TERM PAPER ON IMPACT OF INDUSTRIALIZATION ON TRIBALS IN INDIA
TRIBALS IN INDIA
The Constitution of India does not define Scheduled Tribes as such. According to Article 342 of the Constitution, the Scheduled Tribes are the tribes or tribal communities or part of or groups within these tribes and tribal communities which have been declared as such by the President through a public notification. As per the 1991 Census, the Scheduled Tribes account for 67.76 million representing 8.08 percent of the country’s population. Scheduled Tribes are spread across the country mainly in forest and hilly regions.
The essential characteristics of these communities are:-
- Primitive Traits
- Geographical isolation
- Distinct culture
- Shy of contact with community at large
- Economically backward
Tribals in India are economically and socially very backward. More than 3/4th of Scheduled Tribes women are illiterate. They have high dropout rates in formal education, resulting in disproportionately low representation in higher education. They have very low levels of nutrition. The proportion of Scheduled Tribes below the poverty line is substantially higher than the national average. Most of the Tribals are engaged mostly in low-skilled, low-paying jobs, especially in primary sector. The Constitution of India incorporates several special provisions for the promotion of educational and economic interest of Scheduled Tribes and their protection from social injustice and all forms of exploitation.
PRE-INDEPENDENCE FEATURES
Subjugation and exploitation of Tribals is something not new, only the scale and rate at which it has taken place in 18th century onwards is unprecedented. Tribals have always lived in a condition of economic autarky, marked by common ownership of land & forest resources.
Tribals were always seen as backward and different from mainstream, and who were to be incorporated into mainstream. So, historically, they have either adopted or were subjugated and mainstream cultural, social, political, religious, economic structures and practices imposed upon them.
Earlier tribal societies had a hierarchy of clans, lineages or even villages. But, with the incorporation of the tribes and tribal communities in the larger political system, the basis of inequality in forms other than rank (position) and status began in tribal societies. The alien rulers claimed sovereignty over tribal territory and collected revenue from tribal cultivators through tributaries/zamindars who were often outsiders and sometimes included tribal chiefs whose power increased. Tribal village councils were superseded by the council of the chiefs/rajas that often comprised of the king’s followers and friends. Grants of customary rights over villages were made to such followers. Thus the jagirdaari system or the system of service grants was introduced in tribal areas.
Privatization of land during British era led to a flow of capital and penetration by market opened the gates for influx of non-Tribals especially money-lenders and traders into tribal areas. This opened up the way for large scale alienation of land from tribes to non tribes, especially after tribal areas came to be linked by roads and railways. The mechanism through which this was achieved was fraud, deceit, coercion, and most often debt bondage. This reduced tribal cultivators to the position of tenants, landless labourers, and bondsmen. Thus three-tier agrarian categories emerged in tribal areas, namely, feudatory chief’s/zamindars, well-to-do peasants that included a section of Tribals especially village headsmen, and a very large section of small and poor cultivators and landless labourers who were mainly Tribals.
Post-Independence period saw the introduction of various land reform measures as well as measures specially meant for the protection and welfare of tribal people. This succeeded in restricting the transfer of land from Tribals to non-Tribals and also promoted a rich stratum of buyers from among Tribals paving the way for differentiation within tribal society. Consequently Tribals have now been differentiated into categories such as rich, middle and poor besides the landless. Such differentiation has given rise to a type of class relations that was traditionally absent within tribal societies.
Much of the forested land was declared as government land after survey and settlement. Earlier, Tribals only had to part with a portion of their produce and land belonged to them, but once the land was declared as belonging to Government in British era, the Tribals were declared encroachers upon the very land that they had lived on for centuries. In most cases, as tribal land was commonly owned it never had a owner which government can recognise. Claims of tribes over vast tracts of land were dismissed. Trees and Forests became government property who was now free to exploit them.
The dispossession of Tribals from their land and restriction of control over forest and forest produce that occurred during the colonial period pushed tribal people into the wider labour market. They were compelled to find employment as labourers in nearby quarries, coalfields and emerging towns. One of the most important sectors that Tribals moved en masse was the plantation sector that opened up in Bengal and Assam. They have also been affected by two more sectors of modern economy-industry and mines. Work in these sectors is divided into various types and grades depending upon skill and knowledge required for work. Not used to work other than cultivation and not being in possession of modern skills and knowledge a very large majority could secure only lowest paid jobs. The entry into white collar occupation has been very difficult.
