Wither Supremacy:
“Tribal culture that is developed is not unblended and the culture which is unblended is not developed”
-
Lipika Nath
Introduction:
The tribal
communities are small-scale, simple in character, with contiguous populations
and socio-cultural homogeneity. There is less complex division of labour, apart
from those necessitated by age and sex factors. Tribal societies are kin-based
and segmentary in composition. The socio-economic and cultural life of the
tribal groups of India varies from tribe to tribe and region to region. They
belong to various ethnic stocks, have distinct pattern of economy, technology,
and religious behaviour and speak a large number of languages and dialects. When
we are looking towards the ‘Impact of Development in Tribal Society’, it is our
prime most duty to understand each of the phenomena constituting this
statement.
The term Tribe is
derived from the word ‘Tribus’ originated in Rome, particularly meaning to ‘a
division within the roman state’, later this term was came to use in culture by
the Europeans when they started exploring and encountering cultures, those are
different from them. There is no exact definition or the criteria for
considering a human group, a tribe. However scholars defined it in different
ways at different times. There is ambiguity so far as concept and definition of
“tribe” are concerned. Sometimes they are called “aboriginal” or “depressed classes”
or “Adivasees”. Basically Tribes are the indigenous group of people within a
particular geographical area who have certain characteristic features like,
ü They
have commonalities in their ancestry, culture, language/dialect, beliefs,
ritual practices, religion, naming, values, attributes and all the other
aspects of a social life.
ü They
have a common social organization
ü They
live within a common territory and geographical space
ü They
are homogenous, small in members, have social divisions, have close association
within kin members with blood or affinal connections.
ü They
share common identity in isolation from main stream people
ü They
have their simple technology in subsistence pattern and have same occupational
interest
ü They
also have common autonomous political organisation with their own leader or
headman, have strong sense of unity and group solidarity with we feeling.
ü They
have lack of interest to connect with main stream people or advancement and
have shyness to the outsiders. And many more..
So it can be
understood that the term is not as simple as to define within a particular
definition rather only can be seen in terms of its characteristics. According
to common people..
1. They
have an asset of primitive trait
2. Common
geographical territory
3. Shying
to connect with outsiders and
4. Backwardness
in terms of lifestyle.
Development
on the other hand, is the process of constituting a new stage in a changing
situation. It is a process that creates growth, progress, positive change or
the addition of physical, economic, environmental, social and demographic
components. The purpose of development
is a rise in the level and quality of life of the population, and the creation
or expansion of local regional income and employment opportunities, without
damaging the resources of the environment.
Development is visible and useful, not necessarily immediately, and
includes an aspect of quality change and the creation of conditions for a
continuation of that change.
Development refers
to the process of holistic increase in the quantitative growth along with its
qualitative aspect like the effectiveness and superiority of the concerned
phenomena. The famous Sociologist Mahapatra has highlighted two major
approaches of development and those are,
1. Development of
the material and human resource is sought as catering to the material progress
of the nation. And
2. Development of
a place or region or its people in terms of the objectives, value and goals of
the people concerned with the area, which may not always be in conflict with
the national requirement and national objectives, that in turn must respect and
accommodate regional people’s aspirations and potentialities.
Following this
famous quotes when we are talking of tribal development, it is the prime
responsibility of the stakeholders who are engaged with development activities
of the tribal people to follow the later
one. They need to follow the concept of cultural relativism and cultural
possibilism in respect to that particular tribal community they need to serve
the developmental progress. Only then a development process can be successfully
done.
Now Tribal
community and their development is the most critical discussion in present day.
When we are talking about development in social context of the tribal people or
culture in India, it’s undoubtable looks very promising from the outside
through the posters, schemes, policies and all, the growth in the number of
policy and developmental strategic constructions are undoubtable enough but the
implementation has greater amount of weaknesses that could not be denied. There
are many debates and discussions are going on regarding the development among
tribal people. There are many arguments on, whether the developmental process
is beneficial for the tribal communities or the process is leading their
culture and traditions to degradation and loss of their identity and so on.
