ITHE SOCIO POLITICAL HISTORY OF

THE

INDIGENOUS PEOPLE OF GOAThe social formations in Goa were shaped by indigenous tribes. They were the first settlers of Goa. Till recently very few people knew that there are tribes in Goa. Apart from the anthropological survey, there was very little data on the tribal population in Goa and scarcer information about their struggles.

According to the survey report published by the Directorate of Social Welfare, Government of Goa, Panjim, the total population of Goa is 1,62,056. The break up is as follows: Gawda - 61,542 male and 63,794 female, Kunbi - 2,719 male and 2,711 female, Velip - 16,072 male and 15,218 female.

Unlike other tribal communities elsewhere who resisted forceful eviction from their habitat, many tribal communities in Goa were forced to vanish into the interior forests of the Western Ghats rather than resist the exploitation and expropriation of their land by the outsiders As a result, the tribal population of Goa, especially that of

the Gawdas, got scattered across the bordering districts in South Karnataka1. The other major tribe, the Dhangars continuously moved around, criss-crossing the borders of Goa, Karnataka, and Maharashtra. It is only in the recent past that they settled on a permanent basis.

Land holding pattern and the form of traditional agricultureIndigenous institution of land holding was known as Gaonkary. It collectively administered the village. The whole community owned village lands. There was no notion of private property in land ownership.

Goa’s hinterland, the hilly regions are rich in natural resources. The natural water flow was carefully maintained over generations and the cultivation was organized as per the land gradient. In the fresh water rivers like Mhadei there was Puran Sheti, the cultivation of rice and other vegetables on the riverbed during non-monsoon season. This was done by preparing the soil specially for the purpose and then cultivating there every year. Agricultural paddy fields were prepared for cultivation 1 Some of the villages founded by Gawda tribes after their flight from Goa include Gall, Vaspad, Kubgall, Amball, Lande, Landavaddo, Kellimollo, Nuzi Patnem, Hulvi Patnem, Baradi, Bhalpoll, Kundal, Kelleli, Kuralli, Ghottavar, Navar, Kashingall, Athrem, Bhairem, Kalle, Marconni, Bhizolem, Bargta, Kotem etc.

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on the banks of the rivers, depending upon the terrain. Rice and other vegetables were cultivated twice a year – the Rabi and Kharif cultivations. In some places there was only one crop in a year. Khazan lands, adjacent to salty water rivers, were reclaimed lands that act as buffer between the mainland and the salt water rivers. Next to paddy fields were Kulagars, the horticultural gardens of spices. Later betul nuts, pineapples, and sugarcane were added to the list of the items cultivated inside Kulagars. Next is Bhat that are predominantly coconut plantations. And further lies dongar, the mountains and there were the cultivation of a variety of crops that do not require high quantity of water on the slopes of the mountain. It was called Kumeri cultivation.

Religious-Social customs and practices.A tribal deity known as Devchar, was the centre of their Universe and of the consciousness of the community, shaping the normative and prescriptive behaviour. The deity is believed to be invisible - without form or shape, having been symbiotically tied to nature and with the members of the tribal communities.

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Devchar is the most powerful deity that protected the community and guarded their lands. Devchar have been the target of attack both from the Brahminical forces as well as from the Church that accompanied the Portuguese colonial rule. Church in fact has historically engaged in negative propaganda by equating Devchar with the notion of Evil God or Devil. Konkani translation of Devil is given as Devsar to the common masses. The theological notion of good and evil in western Christianity was transplanted in Goa and was translated as a contest between Dev and Devchar, intended to make the indigenous God inferior, to convert the tribal community into Christian religion, and to appropriate their land. The degradation of their deity and religious practices was intended to portray the tribal people as ‘uncivilized’.

Brahminical forces term the tribal god as ‘daitya shakti’ meaning evil power that was required to be eliminated from the face of the earth. This meant that the hegemonic religions, Hinduism and Christianity resorted to the elimination of the tribal deity and thereby of the community with an identity and culture that was linked to the community land. Cultural annihilation of a

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people is the first step towards annihilating them as a distinct people and can be the strategy for displacing and dislocating them.

Displacement is not a mere change of residence. It is not even a mere forced migration. The lifestyles of the indigenous people have been evolved over centuries and were linked to a territory, to a land, to an ecosystem. Their patterns of subsistence and livelihood, their skills, their occupations, their belief systems, their cultures, and their ways of life were in harmony with the land, the territory, the fauna and flora, and the natural resources of the area. This relationship is not a result of any grand planned development. It is an outcome of a long drawn out process of survival in their surroundings in a non-destructive and sustainable manner so that the resources are cared for and renewed. The knowledge and knowledge systems of the tribes are in harmony with the natural and the created, the animate and the inanimate, the plant and the animal surroundings. They are incapable of survival outside these settings. They consider themselves as custodians of the planet.

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Formation of ‘Communidades’ and suppression of ‘Gaonvkary’The social and cultural practices of the tribes are linked to the land, to their territory, to their productive activities, and to their social organization. It reflects and regulates their relationship with nature, with fellow human beings, and with non-human life forms. It moulds personal, familial, and communitarian relationships. It also forms the basis of their social and political functioning.

Gawdas were the first settlers of Goa who had evolved the social institutions for the governance of the community and economy in a sophisticated way. The two institutions that played a crucial role in this respect were Mand and Gaonvkary, the oldest social institutions established by the tribes. They defined the social, cultural, religious, political, and economic life of the tribal communities and provide an insight into their social practices. According to historians these institutions were founded by the Gawda tribe about 5000 BC.2 But they were not codified in documents or in written history. Though not available with the government departments, these were

2 Vinayak Khedekar, Lok Sarita, Goa Kala Academy, Panjim, 1993. Pp.114

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deeply embedded in the community consciousness and was orally transmitted from generations to generations.

Mand used to be an open space situated in the middle of the village, ranging from 20-25 square meters upto 5000 square meters of space. Mostly it was an open space but at some places trees like banyan, pipal, and other forest trees covered the open space. Beneath the tree one would find a small stone structure called Ghumti - without any idol being kept in Ghumti. Mand is also found among the Catholic Gawda community.

Mand is an institution governed by an elected body from amongst tribal communities. Any person who attains the age of 18 years can become the member of the mand. A member who completes the age of 65 years is exempted from the membership and is duly respected. The head of a mand is called manda guru. His position is supreme and many decisions of social, cultural, religious, political, and economic significance were taken here.

Mand is a very sophisticated social structure evolved by the tribes to sort out disputes relating to the land and the revenue systems known as Gaonvkary and

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Goankary. These institutions played a significant role in controlling, administering, and evolving rules and regulations to protect the signified social property of the tribal communities.

Tribal institution of gaonvkary was targeted by the local elites in Goa in collusion with Portuguese colonial regime. This collusion prompted legal codifications of gaonvkary and was renamed as ‘Communidade’. With the change in name, the composition of these bodies also underwent changes. The tribal people have been supplanted with other elites in collusion with the ruling Portuguese colonial regime since 1733.

Out of the 224 registered Communidades, there were only two with representation of the members of the tribal community. The rest of them were from the caste communities who colluded with the colonial state as being the indigenous people. They include Brahmins and the other caste people who claimed that they were the original tribes. The gaonvkary system was developed by these people and they therefore sought colonial protection for the exclusive control over the goankary system.

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To some extent the Communidades system was a trade off for conversion, introduced by the Portuguese rulers and supported by the local elites. The caste people got themselves into the management of the communidades. These include Brahmins and other castes. During the codification exercise the tribes lost their lands that were with written records due to illiteracy. The Portuguese colonial state entered into pacts with those newly converted to Christianity. Even though some gawda tribe members were converted to Christianity, they were excluded from the management affairs of the communidades. Gawdas were divided into Hindu Gawdas and Christian Gawdas. The Hindu Gawdas were again divided into Hindu Gawdas and Nava Hindu Gawdas (after re-conversion to Hinduism from Christianity). Religion played a vicious role to keep the tribes divided on religious lines. Further, there have been instances of religious fundamentalists amongst the tribal communities seeking the de-tribalisation of the converted tribal people.

The hegemonic position of the Ranes got consolidated in Sattari and Bicholim talukas during the Portuguese rule. Even before the time when Goa was under the Portuguese

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rule, the Ranes had set themselves and established their kingdoms in these talukas. The Ranes were tax collectors of Sawant Bhonsles. Ranes changed their loyalties during the Portuguese period in return for maintaining their position as tax collectors; this time for the Portuguese. As far as the tribes were concerned, fear prevailed amongst the Gawdas and the feudal ethos of more exploitative nature was introduced among them.

The Gawdas were forcefully kept as reserve force to work on the farmlands parcelled out to the supporters of the colonial rule in Goa. They were denied education during the colonial days; as a result, they were not able to get the benefits of social development. Education was largely meant for the Brahmins. Thus the gaonkary system of community ownership was replaced with Communidades: in this process the tribes in Goa lost their land.

The control of the rich fertile delta land by outsiders was the beginning of the history of the exploitation of tribes and the ultimate wresting of the control over their land from their possession. Prosperity of this land attracted a number of people; some of them came as migrants and the community

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accepted them. Others came as migrants, but gradually cheated the tribal people and established their control. Due to the organic links of the indigenous people with the earth, the option of outright decimation could not be exercised. Instead the communities were gradually subjugated as labour force.

Clash of Traditional and Modern ValuesThe most prominent values characterizing the life of the tribal people can be summed up as follows:

i. a basic sense of equality among the members of the community;

ii. an attitude of reaching out to each other in a spirit of cooperation;

iii. a keen sense of commonality regarding all that nature has freely given, especially jal, jangal, jamin;

iv. a cherished process of community decision-making by consensus; and

v. a closeness to and respect for nature with all that it contains.

By capturing the land of the tribes for capitalist development/for profit, the usurper destroyed the spirituality of the tribal people; and their basic values were

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undermined by displacement and industrialization:

i. social equality is no more a desired value;

ii. cooperation has been replaced by competition in every sphere of life;

iii. commonality has yielded its place to private property and privatization;

iv. consensus decision-making has been thrown out and majority-decision holds sway; and

v. respect for nature is overruled by ruthless exploitation of the nature.

The wildlife sanctuariesThe Government of Goa’s initiative of setting up wildlife sanctuaries is threatening the tribal way of life. Various wildlife sanctuaries were notified in tribal lands around Goa. The borders of these sanctuaries have been marked without any consideration to the existing tribal villages and therefore, thousands of tribal people find themselves being bordered inside the sanctuaries. The Government of Goa has put in place a Forest Police to protect these new sanctuaries and to pressurize the tribal villagers to relocate.

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Bias of the written history against the tribesThe popular history of Goa has cleverly erased any tribal presence. This is because the history of Goa is full of myths propagated by the dominant hegemonic classes.

The history of the tribes in Goa is unwritten. Knowledge is passed from one generation to another through oral traditions, in the form of folklore such as Jagor, Dhalo, Fugdeo, Shigmo, and other folk dances.

As seen elsewhere, there have been four tribal groups in Goa: Gawdas, Kunbis, Velips, and Dhangars. Gawdas are the original inhabitants and first settlers of Goa, who founded villages. In fact, the word Gawda in Konkani means the one who establishes the village and administers it towards prosperity (Gaon vosoupi ani Gaon Gaddo choloupi). The Gawda tribe are of Mundari origin and coming from Chottanagpur. The social/political movements of the tribal people in Goa have been active for the past 25 years. GAKUVED is a prominent one among these organisations.

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II

ALIENTATION OF TRIBAL LANDThe post-liberation neo-liberal capitalist order systematized and intensified the loot of the tribal people. The resource needs at this phase were different and the expropriation was done efficiently. The logic of productive and commercial capitalist activity made demands on forests and forest produce, on the minerals underground, on the water bodies (for water and electricity generation), and on the land itself (for both cultivation and habitation). The land and the forests were, therefore, taken away from the tribes and that too under the cover of legality. They were driven off their ancestral and traditional homelands. They were also denied access to the resources which sustained their established lifestyles and livelihoods. Their lives were dislocated, their social organizations broken up, and their lifestyles were degraded. They were forced into penury and a sub-human existence and made to face conversion into wage slaves of the new order or else a gradual decimation of genocidal proportion.

Mining on the tribal land

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Expropriation of land for mining purposes began in Goa during the first decade of the twentieth century. The Portuguese had involved some German geologists to survey for the availability of minerals in Goa. Iron ore, magnesium, silica, and bauxite deposits were found in various parts of Goa. Silica and bauxite were found in coastal Goa, while iron ore and magnesium were traced in huge deposits in the hinterland Goa. By 1940s the colonial state began leasing out lands for those who wanted to set up mining industry for extracting the iron ore. By the end of the 1950s approximately one thousand mining leases were given in the talukas of Sanguem, Quepem, Bicholim, Sattari, Bardez, and a few leases in Pernem. The mining operations began in 1945. The first 100 tonnes of iron ore was exported to Japan in 1948. The iron ore import from Goa played a very crucial role towards the recovery of the Japanese economy, which was in a state of collapse after the nuclear attacks by USA in 1945. The mining activities were manually done during the period from the 1940s upto the 1970s; later mechanization began with greater negative implications for the environment. Iron ore remained the chief supply of Goa till

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recently when exports from Brazil came as a competitor for the Goan iron ore and then magnesium.

Bicholim and Sattari Talukas were amongst the first to sacrifice their paddy fields, forests, mountains, groundwater, and the livelihood support systems of the communities living in the vicinity. Most of these lands were occupied by the tribes. In fact, it was their land.

Non-mechanized forms of mining triggered off internal migration within Goa. Tribes as well as non-tribes were drafted to work in the mines. New settlements of the labour class began to come up. They did not own land in the mining villages. That laid the foundation for the future confrontations3

between the tribal people who were attached to the agricultural field and the migrants.

Two rivers, Zuari and Mandovi began to be used to transport the ore dug from the mines towards Marmagaon Harbour for export to Japan. Movement of barges in the river water generated ripples that damaged the adjacent bands4 in island villages like Divar and often led to minor floods.3 This situation is visible in Colamb village in Sanguem Taluka.4 Bands are barricades that blocks the entry of saline water into paddy fields. They were constructed by indigenous people while claiming lands from the bosom of Arabian Sea many thousands of years ago.

