M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, Nov 8: The Murumatu Musahars in Palamu are the pain in the neck for the Palamu administration.
The district administration wants their resettlement at a new livable location but the Musahars strike for their root at Murumatu from where they were displaced on August 29. The resettlement locale is at Neori/Kundri while the Dalits want to be housed again at Murumatu.
Sources said the progressive move of the administration for them are scuttled by none other than the Musahars themselves. The administration claims the resettlement location is very suitable, a rivulet by the side, a government school and one Anganwadi Kendra in the contiguity while the Musahars have the agenda ‘to relive only on the same plot of land at Murumatu from where they were made to flee bag and baggage’.
This has led to a piquant situation as the administration can’t put them back on the same plot of land as it belongs to the Muslims while the Musahars are not ready to settle for anything less.
Sources said it is the political forces behind this situation which are having the last laugh.
“It is really difficult for the district administration to wriggle out of the situation created by the Musahars who have given their ears to political forces hostile to any resolution of their displacement,” said one civil official.
Palamu administration has given 2 decimals of land and one Ambedkar house all free to 10 Musahar families who were displaced. Their huts were razed to the ground by the Muslims sparking a big outrage across the state then.
The administration got these families into the abandoned building of the Pandu block and provided them with food grains, clothes and medicines etc. One of the displaced Musahars diagnosed with lung TB was sent to RIMS Ranchi by the administration and got on way to recovery also.
However, these families are now refusing to accept the 2 decimal patta of land and following which the Ambedkar Awas will be out of their reach too.
They have a bizarre reason to refuse holding 2 decimal patta of land. It is because they want to be resettled at Murumatu to find their roots. A fiction was created about the Musahars living at Murumatu for 100 years but the fact is their living at Murumatu is just of four years only, according to one government official. This obstinacy of the Musahars to resettle only and only at Murumatu has put the administration on a tightrope walk and also in a no-win situation.
Sources said the Murumatu land from where these Musahars were dislodged is of the Muslims and they have rightful papers. Their titleship is undisputed. The land is of raiyyat transferred to the Madrasa.
Additional Collectorate (Revenue) Surjit Singh said “The Muslims have legal and rightful possession of the land in question. Their deeds have been verified”.
AC Surjit Singh further said, “There is no question about any resettlement on the land of which there is a rightful and legal holder for the land. Any demand for resettlement on the same land is maliciously motivated. The administration will never be buckled down.”
The Musahars given 2 decimal patta are thus endowed with possession of 2 decimal of land by inheritance which means this 2 decimal of land will go down from generation to generation like a father to son and onwards with a rider that patta land can’t be sold or bought.
Sources said the Musahars have been brainwashed by some political forces, publicly one political party, to stick to the resettlement of them at the same plot of land from where they were driven out of Murumatu. Thus they have been caught in a mesh by the political leaders in their own game of one-upmanship.
A civil society activist preferring anonymity said, “Those who have misled, misinformed and misguided the Musahars, to serve their own political mileage, have done the most harm to these Dalits.”
DC Palamu Anjaneyulu Dodde said “The district administration is committed to ameliorating the sufferings of the Musahars. With great pain, our revenue officials identified a plain landscape for these 10 Musahars families by the side of a rivulet where human habitation further makes the living adorable.”
The locale of their resettlement is no cut-off area or any of the secluded ones but amidst the bustle of life as there are already two families of their clan already living in the locale since long said sources.
