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‘I have a problem with the makeover of tribal culture’ - The Hindu.pdf

Mihir Shah writes on tribal alienation and need for inclusive growth - The Hindu.pdf
Prafulla Das on The lost tribe of Odisha due to acute malnutrition-related diseases - The
Hindu.pdf
Revisiting the legend of Niyamgiri - The Hindu.pdf
Roadmap to tribal wellbeing - The Hindu.pdf
Taking health care to tribal heartland - The Hindu.pdf
Taking healthcare to India’s remote tribes - The Hindu.pdf
The burden of criminal neglect - The Hindu.pdf
The significance of Niyamgiri - The Hindu.pdf
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10/8/2016 ‘I have a problem with the makeover of tribal culture’ The Hindu
OPINION » INTERVIEW
October 24, 2012
‘I have a problem with the makeover of tribal culture’
NIRANJAN MAHAWAR: ‘Market forces are also changing artefacts.’ Photo: Rupesh Yadav
Niranjan Mahawar, 75, is a selftaught ethnologist of Chhattisgarh. He spent almost five decades in southern Chhattisgarh to study the
life and art of the Bastar tribes. It was his family’s rice production business that first took Mahawar to southern Chhattisgarh’s Bastar
region in the early 1960s. At that time, the family was not aware that Mahawar — a masters in Economics from Sagar University in
Madhya Pradesh — had enrolled as a member of the undivided Communist Party of India (CPI) of India in 1955. Later, while administering
the rice mill, he started the CPI’s first district unit in Dhamtari of Chhattisgarh, eventually joining the CPIM after the division. While the
family finally managed to delink him from the Communist Party, Mahawar’s love for Bastar — especially tribal art and culture — kept
growing. Today, Mahawar — who was made famous in a series of interviews by the writer Dom Moraes — is considered an authoritative
voice on central Indian folk art, folklore, tribal myths and theatre. He spoke to Suvojit Bagchi extensively on his work. Excerpts.
It was difficult to find out your house in Raipur as nobody knows you here, not even your neighbour…
Yes, that is a problem. A woman came from USIS in Mumbai once. She said the same thing.
But in the early 1980s, Dom Moraes wrote a lot on you and possibly you are known since then especially among people
who are interested about Bastar art.
That’s correct. Dom came here with a friend as he was planning a visit to Bastar. That was in the early eighties. He came twice and we had a
long chat over lunch.
He visited Bastar and wrote a book, Answered by Flutes: Reflections on Madhya Pradesh. It had two pages on me. He then wrote more on
me. Well ….after that, the journalists started pouring in and a lot [has been] written on me in mainstream magazines.
So what is there in those articles…or more precisely, what exactly do you mean by Bastar art? The bell metal artefacts…
wrought iron ones…the wood carvings?
Well, everything. But first let me say, I won’t call it bell metal but bronze.
Why is it called bell metal?
Bells of temples were made of the metal which is pure bronze. And as you said, besides bronze artefacts, there are wooden carvings, wrought
iron, masks, combs… I have about 200 combs. They are all Bastar art. They all tell a story.
Like…
Like this woman Tallur Muttai (shows a picture of a woman in bronze, embracing a child with her left hand and holding a stick with a
funnel on top with her right). She, in tribal myth, lives in palmyra fruit trees. To the tribals, palmyra juice is the breast milk of Tallur Muttai.
She, therefore, is the earth mother. But then there is the massive Hinduisation of the tribal myth and the earth mother is made to sit on a
tiger as Hindus prefer their goddesses on the tiger. I have a problem with this makeover. If the tribal gods are comfortable on the trees, let
them be...why make them a Hindu? Besides, the market forces are also changing the artefacts.
So, in spite of the overlapping of the images of the icons, a tribal is in no way a Hindu?
P.N. Haksar, while heading a national committee on the tribals, once asked that. I said, tribals don’t believe in chaturvarna or the caste
system that is the basis of Hindu society. Tribals lived with their native tradition and for over five thousand years refused to get dominated by
Hindus. Hence they are not Hindus.
