February
2007
A
tribute to M A Khan
Remembering a man
who committed his life for the tribal of Sonbhadra
By Vidya Bhushan
Rawat
He was a mobile
Information Centre of Sonbhadra district in eastern part of
Uttar-Pradesh, whose work during the past thirty years was utilized
by those who do not have time to visit the villages and follow up
the stories after they started. M.A.Khan was always cheerful related
to his work, his love for the Adivasis and his conviction against
the child labour, brought him close touch of the ground reality. His
only concern was that 'agencies outside Sonbhadra were using the
ignorance and poverty of the poor people for their own purposes and
not with an aim to lift the tribals and end poverty which they can
very much do. Once the project was over, these agencies left the
tribal for their own good.' For the past few years, Khan in his
every interaction with me displayed his disappointment of how the
international donor agencies find their people and agencies in these
regions but never found Khan and his Chaupal which had been fairly
active in the region.
In a two days human
rights consultation in Delhi, when I was informing a friend about
Khan and his impeccable credentials for fighting the rights of the
common man in Sonbhadra district, a shocking news was revealed by
another friend that M.A.Khan passed away, a day before, on 27th
of January 2007, in Varanasi. I was dumb and shocked to hear this.
Just a fortnight ago, I spoke to him on his mobile when he told me
that Doctors have found symptoms of cancer in him and that he wish
to be transferred to AIIMS in Delhi. That time, the first thought in
my mind was that this news would be wrong and hence I said ' Khan
Saheb, you will get well soon. AIIMS is not the same as it used to
be. If people like you are here who speak for the poor Dalits and
marginalized, I do not know whether the doctors who do politics and
not the treatment, would treat you well or not.'
M.A.Khan was
quintessentially a secular activist with strong left leaning. He was
not fit in the glamour world of NGOs where you are fixed in certain
style of format and report as per it. Though, his documentation of
events, custodial deaths, cases of torture of Adivasis and forest
dwellers in Sonbhadra would remain unparallel. At a time, when NGOs
masquerading to be human rights organization splash information with
the purpose of publicity and not to really help the poor, Khan was
refreshingly different with his people centric approach. He would
walk down the villages, record the narratives of the victims and
finally take them to the related authorities in the district and
even file petition in the court. In fact, he had formed a group of
lawyers in Sonbhadra who used to take such cases of illegal
detentions of the tribal in the name of naxalism.
Born in 1946 in a
Zamindar family of Robertsganj, Khan went to Deoband to earn a
degree in Fazil and then he completed his masters. He worked very
hard during the 1967 famine in the region. In 1968 he joined
Communist Party of India and started Pragatisheel Kisan Manch
(progressive farmer's forum). He continued to travel around the
villages and help the needy. In 1985 he founded Jan Sewa Kendra to
assist the poor of his region.
It was his concern
about the growing landless situation in Sonbhadra that he traveled
around 500 villages of his district to understand the condition and
found that tribal were living in utter misery. Their land being
occupied by others and that they did not have two-time meal to eat.
He felt that they lacked information regarding their rights. He
found that the ignorance of the people was the biggest obstacle in
their development and the officers were misusing it. In fact, one of
his candid remarks was that despite huge funds flowing to NGOs in
Sonbhadra and Varanasi, the condition of the poor and their rights
remain the same. He would laugh and say that the NGOs have not come
to remove the poverty of the people but their own poverty. 'Chaupal',
a village initiative to discuss and resolve their problem by the
villagers took shape during this period. He would form a team of 8
members in every village who would discuss their issues and carry
the information to the central office in Robertsganj. Chaupal worked
in 80 villages. Khan Saheb new it very well that it was difficult to
run an organization without resources. Often, the big fishes would
catch the members of Chaupal for their own purposes. He started
getting depressed because of the growing commercialization of the
civil society movement where the powerful elite had gathered all the
NGOs in the name of 'poor'. In the region of eastern Uttar-Pradesh
where dirty tricks among the NGOs are the best practices, where NGOs
are run by powerful connections and castes, Khan remain a grounded
man. Very much down trodden who with the help of a few committed
lawyers tried to do help the tribal.
