Injustice meted out to the Jhodia, which is a prominent tribe in Kashipur block of Rayagada district, by denial of its Scheduled Tribe (ST) status as enshrined in Constitution of India, has been resisted by the community members since long. Though their community members in the adjacent districts like Kalahandi and Koraput retain the tribal status, the Kashipur Jhodias are still running from pillar to post for it.
Yet again, on Saturday last, a team of ten tribal leaders cutting across party lines led by president of Paroja Samaj of Kashipur Sumani Jhodia and accompanied by BJP national vice-president (tribal wing) Kaliram Majhi, former MP, Koraput Jayaram Pangi, Congress leader and legal advisor of Paroja Samaj, Kashipur Makaranda Muduli, secretary Arjun Jhodia, Ghasen Jhodia, Hrushikesh Jhodia, Satya Narayan Jhodia met Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram and submitted a memorandum to the Prime Minister of India through him.
The memorandum mentions to include Jhodia as a synonym of Paraja notified as Scheduled Tribe(ST) at serial number-55 in the ST list of India.
According to the memorandum, the population of Jhodia tribe is around 1,00,000, who had the tribal status and were getting all Government benefits till 1997 after which they had been deprived of the ST status thereby not availing caste certificates from the competent authorities.
Though Government of Odisha during 2002, 2010, 2011 and 2012 has written to the Centre to include the Jhodia as a synonym of Paraja, the latter is yet to take a call in this regard.
They also submitted copies of the memorandum to Minister Oram, Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, Home Minister Rajanath Singh.
Notably, a team of 25 tribals under the banner of Odisha Adibasi Manch(OAM) during 2001 spearheaded a campaign for enlisting Jhodias as STs and went to Delhi to put forth the issues before several Ministers, Secretaries, ST/SC Commissioner, etc and were assured of positively. But later, no actions were taken. Though the State Government has written to time and again, it is a fact that the revenue staff made clerical mistakes by writing on their land patta as Jhodia instead of Jhodia-Paraja during land settlement. Hence, the State Government cannot wash its hands off by writing a few letters.
Anguished, they had boycotted the general elections in 2009 and PRI polls in 2007 and 2012.
Sumani, Ghasen, Makaranda and a few others from Kashipur met the then UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi during December, 2013 and presented a similar memorandum. Again during the fag end of July, 2014, they submitted their written demand to Oram, who assured to do the needful within six months. The delegates, getting frustrated of no action by Oram, met him again during March, 2016 and appraised him in detail. Unfortunately their hope got shattered again as Jhodia didn’t feature in the list of 12 tribes that got the Cabinet approval on May 26, 2016, for inclusion as STs through a parliamentary amendment.
“As PM Narendra Modi is making frequent visits to Odisha, we expect that he will look into our demand,” said Makaranda Muduli, who is a Jhodia-Paraja himself from Kashipur and was Congress MLA nominee during last election.