Nomads, tribals use art to protest against Gehlot government, want tribal policy denotified
India Today
Hundreds of artists from the nomadic community protested against the Rajasthan government, demanding that tribal policy be denotified.
Hundreds of artists from the nomadic community came together at Jaipur's Shaheed smarak on Sunday to voice their protest against the Chief Minister Ashok Gehlotled government in Rajasthan using their art.
The artists from the nomadic community put on a display of folk and tribal songs, puppet dance, etc. With these, they conveyed their resentment against the state government for not issuing Denotified Tribal (DNT) Policy in spite of allegedly promising to do so.
"Today, the nomadic people have reached Jaipur to demand answers to their questions from the Rajasthan government. They have their problems. There are 32 types of castes in Rajasthan which come under nomadic community. Those people do not have housing arrangements, people do not have houses. If someone has house, then they do not have patta and because of not having patta, they are repeatedly removed from there ... (These) people do not have lands for cremation ground. Sometimes, they do not get land for cremating their dead. Their earnings have been finishing. People do the job of singing, move around to make their earnings. So, they anyway, were in a very bad condition," social activist, Paras, told India Today.
" The government has not paid any heed to them. There is no arrangement for the education of their children. Their bastis are settled outside the town ... basic amenities of water, electricity, roads that should be there are not available to them and today, they are raising the demand from the government that the DNT policy announced by the government for them be implemented soon and implemented with the budget so that some welfare of theirs can happen," Paras stated.
These artists lamented that they have been facing numerous problems including unavailability of accommodation, lack of amenities such as road, power, or clean drinking water.
Some of the protestors that India Today spoke with said that their children do not get proper education, that they do not have land titles in the absence of a denotified tribal policy and demanded that the government come out with one as soon as possible.
"(We want that) there be a puppet theatre ... some people who come, watch our art, reward us as well and some of our puppets, the foreigners who come, could buy to take away," a puppet artist, Moolchand Bharti said.