Despite hailing from
a Zamaindar family, Khan did not have much land and property at the
end. He had a small typewriter where he would type reports of
malfunctioning of the government department. If a tribal girl or
woman would come to him, he would type their application and go
along with them to submit it to the relevant authorities. He would
nicely take a copy of the same in his file. And this was his regular
practice. The habit resulted in one of the best documentation, which
was hardly recognized and which remain thoroughly unpaid, that I had
ever seen. It was this information, which proved volatile for police
once upon a time and his office was burnt and valuable information
got lost. Nevertheless, after that, he started working from him home
and still had huge piles of files, meticulously maintained in his
drawer.
For me he was a
great source of information. He would send his well-written reports
on issues as important as custodial deaths, National Rural
Employment Guarantee programme, land and forest issues to be send to
national and international agencies for lobbying. He felt betrayed
that his work was not recognized by the international community
leave along the donor agencies who have their own criteria for
support.
Apart from sending
these reports, which Khan was really very committed, the thing,
which was very admirable about him, was his concern for the natural
resources of the people and how they lost it to big companies and
local feudal elements! His stories, many of which remain unpublished
would be treasure to learn how the state and its apparatus have
sucked the blood of tribal over the year. He had detailed
information about how forest department captured the land of the
tribal and how the NGOs from outside did not have enough information
about it and they flash information and leave the place making the
lives of the tribal more vulnerable to exploitation. I had promised
to him to get them published in future. In fact, I introduced him to
Hum Dalit, a monthly journal, which regularly published his well
thought out articles.
I still remember the
day when the villagers had come to protest in front of the district
collector and all of them showed the food product they had been
eating. The district Magistrate did not turn up but send his deputy
and several forest officials. Seeing the tribal displaying their
food produce the SDM became angry and said ' you sale our poverty
abroad. You have no business do that. Go back.' The forest
department officers were equally angry and blamed Khan that he was
responsible for misguiding them, a charge which Khan openly denied.
Khan stood by the people all the time.
Being a local
citizen of Sonbhadra, his house was always open for the tribal and
Dalits of the region. Women would come to his house, get their work
done and go back satisfying. In fact, for many of them, he was their
father, who had performed the 'kanyadaan' during the marriage.
Once, I asked him
why doesn't he work on the 'communal issues'. As usual he said ' I
always feel my heart with the Adivasis of Sonbhadra. I never feel
that I am different from them. They have been cheated by the
regularly. The government has done very little for them. If they
retaliate they are charged with being Naxalites and cases are filed
against them.' In fact one of the work that Khan did was to fight
for a young 12 years old boy who was charged under POTA. This is
tragic how police behave. Sonbhadra district is notorious for police
highhandedness since they are unable to take on the Naxal, they
exploit the helpless villagers.
It was therefore not
surprising that the man who was arrested many time as well as whose
office was burnt by the police in the name of alleged link with
naxalites, did not find any favor from the donor agencies in their
work for the region.
He would always say
that the village needs to connect with international community. The
idea of his Chaupal was to flood the authorities with complaints and
information about the villages and the people and their problems. He
would always ask me that internet and computers should linked to
village and they would empower the poor people and reduce their
dependency others to write letters for them as well as it will also
enable the international community to see things at their own rather
then being shown.
M A Khan remains
simple all through his life. He was an anguished man that he could
not communicate and write in English language and felt that it was
the reason why people like him remain outside the net of those who
matter. While, not many have had opportunity to hear him
internationally, for the thousands of tribal people, he was one of
their own, very own father figure, who went out of his way to help
them and gave them a sense of dignity and honour. Like a lone man
struggling in utterly difficult circumstances, he left a legacy of
his work but no second rank leadership since he himself remained
penniless till his end, struggling to get resources for his
medication. That is the biggest irony of those work in the
grassroots that they work for all and at the end they remain aloof
from the world. None care to listen their problems and perhaps very
few to bother that a committed man is no more. Since nobody care
to inquire about each other particularly those come from not
powerful families, there remain no news about them. It is tragic and
it should end. The best tribute to MA Khan would be to strengthen
the ideas that he gave and carry on his message of Chaupal so that
the rural poor is saved from the a contemptuous bureaucracy as well
as local middlemen who thrive on their ignorance.
--
Vidya Bhushan Rawat
