and in the wet clothes that he wore and he was completely out of touch with his family. I told my own security personnel to take the man to my office, let him have a shower, give him change of clothing and feed him, whilst deputing one of the policemen with the DDA to take over the man’s duty. His officers had not bothered about him and I told the Police Commissioner the story later on. However, this dedicated officer stood at his post regardless of the fact that he had neither eaten nor had news of his family. That is a picture of a policeman that the activists refuse to see or acknowledge.

If the police force is woefully short of requirements policemen will have to work long hours. On law and order duty when men have to stand around virtually waiting for something to happen they are bound to become tired, hungry and irritated. Rameshwar Nikhra, a Member of Parliament who had been Chairman of the State Bar Council, once told me that as a student leader in Jabalpur he frequently led student agitations, to control which the police was deployed. On one occasion when the students became violent the police had to use force to disperse them. One of the lathi wielding policemen was laying about him with gusto, shouting, “Because of you I have been standing here, thirsty and hungry, for the last three days. Now let me teach you a lesson”. Nikhra said that at that time he was naturally upset with the police, but on introspection he realised that the policeman had a point. I state this story not because I appreciate or condone brutality by the police, but we would be foolish to overlook the stress and tension under which our policemen operate. Society does nothing to make life easier for a policeman. The Soli Sorabji Committee has recommended that a police station should be neat and clean, with a comfortable room for visitors. There should be separate toilets for men and women, a women and child protection desk, separation of normal police duties and investigation of crimes. All this is possible only if the police strength is sufficient to deploy the manpower for performing all these separate functions. The fact is that adequate manpower is not available and, therefore, the average policeman, especially below the gazetted ranks, will always be under immense pressure and will have to function in an environment in which he will never have adequate facilities. Till this is remedied the police will not function in the manner in which a good police force does.

I stated earlier that there is a command failure. When the Central Reserve Police mutinied some years ago one officer of the rank of DIG from the Madhya Pradesh Cadre tried to reason with the men at Neemuch, where the Force was created by the British. The men told him that they personally respected him but requested him to step aside because they said that he could not in any way help the men and, therefore, they had decided that they would confront government. In other words, the men have lost their faith in their officers and this can only happen when there is failure of command. There are many reasons why this has happened, the first of which is that in appointment of the State DGP every Chief Minister opts for a pliable officer rather than an efficient one. Obviously a pliable officer will take orders from politicians even in matters where under law he is the only person who has the mandate. For example, under the Code of Criminal Procedure, in the matter of investigation it is only the Police who have the authority, which has to be exercised under judicial supervision. The Executive has absolutely no authority in this behalf, but whether it is Delhi Special Police Establishment (CBI) or the State Police it is a well known fact that investigation is definitely influenced by politics and politicians. If the DG Police will not resist how can the investigating officer at police station level show independence? In fact in all departments of government there is the ever increasing malaise of officers operating not according to law but according to whims of politicians. A law is framed by the Legislature and every person involved with implementation of law has a legal mandate. Despite this in the current political scenario officers take orders, including illegal ones, from politicians without pointing out to them why a particular thing cannot be done in law. Our answer to political interference is the setting up of committees and framing of Model Police Acts. For example, the model law drafted by the Soli Sorabji Committee, in section 6 speaks of the selection of the Director General of Police from three senior most officers empanelled by the State Police Board, with the DG being given a minimum tenure of two years. Let us compare this with how Vice Chancellors of universities are selected. In Madhya Pradesh (this system prevails throughout the country) the Vice Chancellor is selected from a panel of two or three persons whom a high powered search committee has identified and recommended. The Search Committee consists of a representative each of the Chancellor, the Executive Council of the University and the University Grants Commission, all three completely different and independent authorities. Despite this some of the worst persons one can think of are empanelled as Vice Chancellors, are appointed as such and have a tenure of four to five years. At least in Madhya Pradesh some of the worst scoundrels have been appointed as Vice Chancellors. That does not mean that we should not introduce complete honesty in the selection of the DG Police, but till we take drastic steps to rid the All India Services of deadwood and dishonest officers we shall not have the best people being promoted to head the police.

