Tribal people including Christians will undertake a grueling 200-kilometre march against the creation of an army firing range at Netarhat in eastern India’s Jharkhand state.
The march will begin at Tattapani in Latehar district on April 21 and reach the state capital of Ranchi on April 24.
“We will meet Jharkhand governor Ramesh Bais on April 25 to press our demand for cancellation of a notification on the firing range,” Ratan Tirkey, one of the organizers of the march, told.
The struggle against the firing range goes back to the early nineties when the state government issued a notification ear-marking 1,471 square kilometers in the Netarhat Hills in Gumla and Latehar districts for field firing practice by the Indian army.
The project could have dis-placed over 200,000 tribal people in about 250 villages but for the strong resistance from the tribal communities that forced the government to defer the action.
The area was notified for periodical field firing and artillery practice in 1992 and again in 2002. As the deadline for renewal of the notification nears in 2022, the tribal communities are revamping their struggle.
But tribal communities in areas surrounding the firing range complained that the government ignored their rights and grievances for 27 years
Tirkey, a member of the Kendriya Jan Sangharsh Samiti (forum for people’s struggle) that led the struggle, said: “We are not sure what is in the mind of the current government but the previous Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party regimes repeatedly betrayed the tribal people.”
Jerald Jerome Kujur, secretary of Kendriya Jan Sangharsh Samiti, said tribal communities are afraid that the state government led by Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (Jharkhand Liberation Front) may extend the notification.