Gadchiroli Oct. 16 (District Correspondent) Zade Samaj Samiti has demanded that the Zade -Zadya communities be included in the list of Scheduled Tribes immediately to enable them to avail the benefit of government schemes.
A delegation of the Samiti met the District Collector Sanjay Meena in his office here and submitted him a memorandum in this regard. The Zade tribe has been living in large numbers for the last many years in Saoli taluka of Chandrapur district and Dhanora, Gadchiroli, Chamorshi, Mulchera, Bhamragad, Aheri, Sironcha talukas of Gadchiroli district.
Their names have been mentioned as Zade, Zadya, Zadi in revenue records. All the area where they live is former Zamindari area and these people were “primitive jungle agricultural labourers”. Due to farming, they were given the occupational suffix “Kunbi” in Marathi area and “Kapewar” in Telugu area. But these people are not related to Kunbi and Kapewar communities and are not related with those communities by marriage too.
Evidence suggests that these people are a sub-branch of the Madiya Gonds and look similar to the Madiyas. Their social, economic, educational, political backwardness still continues because of the lack of facilities, pointed out the memorandum.
When the capital of Madhya Pradesh and Berar was Nagpur, from Chanda to Bastar, these people were enumerated as native tribes in one state till 1956 and were listed in the govt. order. In 1956 Madhya Pradesh and Bastar part of Berar were annexed to Madhya Pradesh’s capital Bhopal and the Vidarbha region was annexed to the state capital of Mumbai, it was further mentioned in the memorandum. Later on 1st May 1960 the state of Maharashtra was created.
In all this process, the Zade tribe was marginalized as it was not included in the list of the “State Reorganization Act”. Based on the strong evidence of Zade, the competent authorities issue caste certificates to this group as NT.
But due to the different findings of the vigilance team in the investigation, injustice is being done to this group and the existence of the group is in danger.
Since the year 2012, there has been an agitation and correspondence and there is a demand for proper research and the government but the administration is indifferent to the issue, said the memorandum.
The Zade community people should therefore be included in the list of Scheduled Tribes, it was demanded.