One major cause of breakdown of command is the almost total disempowerment of senior police officers by the politicians. In any organisation, but especially in a uniformed service, the hierarchical structure has to be clearly defined and the disciplinary authorities have to be given sufficient power to maintain discipline. Now even in the matter of postings and transfers even the D.Gs.P. have been left at the mercy of politicians. In Madhya Pradesh Arjun Singh centralised all transfers and Digvijay Singh gave all powers of transfer of even the lowliest functionary to the Minister in charge of a district. In all departments, particularly in the police, officers suddenly found that they had lost control over their subordinates. When policemen found that the S.P. and other superior officers could no longer shift them, even on compassionate grounds, they naturally sought political patronage and this absolutely destroyed the command hierarchy. Under these circumstances, there was bound to be a command failure and this has put paid to effective policing. It is in the interest of the police, of people at large and of the nation that senior officers are once again empowered, command restored to them and then they are held accountable for effective, honest, citizen friendly policing.

We have to find a way of creating more K.F. Rustomjis and totally eliminate the Rathores of Haryana ill-fame from the Service. In this behalf I would strongly suggest to the IPS Association, Central and in each State, to understand that they are one of the three foremost Services in India and that no one has a greater responsibility than they themselves to cleanse their ranks of the corrupt, the inefficient and those who use flattery to promote themselves.

A person who has achieved a level of command has the onerous task of actually commanding. A Superintendent of Police who takes a bribe from his Sub Inspectors cannot be expected to either lead the Force or to motivate it to truly serve the citizens. An IG or DGP who has achieved the rank through political manoeuvring can neither expect the respect of his Force nor can he command and guide the Force to serve the people. That makes it all the more important that the Force should cleanse itself at its own initiative.

Unlike the so-called civil society I like policemen and I admire the fact that they perform very difficult tasks under daunting circumstances and are the guardians of the security of the nation. There are more Ombleys in the Police than civil society gives credit for. Let us honour the policemen who dedicate their lives to our security. Let us not constantly attack the police as being anti people, but let us try and understand why the police image has taken such a beating. It is the duty of society to create an environment in which the police can do its duty. Once that happens I am for hanging rogue policemen, but I am not prepared to collectively call the Police rogues.

Is Verrier Elwin Still Relevant? –A Study of the Bhils of Jhabua

Dr. M N Buch
Visiting Fellow,VIF

Verrier Elwin dedicated his life first to live with Maria and Muria tribals of Bastar (both groups belong to the Gond family) and then the tribals of the North East in what is now Arunachal Pradesh. Pt. Nehru had a liking for and faith in Elwin and many of our policies relating to the tribes were based on the thoughts of Verrier Elwin.Elwin felt that the tribals are a very special people who must be kept separate from the rest of Indian society in order to conserve and preserve their ethnic identity, their tribal social structures, their culture and their way of life. He strongly believed that contact with the rest of India would place the tribals in an unequal contest with the nontribal people and would expose them to virtually unlimited exploitation. In a way this is a policy which the American Government followed vis-à-vis their own indigenous American population, who were confined to earmarked reserves and kept from assimilation into mainstream American society. It is almost as if these people were an endangered species of wild life whose habitat had to be shut away from ordinary society. The fact that mainstream America was the guilty party and that the American Indians were an endangered species because of threat of extermination held out by the new settlers seems to have been lost sight of. .

The legacy of Elwin is Scheduled Areas and Inner Line Areas which were kept isolated from the rest of India. Even today an Indian citizen requires a permit to visit a designated Inner Line Area. This would work where the means of transport and communications were limited to such an extent that this restricted the mobility of people. The Second World War, which brought a foreign enemy into our tribal areas, especially Nagaland and Manipur, saw the massive induction of the Indian Army in order to fight the Japanese and this certainly ended the isolation of the North East. As the war ended and the armies receded they left behind the merchants, tradesmen and other camp followers from all over India and they settled in the tribal areas. As a people they were different from the North Eastern Tribals and whereas a degree of interdependence developed between tradesmen and locals, a large number of exploitative businessmen also came in and certainly there was resentment as they began to exploit the tribals. Verrier Elwin would no longer be relevant in a situation in which tribal society was forcefully projected into what passed for mainstream India, in which the tribals were untrained, uneducated and not oriented to deal with these externalities which now impinged on their daily lives. The genesis of a great deal of unrest in North East can be traced to this unplanned intermingling of, say, the Marwaris of Rajasthan, Bihari labour and the locals in Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram, etc. Verrier Elwin’s theory of keeping the tribals isolated left them unprepared for all external influences and this has had a very unhealthy effect on the economy, social structure and behavioural patterns of the tribals of the North East. This is one of the major causes of insurgency.