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All the mining leases that were granted during the Portuguese colonial rule were in the name of either the Portuguese nationals or the Brahmins (both those who converted to Christianity as well as who did not). Majority of the mining leases have been granted to the non-converted Brahmins, the Gujarati traders who were in the good books of the colonial power, and some other businessmen who had good relations with the colonial power structure, and the multinational companies. The major and active support base of the Portuguese colonial state have been the Brahmins and the Gujarati businessmen, who thrived on colonial exploitation of Goa. In other words all those elements that were helping the Portugues to extend colonial rule way beyond the Indian Independence in 1947.

Talukas of Sanguem and Bicholim were rich in iron ore deposits and has a history of open cast mining for the past half a century. These two talukas are full of lands leased for mining, granted during Portuguese colonial times and renewed under the Indian laws. Deep craters have led to most of the problems that one encounters in the mining areas across the

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world. There are a number of problems in these areas:

massive destruction of agriculture due to mining

silt deposit in the agricultural fields

acute water shortages

large scale lung diseases such as tuberculosis due to dust pollution

high rate of accidents due to rough plying of mining trucks

drying up of natural springs

damage to houses and other buildings due to blasting

displacement of people off their cultivation spaces

destruction of residential spaces due to rapid expansion of mining in new areas

hatred and disharmony as mining companies engineer split amongst the villagers

issues that come up when state agencies such as the police provide security to mining companies

complacency of the state agencies to act tough against the mining companies

destruction of forest cover

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depletion of marine wealth after release of silted water into the fresh water of river

depletion of crop production due to lowering of ground water

problems of mining overburden

abuse of ground water

destruction of natural sponges that hold on rain water in the earth’s aquifers, and

total degradation of the quality of life in every aspect.

This has been the case for the past half a century in Goa too.

The evidence of protest against all these in the Portuguese era are yet to be traced. The earliest protests against mining can be traced not directly to the tribes but to a bhatcar on whose land tribes were employed. This happened in Colamb village in Sanguem taluka in 1964. As the bhatcar filed complaints with the state authorities, the mining lessee entered into a private agreement with the bhatcar. The bhatcar protest came to be known more because of the written documents. Tribal people did not use forms of protest that left any written records. So if there were protests

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by the tribes during the period from the 1940s upto the 1980s, they remain untraceable.

The plight of the tribes in the hinterland of Goa is precarious. On the one hand, they lost their lands due to the trickery of Brahmins and Saraswat Brahmins in terms of land titles. On the other hand, the Portuguese colonial state granted around thousand mining leases to various applicants who were the supporters of Portuguese colonialism. After liberation, the Indian government, instead of cancelling all these leases, began to bring them under the purview of the Indian laws. Thus the legitimate continuation of the mining leases in Goa was ensured. The government enacted a law called Goa, Daman, & Diu Mining Concessions (Abolition and Declaration as Mining Leases) Act, 1987. This law was tailored to the interests of the mining companies as it declared that the leases granted by the Portuguese colonial state had been abolished and each of them would be deemed to be a mining lease granted under the Mines & Minerals (Development & Regulation) Act, 1957. This was validated by virtue of the provisions

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contained in Rule 24 A (9) of the Mineral Concession Rules, 1960.

Much of the land under mining leases in Goa is forest land, where tribes have been living for thousands of years. Ironically the mining activities in areas declared as wildlife sanctuaries are intense. Goa has a number of wildlife sanctuaries such as Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary, Bondla Wildlife Sanctuary, Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary, Netravali Wildlife Sanctuary, Khotigao Wildlife Sanctuary, and Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary. The tribes living within the jurisdictions of a sanctuary are subjected to various kinds of restrictions by the forest department. A tribal person was even shot dead by the forest guards while collecting firewood in the forests inside Khotigao Wildlife Sanctuary in Canacona Taluka in South Goa a few years ago. In spite of the tyranny of the forest department, the tribes continue to inhabit the forest lands in most of the cases. It was only in the Bhagwan Mahavir Wildlife Sanctuary that the forest department evicted villages by paying very little compensation and no land for cultivation. The forest officials were harsh on the tribes inhabiting the forests. They were prevented from making a living by

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catching forest crabs or by harvesting mushrooms and minor forest produce. On the other hand, the mining activities are carried out inside the wildlife sanctuary jurisdiction violating the Forest Protection Act. These mines were forced legally to closed down because of the efforts of the Goa Foundation. Yet, mining in Mapusa continues within the ten kilometre buffer zone of the sanctuaries.

Extractive economy of Neo-liberalism The countries of the South have, under the neo-liberal growth model, been reduced to the state of economic territories which are to be exploited. The small land holders, women, the tribes, and the dalits are obviously the victims of this type of accumulation.

Unlike in the earlier era of the state sponsored industrialization, the current frenzied mining wave is driven wholly by private investments in mining and processing, with the iron and steel industry being its driving force. Economic globalisation has brought about quantitative and qualitative changes in the control and use of the natural resources. Under its spell a whole range of natural resources is privately appropriated after

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the natural resource base was opened for the MNCs to be plundered. Their predatory methods of profit accumulation and political hegemony are detrimental to the interests of the southern countries. The nation state is no longer treated as a major actor in the pursuit of socio-economic goals and of development with justice and equity for all.

This shameful pillage of the collective resources of humanity is committed under the spell of predatory capitalism. The mining sector is increasingly seen as the one in which the worst features of capitalism are inherent – such as a profit machine combined with illegality and corruption providing for primitive accumulation, based on plunder and unequal exchange.

Minerals, in the current development paradigm, are viewed as a necessary prerequisite and strategic raw resource for the production of a large number of commodities, ranging from industrial and consumer goods to infrastructure inputs for transport, energy, communications, arms and ammunition, and military hardware. The economic reforms of the 1990s were the main influence behind this thinking. It led to a shift in the economic polices that

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were reflected in the 1994 amendment of the Mines and Minerals (Regulation and Development) Act, 1957. The main policy changes on the mining of minerals were: granting prospecting licenses and mining leases of all minerals except atomic minerals, opening for the private sector the major minerals that had been reserved for exclusive exploitation by the public sector, raising the ceiling on foreign equity investment in the mining industry to fifty per cent, permitting the mineral and metal processing units to invite foreign equity participation, letting the states to require no longer the Central Government approval for granting mining or prospecting licenses, and raising the period of mining lease to a maximum of thirty years with a provision for renewal for another 20 years.

Corporate lobbying behind these wide-ranging changes were designed towards a particular type of regime – weak rule of law, endemic corruption, poor labour legislation, low environmental standards, and no restriction in case of human rights abuses. The maximization and repatriation of profits is the only driving force behind the foreign investments in countries where they operate. They are the modern-day face of

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the erstwhile colonial powers. Foreign trade in iron ore and magnesium is carried at the cost of the invasion of tribal homelands. Over 68,000 hectares of land in Goa including its forests are under mining leases granted during erstwhile Portuguese colonial regime.

Mining DevastationGoa’s vast deposits of iron ore are playing havoc with its environment. Goa has four per cent of India’s reserves producing more than 15 percent of the total iron ore. It is the demand from China and Japan that drives the mineral industry. According to the Goa Mineral Ore Exporters’ Association in 2008-2009 this tiny state contributed about 43 percent of the total exports valued at about 38 million tonnes.

Take a look at the map of Goa and run a cursory glance along its 105 km length: 95 km of this constitute the mining belt. All of it on the plateaus of the Western Ghats, which has been classified as a biodiversity hotspot. There are more than 42 rivers and tributaries that flow from the Western Ghats, feeding the plains below. All of them will be doomed, if the rape of the mountains continues. Currently, about eight percent of Goa is under mining. According to the

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Centre for Science and Environment, if all the mining lease applications are granted - which most probably will be granted - more than one-fourth of the state would go under mining . And it would be a perfect recipe for an ecological disaster.

Mining has devastated Goa’s lifelines – its fields, forests, air, and ground water. The open cast mining practiced in Goa, ripping out the top soil to get to the ore seams, is considered environmentally a most damaging process. It generates huge amount of wastes - to the tune of 25-30 million tons of mining rejects annually, most of which percolates down to the waterways. Mandovi is estimated to carry 2,00,000 metric tonnes of sediment every year. That’s the fate of almost all of the water sources in Goa - Khushawati, Kalay, Advoi, Bicholim. Visit the state during the monsoon: the blue waters of Goa’s rivers run a bloody red. This has destroyed the fish and other aquatic life. The National Institute of Oceanography predicted in 1985 a total extinction of estuarine life in the near future, unless the inflow of mining rejects were halted.

Groundwater is dipping fast. About ten tonnes of water is pumped out for every ton

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of iron ore. Sixty percent of the mines in Goa operate below the groundwater level. More than 10,000 trucks race from the mining areas to the jetties and back. The routes to Goa’s main port, Marmugao is connected by barges. A lot of spilling and spreading of the dust happens all through these routes.

Illegal mining Large-scale illegal mining has been going on for decades in almost all the states and more so in the mineral-rich regions of the country. A Parliamentary Committee on illegal mining had identified 14,504 illegal mines in 2005. The figures released recently by the Ministry of Mines put the number of illegal mines for major minerals at 2,496 and for minor minerals at 28,055. Illegal mines operate with impunity.

It is a matter of serious concern that the officially reported figures of the production and export of minerals are gross underestimates. They do not reflect the hundreds of crores of rupees worth of illegal mining that goes on in different regions. What is worse is the fact that this is done in connivance with the political bosses and the top-level bureaucrats. The

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hold of the mining lobbies on the government is quite strong in many states.

Impact on environmentUp until the mid-1990s, the mining companies relied on men with shovels. Then, as the surface ore was depleted, they switched to the mechanized, open-pit mining, relying on giant excavators that can dig holes as deep as 40 metres below the sea level. The overburden -- the mud, soil, and rocks left over from the ore slag -- gets tossed on the sides of the pit in huge piles. This is where the problems start. The deeper the companies dig, the more water they drain from the surrounding water tables. The higher the mountains of overburden, the more likely they are to be washed away in the rains, rendering the water bodies polluted and the fields unusable for cultivation.

It was after their wells had been drying up for over four or five years in an area that typically gets 2,000 mm to 2,500 mm of annual rainfall that the residents of Sirigaon filed their petition in the High Court. The mining area controlled by three companies is a plateau 100 meters above sea level. This plateau captures rainwater as it percolates through the several layers

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of soil, which act as a recharge zone for the ground water system. But the recharge area has been destroyed as the miners have dug into the plateau to reach the ore, says the court-ordered report.

As the companies have dug deeper, they have reached levels lower than the water table. As a result, the water from the village area is sliding into the mine pits, further depleting the water supply. In some cases, water from the pits can seep into the groundwater, contaminating it. “If the aquifers are draining into the mines, the miners can pump it out but this water can be acid water,” says Tuncel Yegulalp, a professor of mining engineering at Columbia University. “If this were in the US, the government would never have given the company permission to mine in such close proximity to residential areas.”

The mining waste also washes into fields, ruining the rice crops. An analysis by the reporting group found soil samples that contained as much as eighty six percent silt. Unaffected fields had up to sixty seven percent silt only. Such a high density of silt means that soil can’t hold or percolate water, rendering it useless for cultivation. The soil has become acidic, and has low

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supplies of the micro-organisms that sustain oxygen, nitrogen, and other nutrients that make soil fertile.

The tribal people living in areas close to the mining have devastating effects on their health, their crops, and their livelihood from the pollution caused by the mines. The dust from the mines can be seen as the nearby leaves of the surrounding vegetation are covered with dust. The excess rock powder and dirt from the mines are dumped without adequate walls or protection. So, in the rainy season, these run into the rivers and agriculture fields. With the muddy red rivers, the drinking water for the tribal villagers and the water for their agriculture has become highly polluted. This muddy water runs into the villagers’ plots of land too. The difference in the growth of plants close to the mining area can be clearly seen. In one village the coconut trees close to the mining spots were more than half the size of those further away in the same field.

In addition to this, the villagers’ health is being deeply affected as a result of the pollution from the mines – with many suffering from respiratory diseases and lung cancer. Alongside this threat to the

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health of the people is the threat to their lives. Due to the explosions occurring within the mines, the houses are crumbling. The walls of one house had split right through and the head of the family was concerned about the next blast, as anyone present in the house at the time could be in danger of being crushed. These are only some of the devastating effects of the mining industries have on the tribal villagers and their land in Goa.

The consequence for the tribal groups of the sale of land is that, in the transfer of land to Ciba, they lost their main cultivation space. According to a number of villagers from the Corlim area, the only compensation they were given for the loss of land was two hundred rupees to purchase two bullocks. One of the older members of the community of Corlim said that he once grew rice and vegetables closer to his home. When Sebastian Rodrigues asked where the old field was, he pointed towards Syngenta. When further asked if he was compensated for his land, he said that he gave his thumb print and was given two bullocks. He has no record of the transaction. “Many years ago someone came and asked to see the transaction

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paper,” and he has never seen the paper or the person since then. Many of the older members of the Corlim village are reluctant to speak out against the company, as they vividly recall times when their fathers and uncles who protested against the Santa Monica works were arrested and detained for up to ten days. It is important to note that in 1969, at the time of this compensation deal, the literacy rates of the tribes were extremely low. According to the villagers the agreement was made by a thumb print on a blank sheet of paper, and they had been unaware of the full consequences of this agreement. The people of Corlim have no legal documentation to prove that they have lived and farmed in the area. They rely on the counting back through generations. Tribal land was taken away in 1710.

Destruction of AgricultureThe people of Corlim and Mangado identify themselves as agriculturists. A number of people who were interviewed by Suzan Jameison recalled a time when the villages were totally self-sufficient in food including rice and vegetables. The Cumbarjua canal flowed through the area, which provided them with fish. The canal not only gave

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them irrigation water but also prevented the monsoonal flooding. The forest provided them with cashews, coconut, and fire wood.

The sale of the two hundred acres of land had serious consequences for these villagers. The land purchased by Syngenta had been used by the villagers in Corlim and Mangado as the main cultivation area. The subsistence lifestyle that the people of Corlim and Mangado had enjoyed dramatically changed in 1969. They were cut off from the land which was their lifeline. The agricultural land was leased out to industries.

