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

ADIVASI : JULY 16, 2000

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To be governed or to self-govern

Dr. Smitu Kothari

The author has been involved with PESA, is a tribal rights activist and is with Lokayan, Delhi.

Over four years ago, without visible drama and fanfare, India's statute books witnessed a new addition that represents one of the most significant legislative changes in post-Independence India. Those concerned about the social health of the country have been largely oblivious to this historical legislative change. Even those that are concerned about the rights of historically oppressed and discriminated communities seem to have by and large (with a few exceptions) fallen short of adequately responding to the enormous potential it has for one of India's most culturally plural and diverse constituents to secure a future that is dramatically better than today.

Prem Kapoor/ Fotomedia

I am referring to the provisions concerning self-government in Scheduled areas (primarily adivasi areas identified for special protection in a special schedule - section - of the Constitution) after the enactment of the Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 (I will refer to this as PESA in the rest of this essay). The provisions also question and potentially transform the structure and powers that have been given to Panchayats.

For nearly two centuries, adivasi communities have spearheaded the most remarkable struggles for social justice in the country. They were among those who first resisted British colonial interests much before the independence movement - a contribution that (despite a few rare accounts of historic movements in a few regions) remains largely unrecognised. Predominantly living with India's forests, they faced a steady assault on their livelihoods when the British legislated the crown's control over India's forests in 1865.

With one legislative change, they became trespassers in their own forests victimised by externally motivated systems of forest management that directly violated various facets of their economic and cultural survival. Their forests and other resources in their areas were increasingly seen as commodities, their lands expropriated as private property and their growing dependence on ruthless moneylenders linked with powerful feudal landlords and local politicians led to massive land alienation, and permanent or seasonal migration. The final act of violence legitimising these onslaughts of systemic violence on a largely unsuspecting population was the imposition of an alien judicial system and "law and order" machinery that subjugated them further compounding their vulnerability and subservience. Their own, highly subtle and organically embedded systems of conflict resolution were undermined. The result of all these processes was the erosion of their dignity, the devaluation of their identities and the disrespect of their ways of living.

Unfortunately, after Independence too, the Indian government retained the same laws and continued the erstwhile colonial attitudes and policies over adivasi communities. They continued to be victimised, their cultures and lifestyles disrespected, their resource base exploited, with hardly any benefit accruing to them. In actual practice, such state policy was aimed at assimilating them into the "mainstream" on terms that they had very little say in. In effect, while they participated in elections, the promise of democracy and justice was largely denied to them.

In fact, in most areas there was further erosion of the relative autonomy and dignity that they enjoyed in their communities, thanks to the additional steamroller impact of party politics and the consequent homogenisation of a rich heritage of cultural diversity. Participation in the electoral process was no guarantee of their own democratic rights being respected. Instead, elections have substantially lost legitimacy as reliable institutions for ensuring cheap, quick, reliable and transparent justice for rural people, especially those belonging to disadvantaged groups.

In the first two decades after Independence, in anticipation of policies that would change colonial attitudes and practice, there were fewer agitations and revolts in adivasi India. It was not long, however, before disillusionment started setting in with the realisation that the brown sahib's governance was largely driven by the same mentality and attitude as those who had colonised them before. There were remarkable exceptions as a few enlightened administrators and community leaders asserted the rights of adivasi communities. Gradually, in a growing number of places, agitations and mass assertions became the emergent culture of what began as mere disillusionment. Coupled with the expressions of countervailing power from below were efforts by a few sensitive administrators and support groups. In the mid-1980s, people like the then Commissioner of Scheduled Castes and Tribes, B. D. Sharma, used his constitutional office to highlight the plight of the adivasis and the constitutional responsibility to them. Numerous collective mobilisations crystallised, including several demanding greater autonomy from exploitative external forces. Another important development was the formation of various alliances cutting across adivasi community and region.

General Gaur/ Fotomeida

Notable among these are the Bharat Jan Andolan (Indian People's Movement), the National Front for Tribal Self-Rule, Adivasi Sangamam and the Indigenous and Tribal People's Initiative all of whom spearheaded a series of agitations representing the growing unrest in adivasi areas.

Relenting to these widespread agitations by adivasis protesting against continued violations of their customary and resource rights by state and non-state actors, the Parliament set up a committee headed by an adivasi MP, Dileep Singh Bhuria. Mr. Bhuria's report argued that adivasi society had been marked by its own representative systems of governance through the Gram Sabha (village council comprising the assembly of all adult village residents), which should be legally recognised as the primary centre of adivasi governance. Released in 1995, the report also argued that the long-standing demand of adivasi control over productive land and forests should be conceded to and that administrative interference in adivasi affairs should be minimised. The government largely ignored the Bhuria Commission's report reflecting the continuing dichotomy between the real needs of a majority of adivasis and an exploitative governing structure.

