Given this background, Mukta Jhodia’s words at the award ceremony have great resonance: “The award will strengthen the movement, which is going through a critical phase. The state government is spreading terror by arresting leaders and using police repression to divide villagers. The peace and harmony is lost. In the year 2000 in Maikanch, three tribal men were killed during a peaceful demonstration. When I and my fellow activists refused to give information on our leaders, the police beat us up.”

Despite false charges levelled against her and other members of the Prakrutik Sampad Suraksha Parishad, she continues to inspire the villagers with her fiery speeches and her indefatigable energy that takes her across villages through rough terrains — sometimes in the dead of night to avoid arrest — so that her people can unite against the violation of their human rights. For Mukta Jhodia, ‘bheeta mati’ — the motherland — is the natural heritage and property of her people. For its forests and its rivers, she is willing to sacrifice everything.

The writer is a fellow at Nehru Memorial Museum and Library Teen Murti