There are many positive and negative impacts of developmental activities on the
tribal culture and their society have
been reported so far. This assignment is focused on one aspect of the tribal
life and will find out what is the overall impact of the developmental
activities on tribal livelihood , in
special reference to Indian context.
Development and Tribal Issues:
Tribal Development
in India is a subject which is being discussed among personnel of higher ranks,
statesmen, academists and scholars for over six decades. During this present
period, it has become a subject which drew serious and widespread concern and pronounced
attention from several quarters ranging from policy makers and development
planners to academists providing material for all of them. Since the state is
becoming increasingly important in the context of tribal development, the
public policy and administrative system relating to this field have been
subjected to serious intellectual scrutiny during all these years. Thus the
tribal development has come to occupy very important place in the agenda of
social science research in the country.
Tribes are
generally backward, economically as well as educationally. The situation is not
uniform in all the parts of India. In the north-east, the situation has been
disturbed for several years, whereas in the mainland (central India) problems
related to poverty, unemployment, indebtedness, backwardness and ignorance are
acute. The tribes of the northeast have a high level of politicisation,
literacy and a high standard of living compared to their counterparts in other
parts. The tribes were alienated from their own lands. The landlords and
moneylenders of the plains gradually replaced the tribal landowners. The survey
done by B.K. Roy Burman (1972) shows that the tribals are the most backward as
because of their low literacy and primitive economy.
Since tribal
people are at different social, political, economic and ecological levels, their
problems also differ in degree from each other. These differences can be seen
in terms of hill tribes and plainsmen; between those who are engaged in
forest-based economic pursuits and the ones who are employed as settled
agriculturists; or between those who are Hinduised or converted to Christianity;
and those who are adhering to an unadulterated tribal way of life (Sharma,
2008). Despite these distinctions, some common problems of the tribal people
are:
1) Poverty and
exploitation.
2) Economic and
technological backwardness.
3) Socio-cultural
handicaps.
4) Problems of
assimilation with the non-tribal population.
S.C. Dube’s
five-fold classification of the Indian tribes provides a clear picture of the problem
of tribes in India. Dube (1982) mentions:
1. Aboriginals
living in seclusion;
2. Tribal groups
having an association with the neighbouring non-tribal society and also maintaining
their distinctiveness;
3. Tribals living
in village along with caste groups, sects and religious groups and maintaining
their identity;
4. Tribals who
have been degraded to the status of untouchables;
5. Tribals who
enjoy high social, economic and political status.
Such a
classification is based on the nature of cultural contacts of tribals with non
tribals. But “The overall impact of developmental projects on tribes has been
often loss of livelihood, massive displacement and involuntary migration.” This
is the conclusion drawn by the High-Level Committee on the Status of Tribals.
In this light, lets critically examine how tribals are affected and what needs
to be done to protect their interests in special reference to tribal
traditional livelihood.
Impact of Development on Tribal Livelihood:
Livelihood
comprises of ‘the resources (natural, physical, human, financial, social
relations) that together determine the living gained by the individual or
household’ . The term ‘livelihood’ can be defined as a ‘means of gaining
living’ or a combination of the resources used and the activities undertaken by
individuals, households and communities in order to live. As scarcely available
resources, sustainable natural resources necessarily involves making livelihood
more sustainable. A livelihood is sustainable when it can cope with and recover
from stress and shock, maintain or enhance is capabilities and assets without
undermining the natural resource base. Sustainable livelihood can be defined as
„a means of living or a supporting life and meeting individual and community
needs‟. Sustainable livelihood of is the material basis on which life is
sustained. It provides new perspectives on developing healthy sustainable
societies that provide people with secure and satisfying livelihoods.
