The Hindu : The Adivasi question

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Tuesday, Apr 02, 2002

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The Adivasi question — I

By Mihir Shah

The Adivasi predicament must be seen as an intrinsic consequence of an over-centralised, non-location-specific, trickle-down development paradigm.

EXACTLY A year ago this day four persons were killed in police firing at Mehndikheda village in the Adivasi pocket of Bagli tehsil in Dewas district of Madhya Pradesh. Reports of such incidents have risen sharply in recent years from different Adivasi areas of the country. There is palpable and growing tension between Adivasis and the state, especially the Forest Department. The first anniversary of the Mehndikheda incident provides an occasion to reflect somewhat more deeply on the roots of such tragedies and sources of this violence. Without an understanding of the differentia specifica of Adivasi transition in India, it may be difficult to work out appropriate strategies to tackle the unique problems faced by Adivasis in our time — a time characterised by unprecedented pressures to open up Adivasi hinterlands for commercial exploitation by trans-national corporate interests, even while abrogating many of the special provisions for their protection provided under the Constitution.

Some of the most important features of the process of Adivasi transition derive from the way they are spatially located across the country. A unique feature of the geographical distribution of Adivasis in India is the simultaneous occurrence of high density and their existence as a numerical minority of the region's population. This is true of all major regions of Adivasi concentration, except the Northeast. The demography of Adivasi India is, thus, imbued with a striking singularity. More than 90 per cent of the over 8 crore Adivasis live in States where they form less than 25 per cent of the population. This enclavement at the State-level is repeated at the district, block and even intra-block levels. Thus, the pattern within districts and blocks also is one of Adivasi pockets (clusters of hamlets) being surrounded by large masses of non-Adivasis.

This very distinctive "enclavement" is a result of a long drawn-out historical encounter involving the subjugation of the Adivasi people by stronger and better-endowed communities, the length of this process itself being a unique feature of Indian history. Adivasis are the aboriginal inhabitants of India, driven over centuries, further and further away from the alluvial plains and fertile river basins into what have been described as the "refuge zones" — hills, forests, arid and semi-arid tracts — in successive waves, by communities armed with superior military technology.

The most important consequence of this enclave status of Adivasis in India has been to prepare the objective basis for resource emasculation of Adivasi areas through what may be best described as a process of "internal colonialism". Over time, in the refuge zones, the Adivasis came to develop a relationship of organic totality and symbiosis with their immediate environment. They revered and protected the forest that provided them with their basic requirements — food, fodder, fuel, medicines and timber for building and implements. This relationship was canonised in the form of customary rights over forest produce. But today their existence in even these areas is coming under threat. This process was greatly accelerated after the advent of colonial rule, especially over the last century. However, the coming of Independence has only meant the aggravation of an already unequal equation. While being ready targets for the exploitation of timber and other forest produce, Adivasi areas have not received their fair share of potential benefits from the mainstream development effort.

The most striking instance of state-led resource emasculation is that of forests, the largest historical endowment of Adivasi communities. The state's perspective on forests has been of an irreconcilable opposition between national objectives and the needs of the local people. This viewpoint recurs throughout the history of forest legislation in India. As the pressure of forest-based people's movements mounted all over the country, a gradual shift away from viewing forests as revenue earning assets became evident in the 1980s, the decade in which environmental concerns came to dominate thinking on forests, world-wide. However, after the 1980 Forest Conservation Act, the conflict has come to be seen as one between environmental protection and needs of local Adivasi communities, who are still viewed with suspicion by the Forest Department, by and large. The tendency of many environmentalists to state their concerns without any reference to the question of Adivasi livelihoods has only aggravated the situation. With their ever-increasing need for firewood and fodder, the Adivasi response has been illegal felling of trees and grazing of forest grasslands. An irreconcilable wedge appears to have been driven between people and forests.

The National Forest Policy of 1988 did for the first time explicitly recognise that domestic requirements of local people for fuelwood, fodder, minor forest produce and construction timber should be the first charge on forest resources. It also emphasised that while safeguarding their customary rights, the Adivasis should be closely associated in the protection, regeneration and development of forests. But the change remained limited to the category of what are known as "village forests", leaving out entirely from its ambit the major portion of forests in India. Even less satisfactory than the movement of policy towards a people-oriented perspective is the reality at the ground level, which remains almost completely unchanged

The relentless process of deforestation has ruined original Adivasi habitats and forced the Adivasis to move out. Having first been driven over centuries to retreat into refuge zones such as hills and forests, the Adivasis are now being forcibly pushed out of an ambience with which they had gradually developed a close relationship. After Independence this has all happened in the name of "development". Even the Government admits that 18.5 million persons have been displaced by dams, mines, industries, wildlife sanctuaries and other projects, 75 per cent of whom have not been rehabilitated. No attempt has ever been made to secure the consent of those being adversely affected by these projects, to involve them in devising humane and appropriate strategies of rehabilitation or to make them a party to the benefits of this development. A vast majority of the displaced have been Adivasis, either because the only sites remaining for location of these mega-projects, such as the Narmada, are in the Adivasi hinterland or because Adivasi homelands such as Jharkhand are extremely bountiful in mineral resources. This displacement of Adivasis has only accentuated their minority status, wherever they live.

The Adivasi predicament must be seen as an intrinsic consequence of an over-centralised, non-location-specific, trickle-down development paradigm, which also posits a fundamental conflict between development and regeneration of the environment within which it occurs. The large mass of people in provincial and rural areas is increasingly alienated from processes of governance and decision-making that are progressively centralised within the nation's megalopolises.

(The writer is an activist who lives and works among the Adivasis of the Narmada valley in Madhya Pradesh.)

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