POST-INDEPENDENCE
After Independence, it was thought that Tribes are backward due to their isolation from the mainstream and assimilation with mainstream is the only way for their development.
The different measures taken up for their upliftment are usually divided into three categories
- Protective: include constitutional and legislative rights that safeguard their interests.
- Mobilizational: reservations extended to Tribals in various fields.
- Developmental: programmes and activities initiated for promoting their welfare.
These goals were to be pursued under a kind of administration that was infused with principles of Panchsheela i.e. to let people develop along the lines of their own genius and avoid imposing anything on them and to encourage their traditional arts and culture, their lands and forests to be respected, they be allowed to administer themselves and avoid influx of too many outsiders into tribal territory in the name of administration, not too overwhelm them with schemes and work in cooperation with their own social and cultural institutions, to judge the results by actual level of human character developed.
Taking lessons from the effects of European civilization on tribal population in other parts of the world especially in America and Africa, where traditional tribal ways of living and their culture was destroyed, it was cautioned that the ‘ Indian Civilization’ should not have any disastrous consequences on its Tribals. The developmental programmes were to be initiated keeping tribunals in mind and they were to have the final say. Also their traditional rights over forests and land and other resources were to be respected.
TRIBALS V/S DEVELOPMENT
Yet the approach adopted toward tribes has been quite the contrary mainly due to imperatives of national development. Measures undertaken for bringing about the rapid national development were seen as an important mechanism for the integration of tribal society into the national polity. The national objective to build productive structures for future growth and resource mobilization for development was given far more importance than issues concerning the welfare of the tribes and interests of the later were invariably sacrificed in the name of former. activities such as building infrastructure, setting up industries and constructing dams for irrigation and power projects for electricity and light included extraction and exploitation of mineral and forest resources. a substantial part of these projects were initiated in the areas inhabited by Tribals as these areas happen to be rich reservoirs of mineral and forest resources. This led to an inevitable conflict between tribal and national interests.
These developmental policies drastically altered the relationship of tribes with the natural environment and resources lying therein. Earlier these resources were either individually or collectively owned. But due to policies of state, as aforementioned, there has been a steady erosion of control and use of these resources by Tribals. Tribals were most drastically affected by the exploitation of land and forest. But major source of land alienation, post independence, has been the process of development that the Indian state has followed. Large scale industrialization and exploitation of mineral resources and construction of irrigation dams and power projects that the tribal areas have seen during the period have been responsible for uprooting Tribals on a far larger scale than the transfer of land from tribunals to non Tribals on an individual basis.
SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF DEVELOPMENT
Tribals underwent a change not only in their relationship with land but also in their relationship with forests. Tribes were greatly dependent on forest for their day-to-day needs, including food, shelter, instruments, medicine, and in some cases even clothes. As long as the tribes were in control of forest and unrestricted use of its produce, they had no difficulty meeting these needs. In turn they preserved the forest as it was their life support system. As said before, it was the entry of British that drastically altered this relationship. To British , the forest were an important source of revenue and profit, hence their forest policy in traduced state control over forest resources and imposed the curtailment of rights and privileges over them. This policy was continued in post-Independence era of economic development with even stricter regulation and enforcement.
These policies also lead to environmental degradation as total forest cover went down from 40% in 1950’s to just 10% in 1980’s.
Tribal areas in India have also seen an influx of people from outside in search of employment in industry, mines, railways, government, and ancillary activities that followed as corollary to former activities. These activities have given rise to increasing urbanization of tribal areas but also have caused large scale migration of non-Tribals into tribal territory depriving Tribals of fruits of development in tribal areas. In Jharkhand out of total urban population of the region only 17% are SC’s and ST’s.
This development process has been of little use to the tribal population. Rather, development of tribal areas has had a deleterious effect on Tribals. The industries and other development projects that have come up have not made jobs available to them. The benefits arising out of power and irrigation projects have not reached the Tribals. There are fewer tribal villages that find electrification and the tribal land under irrigation is almost negligible. By March 2001 only 25% of villages in Jharkhand were electrified and only 18% of total area was under irrigation. In, short the fruits of development have not gone to Tribals but to people from outside. They find themselves increasingly subjected to exploitation and oppression. The movement of population from outside threw tribes open to vagaries of greed, exploitation, and even oppression. The result was that the tribes found themselves uprooted from their lands and resources on a scale unprecedented in history and were forced to move out of their homelands for survival.