Mining in Goa According to the statistics (Amended upto March 31, 2009) on Goan mineral ore exports which was compiled by Goa Mineral Ore Exporters’ Association, the exports of Goa, particularly that of the iron ore, have been increasing at a rapid pace. During 2005-2006 it was 25,537,924 tonnes. In 2006-2007 it rose to 30,893,953 tonnes and in 2007-2008 it increased to 33,434,429 tonnes. In 2008-2009 the exports jumped to 38,075,223 tonnes, of which 32,629,521 tonnes were exported to China alone.

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Mining companies involved in iron ore exports from Goa during 2008-2009 included miners, transporters, and real estate companies. The list is as follows: Sesa Goa Limited, V S Dempo & Company Pvt Ltd, Sociedade de Fomento Indl P Ltd, Prime Mineral Exports Pvt Ltd, Fomento (Karnataka) Mining Co P Ltd, V M Salgaoncar & Bro Pvt Ltd, V M Salgaoncar Sales International, Chowgule & Company Pvt Limited, Chowgule & Co (Salt) Pvt Ltd, Chowgule & Co Pvt Ltd (Mandovi Pellets), Salgaoncar Mining Industries P Ltd, Timblo Private Limited, Timblo Enterprises, Damodar Mangalji & Co Ltd, Bandekar Brothers, V G Mehta Exports, Vasantram Mehta & Co Pvt Ltd, Venture Resource Holdings, Venture Real Estate, PEC Limited, Karishma Exports, Karishma Goa Mineral Trading, Rajaram Bandekar (S) Mines P Ltd, Rajaram N S Bandekar & Co P Ltd, Narayan Bandekar & Sons Pvt Ltd, On & Offshore Hitech Engineers P Ltd, Trimuthi Exports, D B Bandodkar & Sons Pvt Ltd, Shree Bhavani Minerals, Minescape Minerals Pvt Ltd, Prasanna V Ghotge, Star PVG Exports, Sri Krishna Enterprises, Gangadhar Narsingdas Agrawal, Fulchand Exports, Baggadia

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Brothers, Shree Mallikarjun Shipping, Alphine International, MSPL Limited, Ramakanta V S Velingkar, Ramakanta Velingkar Minerals, Magnum Minerals Pvt Ltd, Rika Global Impex Ltd, Muktar Pvt Ltd, Canara Overseas Limited, Shantadurga Transport Co P Ltd, and Adani Enterprises Limited. All these companies, without any exception, have exported Goan iron ore to China. These are the beneficiaries of the Goa’s dig and sell economy. For Goan economy, this trade is the backbone, fetching unimaginable financial rewards without being affected in any way by the global depression.

Impact of Open Cast MiningA number of voices have recently cropped up highlighting the cast mining industry in Goa. In fact it is rapidly destroying the backbone of the local people’s economy, the agriculture and causing irreversible ecological changes with its long term unforeseen consequences. Due to the inherent rush of the China boom and the lure of foreign currency, the mining companies are in competition with one another to transform Goa. This is facilitated by the mechanized nature (with latest sophisticated machinery) of the mining

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industry. Communities have been lured into alcoholism and cleverly fragmented into factions causing frequent strife so that the will of the mining industry prevails.

Large scale mining was going on in 2006 and 2007 in the Netravali Wildlife Sanctuary with the active collusion of the forest department. Dempos, Timblos, etc are well known companies that routinely violate state laws and get scot-free every time. They expand mining in most dense forests and release silt in the nearby rivers in the forest. Sirsorem Dempo mine in Sanguem is just one example. Over here village lands have been dried up and the state government has been working towards supplying water from the nearby Salaulim dam, thereby creating a situation of water dependency. The kind of water that they, along with the cities of Margao and Vasco, get is understandably with high doses of Chlorine and Potassium permanganate. Timblo’s mining company is operating a mine inside Salaulim water reservoir and it has been inspected by a number of state agencies. The Governor of Goa, S C Jamir visited Sisorem. Yet this mine continues to operate with scant

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respect to the law of the land and to the health of the people including the tribes.

Sirsorem case is only the tip of an iceberg as far as Goa’s mining scenario is concerned. No accurate number of the actual area under mining in Goa is forth coming from the state authorities. While the Portuguese had given out 808 mining leases for iron ore and magnesium, its area in hectares is yet to be calculated or if calculated accurately yet to be known. However, according to K M Hegde, the assistant Public Information Officer in the department of mines and geology, “the total area covered by 439 mining concessions is 30,646.26 Ha. And the total area of 15 leases granted under MMDR Act 1957 is 2403.50 Ha.” What happened to the remaining leases? Have not they been included in the department’s statistics as they are coming under wildlife sanctuary jurisdictions? Are there only 15 leases granted all over Goa under MMDR Act 1957? Does that mean the rest of them are operating illegally? If yes then why have they not been raided and closed down? It is clear from this reply that the rest of the mines are in operation purely by force and not by law

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Land for Green MissionThe forest department’s main ‘green’ activity is planting trees. Such ‘afforestation’ programmes often take place on cultivated lands (including the shifting cultivation fallows), village commons, community pasture lands, etc that actually belong to people. They destroy the natural open forests and grasslands with rich biodiversity, reducing people’s access to forest produce and animal fodder. In October 2008, the Standing Committee on Environment and Forests sharply criticized such programs, saying “afforestation ... deprives forest dwellers and adivasis of some or all of their lands and impacts their livelihoods and basic needs – for which they are neither informed, nor consulted, nor compensated.”

A commoditisation of forests converts people’s homelands and livelihood resources - without even consulting them - into tradable commodities through the system of carbon trading. This is likely to involve private companies as well, triggering even more land grabbing. The carbon storage figures that are given are clearly aimed at establishing a basis for such a system. In reality, such figures are

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usually hogwash. Forests do not consist only of standing trees – trees grow, fires and other disasters take place, and people and wildlife consume non-timber forest produce. Forests are constantly changing. An obsession with carbon storage and incentives in the form of trading will lead companies and the government to shut off forests from all uses by people, on the one hand, and on the other will encourage fictional carbon storage figures.

Conversion of areas such as pastures or grazing areas, shifting cultivation fallows, and other common lands into plantations is done for the purpose of meeting targets and earning profits through carbon trading.

This mission, in its current form, will lead to increased land grabbing, violation of people’s rights, environmental destruction, and loss of the common land and livelihoods based on it, without in any way genuinely responding to the burning problem of climate change.

The threats of climate change and the destruction of environment arise from resource grabbing, unequal resource use, and expropriation by the corporates and elites. These are not being addressed at all, and instead such sham programs – whose

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benefits are grossly exaggerated and almost impossible to actually calculate – are being proposed as an eyewash. The Green India Mission is likely to result only in conflicts, resistance, impoverishment, and displacement, while itself causing environmental damage.

Impact on HealthMining activities in the hills have seriously affected the overall health condition of the tribes and the local residents in the region too. The contaminated water has been linked to skin diseases, respiratory disorders, and even lung cancer. The affected people are therefore demanding nothing short of the total shut down of the mines.

The streams that run through this valley are contaminated with dangerous levels of hexavalent chromium leaching from the overburdened dumps. Hexavalent chromium causes irritation of the respiratory tract, nasal septum ulcers, irritant dermatitis rhinitis, bronchospasm, and pneumonia.

Land mining and the violation Constitutional rights

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India’s Constitution contains several measures aimed at protecting the rights of the tribes. Article 46 of the Constitution sets out the state’s responsibilities in guaranteeing the protection of the tribes from social injustice and all forms of exploitation. Schedule V of the Constitution lists a range of tribal lands and habitats as protected areas where these communities have special customary rights over land. Section 5(1) of Schedule V empowers the President of India and the Governors of the states to withhold any law considered detrimental to the interests of the tribal communities in these territories. However, the tribes have no legal rights to the minerals found in the protected land. Both national and local authorities have routinely acquired land in such territories, without the consent of the local communities, to set up extractive industries. Amendments made to India’s Constitution in 1993-94 conferred powers in relation to local development to the elected bodies of the local tribal communities, known as panchayats or village councils. As a key federal statute enacted in 1996, the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA) requires the authorities to consult the panchayat

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(the elected village councils) or the gram sabha (which is made up of all adult members of the village - persons whose names are included in the electoral roll for the panchayat at the village level), before acquisition of land for any development projects located in the tribal territories listed under Schedule V. Authorities also have to consult the gram sabha or panchayat before resettling and rehabilitating persons affected by such projects. However, PESA does not specify the kind of information that should be provided to gram sabha or panchayat on the proposed projects nor does this law have adequate provisions to ensure that consultation which is undertaken with the local communities is ‘genuine’. In addition, the legislation does not specify what should happen in cases where the village councils or local communities reject a particular project proposal. In the decade since PESA was enacted, the authorities have repeatedly overruled dissenting decisions of the village councils and gone ahead with land acquisition for mining projects. However, PESA is still not made applicable to Goa by the ruling elites who treat tribal population as their de facto colonial

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subjects. Land acquisition is not used for mining projects in Goa. The mining leases of the Portuguese colonial period is used to further the availability of land for mining.

Land Grabbing for IndustrialisationThe industries located over the tribal lands in both the industrial estates and outside have been occupying the tribal lands in different parts of Goa. Lots of these lands have been taken over through legal instruments or through lease deeds with parties who had been holding legal titles over these lands. Legal titles were very often achieved by the Saraswat Brahmins in collusion with the Portuguese colonial regime.

Besides mining, most of the industrial estates that came up all over Goa were on the traditional tribal lands. In some cases, it was kulagar land, in other cases grazing land, and in certain other cases, agricultural land. Besides denying access to traditional cattle grazers, it completely changes the function of land from open fallow land for grazing and lands under various kinds of cultivations to the lands with industry and compound walls, sometimes even with barbed wires. Though these lands had long back during

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Portuguese times itself gone out of legal control of the tribes, they still had the right on the ground to perform agrarian functions, even if it meant that the surplus was harnessed by the bhatcars. Installation of industries created a completely alien system to the tribes in Goa. It took almost a decade after the setting up of the industries to get themselves adjusted and to apply, in some cases successfully, for the unskilled low paying jobs in the industries. Industrial estates were able be installed in Goa without any whisper of a protest precisely as they were sought to be installed on tribal lands. And the tribes were not empowered to protest. Instead they meekly surrendered their lands to industrial estates and to mega projects such as the chemical plant of the Swiss multinational Ciba-Geigy at Corlim, Tiswadi. Tribes, particularly the Gawda population, were in big numbers among the people that participated in a protest against the firm called nylon 6,6 by the American multinational Du Pont, which was sought to be set up in Keri plateau in Ponda Taluka.

The case with Meta Strips agitation in the late 1990s is a similar one. The main issue of the agitation against this industrial plant Movement against this Chemical Plant began in 2008, after series of mergers it has come to be known as Syngenta.

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at Verna, Salcete was its pollution aspect. The main force for rallies and marches came from Kunbis, who reside in the nearby villages. The plant site had been their grazing land but this issue was not touched upon. Secondly, the most affected villages in case of disasters, both at Ciba-Geigy plant in Corlim and the Meta Strips, are going to be the nearby tribal villages. These aspects remain neglected even as both the plants are functioning in their respective places. These are instances of a situation where the tribes in Goa have become industrial hostages.

Development destruction and the loss of paradiseWhile carrying out mining activities, there has been a criminal neglect of the ecological destruction, as well as utter indifference to the displacement and loss of traditional livelihood for millions of the tribal people.

Vast areas have been denuded of their forest cover and the wildlife destroyed flouting the forest laws because of the indiscriminate mining activities. Most of the mineral-rich areas are the ones with rich forest cover. Over the years, huge tracts of green cover have been taken over for

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mining operations without proper assessment, planning, or efforts to rehabilitate the thousands of tribal people displaced in the process.

According to many experts, a skewed mining policy that alienates the tribes from the forest lands while allowing the miners and mining conglomerates to rake in super profits is the key reason behind the rise of peoples’ resistance in recent years.

III

HISTORY OF TRIBAL MOVEMENTS IN GOA

The tribal communities have existed in Goa for thousands of years. The political assertion, however, began only in the second half of the twentieth century. Since then the social movement of the tribes have undertaken great struggles to keep their socio-political identity and to protect their land and territory.

Innumerable problems in economic, educational, social, and cultural spheres are being faced by the tribal people. In order to overcome these problems, the then socially and politically conscious Gawdas formed an organisation called Gomantak Goud

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Maratha Samaj in 1962. This was the first organisation ever formed by the Gawda tribes. They sought to unite the community and bring about awareness as to why had the tribes remained poor, especially when their habitat was rich with resources? The issues they confronted were threats to the livelihood and existence of the tribes and their land. Reservation of forests for sanctuaries put the tribes in a quandary. Mining industry has continuously invaded tribal lands and it threatens to bulldoze further with plans for a fourfold increase in the land under mining. Needless to say, the mining threats and the resistance to it are poised to come to the forefront like never before. The number of tribal villages under predatory assault and the threats to their livelihood and of eviction has been increasing.

The outright and outrageous denial of basic human rights continues to dominate the scenario of the tribal society. Aggression by law and invasion by greed characterize the exploitative ‘development’ pursued in the tribal areas, where the tribes are pushed aside and the outsider immigrant is facilitated and even honoured.

Traditional institutional structures

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What a pluriform society requires is an approach which recognises everyone’s identity and brings forth lasting peace. Pluralist societies cannot have a unitary political model. Politics is at play against the tribes in the districts, blocks, and panchayats. The districts and panchayats are organised in such a way that the tribal concentration is broken and the tribes are reduced to a minority.

Modern democratic institutionsA major problem with the existing arrangements is the nature of the political and administrative structures. After independence much of the planning was centralised. The open and dynamic political institutions of the traditional tribal societies have been subverted by the glorified democracy of representation. Modern democracy has brought in a transition in tribal areas from participatory democracy to representative democracy, where a few decide for the many. With the institutional power in a few hands, this democracy inevitably fails to re-order the society for equitable distribution. Moreover, being unable to control market forces, it causes a pernicious restructuring of the values of the society.

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It was within this complex socio-political context that an organisation called Gawda Vikas Mandal was formed in 1974 to realize the rights of the Gawdas. Again in 1974 another organisation called Goan Organiser’s Association (GOA) was formed by some other Gawda group. Their aim was to work among the Gawda community for development. They started balwadis in villages such as Chimbel, Taleigao, Aivao, Merces, etc. GOA tried, for the first time, in the last few years of the Seventies, to assert the rights of the community before the state and to get the community to be declared as a schedule tribe. Gawda, Kunbi, Velip, and Dhangar Federation (GAKUVED), which included members of Gawda, Kunbi, Velip, and Dhangar, was formed in 1980. The main intention of GAKUVED Federation was to fight, by giving voice and visibility to all the tribes in Goa under one banner (something that had not happened prior to this), for the inclusion of these four communities into the scheduled list of the Indian Constitution.

