The Hindu Business Line : Let the tribals speak for themselves

The National Tribal Policy should be based on opening up tribal societies and giving their members the freedom to choose the lifestyle they would like to lead. It is time tribals were allowed to take charge of their development rather than non-tribals with romantic notions of tribal life being empowered to decide their fate.

THE NATIONAL Tribal Policy should be based on opening up tribal societies and giving their members the freedom to choose their lifestyles.

India's tribal communities rarely attract public attention. They become news only when they are displaced from their traditional environment.

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are usually the first to take up cudgels on behalf of such displaced communities, demanding that tribal lifestyles and culture should not be disturbed and that their rights to the forest products should be protected. Otherwise, these 85 million people, constituting 8.2 per cent of the population, lives isolated and unnoticed in 15 per cent of India's territory.

Now the Ministry for Tribal Affairs has started work on framing a National Tribal Policy, a draft of which has been circulated for comment.

The basic problem in drafting a policy for tribal communities is summarised in the Preamble: "The dilemma in preparing a new policy for the Scheduled Tribes in India is how to strike the right balance between preservation of tribal identity and ensuring their access to mainstream society." The preservation of the tribal lifestyle and culture appears to be a pet hobby-horse of the urban gentry and of civil society organisations formed exclusively from the non-tribal segment of society. Centuries back, the tribals beat back the aggression of the non-tribal society and, since then, a sort of uneasy cease-fire prevailed till the commencement of British Rule. The British, in general, respected the sanctity of tribal customs and territory.

With the advent of the British, tribal societies started getting the benefit of health services and educational facilities. Those few tribe members who qualified in the education system and ultimately joined the outside society never regretted the fact, nor ever seriously considered coming back to the tribal fold. And those of them who went back did not do so to resume the lifestyle of the tribals but as outsiders trying to bring home the values of another society.

The British clearly wished for a deepening alienation of the tribal society from the rest of the country. Thus, the missionaries, with an eye on conversions, and anthropologists with respectable academic credentials joined hands to uphold and justify the distinct identity of tribal communities. The political leadership that came to power after Independence shared the attitude of the colonial regime, except that relating to conversion to Christianity and providing a vast field for anthropological studies. Nehru had a fetish for artificially preserving islands of culture as pieces of archaic curiosity. He was keen on preserving Pondicherry as an island of French culture, and Goa as a piece of Portuguese history and mores.

Constitutional Provisions

The Constitution contains several provisions for ensuring a better quality of life for the weaker sections, including the Scheduled Tribes, based on a policy of positive discrimination and affirmative action. The Constitution contains several Articles exclusively devoted to the Scheduled Tribes; these include Articles 244,244(AA), 275(1), 342, 338(AA) and 339. Schedule V of the Constitution provides for Administration and Control of Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes under the governors.

None of these provisions has done much of good to tribal communities, which continue to be afflicted by poverty, disease and ignorance. Only the Christian missionaries appear to be bringing some substantive good, at whatever price. The situation of the tribals has become a favourite ground of the NGOs.

The colonial attitude of looking at tribals as an archaic curio, a tourist attraction, was inherited by civil society activists from the non-tribal society, which tries to politicise and romanticise the tribal identity and lifestyle. These enthusiasts, rosy-eyed about "living close to nature" and the "divine quality of rustic life", come from urban society, perhaps in the full confidence that they will never be required actually to suffer the hardships of the tribal lifestyle. Not many have cared to ask if the tribals themselves wish to continue with their old culture and values. If asked, the tribals would, of course, defend their lifestyle.

But the fact remains that every tribal who gets an opportunity to walk out of the quagmire of tribal life votes with his feet and leaves. In any case, they all do better by the Human Resource Development (HRD) standards; no matter where they figure in the anachronistic Tribal Values Index (TVI).

Real Freedom

The efforts to raise the HRD level of tribals have been seriously thwarted by the fact that we are in two minds whether the HRD standards are applicable to tribal societies at all.

We try, in vain, and ride the twin horses of preservation of tribal culture, and of HRD, with the result that tribal societies have remained as backward as they were at the dawn of Independence.

A National Tribal Policy should be based not on the concept of striking a balance between these opposites but on the principle of freedom for each member of every tribal society to opt for either the old lifestyle or to go for the modern life, or choose access to both lifestyles. Tribal societies should have the freedom to march towards the future in accordance with their real wishes without being influenced by romanticists from the outside world.

The question of protection of tribal communities and their lifestyles becomes topical and makes glaring headlines in cases where the land of the tribal communities is sought to be acquired by the government for some development project or the other.

Unimaginative Policy

The market value of tribal land is very high and there is a good market for such areas. Unfortunately, the legislative restrictions on the transfer of tribal lands have made it impossible for tribal people to enter the market, cash in their assets and make a beginning in modern society. The legal protection of their land has thus actually been counter-productive.

The problem of the tribal communities can be compared with that of endangered species of animals. Attempts to protect such species as the tiger, the crocodile and the elephant have failed all over the world. The creation of reserved parks has not effectively stopped poaching and the market in their body parts continues to flourish. Actual experience in Australia, South Africa and China has shown that, rather than have closed reserves, it is more beneficial to open up and promote markets in the body parts of the endangered animals.

The National Tribal Policy should be based more on opening up tribal societies and giving their members the option to choose. All measures of governmental intervention that would tend to influence the choice of the tribals should be strictly eschewed.

The policies hitherto have given the right of deciding what kind of life the tribals will live to the outside society. The result has not only been the widening gap between the HRD levels of the two societies but also the actual shrinking of tribal populations. It is regrettable that the National Tribal Policy draft pays scant attention to these considerations and pursues the policy line that has proved disastrous for over 50 years.

(The author is Founder, Shetkari Sanghatana and Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha). Response may be sent to sharad.mah@nic.in)

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