Infochange India

The Bee, the Bear and the Kuruba

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A document of the displacement of indigenous lives, not by ‘development’ but by ‘eco’-development

The film opens with a song and a story about the Kurubas’ intimate connection with honey and the bear. The bear and the ancestors of the tribe had always shared the honey and lived in the forest together. The forest is the place of the ancestors and the gods, a home that nourishes and provides and sustains, but more than that, it is also the locus of identity for the Kuruba. Take them away from their forest and they are in a state of profound existential exile: there is nothing left – rituals, community, tradition, songs and stories, all die with dislocation. Or, as the developers prefer to call it, 'relocation'.

Raja’s initial impetus for making the film was the Kuruba protest against the proposed Taj Hotels resort in the forest. That would appear to be a relatively simple and 'common' event – the colonisation of land from marginalised peoples to feed the urbandwellers’ insatiable appetite for novelty and adventure. However, the film unearths a far more macabre aspect:: how are we so willing to sacrifice humans – their livelihood, their community, their sense of self and identity – at the altar of self-righteous 'eco'-development? Especially when we know that our sense of the 'eco'-universe is learned, while that of the indigenous peoples’ is lived.

In fact, the Kuruba have their own solution for how to deal with a habitat that is rightfully theirs, one that they shared with animals for generations and centuries. The problem that 'eco-developers' have with the Kuruba is that they occupy a zone that has been designated for the protection of elephants, deer, bison and the like. In the artificially created wildlife preserve, there are simply too many humans. Government policy is to keep the animals and move the humans out.

The Kuruba suggest that they inhabit the outer perimeter of the forest (the 'inhabited forest'). This surrounds the 'protected forest' that they can use as their traditional source of livelihood and finally, there is the innermost forest which is designated the 'sacred forest', where they will go only once a year to worship their ancestors and the trees.

The relocated Kurubas have been given houses and lands to cultivate. But there is no water and there are no pumps. Besides that, cultivation is not their natural occupation. What the relocation has done here, as elsewhere, is demand that a people remake themselves in order to 'fit' new social and economic paradigms and a new world order. It has placed them in a money economy without the means to participate in it fully.

Raja’s film makes the viewer realise how utterly endemic the exploitation of tribal peoples is. One of the Kuruba says in the film, “we have never lived at the cost of anyone else.” What hits home is that we have and that we continue to do so. When the already marginalised Kuruba provide their solution to the problem, who is listening? And if anyone is, do they have the power to overturn the system that sets these oppressions in place, a system that we all participate in, one that has become “naturalised” over the centuries, at enormous human cost.

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Filmmaker Vinod Raja provides the background and update on the adivasi struggle documented in his film

What is the state of the protest now and has anything been achieved? Was the Taj resort ever built?

To answer this question, let me give you some background on the protests…

In the middle- and late-1980s, when the Rajiv Gandhi National Park was announced and the World Bank's eco-development project was looming over the horizon, the campaign to force forest dwellers out of their habitats was stepped up. To resist this, people living in the forests of Nagarahole and Kakanakote formed the Indigenous Peasants’ Organisation or Budakattu Krishigara Sangha. Their organised resistance deterred the eviction.

In the ’90s, the Government of Karnataka leased out a core area of the forest to the Taj Group of Hotels. The Taj was trying to sell the idea of eco-tourism by setting up a resort in that prime area. The forest dwellers were not convinced of Taj’s eco-friendly claims. They protested, their contention being that while they were being driven out of the forest, how could the government allow Taj and the tourists in?

The construction continued and the protests intensified. Forest dwellers staged dharnas and blocked the construction. Police and security guards were brought in to guard the construction, which progressed quickly. The Taj spent nearly Rs 3 crore on the project and built several structures, including two generators for central air-conditioning!

The forest dwellers filed a petition in the High Court and won the case, but the Taj and the government appealed to the Supreme Court. There again, the verdict was in favour of the forest dwellers. The buildings remain abandoned in the forest. This remains one of the most significant victories for Adivasi struggles in recent times.

At the moment there are no active, overt protests, but the struggle continues. Some families have left their settlements or Haadis and accepted rehabilitation packages in Nagapura (Betta Hossahalli), while many others continue to live inside the forest, constantly harassed by the forest department.

