A small Indian Himalayan tribe forgotten by the world's largest democracy | Politics

Totopara, India — Jiten Toto has lived longer than independent India, all of his 80 years in the small hamlet of Totopara, nestled in the lush foothills of the Himalayas in West Bengal, eastern India.

He carries bamboo sticks across a field the size of a soccer field, where he grows millet, tomatoes and eggplants in neat rows. It feeds his family and generates income from sales to visiting traders who transport produce to other markets.

Jiten has seen dozens of harvests and 17 national elections. As India prepares for its 18th general election, he hopes something will change in a small corner of the country whose unique population feels long forgotten by the world's largest democracy. There are almost no

The name Totopara comes from the Toto tribe to which Jiten belongs. One of the world's smallest tribes, the Toto people have an estimated total population of about 1,670 people. Almost 75 percent of them are eligible to vote. The Indo-Bhutanese community lives almost exclusively in Totpara, a village of narrow alleys surrounded by hills, just 2 km (1.2 miles) from the Indo-Bhutan border.

When India goes to the polls from March to May, poll workers will be there and set up camps where villagers can vote with electronic devices, just as in previous elections. But despite these democratic practices, many Toto residents say their concerns are repeatedly ignored by politicians due to their small population and remote location.

“Not much has been done for our development. We still face poor roads and dire health services,” says Jiten. “Not a single political leader came here to assess our situation after the polls.”

More recently, there have also been tensions engulfing Totopara and unsettling the Toto people. Due to migration from Bhutan, the Toto people are now a minority in their villages, raising fears that the small community will be excluded from their traditional homeland.

Demographic changes

Samar Kumar Biswas, a professor of anthropology at the University of North Bengal, said the exact history of when and why the Totos settled in Totopara is unclear.

“But they may have migrated here from Bhutan in the mid-18th century to avoid conflict with the powerful and unfriendly Bhutia tribe,” he says. The Bhutia people are the majority community in neighboring Bhutan.

What is known is that until 1939, the only inhabitants of this village were Totos. Then, in the 1940s, more than a dozen Nepali families arrived from Bhutan and settled there, Biswas said. “Afterwards, many non-Toto families came and settled in Totopara village,” he added.

In 1986, and again in the early 1990s, the Bhutanese government expelled many Nepali communities, forcing one-sixth of the Himalayan kingdom's population to flee.

“Some Nepali families have settled in Totpara to survive,” Biswas said.

Today, Totapara has a population of about 5,000 people, only one-third of whom are Toto. The Nepali community makes up the majority of the remaining population of the village, followed by smaller numbers of residents from other parts of West Bengal and neighboring Bihar.

This affected the land that Totos could own. Land records show that until 1969, all 1,996.96 acres (808 hectares) of the village belonged to the community, said Liwaj Rai, a researcher whose research focuses on the Toto people. The land was owned collectively by the community.

Then, in 1969, the government introduced private ownership of land, declaring more than 1,600 acres (650 hectares) open for others to settle and claim ownership. About 17 percent of the remaining village land was set aside by the government for Totos. However, community members say they do not control the land and, in fact, do not even know the exact area of ​​the village that legally belongs to them.

“We have no problem with non-Totos,” says Bakul Toto, secretary of the Toto Kalyan Samiti, a community organization fighting for their rights. “But we want some of the land granted in 1969 back to us.

“Following our persistent demands, the state government conducted a survey of the land in 2022, giving us hope of regaining land ownership. However, the survey results are still not available even after two years. It has not been made public.”

This, he says, has raised doubts in the minds of the Totos as to whether the Trinamool Congress-led state government led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is seriously addressing their concerns.

Prakash Nehwal, who is from the Nepali community, says it is wrong to label non-Totos as outsiders.

“We have lived here for generations, ever since our ancestors settled here,” he says. “We have lived amicably with the Totos,'' he said, adding that Nepalis were willing to vacate land that the court determined belonged to the Totos “after all legal options have been exhausted.'' .

Government officials did not respond to repeated calls and text messages from Al Jazeera.

We need doctors, not elephants.

But land and community tensions are not the only challenges Totopara is grappling with.

The road from the village to the nearest town, Madarihat, 21 km (13 miles) away, is potholed and cratered and crosses a river bed that floods during the monsoons, when Totpara is cut off from the rest of India.

“In some cases, it can take two to three days for the water to recede and (people) can resume their travels. We have been demanding the construction of an overpass for a long time, but nothing has materialized and we are suffering. It continues,” said Ashok Toto, 54, a village resident.

He said the village's population growth has also led to deforestation, which has intensified human-animal conflicts over the years.

“Elephants used to rarely come to the village, but now they come almost every day to feed and attack elephants that get in their way,” he says. “Large-scale deforestation has not only resulted in significant loss of flora and fauna, but has also led to the drying up of natural streams on which we depend for drinking water. Water crisis is now a major issue here. It has become.”

The isolated primary health center in the village has been without a doctor since July 2023, and is run by three other staff members and one pharmacist.

“Severe cases are referred to distant hospitals, about 70 to 80 kilometers (43 to 50 miles) away,” says Probin Toto, 36. During the monsoon, roads are flooded, making this impossible in some cases. “We need doctors immediately, but the government is still not listening to our demands.”

The next generation in crisis

The only secondary school in the village, the state-run Dhanapati Toto Memorial High School, has only eight teachers out of a total of 20. Three years ago, there were 18 teachers, but government initiatives have allowed teachers to transfer to nearby public schools. leading to their escape to their homes. The government has also not hired any new junior high school teachers since 2011.

result? Rapid increase in dropouts. The school, which had 350 students just three years ago, now has 128 students.

“Most subjects do not have specialized teachers,” said teacher Annapurna Chakraborty. As a result, her parents “pull their children out of school, send them to schools far away, or even send them to work because of poverty,” she added.

Bharat Toto, 25, has a graduate degree in mathematics and recently started teaching village students and dropouts to encourage them to return to school. It’s a weapon to fight for our rights,” he says.

Local residents say a lack of jobs is also hampering Totos' future prospects. Most of the houses have tall areca trees on their premises and they sell betel nuts to traders for a living.

“Betel nut saves us from hunger because we don't have jobs,” says Dhananjay Toto, 34, who works as an agricultural laborer while pursuing a graduate degree. “I applied for a government job as a librarian, but I didn't get the job.”

Besides the Trinamool Congress, which rules the state, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party is the other major political force in West Bengal.

The Totos say they have not yet decided who they will vote for in the next election.

As dusk approaches Totopara, Jiten says that it doesn't matter as he heads home.

“We are part of the world's largest democracy,” he says, but “our handful of votes mean very little to any political party.”

“I doubt most of them even know we exist here.”