Evicted Santals: No Nabanna this year

Every year Santals in Gaibandha's Gobindaganj celebrate Nabanna Utsab, a traditional festival to hail the new crops and harvest with the start of Bangla month Agrahayan. But this year they had no festival even though it was scheduled to be celebrated yesterday.

"We are not celebrating Loban [Nabanna] like other years," said Dipul Soren, a 10-grader of Madarpur village in the Rangpur Sugar Mills area.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

Philimon Baske, a Santal leader, said every year they celebrate the Loban festival with their own tradition, but this year the Santals could not harvest their paddy on time.

"They were evicted from their land, and they are in grief as they lost three people of their community and four others, who were injured, are now either in hospital or jail."

The Santals cultivated paddy on 100 acres of land in Madarpur and Joypur villages. The paddy needs to be harvested as early as possible, he said.

The indigenous people said police were guarding the paddy fields so that they could not harvest the paddy.

Mistri Murmu, of Joypur village, said he cultivated paddy on four acres of land. He had built two houses on the disputed land in the hope of starting a new life.

But his houses were demolished. And now they were not being allowed to harvest the paddy from the land, he alleged.

"The paddy will go to waste if it is not reaped within 10 days," he said.

Rumina Mardi, of Madarpur village, said they harvest paddy with festivity in Agrahayan every year. "We make pitha [cake] for celebrating Loban after offering prayers," she said, adding that they were not celebrating the traditional festival this season.

Bhupen Mardi, of Madarpur village, said the government was yet to assess their losses due to the eviction. He also demanded that the government form a committee to probe the incident and assess the losses of the evicted indigenous people. 

Children who stopped going to their schools after the incident on November 6 attended their classes in the last two days.

Abdul Baki, headmaster of Sahebganj Ikkhufarm Government Primary School, said students started attending their classes since Wednesday with their new books.

Their books were damaged during a tripartite clash between the Santals, staffers of Rangpur Sugar Mills and police over the eviction of the indigenous people from the disputed land on November 6.

The clash left three Santal men dead and 20 others, including nine policemen, injured.

Rafayel Hasda, a Santal leader, said the situation improved a little.

Police later filed a case accusing 442 people, including 42 named, with Gobindaganj Police Station for attacking police.