Social watch
a new chapter of independent
India where there is equality of
opportunity, where no one would be
neglected.”
The Adivasis paid dearly for
taking Jawaharlal Nehru at his
word. Even if the provisions of the
Constitution were implemented in
some measure if not all of its spirit
and word, the present situation
would not have come to be.
We all now know very well that
big government in the absence
of a responsive nervous system
actually means little government,
and whatever little interaction the
people at the bottom have with the
state is usually a none too happy
one. In the vast Central Indian
highlands the occasional visit of an
official invariably means extraction
by coercion of what little the
poor people have. It doesn’t just
end with a chicken or a goat or a
bottle of mahua, it often includes
all these and the modesties of the
womenfolk.
Most tribal villages and
settlements have no access to
schools and medical care. Very
few are connected with all weather
roads. Perish the thought of
electricity though all the coal
and most of the hydel projects to
generate electricity are in the tribal
regions. The forests have been
pillaged and the virgin forests thick
with giant teak and sal trees are
things of the past.
In mineral rich Orissa over 72%
of all Adivasis live well below the
poverty line. At the national level
45.86% of all Adivasis live below
the poverty line. Incidentally the
official Indian poverty line is a
nothing more than a starvation
line, which means that almost half
of India’s original inhabitants go to
bed every night starving. Several
anthropometric studies have
revealed that successive generations
of Adivasis are actually becoming
smaller unlike all other people in
India who benefit from better and
increasingly nutritious diets.
What little the Indian state
apportions to the welfare and
development of indigenous people
gets absorbed in the porous layers
of our public administration.
Quite understandably there is a
raging fire of discontent and anger
in these Adivasi homelands. The
State’s response is to treat it as a law
and order problem and quell the
discontent by force, without trying
to address it.
In the recent years there has been
a sudden concern for Adivasis. It is
as much driven by the expansion
of Naxalite influence in the Adivasi
homelands, as it is motivated by the
fears of conversion to Christianity
that would have precluded their
assimilation into the Hindu Samaj.
In 1999 the NDA government
issued a draft National Policy on
Tribal’s to address the developmental
needs of tribal people. Special
emphasis was laid on education,
forestry, healthcare, languages,
resettlement and land rights. The
NDA government even established a
Ministry of Tribal Affairs. A Cabinet
Committee on Tribal Affairs was
meant to constantly review the
policy. Little has happened. The
CCTA hardly ever meets. The draft
policy is still a draft, which means
there is still no policy. Not to be
left behind in the lip service game,
the UPA government drafted the
Scheduled Tribes (Recognition
of Forest Rights) Bill in 2005 but
did not act upon it due to pressure
mounted by influential self-styled
wildlife activists and the wildlife
tourism lobby.
20 February 2020 | www.smartgovernance.in