THE JHARKHAND STORY NETWORK
Daltonganj, Feb 25: Politics of opportunity pushed the Maha Dalits into the brink of deprivation. Now, they try to come out of it. The road to resettlement is tough and rough.
10 Maha Dalit families were exited from a plot of land at village Murumatu under the Pandu police station limits in Palamu in 2022. They are still landless and homeless, more for their own high vaulting ambition.
Their exit became a national furore then. Notable news channels in the country played it for full one day as to how ‘Land Jihad’ was behind the displacement of the Mushars by the Muslims.
Finance Minister directs DC to ensure rehabilitation
The state Finance Minister Radha Krishna Kishore has directed the DC (Deputy Commissioner) Shashi Ranjan to ensure their rehabilitation. Suitable land and Awas for these Maha Dalits are to be found out. These Maha Dalits want the land of their choice. And here the effort gets stuck up.
The minister is convinced that any resettlement of these Maha Dalits on the same plot of land at Murumatu from where they were driven out would be like making the wound of displacement green again.
The Finance Minister told this correspondent quite philosophically that displacement or exit or drive out from a piece of land leaves unforgettable and painful memories. Such traumatic experiences must not be revived in any way like resettlement or re-imposition.
Not only land, they be given shelter the minister asked for. For shelter what is called Awas they need money. So give them a roof and for roof money, Kishore explained.
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These displaced were given 2 decimals of land free at Neori by the then Palamu DC A Dodde where the locals resisted their dwelling and the Mushars too were disinclined to resettle there. The result was the Dalits kept moving around.
Additional Collector Kundan Kumar has been directed by the present DC Shashi Ranjan to deal with this matter at the earliest.
A tale of mutual agreement, political manipulation and communal divide
On 29 August, 2022, 10 dalit families were pushed off from the dwelling they were living in for three or four years by the Muslims. Their huts were demolished once they had moved out of it. Their belongings were not harmed.
Here the Muslims were wrong. They had not informed the local civil and police administration about what they were to do. It showed their intent.
The Dalits were living in huts on a piece of land measuring little over 4 acres bearing khata number 44, plot number 437 at village Murumatu under the Pandu police station limits over some three or four years.
The exit was a mutual agreement. It was an agreed one between the Mushars and the Muslims.
Cash had exchanged hands. A pickup van was brought in for the transportation of the Dalits. Never in the history of any forced exit transportation facility is made available. Here it was.
Politics of opportunism turned this exit into a communal divide then where the Muslims were branded as perpetrators of atrocities while the Mushars were seen as victims.
Cries of Land Jihad were raised full-throated then. A criminal case was lodged and three Muslims were caught and jailed in a few hours.
What was missed, ignored or overlooked then was that no two sides were any right. Both sides were wrong in their own way.
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Muslims throwing out the Mushars was atrociously wrong so were the Mushars occupying land for which they had no government document like ‘zameen bandobasti kayam’ paper. The two sides had defied the laws of the land in their own way.
Murumatu had then become a politician pilgrimage. There came the National ST Commission. Human rights groups visited the site. Orthodox people saw in the exit a kind of big conspiracy. The whole atmosphere was vitiated and charged.
And those who came sympathised with the Mushars only. Muslims were despised then. The Muslims were branded as villains and land jihadis. There was none to hear the Muslims.
Sources said the then DC of Palamu A Dodde had a tough time averting any communal eruption. Any communal fracas was inevitable then. Even popular media was lopsided with the reporting.
The then Palamu DC Dodde bore the brunt with patience. He worked against the clock and defused the communal tension from escalating any further.
CO says its govt land in response to RTI
The 4 acres plus land from where the Mushars were thrown out was then claimed to be of Muslims of Murumatu. But an RTI has proved the claim of the Muslims wrong.
One Jitender Mushar filed an application under RTI to seek information about the nature and status of that 4-acre plus land of the aforesaid khata and plot numbers.
The CO responding to the RTI notice has given in writing that 4 acres plus land bearing khata number 44, plot number 437 at Murumatu under the Pandu police station limits is government land!
There is no record of its ‘bandobasti kayam’ with any Muslim there at village Murumatu.
The CO’s response to the RTI notice is that there is no evidence of this land ‘to be in any settlement with anyone and it is a gair majrua land of the state government’. A copy of this is with the Jharkhand Story.
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Political exploitation and abandonment of Maha Dalits
Sources said the then DC of Palamu A Dodde and his team of officials endeavoured hard to resettle these 10 displaced Maha Dalit families who just refused to accept the offer as political leaders of all hues and affiliations had ‘brainwashed’ these Maha Dalits not to accept any rehabilitation offer.
These political leaders who visited them made these Maha Dalits to ask for more and more which they were never to get as these Dalits were making outlandish demands and later on the same political leaders when their politics of opportunism got over, abandoned them to their fate leaving these Mushars as a non-entity.
Jharkhand Assembly is in session. So has come up this issue. What the then DC of Palamu A Dodde did for the landless Mushars, is now being reinforced with further logistics of land and shelter.
