The genesis of the recent tragedy in Nagpur wherein 112 tribals were killed in a stampede to escape police brutality may be in a simple clerical ‘grammatical error.
An issue, which could have been rectified by issuing, a simple correction, has now blown up in the Maharashtra Government’s face and is poised to snowball into a major controversy with the combined Opposition asking for the government’s resignation. The Gowari community, whose members died in the stampede, is a Scheduled Tribe in the hilly regions of Vidarbha They is basically nomads, who move from place to place, tending their cattle and goats.
Life would have continued as normal for these simple people had it not been for a new schedule which was drafted in 1956. The State Government had appointed the Kalelkar Committee to study the status of the Scheduled Tribes in the State and recommended measures for their upliftment. In its report, the word: “Gowaris” were inadvertently clubbed together.
‘That little gap or comma which should have appeared between the two words was missing and thus ‘was born in the bureaucratic echelons of the State Government an entirely new class of nonexistent nomadic tribe which was dubbed “Gond Gowaris”.
‘The officials at State headquarters were least perturbed by this anomaly.
Perhaps their minds were dulled over the years by blindly towing the bureaucratic line or Pethaps none had the courage to rectify the error. Suddenly, State Government officials began insisting that only the tribe “Gond Gowaris” were entitled to ST benefits insisting that the “Gowaris” were not a separate tribe that is what brought the tribals to Nagpur, with disastrous consequences.
Article extracted from this publication >> December 23, 1994
