The Boya agitation for ST status is taking a serious turn in Telugu states

Only about 150 people turned up on November 10 for the start of the relay hunger strike in Jogulamba Gadwal district demanding Scheduled Tribe (ST) status for the Boya or Valmiki community in Telangana. Within four days, the protest spread to five more districts – Mahabubnagar, Wanaparthy, Nagarkurnool, Narayanapeta, and Hyderabad. More than a thousand people have joined the hunger strike so far. The demand for ST status for the Boyas is more than 60 years old but the agitations this year appear to have taken a more serious turn not just in Telangana, where their population is about 5 lakh, but also in Andhra, where Boyas are 40 lakh in number. At present, the community enjoys ST status only in the few districts of the Telugu states falling under the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA), and in the remaining areas, they are categorised as Backward Classes (A).

Boya Aikya Karyacharana Samiti or Boya Joint Action Committee (JAC), which is spearheading the agitation, is determined to make sure that both the Union and state governments feel the pressure of the agitations. Both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) claim to back the ST demand by the Boyas and blame each other for the delay.

While protests are raging in Telangana, in the other Telugu state, members of Andhra Pradesh Valmiki Boya Sangam (APVBS) met President Droupadi Murmu in Delhi and submitted a memorandum. In June, APVBS organised a bike rally travelling through eight districts to mobilise the community members in Kurnool, Anantapur, Kadapa, Chittoor, Nellore, Prakasham, Guntur, and Krishna. These districts form the stronghold of the community and have produced one MLA and one MP for the Boyas, which is significant considering the Reddy-Kamma domination in AP politics.

APVBS members submited a memorandum to President Draupadi Murmu

Blame game between Telangana and Union governments

Madhusudhan Valmiki, president of Boya/Valmiki JAC, said, “We started a relay hunger strike to pressurise the TRS government regarding the promise made to us in the lead-up to the Munugode bye-election.” He claimed that ahead of the bye-election, Indrakaran Reddy, Minister of Endowments and Law, had invited Boya leaders for a meeting in the presence of other MLAs. Seeking the community’s support for the ruling party candidate, they assured the Boya leaders that the government would grant ST status after the bye-election. The TRS won the bye-poll by a big margin on November 6 and within days, the JAC hit the streets to make the TRS deliver on its promise.

Given the growing consolidation of the community on the issue of ST status, political parties across the spectrum appear keen not to antagonise the Boyas. The supporters of the movement range from ex-bureaucrat and Telangana Bahujan Samajwadi Party leader RS Praveen to former MLA of Gadwal, DK Aruna of the BJP, and Sampath Kumar, secretary of the All India Congress Committee. The ongoing protests have also given the opposition parties a chance to criticise the TRS government.

This blame game started in 2017 when Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao passed a Bill in the Assembly proposing increasing reservations for the Scheduled Tribe category. The decision was based on recommendations by the Chellappa Committee, which was set up by the state government to examine the inclusion of a few communities in the ST list, and an inquiry into the status of tribes. In March this year, during his visit to Wanaparthy, an area where the Boya/Valmiki community is present in huge numbers, Rao accused the Union government of not clearing its proposal for inclusion and subsequent increase in the reservation. Interestingly, the Union government has refuted this claim in a written reply to Congress leader N Uttam Kumar Reddy.

In the last five years, the Boya/Valmiki community organisations in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have intensified their protests against the injustice caused to them for more than 60 years. Several representations were made to the state and Union governments in the past demanding ST status throughout the Telugu states. Similar rallies were organised in 2017 and the local leaders were forced to raise their demands in the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies.

The demand made it into the Andhra Pradesh manifesto of the BJP in 2019. Ahead of the general elections that year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Kurnool district and said while addressing a large public gathering, “I understand the pain of the Valmiki community known also as Boyas here. Place your trust in me. A new India will be formed where everyone will get rightful opportunities according to their needs.”

 
Former MLA of Gadwal, DK Aruna of the BJP at Boya JAC relay hunger strike            

Background

Several decades before independence, Boyas/Valmikis lived in the forests and their traditional occupation was hunting. When the British tried to decimate the forest reserves, the community opposed the colonial rulers and fought them. The colonists filed cases against them and imprisoned them under the Criminal Tribes Act, 1871, which was used against tribes that rebelled against the British. Overnight, women, children, the elderly, and all future generations were condemned as criminals. After independence, this law was replaced by the draconian Habitual Offenders Act in 1952, under which the tribes continued to be persecuted.

Between 1952, when the Criminal Tribes Act was repealed, and 1976, the Boyas were recognised as a Scheduled Caste (SC) in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh. In 1976, the Scheduled Tribes Amendment Act re-categorised the Boyas as ST in those special zones of united Andhra Pradesh that were under the tribal development agency (ITDA). In other parts of the state, they were admitted into the Backward Classes (A) category. Of the 45 lakh Boyas in the two Telugu states, less than one lakh live in the ITDA areas.

Boyas/Valmikis also known Bedas/Bedar/Bedagar in Karnataka and Maharastra

Different categorisation in different states

Jakkula Srinivas, general secretary of APVBS, says that the move to put them in the BC category was made without following due procedure. “The people who were certified as born criminals by the Criminal Tribes Act were listed as SC after they were denotified. Suddenly, their SC status was taken away without any study. Under the Wildlife Protection Act (1972), hunting, which was the primary occupation of Valmiki/Boyas, was banned. And then we were removed from the ST list because we moved to urban spaces in search of livelihood.”

