By Ajit Paul

Ranchi: The first national consultation of India’s tribal bishops ended at Ranchi with the setting up a think-tank team to address issues affecting the indigenous peoples of the country.

The February 23-24 meeting at Social Development Centre also prepared a memorandum to submit to the Governor of Jharkhand, where revision of two key laws that protected tribal lands has raised serious concerns.

All the bishops of the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand, including Cardinal Telesphore Toppo, attended the consultation.

Jesuit Father Stanislaus Tirkey, secretary of Tribal Office under the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), will head the seven-member think-tank team. Other members are former Indian Administrative Service officers Benjamin Lakra and Vinod Kispotta, Divine Word Fathers Nicholas Barla and Jesuit Father Satyaprakash Tigga and lay leaders Alexander Kerketta and Neelam Toppo.

The consultation decided to meet again on April 4 at Simdega, some 150 km southwest of Ranchi. Besides all bishops and the think-tank team, the organizers will invite one lay leader from each tribal-majority dioceses in the country. The meeting will evaluate progress of various actions planned. It will also consider drafting a memorandum addressed to the President of India expressing the tribal communities various concerns and anxieties.

The consultation has requested each diocese to appoint a priest to coordinate tribal matters along with the CBCI office.

The participants stressed the need to meet with laity in every diocese to educate them about changing laws and how they affect their lives. They also decided to prepare a write-up on the tribal issues in the diocese with statistics and relevant data.

They have felt the urgent need of all tribal bishops to meet the national level. The National Tribal Bishops Forum will meet at the CBCI Centre on May 8-9.

The meeting asked Father Tirkey to prepare a program to educate people on tribal affairs.

The consultation was held in the backdrop of the state government revising two key issues affecting tribal people in the state. Tribal observers warn the changed laws will seriously impact the functioning of the Church in the state.

Benjamin Lakra, former Accountant General of Jharkhand and West Bengal, told the consultation that the situation of tribals in India is not good. “It is Church’s responsibility to work for the betterment of the people and to bring awareness among them.” He also said it was wrong to view only industrialization as development.

The laws revised by Jharkhand Chief Minister Raghubar Das are the Chhota Nagpur Tenancy (CNT) Act and the Santhal Pargana Tenancy (SNT) Act-governing Adivasi land rights in Jharkhand.

According to a report in India Today, land is a touchy topic in Jharkhand where 26.3 percent of the population is tribal and over a third of the seats in the assembly are reserved for Scheduled Tribes.

Das and his Bharatiya Janata Party (Indian people’s party) knew that tinkering with the laws could potentially spark a raging row amid an Adivasi community already wary of the constant influx of outsiders, the report says.

The new provisions allow tribal owners to form business partnerships with government or private players for non-agricultural land use while keeping ownership of the holding inalienable.

The report says the amended provisions could significantly benefit impoverished tribal landowners if they are implemented with care and caution. Before this, without the financial wherewithal to plan ventures, tribal owners also found it impossible to procure credit from financial institutions which were chary about advancing loans against holdings that could not legally be mortgaged.

Though technical, the revisions now allowing partnership with government or private entrepreneurs have changed the rules of the game.

The report says Das expects the tribal population will support his move and asserts, “”No one will be able to touch the land of tribals as long as I am here, whether in power or out of power.”

Meanwhile Jharkhand’s tribal chiefs have come together to oppose the amended land laws, calling it a “BJP conspiracy to snatch tribal land.” Jharkand Mukti Morcha (JMM) boss Hemant Soren warns the move will let the government and “unscrupulous industrialists” take over tribal land.

He and Jharkhand Vikas Morcha chief Babulal Marandi-both former chief ministers have set aside their political differences to take on Das.