Chitrangada Choudhury & Aniket Aga - In Memoriam: Sociologist and Activist Abhay Xaxa
A reflection on the
life and legacy of Abhay Xaxa, visionary Adivasi leader, teacher, and thinker,
and what the relative silence around his untimely death says about us
On 18 March 2015, near
the Barwadih block office in Jharkhand’s Latehar district, a group of about 60
Adivasi men publicly defecated on copies of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA)
government’s bill to amend the 2013 Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency
in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act. The bill sought to weaken the hard-won and long overdue
safeguards of social impact assessment and informed consent to acquisition. It
was a throwback to when state and industry could forcibly displace
rural - especially Adivasi - communities, and acquire their land and common
property resources.
The protest at
Barwadih, organized by the National Campaign on Adivasi Rights, got the
mainstream media to briefly focus on Adivasi dispossession. The campaign’s
Abhay Flavian Xaxa, a young sociologist, Oraon Adivasi activist, and writer,
had also organised a march against the bill the previous day in his native
village Jashpur, in Chhattisgarh, which unfolded under heavy police
presence and scant media attention.
In Barwadih, Xaxa countered the charge of ‘uncivility’: “If our poop protest
is considered uncivil, then tell me what is civil in this country. Displacing
millions of Adivasis for satisfying corporate greed is civil? Killing thousands
of unarmed Adivasis in [the] name of counter insurgency is civil? Trafficking
lakhs of innocent … Adivasi girls to cities is civil? Blatantly cheating the
Adivasis from the constitutional promises is civil? What type of civility do
you expect from a person who was uprooted from their land not once, but twice
in the name of national interest and is now threatened for a third time?”
Sharp, creative, and
multi-faceted, Abhay Xaxa could articulate the hypocrisies of Indian society in
salty metaphors. He deftly showed how policies drafted in high offices and in
thrall to special economic interests affected India’s marginalised in
devastating ways. On 14 March, while on a visit to Siliguri to meet with tribal
groups, Abhay suffered a heart attack and passed away within minutes He is
survived by his partner Vani, and children Sara and Manav. Abhay’s shock death
has left many of us reflecting on an activist-intellectual with a large heart
and a sense of mischief, whom our society let die at the mere age of 43.
The loss was best
articulated by the polymath and founder of the Adivasi Academy, Ganesh Devy, as
he recalled his first meeting in 2006 with Abhay. “Three decades ago, in a
conversation at the Adivasi Academy, [historian] Ramachandra Guha had asked me,
‘Why is it that there has been no Ambedkar among Adivasis?’ Nearly ten years
later, as I was interviewing Abhay [for a fellowship], this question surfaced
in my memory. I felt as if Abhay could probably be the answer for that
question. In my subsequent conversations with him, and through his work in
bringing young Adivasis together for re-thinking the entire Adivasi question in
India, Abhay continued to keep that hope alive in my heart.” ...
