On the rise, Hope Better
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
Orissa state Fisher Association President and one of the most influential Bengali refugee dalit leaderin Orissa Narayan Haldar called me on my mobile Saturday morning and told me all about the resistance against Posco and SEZ drive in Orrissa. His native area happens to be the Mahakalpara block near Paradip on one hand and on the other Bhitar Konika Sanctury, the worst affected area by super Cyclone. He was a domestic name all over in Orissa while the Dalit refugees were facing the Deportation drive and locals supported them. Now Haldar leads anti SEZ movement in mahakal Para and Paradip area.
I told him all about my Tumkur visit and the Dalit panchayat experience. I quoted him what Hemlata, the young lady from Koraput said about Tribal Refugee relationship. In tumkur I described the Refugee rehabilitation policy of the Government of India and state governments to field refugees and Dalit Bengali refugee against one another countrywide. Since the Dalits and the tribals led all the peasant and subaltern insurrections in British India, the Ruling Brahminical Hegemony aborted the Embryo rearranging simply the demography and isolating the Tribals as well as Dalit Bengalies including the militant Namoshudra caste.The used rehabilitation as a weapon against both the communities and in Orrissa, chahattishgargh, Maharashtra and other parts of India whereevr partition victim refugees resettled they are destined to clash with tribals.
I always insisted on the leadership of women and tribals in real Dalit movement and always speak about a global Black Untouchable antiimperialist Resistance forum. Thanks to Raj and jyoti that I could analyse this in Tumkur and Hemlata was convinced.
But I was not surprised to see that in Dandakaranya Bengali Dalit refugees have no interest to resist Polavoram dam Project while their colonies will also be submerged along with tribal villages. But antipathy against tribals work among them with political promotions that they happen to be ready to sacrifice their cause but are never ready to align with tribals.
For the first time a prominent Bengali dalit Refugee leader has accepted the reality and is ready to work in accordance with our legacy and Dalitology to align with Tribals.
We hope , we all be able to mobilise this alliance in Orissa on Tumkur line as Naveen Patnaik also seem to adopt Buddhadeb line to use extra constitutional forces to defend Posco and the capitalist system!
Pradeep Esteves to Stephanie, Elske, Jyothi, me, palashcbiswas, pamrajput, pankaj.gorana, pardeep_rattu, parminder_ahir, patwardhan_gau., kpawde, pdivakar, pdivakar, peacetrust, peoplepower, peoplesnewsnet., periyar, pervinj2000, peter.ksmtf, Peterke, petra.hans, philipp.peter.., pidt2007, pierrotstroupe, pioneercbp, pirbhu_m
show details 10:08 pm (32 minutes ago)
Dear REDS Team, Dalit Panchayat Movement and dear friends Jyothi and Raj,
Congratulations to the Hariharapura Dalit Panchayat. It is indeed a
great achievement. Narayanappa must be very happy - congrats to him too.
My warmest wishes to all the leaders of the movement.
Warm regards
Pradeep
Jyothi and Raj to me, palashcbiswas, pamrajput, pankaj.gorana, pardeep_rattu, parminder_ahir, patwardhan_gau., kpawde, pdivakar, pdivakar, peaceact, peacetrust, peoplepower, peoplesnewsnet., periyar, pervinj2000, peter.ksmtf, Peterke, petra.hans, philipp.peter.., pidt2007, pierrotstroupe, pioneercbp, pirbhu_m, pjmldn, pkm
show details 6:21 pm (1½ hours ago)
Friends
This is about Hariharapura. The special news is that the Dalits in this village have picked up the courage to stop 'Bitti Chakri' in this village. Bitti chakri is the free caste labor forced upon the Dalits by age told traditions of Hinduism. It includes sweeping the of the streets of the caste village, cleaning of sewage, removing of dead animals in the caste village, announcing of death to near and far relative of the caste persons, digging of graves for the dead among caste people, drumming during village festivals, removing leaves after the caste people eat during marriages and festivals, holding lamps during village processions. As you are aware The Dalit Panchayat Movement in Tumkur has succeeded in removing most of these free labors by Dalits as a caste labor thus bringing indignity to the whole Dalit community. Though the government of India berates that these practices are removed and are of the past, those of us working in the villages know how severe these practices are even after 60 years of independence and it has not spared even people like us. Though REDS and DPM have succeeded it is still prevalent in some recently taken up villages and in those villages where DPM has not stepped in directly.