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/interview/ihaveaproblemwiththemakeoveroftribalculture/article4026265.ece 1/3
So, the difference with Hindus has been there for a long time?
Of course. In the Ramayana, you have the demon. Remember the woman, Tadoka, the demoness. The word Tar or palmyra is in her name
too. I assume, she is the same Tallur Muthai and she, like other rakshas, got a snubnose. The Gonds have a snubnose. So while Ram
represents the upper caste Hindus, the Aryans, Tadoka and her friends represent the tribal society, the Dravidians. This resistance against
the outsiders was documented in modern times by the British gazetteers, anthropologists. They published how the locals resisted them. When
the British tried to enter the region, one of the kings of the area, the Raja of Kanker, asked them to refrain. The kings, however, were small
and while they also were outsiders, always avoided confrontation with the Bastar tribals.
You mean, Bastar almost always accepted the local rulers, but not the big imperialist forces?
Yes. They will not accept you easily. Even now, you would find tribals while talking among themselves would call you a ‘thug’ — a cheat. They
don’t trust outsiders. Now, associate this thought with today’s mining. Bastar will resist mining and outsiders.
You mean the State and its mining policies will not be able to penetrate Bastar?
I cannot say that for sure. The Indian state is far more complex and powerful now.
Maybe this has helped the Maoists…
Of course. Maoists used this sentiment to their advantage. But I think they are extortionists and not Communists.
You yourself were a Communist. What or who really inspired you?
Yes. I joined the party in 1955. Initially I was influenced by writers like Premchand, Yashpal, Saratchandra Chatterjee, Rabindranath Tagore
or Gorky. I had a science teacher, Surendra Bhatnagar, whom I met in school in Dhamtari, Chhattisgarh, as we migrated from Alwar. He was a
CPI sympathiser and influenced me. Soon I joined the family business and did two things in my factory. Paid women and men equally and
asked the workers, who were paid peanuts, to organise themselves. This seriously unsettled my father and uncle (laughs). Eventually I went
to study at Sagar University, Madhya Pradesh, and met Sudhir Mukherjee, the legendary CPI leader. I joined as a whole timer.
Anything that you did as a CPI activist in the 1950s?
Well….the usual party work. But we used to run a party unit among students in the university, which grew fast. We started the first party
office in Dhamtari. See, it was a time, when we all thought that Communism is around the corner as the Korean War of 1950 was interpreted
as Stalin’s victory. Stalin was a hero — even in these remote areas like Dhamtari (laughs).
But things changed…
Yes. It did. From the early sixties the debate within the CPI started distracting us. I was in the party class in Gwalior in 1960, where different
groups, within the party, spoke in favour of and against Nehru. B.T. Ranadive, Homi Daji and Dr. Gangadhar Adhikari were there. I was not
really aware of the developments but slowly came to terms with multiple opinions within the party. Finally the split took place, albeit for
different reasons, and after some vacillation, I joined the CPI(M).
Eventually left the CPI(M)…?
Yes, but that was not necessarily because I was disillusioned with politics. My family was creating a lot of pressure on me…my father…he
requested me to leave the Communist Party as it was bad for the business. I was upset, took a sabbatical and went to Kolkata. After a brief
stay I came back to Chhattisgarh and started working in the rice mill.
And started studying Bastar art?
I have been visiting Bastar and documenting tribal folk lore, tales, music, theatre and every other forms of art in the region even before I left
Chhattisgarh briefly.
But you have not written any full scale book — other than monographs — until recently when you published Bastar
Bronze. Why is that so?
Somehow it could not be organised but now I have several books and monographs in the pipeline. I did publish some translations of Verrier
Elwin’s works.
After the formation of the new State of Chhattisgarh, the State government commissioned you to write two major books
on the crafts and the performing arts of Bastar. You were paid a fee as well. I assume it was about a decade ago. Why did
the government not publish the books, after commissioning?
I don’t want to talk about that.
Apparently the department of culture where you submitted the manuscripts, did not even want to return the
manuscripts?