Tribals depend for
their livelihood on their surrounding natural resources, the main source of
livelihood of Tribals is Agriculture, Minor Forest Produce (Sal, Mahua, Amla,
Harra, Behera, Char, Imli Tendu leaves, Mehul leave, Honey, forest roots,
fruits, leaves and vegetables etc), Fishing, and Hunting in general. Earlier
Tribals never used to bother about their livelihood security because during the
season they use to cultivate multiple grains and store it for odd season and
since most of the Tribal population habitats was in forest or within the
vicinity of forest, they mostly depended on forest for their livelihood.
Unfortunately, wherever Tribal population habitations are there-there are
abundance of mineral resources, which eyed by the government and corporations
of industrial mining to boost the economic growth of the country. In the
process of Industrial development Tribal communities have been displaced and
dispossessed of their habitation and livelihood bases. Scheme and policies that
have been formulated for tribal development and empowerment are very strong on
recommendation, however, weak on implementations and therefore still the tribal
livelihood issues draw our attention specially of the Civil society. Some of the Schemes have benefitted tribal
communities where others have negatively impacted specially from the point of
pursuance of livelihood endeavour. Such
as Food grain schemes – that has made them insignificant to produce food grains
and diverse grains which was the part of their food basket and nutritional
intake.
Tribals are
agriculture practitioners but most of them have small land holdings for
agriculture, when access to forest was limited their livelihood was badly
affected, their asset formation is very much limited and confined. Tribals do
not want to leave their community, they like to be united with jal jangal and
jameen in their own area. But the entry of outsiders in through Industrial
projects has disturbed their ecosystems, culture, ethnic and religious
practice. It has forced them to move-out from the place. These have become the
causes for loss of their livelihood.
Examples of Fading Traditional Livelihood:
1. Gaddi
Tribal Community of Kangra District of Himachal Pradesh, India :
The economic
lifestyle of Gaddis are by selling live stocks from time to time but they face many
problems regarding their traditional subsistence and pattern of livelihood. As
pastoralism need effort, courage, time and its profit and loss are also
dependent on environmental situation, for the new generation this occupation is
not favoured. They are now more inclined to Governmental or private-Jobs and
other opportunities for earning money quickly with less effort. According to
one of the teacher of that village, students used to go out of their village
when they become adult with their relatives or acquittances too far away in the
main town to work in shops or factories. Others try to settle jobs in
governmental sector with their well educative mentality. So for the new
generation pastoralism is not a good choice to carry on to live modern life. So
in this situation when the new generation have new dreams and aspiration with
the mentality of well education and to catch the pace of developed societies,
the gaddi cultural and the pastoralism itself is gradually vanishing. It has
already been confined to the small percentage in the typical tradition
followers and moving towards the dying
death as no one is there to take it over among the new generational people. So
it is difficult to trace the future of their traditional occupation,
agro-pastoralism that how long it will be sustained and continued.
2. Dudhi
Gujjar Community of Jammu and Kashmir :
People
of Dudhi Gujjars community tend Buffalos and sell milk products. These sect of
Gujjars depends upon Agriculture, tend buffalos and other live stocks such as
cow, goats and horses for their survival and sustenance. Due to very reasons
they are facing ignorance and exclusion on a daily basis and due to the
developmental activities in their nearby areas, construction of industries and
other landholders taking their lands for construction purpose, leading the lack
of basic amenities that have been taken away from them gradually like grazing
lands and shrunken opportunities for maintain their traditional life.
3. Anthropologists
have reported, once upon a time, The Saharia tribe in India had 8 fold
economic typology for their sustainable livelihood, those are – 1. Forest
Hunting Type; 2. Plain Agriculture type; 3. Simple artisan; 4. Pastoral and
Cattle harder type; 5. Folk artist type; 6. Agricultural labour; 7.
