LUCKNOW: While emancipating the ‘Vantangiyas,’ one of the most backward tribal communities of Uttar Pradesh, in a phased manner, now it is the turn of Gonda Vantangiyas to be brought to the mainstream.
For the first time in 76 years of independence, the extremely backward community, inhabiting the thick Ramgarh forest areas of Gonda in central UP, are looking to get connected to the outer world through road infrastructure. Even the proposal for two government schools to be built at a cost of Rs 35.90 lakh each has also been sent by the Gonda district administration to the state government.
Soon after taking over as CM in 2017, Yogi Adityanath initiated policy measures to help the Vantangiyas in a phased manner. As per official data, out of 13 UP districts – Lakhimpur, Balrampur, Bahraich, Gorakhpur, Mirzapur, Sonbhadra, Lalitpur, Maharajganj, Chitrakoot, Chandauli, Gonda, Saharanpur and Bijnor – 38 Tangia/Forest villages in seven districts had been declared as revenue villages. Of these, 18 had been made revenue villages in Maharajganj, five each in Gonda, Gorakhpur and Balrampur, three in Saharanpur and one each in Lakhimpur Kheri and Bahraich districts.
While Vantangiyas’ villages were officially categorised as forest villages, they had been demanding to be declared as revenue villages in the absence of which they were deprived of basic development. There were no permanent schools, no roads, and no electricity. The tribals even lacked voting rights.
Since a revenue village has definite surveyed boundaries and each village is a separate administrative unit with separate village accounts, the state government is bound to provide facilities like schools, hospitals, power, and water in revenue villages. The residents can also get land titles so that their claim on the lands they live on is confirmed. This makes them eligible for benefits under various welfare schemes. For this reason, in 2016, the Union government had asked the state governments to convert all forest villages into revenue villages.
In 2017, the UP government initiated steps for bringing ‘Vantangiyas’ to the mainstream. In the first phase, 23 Vantangiya settlements were accorded the status of revenue villages, followed by ‘recognition’ to another 47 under the Forest Rights Act, 2006, (FRA) in Gorakhpur district. The vantangya families were accorded land rights.
With the revenue village recognition, the Vantangiyas became eligible to get approach roads, potable water, healthcare, livelihood opportunities, BPL cards, employment guarantee projects, education, electricity connections, pensions, loans and permanent housing — even voting rights.
In fact, Vantangiyas trace their history to the early 1900s when they were brought to eastern UP by the British to carry out forestation on the government land. The ‘van’ in their name stands for ‘forest’.
During British rule, natural forests were cleared on a large scale to make way for railway tracks. They decided to develop a forested region in its place based on the Tangiya method – a farming system practised in the mountains of Myanmar. For this purpose, a large number of labourers were brought to the forest. They came to be called the ‘Vantangiyas’ – van means forest while tangiya is derived from the word tongya, where tong means mountain and ya means agricultural field.
The Tangiya system was introduced in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand between 1920 and 1923. Vantangiyas were not paid for their services by the British, instead, allotted a small plot of land for survival.
In the following years, as the Sal forests matured, the job of Vantangiyas was over. Hence the forest department made attempts to expel them from their lands. Since they didn’t have land titles, they were seen as encroachers of the land of the forest which they nurtured so long.
Significantly, the Yogi government had accorded the revenue status to Gonda Vantagiya villages in May 2018. Now, to connect the tribals from development, the state government is getting their villages connected with the approach road of the Forest Department and also a link road to their villages.