Raising voice against muting past: C.K. Janu’s Mother Forest

Raising voice against muting past:  C.K. Janu’s Mother Forest

T.A. Bharakkathu Nisha,

Guest lecturer in English,

Sethupathy Govt. Arts College,

Ramnad.

                        Human rights in the Indian context have deep historical foundations. Throughout Indian History, people always gave importance to group life and group awareness, each person had concern for another man’s freedom. The reference in Vedas and Upanishads about Vasudaiva kudumbam ( the entire world is family) reveals this fact.

                        Human rights are the birth rights of every human beings  and they form an integral part of the socio- cultural fabric community all over the world. However they are vulnerable to abuse and violation.  Human rights are cultural concepts that are slowly evolving in response to social change or  contestation (Nair Ravi, 2006).

                        Violation of human rights creates many economic and emotional problems. It affects the nature and welfare of human beings, and creates many disorders. It is possible to imagine the life changes of tribal communities improving through the implementation of practical measures along with considering the rights accorded. However, silence on rights will always carry with it danger of a return to paternalism and treatment of an identifiable group of people as "problem" worthy of charity, not a group of human beings to whom society has responsibilities and duties.The Tribal communities sovereignity is at stake by the intervention of non-tribes in their area.                                                 

                        Taking into consideration these factors,the relevance of tribal life writings gain more significance in dissolving the borders and empowering the Dalits Tribes in India to enjoy the fundamental rights in their democratic country without any discrimination.It is through literature, not simply literacy, that they learn to understand and empathise...through literature, they can find their place in the world, feel them belong to and discover their sense of responsibility.

                        Many modern novels and pictures possess great power to open up new worlds and inspire a capacity for empathy. It helps people to their own problems in perspective. These are all values that lie at the heart of human rights and they can find them in the novels such as Arun Joshi’s The Strange Case of Billy Biswas, Manohar Malgonkar’s The Princes, Kamala Markandaya’s The Coffer Dams, Gita Mehta’s A River Sutra, C.K. Janu’s  Mother forest and so on. This will hope fully contribute to a better understanding of the changing tribal identity and tribal rights over the years and underscore the insights of sociologists by showing a complementary fictional view.

                        The duty of the writer is to hold a mission to the society and by lending voice to the voiceless. C.K. Janu emerges as a fighter of tribal rights. Mother Forest, the autobiography of C.K.Janu, critically questions the place of Tribals in the Independant India. She belongs to Adiya tribe, Mother Forest is about the history of  adivasies and their futile struggle for survival for years and their attempts to get their land back. She shares reminiscences about her childhood, how it is deeply associated with nature, forest and soil, land then how to interference and transactions of the civilized society have changed everything, and how the zamindari system makes the real owners of land and mere dependents, what is the political parties in their life, why they are attracted towards it and the ways through which the  party operates and marginalized them within.

           

Tribals and Dalits have traditionally been neglected to the extreme margins of society. The ancient hegemony of caste and gender survives through the institution of Hindu colonialism and it enforces cultural subordination and internal imperialism in the villages of Independance India.The most exploited section among the marginalised communities in India is the Tribals or Adivasies. They are cut off from the mainstream of power and privilege. Where as the discrimination towards tribal is based on their ethnicity. Janu has pointed out how the encroachment from a society that called itself progressive paved the way for the suppression and exploitation of the tribal society  that was perceived as "primitive".

                        Mother Forest constantly reminds us of the position of the tribals. It is a work written in the context of Muthanga Agitation and it deals with the issue of how the tribals become landless and homeless. The marginalised represented in Mother Forest is the Adiyar community of Wayanad district in Kerala. Most of the people have  the opinion that as a state Kerala is highly progressive and prosperous. But C.K.Janu  pinpointed that progress and civilization have evaded marginal tribal communities.

                        The present paper attempt that the rights for landless tribals right the truth is that tribal communities have lagged behind the other backward classes of India. Mother Forest has no plot in the normal sense. The major thrust of the book is about the sufferings of a tribal community and it is an enquiry about how ever Mother Forest has became an alien to them .In the text Janu says:

       " No one know the forest like we do, the forest is the mother to us , more than the mother because she never abandon us" (MF:05).    

