On Thursday, July 26, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee announced a momentous decision: Adivasi lands will never be seized by the State Government. This has the potential to become a path-breaking decision with respect to the respect to the rest of the country, wherever Adivasi issues crop up.
There would no acquisition of land belonging to the Adivasi population of the State, be it for whatever reason. Development and industrialisation will never be at the cost of the rights of the indigenous peoples of the State to their ancestral lands.
In this connection, it needs to be mentioned that as Chief Minister, Mamata Banerjee has done for the Adivasis of Bengal what no predecessor of her has done. From improving access of tribal children to education to introducing the Ol Chiki script for writing Santhali to getting various developmental projects of the Government to reach them, the tribal population of the State, be it in the Jangalmahal region (where they live primarily) or in the other pockets, has benefitted comprehensively and has thus been able to partake of the fruits of progress that Bengal under Mamata Banerjee has experienced.
Source: Pratidin, Aajkaal