Non-agricultural labour type; and 8. Skilled, white collar job and traders type
, which all are in great transition in the present days. Their exposures to a
number of exogenous developmental factors contributed to change in them. They
adapt to the modern economic forces, acquire economic new activities, adopt
modern technology and means and are geared towards achieving the goal of
development. There are a lot of
interrelated processual factors that could be attributed to the change
in their livelihood in response to developmental activity and modernity, those
are like, 1. Occupational change (the modern or developed occupation replacing
their traditional livelihood practices); 2. Subsistence to commercialization;
3. Market integration and commoditisation; 4. Barter to Monetary Exchange and
5. Proletarianization, Depeasantisation and impoverishment. So it can be
clearly understood how their traditional knowledge and supremacy in their
particular livelihood practices are negatively being affected to become
developed.
4. The
Kora Tribal Community in Birbhum District of West Bengal:
The
member of this tribal community are traditionally earth workers. They had
migrated to this land because of their traditional supremacy of earth working
activities like, cutting soil, digging tanks and agricultural labouring. But now a days they
are only limited to agricultural labouring as the machinery developments
replaced their manual working so now they have to shift their traditional
livelihood practices, from their supremacy to learn the machinery activities
and to live their life. People who are unable to find agriculture labour
working, they are moving to industrial cities to work as industrial migrant labourers
and also working in brick field as seasonal labour. So now they does not have
any single work to do regarding what they are expert of.
Since
most of the villagers are agriculturist, many among them were found to use
threshing machine, spray machine, insecticides, seeds of high yielding
varieties, and use of shallow-pump for irrigation. It was found that they sell
the crops in the retail markets in Bolpur, Illambazar etc., at the price fixed
up by the government. So the villagers are getting exposure to market economy.
But along with this while the mechianary labour is increasing for being easy,
beneficial for time, money and high
demand, these people are actually in the stage of crucial fear of losing their
own traditional earth workings, which they are specialize of and to are forced
to take the decision of getting involved to other possible services for better
living opportunity in this developing country like India.
5. Korwa tribal community of Chhattisgarh:
‘Korwa’
is one of the indigenous tribal communities of India., they were displaced in
1970s because of the state’s forest policy and resettled in the 4 villages
surrounding the township of Ambikapur, the administrative headquarter of
Surguja district, Chhattisgarh. Historically, the forest belt in Surguja had
been their territory, a familiar "place" around which their way of
life was revolved. Now the Korwa people experience
health in their own territory and considers the movement to an unfamiliar land
as unhealthy.
By
using a term ‘sukh’, they imply a condition of all around prosperity with
bodily health as an integral component.
According to them health and peacefulness is not only bodily discomfort
but also it is more related to social and emotional attachments. It is
something that include natural, social, and supernatural components of the
living space. By contrast, illness is attributed to disruption, disorderliness,
disharmony, and imbalance in relationship with these "three worlds"
that are played out on the body. Korwas often convey their fear of falling ill
because of eating unfamiliar food, crossing the path of spirits, or stepping on
their dwelling areas, implying that "misrecognition" of space becomes
detrimental to their existence, So they does not have Sukh (Peace) in their
life anymore. Due to this The Korwa complain of fever, diffuse aches, fatigue,
frail bodies and many of the other
bodily discomfort forming a part of their everyday lives and thereby signalling
the loss of experiential health attributed to alienation from the forest.
According to them ‘they are not living a free life’, ‘they were not created to
work for others as they were carved in deep woods by God to do Beora (shifting
cultivation and prey on ras mas (fruits and flesh)’ and to be
independent….these all mindset is affecting their mental peace and thought to
be the main reason of their deteriorating health along with displaced
environmental background.
6. The
Birhors of Jharkhand:
The
traditional sources of livelihood of the Birhor was hunting and gathering along
with rope making. All these activities were sustained by the forest. The
degradation of forest land coupled with restrictions on their access to the
forests has forced them out of their traditional occupation. They have now
adopted a number of activities to earn a livelihood. The degradation of the
forest cover has uprooted the Birhors from their traditional sources of
livelihood and brought in instability in their economic activities. They have
been continuously moving in and out of their traditional economic activities. Though
the alternative economic activity for them has been agriculture, ignorance of
agricultural practices and low quality of land have been the major hindrances
in their adopting these
activities. Insecure livelihoods have
compelled them to move out of the district with diminishing traditional
economic activity to districts where there is scope for such occupation.
