Friends:
It is amazing how certain people have opinions on everything under the sun -
and air them at the first and every opportunity, but close their minds to
any opinion that does not square with thier own. In his comment on the Insight
event on Chengara, Mr. Kumar raises the valid point that many of those
agitating in the Chengara Struggle are not tribals but are migrant
labourers from Tamil nadu "who were settled in the area by the British" to work
the plantations.
But I would like to point out that it was not less than 70 odd years ago, and
no doubt at least three generations of them have lived and worked and died in
the plantations for the masters in an unbroken line..... Is that not sufficient
to provide some kind of right over livelhood assets to this group? The struggle
is not only on the basis of being tribals but also as having the right to
livelihood assets. Are they still to be treated as outsiders? When India has
been giving asylum to foreign nationals from Bangladesh and Sri Lanka on the
basis of origins, do not those who have born, lived, worked, never left the
land for generations, and even died on it, never have any right over
it? Doesn't this smack of and attitude of internal colonisation? One can excuse
the British for this attitude, but Mr. Kumar...?
Cynthia Stephen
Independent Researcher and writer
Bangalore, India
