Exile and Resistance

In the sprawling forests of Sonbhadra, an epic land struggle by unarmed tribals and dalits is facing the armed might of police repression, corrupt forest department and local landlords

Akash Bisht Robertsgunj, Eastern UP

Robertsgunj, a small, sleepy town in UP's Sonbhadra district, has become the epicentre of a major land rights struggle, especially after the arrest of several social activists and police repression. Roma, a woman leader of the Kaimur Kshetra Mahila Majdoor Kisan Sangharsh Samiti (KKMMKSS) and an active steering committee member of the National Forum of Forest People and Forest Workers (NFFPFW), has been charged under the National Security Act (NSA) by the UP police. Her crime: she resurrected human and constitutional rights awareness amongst the landless poor in Sonbhadra with the slogan of 'Jo zameen sarkari hai, woh zameen humari hai', originally coined by Mayawati in 1996.

Besides, peaceful tribals are branded as Naxalites. Village homes face midnight raids and people are beaten up. Even women are brutally attacked.

Roma, along with three other social activists, who work with landless tribals and dalits in the abjectly backward and poor Kaimur region of eastern UP, was picked up from Robertsgunj in Sonbhadra district in early August on dubious charges framed by the police and forest department. “While Shanta Bhattacharya, Lalta Devi and Shyamlal Paswan have been charged with IPC 143, 144, 447, 34 and IFA 1927- 5/26 and 63, Roma has also been charged under 120(B) of the IPC,” informs Ramesh Shukla, a lawyer

representing Roma.

Sonbhadra is the largest and one of the poorest districts in eastern UP. Of its 6,788 sq km area, 3,782.86 sq km has forest cover. The locals call Sonbhadra the energy capital of India because of the vast natural and mineral resources the area possesses. However, for several decades now, the Sonbhadra region and several other districts of eastern UP have been the focus of a protracted land struggle. The struggle is between the forest department and forest dwellers, mostly landless tribals and dalits, for the return of land that the local community claims is their traditional gram sabha land, illegally and forcibly taken over by the forest department in collusion with the police and local landlords. The forest department claims the land as its own and has reportedly refused to negotiate the issue or recognise the rights of these landless and economically impoverished indigenous communities.

The struggle dates back to 1950 when the Zamindari Abolition Act was passed and surplus land of landlords distributed among the poor. Later, as a step towards social and economic justice by way of providing land to the landless and agricultural labour, the Uttar Pradesh Imposition of Ceiling on Land Holding Act, 1960 (subsequently amended in 1972), was enforced in the district in1961. It replaced the UP Large Holding Tax Act, 1957. Under this Act, the maximum area of a holding was fixed at 16.19 hectares of fair quality land. If, however, the number of members of the landholder's family was more than five, he was allowed to retain for each additional member an area of 3.25 hectares, subject to a maximum of 9.72 hectares of such additional area.

“Everyone knows that upper-caste landlords registered large families and took land under names of their servant and cattle, and this is most disturbing to us. Lokpati Tripathi is one of the landlords who registered land under such dubious names but nothing has been done. While our land is forcibly taken away in the name of forests, no one is bothered to check the records of these landlords who are holding huge portions of land that should have been ours,” rues Munnabhai, a tribal leader.