The Hindu Business Line : Who is to blame for the plight of the tribals ?

Disastrous government policies, their own culture, mis-guided do-gooders have contributed to the sad state of tribals. They have been badly served both by their exploiters and well-wishers, pushing many to take to arms. But the tribal people need, and deserve, something better than what either the government or Naxalites can offer, says P. V. INDIRESAN.

TRIBALS OF Visakapatnam... Victims of circumstance? — K. R. Deepak

From the series of poignant stories in Business Line about the plight of tribals of Orissa, it is clear the government has failed to relieve their poverty. It is no secret that, in disgust, tribals are increasingly turning to violence. It is a fact that social scientists and activists have failed to bring contending parties together. All three parties are claiming they alone are right; none is willing to budge. That reluctance to introspect, to change, is at the nub of the trouble. A new breed of sociologists is veering to the view that defective cultural practices are no less responsible for poverty and deprivation. Traditional social activists will not like that view, but Vision 2020 demands that such unpalatable views be taken into account. Logically, the weaknesses of the tribal people would have contributed to their sad state to a smaller or greater degree.

THE CONTRARIAN VIEW

An episode described in the series on Orissa tribals is the provocation for invoking the new contrarian view. The author tells the case of a tribal woman getting Rs 20,000 as compensation for deaths in the family. She should have got much more; she was cheated. That is bad but the issue is what she did with the money — a fortune by tribal standards, and a considerable one even for others. She was fatalistic about the fact that the entire money was spent on the funeral and in feeding the village.

In a similar situation, had the sufferer been a traditional Bania, the money would have been invested in business; conscientious efforts would have been made to improve one's income. If fate has dealt the tribals a cruel blow, the government has made matters worse. Even then, faulty tribal culture too is a factor that has kept them down. Blindly following some hackneyed theories of American sociologists, most do-gooders not only discounted cultural flaws that keep people poor; they even insisted that no attempt should be made to rectify those defects.

Mr Verrier Elwin had enormous influence over Nehru. On his insistence, the government instituted a policy of "protecting" tribal culture. In contrast, Nehru systematically attacked Hindu culture and did his best to rid it of age-old evils. People complained that he was against Hinduism. In truth, his frontal attack on Hindu tradition saved it from centuries of stagnation.

In contrast, because he and his successors excluded non-Hindus in their reforms; they, particularly the tribals and Muslims, stagnated; they have not been able to take advantage of opportunities that freedom generated. For instance, Central aid to the North-East States is higher than elsewhere. Instead of leveraging that resource in a productive manner, North-Eastern tribal people have engulfed themselves in internecine wars. They have divided and sub-divided themselves instead of joining the mainstream. They have invested their resources in violence instead of commerce and education.

BAD GOVERNANCE

In truth, as much as bad governance is at fault, much of the ills tribal people suffer from, they have brought on by themselves. All this should not be misconstrued as an apologia for the government. Both local and Central Governments have indeed been guilty of exploiting tribal resources and neglecting their welfare.

We have two choices: Sacrifice economic growth and preserve tribal culture, or pursue economic growth and compel tribal people to accept change. Economic development and technological progress may not make people happier, but they do make life richer, healthier. Those who oppose progress forget that life expectancy has more than doubled in India since Independence. By forcing a policy of keeping tribal people the way they were, they too have not only denied poor tribals their due share in national prosperity, they have also left them to die sooner than they need have.

ILL-SERVED BY ALL

Thus, tribals have been badly served both by their exploiters and by their well-wishers. The latter also condone, if not support, tribals taking to arms. Naxalite rebellion has brought the government to a virtual standstill in nearly half the country. That looks like success. It is not, because the movement is strongly negative; it opposes the government where it is bad, and also where it is not bad, in the matter of transport and communications for instance. Thus, the tribals are unlucky a third time — their own champions are strangulating economic progress.

The government has been pursuing disastrous policies of tribal welfare. Some years ago, a thoughtful young District Collector in Andhra Pradesh noted that the State language of Telugu was a foreign language for the hill people, and decided that they might as well learn English instead. The tribals saw in this move a chance to leapfrog in development.

Unfortunately, a busybody in the state capital ruled otherwise and stopped the programme. He ordered that Andhra Pradesh being a linguistic State, everyone must learn Telugu. He destroyed the budding enthusiasm of tribal people for school education. They and their children reverted to their old ways; attendance dwindled and school dropouts increased.

SWING TO EXTREME

Recently, the Andhra Pradesh bureaucracy swung to the other extreme. It has decided that tribal children should be educated in their own dialect. Undoubtedly, these bureaucrats are sympathetic to tribal welfare but they are no less dictatorial. This new move isolates tribal children even . It destroys what little chance of employment they had. Where will they get jobs when they know their mother tongue only?

This decision to change the medium of instruction to the tribal dialect may be well-intentioned but it is arbitrary, an act of high-handedness. The decision has been taken without consulting the affected people. As Prof Amartya Sen has been saying the past week, every individual can have — and should have — multiple identities. The rich are rich because they have many identities — of family, of region, of profession, of the institutions where they studied and so on. Multiple identities are the essence of progress, of civilisation. That civilisational need has been denied to the poor tribals. Both their exploiters and well-wishers are isolating the poor tribals, preventing them from joining the mainstream.

Systematically, politicians and bureaucrats have conspired to "Dalitise" government schools. All over the country, the upper castes and the well-to-do have withdrawn from government schools, and from municipal schools, so much so, state-run schools cater almost exclusively to SC/STs and the OBCs. Politicians, in particular, present this change as a mark of their benevolence. Nothing could be farther from the truth. This partitioning of school education between the upper castes and the rich on one side and the poor and the backward castes on the other only makes disparities worse.

Naxalite violence is no solution either. It too is regressive. Tribal people need, and deserve, something better than what either the government or Naxalites offer. Then, the tribal prayer should be: "Oh God! Save us from our enemies, save us even more from our friends, save us most of all from ourselves!

(To be continued.)

(The author is a former Director of IIT Madras. Response may be sent to: indiresan@gmail.com)

(This is 172nd in the Vision 2020 series. The previous article was published on March 20.)