Later on the Gawda Vikas Mandal was renamed to form Mull Goenkarancho Ekvott (Union of Original Goans) in the early Eighties. Another organisation called

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Dhangar Unnatti Samaj was formed for the assertion of the rights of the Dhangars in Goa around the same time.

In 2000 all the four organisations came together and formed an action committee under the banner Goa State Scheduled Tribes Action Committee to demand inclusion of the four communities in the scheduled list. This movement was referred to as GAKUVED movement.

Beginning of the movementFor the first time in the tribal history of Goa, the tribes raised their voice in public for their rights at Rajendra Prasad Stadium, Margao in 1974. The demand was to include them in the scheduled list. In the middle of the 1980s, people came on to roads under the GAKUVED Federation banner to re-assert their demand for being scheduled and to demand government schemes for the development of the community. In 1987 GAKUVED Federation observed a black day on November 14, the birthday of Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister. In August 1989 the big convention at Navelim was organized under the banner of Mull Goenkarancho Ekvott to expose the Goa government for not including Goan tribes in the scheduled list.

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Tribes from Daman and Diu such as Dhodia, Dubla (Halpali), Naikada (Tulasia), Siddi (Nayaka), and Varle could see their names in the list.

The Goa State Assembly passed a resolution in 1994 for including the four communities - Gawdas, Kunbis, Velips, and Dhangars - in the scheduled list. This resolution was sent to the Central Government for further action. It remained pending with the Central Government until the movement further intensified in 2000. This agitation was caused due to the pending of the resolution with the Central Government. For the first time in the tribal history of Goa, on 1st March 2000, tribal people from all over Goa came together in Goa’s capital, Panjim, giving an ultimatum to the Government. About two thousand tribal people marched through the city of Panjim and created history. This morcha not only created within the tribal communities an awareness of their rights and dignity but also won the support of other communities in Goa on a mass scale for the inclusion of the four communities in the scheduled list and the implementation of the schemes meant for the tribal communities.

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The GAKUVED movement then called for five big public conventions that were held at Shristhal in Canacona, Mardol in Ponda, Quepem municipal area in Quepem, Arlem-Raia in Salcete, and Cortalim in Marmagoa. GAKUVED submitted the petition to the then South Goa MP to raise the issue in the Parliament. The Parliamentary Committee was then sent to Goa to study the tribal issue in Goa. GAKUVED welcomed them and also held discussions with the Government, based on which the Parliamentary Committee recommended Goa tribes (Gawdas, Kunbis, Velips, and Dhangars) to be included in the scheduled list of the Constitution.

Print and electronic media played supportive role towards the movement. Print media in Goa paid special attention to it in the daily newspapers. Some national newspapers, the Doordarshan, and the All India Radio (AIR) too highlighted the tribal agitation of 2000 and its demands to the people in different parts of India. The media propagated the demands of the movement by way of supportive editorials and by bringing about special supplements on the agitation.

Impact of the Movement

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The recommendations of the Parliamentary Committee to put the communities in Goa in the scheduled list put the hostile state government on the defensive. The then Chief Minister took a delegation of his party officials and a few tribal leaders who were hostile to the Movement to Delhi, met the officials of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, and got the list sent by Goa State Assembly in 1994 changed. When this mischief was reported in the press, an urgent meeting of GAKUVED was called and a decision was taken to send its delegation to the Ministry of Tribal Affairs in New Delhi to find out the facts and to get it corrected as per the resolution passed by the state Assembly. However, GAKUVED could not hold on to the Goa Assembly list of tribes. The Dhangars were dropped by the then Goa Government from the list of the tribes in Goa. Parliament passed the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (amendment) Bill, 2000 on 7th January 2001 and the President of India gave assent to it on 8th

January 2001. Kunbis, Gawdas, and Velips were included in the scheduled list of the Constitution of India.

Goa government took three years to issue the notification and was pressurized by

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GAKUVED to notify these three communities as the scheduled tribes of Goa as per the Central Act. Finally, the state government issued the notification in April 2003. The movement continued to demand the implementation of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (amendment) Act 2001. The state government has not shown any interest in implementing this Act.

According to the state government, there are no correct population figures of the tribes in Goa. GAKUVED movement then demanded to consider the figures of 1991 Census that show the tribal population including the Dhangars as forming thirty percent of the total population of Goa. The government, instead of taking this figure in the census report, empowered the then OBC Commission to conduct fresh population survey. The OBC Commission declared that Goa’s tribal population excluding the Dhangars was 12.5 percent. GAKUVED disputed this figure, conducted a sample survey in the villages such as Carona and Guirim, and submitted the same to the social welfare department, Government of Goa. The GAKUVED sample proved that the survey conducted by the OBC Commission was faulty and unreliable.

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Its figures of the total population were lower by 100 – 200 persons per village! The social welfare department sent the sample survey report to the OBC Commission for cross-checking. The social welfare department admitted to the GAKUVED delegation which called on the Director in 2004 of the unreliability of the population survey conducted by the OBC Commission. He disclosed to the GAKUVED delegation that he had submitted his report to the Government to take further decision. A decision is yet to be taken on this.

Not satisfied with the response of the government to the tribal question in Goa, all the organisations of the notified tribal communities once again came together in 2004 and formed another organisation called United Tribal Associations Alliance (UTAA). UTAA started, through mass mobilization, to exert pressure on the state machinery for the implementation of the Tribal Act in Goa. It filed a writ petition in the High Court in 2006 seeking directions to the Government on the implementation of the Tribal Act.

UTAA organized a public meeting in Panjim in 2007. This was attended by six thousand members of the tribal community. This

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meeting was presided over by the Chairman of the National Commission for Schedule Tribes, New Delhi. The Governor of Goa, in his republic day speech, assured the public that the government will implement the Tribal Act. His assurances has remained unimplemented yet.

The Way Ahead…While the struggle was continuing, a new issue arose on the need to defend their land against the threats of displacement. In case of displacement, the tribes will have to join the ranks in urban slums, and it would deprive the tribes of their access to their traditional homeland and their livelihood support system. A major problem confronted them when the state government stopped the age old practice of cultivating paddy in the Mhadei river. The government began to construct check dams professedly for irrigation purposes and flooding, thereby stagnating the pure, pristine flowing waters of Mhadei river. A number of tribal villages were submerged due to mega-projects such as Selaulim Dam. Many others have lost their lands to industries and industrial estates. Forest tribal villages were at the receiving end of the forest laws particularly within the

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wildlife sanctuary jurisdiction. Mining has taken a major toll of both the health and the agriculture practiced by the tribes in Quepem, Sanguem, Bicholim, and Sattari talukas. The historic injustice of usurping the tribal land, which began with the Portuguese colonial rule continues to this day. Mining companies are transferring the legal titles in their favour. The tribal people within the jurisdiction of Cotigao Wildlife Sanctuary have been struggling with the forest department ever since the forest land was declared a Sanctuary in 1968. And so are the people cultivating in the forest land (popularly known as Kumeri Sheti or shifting cultivation) all over the hinterland of Goa. Some of their names have been excluded from the official records while some others are included as ‘encroachers’.

It is a recent trend in the real estate dealings in Goa wherein the landlords (who had usurped tribal land during the Portuguese colonial rule) are selling the same to the builders without the knowledge of the villagers. The villagers are then made to fight with the goondas of the real estate companies. The cases of Nauxi and Bambolim are identical.

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The residents of Nauxi village – they were under the threat of the hoteliers who were seeking to erase the village by violent means from the map of Goa – organized a public meeting and sent a petition, signed by nearly 230 people, to the Chief Minister of Goa. GAKUVED Federation is committed to offer solidarity to those fighting the land invasion in Goa and has initiated a mass movement in the coastal as well as the hinterland villages of Goa.

Narratives of the resistance and struggleFrom the month of June onwards struggles in Goa heated up. A number of people faced direct and indirect threats because of campaigns around land rights. A solidarity meet against the threats issued to the family of Sebastian Rodrigues was held on 1st June, 2008 in Siolim village.

Support was extended to the Advalpal people’s movement against mining. A large number of people participated in the solidarity march in Panjim on 4th June, 2008 to protest against the mining activities in Advalpal village.

World Environment Day was observed on 5th June, 2008 in Sulcorna village in

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Sanguem taluka. The various people who participated in the programme include Shamsunder Naik of Advalpal group, Rama Velip from Colamb, Namdev Karkare from VAK, Dr Claude Alvares of Goa Foundation, Durgadas Gaonkar of GAKUVED, Architect K D Sadhale of Nirmal Vishwa, Pravin Sabnis of Goa Bachao Abhiyan (GBA), and Milagrine Antao and Dument D'Souza of Colamb. Another issue too was brought out during this period.

There was a solidarity meeting in Panjim on 23rd June, 2008 in support of the various people battling the mining industry in Goa. The main purpose of this meeting was to condemn the Leader of the Opposition in Goa Legislative Assembly, Mr Manohar Parrikar for calling Sebastian Rodrigues and the people of Colamb village in Sanguem Taluka naxalites.

Media advocacy support to the groups in the tribal and other villages have been provided through timely press hand outs and internet intervention. Regular and timely uploads are effected at www.mandgoa.blogpot.com.

Some GPS data gathered to mark water bodies in the village of Colamb, Sanguem. GPS data was also collected, marking the

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mines in Advalpal and Sirgao villages in North Goa. Various groups in the mining struggle came together and Mand facilitated the formation of Goa Federation of Mines Affected People (GOAMAP). Various village groups came together to the function of launching this Federation on 10th August, 2008. Various other organizations supported this move.

Some aspects of the land rights being violated by a chemical plant in Syngentas were studied with the help of a volunteer from Australia during June-July 2008. Water logging that was caused due to this plant was also scrutinized. A chart poster exhibition on the 250 year old history of Syngenta was prepared.

Mand facilitated the chemical testing of air for pollution by organizing a community environment monitoring programme – in collaboration with Sweta Narayanan of Community Environment Monitoring, a group based in Chennai – for three days (6th – 8th August, 2008) in Corlim village in Tiswadi taluka.

Photographs of various illegally operating mines in Quepem were taken. This was done in collaboration with the affected people of these localities. Pictures were

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then uploaded on www.mandgoa.blogspot.com.

Mand facilitated commemoration of Goa Revolution Day on 18th June, 2008 in the community hall at Dulapi, Corlim. Around 30 people from various parts of Goa actively participated in the programme.

Awareness cum solidarity visit to Maina village in Quepem taluka was carried on 28th June, 2008. A similar visit was conducted in Savoi Verem on 30th June, 2008.

Public screening of various documentaries, tagged as naxal videos, on the tribes and the development were screened for the Press and the Police in Panjim on 10th July, 2008. Police, however, failed to turn up for the show while the Press came and gave a very good publicity to the event.

A panel discussion was telecast on HCN TV channel on the topic “Is Mining destroying Goa’s Environment?” It was telecast twice: on 5th and 6th of July, 2008.

The public screening of the slide show prepared jointly by Sebastian Rodrigues and Ramesh Gauns titled Mining Terrorism in Goa was arranged in Panjim on 12th July,

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2008. Around fifty people were present for the show.

Mand offered solidarity to various coastal villages resisting the invasion by builders in their respective villages. On 1st August, 2008 solidarity was offered to the coastal villagers in Benaulim, Salcete. Mand supported the idea of forging an alliance among various struggle groups in Goa and called the first meeting of Pez Alliance on 5th October, 2008 in Khola, Canacona. Around 40 people from various parts of Goa participated in the meeting.

Dulap, Corlim witnessed a rally on 3rd

December, 2008 against the pesticides plant, Syngenta, organized by GAKUVED and participated by over 700 people. A press conference announcing the results of air samples testing by GAKUVED was held on 1st December, 2008.

Police continued repressing the tribal people and others who opposed the mining industry in Goa. Action alerts over the SMS and the email were circulated for immediate action. Press statements were issued condemning the violence of the police. Postings on blog. www.mandgoa.blogspot.com continued vigorously during this period.

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GAKUVED collaborated with GGRM film festival and organized a one-day session on 23rd November, 2008, which included screening of the documentary film Goa Goa Gone followed by a discussion on the topic ‘Tribal livelihoods and mining’.

Mand coordinator Sebastian Rodrigues participated at the 10th annual conference of Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN) on the theme ‘Resisting Privatization, Reclaiming Public Services’ in Bangalore from 24th to 26th November, 2008.

On 10th December, 2008 GAKUVED observed the International Human Rights Day. A public meeting was held at the Ambedkar Garden in Panjim. Twenty seven cases of human rights violation were documented and released to the press. Prominent citizens like fashion designer Wendell Rodricks, writer Maria Aurora Couto, columnist Jason Keith Fernandes, and environmentalist Claude Alvares offered solidarity and publicly condemned the police violence on the tribes and the others resisting mining in Goa.

There was a lathi charge on the tribal people in Ambaulim village in Quepem on 17th December, 2008. On this occasion a false ‘attempt to murder’ case under

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section 307 IPC was registered against Advocate John Fernandes. GAKUVED offered support and solidarity and publicly condemned the police violence on the people protesting against the mining hazard in their village.

GAKUVED organized a press conference to condemn violence in Ambaulim village and participated in the National Consultation on Save the Western Ghats at Madkai from 8th

to 10th February, 2008.

A defamation suit worth 500 crores was filed against the coordinator of Mand, Sebastian Rodrigues by the Fomento Mining Company at Calcutta High Court in December 2008 and the notice was served on him in January 2009. Advocate Ashok Agraawal is appearing at the Supreme Court and Advocate Debashis Bannerjee at the Calcutta High Court in this case. A transfer petition has been filed in the Supreme Court to get the case transferred to Goa. Rs.25,000/- has been paid to Supreme Court lawyer, Advocate Ashok Agraawal and Rs.5.000/- to the Calcutta High Court Lawyer, Advocate Debashis Bannerjee. A public appeal was issued over the internet, the newspapers, and some pamphlets in English and Marathi to raise

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this amount. Besides, the public also launched an online signature campaign in defence of Sebastian Rodrigues.

