Governance

Adivasi Mahila Mahasangh

The birth of Adivasi Mahila Mahasangh (AMM)

“I did not know anything; whether one needed to start work first and then register the sanstha, or register first and then begin the work. I was completely naïve,” Mamta reminisces about the early days. “Somehow I formed the sangathan with some other like-minded people, and without much planning or thinking, we named it Jashpur Jan Vikas Sanstha. We did not even know where the registration could be done, but we were helped by an uncle of mine. He guided us through the registration process which was done in Bilaspur in 2003. Since my uncle had quite a bit of influence, the registration was complete in just about 3 months, after we paid a sum of Rs.5,000.” The sangathan then began to work in the villages. It was first essential to understand how they would enter the villages as complete strangers and how they could possibly work with the people. 

Khetihar Khan Mazdoor Sangathan

Chittorgarh district lies in the south eastern part of Rajasthan and has a population of over 18 lakhs. 85% of the people live in rural areas, agriculture and mining being the main sources of livelihood. Most of the land is owned by the jats, and the dalits and tribal communities, owing to the insignificant size of their land holdings, are forced to work in mines or on the lands of others often as bonded labour. Feudal attitudes and practices continue to have a strong presence in the region. 

Hum Kisan Sangathan

Jhiri is a village of 150 households located in Manohar Thana block, Jhalawar district in south-east Rajasthan. The majority of the people in the village and around belong to the Lodha caste (OBC) and a smaller percentage to SCs and STs. Traditionally the only means of livelihood for the people in this area has been farming, but diminishing returns from agriculture in the past few decades have led to poverty, heavy indebtedness to local moneylenders and large scale migration. Adding to the problem are superstitions and a lack of awareness about modern medicine that lead to deaths from easily curable ailments and diseases. Being a stronghold of the political right wing, the region has seen a rise in religious fanaticism that has deeply communalised the people. 

Dilli Shramik Sangathan

The slums in Delhi, as in other urban centres, are clusters of dwellings of poor migrant workers and their families who come to the city to earn a living. In 1982, before the Asian Games, the government brought in 10 lakh (1 million) workers into the city for development and beautification projects. In the following years, migration has been on the rise owing to lack of sources of livelihood in rural areas. While the first master plan for Delhi (made in 1962) included space within the city for the poor, in recent decades, rising real estate prices and changing attitudes and policies of the ruling classes meant that the slum dweller became increasingly vulnerable. While his/her services were still required, his/her right to living space and basic resources was questioned. From 2000-2006, aided by court orders, around 350 slums, many that had been in existence for decades, were demolished in the name of making the city clean and more developed. Meanwhile, the rehabilitation procedure was made so complicated that roughly two thirds of the families were left homeless, the others being given plots in locations very far from their sources of livelihood. A survey done by the Ministry of Housing and Poverty Alleviation in 2011 says that one in five persons living in Delhi is a slum dweller. There are 3,133 slums in the city, 1,058 of them registered, with 31.63 lakh (3.16 million) people living in them.

Maati Sangathan

Maati started as a small group of women who came together in the mid 1990s to protest against rampant alcoholism. In 1994, within one month there were two cases in which husbands in their drunkenness had burnt their wives to death, but there was a conspiracy of silence around these shocking incidents with nobody willing to speak up. Malika, Basanti and a few others got together, held meetings in several villages and mobilised women, writing post cards to people’s representatives in villages all around. 1000 women came forward for a meeting in Munsiyari where they put forth a memorandum to the SDM asking for the sale of alcohol to be stopped. This protest became a seed from which the sangathan grew into a space for women to meet, talk, express themselves, and share their joys and sorrows.

Kashtkari Jan Andolan

Brief Background

Situated in the heart of India, Nagpur has has a long history of several social, cultural, political movements. In the early 90s when the new liberalisation policy was much talked about, the Indira Sagar dam on Vainganga river was inaugurated in 1988. It was initiated under the tribal sub-plan of the Sixth Five-Year Plan (1980-1985) of the Government of India, aimed at developing in particular the tribal region of the district of Chandrapur, situated in the command area. Its completion is expected by the end of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, which makes it one of the oldest river-basin projects to  be achieved, despite being of a comparatively small size if put in perspective with the heard-of infamous Sardar Sarovar or older dams such as Hirakud. 

Bundelkhand Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan

Background

 

Adivasi Kranti Sangathan

Dhenkanal and its adjoining districts were under feudal rule before independence. This region is rich in its forest and mineral resources. The tribals being forest dwellers settled in these forests after migrating from Singhbhum and Santhal Parganas in search of habitation. The kings during those times settled the tribals to protect the forests from fire and smugglers. Those settlements were then declared as forest villages by the king.

Adivasi Chetana Sangathan

Dhenkanal is one of the centrally positioned districts of Odisha and is surrounded by Keonjhar, Jajpur, Cuttack and Angul districts. Surrounded by mountains and dense forests, these regions are abundant in natural resources. The economy of the districts is predominantly agrarian. A larger section of the rural population (mostly adivasis) holds very little or no agricultural land. They work as agricultural labourers and depend on daily wages. 

Sarvahara Jan Andolan

Demographic Profile

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