The road to Jodeghat in the Kumram Bheem Asifabad district meanders through a picturesque valley, flanked by verdant hillocks. The idyllic setting obscures a history of tribal oppression and exploitation that continues unchanged.
Jodeghat marks the site of the brutal suppression of Adivasi assertion where Raj Gond leader Kumram Bheem and 14 others were gunned down by the forces of the Nizam of Hyderabad on September 10, 1940, during clashes over the right to till forest land.
Denied access
According to a report on the incident from the Secretary to the Government (Judicial, Police and General Department) Hyderabad Deccan, titled Note on a clash between Police and Gonds in Asifabad district , the Gonds were insisting on rights to cultivate land near Babejhari despite being prevented by the Forest Department and the court.
About two months before the firing incident, the Adivasis are reported to have assaulted a Forest Department employee. A group of armed policemen had then gone to Jodeghat to arrest those involved in the assault.
The government report notes that Kumra Bhimu (Bheem’s original name) had then fired upon the policemen, which left a policeman injured. In the retaliatory fire, 10 tribals were killed on the spot and 13 injured. Five later succumbed to injuries.
Kumram Bheem’s martyrdom is observed every year according to the Raj Gond tradition on October 6, the full moon phase after Dasara.
Though a road has been laid in Pedda Patnapur village en route to Jodeghat, safe drinking water still eludes the residents.
However, 77 years after Bheem’s resistance, life has changed little for the around 1,000 Adivasis in 14 hamlets on either side of the 22-km road between Hatti and Jodeghat in Kerameri mandal or those in other tribal settlements in the neighbouring districts.
The fight for land continues for the Adivasis living between Penganga river in the north and Godavari in the south — an area that includes Adilabad, K.B. Asifabad, Mancherial and Nirmal districts in Telangana State. The villagers continue to face harassment and exploitation from government officials, non-tribals and more recently from the Lambadas, originally categorised among the Backward Classes, who were included in the list of Scheduled Tribes in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh in 1976.
Long-drawn stuggles
The case of Raj Gond Kumra Mankubai of Jamgaon in Jainoor mandal of K.B. Asifabad district is typical. To reclaim 18 acres of agricultural land mortaged by his father for a couple of lumps of jaggery, Mankubai has had to struggle for 40 years, both in the courts and outside.
His father, Thodasam Gangu, had borrowed food grain, a couple of jaggery lumps and a few unspecified articles — all valued at ₹500 from a non-tribal trader — for the marriage of his son way back in 1962. Very soon, given usurious interest rates, there was no way the poor Adivasi could repay the debt, which skyrocketed to ₹1,400 in a few years.
Kumra Laxmibai, a Kolam Adivasi from Dahiguda in Pippaldhari gram panchayat, has also fought a long battle. Non-tribals had encroached upon nearly 50 acres of land belonging to her family around four decades ago. Naxalites, too, forced her to forgo a portion of land in favour of non-tribals.
Ms. Laxmibai, however, refused to back down and kept up the legal battle as the A.P. Scheduled Areas Land Transfer Regulations (1959) and Amendment Act 1 of 1970 were in her favour. She was finally handed over possession of 30 acres in 2016 by the Integrated Tribal Development Agency, despite pendency of a civil suit.
Ms. Laxmibai and fellow Adivasis Madavi Bapu Rao and Tekam Ramu now cultivate commercial crops, including cotton, on the land, with a modest profit.
Daily struggle: Raj Gond martyr Kumram Bheem’s granddaughters at Jodeghat.
Many land encroachment cases go unreported as the Adivasis do not access the services of the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA) at Utnoor, which not only looks after all tribal issues but is also empowered to adjudicate on land disputes involving them.
Slow pace
Often the ITDA too fails to restore lands despite judgments in favour of the tribals. Of the 8,400 cases reported under the Land Transfer Regulation Act since 1970, involving nearly 55,000 acres, only 435 cases have been decided in favour of tribal farmers, involving over 28,500 acres of land. Nearly 5,000 acres have still to be restored to the legitimate original claimants.
Access to basic services is near impossible for these tribal settlements, with local officials demanding money at every stage. In 2015, electricity officials forced Kolam tribals of Pataguda village, off the Jodeghat road, to walk 10 km to erect a fallen electricity pole. While the linesman responsible was suspended when higher officials came to know of the incident, electricity department officials even now charge ₹600 from the tribals for repairing a blown fuse.
“It was only when I handed over the money that I had collected with great difficulty that the helper came and repaired the fuse,” said Tekam Manku of Shivguda village on the Jodeghat road, recalling the incident.
Austrian ethnologist Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf, who was sent to study the status of the Adivasi people by the Nizams’ government after the killing of Kumram Bheem, records the exploitation in detail.
He records the way the Adivasis lost their lands to non-tribal advocates and businessmen during the 1930s. The statement of a Gond patel (village headman) Katele Potti of Jendaguda, which was owned by a lawyer from Asifabad, says, “My forefathers all lived in Jendaguda and my father had a patta (title deed). The present pattadar’s father, however, declared that the government had given him the whole village land and no help was extended by the Tahsildar too.” The village headman eventually migrated to Utnoor, records von Furer-Haimendorf.
In Bheempur village of present-day Sirikonda mandal in Adilabad district, von Furer-Haimendorf details the story of Atram Ramu, who cultivated government land, paying an annual rent of ₹17.40. A Lambada villager, who had arrived just four years previously, took possession of the already cultivated land and paid a ₹20 bribe to the patwari, who was sent by the Tahsildar to evict the encroacher, resulting in the latter cultivating the land.
Even as the ceremony to mark Bheem’s death got under way, two-wheelers sped along the newly laid, double-lane road to Jodeghat while Adivasi women walked alongside, carrying pots of water to their hamlets, which lack basic amenities.
“We never asked for the road,” said the patel, Athram Chinna Bheemu, a member of the Kolam tribe categorised as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group. “We want drinking water and protection from harassment and encroachment of our lands.”