There was a face to face interaction with Ritwick Dutta, a lawyer at the Supreme Court on 26th December, 2009. GAKUVED was represented by Durgadas Gaonkar. He then went on to establish contact with him, leading towards the filing of appeals against Syngenta pesticides plant.

On 28th December there was a solidarity public meeting in the village of Keri, Ponda to support the people who were agitating against the stone crushers.

On 4th January 2009 the forest rights awareness meet was organized in a village in Canacona taluka.

On 16th January, 2009 Sweta Narayanan from Community Environment Monitoring, Chennai visited Dulapi, Tiswadi to follow up on the Syngenta pollution. The responses from the villages of Dulapi were tremendous. And a public meeting took place there.

There was a brief involvement in February towards using GPS for the survey of water bodies, particularly in the mining belt of Goa.

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GAKUVED got involved in the defence of Gauns family in Bambolim as their access was denied by the Aldeia de Goa real estate cum hotel project.

It took part in a public meeting against mining organized by GOAMAP in Margao on 13th February, 2009.

Motesh Antao was slapped thrice at Quepem Police Station on 21st February, 2009.

Systematic campaign in defence of Motesh was organized by GAKUVED-GOAMAP combine.

On 5th June, 2009 GAKUVED was well represented through Durgadas Gaonkar, Ulhas Gaonkar, and Devidas Gaonkar at the World Environment Day program at Shirgao, Bicholim, being organized by Shirgao villagers.

On 18th June, 2009 again GAKUVED was well represented by Durgadas Gaonkar and Pandurang Kukalkar at the Goa Revolution Day program at Panaji, which was organized by GOAMAP.

On 27th June 2009 Durgadas Gaonkar made a presentation on the tribes of Goa, with special reference to the land relations, at a United Kingdom-India Education Research

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Initiative (UKIERI) Workshop on ‘Monitoring Human Rights: Law and practice’ at VM Salgaocar College of Law, Panaji, jointly organized by the Human Rights Centre, University of Essex, the Centre for Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, the Children's Rights in Goa, and VM Salgaocar College of Law, Goa.

IV

THE PEOPLES’ TRIBUNAL

On Restoration of the Tribal Homeland in Goa

30th and 31st May, 2009

Grievance Redressal of the Tribal VictimsThe factors that have contributed to the marginalisation of the tribes from their land holdings are:

a. introduction of an alien legal system mainly protecting the interests of the encroachers of tribal lands;

b. adoption of various methods which weaken the enforcement of the protective laws, such as the passing of contradictory government orders facilitating land grabbers, the

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wilful distortions of the land holdings by government officials, resorting to administrative delay, and encouraging legal litigation;

c.considerable influx of migrants into the tribal land, being attracted by the possibility of ‘cheating’ the tribes of their lands; and

d. use of force by the government to suppress the mobilisation of the tribes to protect their land rights, through either inaction or even collusion with the exploiters. The state created a situation of confrontation between the ‘mighty migrants’ and the ‘native Adivasis’.

The logic of the capitalist, productive, commercial activity made demands on the forests and forest produce, on the minerals under the land, on the water bodies (for water and electricity generation), and on the land itself (for cultivation and habitation). The land and the forests were, therefore, taken away from the tribes, under the cover of legality. The tribes have been driven off their ancestral and traditional homelands. They have been denied access to the resources which had sustained their established lifestyles and

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livelihoods. They were forced into penury and their lives were dislocated. Their social organizations were broken up and their lifestyles degraded.

The specific nature of the grievancesThe tribal people have been living in the most inaccessible, interior areas of Goa and utilizing land, water, and the forest for their basic survival. The nature of command over these resources depended upon their traditional rights. The state government at times does not recognize their traditional rights. And the tribal communities resent the acquisition of their lands by the government for establishing development projects.

Since independence, several mega projects (industrial and mining) have come up in the areas that were under the occupation of the tribal communities. The traditional or customary rights evolved before the emergence of the state and the ruling classes and became, more or less, the statutory rights under the state.

The UN document of 1966 defines customary rights as the rights to use or dispose off the rights over land. Most of the tribal settlements in the past comprised of

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members of a single clan who had held land and forest resources in their habitat as their own.

The Scheduled Tribes, which constitute nearly 32% of the population of Goa (the official statistics is 12%), are the most marginalized and the poorest social group in the state, majority of them living below the poverty line.

During the last two decades, the tribal communities in Goa have been affected, in the name of development, by the loss of their land. Plain lands were alienated to the state and the corporates and the hill slopes to the non-tribes and the mining companies.

An instrument of public grievance

redressal: the People’s Tribunal

When the state agencies, which were supposed to be involved in conflict resolution of the grievances put up before them, failed to do so, it (the judicial failure) led to the emergence of the Jan Sunwai (public hearing). Such a hearing audits the functioning of the concerned state apparatus and strengthens the civil society to respond to the grievances. It is needless to add that the poor and marginalised in general, and the tribes and the dalits in

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particular, are the main victims who attend the Jan Sunwais to voice their grievances. Jan Sunwai is thus an opportunity for them for raising such grievances in public.

Addressing the testimonies of the victims in a Jan Sunwai is an apt device in combating the dominant ones and are primarily directed against the state, enlisting sympathy and support towards the victims of such practices.

Over 360 women and men assembled in Panaji on 30th and 31st of May 2009 to get their long pending grievances and demands resolved by the People’s Tribunal. They expressed their historically inherited social conditions of deprivation, poverty, and denial of land rights. They collectively demanded the state to address these grievances without any further delay. And they asserted their rights to livelihood and to protection from the harassment of the forest, state, and police officials and from the local landed class.

The testimonies of the deponents were emotionally charged and at times filled with anger against the landed class and the state government for the sheer negligence over the loss of the means of their livelihood. What came out of the hearing of the

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Tribunal was a pathetic situation of the complex social and occupational structure of the communities living in the interstate borderlands.

Frame of reference of the TribunalThe initiative of the People’s Tribunal had these objectives: first, to provide space and mechanism for grievance-redressal on issues related to the tribal land; second, to demand restoration of the tribal homeland and protection of their life and livelihood; third, to build a platform of the tribal people for a greater control over the economic and political processes, for a greater share in the economic resources, educational opportunities, and the health, transport, welfare schemes, and for the effective participation of the women and other disadvantaged groups.

The demands of the tribes Restoration of the land rights of tribal

communities in Goa.

Identification of the schedule areas in Goa.

Cessation of any acquisition of land in the tribal territories in future.

Protection of tribal livelihood support systems.

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Ensuring of ecological sustenance of tribal communities in Goa.

Protection of the social, cultural and economic life of the tribes in Goa.

Ending of open cast mining activities in the tribal belt of Goa.

The key issues

1. Cultivation and settlements in the forests of the Western Ghats.

2. Agriculture: Settled agriculture is one of the important aspects of the tribal homelands in Goa. However, various development projects have launched onslaughts onto these agricultural lands, often preventing the communities from cultivation.

3. The Khazan lands have been one of the unique features of the tribal homelands in Goa. Khazan lands are the reclaimed lands from the sea for the purpose of agriculture. However, these lands have been targeted by various commercial interests like those in the fishing, by breaching the protective walls of the khazan lands and letting the agricultural fields get flooded with salty water, thereby leaving these fields uncultivable.

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4. Horticultural lands are popularly known as Kulagars. Though originally founded and maintained by the tribes, the legal titles on these lands have been registered in the names of some others. Even though the labour is provided by the tribes, very often at exploitative terms, the surplus is taken away by others. The land for cultivation known as Bhatam too suffered the same fate. The only difference is that the former has areca nut or beetlenut cultivation while the latter has coconut cultivation. The former exist in the hilly terrains, the latter in the plains.

5. River bed cultivation land known as Puran Shethi, especially in Sattari taluka, has been submerged under the government sponsored irrigation schemes of constructing mini check dams over Mandovi River. These cultivation lands had been a major source of food security for the tribes.

6. Industries located over the tribal lands, in the industrial estates and outside, occupy the tribal lands in different parts of Goa. Lots of these lands have been taken over through legal instruments or through lease

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deeds with parties who were holding legal titles over these lands.

7. Open cast mining activities have been threatening the tribes and their lands in Quepem, Sanguem, Sattari, and Bicholim Talukas. Foreign trade in iron ore and magnesium is carried on at the cost of the security and survival of the tribal homelands.

8. Land takeover by other powerful sections through the codified Communidades is responsible for the large scale attack on the tribal homeland. There are over 220 communidades in Goa that are responsible for large-scale transfer of lands from the tribes, mainly in collusion with the Portuguese colonial regime.

9. The tribal lands being captured by Devasthans was a reality in Goa. The places of worship of the tribes were captured and so were their community lands.

10. The church’s taking over of the tribal lands was another reality in Goa. The church very often got these lands with the help of the Portuguese colonial

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regime. After the liberation, these were either sold to the builders or leased to the industries. The church never returned these lands back to the tribes.

11. The tribal lands transformed into Mokaso lands, particularly in the northern talukas of Bicholim and Sattari. The Portuguese regime, during the revolt of the Ranes against the Portuguese, handed over these lands to the Ranes as a compromise package. Even though tribes continue to labour on these lands, the lands are in the legal possession of the Ranes and so the surpluses are being appropriated by the Ranes. One of these Mokaso lands was made available to Godrej for the commercial cash crop cultivation of oil palm.

12. The invasion of the tribal homeland by the real estate projects is the reality different parts of Goa. The villages in Tiswadi Taluka witnessed it with the utmost severity.

Tribunal proceedingsThe People’s Tribunal on the Restoration of Tribal Homelands was organised under the banner of GAKUVED, to hold an impartial

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enquiry into the specific grievances of the tribes of Goa. A large number of the affected tribal people participated in the People’s Tribunal. In the absence of a formal grievance redressal mechanism, the Tribunal provided the much needed space to fill that vacuum.

A wide range of issues and concerns were brought in by the victims through their testimonies and depositions. A total of 60 tribal people presented their testimonies before the Jury on the magnitude of their helplessness and misery and the blatant injustices and human rights violations inflected upon them by the concerned authorities.

The testimonies reflected the large scale destruction of the tribal homeland, its impact on the livelihood of the tribes, the impact of open cast mining, the grabbing of the tribal land by industrialists, the cases of violation of human rights, the harassment of the tribes by the bureaucrats and forest officials, and the destruction to environment.

The four member Jury headed by Justice Hosbet Suresh, a former Judge of the Mumbai High Court heard the depositions for two days. The other members of the Jury

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were Dr Wandana Sonalkar, an economist (from Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Marathwada, Maharashtra), Advocate Caroline Collasso, and Advocate Albertina Almeida.

The members of the expert panel included Journalist Prabhakar Dhage, Tribal Rights Activist C R Bijoy, Advocate John Fernandes, Teacher Ramesh Gauns, Columnist Jason Fernandes, and Architect Pravin Sabnis.

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DEPOSITIONS BY THE VICTIMSAbout 60 people made their depositions from different parts of Goa. Their testimonies and deposition covered the issues that affect their everyday life – the issues of the deprivation of their homeland and their sources of livelihood, the violation of their rights, and, above all, their right to live with dignity.

Communidades and the harassment and subjugation of Tribunal Communities

Mahesh Vittal Gawde, Bandora, PondaLand occupied by the tribal people are not recorded in the official land documents. In the survey in 1971, the people who are not

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residents of the concerned villages got themselves recorded as owners and the people who had been cultivating the land were excluded from entering their names in the land records. Their financial position is weak, so cannot afford costly litigation to get their names included in the land records. Ragi, cereal, and other cultivations are carried out by the tribal people. However, after cultivating the land for generations, the tribal people have not yet been recorded on forms I & XIV. Now the forest department has planted trees on our land. There is a fear that the forest department may take over the land.

Government is acquiring communidade lands for a military camp in Durbat and Bandora villages. These lands were tribal lands. Communidades office bearers do not entertain tribal people’s requests to include their names as title holders of their land. All the office bearers of the Communidade are Saraswat Brahmins. This community is carrying on the tyranny over the tribal people.

Advocate John Fernandes, member, Expert PanelCommunidade of Rivona had donated land to the forest department for the purpose of

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planting trees. This land, however, is now being used for dumping the mining waste.

Shailesh Uttam Gawde, Dutel Wada, MadkaiPurchased land in 1943 when Goa was under the Portuguese colonial rule. After the liberation of Goa in 1961, a land survey was conducted and land titles were prepared. In the post-liberation land records, his land bearing survey number 391/0 of Madkai, Ponda has been recorded as that belonging to the Communidade of Madkai. His family has been in possession of this land for the past 75 years. He wants his name to be included in the land title documents as the occupant, in the place of the Communidade of Madkai.

Devidas Babuso Gawde, Laxmi K Gawde, Naresh Naik, and Prabhavati P Gawde, all residents of Nagueshi, Bandora, PondaEighty years ago their ancestors in Farmagudi cultivated ‘Mollo’ on top of a hill in Bandora village – on the lands with survey numbers 228, 274, 275, 276, 278, 277, etc. Forty four families are involved in the cultivation. Nachno, Varai, Chibdam, Bhende, Mullo, Padvallah, Tambdi bhaji, etc

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were cultivated on the hilltop. The land was divided amongst the cultivators and they put up huts to guard their vegetables. They stay there during cultivation period.

The cultivators’ names are not included in the land survey records. Recently they have organized themselves into Srikrishna Bhajipala Lagvad Society to strengthen their unity.

The cultivators collect money and pay it to the Communidade. The Communidade accepts money but does not issue receipts. This had been the practice before 1980. After 1980 cultivators formed a committee and paid rent to the Communidade, who then issued some receipts to the cultivators.

Cultivators filed a case in the Mamlatdar’s Court in Ponda. But the Mamlatdar did not take any action. The case has been pending for the past fifteen years. Now the cultivators are told that their file has been lost.

The absence of land records creates lots of problems for these cultivators. Recently when the road – the highway connecting Ponda to Margao – was constructed, some cultivators lost their land. Due to the absence of their names in the official land

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records, none of them was entitled to receive compensation.

Another project of the Indian Medical Association (IMA) is coming up in the plantation land. Communidade issued No Objection Certificate (NOC) for this project. Cultivators objected to this but the Communidade proceeded ahead and sold the land to the IMA, against the wishes of the cultivators. The construction work has started.

