Mumbai's Adivasis stand up to be counted
https://ruralindiaonline.org/en/articles/mumbais-adivasis-stand-up-to-be-counted/ On World Indigenous People’s Day, Adivasis who live in and around Mumbai’s Aarey forest gathered for a show of strength and solidarity
Vitthal Lad, founder and leader of KSS explains, “they [government] are demanding records from before 1950. Even a person who can read and write won’t have those certificates from before the [Indian] Constitution was put into force. How will Adivasi people have them?” He says there is no provision in the The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (also referred to as Forest Rights Act ) that asks for it.
They say the state has also denied them other certificates. “We have not received our caste certificates, or our saatbara ,” says Narayan Kadale. He is a Thakar Adivasi farmer and grows vegetables like turai (ridge gourd), pumpkin, paan and ambadi (sorrel leaves) on 3.5 gunthas (less than one-tenth acre) of land in Banguda pada in Aarey. The saatbara functions as proof of land ownership in Maharashtra.
“They [government officials] insist that there are no Adivasis in Mumbai. They claim that we are not Adivasis, and question our caste status,” says the 39-year-old gardener and singer.