Totopara (Jalpaiguri), Nov. 21: The Totos have teamed up with four other tribes in the Dooars to seek a council to look after the development demands of the communities.
The tribes said the council had been sought, as they would continue to be neglected even if their areas of dominance came under the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration.
The initiative to raise the demand was taken by the Totos and they were joined by Bodo, Mechh, Garo and Rabha tribes. While the Totos, notified as a primitive tribe by the Union government, number just over 1,400, the combined population of the other communities comes to around two lakh.
“For the past 35 years, we have remained neglected under the Left Front regime. Our land has been taken away; although our youths are educated, they are deprived of jobs. We are all reduced to labourers in the dolomite mines and the orange orchards in Bhutan,” Bakul Toto, the secretary of the Toto Kalyan Samiti, said today.
“The Mamata Banerjee government is announcing development programmes for the Darjeeling hills and Jungle Mahal. We also demand similar plans,” he said.
The Kalyan Samiti is the sole decision-making body of the primitive tribe.
Being a small community, the Totos said, they were not interested in the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration. “We have no other option but to demand a separate development council that will include other tribes which dominate the area around Totopara,” said Ashok Toto, a Samiti member.
Totopara is 115km from Jalpaiguri.
Asked about the composition of the council, Ashok said it would be run by the government and consist of elected representatives of all the five tribes. He added that the council would have neither constitutional powers nor territorial jurisdiction.
He pointed out that according to records drawn up in the early sixties, the Totos had 1,996 acres of land. “But till now, the state government has only registered 333 acres in our names. The rest of the land is being occupied illegally by other people and as a farming community, we are suffering,” Ashok said.
The president of the samiti, Dhaniram Toto, said their demands would be communicated in writing to Mamata Banerjee and north Bengal development minister Gautam Deb.
Dilip Thakur, the president of the West Bengal Bodo People’s Forum, which also includes the Rabha, Mechh and Garo tribes, said they totally backed the Totos’s demand. “We support the call for a particular development council , not on territorial lines but as a community-oriented development cell. There is no other way to ensure our development,” Thakur said.
Minister Deb said the demand was unjustified and made it clear that the government would not form any such council. “We are fully aware of the problems being faced by the tribes like the Totos. I will soon visit Totopara and the surrounding areas to know the living conditions of the people there. I can assure them that their problems will be solved in phases and we will ensure development there.”
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