Let us not talk about that.
It was only after Governor Shekhar Dutt’s intervention that the manuscripts were returned …is that correct?
Yes, that is right. But let us not discuss that.
I have been told, that you refused to assume the post of the president of People’s Union of Civil Liberties (PUCL) when
they requested you recently, even though you were an active activist at one point.
That is because of my health, my kidneys are not fine, I told them.
Is life difficult in Chhattisgarh as an independent academic or human rights activist?
I don’t know. I avoid activities as I am not well.
Do you think your Communist identity and love for tribals prevented the government from acknowledging your work?
I don’t want to comment.
Maybe that is why you are not even known in your colony…
Thank you.
Thank you very much.
10/8/2016 Mihir Shah writes on tribal alienation and need for inclusive growth The Hindu
OPINION » LEAD
July 4, 2015
Tribal alienation in an unequal India
Mihir Shah
The Hindu
"The tribal people have not been included in or given the opportunity to benefit from development." Photo: A.M. Faruqui
Thanks to the caste system, India has always been an unequal society. What is even more worrying is that inequality appears to have
deepened in the past two decades
The Boston Consulting Group’s 15th annual report, “Winning the Growth Game: Global Wealth 2015”, has received extensive coverage in the
Indian media. The report comes on top of the Global Wealth Databook 2014 from Credit Suisse, which provides a much more accurate and
comprehensive picture of the trends in global inequality.
The Global Wealth Databook reveals some startling facts. The richest 1 per cent of Indians today own nearly half (49 per cent) of India’s
personal wealth. The rest of us 99 per cent are left to share the remainder among ourselves. And that too is very unequally
shared. The top 10 per cent Indians own nearly threequarters (74 per cent) of the country’s personal wealth. The remaining
90 per cent share a meagre quarter. At the other end of the spectrum, of the world’s poorest 20 per cent people, nearly one in
four are Indians. Just to show by contrast, China’s share is a mere 3 per cent.
One view of India’s inequality is that this is nothing to be worried about. This is the normal progression of economic
development. A set of expanding industries located in an urban area induces further development of economic activity
throughout its zone of influence. For some years, this generates increasingly large differentials in income and development, but
after reaching a maximum level, inequality begins to decline, in the manner of an inverted ‘U’, what economists call the
Kuznets Curve. In U.S President John F. Kennedy’s memorable phrase, “a rising tide lifts all boats”.
A widening gap
Now, there is no doubt that poverty has declined significantly in recent times in India. But can we say the same about inequality? The Credit
Suisse report gives an unequivocal answer: No. Even nearly three decades after economic reforms and high growth, inequality continues to
rise and wealth has become even more concentrated at the top. The share of India’s richest 10 per cent families has grown from 66 per cent in
the year 2000 to 74 per cent today. India’s superrich (top 1 per cent) who owned 37 per cent of India’s personal wealth in 2000, have even
more rapidly increased their share to 49 per cent. This kind of regressive change surely has a link with the crony capitalism of the last three
decades. Hopefully the Indian electorate, very exercised over corruption, will place sufficient pressure on the ruling classes for this to change
sooner rather than later. Meanwhile, millions of Indians do not find themselves a part of the growth story. And there is growing resentment
over this gaping inequality. With greater access to the electronic media across the country, the differences are glaringly visible for those at the
base of the development pyramid. Inequality in India operates on multiple axes — of gender, class, caste, region, religion and ethnicity. But
perhaps the worst suffering is of India’s tribal people, who suffer a double whammy of both disadvantaged region and ethnicity.
A paper in the Economic and Political Weekly, (Sanchita Bakshi et al: “Regional Disparities in India: A Moving Frontier”, January 3, 2015)
reveals that if we want to get an accurate picture of regional inequalities, a wellrecognised element of India’s growth experience, we have to
look much deeper than just States or even districts. We need to go to the subdistrict or block level. And there we find that an overwhelming
share of the most backward subdistricts has a high concentration of tribal population.
