Name of Fellow: Turtan Topno
Genre: Social and Economic Justice
Area of Work: Khunti district, Jharkhand

Turtan Topno is an Adivasi-Moolvasi rights land rights activists from Khunti district in Jharkhand.

Turtan lost his parents when he was a child. He was brought up by his grandfather’s sister at a different village. From there he completed his matriculation and did an ITI course on machinist. After his studies he moved back to his village Sattal in Khunti district in 1998. After that he got married in 2000 and started farming as livelihood option.

While he was doing his farming activities, he learnt that they are going to get displaced. A project initiated near his village would have displaced 54 villages in Khunti and Kamra districts of the state. Being an Adivasi youth, and from belonging to village which would have been destroyed, he started to participate in peoples’ movements.

During this time, he started to participate in various programmes organized to sensitise the community members about the ensuing displacement. In the process, he started to speak in the meetings whenever he got the option. This public speaking facilitated him to become a significant tribal speaker.

To preserve the ecology of the forest areas and the tribals from land alienation, Turtan and his fellow community members formed a peoples’ forum called Adivasi Raksha Manch. But soon they realized that not only the Adivasis, but the indigenous communities living in the region would be affected if the ecology was disturbed and also, members of other indigenous groups were also taking part in the forum. So, they changed the name of the forum to Adivasi Moolvasi Astitva Raksha Manch.

This group has been continuing their work on capacity building of tribal and indigenous people through educating them about provisions of Fifth Schedule, PESA act, FRA act, CNT and SPT acts.

Turtan along with his fellow villagers are working towards protection of Chotanagpur Tenancy Act (CNT) and Santhal Parganas Tenancy (SPT) Act as these laws ensure tribals land rights in forest lands. Adivasi Moolvasi Astitva Raksha Manch actively building their network of villagers to create awareness about the importance of the various acts like PESA, CNT, SPT, and FRA so that they can ensure their livelihoods and rights over forest resources as provided in the acts.

The Union government’s recent SVAMITVA scheme is opposed in Jharkhand as it has provisions of alienating the tribals from their community land rights. His group is organizing various community awareness camps in village to sensitise the community members about the scheme and how it will affect the communities.

Belonging to Fifth Schedule state and coming under the purview of PESA act, Turtan understands the importance of gram Sabhas. He is constantly involved in mobilizing the gram sabhas and empower them with imparting knowledge about the provisions in various acts which empower the gram sabha as the unit of local self-governance.

Despite being not a law graduate, Turtan is well versed about the Constitutional provisions and laws which favour the tribal communities and other forest dwellers. His understanding about various laws developed from his childhood as he used to attend the gram sabhas where elders discussed about the importance of acts like CNT and SPT. Later when he began his social work, he learnt about new laws and now he imparts awareness about the provisions of various laws among the community members.

At many times, the officials mislead people and tell them only the benefits of new schemes. This results people believing the officials and rejecting the comments of people like Turtan. Then Turtan mobilises whomsoever he can to meet the higher authorities against disseminating such misleading information. With the help of his organization, Turtan informs the community members about the nuances of schemes like SVAMITVA and make people understand these can lead to land alienation.

Devoting nearly two decades in community upliftment and mass mobilization, Turtan continues to empower the gram sabhas and hopes to build leadership among the tribals. Hie focus remains justice, and equality for tribals.