Podcast - The Plight of Tribal Communities: Displacement in Andhra Pradesh
Discover the heartbreaking reality faced by tribal communities in Andhra Pradesh as they battle displacement from their ancestral lands. Despite government claims of development, tribal families like Lakshmi's are forcefully evicted, losing their homes and livelihoods. Join us as we explore the human cost of large-scale development projects. #TribalDisplacement
#AndhraPradesh #OutlookMagazine #DevelopmentVsRights #TribalRights
#AndhraPradesh #OutlookMagazine #DevelopmentVsRights #TribalRights
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Outlook brings to you excerpts from its latest issue titled 'Adivasi' or 'The Earliest Inhabitants'.
00:07 This issue of Outlook looks at the politics of appropriation and resistance in the wake of recent
00:13 developments in the states like Jharkhand and the Union Territory of Ladakh. With the general
00:19 elections due this year, it remains to be seen how the Adivasis, who form more than 8% of the total
00:27 population, participate and how the identity politics shape up in the future.
00:33 Tribal Turmoil by Anisha Reddy from Outlook. Despite government's renewed outreach,
00:40 tribals in the Andhra Telangana region continue to lose their homelands and their grip over their
00:45 rights. Earlier this month, more than a dozen tribal families living in the Meduvai village
00:51 in Andhra Pradesh's Bhadrachalam district had a rude awakening in the dead of night.
00:57 Andhra police and state administrative officials pulled tribal women like Lakshmi,
01:02 who were in her late 40s by their hair, from their homes and warned them to leave their
01:08 ancestral lands before sunrise. The government machinery alleged that the tribals were occupying
01:14 the territory illegally. "What was our crime, sleeping peacefully at home?" asks Lakshmi,
01:21 who hails from the Konda Reddy tribes, which have generational ties to Meduvai village
01:26 and nearby areas. Her eyes are red from anger and fatigue. "I looked straight into the eyes
01:32 of the officials wielding guns and said, 'I will not leave my land,'" she says. Despite her courage
01:39 in the face of adversity, Lakshmi, along with 15 families from the same tribe, were vacated from
01:45 their ancestral lands on that February night. "You belong in the jungles. You should go back there,"
01:51 they were told by the officials, who orchestrated the government's drive to vacate tribals living
01:57 in the area. Lakshmi now works as a maid in an upper-middle-class household in Bhadrachalam.
02:03 The tall building she works in now looms over her new home, a thatched hut, which she moved into
02:10 after being displaced by a multi-crore irrigation project. Lakshmi had shut her eyes for what
02:16 seemed like a minute, while her home was razed by officials right in front of her.
02:21 She did not see the walls crumbling, but the sounds of demolition continue to echo in her
02:27 ears. The Konda Reddys, or the Hill Reddys, completely unrelated to another dominant Hindu
02:33 caste, also known by the Reddy surname, are a primitive tribe of Andhra Pradesh. Throughout
02:39 their lives, they perform rituals associated with the Godavari River. But with the coming
02:45 of the Polavaram project, an under-construction multi-purpose irrigation facility on the Godavari
02:51 River in AP's Elluru and East Godavari districts, these tribes have been forced to shift away from
02:57 from the ground.