SANE Newsletter

March 2003

Editorial

Most Andamanians, particularly, the pre-42 community first and the settlers later, arrived here naked, wet and hungry. Yesterday's ugly duckling, the Kalapani, was transformed into a beautiful swan, the green Islands, by their back breaking labour and sincere efforts. And then came the era of politicians and things got worse. They believed in robbing Peter to pay Paul; and so, incase of any disputes Paul's support could always be counted on. Our Peters, the meek taxpayers, still suffer the insufferable in silence. Very generous Plan allocations from the Central Government are usually squandered to create liabilities instead of assets. Huge buildings of steel, chrome, glass, granite and marble are raised that demand more funds for maintenance in successive years without bringing in any revenue.

The history of this era of accelerated destruction of our natural resources including bio-diversity is the subject of Raz Andamani.

Raz Andamani is an authentic Andamanian and an engineer by profession. He worked sometime in the APWD. He is a noted Shair and social activist.

EDITOR

The Rape of Andamans

by Raz Andamani

"Ignorance is bliss", they say.

Bliss it was all the way for the common people of the Islands till the unfolding drama in the Supreme Court of India hit them like a ton of bricks. They were not aware of the fact that hundreds of hectares of reserved and protected forest was not only exploited for extraction of commercial timber but also laid open for large scale unchecked and unbridled encroachments by economic migrants.

Encroachment of revenue land is something the people had come to accept as the rule rather than exception. Of all the dwellings standing till date only about 20% is constructed on the land legally allotted by the post independence Government of India. Rest of about 80% is plain and simple encroachment. It has both the bureaucratic and the political blessings because otherwise how would one explain the encroachment adjacent to an official residential quarters and its subsequent "regularization", that too in the case of a senior group ’A’ officer. The last official proclamation and allotment was made in 1969 in Port Blair. Since then it had been regularization of pre'78 encroachment of the Congress colour and now it is going to be pre'93 of saffron hue. While the encroachments are still going on, no one is bothered about putting a stop to it by introducing the Inner Line Permit System in spite of the directions of the Supreme Court.

But encroachment of forestland is altogether a different matter. It may be a docile, submissive and coward kind of populace, but they too realise that the forests are the life blood of these ecologically fragile Islands and once the forest cover is gone, the Islands may turn into desert. The acute shortage of drinking water is a pointer to the impending disaster.

But the genesis of the illegal occupation of land goes a long way back.

The dawn of Independence in these Islands was slow and painful. The Chief Commissioners were ICS officers who had governed the country prior to Independence under the British Raj. Dealing with the Indians with an iron hand was the only way they knew in the name of governance. There were no political parties in these Islands at the time to raise any voices of protests.

The Andaman and Nicobar Islands were represented by a nominated member in the Parliament - first by late Lala Niranjan Lal, a retired forest official and thereafter by late Lachman Singh, till 1967.

The Indian National Congress Party was 'brought'by late Rajendra Lal Saha just before the historical visit of Dr. Rajendra Prasad, the first President of India in 1954. He wanted to jump a few notches up in the social ladder with the blessings of Dr. Rajendra Prasad. But within a couple of years he was out-manoeuvred by the wily late Sardar Nehchal Singh Chawla in association with late Ratnam father of 'legendary' KR Ganesh. Rajendra Lal Saha's support for the move for merger of Andaman and Nicobar Islands with the State of West Bengal did not help matters much in his favour. Ratnam was working as Office Superintendent in the Forest Department whereas Nehchal Singh Chawla was running his own business. They started the trade union movement under the INC when K.R. Ganesh left his studies incomplete in Madras and came back. During his college days he had become a die-hard communist and a very active member of the Students Federation of India. No wonder, after coming back he did not join his father's Congress Party but tried to set up the then undivided Communist Party of India. He was in close contact with other young Turks who had returned after completing the studies or leaving it incomplete - in most cases incomplete. Late Rabindra Lal Saha, Shiv Ram and Master Imdad Hussain are a few names that come to mind instantly. The Police and the CID people hounded them , wherever they went, day in and day out. And it was years after the Constitution of India was adopted by Parliament.

