Special issue with the Sunday Magazine
From the publishers of THE HINDU

ADIVASI : JULY 16, 2000

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Rethinking tribals

G. N. Devy

The author is engaged in documentation of tribal literature and is Secretary for Denotified and Nomadic Tribes Rights Action Group.

Ever since the Portuguese travel writers and missionaries decided to describe the vast variety of ethnic and occupational groups and sects of the Indian subcontinent in terms of "caste" and "tribe", the terms have stuck to society as long-worn masks that start becoming one's real personality. The result is that today no Indian describes society without taking recourse to the categories "caste" and "tribe". In the initial period of India's contact with western nations the two terms were used as synonyms, the difference lay only in the social status of the groups they described. The synonymy was finally shattered through a legal intervention by the colonial rulers when an official list of communities was prepared by them (in 1872) as the list of tribes. A similar list was prepared in the previous year for communities that were mistakenly thought of as 'criminal' and were covered by the provisions of an inhuman "Criminal Tribes Act of India, 1871." Since then the "tribes" are perceived as a distinct segment of Society.

K. Ramesh Babu

In fact, it is necessary to recognise that every community has certain "caste" characteristics and certain other "tribal" characteristics, the degree of which may differ from community to community.

History has indeed been extremely unkind to the tribal characteristics of the people. The entire burden of the logic and the rhetoric of modernisation has sought to "detribalise" the vast range of communities. Besides, those communities that are now marked as "tribal" have not been viewed with any degree of respect by the alienated middle classes and intellectuals. None of the brave fights of the tribals against the British has ever been treated as part of the "national" struggle for freedom. From the Bihar uprising of 1778 to Lakshman Naik's revolt in Orissa in 1942, the tribals of India repeatedly rebelled against the British in the North-East, Bengal, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. In many of the rebellions, the tribals could not be subdued by the colonial might, but terminated the struggle only because the British acceded to their immediate demands, as in the case of the Bhil revolt of 1809 and the Naik revolt of 1838 in Gujarat.

The fact, however, is that there is so much in the tribal way of life that the country needs to emulate. Tribals are not known for raping their women, beating and abusing their children, exploiting nature beyond satisfying the minimum human needs, lending money at interest, burning widows, and above all things segregating and stratifying labour in terms of caste.

A century and a half of deeply flawed education which has taught us to ape the West in every respect, has also taught us to leave the tribals out as the apes of the great Indian society. And, all that we have so far doled out in the name of tribal policy is but an attempt at extermination of tribal identity so that they remain without a voice and make space for our progress, become our low-grade clones and provide us with cheap labour. In the process, we have forgotten that much that is valuable in society, culture and heritage is of tribal origin, that in fact the tribal still has so much with him which we stand to benefit by learning.

Aditya Dhawan

Rarely have we looked at the tribal communities as leaders, at least in certain areas of life, who can reveal to us what civilisation truly is all about. Hence at the turn of the century we must open this question again and work towards formulating a comprehensive tribal policy which will help both the nation and the tribal people. The four principles that we must follow while conceiving such a policy ought to be related to the recognition of the diversity of tribal communities, their special educational needs, an utmost concern for their genetic mutations, and the recognition of the peculiar character of tribal polity.

It is necessary to recognise that all tribal communities are not alike, that they are products of different historical and social conditions and that they belong to four different language families and several different racial stocks and animistic moulds. Some of them belong to the primitive stock with a continuous cultural history, others have been pushed out of the mainstream and have been "drop-outs" of our main history, yet others are created by various legal and economic interventions in society.

Therefore, no uniform policy is ever likely to benefit all tribal communities throughout the country. Next, if the huge work-force has to be given special skills which will improve their economic status, the existing formalities for educational advancement will have to be suspended, and a new kind of non-formal educational structure will have to be evolved. Thus special tribal academies which combine the merits of regular schools and the open universities will have to be instituted.

A National Tribal Academy, to regulate the education network will have to be created for this purpose. Similarly, those tribal communities which have become victims of the mutated gene diseases, such as the Korkus and the Bhils, will have to be provided with a special kind of health monitoring system so that the country does not quietly write off these as communities with defective genes. A close attention will have to be paid by social medicine research to the incidence of sickle cell disease.

Siddhartha Mitra

And finally, it is necessary to recognise that the tribal polity is more closely regulated by the aesthetic pulse rather than ethical drives, and, therefore the implementation of the tribal self-governance provisions will have to go hand in hand with a special programme for encouraging tribal arts, oral traditions and their unique skill in craft. If we fail to recognise this difference which is vital to the social organisation of tribal communities, and fail to respect it, we will end up creating bands of forced nomads who will multiply the urban chaos already overburdened with problems. Ultimately, what is good for the tribals is also in the interest of the national common good.

One would like to hope that the new millennium at last brings some relief to the ninety million tribals and sixty million denotified and nomadic tribals of our country.

However, the situation as it prevails now clearly indicates that these are but pious thoughts. The entire lot of denotified tribals has been left at the mercy of the crime-merchants. In their lifestyle, death in police custody for men and getting sold several times over for women is a routine experience. Neither the Central Government nor the states has made any concrete plans for a long-term upliftment programme. And whatever provisions do exist are not known to have ever reached the target beneficiary. The situation is so alarming that in many states the governments do not even have complete lists of the nomadic and denotified groups.

The political leadership in tribal areahas been a victim of the party-system. When the tribal representatives get elected, they quickly get submerged in the main concerns of the party to which they belong; and in these, there is at best a nominal place for the tribal issues. On the other hand, when tribal masses express their dissent, it is understood as an anti-state activity, resulting in an unnecessary burden on the state- funds at one end and a blatant violation of human rights at the other.

Dilip Sinha

Those tribals who have accepted facelessness as the only option for survival and have migrated to cities have yet to find a place even in the city slums. The slums too have their caste-structure; and tribals do not fit into it easily. Their children remain without any education and add to the already swollen ranks of child labourers.

Colonialism has left many undesirable legacies for us to negotiate. But its impact on our self-perception has been among the most disastrous of those legacies. The categories of "caste" and "tribe" have coloured our vision of society so much that no time in the near future will we be able to recognise the people we call tribals by any other token but "tribal".

The new millennium policy therefore will have to be designed to create a general respect for the term "tribal". Verrier Elwin had tried in his time to create a sense of respect for tribals.

The policy of cautious intervention that he advocated unfortunately turned, when put in practice under tokenism. Today, it is necessary to think of a genuinely pro-active policy which is aimed at helping the tribals by creating a favourable climate for the general tribalisation of Indian communities. It is ultimately in the continuous segregation of tribals with castes that will makes India a more humane culture. If it happens, it will be a major battle won in favour of human dignity.