In Bastar the size of the district, its remoteness, the density of the forests and the entirely Gond tribal nature of its people had kept the district fairly isolated from the rest of Madhya Pradesh and adjoining States. However, roads were built, settled administration did penetrate the region and a degree of interaction between tribals and nontribals did take place. So long as the pace was evolutionary it did not present many problems. However, two major developments took place which completely transformed the district and not necessarily for the good. The first was settlement of large number of refugees from East Pakistan (Now Bangladesh) in the Dandakaranya area of Bastar and adjoining Koraput District of Orissa. In Bastar the largest such development was in the Pakhanjor area of the north and west of the district. Vast areas of forest land were cleared and whereas the tribals were not allotted land the refugees were settled on it, thus causing simmering resentment amongst the tribals. The second major development was the discovery of what is perhaps the finest iron ore in the world, the blue dust of Bailadila. The forests of this region, which is drained by the Dankhani and Shankhani rivers, represented semi moist deciduous and evergreen forests of Central India at their climax. It had been reported that as late as the second half of the nineteenth century Bailadia was an abode of the one horned Indian rhinoceros.

The people of Bailadila were very backward as their exposure to nontribal society was negligible. Suddenly into this region was unleashed the National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC), with its huge machines such as excavators, front end loaders, dumpers, large drilling rigs and explosives for blasting. The tribals had never seen such equipment, they were not trained to operate it and certainly they were quite unprepared for the influx of a whole army of workers from outside the region. Virtually in the twinkling of an eye their forests were destroyed, their land pitted and cratered, their rivers polluted, their homesteads gone and their farms rendered useless. They received some cash compensation but they were totally untrained to handle cash and soon the money was gone. In what can only be called an act of barbarism the tribals were rendered homeless, without work, their tribal society substantially destroyed because their social structures broke down as the people were scattered and their women virtually sold into prostitution. This is the inevitable fate of any group of people which finds that the cocoon around it has been shattered and the people rendered helpless by the relentless blows of external factors. Had India educated, trained and helped the tribals in acquiring new skills neither Baildila nor Pakhanjor need have occurred. India could not adopt a policy of keeping the tribals in designated reserves, nor does its Constitution allow it to deny any Indian the opportunity for progress and, therefore, Verrier Elwin’s thoughts ultimately proved fatal to tribal society.

Amongst the major tribes in India are Bhils of Western Madhya Pradesh, Northern Gujarat and adjoining areas of South Eastern Rajasthan. The largest concentration of Gonds is to be found in Jhabua, including Alirajpur, Dhar, Ratlam and Khargone in Madhya Pradesh, Panchmahals in Gujarat and Dungarpur, Bhilwara Banswara and Udaipur Districts of Rajasthan. Of these Jhabua is more than ninety percent Bhil and about seventy percent of the population of Dhar is Bhil and allied tribals such as Bhilalas and Patelias. Of all the tribes in India the Bhils have had the longest contact with nontribal people. The Bhils are basically war like, live in nuclear families, are highly individualistic, every Bhil has his own little compound or falia on his own little isolated hilltop and the nearest people to them that I can think of are the independent Highland clans of Scotland. Bhil warriors formed part of Maharana Pratap’s army, they fought for the British as part of the Malwa Bhil Corps and even today the Bhil continues to be hardy and independent. He is fond of alcohol, loves music and can dance all night and he fiercely protects his individual freedom.