These are only 6
examples of fading tribal livelihood practices in respect to only 6 schedule
tribal communities. There are more than 705 tribal communities in India who are living in different corners of all
over the nation and their stories of fading lifestyle is different from each other. Although the story is different
in context to their social, economic and environmental condition but the main
issue is same and that is the issue of discomfort in the rapidly changing
livelihood practices. Tribal communities do need to be developed like the so
called main stream population but the way they wants their development is
different from how the outside people thinks of the development they need to be
done. The strong attachment of Tribals towards their Jal, Jangal, Jameen has
started to fade due to various attempts by the Government policy implementation
of schemes to improve tribal livelihoods. This can not be denied that the
number of policies, agendas and initiative are enough but the sustainability
and long run of those implementations are in question. So being an
anthropologist or community developer or stake holders for tribal
development, it is our responsibility
to find out the core issues and plan and act accordingly in respect to the
tribal socio-economic and environmental context.
Necessary Discussions and Possible Recommendations:
“The overall impact of developmental projects
on tribes has been often loss of livelihood, massive displacement and
involuntary migration.”
State
government and central government are taking various steps for facilitating
sustainable livelihood for Tribal communities in various sectors focusing on
vocational training, formal technical education and upskill development
initiatives for Tribal youths. As told by Mr. Vinay Kumar Tirkey (Joint mission
director SRLM) in an seminar on tribal livelihood, Deen Dayal Upadhaya (DDU)
Skill Development Scheme is one of the biggest schemes in Chhattisgarh in the
area of skilling people. Under this the age group between 18 to 65 years of
youth and people are given opportunity for different types of skill development
training for 3 to 12 month. And after training 70% placement is ensured. At
present 80,000 people are being trained.
There
are huge number of initiatives like this
can be seen to be taken up by various NGOs and government or public sectors in
the nation. But one needs to see it how effective these schemes are, because
the Tribal population are in remote areas and many officers responsible for
implementing the scheme are unable to reach out. Further agencies associated
for training and delivering services in these areas tend to exploit the Tribals
by promising better jobs in cities and other states- which eventually does not
yield as tribal communities are not willing to migrate to unknown places and
work for longer durations. Even if they migrate initially after couple of
months of work they tend to go back to their villages and never return to work.
Hence there is critical need for review of such programs and need for educating
tribal communities as well service support needs to be modified to suit to
their needs to some extent and it has to be ensured that not only implementing
the developmental works but to sustain them in a long run.
A high level Xaxa
committee in its report stated that tribes are badly affected by the
developmental projects of govt. In spite of protective legislation and
schedules, tribal people are exploited on different footings. They are
alienated from their land for the govt projects. This causes involuntary
migration of tribal population. In addition, nearly 20 % of them resettled
only. State tries to assimilate the migrated population in spite of integrating
it. Report also argue that the state institutions many times try to subdue the
peaceful protest of tribal people against land alienation by putting criminal
charges against them. Many times, state manipulate protective laws and rules to
accommodate the corporate houses.
Although
development is necessary for the nation but it is also the responsibility of
the govt to give the legitimate due of the people affected by the projects. Major
effects on the life of tribals are that they tend to lose their lands, their
mode of sustenance as they depend on the land and forest for fulfilling their
basic needs , in addition to that they tend to lose their distinct identity as
they have to migrate to other places for survival. As most of the tribal groups
are not used to the settled ways so when they are displaced they are transformed
to landless labourers. In summation it can be said that quality of life gets
deteriorated drastically and sometime even survival becomes difficult.
