in the worst of law and order
environments. A better civil
administration structure must come
up in place of the one present. This
means the best officers drawn from
across the country. Perhaps it is
time to constitute a new All India
Service, similar to the former Indian
Frontier Administrative Service.
The IFAS was an eclectic group of
officers drawn from various arms
of the government. Unfortunately it
was merged into the IAS.
Instead of the state capital
controlled government,
the instruments of public
But the first NDA’s feigned
concern for Adivasis caused the
states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand
were carved out of Bihar and
Madhya Pradesh without addressing
the real tribal issues relating to their
culture, way of life and aspirations
were not addressed. Political power
has still, by and large, eluded them.
Even when tribal leaders come to
the fore they are quickly sucked into
the ways of the traditional ruling
classes and prove no less avaricious
and corrupt.
The Fifth and Sixth Schedules
under Article 244 of the Indian
Constitution in 1950 provided for
self-governance in specified tribal
majority areas. This did not happen.
The migrations reduced the number
of Adivasi majority areas. But there
are still solutions possible within
the Indian Constitution and in
the universal principles of justice
and equality. There are 332 tribal
majority tehsils in India, of which
110 are in the Northeast, where they
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.
have won states of their own.
This leaves 222 tehsils
encompassing an Adivasi population
of over 20 million. These tehsils,
many of them contiguous must
be immediately made selfgoverning
areas, as envisaged by
the Constitution. All these tribal
majority areas must be consolidated
into administrative divisions whose
authority must be vested with
democratically chosen leadership.
This body could be called the Adivasi
Maha-panchayat and must function
as a largely autonomous institution.
All laws passed by the state
legislatures must be ratified to the
satisfaction of the Maha-panchayat.
But there are several paradoxes
that must also be dealt with first.
The most important of these is
that to provide good government
administration dealing with
education, health, irrigation, roads
and land records must be handed
over to local government structures.
The police must also be made
answerable to local elected officials
and not be a law unto themselves.
The lament of the Adivasi about
their role in their government is
well known. It is the subject of many
folk songs. A popular Gond song
goes:
“And the Gods were greatly
troubled/ in their heavenly courts
and councils/ Sat no Gods of Gonds
among them. / Gods of other nations
sat there/ Eighteen threshing-floors
of Brahmins/ Sixteen scores of
Telinganas/ But no Gods of Gonds
appeared there/ From the glens of
Seven Mountains/ From the twelve
hills of the valleys.”
www.smartgovernance.in | February 2020 21