The Bhil districts, especially Jhabua and Dhar, are hilly, have poor soil which cannot retain moisture, have been massively deforested and this has caused environmental degradation and because of these unhealthy practices soil productivity is low. Jhabua has about thirty five inches of rainfall per year but the rainfall pattern is erratic. Once in three years invariably there is a drought and because the forests have been felled and there is soil erosion, water run-off is rapid and ground water is in very short supply. All these have adversely affected agriculture and, therefore, the Bhils are forced into seasonal migration in search of livelihood. After the kharif harvest is in one rarely finds any adult male in a Bhil village because all of them have gone out in search of work. This seasonal migration brings the Bhils into contact with the rest of India, though only in the form of unskilled, underpaid labour. Nevertheless, the Bhils are aware of what is going on elsewhere and to that extent they are not isolated like the tribals of Bailadila or Nagaland. That is also perhaps one reason why in the matter of religion there is considerable sanskritisation of the Bhils. What is surprising is that despite all the external influences and interactions with nontribal people the Bhil identity is not totally lost and one can still clearly recognise the Bhil as a tribal and his society and culture as typically Bhil. There have been changes, which is only to be expected as external factors begin to operate, but it says much for the innate strength of Bhil culture that it has been able to retain its own individual identity whilst reacting to the modern influences which now operate.

The Bhil districts in Madhya Pradesh, being drought prone, have had at least sixty years experience of government intervention through relief works. I remember that some years ago the Engineer-in-Chief of the Madhya Pradesh Public Works Department told me that there was enough aggregate and stone dust collected in the districts through relief works to be able to pave every road in the State. The philosophy of relief works was that the work should be arduous, not permanently productive but of a nature such that only the really needy would come forward for it. In fact there was a time when were told that it was perfectly in order to dig holes and then fill them up because the idea was not so much to undertake public works as to provide employment. Fortunately this philosophy changed when the drought prone areas programme, integrated rural development programme, watershed management programme and now the National Employment Guarantee Scheme came into being. The ruling philosophy is that rural works should be taken up with the objective of creating permanent assets which could benefit village society and economy, improve water and land management and create assets which could help to ameliorate poverty. Jhabua is one district where large scale watershed management programmes have been implemented and this has definitely improved water availability in a number of villages, increased fodder supply and by bringing many hill features under afforestation, has brought about long term stabilisation and improvement of ground water. This, in turn, has had some effect in the matter of seasonal migration. The indications are that it is possible to improve the water situation in Jhabua and to increase soil productivity, which would inevitably bring about a major change in the migration pattern. Unfortunately the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme as it is designed today and operates in the field has diluted the Watershed Management Programme and this is not a healthy development. Government must have a review of NREGS to see how it can be made an effective instrument in the creation of permanent village assets, especially through the Watershed Management Programme.

I have been visiting Jhabua on and off and have been a keen observer of how Bhil society has evolved over the last fifty years. Certainly in the villages where the Watershed Management Programme brought about improvement one can see that irrigated cultivation has caught on and one see horticultural crops where none existed before. For example, in Petlawad Tehsil of Jhabua District there is extensive cultivation of tomatoes and chillies, both products which have a ready market. It is a pleasure to see stacked against walls of even mean hutments plastic crates used for transporting tomatoes to market. We need to expand this activity much further, but the inhibiting factor is that the markets are far away and there is considerable spoilage of what is a delicate agricultural product and the money which goes to the farmers is only a fraction of the price at which the product sells in the retail market. The pro FDI lobby would immediately argue that if we allow foreign retail chains to enter the market they would take care of this problem, arrange to collect the horticultural products from rural areas and give a good price to the farmers. Those who know Jhabua well would realise that no FDI retail chain will penetrate into this remote region in the immediate future. Therefore, the true answer is for indigenous processing units to add value to the product by conversion of tomatoes into puree, sauce, juice or even tinned tomatoes. The processing units would be in the small and medium industry class, they would be local based because it is easier to transport the processed product than it is to transport the raw product and they would provide local employment for which the skill level required is not very high and for which the tribals, especially the women, can be easily trained.

