A 36-year-old doctor regularly visits some temporary settlements deep inside the reserve forests and the Kinnerasani Wildlife Sanctuary in east Telangana. Most houses there have no electricity or tubewell; the settlers belonging to the Gond tribe are largely malnourished; some of them suffer from tuberculosis; the infant mortality rate is worryingly high, the doctor told ET Magazine, requesting anonymity.
As he checks on the patients and writes down prescriptions, many of them open up to him and tell stories of their past.
Of dreadful nights of violence between armed Maoist guerrillas and the Salwa Judum militia, backed by the Chhattisgarh government, sometime in 2004-05, forcing them to abandon their homes in Bastar in south Chhattisgarh and find refuge in the forest tracts of Andhra Pradesh.
Today, there are over 200 such habitations of displaced Bastar tribals, most of them located…