The Communidade has buried the old existing quarry pits that farmers were using as the source of water on the top of the hill.

Water connection is denied to the cultivators as Communidade refuses to issue No Objection Certificate (NOC) to the cultivators. An NOC of the owner is mandatory and on record Communidade of Bandora holds legal title as the owner. The Communidade officials has been discouraging the cultivators from getting names on the land records and counsel the cultivators, “Cultivate as you have been cultivating before – without legal land titles.”

Laxmi Keshav Gawde from the same group of cultivators in Bandora

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Four years ago the cultivators’ huts on the hilltop got burnt when a fire broke out. They went to the panchayat to claim compensation. The panchayat asked them to prove that they have title over the land on which the huts existed. Cultivators could not produce any papers of evidence in this respect. Due to the absence of the land titles, they have not been able to avail of electricity connection and public water supply connection.

Cultivators are engaged in growing of touxim, moghim, and bhende as a source of income. They do not have any other source of income.

Prabhavati Prabhakar Gawde from the same group of cultivators in BandoraSince there is no water at the cultivation site, they walk for half an hour to fetch water for their plants. They grow bananas, papayas, and coconut throughout the year. They grow touxim in rainy season. They also grow flowers for local market.

Disha Deepak Karmalkar, Mollar, Corlim, TiswadiDisha has fields near Carambolim Lake on which her family used to grow paddy for the past many generations. They used to grow

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both rabi as well as kharif crops. Now there has been a halt in cultivation for the past one year. Around 50 cultivators were not able to cultivate this land for two reasons. First, the agriculture department did not provide tractors to cultivate, in spite of the payment being made by Disha for this purpose. A tractor came but refused to enter the fields and was sent back to its Panjim office.

Second reason was that the laying down of the irrigation pipeline has blocked access of the farmers to their fields. The pipeline has created an elevation thereby obstructing the smooth traditional passage of the farmers to and from their agricultural fields. Due to this, the farmers are unable to enter fields and sow their seedlings. The pipeline of one meter diameter laid over the elevation made it necessary to use a ladder when the paddy was cultivated last.

All the farmers here are registered as tenants and the legal owner of this land is Communidade of Carambolim. Disha questioned, “Can’t the Communidade of Carambolim give this land to the farmers?” She expressed the opinion that the ownership of all the Communidade land

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where farmers are cultivating must be legally transferred to farmers.

She pointed out that some land of the Carambolim Communidade has been earmarked for industry. “Now if Communidade can give land for industry then why the same can’t be given to farmers for agriculture? Why the farmers’ rights are denied?”

Ulhas Kakode from Agriculture department who was present on the occasion responded to some aspects of Disha’s queries. He said that, concerning the problem regarding the tractor from agriculture department, he would sort out the problem and see to it that Disha’s fields are ploughed during the coming monsoons with the help of the tractor from the agriculture department. He also agreed that punitive action should be taken against the concerned person responsible for withdrawing the agriculture department’s tractor from entering into Disha’s fields in Carambolim.

Mohandas Pandu Gawde, Kavlem, BandoraHis land where he cultivates is very high on the top of a hill. There is no access road to reach there, hence one has to walk and

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carry all the materials to and from the hill on head. Altogether there are nine families who cultivate on the 33,000 square meters of land.

The forest department is trying to establish legal control on a part of this land. Forest department officials enter the land, and ask the cultivators to show their legal ownership titles to this land, which has been under cultivation by them for the past more than 75 years.

Kavlem Bandora Communidade desires to give this land to a film city.

Much of this land is rocky so cultivation is not possible. Cultivation is undertaken only on land where there is soil. So the cultivators told the Communidade that it can go ahead and do whatever it want to do on this land and leave the land with soil to the cultivators for cultivation purposes.

Mohandas expressed his surprise, “Bandora Communidade is selling land to various private parties but why it is not giving it to us farmers?”

Plots that are earmarked for the film city can be seen in Durbhat. It is only the land where farmers are cultivating that remains

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to be earmarked for the film city. (Survey number of this area is 80/0.)

The Communidade used to be paid rent by the farmers but land records do not show the farmers’ names.

Cultivators do not have money to invest in litigations.

Trapped in Regional Plan

Janu Bomu HumaneHis village of Koprdem, in Mauxi village panchayat jurisdiction in Sattari was declared as Eco-1 zone. This is threatening the tribal livelihood, which has been in the process of being zoned under RP-2021. The villagers had no opportunity to challenge this.

R N Volvoikar, TCP, Bicholim was present and made presentation on RP-2021:

In addition to this, it has also included kumeri land with hillside cultivation measuring 23,925 square meters. The forest department has included his land within the jurisdiction of Madei Wildlife Sanctuary. His cultivation land presently has 1100 cashew trees, 75 jackfruit trees, 60 mango trees, 20 coconut trees, 15 areca nut trees, and 200 banana plants besides other fruit bearing plants and trees.

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Kulagar land

Krishnakant S Gawde, Keri, Ponda, GoaHas arecanut plantations in kulagar land. However, in the official records, his name is recorded as a caretaker. His demand is that his name be included as a tenant. There is the prevalence of the khand system wherein the landlord is paid in kind and where all the negotiations are in verbal form. There is no written communication and hence the landlord does not provide any receipt for the payments received in kind.

Encroachment by Forest Department

Shabu Kusado Gaonkar, Yeda, Khotigao, CanaconaHas been living in Khotigao for many generations and using forest land for grazing purpose. Khotigao forest areas were declared as wildlife sanctuary in 1968. For the past few years the farmers’ cattle have been prevented from grazing into the forest lands. Ploughing for cultivation purpose in the locality is also objected to by the forest department. Nearly 500 families are facing the tyranny of the forest department. In order to prevent the cattle from entering the forest for grazing, the forest department has dug trenches and

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installed a metal gate near Nadke village in Canacona taluka. The forest department was involved in a verbal abuse and assaulting of the local tribal people. And it confiscated their agricultural implements such as ‘koito’, a chopper that the tribal people carry with them while on patrol in their plantations in the forest, to protect them from being attacked by animals. The forest department, however, accuse them of hunting, confiscate their koito, and beat them up. Due to the fear of the forest officers, the tribal people do not file police cases against them. The Scheduled Tribes and Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 is not implemented in Goa, as the hamlet-level gram sabhas are yet to be conducted as per the requirement of the Forest Act. Forest department does not regularly attend the gram sabhas or the panchayat of the revenue village of Khotigao.

People have cultivated cashew trees, mango trees, coconut trees etc for the past many generations in Khotigao village. The forest has been the grazing ground for cattle for many generations. The forest officials are preventing the tribal people from planting cashew trees in the land traditionally

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occupied by the tribes. The forest department has put up a barrier and the villagers are prevented from entering the forest. As a result they are not able to get firewood from forest. This has been the case since the forest was declared a sanctuary. They are not aware if their cultivation lands are included within the jurisdictions of the Khotigao Wildlife Sanctuary: They were not served any notice to intimate on any such matter. The tribes are entirely dependent upon the cultivation in forest lands for their livelihood. The tribal people do not know whether a Forest Rights Committee was constituted in the village. On the first day of the tribunal (on 30th May 2009) when this matter came up for hearing, no representative from the forest department was present in spite of the invitation to them by the organisers, the Gawda, Kunbi, Velip, and Dhangar Federation (GAKUVED).

Dhowlo Babu Velip, Avali, Khotigao, Canacona, GoaThe forest department is cutting down cashew plantations and planting wild trees. There is harassment from the forest department officials. The villagers are beaten and are threatened with arrests and

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imprisonment. The land documents in the possession of the tribal people is the old Portuguese document known as matriz. This document is not recognised in the government offices as an authentic land document. They have had valid extraction licences as well as distillation licences from the excise department in the past years. Distillation has been going on for the past forty years. The villagers have filed complaints about fifty times regarding the harassment by forest department. False cases were filed against nine people and they have been beaten up. People are falsely accused of hunting wild animals when the tribal people guard their cultivated crops on forest land.

Sada Sangodkar, Murmunne, SattariTraditionally the tribal people inhabited forest lands in various parts of Goa and survived on kumeri cultivation. Government has recorded itself as the owner with the forest department as the occupant in the land records and the land titles while some tribal people were registered as ‘encroachers’ after the survey in 1971. Many tribal people are not recorded at all in any capacity. The Portuguese had granted land titles to the tribal people.

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Some of these type of titles were called ‘Alviera’, ‘Provedoria’, and ‘Cotto’. These titles were not recognised by the state in the liberated Goa. This has caused injustice to the Gawda, Kunbi, Velip, and Dhangar Communities and they are suffering at the behest of the forest department.

Vasu Laxman Gawde, Nanuz, Usgao, PondaTribal people have been cultivating for many generations in the forest area and have legal titles called sanad, issued by the Collector. But in spite of this, the forest department is conducting auctions of cashew plantations. Since the Collector has issued sanad as land title, the forest department must stop auctioning of the cashew plantations.

Babu J Sazro, MollemHis family has been cultivating in forest land for generations and the crops included cashew, jackfruit, mango, paddy, vegetable, and ragi. Though they were told by politicians way back in 1972 that this land was theirs, still their names are not included in form I & form XIV. His family stays in a hut without electricity. Due to high fees involved, he has not taken the

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route to the courts. This case is of kumeri cultivation that needs legal recognition of their rights. Twenty five houses of Dhangars are affected by this situation.

Kushali Gaonkar, Konir, RivonaThe village crematorium is shown as the property of the forest department. The villagers continue to pay taxes of this crematorium located in Survey numbers 121/1&2 and 109/1&2. The records of the existence of this crematorium exists in Modi language in the name of Bhurco Gaoncar of 1988.

Raghunath Jalmi, Keri, PondaNearly 35,000 square metres of land that the tribal people in Keri Ponda use as grazing land is sought to be converted for real estate by the landlord Vishwemba Sinai. Villagers have written a letter to the local authorities protesting against this proposal. The tribal people earlier used to cultivate the morod form of agriculture on these plain lands. Now the forest department has taken over the land and begun the planting of acacia trees.

Milind Karkhanis, Deputy Conservator of Forest, Goa

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The settlement of rights have not taken place in Goa, even though it is required under the Forest Rights Act 2006. Goa Government has not yet constituted a committee for the purpose of Critical Wildlife Habitat. Critical Habitat was also required follow the procedure of the settlement of rights. The social welfare department has been declared as the nodal agency to implement the Forest Act and Director of Social Welfare has been declared the nodal officer. The state level committee and the sub-divisional committees are yet to be constituted. According to the Ministry of Environment and Forest, ‘no claimant be displaced until and unless their rights are inquired into’ and ‘their habitat, cultivation practices, grazing lands, etc must not be disturbed’. And according to Forest Act 2006, ‘cultivation, grazing, habitat is allowed even inside wildlife sanctuaries.’ Forest Act 2006 supersedes all the other existing Acts. And forest officials violating the Forest Rights Act 2006 constitutes an offence and the officers are liable to be punished with a fine of Rs.2000/-. Emphasis on Critical Wildlife Habitat does not rule out the protection of the people’s rights to living and cultivating

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inside the forest areas. No cutting of trees is allowed in the private forest but it is allowed in the government forest.

Jason Keith Fernandes, Member, the Panel of ExpertsThe focus of the forest department is on critical wildlife habitats and does not take care of the people’s rights inside the forest.

Ramesh Gauns, Member, the Panel of ExpertsIntervening in the discussion, he observed that more forest areas need to be identified or they will go under mining projects. He further pointed out that 570 square kilometres of land in Sanguem taluka is under forest cover. In this taluka there are 295 mining leases. Forest department has to prepare a preliminary feasibility report about what the mining leases, when activated, will do to the forest cover. Milind Karkhanis, intervening in the discussion, said that this has to be the policy decision of the government.

Advocate John Fernandes, Member, the Panel of Experts Advocate John Fernandes questioned as to why the forest department remains absent during the public hearing conducted in the

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state of Goa to start opencast mining, even where the land is classified forest land? Sandand Gaonkar substantiated this by pointing out that during the recent public hearing for mining in Sattari taluka by Damodar Mangalji, Garco, and Timblo mining companies in the classified forest, none from the forest department was present. Advocate Fernandes pointed out that forest land under survey number 19/1 of Cavrem, Quepem has been demarcated as active mining lease in the Regional Plan 2021 (RP-2021). He further said that the forest department must study RP-2021.

Purso Kushta Gaonkar and Vithoba Pauto Gaonkar, Colamb, SanguemAround 30 years ago he planted cashew trees in the land within the forest surveyed under survey number 12 in Colomb village of Sanguem Taluka. An area of around 1 hectare is in the possession of Purso K Gaonkar. The forest department then planted some wild trees in this land without uprooting the cashew trees planted by Purso. The forest department then inserted its name as the occupant in the land records. Currently there are around 100 cashew trees raised by Purso Gaonkar and 200 trees raised by Vithoba Pauto Gaonkar

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and they continue to harvest the same. Their only source of income comes from the cashew harvest. The forest department often scolds them in the forest but they do not cut their cashew trees. They have families, including Purso Kusto Gaonkar’s two minor children, to support. The highest level of formal education any person in Purso’s family has got is the achievement of his brother who has completed class XII. They had filed application with the Mamlatdar sometime in the early 1980s to regularize his cultivation in the forest land but no action has been taken on this for the past over 20 years.

Khazan lands breached

Disha Deepak Karmalkar, Carambolim, TiswadiHer family used to cultivate rice in the khazan land that officially belongs to the Communidade of Carambolim. However, for the past one decade she, along with other farmers, has not been able to cultivate these fields due the breach in bunds and the flooding of fields with saline water. Neither Communidade of Carambolim nor the tenant association has repaired these breaches all these years. This is illegal but no police case has been filed against those

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responsible for the breach of bunds. The main reason why the saline water is allowed in the agricultural fields that are below the sea level/reclaimed lands is due to the lucrative fishing trade. The government officer who was present Tadeo Rodrigues (Assistant Director, agriculture department) said that it was the responsibility of the agriculture department to see to it that the bunds are not breached in order not to affect agriculture negatively.