Public agitations, including several major events in Delhi, have since been stepped up. The assertions of the adivasis were powerfully summed up in one of their central motive slogans, "Our Rule in Our Villages." This declaration did not imply secession from India but the affirmation of relative autonomy from what was experienced as an intrusive and exploitative state apparatus and the unjust social and economic order that it legitimated at the expense of their livelihoods, identities and systems of self-governance. In December 1996, the Parliament passed PESA finally (at least legally) recognising the adivasi right to self-rule.

PESA is historic because it legally recognises the capacity of adivasi communities to strengthen their own systems of self-governance or create new legal spaces and institutions that can not only reverse centuries of external cultural and political onslaught but can also create the opportunities to control their own destinies.

If implemented in both letter and spirit, the Gram Sabha of the village would become the focal institution, now endowed with significant powers. For instance, under section 4(d) of PESA: "every Gram Sabha shall be competent to safeguard and preserve the traditions and customs of the people, their cultural identity, community resources and the customary mode of dispute resolution."

Shashi Shetye

Many administrators, academics, even activists working among adivasi communities argue that the institution of Gram Sabha is non-existent in most adivasi areas and that the law does not recognise the dramatic social and economic changes that have taken place in adivasi society in the past two centuries. They argue that modernity, the external market, representative democracy and centuries of exploitation have transformed adivasi communities to the point where a recovery of a cohesive community could well turn out to be a romantic invocation with no basis in reality.

What is not recognised in this critique is that PESA is a dramatic opportunity to undo a history of wrongs and that it is flexible enough to mould to local conditions. For instance, even if an institution called Gram Sabha is unknown or has eroded, it can provide the basis, under changed conditions, of a new democratic institution that the adivasis themselves would come to recognise as an organic entity that facilitates the restoration of their comprehensive rights. PESA even makes it possible to redraw the administrative boundaries that presently inform their governance. India's administrators and policy makers have been reluctant to even recognise PESA because it empowers the Gram Sabha to approve development plans, control all social sectors - including the processes and people who implement these programmes and policies - as well as control all minor (non-timber) forest resources, minor water bodies and minor minerals. As and if all this happens, it could result in outcomes that may well prove dramatic. For, PESA also gives powers to manage local markets, prevent the manufacture and sale of alcohol and not just control land alienation but seek its restitution.

Understandably, administrators see a grave threat to their power and privilege if local communities were to pave the way for more autonomous systems of self-governance. In effect, the potential of PESA is to make these state functionaries play a transformed role of facilitating processes for the devolution of power. Their role would then also assist in restraining forces that prevent the realisation of the comprehensive rights that PESA provides.

The most far reaching potential and impact will be ecological. PESA would restore primary control over natural resource systems to the Gram Sabha. There is some concern that in the age of commodification and commercialisation, if given rights over resources, adivasis will themselves become predators. Communities (like the Warlis who are part of the Thane district based Kashtakari Sangathna) who have begun to realise the potential of PESA argue that while the dangers do exist, this should not be used as an excuse to delay the implementation of PESA and in fact efforts should be made to discuss how the whole gamut of democratic institutions need to be rethought to strengthen local autonomy and provide checks to its misuse. The reality at the moment is that as communities assert greater control, they encounter apathy, even hostility from local administrators who are under pressure from external and internal interests who want to retain their exploitative hold over adivasi India.

The reluctance of those who have historically enjoyed power to accept such devolution and eventual loss is understandable. Some of this can even take vicious forms as those in power try to subvert local unity. In an eloquent yet grim assessment of the present situation, Harsh Mandar, a senior officer of the IAS states, "The seriousness of the situation is that for tribal policy in India, darkness continues to prevail. Protective laws are rarely implemented, budgetary measures like the Tribal Sub Plan strategy have failed to achieve genuine financial devolution, and educational strategies have been assimilative and destructive of the moorings of tribal culture. Light at the end of the tunnel can be seen only in a powerful and radical recent law that provides for self-governance by tribal communities. However, so far, the state has forgotten or subverted the interpretation of its own law. The perils of the tribal identity and survival remain as real as ever."

There are several internal challenges that also have to be addressed - internal hierarchies and discriminations, traditional practices like witch-hunting that have become means to suppressing the growing assertions of women, etc. Building safeguards and processes that address these endemic problems are an equally serious issue that must be simultaneously faced.

It is time, however, that the administrator, the planner and the politician realise that the growing aspirations of historically discriminated and exploited peoples will no longer give way. Across the country, there is growing demand for greater transparency of government functioning and greater participation in defining what the content of development should be. Additionally, there are steadily growing instances of innovative efforts to redefine the structure and content of democratic institutions so that power emanates from the people. This has brought into sharp focus the severe limitations of representative democracy and the need to recognise and strengthen structures of direct democracy, particularly where communities depend on natural resources for sustaining their livelihoods.

Similar mobilisations have been witnessed in indigenous and tribal regions all over the world and several major global alliances have been formed. These, coupled with the efforts of many groups to articulate their concerns before a special sub-commission and the human rights committee of the United Nations, can also be seen as part of an effort of deepening democracy at all levels - from the local to the national and the global - firmly rooted in local democratic processes, contrary to and often in dramatic opposition to the current trends of economic centralisation and undemocratic political processes.