Government has to
be more sensitive toward the need of tribals as present policies reflect the policies
and measures taken by the colonial govt which has only economic interest. FRA
acts should not be diluted and consent clause should not be fiddled with as it
is strongly supported by the logic that decision has to be of the affected
group. Instead of giving compensation and retabulating in the far away land
stress should be on providing the livelihood and provide the closest possible
replica of the existing settlement. If its mining or hydro project, govt should
ensure that the percentage of profits should be used for the upliftment of the
tribal people. Even the governors should not act as rubber stamps of the
Central govt instead they should take decision rationally when it comes to the
cases of tribal people in which they have substantial powers.
The Xaxa Committee
on Tribal Communities of India recommended for radical changes to the laws and
regulations that protect and give voice to this marginalized section. There is
a need for democratic process of land acquisition in scheduled areas. Some recommendations
are--
1. No tribal land
should be alienated without the consent of tribal Gram Sabha.
2. Mining in the
tribal land should be carried out by the tribal people themselves.
3. There is a dire
need to strictly implement the land laws, Forest Rights Act and strengthening
of PESA Act.
4. Governors of
states should be given more discretion to verify the applicability of any law
for scheduled areas. Governor should work on the advice of Tribal Advisory
Council. It also recommended to give more teeth to TAC in relation to tribal
rights.
5. The committee
is against the sanctioning of tribal land to private houses through the mode of
PPP
From an
anthropological perspective if we see the tribal communities, as community they
connotes a group of people that share commonalities in all or any of the
following – ancestry, cultural practices, place habitation, heritage and
interests – based on common or diverse goals. They never call themselves as
tribe, the outside people denotes them as tribe. They represents them as they
follow Hindu religion or any other which is dominant in their area. But one
thing is common for all tribal communities that is the relationship between
them and their land for their sustainable livelihood.
They reflect
relational, interactional, geographical, ethnical, place-attachment or
place-based interests and cultures shareable by those (members) who make up a
community whether it is only one tribal community or they live in multi-caste
or multi-community villages. We can see that many of the issues tribals are
facing are central to their land and placement. So therefore their
developmental plans should be
LCCD
is a community development approach that focuses on the enhancement of cultural
heritage and development-oriented land tenure practices as a way of improving
the living conditions of the tribal communities. To stop the possibility of
loss of livelihood, massive displacement and involuntary migration the
following community development agenda can to taken up for implementing the
government policies in successful level in the tribal community villages of
India.
Concluding Remarks:
Tribal people have
their traditional clothing, but most of them feel shy to visit so called
developed societies with that attire because people laugh at them, they can’t
use their own dialect to have conversation with the other people outside of
their community. Their traditional
cuisine or drinks are not available outside their hamlet. Their dressing style
is not accepted by the others in the main town. So those all are diminishing in
a way. Even their social rules and norms are also not
accepted for the present generation because they find others dressing, others
food habit, others lifestyle to be more developed, more acceptable to present
themselves in the modern society, why? Because we, who are claiming us
developed are not accepting their traditional lifestyle as like a type of
lifestyle. Rather developed society makes them feel that they are inferior. So
whom we are calling developed society or development where the mindware is not
developed? there are many more tribal community who are even in transition,
going to fade their traditional knowledge just to claim that they are developed
like Santals or Mundas of West Bengal.
So in the real
sense the tribal habitation and new development paradigm introduced and
propagated by the Government needs to be made conducive to the needs of the
people or else the existence of tribal identity, their customs, cultures and
languages will be on the verge of gradual decline. It is need of the hour for
the CSO and the Government interventions to review and reinitiate process of
participatory development of the tribal community that ensures their traditions
and culture intact and at the same time their livelihood issues are resolved to
enable they live with dignity where the association is maintained towards Jal,
Jangal and Jemeen.
And here the concluding
stand point is that the current process of development is actually not allowing
the tribal community to hold on their own culture and traditional livelihood
practices. Development is always needed. But that should be sustainable and
relativistic in nature in terms of the social, cultural, economic and all the
other aspects of those tribal people.
Until we are making culturally relativistic policies for the tribal
community, the development will actually
be or is destructive for maintain the
tribal culture and their traditional livelihood practices.
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