EARLIER this month, more than a dozen tribal families living in the Meduvai village in Andhra Pradesh’s Bhadrachalam district, had a rude awakening in the dead of night. Andhra Police (AP) and state administrative officials pulled tribal women like Lakshmi, who was in her late 40s, by their hair from their homes and warned them to leave their ancestral lands before sunrise. The government machinery alleged that the tribals were occupying the territory ‘illegally’.
“What was our crime? Sleeping peacefully at home?” asks Lakshmi, who hails from the Konda Reddi tribes, which have generational ties to Meduvai village and nearby areas. Her eyes are red from anger and fatigue. “I looked straight into the eyes of the officials wielding guns and said I will not leave my land,” she says. Despite her courage in the face of adversity, Lakshmi, along with 15 families from the same tribe, were vacated from their ancestral lands on that February night. “You belong in the jungles. You should go back there,” they were told by the officials who orchestrated the government’s drive to vacate tribals living in the area.
Lakshmi now works as a maid in an upper middle-class household in Bhadrachalam. The tall building she works in now, looms over her new home—a thatched hut—which she moved into after being displaced by a multi-crore irrigation project. Lakshmi had shut her eyes for what seemed like a minute, while her home was razed by officials right in front of her. She did not see the walls crumbling, but the sounds of demolition continue to echo in her ears.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة March 01, 2024 من Outlook.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك ? تسجيل الدخول
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة March 01, 2024 من Outlook.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 8500 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
My Secular Mentor
A rare psychologist of Indian culture, Sudhir Kakar leaves behind seminal works that will have relevance for many generations
Battle of the Bahubalis
Gangsters in Bihar no longer enjoy the kind of dominance that they did in the 90s, but that has not kept them away from politics
Memories of Riots
Have frequent communal tensions changed the social fabric of Bihar?
Didi's Achilles Heel
Mamata Banerjee stays the course but her party, plagued by corruption charges, spins out of control
Memory Metamorphosis
What happened on March 14, 2007 in Nandigram? People still ask this question as they take part in the dance of democracy
Minority Report
He has not lost the Dhubri seat in Assam since 2009. Now he is fighting for political survival as Bengali Muslims look to favour the Congress
THE POWER OF PURPOSE
Doing good is good business as it transcends bottom lines and impacts lives positively, yielding profits that go beyond numbers.
CURRENT FARMING METHODS ARE EXACERBATING CLIMATE CHANGE
Andhra Pradesh Community Managed Natural Farming (APCNF) project is supporting transition of 850,000 farmers covering 377,801 hectares of land and operating in 3730 villages. \"Natural farming is in harmony with nature. It is a holistic land management practice that leverages the power of photosynthesis in plants\", says Mr. T Vijay Kumar, a retired IAS officer, who is the Executive Vice Chairman of Rythu Sadhikara Samstha, a non-profit organization set up by the Andhra Pradesh government in 2014. Since 2016, this platform has been utilized to integrate and promote APCNF activities, aimed at fostering the overall development and empowerment of farmers. Excerpts from an interview with Mr T Vijay Kumar:
IN PURSUIT OF SUSTAINABILITY
Harshavardhana Gourineni, Executive Director, Amara Raja Energy & Mobility Ltd, in an interview shares how through its products and operations the company is helping reduce carbon footprints and meet SDGs. Excerpts:
COOLING NO MORE A LUXURY, BUT A NECESSITY
With the rise in demand of air conditioners due to heat stress, sustainable air conditioning is the way forward to bring relief to people as well as manage emissions