Late Ratnam tried his best to bring his son around and for quite some time they had a strained relationship because of the son's obstinacy. Like Motilal Nehru, Ratnam also knew how and where to invest his son. Ratnam had almost given up but not Nehchal Singh Chawla. He was contemporary of Ganesh and one could see Ganesh walking down to Chawla's shop and the confabulation going on for hours together.

Nechal Singh Chawla perhaps had foreknowledge that he could not become a popular leader with a mass base. But at the same time he was well aware that he had the abilities of a kingmaker. He was sharp, incisive, great strategist and a true reader of peoples mind and moods. Though a contemporary, he took Ganesh under his wings and explained that he could never succeed with the CPI and that there was no future in it. Ultimately, Ganesh joined the Indian National Congress. The next step was getting in to the Parliament.

K.R. Ganesh had made a lot of acquaintances during his SFI days. In the meantime, many of them had joined Congress, fought elections and entered parliament. They were members of left lobby within the Congress party. Through them attempt was made to get the nomination system to parliament done away with and elections introduced. The Home Ministry apparently did not agree on the grounds that the population of the Islands, about 63,000, was too small.

That was the turning point in the history of the Islands. An old inhabitant would not tire of quoting this couplet:

Wo waqt bhi deka hai, tareekh ki ankhon ne,
Lamhon ne kh'ta ki thi, sadiyon ne saza paye.

(The eyes of have seen those times too, when centuries had to pay for the sins of the moments)

"That is when these ...... started the rape of Andamans" he thunders. And the population statistics of 1961 and 1971 bear out the fact. The population in1961 was 63,548 and in 1971 it was 1,15,133 an increase of 81.17%.

Initially it was a trickle and the migrants fanned out to rural areas. Since most of them were Bengalis who mingled with the settlers, their presence did not register with the general population. A glaring case in point is Neil Islands. Only 95 families were officially settled there in 1965, but in 1978 when I visited the Island I found more than double that number of families in occupation of the fragile island. The Island had almost become a desert. (But last year it was a pleasant surprise for me to see the greenery all around. And the profusion of Neem trees is such that the Neil Island can be rechristened as Neem Island.)

The seventies saw a two-pronged attack on the land. Bengalis and often allegedly Bangladeshis started attacking North and Middle Andamans and Tamilians mixed again, allegedly, with Sri Lankans targeted the South Andaman. The encroachment of revenue land by the latter became conspicuous because it was in the Municipal area.

The way these encroachments were taking place would suggest that it could not have been spontaneous but according to a certain plan devised and implemented by an individual or a group quite well versed with the geography, topography, soil conditions, water availability etc. The new group of entrants, as soon as they disembark, would be whisked away to dense forest a mile or more away from the road head or habitation. The jungle would be cleared, shelters constructed and the areas demarcated for each occupant.

In South Andaman, Kamrajnagar is a vivid case in point. It is about a mile inside the jungle and for over 15 years from the date of its settlement, it did not exist in revenue map.

The most glaring case is that of Paschim Sagar - a poetical name indeed, in the North Andamans, under Diglipur Tahsil. It is miles away from the nearest revenue village across river and mountains deep inside the forest area.

Seventies was the free-for-all decade. The politically inclined people were working feverishly to increase their vote banks. The pitch reached the crescendo when the matter was taken to late Rajiv Gandhi during his visit to the Islands as Prime Minister. An appeal was made to him to regularize the encroachments. A voice of protest was raised from inside the Congress party itself, but it was crushed and he was presented with a false report that only about 500 people had come in the past decade. Accordingly, a proposal was brought before the Islands Development Authority meeting held at Port Blair in 1982 to regularize all the revenue encroachments up to 1978 and also to regularize forest encroachment after getting the forest areas de-reserved by the Government of India. Since it had the approval of the IDA, the Ministry of Environment and Forest (or whatever it was called at that point of time) took very little time for de-reserving 1367 hectares of forestland for even number of squatters on forestland.

And that opened the floodgates to the encroachment upon forestland that goes on even as this piece is being written.

