The Power in Naming an Indigenous Survivor of State Abuse in India

Neal Christie, Executive Director, FIACONA
June 20, 2024

“Isn’t this the fast I choose: releasing wicked restraints, untying the ropes of a yoke, setting free the mistreated, and breaking every yoke? Isn’t it sharing your bread with the hungry, and bringing the homeless poor into your house, covering the naked when you see them, and not hiding from your own family?” (Isaiah 58:6-7).

Imagine a world without farmers. Farmers are the backbone of our society and every economy. And yet 80% of the world’s hungry live in rural areas and are largely dependent on agriculture for their livelihoods. Approximately 50% are smallholder farmers cultivating marginal lands prone to natural disasters like drought or flood, 20% are landless families working on other people’s land, and 10% depend on herding, fishing or forest resources. Farmers and their livelihood as well as their well being are a bellwether for every nation.

What would cause farmers, whose lives every life depends on, to take their own lives? It should appall us that, in India, farmers are killing themselves in record numbers. What is the primary cause? Let’s look at corporate greed and permissive government policies that favor the already wealthy at the expense of those who work the ground.

I spent several days visiting US Congressional Representatives and Senators with Father Joshua Lickter, an Anglican priest in California, who founded the Assembly for Human Rights. This is my recent conversation with Fr. Lickter:

Fr. Joshua Lickter (FJC): “There are three things that I wanted to accomplish. The first thing is to get India designated as a country of particular concern or CPC. I wanted to let them know that something desperately needs to be done. The second thing is that I wanted people to be aware of and, if possible, to mention the name Jarnail Kaur, who is an Adivasi [tribal] woman from Chhattisgarh, India and whose story I have been telling using an old Amnesty International strategy of letting foreign governments know that we know about people that they are persecuting. It’s a proven way to help preserve their life. I have concerns about her health and her safety.  The third thing that I want to do is, because of my work with human rights in China, I found a direct connection to the person who is oppressing her and so I wanted to let my Representatives and Senators be aware of that connection and to investigate him or look into his connection to transnational repression because of his ties with high level officials from India.

“Under the BJP and Prime Minister Modi, for ten years, it’s undeniable that the prominent and powerful in India have just taken off. This comes at a high cost to indigenous farmers who, too often, have been intentionally harassed, persecuted and pushed off of their land. This includes Christians, Muslims, Dalits, Adivasis and Sikhs — anyone who does not embrace the radical form of Hindu nationalism that is so prominent throughout India today and especially in the agricultural northern states.

“It’s like a stack of dominoes. If this one falls and she’s victorious, then it’ll set a precedent, and a whole lot of other dominoes will fall in terms of the industrial Indian complex that’s in bed with the Hindu nationalist government.”

FJC: “Jarnail is a victim of land-grabbing from industrialists and corporate land grabs orchestrated by industrialists whose profit is in the billions of dollars made off of indigenous land. Jarnail has been harassed for the past 20 years by Jindal Steel and Power Limited (JSPL). Not only has her land been forcibly stolen, but when she and her family fought back, her brother was killed. She has been sexually assaulted and intimidated, but because of gender and the corporate influence in the government, nobody enforces court rulings, and the land has never been returned to her. Twenty years later, her case is all the way up to the highest courts in India. It’s one of the reasons I wanted to tell her story because, if she wins, he’ll have to give the land back to her, but we’ll also have to give the land back to others.”

“Indigenous and tribal peoples have been in the northern region of India for 30,000 years. Tribal land rights, while protected by Indian law, have been exploited by corporate industrialists who believe they are helping to modernize India by any means necessary, regardless of the human cost, especially for the lower caste members or untouchables. The land is valuable for building steel factories. That also makes the land toxic to live on. The rate of cancer has grown as well as respiratory diseases. Trees are covered with soot. Water is undrinkable. Family members are arrested and thrown in jail, and then they were told that they would not be let out of jail until they signed papers saying that they gave the land over to the corporation. Many have no choice but to sign over land.”

Hindu nationalism provides a way to elevate an ideology which sees Hindus as superior to everyone else and especially to religious and ethnic minorities such as Christians, Muslims, and Adivasis.

FJC: “It matters but, economic gain does not need to come at the cost of your own soul or the impact on your country’s soul. The U.S. still is engaging in trade with these corporations, so we are actually complicit in the human rights violations. There is urgency for several reasons: First, Jarnail is the first Adivasi to take her case as high up in the court system as she has to get her land back and there’s a very strong possibility that she could win; Second, this could start a domino effect.

“At the end of the day, judges are still people, whether they’re Hindu nationalist or not. People can change, people’s minds can change, and people’s hearts can change, and people can change their decision based on the court of public opinion. By standing with indigenous Adivasi women like Jarnail, we are telling the world that they will not be erased either by a Hindutva or ethnonationalist ideology which devalues some lives in the name of development, especially in the world .

“One of the things that became very clear to me as I met with the various representatives’ and senators’ offices is that they will become interested in this issue when American Christians are interested in speaking up.”

To learn more how to support Adivasi human rights, contact The Assemby for Human Rights