Pointing out that the community is recognised in Karnataka and Tamil Nadu as Scheduled Tribes but not in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, Srinivas said, “It is due to political reasons. Thousands of Boyas who were used by politicians as well as by the rich and the powerful as hitmen and enforcers languished in prison. The politicians never wanted us to reform because then who would do their dirty work?”

Latha, a resident of Bangalore, reached out to the activists at Boya JAC and APVBS after learning about their work on the internet. She has been in a legal battle for nine years now for her job. Illustrating the problem with different categorisation in different states, Latha said, “I’m facing legal issues and my job is at stake. I was accused of moving to Karnataka for the sake of reservation. Even before I was born, my parents came to Karnataka from AP in search of livelihood. How can such poor and illiterate parents think about these constitutional benefits? I have struggled a lot to achieve my dreams but I’m being punished like this.”

In 1991, Karnataka recognised the Boyas/Valmikis as Scheduled Tribes, and Latha who was born later was subsequently given a ST caste certificate. According to a Supreme Court ruling from 1991, her caste certificate will be void because her parents moved to Karnataka from a region (AP) where they are not recognised as STs. Along the AP-Karnataka border, people frequently migrate and even establish marital relationships with those living on the other side. However, this also brought with it legal issues for some people like Latha.

Several committees set up in the past

Kranti Naidu, president of APVBS, said, “Factionalism has been rampant in our community, and this has been exploited by various forces. There are a handful of people here who are educated like me who can think independently. There is widespread illiteracy,” he added.

The Satya Pal Committee report explains this further and states, “The Boyas have been sucked into factionalism in Rayalaseema. The present study has gone through the Police and jail records of the area and found that in many cases those (doing the) killing and (getting) killed are Boyas. From fieldwork, it is learnt that the dominant castes have deprived them of inclusion in ST category to keep them deprived and dependent.”

This committee was formed in 2016 and was headed by Dr Satya Pal, head of the Anthropology Department, Andhra University, to study the inclusion of Boyas/Valmikis in the ST category, and it recommended inclusion. In 2017, another committee was set up by the AP Commission for SCs and STs to further study the recommendations of the Satya Pal report.

In its conclusions, the AP Commission report states, “After formation of Andhra Pradesh in 1956, the community was treated as Scheduled Caste throughout the state and was later removed for reasons unknown. The majority of them are socially, educationally and economically backward and carry the social stigma of being ex-criminal which still continues. They have tribal characteristics of their own.”

Accordingly, a resolution was passed by former AP Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu in the Legislative Assembly, but it did not materialise as the final decision rests with the President.

On October 19 this year, the YSRCP government set up a one-man commission to study the issues of the community to include them in the ST category as a ‘diwali gift’ but the Boyas are not very happy. “Many committees have been set up in the past, all of them recommended in favour of inclusion. The latest being the AP State Commission for SCs and STs in 2017. But it is being delayed because every time a new government is formed, a new committee is set up,” Kranti Naidu said.

In 2016, Venkateshwarlu, a member of the JAC, put up a petition demanding ST status to the community on change.org, addressed to Tribal Affairs Minister Arjun Munda, with extensive details and background. Though it was an unsuccessful attempt, he received support through calls and mails from people all over the country.

Venkateshwarlu is a former journalist and has worked with regional media. He belongs to Jogulamba and holds a postgraduate degree in Mass Communication & Journalism from the prestigious Osmania University in Hyderabad. He takes pride in being the first graduate from his family. “After leaving the media organisation I was working with, I accompanied Laxmi Narayana (late), a member of the community, to various meetings and places. I was shocked to see the socio-economic conditions of the people; due to illiteracy, they do menial jobs. I decided to work for our rights. The community has been stigmatised, and to date is called Donga Boyas (thief Boyas) because of the Criminal Tribes Act. In Hyderabad, you see the people who collect garbage from the houses? They are from the same community,” he said.

APVBS member met Congress leader Rahul Gandhi during his Bharat Jodo Yatra in AP

Challenges with being enlisted as Backward Classes

The activists believe that by classifying the community as ST, it will regain its identity and, most importantly, be able to access special funds that will pave the way for the upliftment of the people. “There are welfare schemes for people with traditional occupations, for instance, Nethanna Nestham. Being listed as BC, we don’t get any of this assistance because we don’t have a traditional job,” Kranthi Naidu said. Nethanna Nestham is a Direct Benefit Transfer Scheme implemented by the AP government under which the beneficiary gets Rs 24,000 per year.

The Satya Pal Committee pointed to the same in its report and stated, “The present enlistment does not help the community in providing special privileges as they do not have any traditional occupation service on par with the other castes listed under BC-A. It is unfortunate that the community has failed to attract the attention of the successive governments to include them in the Schedule Tribe list while Yerukala and Yennadi were included without any problem.”

“According to the state BC list, there are about 160 castes. Being backward for long, it is challenging to compete with them. It is well-known that only 4-5 castes like Yadava, Goud, and Mudiraj dominate the BCs. They became politically dominant in the name of the whole BC community,” said Venkateshwarlu.

BK Burman Roy’s Census of India report 1961-62, Satya Pal Committee in 2016, AP State Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in 2017, and Chellappa Commission in Telangana recommended the inclusion of the Boya/Valmiki community members into the Scheduled Tribe list without any area restrictions.