The politicians cannot wash their hands, as it is evident that since late seventies, attempts had started to get vast tract of forestland under the occupation of encroachers de-reserved. The matter was pursued personally with the Ministry of Environment and Forests by the then Member of Parliament, it is alleged. Mr. Manoranjan Bhakta former Member of Parliament took as keen an interest as the present incumbent Mr. Bishnupada Roy is taking to protect, preserve and promote the cause (s) of the encroachers.

The entire de-reservation process was done in such a surreptitious manner that the people in general had no knowledge about it. The administration had to surrender an areaequivalent to the area sought to be de-reserved. The revenue land so surrendered had allotments made in 1973 and thereabouts. But the fact is, nobody proceeded on with the work of shifting the encroachers from the forest to revenue land. The status quo continued till the Supreme Court order entered the scene. Now, when the authorities tried to evict the occupants from what had become forestland, they found that the occupants had legal and valid allotment orders issued in 1973 or thereabouts. A bunch of writ petitions are lying in the Port Blair bench of Calcutta High Court against eviction of those legal occupants caught under the Supreme Court order of 2002.

One can gauge the extent of sympathy the politicians have for the encroachers from the fact that even after de-reservation, they did not want to 'disturb'the 'poor' 1367 families and hence the de-reservation had to wait till 2003 to be notified in the official gazette.

There are reports to suggest that private individuals too had tried and tried successfully to make hay while the sun shone for pure and simple material gain. But it is not exactly known if the political people also made some fast buck on the side as they were providing a lifelong sustenance to the migrants with all the rights and privileges available to any citizen of India.

The goings on was affecting the future of two categories of people the most apart from the tribes. They were: the old inhabitants or pre-42 if you like, and the settlers under various schemes of the government. The bulk of the settlers, mostly landless labourers back in East Pakistan, were busy enjoying the status of Zamindars. They cannot be faulted much as they had suffered enough in the aftermath of partition to keep a few generations dazed and directionless. As for the Locals (synonymous with Natives in British India) or pre-42, if you like, they are still suffering from the colonial hangover. To them, questioning the actions of masters: political or bureaucratic, is an unpardonable sin. The only way they can getsomething done individually or collectively is by currying favour with the people in power. This attitude only caused them the precious lives of scores of educated youth at the hands of the Japanese in false and fictitious spy cases. They have so far paid the most for any and every developmental plan be it amenities at Port Blair town, cinema hall, insurance, petrol bunk, bank, park, Ramakrishna Mission, the Mandals, the Sanghas, Parishds or the Associations, everything stands on the land of this community acquired without an iota of compensation whether in cash or in kind. The airport was extended over the bodies of their dead ancestors.

The print media was in its infancy and like at present, it was under the influence of one or the other political ideology. Reporting was sketchy and centred round corruption in 'low places'vested interests and petty matters of sectarian interests. One had to go to the media to report something rather than the other way round. In such a scenario, it was futile to expect that such a massive rape of environment and ecology would merit any space.

In spite of that 'The Light of Andamans' had carried a series of reports during 1978-79. Unfortunately, for lack of resources Mr. Paras Ram, Editor-Publisher of the weekly, could not preserve all the copies. In one of its issues of 07 August, 1978, a graphic detail of one Humayun Khan is reported as to how he used to collect Rs 300/= per head and a monthly subscription of Rs 30-40/= per month till the land was cleared and handed over to the 'applicants'. He was arrested and convicted a number of times but he kept himself busy with the activities. Apparently, the law under the Indian Forests Act is not stringent enough to deter the offenders. The Andaman Administration had deputed a police team to check the veracity of the reports. As per available information the administration found the reports to be true. But what actions, if any, were take in the matter is not known.

In all probability the politicians might have intervened, as is the practice and the entire episode might have been consigned to the dust bin. Encroachment on forest land was never the case of SANE. It was the good fortune of the encroachers that the Hon'ble Supreme Court stumbled upon it. What a windfall? One hectare of land, house site, cash compensation, free forest produce, free hostel facilities for wards, stipend of Rs 400/= per month for students, an assured job for every family. All in return for destroying the precious forest wealth, causing irreparable damage to environment and breaking several other laws of the land! In any other country all of them would have been put behind the bars for 20 years minimum lock, stock and barrel. But our benevolent Member of Parliament had the cheek to put these demands in the Islands Development Authority meeting held on 18 January, 2003 in Port Blair. The demands were not approved immediately. But knowing our political system, it will be acceded to one by one at the Home Ministry level itself to avoid any violent reaction.