This phenomenon of ‘resource curse’ is not unique to India. In most nations of the world a high level of mineral dependence is associated with retarded economic performance. World Bank attributes institutional weakness and political economy as some of the reasons behind the resource curse. Resource rich countries exhibit weaker institutions compared to resource-poor countries. Mineral rich states have weaker property rights and poor enforcement of law and these lead to retarded development outcomes. In India also mineral dependence has led to poorer quality institutions which in turn result in impaired growth and development outcomes. Point resources- resources extracted from a narrow geographical base- weaken institutions and accountability. In the case of a country with all of its wealth concentrated in a few pockets most of the political and administrative power goes into promoting and facilitating extraction of these resources instead of focussing on the development of area.
Resource curse is very much a reality in mineral rich areas of India. Of the 50 major mining districts, 60% figure among the 150 most backward districts of the country.
Poverty and lack of development extract a terrible price. And one of them has been the rise of Naxalism. Tribals now see no other option but to embrace Naxalism in the present model of development, where forceful acquisition of land and displacement of thousands by State are order of the day.
Naxalism began as a peasant movement in 1967 in tiny hamlet of Naxalbari in West Bengal. The fundamental demand was a radical land reform- land to tiller-and a violent takeover of power was seen as only means of achieving this. Governments then were completely unwilling (as they are even now) to yield to these demands and the movement was brutally crushed.
Naxalism then capitalised on the tribal angst against the development model being followed by the state. Tribals saw this as an opportunity to escape out of the poverty, displacement and deprivement of lands being forced upon them by successive governments. Militants have used various tactics to oppose industrial investment. This involves destroying government infrastructure, private machinery, roads, bridges, railway tracks, electric lines, and other industrial infrastructure. This is done under the pretext of ‘protecting the tribal homeland by cutting it off from the reach of oppressors’. They also resort to kidnapping of government officials and employees of private companies.
The rise of Naxalism can be directly linked to a certain crisis of faith. India’s marginalised populations including its Tribals can no longer trust their lives and livelihood in the hands of their government. For them these developmental projects literally pushed down their throats by government have become synonymous with poverty and insecurity. With their backs to the wall, these communities believe they have found their way out in the violent ways of Naxals In a sense, the phenomenon of Naxalism is as much a crisis of political empowerment as it is sheer economic backwardness, as it is sadly one of the rare opportunities still available to marginalised communities to express their aspirations.
A prime reason for spread of naxalism has been failure of state to provide remote areas with facilities for health and education, and prospect for dignified employment. People in these areas have had to cope with an administration that is always indifferent, often corrupt and sometimes brutal. Meanwhile economic development has been powered in good part by wood, water and minerals found on these lands and for whose profitable exploitation they have often had to make way- most of the time involuntarily.
Indian government considers Naxalism only as an ‘internal security threat’. Naxalism and its supporters need to be stamped out by State’s police and army in a decisive manner. It is precisely this myopic vision that is real problem. Poverty, unemployment, starvation, malnutrition, lack of access to basic necessities like health and education, forced eviction of people from their lands for ‘development projects’, these do not qualify as ‘internal security threat’, reactions to all these and resistance and protest against them do.
CURRENT PERSPECTIVES ON DEVELOPMENT
Earlier, the failure development programmes was attributed to traditional socio-economic and cultural system of the Tribals. Hence the emphasis has invariably been on introducing values, attitudes, and institutions that would help them take advantage of fruits of developmental projects. Tribes were seen as backward, ignorant, superstitious and unable to overcome their worldview to recognize and exploit the wealth of resources present in there forest and surroundings in which they live. Of late however, it is increasingly being pointed out that development would be more effective if programmes and schemes were to be evolved in consonance with the ecology, social organization, and cultural values of Tribals.
Various experience shave proved that vastly different strategy is required if governments are really keen to solve the problem. The first step is unambiguous acceptance that development policies have failed vast majorities in country. Second is an understanding of basic reasons behind the failure of development policies. And third is to institutionalise the alternative policies.
The issue at forefront today is development but without or with minimal cost to ecology and environment. From this perspective now tribes are seen as representing a storehouse of world-views, systems of knowledge, and ways of life which stands separate from and opposed to the ones governing the modern, industrial world. The tribal communities then stand as the other in whom a search for an alternative is postulated. Now the emphasis is being laid increasingly on the need for conservation. There is also an increasing realisation that conservation is not possible without the participation of rural and tribal communities.
REFERENCES
- Rich lands, Poor People By Center For Science and Environment
- Women and Gender in the Study of Tribes in India by Virginius Xaxa.
- Tribes in India By Virginius Xaxa
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