One such village is Hariharapura in Pavagada Taluk where Dalit Panchayat was started only recently. On 30 November one person belonging to the dominant caste kicked the bucket in this village and the caste people sent word to the Dalits to dig his grave. But unfortunately for them Dalit Panchayat had done its work well there and therefore, the Dalits refused to dig the grave as a caste duty. Something unusual has happened in this village. How can the Dalits dare to refuse to do this free caste labor that is ordained for them by 'divinity? The caste leaders descended on the Dalit village to first threaten them and when it did not work to mildly force them to do it. But the members of the Dalit Panchayat stood firm and sent word to the Taluk leader of the DPM. The police also got scent of the brewing trouble in the village and came to the village immediately.
The caste people had no other option but to negotiate a deal. They sat with the DP members and their leaders and reasoned out that this is the age old custom of the village. But the Dalit Panchayat members asserted that they are not ready any more to be guided by the caste dictates of the arrogant village lords. They started saying that we lived like brothers and sisters and now you are spoiling the peace of the village.
At this point the Dalit Panchayat members took out their strong weapon of argumentative negotiation. Yes, we do agree that we are brothers and sisters and that we should all live in peace. In that case we shall come for digging the grave of one of your caste persons today. However, since we are all brothers and sisters some of you also should join us in digging the grave. In addition to that you also should give a written promise that some of you will join us in digging grave when one of the Dalits die in the village. This will be a true mark of being brothers and sisters. If you refuse to do so it becomes evident that you only want to treat us as your caste slaves and not as your brothers and sisters.
The argument carried its weight. But the caste fellows were already quite educated. They are not ignorant idiots. Therefore they left the negotiation table and started digging the grave all by themselves without involving the Dalits. AN OBNOXIOUS TRADITION OF THE CASTE FORCES OF HINDUISM has been removed in this village. It is done so easily these days. But many of our Dalit brothers and sisters have shed their blood as a price of Dalit dignity and self esteem in the process of building up their community. The Struggle for dignity and Dalit rights will continue unabated in Tumkur and will also be stepped up in the whole of Karnataka.
Note: Actually according to the rules of the Dalit Panchayat the Dalits are allowed to dig graves for a price of Rs.2000/- per grave. This will become a source of their economic bargaining. However, in this Dalit Panchayat they decided to forego the economic benefits for the sake of their dignity. It will take some more time for them to understand and accept that our physical labor is worth the money that it can bring. That is the way many other Dalit Panchayats have learned their lessons in the past.
TEAM REDS, Dalit Panchayat Movement and Jyothi & Raj
Rural Education for Development society
Shanthinagar
Tumkur 572102
Karnataka - India
Phone: ++91-816-2277026
Fax: ++91-816-2272515
Web: www.dalitreds.in
Jyothi's Mobile: ++91-9880184667
Raj's Mobile: ++91-9845144893
ramgopal gupta to Foundation, GC, Arora, me
show details 11:22 am (8 hours ago)
Dear Shri Bishwas,
Denial of entry to three Indonesian Hindus to Jagannath temple of Puri would have followed with exemplary punishment to temple managers, had India been a Hindu State. In the existing fake secular system this irreligious practice is also allowed in the same manner as the State remains a mute spectator when a Mohammedan marries his own daughter..
Scholars know that the current temple worship follows the teachings of the Puranas, which were composed for all castes and classes of Hindus,( very much including 'Dalits'). Hence, it is against the basics of Hindu religion to deny entry to anyone calling himself a Hindu religionist.
Remember of Ram who himself visited the hut of a pure tribal woman 'Shabari' and blessed her. Now, I am told that even the temple dedicated to her makes certain restriction on its entry.
It is all because Hindu don't have a Dharm Sansad or an appex Hindu religious body to decide or adjudicate such religious dichotomy and other controversies to be followed by all.
Yours,
Ram Bhai
- Show quoted text -
'Kaliyug'Palash Biswas <palashbiswaskl@gmail.com> wrote:
Can Equality be achieved?