In the first week of July 2003, three Adivasi youths who had no work and whose families were starving, went to the Kallahala forest range to collect honey. When they were returning home, forest guards fired on them, killing one person on the spot. The other two escaped with injuries. The body of the slain youth was reportedly disposed of by the forest guards, who reported the incident as the shooting of an unidentified poacher. The person killed was Ravi, a Jenu Kuruba living close to the Kallahala forest.

We have to contest the conservation policies of the State. The Indian Wildlife Act has been used as a weapon to suppress the basic rights of the forest dwellers. The recent incidents in Muthanga, when Adivasis or forest dwellers who were legitimately demanding ‘ownership’ of land, were fired upon, and the Kashipur shooting of forest dwellers protesting against bauxite mining are but a few examples. Confrontation with the forest department is an everyday reality for forest dwellers anywhere in the country.

Forest dwellers in Nagarahole now demand their basic right to collect minor forest produce, and the declaration of their homelands as scheduled areas. This will enable a local elected body for their people, with greater powers of self-governance. Under pressure, the government has agreed and the process is under way — the population of forest dwellers in the area is being studied, and if they find a majority, the area may be declared scheduled.

It would appear from the film that the Kuruba protest has support and perhaps even impetus from the outside. Who are these supporters and what is their agenda?

Yes, the protests against the Taj have found support, particularly from the local people and the people in Coorg. Some local NGOs working in the area and solidarity groups in Bangalore also are giving a lot of outside support. Unfortunately, this support has not been enough for the forest dwellers to get the area declared as scheduled.

Most people in Coorg perceive a private commercial enterprise inside the forest as a common threat. But the proposal to give more powers to the forest dwellers for local governance may not find popular support among the local non-tribals.

Policymakers in India see indigenous communities as a threat to the State's conservation efforts. Urban perception and the popular media also focus only on the wildlife under threat. Indigenous communities are no longer seen as part of the forest. That this is a fallacy can be seen in the State’s poor record in preventing poaching and large-scale plantation encroachment into forest areas.

Ironically, for any intervention in the forest, the authorities seek the help of the indigenous people and their knowledge base. However, this help is not recognised and no returns are paid to the community.

Policymakers, conservationists and the public must realise that indigenous communities nurture forests. Conservation cannot be at the cost of these communities.

Does this movement have links with other displaced peoples? Should it have these links, or is every situation unique?

The movement certainly has some links with other movements in Karnataka — like Kudremukh where mining and the declaration of a national park has displaced indigenous peasants, and also with the movement against bauxite mining in Kashipur (Orissa).

The common issue for all these movements should be ‘identity’ and not ‘displacement’. The State chooses to see the problem as ‘displacement’ or ‘ownership of land’, because then the problem can be sorted out through land compensation.

The question that the forest dwellers raise is identity — it's the forest and their way of life that gives them their identity. In the case of Baiga, it’s Bewar; for Jenu Kurubas it’s honey; for Aagarias it's the indigenous way of smelting iron. The State refuses to recognise this.

Land cannot compensate for a way of living. For example, the Matiari dam built across the river of the same name has forced hundreds of fisherfolk to become farmers! Many have still not received land compensation. This theme will find a common chord across the country in all tribal struggles.

Recently, four Adivasi groups involved in movements across the country met here in Bangalore to share their experiences, and to form a forest dwellers or Adivasi solidarity group. They sought to discuss their immediate predicament and issues, and to share these with the city dwellers. Representatives from each group put forth their views and addressed the gathering. All the Adivasi leaders said they felt the need to form a joint front at the national level to fight oppression.

Is there any connection between the Kuruba tales of the bear and the more mainstream Karadi the Bear folk tales?

Interesting — there could be…

Karadi, Grizzly Bear, Polar Bear, the Great Bear, Teddy Bear … The bear seems to be a favourite character for myths, folktales and legends across cultures, continents and civilisations. It’s very popular with children. While I was working on this film, a friend sent me a copy of a similar legend of the Red Indian tribes, Mt Shasta: Grizzly Legend. The similarities between the two stories surprised me.