By Sreedhar Nemmani[1] & Rashmi Kumari[2]
It was in the wee hours on 8 August 2021, in the interior parts of Bastar region in the southern part of Chhattisgarh State in India, when faint notes of a tune in the local Gondi language wafted towards us. As we walked further away from the settlement and towards the forest, the tunes grew louder. While we could not comprehend the language, we could identify those tunes to be part of the genre that is often played in the tribal areas of Bastar – cautioning the listeners to be vigilant of the State’s extractive ambitions in the region, of the tribal unity in the face of centuries-long oppressions, and the need for a revolutionary zeal in preserving/protecting their forests, lands, and rivers. As the tunes grew louder, we were surprised to see the source of the songs – a child, not more than two feet tall, gayly carrying a beat-up old radio. Till then, we were accustomed to seeing Adivasi (Indigenous) youth playing songs on smartphones but not a child playing songs saved on a memory card on the radio. But more importantly, the child was also fulfilling a traditional role of delivering messages in person that others from his village were reaching the village of Silinger[3] later that day.
It is this incongruent mix of old and new communication practices, digital and traditional, that we highlight in this blog. Towards this endeavor, we draw attention to the unique dynamics inherent in the Adivasi community’s engagement with digital communication technologies in their ongoing struggle. We argue that instead of considering Adivasi youth’s engagement with digital technologies as shifting to modern communication forms, it is productive to consider it as a seepage of digital technologies into their daily life resulting in a unique blend of modern and traditional communication practices.
The setting for this essay is Silinger[4], a village in the Bastar area of Chhattisgarh state, India. Although it was not forethought when we chose Silinger that it is situated on multiple frontiers, its unique positionality got more apparent as we engaged deeper. For one, located in the borders of Sukma and Bijapur districts, Silinger also represents a physical border drawn by the armed police forces and the Adivasi protestors opposing the construction of a four-lane highway through their villages. Four Adivasis were killed in police firing during the initial days of these protests at Silinger in May 2021. Led by the Adivasi youth, the villagers are continuing their daily sit-in protests at that site since then. While Silinger lacks basic amenities, like electricity, mobile connection, drinking water, or access to primary healthcare, it is attracting Adivasi and non-Adivasi community members from across the three districts of Bastar – Sukma, Bijapur, and Dantewada, and outsiders like us, representing a metaphorical border between the traditional and the modern. Silinger is also situated on an ideological frontier where the State seeks to make inroads into the former strongholds of the banned Communist Party (Maoist) guerrillas by deploying the rhetoric of development
[1] We visited Silinger during the first week of August 2021 as part of ethnographic fieldwork towards Rashmi’s Ph.D. dissertation. As our visit coincided with the World Indigenous People’s Day celebrations on 9 August, we were requested to extend our stay till the end of the celebrations giving us an opportunity to interact with the Adivasi youth organizing the protests and the celebrations and observing their engagement with the digital technologies.
As we arrived at the protest site late in the evening in the first week of August 2021, we learned that it was not just a protest to oppose the construction of roads and other ‘developmental’ infrastructure work. Rather the youth, under the banner of Moolvasi Bachao Manch (MBM, which translates to the forum to protect the early inhabitants), mobilized support to hold the state accountable for the decades-long neglect and its extractive policies. MBM’s primary demand was that any development work in the area should include the Moolvasi (the inhabitant) of the Bastar area and that the State acknowledges the existence of and the power granted to the Gram-Sabha (village assembly) in the fifth schedule areas according to the PESA Act of 1996[1]. The youth also demanded compensation for the lives lost in the police firing. As the protest continued, the youth educated themselves about the history of state violence in the area and demanded that the state be held accountable for it. It is in this space that the incongruent mix of traditional and digital communication can be seen the most as MBM not only apprised themselves with the stories of atrocities through their interaction with the community members, but they also accessed the news reports about the continuing extractive mining operations through news websites and YouTube videos using their mobile phones.
By the time we arrived at the protest site last year, a few members of the MBM were already aware of the potential uses of smartphones. Later they started operating a Twitter handle, blogger accounts, and YouTube channel to document and spread the information about their peaceful and continuing resistance at Silinger. We also witnessed the MBM members gathering every evening to learn about their constitutional rights through an app on their mobile phones. Apart from gathering information about the atrocities they were facing and their constitutional rights, these youth were also keen consumers of news regarding various protests across India. One of the successful protests they observed was the farmers’ protests that rocked the national capital, Delhi, forcing the central government to withdraw the corporate-friendly Agriculture Bill. In May 2022, as the protest anniversary approached, MBM formed a media wing to create PDF documents and videos of their year-long movement. They also documented the protest songs and dramas they created. MBM members shared these documents and videos with journalists, researchers like us, and supporters through various platforms like WhatsApp and Twitter, hoping that their continuing protest can attract wider attention.