Palash Biswas
Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551
Email: palashbiswaskl@gmail.com
Caste test at temple door
Three weeks after denying entry to three Hindu Indonesians to the Jagannath temple in Puri, five citizens of the same country were not allowed to step inside the 12th cen ... | Read..
http://www.telegraphindia.com/section/frontpage/index.asp
----- Original Message -----
From: Pramod Jonnalagadda
To: Ashok T. Jaisinghani
Cc: ORGANISER Weekly ; J. G. Arora ; Tarun Tejpal ; Sunanda Thali ; Hari Venkataraman ; Palash Biswas ; Arvind Mallya ; VHP DELHI HQS ; Birendra Verma
Sent: 27 Nov 2007 4:41 PM
Subject: Re: Fw: Excerpts from Ancient Brahmin Literature
Namaste Ashok,
True that some sections of the society where and are being exploited. What is your solution to bridge the gap between different sections in our society. Simply bashing one section or the other is still aggravating the problem. There needs to be a change in the mindset of the people. If we have to unite people we cannot go by the differences between them. We need to get people to respect the unique traits of the other. What is your solution for this.
Shubam
Pramod Jonnalagadda
+91-9845969951
If India has to become developed nation by 2020 we can not afford to neglect eight crore Vanavasis. A P J Abdul Kalam Former President of India.
Please visit http://vanavasikalyan.org/.
1— Relations between Tribes and Sovernment
http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft8r29p2r8&doc.view=content&chunk.id=d0e705&toc.depth=1&anchor.id=0&brand=eschol
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1—
Relations between Tribes and Sovernment
The co-existence of established states and independent tribal communities living according to their own rules and customs dates back to the earliest times of recorded Indian history. In an age when the subcontinent was sparsely populated and beyond the limits of centres of higher civilization there were vast tracts covered in forests and difficult of access, populations on very different levels of material and cultural development could live side by side without impinging to any great extent on each others' resources and territories. Even at times of the greatest efflorescence of Hindu culture there were no organized attempts to draw aboriginal tribes into the orbit of caste society. The idea of missionary activity was then foreign to Hindu thinking. A social philosophy based on the idea of the permanence and inevitability of caste distinctions saw nothing incongruous in the persistence of primitive life-styles on the periphery of sophisticated civilizations. No doubt, there were areas where the infiltration of advanced populations into tribal territory resulted in a closer interaction between aboriginals and Hindus. In such regions, cultural distinctions were blurred, and tribal communities became gradually absorbed into the caste system, though usually into its lowest strata. Thus the untouchable castes of Cheruman and Panyer of Kerala were probably at one time independent tribes, and in their physical characteristics they still resemble neighbouring tribal groups which have remained outside the caste system. Aboriginals who retained their tribal identity and resisted inclusion within the Hindu fold fared better on the whole than the assimilated groups and were not treated as untouchables, even if they
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indulged in practices, such as the eating of beef, which Hindus considered polluting. Thus the Raj Gonds, some of whose rulers vied in power with Rajput princes, used to sacrifice and eat cows without debasing thereby their status in the eyes of their Hindu neighbours. The Hindus recognized the tribes' social and cultural separateness and did not insist on conformity to Hindu patterns of behaviour, and this respect for the tribal way of life prevailed as long as contacts between the two communities were of a casual nature. The tribal people, though considered strange and dangerous, were taken for granted as part of the world of hills and forests, and a more or less frictionless coexistence was possible because there was no population pressure, and hence no incentive to deprive the aboriginals of their land.
This position persisted during the whole of the Mughal period. Now and then the campaign of a Mughal army extending for a short spell into the wilds of tribal country would bring the inhabitants briefly to the notice of princes and chroniclers, but for long periods the hillmen and forest dwellers were left undisturbed. Under British rule, however, a new situation arose. The extension of a centralized administration over areas which had previously lain outside the effective control of princely rulers deprived many of the aboriginal tribes of their autonomy, and though most British administrators had no intention of interfering with the tribesmen's rights and traditional manner of living, the establishment of "law and order" in outlying areas exposed the aboriginals to the pressure of more advanced populations. In areas which had previously been virtually unadministered, and hence unsafe for outsiders who did not enjoy the confidence and goodwill of the aboriginal inhabitants, traders and moneylenders could now establish themselves under the protection of the British administration. Often they were followed by settlers, who succeeded in acquiring large tracts of the aboriginals' land. In chapter 2 the process of land alienation will be illustrated by concrete examples, and it will become apparent that by imposing on tribal populations systems of land tenure and revenue collection developed in advanced areas the government unintentionally facilitated the transfer of tribal land to members of other ethnic groups. The deterioration of the aboriginals' position, which in many parts of Peninsular India began as early as the middle of the nineteenth century and continued into the twentieth century, occurred despite the fact that many British officials sympathized with the tribesmen and some of the most fervent advocates of tribal rights were found among the officers of the Indian Civil Service. Yet, the recommendations for reforms contained in numerous reports were seldom implemented in full, and even where they were incorporated in legislation they did not always prove effective.