The Islands Development Authority has virtually become Islands Destruction Authority by opening the floodgates of encroachment in 1982 and entertaining the demands of Bishnu Pada Roy, MP in favour of the encroachers and hearing him for four-and-a-half hours. Apart from two Members of Parliament from Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Lakshadeep, it has no public representation. The body is crammed with officials and ministers. It is a known fact that in our democratic system, once elected, the person does not represent the people any more. He represents the party to which he belongs and carries out the hopes, aspirations and agenda of that party rather than the people.

Be it Bush, Blair, Bhakta or Bishnu, they might represent the electorate in narrow political terms but they are never alive to the sentiments and sensibilities of simple, law-abiding, peace-loving and God-fearing common PEOPLE. Whether it is polluting the atmosphere with thousands of tons of missiles, conventional bombs and depleted uranium warheads thereby saturating the lungs, of the very people you claim to protect, with poison: or aid and abet in the destruction of hundreds of hectare of virgin forests and deny those poisoned lungs a whiff of fresh air - in both cases you are inflicting a very heavy blow to the future of humanity.

This world belongs to our descendants and us individually and collectively. It is our duty to protect it.

The options are:

Jesus Christ's	the Cross
Moses'	the Scepter
Mohammed's	the Sword

The choice is - yours!

Sardar Nehchal Singh Chawla

Son of the late Hira Singh, a convict who was executed by the Japanese at Humphreygunj, Sardar Nehchal Singh was a self-made man. He was endowed with all the qualities of a kingmaker. Bold, forthright, quick and sharp and a master strategist, he could find a way out of any tight spot.

He had the longest tenure as President of Andaman and Nicobar Territorial Congress Committee. K.R. Ganesh fought his two successful elections in 1967 and 1971 under his presidency. He also proved to be the nemesis of Ganesh when he propped up Manoranjan Bhakta, a totally unknown quantity against Ganesh in 1977 and got Bhakta elected. It was a fight between David and Goliath where the proverbial David won again.

Till his presidency he had kept a tight leash on the party workers as well as the Member of Parliament. That is what irked both Ganesh and Bhakta the most.

In the eighties he was eased out of presidency and appointed Councellor (Revenue) under the Pradesh Parishd. He proved his mettle there too. But, after that it was a journey downhill all the way for him, till his end. He was a very frustrated and dejected person at the end of his life. The degeneration of political process that he had so assiduously built up pained him the most.

He was leagues ahead his contemporaries in politics of all hue and colours.

Honest, straight forward, a strict taskmaster and#8211; he was well and truly the Kamraj of Andaman and Nicobar Congress.

K.R. Ganesh

Arguably the brightest stars of the pre-42 community, K.R.Ganesh was, though reluctant to joins congress party initially, he did some pioneering job in the trade union front in the Islands particularly among forest workers who were spread far and wide in the whole of Andaman Islands at the time. Reaching forest comps in those days was a Herculean task as those camps used to be miles inside deep and dense forests with just a foot track full of mosquitoes, leaches and snakes. "Ganesh Babu" to his friends and admirers, he was highly intelligent, focused and determined in his pursuits.

He was the first elected Member of Parliament from Andaman and Nicobar Islands,who became a Deputy Minister in the Ministry of Finance and then Minister of State for Finance (Revenue and Expenditure). His campaign against smugglers in 1975-76 made him a household name. His rising popularity among the masses and antagonism of Haji Mastan and Co put him in the path of oblivion via Ministry of petroleum and Chemicals.

After the withdrawal of emergency he failed to play his cards well. He lost the 1977 election to Bhakta and also lost the will to fight and bounce back. He has severed all the relations with the Islands, which put him at the zenith, and settled down in Delhi.

Pre-42

The Andaman Nicobar Islands first appeared on the radar screen of civilization in 1858 when the first batch of " mutineers" descended on the Islands with some other convicts sentenced to life imprisonment or deportation to Kalapani. Thereafter batches of convicts and mutineers, freedom fighters and revolutionaries kept poring in.

