Registered as a society in India in 1995, HELP’s partner organization, VICALP, is an Adivasi (SC/ST) people’s NGO that was founded and continues to be staffed entirely by Adivasis (ST/SC communities) who are from the villages engaged in this partnership. After over a decade of experience working for various people’s organizations and movements, local/Indian NGOs and international NGOs in the region, VICALP’s team of 15 SC/ST members came together to utilize this experience in the interest of Adivasi communities through a process of close cooperation and village-based collective action seeking to encourage the development of autonomous people’s movement organizations representing regional aspirations, while also working to secure Constitutional guarantees for SC/ST communities. In addition to working with HELP since its inception, and with the encouragement of HELP, VICALP has also worked in partnerships with the People’s Rural Education Movement (PREM) and other international NGOs, including Trocaire (Ireland), Oxfam (India) and the Centre for World Solidarity (CWS, Germany).
With the help of VICALP, HELP is in partnership with SC/ST communities currently located in 120 villages(represented by the people's organization or the ADEA) in 9 panchayats (local administrative unit) in South Orissa. Specifically, partner communities include Kondh (ST), Saora (ST) and Panos (SC) who are among Orissa’s 62 tribal (ST) and 93 Dalit (means “downtrodden”/SC) groups, that together constitute 40% of the state population. Partner villages are located in the valleys and remote hillsides of the Eastern Ghat tropical forest hill range in the Scheduled Areas (Constitutionally protected areas for these communities for purposes of amelioration).
Over the course of a decade, partner communities have identified some of the following concerns/issues and these continue to include: food sovereignty (control of over land/use, forests, water sources; small scale irrigation support in drought-prone areas); land and forest rights; access to state services (e.g. public health centers and support for indigenous/local agricultural production); ecological degradation/pressure created by industrialization (e.g.mining activities in Scheduled Areas) and commercial agriculture (e.g. agro-forestry plantations); cultural dislocation/penetration (e.g. culturally irrelevant/alien schooling interventions); state-Adivasi relations (e.g. exploitation of Adivasis by agents of the state); atrocities/human rights violations perpetrated against Dalit (SC) and Adivasi social groups (violations of the SC-ST Atrocities Act); and concerns pertaining to Adivasi society (e.g. unity of marginalized groups).
A leader of the Adivasi-Dalit Ekta Abhijan (SC-ST people’s organization) has this to say about the importance of our partnership and the formation of an active people’s organization:
This partnership has made many contributions but the development of Adivasi-Dalit Ekta Abhijan is the most important one. People have the need to be united (lokomano koro ekta karibaro avashak rohichi).We the people who are called the lowly, who do work and live in forested areas have been deprived of rights to resources and do not have political rights. The rulers are a handful but for ages they have been able to oppress us and make us feel lowly (neech). They have made us believe that we are born to be small and remain as slaves (thume choto hiba pai avum daso hiba pai janma haicho). And this handful of rulers control education, control politics and laws and have become the masters of the lives of the poor. We live in forest areas as Dalits and Adivasis and we have been facing torture and control in all aspects of our lives. If one analyses them it is always sorrowful. Specially, the way Adivasis and Dalits were treated and made use of for their selfish motives and for their own power is always a sad thing to think about. That is why when this partnership encouraged us to think, we wanted to think far/envision (doro darshan) and develop our own hopes (amo manonkoro asha gothon kolu). And this ray of hope has now become a flame (ehi asha ro aloko jolibako lagila) through the formation of the Adivasi-Dalit Ekta Abhijan. This organization is a force for the poor and the weak. It is like a spirit which has given life to the ruined, diseased and hopeless.
Given that this is the key area of concern identified by partner communities over the years, the partnership has been moving towards enhancing people’s control over food production and village well-being by supporting the following initiatives:
Hutment land: Despite generational settlement in certain areas of the ghats, most SC/ST villages do not have “legal title” (pattas) to their hutment area land. They are subsequently open to summary eviction as “encroachers/illegal settlers”. The partnership has actively campaigned for and has gradually worked towards securing “pattas” for hutment area land for all families in partner communities.
