A NEW and enticing bait of rupees five lakhs for their `uplift work` has been given to the Adibasis of the Chotanagpur plateau by the present Congress Government of Bihar, and a full fledged Adibasi Mass Contact movement is in the offing. It is proposed to distribute this amount through trusted Congressmen for the opening of primary schools, establishment of tanneries, charkha centres, khaddar stores and an intensive publicity campaign.

The Congress leadership of Bihar hopes that through this apparently simple overture, the Adibasis would be lured, veer round the Congress ideals and ideologies and bury deep the history of the recent elections in which no less than 41 of them were reported to have been killed by Congressmen, their women folk were tortured and a veritable hell was let loose on them through imported `goondas`.

It is further hoped that if an intensive publicity campaign is initiated among them, trumpeting the honest intentions of the Congress, the present Adibasi Movement which has come to be known as the national movement of a brave and courageous people, with a distinctive culture and civilisation, would be arrested for good, and would dissuade them from pursuing their national objective... . Dawn Delhi