Unable to resist the gradual alienation of their ancestral land, the
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aboriginals of many regions either gave way by withdrawing further into hills and tracts of marginal land or, if no such refuge areas were left, had no other choice than to accept the economic status of tenants, sharecroppers, or agricultural labourers on the very land their forefathers had owned.
There was only one part of British India where a policy of noninterference and protection enabled the tribal populations to retain their land and their traditional life-style. In the hill regions of Northeast India which enclose the Brahmaputra Valley in the shape of an enormous horseshoe tribes such as Nagas, Mishmis, Adis, Miris, Apa Tanis, and Nishis were the sole inhabitants of a vast region of rugged mountains and narrow valleys into which the peoples settled in the plains of Assam had never penetrated. A small volume of barter trade between hills and plains was carried on by tribesmen from the foothills, but most of the hill people never set foot in the Brahmaputra Valley. When in the second half of the nineteenth century and during the first decades of the twentieth century the British extended their administrative control over part of the hill regions, they did not encourage the entry of plainsmen, but devised a system of administration which allowed the hillmen to run their affairs along traditional lines. As late as the 1930s the entire administration of the Naga Hills District, for instance, was in the hands of one deputy commissioner stationed at Kohima and one subdivisional officer, whose headquarters was Mokokchung. With the help of a few clerks and a small force of Assam Rifles, these two officers maintained peace and order in a large hill region where bridle paths were the only means of communications. No plainsman was allowed to acquire land in the hills, and the indigenous system of land tenure was retained virtually unchanged. This policy protected the hill people from exploitation and land alienation. It is not surprising that the introduction of a much more elaborate and less flexible system of administration in the years following 1947 sparked off a great deal of unrest, for tribesmen used to running their own affairs reacted violently to interference from a host of minor officials lacking in understanding of local customs. This is not the place to discuss the cause of the rebellions of Nagas and Mizos, which at the time of writing have by no means completely ended, but no analysis of the relations between aboriginal tribes and the governments in power can be complete without consideration of at least some of the rebellions by which tribal populations tried to shake off the yoke of those who had invaded their habitat, usurped their ancestral land, and mercilessly robbed them of the fruits of their labours.
Anyone familiar with the oppression and exploitation aboriginals of regions such as the Telengana districts of Andhra Pradesh have suffered at the hands of landgrabbers, landlords, unscrupulous traders
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and moneylanders, and, regrettably, many minor officials must be surprised not by the fact that now and then tribal groups rose against their oppressors in violent outbursts but that organized rebellions were so few and so short-lived. If any of the tribes of Arunachal Pradesh or even of such settled hill regions as the Garo or Mikir hills had been exposed to injustices as severe as those suffered by Gonds, Kolams, Koyas, and Reddis, murder and violence would have been the order of the day, but most of the tribes of the Deccan are on the whole so gentle and inoffensive that extreme provocation is necessary before they take the law into their own hands.
Rebellions of aboriginal tribesmen against the authority of the government are among the most tragic conflicts between ruler and ruled. Whatever course the clash may take, it is always a hopeless struggle of the weak against the strong, the illiterate and uninformed against the organized power of a sophisticated system. There may be loss of life on both sides, but it is always the aboriginals who court ruin and economic distress. I do not refer here to the past risings of martial frontier tribes whose aims were basically political, but to the rebellions of primitive aboriginal tribes of Peninsular India, such as the Santal Rebellion in Bihar, the Bhil Rebellion in Khandesh, and the Rampa Rebellion in the East Godavari District. All these uprisings were defensive movements; they were the last resort of tribesmen driven to despair by the encroachment of outsiders on their land and economic resources. As such they could all have been avoided had the authorities taken cognizance of the aboriginals' grievances and set about to remedy them, not as it happened in most cases after the rising, but before the pressure on the tribesmen made an outbreak of violence unavoidable.