I brought this up in a meeting of the district officers and whereas the officer in charge of horticulture welcomed the idea, the officer in charge of industries said that the scale of production did not attract entrepreneurs to set up units. I had to tell the District Collector that the two officers should sit together, the Industries Department officer should project the minimum requirement of the processing industry and the horticulture officer should then try and increase production of tomatoes or any other horticulture product to a level where a processing industry could operate with profit. I am mentioning this specific case because if we have the correct mental approach and there is coordination many of these seemingly trivial problems can be solved locally.

The main problem appears to be that because of generations of seasonal migration the people of Jhabua seem to have lost faith in their own ability to make a good living out of land and have also lost faith in land as a provider of livelihood. I remember visiting the Punjab Agriculture University at Ludhiana some years ago. There were large groups of farmers thronging the campus because they had heard that the university had successfully experimented with a new variety of wheat. They wanted to know all about it so that they, too, could benefit from this research by sowing the new variety of seed. The Punjab farmer is confident that he can earn a living from the land and he is independent enough to want to be his own master. However, in the Bhil mind wage employment has become almost an embedded idea and, therefore, everyone I met in Jhabua wanted more wage employment and better wages. There was very little demand for the kind of land and water management techniques which would help to increase soil productivity and give the Bhils a good livelihood based on land, cultivation and allied activities such as cattle breeding, etc. Because of this mind set the Bhil tribal has become excessively dependent on wage employment and to that extent he has lost his independence. That is why agricultural productivity in Jhabua is stagnant and the Bhil is, in a way, now bonded as a worker in wage employment programmes whose objective is to give employment but not necessarily to increase productivity or create assets. According to me this is the single most harmful development in the land of the Bhils, the psyche of the Bhils and their attitude towards permanent upliftment. We need to break this and to bring the Bhil back to a state where land becomes all important and the desire to earn a good living from land overpowers and, perhaps, eliminates the desire for wage employment.

How does one do this? One obvious answer is coverage of the district and all Bhil areas with a watershed management programme which is universal and covers every mili and micro watershed in the region. Villages Jakhela, Khardubadi, Kharduchhoti, etc., are living examples of what watershed management can do. Thousands of acres of hill features have been brought under afforestation and they have magnificent grasses, shrubs and trees which have transformed these barren hills and have even attracted wild life. I have personally run into a pantheress and two cubs on the Khardubadi hill and there are reports of a tiger being sighted at Jakhela. Avifauna abounds where there was none before. The greening of these hills and the treatment of the rivulets and the streams in the area has revived all wells in eight villages and more than fifty new wells under the Kapiladhara Scheme have been sunk. There is no migration from these villages. This is the kind of programme which must be undertaken throughout region.

There is a Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK), or Agriculture Science Centre in Jhabua. Excellent work is being done there on the breeding and extension of Kadaknath breed of poultry, which is unique both nationally and internationally because the bird is black and its flesh is black. In fact an IPR patent should be taken out for this bird because it does not exist anywhere else in the world outside Jhabua. But KVK Jhabua needs to go much further. It and the agriculture and horticulture departments of government must demonstrate on a very large scale throughout the Bhil areas that even with erratic rainfall, periodic droughts, poor soil and the present low productivity it is possible for us to agriculturally transform Jhabua through correct soil and water management practices, careful choosing of crop varieties to suit the local agro climatic conditions and the adoption of agricultural operations which are well planned. If hundreds of such demonstrations could be held throughout the district we should be able to convince the tribals that they can make a living from their land and that they need not seek wage employment.

What would be the advantage of such an approach? Improving the land is in itself one of the most environment friendly exercises that we can think of. Making the land yield enough to bring prosperity to Bhils would be a permanent reversal of environmental degradation and would certainly improve nutrition standards dramatically. Reduction or even elimination of seasonal migration would enable children to be educated because they would be stable in their own villages and, therefore, the school system could be improved. This is equally applicable to health care, which is difficult to provide if people are migrating to distant places. As Bhil society prospers and as stability of population returns because there is very little seasonal migration, traditional Bhil culture would be strengthened because now on their home ground the Bhils would be able to tackle externalities on an equal footing. If I were to be asked what is the one factor which can give strength to Bhil society I would say that we must replace the mindset of wage employment by a desire for self-employment and this would release the innate entrepreneurial skills of tribals who are determined to stand on their own feet.