Red Card Application and Tribal Community Exploitation

By Shanti Gupta

This is the story of tribal communities in Latehar district where I saw the extent of exploitation. Before telling this story, I want to make readers familiar about the context of Latehar. Latehar is a district in Jharkhand where people have been facing drought from past 7 years. The majority of the population belongs to scheduled tribes; according to the Government of Jharkhand, there are 10 different tribes.

This tribal family went with no food for two days to save money to pay the exploitative charges set by photo- and copy-shop owners.

This story is set in the village of district Navadih. In this village, people are not able to get safe drinking water. After a discussion with some villagers, I was able to understand that the only source of water was a river on which 70% of the population depend not only for drinking, but for household work. I was amazed to see the situation of the poor people in this village. I was also not able to do anything about it because the exploitation was not being done by outsiders, but by others in the area.