Vegetable Gardens: The partner villages have been developing community (especially for ragi/second growing season plots) and family backyard vegetable plots where a variety of vegetables are grown for local consumption, including tomatoes, cucumbers, gourd, brinjal, beans, peas etc. Land on which these vegetables are being grown is also being converted to community/family control through reclassification or securing pattas for same. Seeds are being collected/stored as part of community seed banks to promote long-term sustainability of this initiative.
Fruit Orchards: Community fruit orchards have been developed on hilly land (unused land) and in the villages in certain zones and is part of an active campaign to reclassify land to enhance community control/access to land/forest areas. Fruit varieties include guava, pineapple, papaya, banana, jackfruit, mango, cashew etc. Fruit tree saplings are being planted in nurseries to enhance community control and long-term viability of this initiative.
Cultivation: Ragi (millet), paddy/rice, maize and lentils are being cultivated on community, individual/family plots and on unused land which is in the process of being reclassified (through organized action) to ensure community control/access to this land for subsistence. The increasing penetration of modern agriculture (fertilizers, pesticides, genetically modified seeds etc.) has encouraged the need to enhance local knowledge/agricultural ways that are ecologically sound and within the financial means of impoverished communities that often end up in the debt cycle when such market oriented, externally controlled modern interventions are introduced.
Grain Banks: Located in the Drought Prone Area and completely reliant on rain-fed agriculture, SC/ST communities are often in a position where they are compelled to go in to debt (to a usurious money-lending system) in times of hunger and famine. The community practice of maintaining grain banks (emergency supplies) is vital for addressing such times and for freeing people from debt-bondage associated with such emergency-borrowing. The partnership has ensured the continued availability of a “minimum supply” of grain for each community to mitigate the impacts of a bad season/drought. Communities with more successful grain banks are sharing grain with neighbors in an effort to support the same process in adjoining communities and to build a sense of solidarity. This system has also dealt a severe blow to usurious money-lenders in the area.
Public Distribution System (PDS): The partnership encourages “village/community-controlled” PDS outlets owned and operated by regional/village-based women’s organizations. PDS outlets provide basic necessities at rates subsidized by the state (e.g. rice, kerosene oil, sugar, lentils). Traditionally, these outlets have been controlled by outside interests (often other caste groups) who have the means to buy licenses and understand state/managerial requirements necessary for securing control of the PDS. When controlled by these “outsiders”, state-subsidized commodities were often being sold at or above market prices to impoverished SC/ST communities who can barely afford state-supported prices. It is not uncommon for villagers to have to walk miles and then be kept waiting for days before they were “permitted to” purchase adulterated/poor quality supplies at exploitative prices. Subsequently, community-controlled PDS outlets is one significant element of a broader initiative around food sovereignty.
Infrastructure Development: Paving roads, building small-scale irrigation facilities (e.g.check dams), digging wells/ponds, accessing state programs for infrastructure that often do not make it to communities (e.g. Indira Awas Yojna for tin-roofing of huts) etc. are partnership priorities. All partner villages, for example, now have access to clean drinking water (wells). Prior to partnership engagement, less than a third had such facilities.
Organized Activism: Infra-structure development and the concerns of marginalized groups (like SC/ST’s) can only be addressed through the development of persistent organized collective action, as people are compelled to re-invent the independence struggle each time they need to be heard (e.g. collective pressure to secure rural electrification, which often amounts to one light bulb in a village square). Similarly, food-land-forest-water issues require local/regionally-based organized action (with solidarity support from other similar organizations) as do concerns pertaining to the enforcement of the SC-ST Atrocities Act. Such action is indispensable for marginalized communities as the key to securing Constitutional guarantees and state plan allocations that otherwise remain on paper. The establishment of village, regional and federated organizational structures (the establishment of the 16000 members plus Adivasi-Dalit Ekta Abhijan), that draws primarily on Adivasi conceptions of organization, leadership, decision-making and activism, is a foundational aspect to all the above initiatives being undertaken towards attaining food sovereignty in South Orissa.
