New Delhi
The Kurmis from Odisha, Jharkhand and West Bengal on Tuesday staged demonstrations, mostly by blocking railway tracks that affected the movement of several trains in eastern India, in support of their demand for a Scheduled Tribe (ST) status. They also demanded the inclusion of Kurmali language in the eighth schedule of the Constitution.
The Kurmis are included in the Other Backward Class (OBC) list. The community wields considerable influence in the power corridors and is considered a powerful block for votebank politics. Their demand for inclusion in the ST list has been
Train services were affected in the three States as the agitators squatted on railway tracks at various places, leading to cancellation, short-termination and diversion of several trains.
The South Eastern Railway cancelled 18 trains, diverted 13 and short terminated or short originated 11 other trains. Agitators also blocked a national highway in Purulia while in neighbouring Odisha, hundreds of men, women and children belonging to the community staged rail roko agitations in Mayurbhanj district.
Odisha also saw the protestors blocking railway tracks at Bhanjpur station in Baripada town, Anlajodi station in Rairangpur and Betnoti leading to the Bangriposi-Bhubaneswar Superfast Express and Baripada-Shalimar Similipal Express remaining halted at Bhanjpur for three hours.
The agitation was withdrawn after the local administration assured the protesters that their grievances would be taken to the authorities at the highest level.
BJD’s Rajya Sabha MP Mamata Mahanta, who reached an agitation site, said Kurmis were a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG), then known as Primitive Tribal Group (PTG), prior to 1950 but were removed from the ST list.
Around 25-30 lakh Kurmis, called Kudumis, reside in Odisha, mainly in Mayurbhanj, Keonjhar, Sundergarh, Balasore, Jajpur and Sambalpur districts.
The agitation comes just two days after Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik wrote a letter to Union Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda seeking the inclusion of 160 communities in the ST list. In his letter, Patnaik claimed that since 1978 the Odisha government has recommended the inclusion of 160 communities of the state in the ST list but the recommendations have not been accepted.
Patnaik said that these communities were “victims of historical injustice” due to delay in their inclusion in the ST list.
In Jharkhand, rail blockades affected traffic along the Howrah-Mumbai route. It also led to many missing their flights from Kolkata.
The Arjun Munda government had in 2004 on the basis of the state cabinet decision sent a letter to the then UPA government to include Kurmis in ST category, but the Raghubar Das dispensation later wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to maintain status quo on the previous recommendation.
Kurmis constitute around 10 to 12 percent of the total population but the community claims they are over 20 percent and were registered as Scheduled Tribe till 1931.
In West Bengal, Kurmis constitute the single largest population in Jangalmahal. The community, whose population is estimated to be 50 lakh in the State, voted for the Trinamool Congress in the last Assembly elections. The BJP could have fared better had it not suffered due to the Kurmi anger in Jhargram, West Midnapore, Purulia and Bankura.
The Union Cabinet had last week nodded the inclusion of several communities like Hattis of Himachal Pradesh and Binjhias of Chhattisgarh in the ST list. The Modi government had also earlier this year included the Bhogta community in the ST list through a Bill in the Parliament.
