Don’t we always wish we had a house on the mountains, where every morning we could wake up to the most beautiful sunrise and end our days with scenic sunsets?! Won’t we envy those who already live in such places? But, that is only till we know the whole truth.
Baiga Adivasis, a community living on the hilly regions of Chattisgarh, till very recent times, struggled for their basic needs of food and water. They would have to walk miles and miles to get food from ration shops and to get access to clean drinking water.
But they have a friend who is no less than a messiah for these villagers, Mr. Naresh Bunkar. Bunkar (43), has been working for the betterment of this community and many more, and fighting for their rights. When he started with his work, the problems these villager faced were mainly about basic facilities like hand pumps, schools, electricity etc. One of the first cases he reported on CGNetswara.org, is of a school in Pipatola village where a school was sanctioned in 2008 but even till 2012 there was no building constructed. Another case was from Pandariya block, where the school teacher came to school only once or twice a month. After reporting the case on CGNet Swara’s alternative media platform, a few days later, the school teacher was suspended and government authorities made sure that the school began to function properly.
Water was also another very basic issue, but Bunkar has worked very hard to restore basic human rights of these villagers. Every hand pump from the 22 villages of Achanak Marg, Lori block, Mungeli district, were repaired and fixed by the PHE department after Bunker reported the case of unsafe drinking water in this area, on CGNet Swara.
But for the past couple of years, a rising struggle for this community is their right over the land they live and they have been living on for many years now. Even with the Forest Rights Act in place, the rights of these original inhabitants are not always being safeguarded. Since Land rights are a pretty tedious issue, Bunkar , while fighting for these rights, has gone through life-threatening experiences. One such case was of the Bhangitola village, where Deputy Ranger (of that time), Lokinath Lahre demanded Rs. 3000 from each villager to get his land secured. But in spite of paying the bribe, even after 5 months, only 10 out of 33 villagers got their land secured. When Bunkar questioned him about why the work wasn’t done inspite of paying money, the ranger denied of accepting any bribe at all. After several complaints to the seniors and reporting on CGNet Swara, the ranger admitted of accepting the bribe, and was forced to return back the money; but got suspended.
Another challenge for Naresh Bunkar was a case from Shendurkhal panchayat, in 2014, where solar power equipments got stolen from the panchayat bhavan. Even after filing the FIR, there was no action taken. Only after the issue got reported on CGNet Swara, the police had to work on the case. But this particular incident caused too much trouble for Bunkar. The police and others conspired against Bunkar and falsely accused him of threatening a man and end his life. Later, he was also accused of eve-teasing and sexually harassing a village girl. Since, both the FIRs filed were false, especially the latter which stated the date of crime as a date on which Bunkar was not even in town, Naresh Bunkar was declared as not guilty.
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| Naresh Bunkar, field reporter CGNet Swara |
