Mitanins now bracketed with Naxals

The Chattisgarh Government which has already put a doctor behind bars on suspicion of being a Naxalite, is now targeting the mitanin programme in Dantewada and Bijapur districts where the government itself has withdrawn health services from nearly half of the 1,354 villages.

Facing the brunt of the harassment of police and the government-backed Salwa Judum forces are 650 mitanins or grassroot health activists of the NGO Vanvasi Chetana Ashram.

Binayak Sen who has been put behind bars on suspicion of being a Naxal ally has been instrumental in giving shape to the programme which was implemented by the government in the state five years ago.

The National Rural health Mission which has deployed a cadre of ASHAs or ( Accredited Social Health Activists) is also modelled on the mitanin programme with the difference being that ASHAS are toothless activists who just carry out government programmes while the Chattisgarh mitanins are supposed to be more independent and mobilising villagers on their rights and helping them seek their entitlements not only in health, but other government programmes.

Last week, mitanins visiting interior villages in the Bijapur district of Chattisgarh were stopped by the police and questioned for allegedly being in league with the Naxals.

This is the umpteenth time these health workers have faced such harassment, says NGO director Himanshu Kumar. The women workers had gone to a village in Bhairamgarh block in Bijapur district where four children had been reported to have died of malnutrition, says Kumar.

The women went there to survey the weight of other children in the village of Mirtul where 33 others were said to be on the verge of dying of malnutrition, he says.

But when the women returned from the survey, their two wheelers had been seized by the police.

The mistake the women committed was that they had also intervened in the working of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme in the village and questioned the fact that the muster roll was not accessible to workers and was kept in the sarpanch's house.

The sarpanch mobilised many villagers against the women and also called the police, says Kumar. The trick is to project anyone who speaks against corruption as a pro-Naxal, says Kumar.

Nandini Shankar, a researcher on Naxalism based in Delhi, who has faced attacks of Salwa Judum a year ago, says that the Mitanins were attacked and harassed last year in Dantewada when they were conducting a survey of UNICEF.

They had to go to villages which were yet to be captured by salwa judum. This made them suspect as Naxal elements, she says. Naxalism has become a cover for harassment of anyone who criticises the Salwa Judum, says Shankar.

At the hearing of Dr Binayak Sen in the sessions court in Raipur last week. The pleader for the state government said without mincing words: "The mitanin programme is being used to aid the Naxals."

Says Shankar: "The government suspects anyone who criticises it or the salwa judum. About 5 per cent of the total mitanin programme is being implemented through NGOs and Vanvasi Chetana Ashram's mitanins are the only NGO-led workers working in two blocks in Naxal hit Dantewada and Bijapur districts.

In the latest case, one of the women health workers who was detained for questioning was a woman whose brother Devraj Singh Thakur was a police constable who had died fighting Naxals just nine months ago.

Says Sarojini Thakur: "When we reached the station, the policemen humiliated us and said that we had nexus with the Naxalites as we were freely roaming in the interior areas that too at night," Sarojani said.

Her contention that her own brother was killed in a Naxalite attack fell on deaf ears. In fact the problem the police has with health workers and even government service providers in these areas is that they are not hurt by Naxals. So, the police believes that they must be in league with Naxals, says Kumar.