The convicts were used as a labour force for all the clearing and construction work for the establishment of the penal colony and for development of the islands into a society/place worth living whereas the political prisoners suffered all the hardships within the confines of the jails at Minnie Bay, Viper, Haddo and finally the cellular jail. They were not used for developmental work. By 1938 all the political prisoners were either set free or sent back or shifted to mainland jails. Only the convicts were left behind either in prison or in villages under penal settlement.

Many of these convicts had tried to go back to their families on the mainland but were not accepted. They came back and married convict women and settled down like others who had never tried to go back.

A new society of convicts and their descendents took birth.

The second Great War cast its shadow on these Islands also.

The British Administration realized in 1942 that it could no longer hold the fort in these Islands and defend it against persistent Japanese air raids. The ships of Royal Navy were summoned and all the residents of the Islands were given the option of leaving the Islands for the mainland. All those who had some or the other shelter on the mainland took advantage of the opportunity and boarded the ships.

The only people who had just looked on the ships sliding past the moorings were the convicts and their descendents who had nowhere to go.

They had been locked out of the Indian mainstream.

They suffered extreme hardships, pain agony, brutalities deprivation and death at the hands of the Japanese. This small family of convicts and their descendents are identified as Early Settlers and their descendents or Pre-42 Settlers.

The British Administration, after re-occupation and at later the Government of Independent India had extended some benefits in higher education, jobs etc at the early stages. But now these are either being withdrawn or diluted on one ground or the other.

Neil Island

Neil Island, an Island in the Ritchie's Archipelago in the Andaman Islands lies 36 Kms away from Port Blair (110 48'N 93003'E). The Island was uninhabited and covered with virgin forest till 1964. The Ministry of Rehabilitation, Govt., of India, selected this island as one of the sites for 'colonisation'.

Accordingly, 95 families of displaced persons from East Pakistan ( now Bangladesh) were brought and settled in Neil Island. Each family was given 10 acres of land for agriculture and horticulture. Milk cattle were also distributed.

The virgin land yielded bumper crops initially and abundance of fodder ensured good production of milk. Since both milk products and vegetables grown in Neil Island found a ready market at Port Blair, the settlers became prosperous.

Soon, the settlers decided to take it easy by hiring help to do the hard work on the field. The hired help worked for a season or two and then decided to become an independent farmer by himself by encroaching into the nearby forestland. The vicious circle started.

More farmers meant more cattle. More and more trees were being cut for firewood. Increasing numbers of cattle devoured the greens all around. By 1978, the entire peripheral forest was gone and erosion had cleaned most of the topsoil.

The only natural lake had dried up. In summer the temperature short up so high that the people were obliged to remain indoors, working in the mornings and evenings. The wells dried up causing serious scarcity of water. The situation was so grave that the Administration was forced to relocate some cattle in Little Andaman. Agriculture became heavily dependent on chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

In the year 1990 the Rotary Club of Port Blair (RCPB) decided to adopt Neil Island as a community development project. There were four founder members of SANE in the Rotary Club. The Club had the support of the hon'ble Lt. Governor that was a great help. RCPB constructed many sanitary latrines, established a Children's Park, arranged immunization of all the children with the help of the Directorate of Health Services and organized a massive tree-planting programme with the help of the Forest and the Agriculture Departments. In fact, on most holidays 10 to 15 Rotarians with their families used to visit Neil Island with a boatload of planting materials, spending the day there. The Directorate of Agriculture and the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) deserve the credit of keeping the green spirit alive that resulted in transforming the Island from a dust bowl to Neem Island. This project was instrumental in securing The Rotary District Governor's Environmental Award for that year. The Rotray Newsletters "Islander" of the time acknowledged the support of INTACH, SANE, CARI, School of Biological Sciences, Madurai Kamraj University, and Dr. Susan M. Wells of IUCN. The blue-green algae introduced at the time " to at least partially replace chemical fertilizers" did very well and is very visible today. More than 4000 tress planted them got established, thanks to the efforts of the Islanders, particularly, the youth who formed a Rotary Volunteer corps. In the Island. Neil is indeed a success story of people-NGO-Academic-Government collaboration for eco-restoration.

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