Ajmal Khan, TISS Mumbai. He was part of a fact finding commission that
enquired into the killings of migrant workers in Seshachalam, Andhra Pradesh on
7th April, 2015. The killings, claimed by the Special task Force to
have been in “self defense” created a nationwide controversy.
Tribal migrant wood cutters from Tamilnadu to Andhra Pradesh are again in
news after the killings of 20 laborers by Special Task Force which was set up
to curb the smuggling of red sanders. Tamilnadu was one of the states that used
to be a principal contributor of the migrants to the Indian cities during the
seventies. However, there has been huge decrease in the number of emigrants
from the state recently after the state government was able to provide better
welfare measures. However, migration of labour still continues from the state.
The migration of wood cutters from Tamilnadu still continues. Their issues come
out when some of them are arrested or are killed by the government forces. The
migrant workers who get killed are mainly from the Thiruvannamalai and
Dharmapuri districts adjacent to Andhra Padesh. Those who come to chop down the
red sanders wood are generally tribals and scheduled caste people from these
two districts. The situations of the hamlets from where the migrants are coming
are almost always ignored whenever there is a discussion on red sanders
cutting. They are categorized as “smugglers” which they are not . They remain
the laborers who happened to occupy the bottom most position in the big mafia
network that exports the valuable red sanders to the countries like Japan and
China. The economic conditions of the Hamlets of these two districts are extremely
poor that compels these men to go for such risky jobs. The livelihood options
that are available to them are mostly construction works in the nearest cities
which also involves migration. There are thousands of such wood cutters in different
jails of Andhra Pradesh who are arrested while they enter into the state.
Recently ten laborers are killed by the forces in the different fake encounters
and around 2500 are being imprisoned. The recent killings are evidently seen to
be the result of a fake encounter and
many questions have already been raised against the credibility of the
government version of the encounters story.
Seschachalam killing incident is not the first one
there are examples of fake encounters of Tamil laborers who come to cut the
wood. All the Ten men were below the age of 30 years, brutally killed after
grabbing them in different places. It indicates that, there has not been an
encounter anywhere as the police version of the story says. As the evidences
suggest, the workers might have been killed somewhere else and later on police
has placed the dead bodies in the fores. There is also a chance that they might
have been taken to the forest killed pointblank. After that they have placed the bodies and the
logs to cook up the story as it has been told.
The important question here is that, if these are all
fake encounters then what is the motive to kill these poor laborers? Since the
mafia that controls the red sanders smuggling is strong, the killing of
laborers are the manifestations of the relationship between government, ruling
and other political parties and the dynamics between these relations. The
motive behind the Seschachalam killing can be that the government of Andhra
Pradesh wants to give a message to the private and other smugglers who belongs
to the opposition parties. The message is loud and clear that, if anyone comes
to cut the woods, they will kill them. The Chandrababu Naidu government might
want to give a message to Reddies that, they are in power and they will not
allow the Reddies and their friends to smuggle now. Moreover it also projects
the fact that only they will control the red sanders wood business with a
monopoly. However, the people who are
the victims for this are the poor Adivasi and most backward caste laborers.
Poverty and hunger makes them migrant laborers. They take up these life
threatening jobs even without knowing the kind of illegal activity they are
taken up. If the government of Andhra Pradesh is genuinely committed to the
protection of red sanders tree, instead of killing and arresting the poor
migrant laborers they should have arrested the real smugglers and mafias who
are involved in the red sanders smuggling. None of the Governments so far been
able to do that, because, these smugglers form one of the most important
financial resource for the political parties who are closely associated to the government,
police, forest and other departments. As far as the socio-economic situations
in these two districts of Tamilnadu continues to be the same and there is no
government commitment for protection and initiation of a state owned trading of
the read sanders, the migration of these
laborers and using them for wood cutting will continue. These poor people will
continue to get arrested and killed for no reason.
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