Telangana Adivasis use weddings to promote self-rule

ADILABAD: Adivasis are using the occasion of marriages in their communities to campaign for self-rule in their villages. 

They believe that self-rule is their right under the Fifth Schedule of Indian Constitution. The Adivasis are likely to use the Panchayat Raj Extension to Scheduled Areas Act to achieve their demand.     

One of their foremost demands is that state and central governments remove the Lambadas from the Scheduled Tribes list. 

In what they say is the second phase of their agitation — the first phase being characterised by police suppression- marriage parties have been enlisted to campaign which are out of the purview of the police and intelligence agencies. Summer is the marriage season and Thudumdebba leaders are campaigning through this means instead of holding meetings openly.  

They are attending marriages in the Adivasi gudems and speaking with their community people and youth about their agitation. 

Pamphlets of the Adivasi Porugarjana Sabha to be held in Warangal on May 29 are being released at weddings.   

Pursuing another track, the Adivasi Udyogula Sankshema Sanskruthika Sangam has filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the recognition of Lambadas as a Scheduled Tribe, stating that Lambadas have been included illegally and without following the due constitutional procedure.  

Top leaders of the Adivasi Hakkula Porata Samiti (Thudumdebba) and former MLAs Soyam Bapurao and Atram Sakku have attended at least eight marriages a day and discussed the agitation programme in the old Adilabad district.

Their popular slogan is Mava Nate Mava Raj Mava Nate Mava Sarkar (our rule in our village and our government in our village).

Former chairman of the Aboriginal Tribal Welfare Advisory Committee, Sidam Bheem Rao, 75, told this newspaper that he had made it clear to Adilabad collector Divya Devarajan, that the second phase of the Adivasi agitation which is likely to start from June 2 will not be like the Indravelli massacre (police firing that took place in 1981) and this time the Adivasis will not die alone.

Sidam Bheem Rao had held talks with the chief secretary of the state and the DGP at Utnoor on December 23, 2017 and with Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao in Adilabad on February 27 this year.   

“The state government has failed to resolve many problems, including land related problems, cancellation of fake agency certificates, protection of our ancient temples from encroachment in the last four months apart from removal of Lambadas from the ST list,” he said.