The indigenous debate . Land theft and forced immigration since British continued by inidan govt ( Part 2)
Part 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/Northeastindians/s/F6XwElbDvW
Quoted text: “The Ahom, Bodo-Kachari, Koch and others lost their land to tea gardens as a result of the Assam Land Rules for Special Cultivation 1838 — meant to make land acquisition by British plantation owners easy.” A law to steal ancestorial land. This is where the story begins.
Quoted text:”The colonial regime brought with them Bengalis. Their presence affected several tribes. In the Barak valley of southern Assam , the bengali service class turned bengali into medium of instruction. The Dimasa people are among those affected by this policy, and have had to struggle to retain their cultural traditions, history and identity.”
25+ years have gone by. These people have been fighting against cultural erasure and outsider dominance since 2001.
Quoted text: “The region witnessed massive immigration of Bengali Hindus at the Partisan and of the Tibetans in 1959. Since last 1970s focus has been on the Bangladeshi Muslims but Hindus from Bangladesh and from Bihar and Nepal have also come to the region. Because of immigration of Bengali Hindus, the tribal population of Tripura declined from 58% in 1951 (Sen 1993: 13) to 31% in 2001 (Registrar General and Census Commissioner 2001).”
Quoted text: “The first pull factor is the legal system that encourages encroachment on the tribal commons (CPRs). The formal law, which recognises only individual ownership, treats the CPRs as State property even though they are critical sources of tribal sustenance.”
Meaning: Our land is not individually owned , it is community land. But the law says: "No individual paper = no ownership." So the State calls our land "wasteland" and gives it to immigrants.
Quoted text: “Bihari immigrants have encroached on what were called wastelands of Karbi Anglong. The Karbis allege that they get pattas by bribing State officials... their land is in tribal majority Karbi Anglong, where its transfer to non-tribals is banned.” This was the case of 2001 , imagine the situation now.
Quoted text: “Immigrants grow three crops on fertile land they occupy. Most people of the Northeast live in a single-crop economy because of sharecropping and the temporary (eksonia) patta system. These historically deprived peasants have no motivation to grow a second crop because half or more goes to the zamindar.”
Meaning: The lazy myth , but actually trapped by design.