Given such versatile use of smartphones by the MBM members and other Adivasi youth, it is tempting to argue that digital communication is the main communication mode of the Silinger protest. The extant literature (Poell, et al.; Jost, et al.) on the role of communication technologies in protests and social movements also provides ample evidence from across the world (Hari; Valenzuela; Scherman, et al.; Dwyer and Molony) that digital communication technologies enabled by the widespread percolation of smartphones aid the mobilization of support on the ground. Adivasi youth in Silinger, however, maintain that digital communication is only a small part of their efforts. “Because we are in an inaccessible area from the outside world, we have to use mobile phones to reach people like you, those coming from outside the Bastar region. But our main mode of garnering support is always in person. That is our Adivasi way of communicating. Our village elders and community members will take offense if we leave them a phone message and ask them to join the protest here at Silinger,” Raghu, one of the MBM leaders, explains. The child carrying a beat-up radio was part of this communication exchange where villagers were responding to an invitation from MBM. This dual nature of communication, utilizing both digital and traditional modes, allow MBM members to canvas a wider swath of community members and supporters both in the Bastar region and outside it.
While smartphones did acquire a constant presence in the Silinger movement, it is also essential to keep in mind that the protest site is not connected to an electric grid, nor do they have access to mobile data. Adivasi youth, both from MBM as well as those who come to participate in the movement, use a variety of strategies to try and circumvent the infrastructural hindrances that the state either inadvertently or deliberately places on the protesters.
Addressing the lack of electricity was fairly easy as one of the most popular modes of charging smartphones is by using power banks. One can see youth carrying power banks constantly connected to their smartphones, almost as an extension of the phone itself. Silinger receives abundant sunlight, and the youth depend on charging points connected to solar panels. Since it takes longer to charge a smartphone with solar panels, one can often see power banks connected to solar charging points. When neither of the options of using power banks or using solar panels is available, the youth use any vehicle battery available to them to charge their smartphones.
Addressing the lack of electricity was fairly easy as one of the most popular modes of charging smartphones is by using power banks. One can see youth carrying power banks constantly connected to their smartphones, almost as an extension of the phone itself. Silinger receives abundant sunlight, and the youth depend on charging points connected to solar panels. Since it takes longer to charge a smartphone with solar panels, one can often see power banks connected to solar charging points. When neither of the options of using power banks or using solar panels is available, the youth use any vehicle battery available to them to charge their smartphones.
Connecting to mobile data is far more difficult for the youth. For one, with trial and error, youth could find spots in and around the Silinger hamlet where they can connect to mobile data. Signal, however, is quite weak in such spots, so those spots are often limited to sending quick text messages on WhatsApp groups or sending normal texts when data is not available. Youth often go to higher elevations on nearby hills to find a better connection. The audio, video, pictorial, and other kinds of content that are too heavy to share among the youth using mobile data is often shared using Bluetooth technologies that come bundled with smartphones or swap memory cards. This kind of sharing also becomes important to the youth as not all of them can afford to recharge their pre-paid mobile sim cards either due to a lack of money or avenues to recharge. It has almost become a custom among the Adivasi youth to enquire if they have any new content to share when they meet those who visit nearby towns or villages.
Our intention in enumerating these strategies is not to catalog how youth surmount the existing obstacles in using technologies, for our observation was not exhaustive. It is, however, our intention to draw the reader’s attention to the creative ways in which Adivasi youth repurpose existing technologies towards their goal of creating awareness among the villagers and continuing their struggle against the armed police forces encroaching on their lands. Anthropologist Daniel Miller and others observe that as communities engage with technologies, these technologies tend to change their characteristics. In other words, as media technologies change how the world communicates, the world, in turn, changes how media technologies function. While Miller’s observation was based on the way social media was used across the world, our interaction with the Adivasi youth in Silinger takes this observation beyond social media as we consider other available communication technologies at the protest site. At Silinger, the youth selectively choose technologies that help them surmount the barriers they face.
Do the youth feel that their struggle to save their lands would be better served if they had access to electricity and a better mobile connection? “We have been resisting forces that seek to encroach into our lands for centuries. We organized when there were no phones, and we will continue our resistance even if the phones are not there,” Rama, one of the MBM leaders, explains. The use of smartphones is primarily to add to the traditional modes of communicating, canvasing, and rallying the people. “For us, using smartphones is mainly to spread the story of our resistance outside the Bastar region. People like you who visit us should go out and tell our story. We have strong support for our cause from the Adivasis in the region as we have been at the receiving end of the state and corporate extractive activities. We want everyone to know that we are still here,” Raghu adds.
In a country where protests occurring in the capital city, Delhi, assume greater importance in the public imagination and media discourse, these Adivasi youth are using both traditional and digital communication technologies to keep rallying people towards their cause.
[1] Sreedhar Nemmani is a Ph.D. student at Klein College of Media and Communication, Temple University. His research is on understanding the role of communication technologies in marginalized communities.
[2] Rashmi Kumari is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Childhood Studies, Rutgers University. Her research is on Indigenous youth movements at the intersection of developmentalism and violence.
[3] Though the village is named ‘Silinger’ in the official records and is referred to as such in the media coverage, we use ‘Silinger’ instead as the locals to their village as Silinger. In the rest of this essay, we refer to the village as Silinger.
[4] We visited Silinger during the first week of August 2021 as part of ethnographic fieldwork towards Rashmi’s Ph.D. dissertation. As our visit coincided with the World Indigenous People’s Day celebrations on August 09th, we were requested to extend our stay till the end of the celebrations giving us an opportunity to interact with the Adivasi youth organizing the protests and the celebrations and observing their engagement with the digital technologies.