Not many remember the role of legendary Adivasi leader Kumram Bheem in enactment of special laws still governing the Agency areas in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana States.
Over three-quarters of a century have passed since his martyrdom, that forced the ruler of the day to initiate steps to address the problem of aboriginal tribes in the old united Adilabad district.
Had it not been so, the making of Babejhari and Jodeghat villages — from where Bheem waged his struggle for land rights — as gram panchayats, the basic unit of local self-government on August 2 would have been celebrated.
Bheem waged his initial struggle from Babejhari and later shifted to Jodeghat, 10 km away, where he attained martyrdom in September 1940. Both the villages are located on the 22-km Hatti-Jodeghat stretch of road in present day Kerameri mandal of Kumram Bheem Asifabad district.
Nizam’s corrective steps
Bheem’s martyrdom had opened the eyes of the VII Nizam to the tribal problem in this part of his dominions. He appointed the famous Austrian Anthropologist Christoph von Furer-Haimendorf to study the cause of tribal unrest and suggest correctional steps.
The ethnologist made his journeys into the tribal areas of Hyderabad State in the 1940s and came out with a report, Tribal Hyderabad, which included notes with regard to exploitation and oppression of tribal communities in the then Adilabad district.
This became a basis for the Nizam’s government to initiate certain novel measures in governance of the tribal areas.
Special schools
A beginning was made in 1943 when a scheme for training of Gond teachers, establishment of special schools for them followed by appointment of a special officer for the tribal area of Adilabad, Professor Haimendorf (p. 42) wrote in his reassessment of the situation in tribal areas in his book Tribes of India, Struggle for Survival, published in India first in 1985. The newly formed tribal policy of Hyderabad State culminated in promulgation of Tribal Areas Regulation 1356 Fasli (1946 CE) which eventually became Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Areas Land Transfer Regulation Act, 1956 and amended through Act 1 of 1970 restricting land transfer between tribals and non-tribals in Agency areas which is now in force in AP and Telangana.
‘Empowered’ panchayat
A major change in the life of the aboriginal people had actually come when on November 16, 1949, the Revenue Department issued Notified Tribal Area Rules 1359 Fasli paving way for ‘empowered’ panchayat to be established in tribal villages.
“These rules vested the administration of Notified Tribal Area in the first Talukdar (collector) as an Agent, in the special social service officer as Assistant Agent and in the ‘panchayat’ to be formed by the Agent,” Professor Haimendorf noted (P. 43). These panchayats could not survive the changes brought in Revenue administration during the course of time and were eventually replaced by the modern day gram panchayats.
Descendants happy
Notwithstanding the scrapping of the former powerful panchayats, the descendants of Kumram Bheem living at Jodeghat, grand-daughters, and gransdon Kumra Sombai, and Jangubai and Kumra Bande Rao, have welcomed their village and Babejhari being made a gram panchayat.