Mining encroachments on land and livelihood

Soiru Kushali Sawant, Colamb, RivonaSoiru is in possession of the forest land. He has matriz documents granted in 1819 by the erstwhile Portuguese colonial state. The forest department, however, has established its control over this land and given permission to cut down thousands of forest trees. The beneficiary of this is Radha Timblo, who runs a mining company and wants to expand the existing mining lease that is in the name of Baddruddin Mavani. A case against the forest department has been filed in the Collector’s office in Margao, which has been adjourned over 35 times in the past 5 years without the forest department filing a reply. His matriz

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documents are not recognised by the state any more and this has caused problems and sufferings to him, like so many other tribal people in Goa.

Rama Ladu Velip, Colamb, Rivona, SanguemHis family owns land that bears survey number 16/1 in Colamb village. It is a hilly terrain but his family has various types of crops like the jackfruit, mango, and coconut, and other fruits and vegetables. The entire family is dependent upon this land for its sustenance. This land also forms a part of the mining lease belonging to Lidia Simoes. The mining lease was granted during the Portuguese colonial rule. This mine was stopped in 1964. Today, however, due to the demand for iron from China, there is a rush for mining and so many of the mining leases are rapidly getting started. His village of Colamb and the surrounding villages in Quepem and Sanguem Talukas are rich deposits of iron ore. There is increasing efforts by the mining companies and the Indian government to start mines and extract ore. This rush for minerals is affecting the people and the environment. There are 2500 people that reside in the vicinity and

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the vast majority (95%) of them are the tribes. Livelihood options of these people are directly at stake. Rama Velip urged that the mining leases be cancelled.

Their resistance against the Fomento Mining Company in Colamb has been going on since 2007. This particular mine is affecting the land over 200 hectares. Eighty families are directly affected and their agricultural fields are facing the mining silt, water shortages, and the state violence. Several police cases were filed and several people were arrested, and court cases have begun in Sanguem and Quepem Courts. The first arrests took place in 2007 when six people were arrested. Majority of those arrested were women. After their release several applications complaining about what is happening to their agriculture and forest land were filed before various authorities such as the Mamlatdar and the Collector of South Goa. No action was taken by these authorities in response to the villagers’ complaints. Mining activities are going on in the survey number 57 that is identified as forest by the Sawant and Karapurkar Committee. Villagers filed complaints with the forest department. But no action was taken against the mining

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company by the forest department. Presently mining activities are going on continuously.

Eighty six people were arrested in 2008 while they were peacefully protesting against the mining company in Colamb. False cases were filed by the mining company against the villagers and eight people were arrested and paraded and tortured at the Quepem Police Station.

Colamb village has got 1929 hectares of land, out of which 1510 hectares are covered with mining leases. Presently five mines are in operation. Four more have finished their public hearing. Another mine has announced its public hearing sometime in the near future. Where will the 2500 people of the village go in this context?

People are put under pressure in various ways. Judiciary too is used as a pressure tactic to break the villagers’ morale in fighting for their right to life and livelihood. Two cases are going on in Sanguem Court and one case is going on in Quepem Court. Another case is coming up in Quepem court. Additionally, fresh notices are issued against those who are protesting against the mining. There has been continuous police harassment in Colamb village.

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Colamb villagers’ fight is in defence of their livelihood and in a democratic manner. They are worried that water sources will be totally destroyed in the process of mining. It is not only the Colamb village that is affected due to mining, but the entire South Goa is going to face acute water shortages if the mining continue to flourish in Sanguem and Quepem Talukas. Fields are dried up due to mining.

South Goa Collector is totally silent on the villager’s complaints. Mining truck owners and truck drivers are ruling the state machinery in the mining belt. In one instance recently when the traffic police stopped a mining truck as it was overloaded and for rash driving, the truck drivers in the town of Sanvordem confiscated the challan book from the Policeman’s hands and destroyed it.

During the past few years, complaints were filed with various authorities who include the Mamlatdar, the Deputy Collector, the Collector, the forest department, water resource department, the Goa State Pollution Control Board, the Chief Secretary, the Chief Minister, and the Governor. Governor S C Jamir visited Colamb village and witnessed the

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destruction of the villages because of the mining activities. However, his visit yielded no concrete result to the village as no steps have been taken to stop the mining activities in Colamb village. In fact, the mining company has deployed goons to intimidate the villagers who are protesting against the mining activities.

There is a clear nexus among the mining companies and the forest department and the department of mines and geology. The moment one department is petitioned, immediately the other department, along with the Mining companies, comes to know about it. This is indeed a dangerous situation.

Liquor consumption has increased in the village with the beginning of the mining activities. Before the mines started there was only one liquor shop in the village. The number increased to ten in 2009.

The lease owners of the mines include:

1. Marzook Cadar, a Pakistani national who expired. His mining lease is operated by a Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA), Anil Salgaonkar, but contracted to the Urban Development Minister, Joaquim Alemao.

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2. Sheikh Adam, a Pakistani national who expired.

3. Badruddin Mavany, a Pakistani national who expired. His mining lease is operated by Radha Timblo.

4. Lidia Simoes, a French national who expired. Her mining lease is not operated by any one.

How could these mining leases be operated by the mining companies without getting the leases transferred. That is illegal.

Besides, the companies – especially the Minister Joaquim Alemao’s Raissa mining company – threaten everyone who does not accept money and refuses to compromise with the mining companies.

Some mines have got renewal of their leases and operate, some have not got renewal of the leases but still operate. Lots of mining leases are within the government forests and even in sanctuaries. This allegation, however, was denied by the Deputy Conservator of Forest, Milind Karkhanis who was present and deposed before the Jury.

The forest department is involved in destroying the natural forest. This

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allegations too was refuted by Milind Karkhanis while he deposed before the Jury.

Milind Karkhanis, Deputy Conservator of Forest, GoaThe provisions in the Forest Conservation Act 1980 empower state governments to act on the complaints only in the cases of the Reserved Forests and the Protected Areas. The state forest department is in no position to stop mining activities that are going on in the government forest. Only the central government is empowered to act on complaints about the mining activities in the forest lands. And the officers that are responsible to act on this are located in Bangalore. They are not known to have ever acted on any complaints from Goa. The state forest department is taking action under the Trees Act that has only a paltry sum as penalty. So Goa’s government forest is open for abuse.

Goa has about 1,200 square kilometres of forest, out of which nearly 700 square kilometres (67%) is Protected Forest. 67 square kilometres is private forest.

The forest department faced mining related litigation in one case wherein Rama Ladu Velip approached the High Court regarding

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the right of the mining company to use the road in the forest to transport mining ore. Since the road was already in use, the High Court refused to see the transportation of ore on the road that passes through the forest land in Colamb as ‘use of forest land for non forest purpose’ and stay it.

There are reports that Goa’s forest has declined by 18% due to mining activities. Karkhanis stated that this is an inflated figure but he had no figure to provide. He submitted that no tree cutting is allowed in the private forest but it is allowed in the government forest.

More forest area needs to be identified immediately or else it will go under mining. Sanguem has 570 square kilometres of forest. This taluka also has 295 mining leases. The forest department has to conduct a feasibility study report as to what the mining activities on this scale will do to the forests. The Forest Deputy Conservator stated that this can be done only if the directive comes from the state government or else it will not be done.

The forest officer who was present, Milind Karkhanis was also questioned about the absence of the forest department from the public hearings conducted wherein the

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forest land had been involved in mining activities. Instances from Quepem, Sanguem, and Sattari mining public hearings were cited where the forest department was absent.

The forest officer submitted that it is the duty of the forest department to be present at the public hearings conducted by the Collector or the Goa State Pollution Control Board (GPSCB).

In Cavrem, Quepem forest areas are depicted as active mining leases in RP-2021 even though there are no active mining leases operating there. Survey number 19/1 of Cavrem village was cited as evidence to this. Forest department has lapsed in its duty to check and safeguard the status of the forests from getting demarcated as active mining leases as far as RP-2021 is concerned.

Shanu Sagun Velip, Cavrem, QuepemA mining company has cut trees in survey number 19/1 of Cavrem. In this land cultivated by Shanu Sagun Velip there are coconut trees, banana plants, cashew cultivation, and beetlenut plantations. This has been shown in the Goa Regional Plan 2021 as an active mining lease. There are

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problems caused to the local tribal villagers because of the mining company adjacent to his property. It is owned by the Government of Goa. The mining company states that this land belongs to the forest department and not to Shanu and his family. The open cast iron ore mine is operating within a distance of five to seven kilometres from his house.

Shanu is dependent upon this land as his sole livelihood. There are seven people in his family and all of them are engaged in agriculture. Mining rejects dumped by the mining company is likely to enter his house as well as his agricultural fields.

This mine is known as Sheikh Salim mine and nearly 18 houses exist in its vicinity.

A discussion on this case, participated by Jury members and Expert Panel members:

According to the debates in the Goa Assembly there are 126 operating mining leases in the state of Goa. According to the Goa Regional Plan 2021 there are 99 operating mining leases.

In the first draft of Regional Plan 2021 no mining leases were shown in Carvem Panchayat jurisdiction. Mining leases were shown in the second draft of the Regional

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Plan 2021 within the Cavrem Panchayat jurisdiction.

Shanu Sagun Velip has been involved in cultivation for the past fifty years in Cavrem. However, during the past two years, with the onset of open cast iron ore mining, lots of destruction have taken place to the Bhat (Horticulture) and Xett (Agriculture).

Shanu’s family used spring water for the drinking, cooking, washing, and cultivation purposes. Spring water got reduced due to mining.

This mining lease is part of a very good aquifer. Mining is actively destroying good aquifers in the state of Goa.

Access to land denied

Dropati Arjun Shirdkar, Goule-Bhat, ChimbelAccess to her land is denied. Her name is recorded as lessee in the land records at the city survey office. Even then the government officials cut trees in her land. She has approached the Mamlatdar for redress but has not received a satisfactory response.

Trapped in Legal disputes

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Narayan Rama Gawde, Talolem, BandoraHe is a tenant but has legal problem with his position as there are two people claiming to be his landlords.

Krishna Mangueshkar, Sonu Mangueshkar, Narayan Mangueshkar, Digambar Mangueshkar, Pallant, Siridona, TiswadiThe residential land has been there in their possession for generations. However, they do not have clear land titles. They are not yet declared as Mundcars, the legal title holders of their land. The landlord suggested to them that he shall buy the land they are occupying at the rate of Rs.50/- per square meter. This is a widely prevalent trend in Goa owing to land speculations. The traditional people like the tribes are forced to give way for real estate purposes. They desire clear titles to their land as Mundcars.

Ganesh Mono Gawde, Karmale, Querim, PondaHe is a cultivator and member of a family in possession of the land for the past five generations. They grow cashew, mango, beetle nut, etc. On forms I & XIV of his

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land, the forest department is recorded as the owner. And his name is recorded in the ‘other rights’ column. This creates problems while availing various schemes for farmers as government schemes for agricultural development requires that the name be recorded on I & XIV as ‘tenant’ and not in ‘other rights’ column.

Tukaram Apa Kholkar, Caraim, Chodan, TiswadiHad been cultivating the khazan land in Morombi-o-Grande, Merces, Tiswadi that belonged to the landlords. He purchased the land from Bhatkar (the landlord) in 1984 but no mutation entry is effected in his name in the land records and the land continues to be shown officially as belonging to the landlord. He has to follow up the matter with the Mamlatdar of Tiswadi

Sriram Baburao GawdeSriram’s tenancy matter has been pending in the Mamlatdar’s court since 1990. Advocates take new dates every time. Advocates prosper by taking new dates. There should be a time limit to decide on litigations.

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Sriram’s land measuring 1,000 square metres has been taken over for the purpose of road widening. One lakh twenty thousand rupees was paid in 1987 as compensation for a share of Shantadurga temple located at Nanora, Bicholim. Sriram has eight acres of land in possession in Priol, Ponda.

Anil Gaonkar, Bhati, SanguemAnil Gaonkar has matriz documents in his possession as the land title. His land was acquired for Selaulim dam irrigation project. As the matriz has been termed an invalid land title document, he applied for redressal with the irrigation department, the personnel department, and the Chief Minister. Anil is unable to lay claims. The Mamlatdar, when approached, told him to get the latest court order for the purpose of mutation. His submerged land under Selaulim dam bears survey number 37. His name is not found on survey form I & form XIV. Altogether eight families had their common property submerged under the Selaulim irrigation dam.

Ramchandra Gaonkar, Bhati, SanguemRamchandra has old matriz document by which he is an owner of 5000 square metres of plantations that has a variety of fruit

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trees such as mango, cashew, and jackfruit. In forms I & XIV the owner has wrongly been recorded as the forest department. Now he needs permission to cut big trees to construct a house for himself. He also need to construct a road to his house. He fears that the forest department may object to these.

Surya Ganu Goankar, Dhulapi, Corlim, TiswadiSurya resides in house number 381 in a land bearing survey number 31/1. His father, the late Ganu Hari Goankar had filed a case in the Mamlatdar’s Court in 1986 for being declared as Mundcar. The case has been pending for over 23 years. He said independent India has deprived people of their rights. He submitted that people like him be recognized as Mundcars and be given a rightful dwelling.

Real Estate and Tribal Rights

Pandurang Rama Kukalkar, Chimbel, TiswadiIn Goa all the 11 talukas have plateau land. All of them are not of rocky areas but places of greenery. In Tiswadi taluka too there is a plateau known as Kadamba plateau. It is located at a distance of six kilometres from

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Panjim. The entire land is in the possession of the Scheduled Tribe community. In other parts of Goa too the plateau lands are in the possession of the Gawda community. A prominent example is the plateau in Betul in Quepem taluka of South Goa, which is in the possession of the Gawda community.

This plateau has twenty million square metres of land. Out of which Pandurang Kukalkar currently is in possession of 1.3 million square metres of land covering survey numbers 28, 30, and 31. The possession has been passed on from his grandfather to his father and now to himself.

Earlier his grandfather invited a relative of his to look after the land as it was too large. Its owners are Shantabai Kamat and Sharadchandra Navelkar. Kukalkar’s family used to give to the landlord fifteen tons of cashew nuts plus five trucks of firewood as khand.

The relative developed a desire for this land and the land got divided unofficially. The relatives of the landlord too eyed on this land and officially the land was partitioned into three parts. Navelkar’s share of land was partitioned further into three.

