Protection of tribal livelihoods & cultural expressions

Abstract

Tribals are at the bottom of the social and political ladder in India. Development projects have not only bypassed them but have often harmed them by taking away their lands and other resources on which their livelihood was based. Unless the processes which result in their proletarianization are identified and corrective action is taken to prevent it, chances are that new programmes will continue to ignore their culture and livelihoods as in the past. This paper analyses the currently existing central legislations and programmes for them, and the need for further changes in policies and governance which will enable the socially excluded Adivasis to protect their cultural traditions and reclaim their rights and entitlements in the context of land, forests and water. The ST population was 104.3 million in 2011 and accounted for 8.6% of the total population of the country. Only 10 per cent of them live in urban areas.1 They are scattered over all the States and UTs, except Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, UP, Bihar and the UTs of Pondicherry and Chandigarh. Seventy-five districts in India have a tribal population of 50 per cent or more. While forty-one of these districts are in the North-Eastern region, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha also have three or more districts with tribal populations of more than 50 per cent. Adivasis in central India have traditionally lived in mainly forests, hills, in undulating and inaccessible terrain in plateau areas, and at the tri-junction of state boundaries, which are remote from state capitals. They have lived as isolated entities for centuries, largely untouched by the society around them. This seclusion coupled with political disempowerment and bureaucratic indifference has been responsible for the slower growth, and dissimilar pattern of their socio-economic and cultural development.