COVER STORY

Stifling tribal democracy

ASHA KRISHNAKUMAR

COME monsoon, and the world used to shrink for the 22 villages in Thegalavalasu Panchayat of Visakhapatnam district. Tucked deep in the forests of the Eastern Ghats which have numerous streams, the over 1,000 tribal families in the area used to be cut off from the rest of the world. Until the 1990s, the problem was particularly grave because the panchayat did not exist officially. It was only in the late 1990s that the villages began to be counted. In 2001, the State government constructed a bridge over one of the rivers thus making the outside world accessible to the villagers, all year round. For Thegalavalasu's tribal people, it was a mixed bag. It brought them the connectivity to the outside world but at the cost of democracy.

C.V. SUBRAHMANYAM

Members of the grama sabha during a meeting at Kamayapet village in the Agency area.

A stone slab at the entrance of Kamayapet, home to the legendary tribal freedom fighter Marie Kamaya, who resisted a British logging company to save the forests, declares the village a self-ruled republic. But, in practice, it is hardly so.

According to G. Janaki Rao, president of the 22 gram sabhas in the panchayat, Kamayapet was the first tribal village in the area to constitute a gram sabha in 1998. Some tribal leaders of the village went to Madagon village in Maharashtra's Gadchiroli district to study the working of the gram sabha there after the Panchayat Extension Scheduled Area (PESA) Act, which extended the scope of the 73rd Amendment to the Constitution (which gave formal recognition to local self-governance units) to tribal areas, came into force. Only after considerable training here did the leaders set up the Gram Sabha in Kamayapet. The Kamayapet model was adopted in all the other 21 villages. The gram sabhas maintained records, settled disputes and managed resources.

The State government, however, refuses to acknowledge the gram sabhas, and instead controls the resources of the tribal people through a parallel structure. According to former Kamayapet gram sabha President K. Chitibabu, the gram sabhas are effectively suppressed because the State government's rules for the implementation of the PESA Act are not in accordance with the Central government's provisions. For example, according to the rules of the Centre, the gram sabha in each village can manage and maintain its own resources. But, according to State government rules, the panchayat (which controls the 22 villages and is headed by a State government official) should manage the resources in each village. The Central government provisions allow the gram sabhas to issue caste and income certificates, but the State rules empower only mandal revenue officers (MROs) to do so.

While the Central provisions insist that public works contractors be paid by the mandal development officers (MDOs) only after the gram sabha issues a "utilisation certificate", the State rules have no such provision. Hence even though the Union government sanctioned a food-for-work programme last year for Kamayapet village, neither the gram sabha nor the panchayat was even aware of it.

Thegalavalasu panchayat president (who is the chairman of all the 22 gram sabhas) P. Beshu says that the State government, besides not recognising the gram sabhas, is also harassing the members. An instance of this is "Janmabhoomi", the flagship project of the previous Telugu Desam Party (TDP) government, which aims, among other things, to involve people in the implementation of development programmes. But, according to K. Manmada Rao, president, Adivasi Mitra, a non-governmental organisation (one of the 10 community-based NGOs under Samata), this is only in theory. Under this programme, the State government appointed in every village a secretary to look after revenue and developmental activities. All welfare schemes are implemented through this official. Says Manmada Rao: "Even the list of beneficiaries is prepared by the secretary, ignoring the gram sabha."

Thus, in practice a huge parallel structure is at work in Kamayapet and the other 22 villages in the panchayat that have constituted gram sabhas. This structure bypasses people and cripples the panchayati raj system; the gram sabhas and the gram panchayats have no meaning. The show is run by the MROs and the MDOs - government appointees - and not by the tribal people who understand the problems better. This, according to G. Gundanna, field coordinator of Adivasi Mitra, is an attempt to subvert the powers of the tribal people and to "take control of our resources".

Says Beshu: "The parallel set-up has led to a sharp centralisation of power. At the Janmabhoomi meetings, they are hardly interested in listening to our problems." Several committees - for education, water, public works and so on - are set up in each village. "These committees," the tribal activists say, "are not elected by the people but by small groups with vested interests, and are managed from above."

None of the committees is answerable to the gram sabhas. Worse still, funds go to the committees and not to the gram sabhas. While the gram sabhas operate with low budgets, the committees are flush with funds, coming from the government and foreign donors.

In the panchayati raj system, legitimacy flows from the gram sabha to the gram panchayat and then to the mandal and zilla parishads. But not in the 22 villages of Thegalavalasu panchayat, where instead the diktat of the "nodal officer" at the mandal level prevails. A bureaucrat is appointed nodal officer by the District Collector. The constitutionally elected bodies are simply marginalised. Says Manmada Rao: "The impact of the parallel structure is devastating. Local democracy is dead."

The last straw for the tribal people of Kamayapet came last year when, at a Janmabhoomi meeting, Tribal Welfare Minister Manikumar said: "The government does not recognise the gram sabha here."

Says Manmada Rao: "For long we suffered because we did not exist in government records. Later, we suffered for want of connectivity with the outside world. Now, though we officially exist and are connected with the world, we are governed arbitrarily by non-tribal people who do not understand our problems."

Says Janaki Rao: "Our forefathers fought the British. Now we are fighting our own government for our independence."

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