The Santal Rebellion of 1855–56, with which we are here only marginally concerned, was mainly an effort to undo the steady loss of land to non-tribal immigrants, but E. G. Mann, writing in 1867,[1] listed also a number of specific grievances as having caused the Santals to rise against an inefficient and lethargic government, totally inexperienced in dealing with primitive tribes. Among the causes of the rising were: the grasping and rapacious manner of merchants and moneylenders in their transactions with the Santals, the misery caused by the iniquitous system of allowing personal and hereditary bondage for debt, the unparalleled corruption and extortion of the police in aiding and abetting the moneylenders, and the impossibility of the Santals obtaining redress from the courts. The causes of the Santals' uprising, one of the greatest rebellions in the annals of tribal India, were very similar to the circumstances which led to outbreaks of violence in
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other tribal areas. An insurrection which occurred in an area now part of Andhra Pradesh involved the Hill Reddis, a tribe whose present situation will be discussed in the following chapter. This uprising occurred in 1879 and is commonly known as the Rampa Rebellion, after an area which now falls within the Chodavaram Taluk of the East Godavari District.
At the time of the cession of the Northern Circars by the Nizam to the East India Company, the Rampa country was in the possession of a ruler alternatively styled zamindar, mansabdar , or raja . This feudal lord was not a Reddi, but we do not know how he had originally gained possession of the country and by what means he controlled the independent and elusive hill people. He appears to have leased his villages to certain subordinate hill chiefs known as muttadar , and from these he received an annual income of Rs 8,750 per annum, an amount equal to at least Rs 800,000 according to the present value of money. This mansabdar was succeeded first by his daughter and subsequently by an illegitimate son. The latter's oppressive rule led to several minor insurrections, but the last straw was an excise regulation forbidding the drawing of palm wine for domestic purposes and leasing the toddy revenue to contractors entitled to collect taxes at their own discretion. Their illegal extortions and the oppressiveness of a corrupt police were the immediate causes of the Rampa Rebellion in 1879. The operation of the civil law of the country was an additional grievance of the tribesmen, whose trustfulness and ignorance of court proceedings enabled traders from the lowlands to make unfair contracts with them, and if these were not fulfilled according to the trader's own interpretation, to file suits against them, obtain ex parte decrees, and distrain as much property as they could lay hands on. The hill people laid the blame for all this injustice on government and government regulations and thought that their only remedy lay in rising against the authorities.
The rebellion started in March 1879 with attacks on policemen and police stations in Chodavaram Taluk, and it spread rapidly to the Golconda Hills of Vishakapatnam and to the Rekapalli country in the Bhadrachalam Taluk, which had recently been transferred from the Central Provinces to Madras Presidency. While under the previous administration shifting cultivation (podu ) had been virtually unrestricted, the Madras government trebled the land revenue and excluded the tribal cultivators from certain areas. Because of these restrictions the Rampa leaders found adherents in the Rekapalli country, and soon five thousand square miles were affected by the rebellion. In the ensuing guerilla war the government forces comprised several hundred police drafted from neighbouring districts, six regiments of Madras infantry, two companies of sappers and miners, a squadron of
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cavalry, and a wing of infantry from the Hyderabad contingent. Despite these formidable forces the rebellion was not entirely suppressed until November 1880.
In this context the history of the Rampa Rebellion is relevant for two reasons. It shows first that aboriginal tribes, even if inherently not of a warlike character, are capable of considerable efforts if driven to extremities, and second that the grievances which had led to the rebellion were basically similar to the injustices and the exploitation under which tribal populations of Andhra Pradesh labour up to this day.
In the East Godavari Agency of Madras Presidency the conditions of the tribal populations were considerably improved as a result of the Rampa Rebellion. The necessity of instituting special methods of administering primitive populations had been forcefully brought before the eyes of the authorities, and steps were taken to protect the aboriginals from the encroachment of outsiders.
The various orders passed from time to time with the view of ameliorating the conditions of the tribal population of the East Godavari Agency were ultimately consolidated in legislation known as The Agency Tracts Interest and Land Transfer Act, 1917. The regulations of this act formed a model for similar legislation in other tribal areas, and I shall therefore quote some of its main sections. In order to save the tribals from the exploitation of moneylenders, the act laid down that "a) interest on any debt or liability shall not as against a member of a hill-tribe be allowed or decreed at a higher rate than 24% per annum nor shall any compound interest or any collateral advantage be allowed against him; b) the total interest allowed or decreed on any debt or liability as against a member of a hill-tribe shall not exceed the principal amount."