            The exploitation suffered by Tribals in the Independent India can be compared with the older form of European colonization.In the post Independance periods Tribals are victims of other dominating classes who forced them to evacuate from their own Mother Forest succintly describes the Jenmi-kudiyan system,a perverted from a former master-slave relationship. In the earlier period Jenmi or landlord acted the role of the exploiter.

 "In these days for people the only thing that mattered was the Jenmi,Our Adiyar community used to work for a warrier, Krishnakutty warrier or Govinda warrier...they never came to the fields were we worked. Only their men did only after sowing, germinating, tilling, transplanting, trilling, weeding, watering,standing, guard reaping, carrying of grain would the Jenmi make his appearance..the hill sites of mountains, plantations, the fields and what not in that are belonged to them, after our fore-fathers had toiled much to dear the woods and burned the undergrowth and  convert the hill sites into fields they had taken them over as their own, that is how all our lands becomes theirs, after the haves we used to get grain as wages for a small sum of money we could also give the paddy back to them. (MF:15)

                        This paper attempts that and creates awareness about the tribal rights among the tribals, how they rapidly lose their lands. The displacement of tribals from their lands led to further deterioration in their living conditions, most of them were accomodated in the lowest rung of the agriculture hierarchies as landless labourers.

                        "The Migrants from the south were unlike our landlords. They used to work the lands they would eat chakka and kappa like us. They were closer to our men. They would give them toddy and arrack.The Jenmi only took our lands,but the migrants took over our men too and made them toil.They would acquire all the good land on the flimsy grounds, the most of our people had given away lands for a bottle of arrack or some good tobacco or a sari..(MF:28)

                        Tribals are not deemed to belong to the imagined community of the national people due to their perceived primitiveness Like Dalits they are also subjected to internal colonialism.C.K.Janu argues that All our struggles to establish the ownership rights of the real owners of this land for the right to live on it"(MF:55)

                        The discussion of the above text establishes that the double labyrinth of caste and gender in India is deeply rooted in the very consciousness of the society, the text that Janu used for the discussion represent the  miseries and traumas  of the  marginals and their rights to fight. She addressed the question of inequality, exclusion and exploitation of the subalterness and tribals in India.

                        Tribal community in India has been most vulnerable community in the equal domination and exploitation ridden society. They are on the broad line of their socio-economics and political rights, after centuries, the unchanged condition of tribal communities is leading in India.The violation of fundamental human rights and the state brutality has been perpetrated on them, particularly on tribals and their women. Tribals rights communities have faced isolation and social discrimination like that of Dalits from the mainstream society. Understanding of current Tribal societies need a basic respect to the historical process, which have determined the cause of consecutive changes in ideological, political, economic and socio- cultural life of the Tribal communities.

                        The Indian democratic state accords several status in the constitution where the rights of Tribal communities are protected and social justice is determined for. However ,the democratic experience has not been successful in this respect, therefore, there is a surge of tribal movements in the country for their rights. All Tribal people of India have a thing in common. They all share a history of injustice.

                        Therefore, Janu created many strong tribals who have courage to break the shackles of authority. It explores  the lives of tribes who dared to raise voice against and they found courage to revolt. Janu deals with the issues of marginalisation of tribal dalits, their lack of agency and they conflicts in day to day life

Work Cited:

Primary sources

Bhaskaran and C.K.Janu. MotherForest.  Trans N.Ravishankar.New Delhi: Kali  for  women . 2004   print

Secondary sources

Nair,R(2006) Human Rights in India:  Historical, Social, Political perspective. NewDelhi:

            Oxford University press.

Kumar, Raj. Dalit personal narratives: Reading, Caste, Nation and Identity. Hyderabad: Orient    Black Swan, 2010. Print.

Guha, Ramachandra.”continuing tragedy of adivasies”.The Hindu.28 May 2013.

Thipper, B (2014,Feb 17). Right over forest land for tribals in the offing, The Indian Express.p6.

LongKumar,Jungmayangla.Change and continuity in the tribal villages. A sociological study.       New Delhi: Akansha,2009. Print.