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During the first survey in the liberated Goa in 1971, Kukalkar’s relative tried to include his name into the official land records. He was assaulted by the goons from Taleigao village, who were brought to the Kadamba Plateau for this purpose. After this experience of the relative, Pandurang Kukalkar’s father, Rama Kukalkar warned Pandurang Kukalkar not to attempt to include his name into the official land records for the fear of threat to life.

Kukalkar’s relative who attempted to get his name into the official records was driven out of Kadamba Plateau by the landlords and the responsibility to look after this land was bestowed upon Pandurang Kukalkar. Thus more land came in the possession of Pandurang Kukalkar.

Dispute arose amongst the landlord brothers over the share of Kukalkar’s khand. Kukalkar used to send the entire khand jointly to the landlord’s family. After the dispute Kukalkar was asked to send the khand separately. So from that time onwards Kukalkar sent the shares of the khand separately to each of the landlord brothers.

Then the Kukalkar family developed quarrel amongst themselves and Kukalkar gave up

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his government job with the public works department (PWD) and devoted himself fully to the care of the land.

Then one of the landlords – the Navelkars – refused to accept the khand and began cutting trees. Kukalkar questioned the landlord and a confrontation started. Kukalkar then asked the landlord about the cost of the land and declared his intention to buy off the land where Kukalkar had his plantation. The landlord warned him, “I will not give you a single square metre of land, instead will teach you a lesson.” In the meanwhile, Pandurang Kukalkar’s father, Rama Kukalkar warned Pandurang not to follow a confrontationist path with the landlord, by getting into a land dispute. The landlord went ahead with his threat of teaching him a lesson and destroyed Kukalkar’s existing distillery space.

One part of the property was sold by the landlord to the landscape developers. Kukalkar went to the landscape developers to ask for a settlement. The builder asked Kukalkar to file a legal suit. Kukalkar has no money to get into litigation, so he kept silent. His community lawyers/leaders advised him to keep quite and promised to

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take up the matter when he would be beaten up!

The landlords then sold parts of the land to a builder named Joe Mathai, to an unknown party from Mumbai, and to the owners of the Rajdhani Hotel in Panjim.

The landlord Navelkar cut trees in the land, which have been looked after by Kukalkar. A bulldozer was deployed to destroy the distillery of Kukalkar. The Kukalkar family was scared.

Of the six parts of the land, five are out of his possession. Kukalkar is enjoying one part. There is massive tree cutting going on in the Kadamba Plateau. What is the role of the town and country planning department in all these activities? How did the local Panchayat permit these happenings? Some high level politicians are involved in it. Major political parties such as the BJP and the Congress too are involved.

Constructions by three builders - Joe Mathai, the landscape developers, and the Rajdhani Hotel, Panjim - are going on.. Presently there is some construction work going on for the Hill City. As a result of all these happenings, the cashew production has dropped drastically. The villages that

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have traditionally been dependent upon the Kadamba plateau for cultivation include Carambolim, Curca, Bhati, Santa Cruz, and Chimbel. They are engaged in the cultivation/harvesting of mangoes, jackfruits, pineapples, etc. There are a number of natural springs and lakes in this area.

There are a number of wild animals like the wild boar in this area. Frequent hunting used to be carried on at this site, with a part of the hunted animal being kept for the local tribal spirit called Baiginkar.

Extracts from the concluding speech of Justice Hosbet Suresh on 31st May, 2009For two days sixty people came and spoke about their homelands and what has been happening there. And I saw on their faces a sense of desperation as there was nobody to do justice.

The Constitution has upheld the right to live with dignity. The Constitution of India advocates liberty, equality, fraternity, and justice – social, economic, and political. You all are now striving for justice.

The Constitution guarantees the right to speech but there is no guarantee of food. It

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guarantees the right to occupation and business but no right to work and livelihood. It guarantees the right to travel but when the tribes are displaced from their own homeland they have no right to stay in their homeland.

Now whether the Communidade can give land to cultivators or to outsiders, this is Disha’s question. The basic question is who gets the right to have the land? Who gets the right to the sky, the right to the sea? Is it the people who get the right?

We, the people of India are sovereign. The people have rights over and above the state.

The 1970s and the 1980s were a golden period of the Constitution. The right to life was interpreted to include the right to livelihood. The rights to food, to education, to environment, and to shelter were included in the right to life. The Supreme Court interpreted the right to life as the right to live with dignity.

What is the right and the role of the communidade when it says it won’t give land to the community? The Communidade has trusteeship, and the people has the right to the Communidade land.

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Communidade land for industrial purpose? This trend has come from the British colonial times. The Land Acquisition Act has been used for this purpose in Nandigram, Singur for the Special Economic Zone (SEZ). Is agriculture not public purpose? Agriculture produces food. Without food who can live in this country?

There are higher principles – the Human Rights and the Fundamental Rights. Judges in the past did understand. It is not sure if today’s Judges understand. There are violations of human rights on a large scale in the tribal areas of Goa. The People’s Tribunal is an inquiry into this form of human rights violation. Encroachment by mining companies and by the forest department, and the absence of the legal land documents with the tribal people are human rights violations.

Your Chief Minister talks about development. But development does not mean industries, buildings, and mining. Development means respect to the tribes and the protection of their livelihood as well.

There should be a complete stop to the harassment of the tribes by the forest

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department. The Forest Rights Act 2006 must be implemented in Goa.

All the mining leases that are affecting the people must be cancelled. These mines cause human rights violations and environmental rights violations.

I add my voice to the People’s Tribunal, to what you have said. You must always fight, must stop crying. Protest, exercise you’re right to dissent. Struggle has to go on.

VI

FINDINGS OF THE JURY of the People’s Tribunal on Restoration of Tribal Homelands in Goa, 30-31 May, 2009

1. IntroductionWe have heard about sixty submissions from different parts of Goa. It is clear from their testimonies that there is a concerted effort to deprive the tribes of their land, their home, their sources of livelihood, and above all their human dignity. There is also a feeling of helplessness and misery looming large in their faces, as neither the state nor the persons concerned seem to bother about their condition.

2. The tribes’ right to recognition and declaration of their land rights

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We have seen, in all the cases, that the land records in the revenue department were manipulated, either without any notice to the tribes who have been in possession of the land for generations or through use of force. The land could be a part of a forest, but the fact remains that the tribes have been in continuous possession, using the land for cultivation, for growing trees, plants, and vegetables, for grazing their cattle, and for collecting forest produce. They preserved the forest and maintained the land. The forest department has no right to claim that it is in possession of the land. Ordinarily the land records in the revenue department do not determine the title. But the tribes, having no document of title, are being deprived of their possession by deceitful means. Long and continuous possession for generations together is sufficient enough to claim their title on the land, and the tribes have a right to be declared as the owners of the land, which is in their possession.

3. Violation of Article 21 of the Constitution of IndiaWhat is happening today is much more than the tribes losing their land. It is much more. They are losing their right to their

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livelihood, right to their homes, right to their environment, and inevitably, they will lose their right to live with human dignity. It is in that sense, what is happening is particularly a violation of Article 21 of the Constitution of India - their right to life, and all that goes with life, their right to live with human dignity. We have also heard of police repression when the tribes resorted to their struggle for survival.

4. The need to take proper steps to implement the Forest Right Act 2006The land problems associated with the forest lands have arisen due to either the settlement process being ignored or faulty settlement. It has resulted in non-recording and non-recognition of rights. All these cases now come under the purview of the Forest Rights Act 2006, the implementation of which has not been initiated by the Government. Any violation of the Forest Rights Act 2006 by any official is an offence punishable with a fine of a thousand rupees under section 7 of the Act. (The rights recognised include homeland and cultivated land, grazing, minor forest produce, and all the customary and traditional rights except hunting. All proceedings to have the tribes dispossessed should be stopped forthwith.)

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5. The need for legislative protectionThe absence of legislative protection of land for the restoration of the alienated land, the prevention of alienation of land as required under Article 244, and the non-inclusion of tribal hamlets under the Sixth Schedule of Article 244 denying the enjoyment of Panchayat Raj (Extension of Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 have denied Constitutional protection being extended to Goa. Grazing lands are particularly critical for the lives of the tribes in Goa, which are under assault by landlords, government, and the developers. Their rights to the land which they are tilling or have been residing on for generations should be recognized, and they should be made the bhatkar of the land. The Goa Mundkar Act and the Agricultural Tenancy Act should be implemented in its true spirit.

6. Vulnerability to displacement due to the absence of documentationA larger number of cases demonstrated the Communidade as a space, a location of conflict with regard to the livelihood rights of the tribes of Goa. By and large, the pattern has been that despite generations of possession and usage, the names of the tribes fail to feature in government records

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as the tenants of the land. All that is indicated is that the ownership of the land is with the Communidades. Subsequently, any extension of the facilities or the government projects requires the consent/NOC from the Communidades. At the office of the Communidade, the tribes are discouraged from claiming their rights, their requests refused, and their claims based on the rights are rejected. The displacement of a number of the tribal people have been effected and their long historic occupation of the land is made invisible, with no say in decision making at all levels and the land being in short supply for the ‘development’ envisaged by the government, for SEZs, IT Parks, Food Parks, and mining.

7. Cancellation of mining leases/concessions The areas over which the mining companies claim to have mining leases/concessions is mostly inhabited by the tribes. Though the tribes do not have titles in most cases, they have been in actual possession of the land. The existence of the tribal people is at stake with the operation of mining leases. The mining leases of the mines that affect the

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very lives and livelihood of the tribes have to be cancelled.

8. On EnvironmentIt is clear from the depositions that many of the villagers who have been involved in tenancy disputes, disputes over ownership, or being harassed over their use of the land have been cultivating a variety of trees and other crops on the land. Among the Velips and other communities, there are persons with the knowledge of local plants and their medicinal properties. Similarly, bunds separating the khazan land under paddy cultivation from the sea have been traditionally protected by the village community.

Hence the various tribal communities have a long tradition of environmental harmony. Policies adopted by the forest department are often destructive to the flora of the region. Preservation of grazing lands for cattle is also important for ecological balance. Chopping of branches of trees for firewood is not destructive, yet villagers who do so are harassed. The activities of the mining companies, on the other hand, are both illegal and highly destructive to the environment but they are not booked.

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The bond between the community and its forest environment provides the best guarantee for sustaining the environment. This should be recognised by the policy makers who frame rules for granting concessions to mining companies. The tasks of the forest department, their powers, and the use made of those powers, need to be revised and constantly monitored in the light of the above facts.

The fields, khazans, plateaus, forests, and the water bodies have been nurtured and preserved by the tribes whose livelihoods are sustainable and harmonious with the nature. However, irresponsible mining, indiscriminate industrialisation (SEZs), and haphazard real estate development have been responsible for attacks on the lands, lives, and livelihoods of the very tribes who have been the custodians of Goa’s environment. Therefore, every planning and development exercise should include the restoration of the use of land based on traditional rights of the tribes in Goa’s land. The government’s Regional Plan 2021 cannot be said to be legal without the conduct of gram sabha meetings and the constitution and deliberations of the gram sabha as visualised under the Forest Rights

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Act 2006, with regard to the planning of community resources.

9. Women in the forefront of strugglesWomen have been severely impacted by the non-recognition of the rights of the tribes, leading to their dispossession of livelihood resources. They have been in the forefront of the struggles in Goa, particularly in mining related struggles. The women’s welfare and empowerment schemes such as the Self Help Groups do not have the desired results when the land and resource rights of the tribes itself are denied.

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Sd/-

Justice Hosbet Suresh

Chairperson, Jury

Sd/-

Adv Caroline Collasso

Member, Jury

Sd/-

Dr Wandana Sonalkar

Member, Jury

Sd/-

Adv Albertina Almeida

Member, Jury

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Members of the Jury1. Rtd. Justice Hosbet Suresh (

Mumbai High Court)

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2. Dr Wandana Sonalkar (an economist from Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar University, Marathwada, Maharashtra)

3. Advocate Caroline Collasso (Goa)

4. Advocate Albertina Almeida (Goa)

Members of the Expert Panel1. Prabhakar Dhage

( Journalist)

2. C R Bijoy (Tribal Rights Activist)

3. John Fernandes (Advocate)

4. Ramesh Gauns (Teacher)

5. Jason Fernandes (Columnist)

6. Pravin Sabnis (Architect)

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News Clipping

Tribal issue : Cancellation of Mining Leases Sought

Herald , June 1, 2009

Panjim, May 31, 2009: Demanding immediate cancellations of mining leases which affect livelihood of the tribes, the People’s Tribunal on

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Sunday observed that the area which the mining companies claim to have leases or concession is mostly inhabited by the tribes.

The People's Tribunal on Restoration of Tribal Homelands in Goa, organised by the Gawda, Kunbi, Velip and Dhangar Federation, held its hearing at Menezes Braganza hall, under the chairmanship of Justice Hosbet Suresh. “We have heard about 60 submissions from different parts of Goa in the last two days and it is clear from their testimonies that there is a concerted effort to deprive the tribals of their land, their home, their sources of livelihood and above all their human dignity,” Justice Suresh

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told reporters after the conclusion of the hearing. Further pointing out at the mining industry, he said, “The area which the mining companies claim to have mining leases/concession is mostly inhabited by the tribals.” “Though the tribals do not have titles in some cases, they are in actual possession,” he added. He said the existence of tribal people is at stake with the operations of mining leases. “The mining leases of the mines that affect the very lives and livelihood of the tribals require to be cancelled,” said Justice Suresh. Moreover claiming that the various tribal communities have a long tradition of environmental balance, the Tribunal also felt that finalising the

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Draft RP 2021 would be illegal without the consent of the Gram Sabhas. “The fields, khazans, plateaus, forests and water bodies have been nurtured and preserved by the tribals whose livelihoods are sustainable and harmonious with nature,” he said. However, Justice Suresh continued, “irresponsible mining, indiscriminate industrialisation (SEZs) and haphazard real estate development have been responsible for attack on the lands, lives and livelihoods of the very tribals who have been the custodians of Goa's environment.” “Therefore, every planning and development exercise should include the restoration of the land use based on traditional rights of

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the tribals on Goa's land,” he said adding “The government's Regional Plan 2021 cannot be said to be legal without the conduct of “gram sabha” meetings and the constitution and deliberations of the gram sabha as visualised under the Forest Right Act-2006 with regard to planning of community resources.”

Adv Caroline Collaso, Dr Wandana Sonalkar and Adv Albertina Ameida were the other members of the Jury.

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