Even more important were the sections restricting the transfer of land from tribals to outsiders. The relevant section (4) contained the following provisions:
1) Notwithstanding any rule of law or enactment to the contrary any transfer of immovable property situated within the Agency tract by a member of a hill-tribe shall be absolutely null and void unless made in favor of another member of a hill-tribe or with the previous consent in writing of the Agent or of any other prescribed officer. [Agent was the revenue officer comparable to the collector of a normal district.]
2) Where a transfer of property is made in contravention of sub-section (1) the Agent. . . . may on application by anyone interested decree ejectment against any person in possession of the property claiming under the transfer and may restore it to the transferor or his heirs.
These sections of the Act of 1917 should, if fully implemented, have put a stop to all alienation of tribal land, and it is a sobering thought
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that sixty-one years later large areas in what was the Godavari Agency are no longer in the possession of their previous tribal owners, even though the provisions of the Act of 1917 remained in force till the promulgation of the Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Areas Land Transfer Regulation, 1959.
It is only fair to admit, however, that in the period 1917–47 the condition of the tribal populations in the East Godavari Agency Tract was relatively favourable, and that the massive invasion of tribal land by outsiders occurred after 1947.
The need for special protection of aboriginal tribes was not confined to the areas notified as Agencies, and in 1919 an act known as the Government of India Act, 1919, provided "that the Governor-General in Council may declare any territory in British India to be a 'Backward Tract' and that any act of the Indian Legislature should apply to such Backward Tracts only if the Governor-General so directed."
The legislation of 1919 was a forerunner of the Government of India Act, 1935, and the Government of India (excluded and partially excluded areas) Order, 1936. "Excluded areas" were backward regions inhabited by tribal populations to which acts of the Dominion Legislature or of the provincial legislatures were to apply only with the consent of the governor of the province. The intention of this provision was to prevent the extension of legislation designed for advanced areas to backward areas where primitive tribes may be adversely affected by laws unsuitable to their special conditions. Though at the time Indian nationalists saw in it a device to retain British control over selected areas, after the attainment of independence the government of India adopted a somewhat similar policy in regard to several territories on the North East Frontier.
The Indian Constitution of 1950 also provided for the notification of "scheduled tribes" and their protection by special legislation. Regarding the administration of the scheduled areas the governor of each state which includes a scheduled area is bound to submit a report to the president annually or whenever required. The states periodically prepare lists of scheduled tribes, and these have to be confirmed by parliament. As scheduled tribes are in receipt of various benefits, there has been considerable pressure from backward classes for inclusion in this list, and as late as 1977 new additions were proposed by various states and confirmed by parliament.
As this volume is largely concerned with the changing fortunes of tribal populations in parts of Andhra Pradesh which used to be part of H.E.H. the Nizam's Dominions, we will now turn to the situation as it prevailed in Hyderabad State, both in the days of the Nizam's rule and after the incorporation of the state in the Republic of India in 1948.
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In contrast to the administration of adjoining provinces of British India, the government of Hyderabad State had not provided for any special privileges for tribal communities. Indeed it was not until the 1940s that the condition of the aboriginal tribes received serious attention from government. In his foreword to my book The Chenchus (vol. 1 of The Aboriginal Tribes of Hyderabad ) the late Sir Wilfrid Grigson, then Revenue Minister of Hyderabad State, commented on the ignorance of the average Hyderabad official in regard to the tribal communities in the following words:
This ignorance tends to blind him to the suffering and the loss of land and economic freedom that results in the backward areas when Hindu, Rohilla or Arab cultivators, contractors, traders and moneylenders are allowed freely to exploit the aboriginals. In such records therefore as can be traced of dealings between the governing classes of Hyderabad and the aboriginal and backward tribes little will be found of deliberate oppression or of positive policy. Laissez faire has been the governing principle, but, as everywhere in India, and not least in Hyderabad, laissez faire more than anything else has ruined the aboriginal and turned him into a landless drudge and serf.
In the following chapters we shall see that indifference to the plight of the aboriginals, be they Gonds, Koyas, or Konda Reddis, is as much the usual attitude of the dominant classes of Andhra Pradesh as it was that of the ruling classes of Hyderabad State. Yet today no one can claim the excuse of ignorance. Ethnographic accounts and publis
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