India’s forgotten people
Official data on all indicators of development reveal that India’s tribal people are the worst off in terms of income, health, education, nutrition,
infrastructure and governance. They have also been unfortunately at the receiving end of the injustices of the development process itself.
Around 40 per cent of the 60 million people displaced following development projects in India are tribals, which is not a surprise given that 90
per cent of our coal and more than 50 per cent of most minerals and dam sites are mainly in tribal regions.
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/mihirshahwritesontribalalienationandneedforinclusivegrowth/article7383721.ece 1/2
10/8/2016 Mihir Shah writes on tribal alienation and need for inclusive growth The Hindu
Indeed, contrary to what economic theory teaches, we find that many developed districts paradoxically include pockets of intense
backwardness. Bakshi et al show that many districts include the most backward and most developed subdistricts of India; 92 districts have
subdistricts that figure in the list of both the top 20 per cent and bottom 20 per cent of India’s subdistricts. To give a few examples,
“developed” districts like Thane, Vadodara, Ranchi, Visakhapatnam and Raipur have some of the most backward subdistricts. In Korba and
Raigarh districts of Chhattisgarh, Valsad of Gujarat, Pashchimi Singhbhum and Purbi Singhbhum of Jharkhand, Kendujhar, Koraput and
Mayurbhanj of Odisha, the most industrialised subdistricts are flanked by the most underdeveloped subdistricts. And invariably these
backward subdistricts are overwhelmingly tribal. Clearly, the tribal people have not been included in or given the opportunity to benefit from
development.
Inequality is important not only because of the acute perception of injustice it creates. Even economists at the traditionally freemarket
fundamentalist International Monetary Fund, Andrew G. Berg and Jonathan D. Ostry, have recently argued that “inequality can also be
destructive to growth by amplifying the risk of crisis or making it difficult for the poor to invest in education”. They conclude: “reduced
inequality and sustained growth may thus be two sides of the same coin”.
Inclusive growth
What then are the elements of a vision of development much more inclusive and empowering of those left out? First, the overall direction of
growth needs to change. We cannot continue with a pattern of jobless growth. It is clear that some models of growth are inherently more
inclusive than others, which is why our focus should be not just on GDP growth itself, but on achieving a growth process that is as inclusive as
possible. For example, faster growth for the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises segment will generate a much broader spread of
employment and income earning opportunities and is, therefore, more inclusive than growth largely driven by extractive industries or the
service sector. It is also clear that sustainability has to be at the core of our development strategy. This is because the poorest regions of India
are also the most ecofragile. If we truly want to build tribal incomes, we need to offer them a range of sustainable livelihoods, including non
pesticide managed agriculture, an imperative also for the health of Indian consumers, as well as for reducing the escalating financial and
ecological costs of farming.
Huge incomegeneration and biodiversity conservation possibilities also exist if we can imaginatively utilise the vast unutilised potential of the
NonTimber Forest Products market, which is estimated to run into several thousands of crores, of which only a minuscule fraction accrues to
the tribal communities. Of course, this requires careful attention being paid to the rights of the tribal people, as enshrined in the Forest Rights
Act and a complete restructuring of their relationship with the Forest Department, historically seen by the tribal communities as standing in
an adversarial relationship with them.
Participatory governance
Much better state capacities in regions of high poverty are also an urgent requirement. For these regions suffer not just from rampant market
failure but also widespread government failure. A crucial reason why the poor are unable to take advantage of the possibilities opened up by
growth even within their districts is the absence of requisite health and education facilities. Globally, India spends among the lowest share of
its national income on public provision of health and education. These are the sectors in most urgent need of government reform. We need to
equip our most disadvantaged people with the skills demanded by a rapidly changing economy. Programmes meant for poverty elimination
such as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act do not work as they are meant to because the requisite human
resources do not exist precisely where these programmes are most desperately required.
A key feature of the changing economy is growing market penetration. More than 80 per cent of India’s cultivators are small and marginal
farmers and they are invariably hapless victims of participation in the market economy. But this need not necessarily be so. Wherever
farmers have come together to form powerful institutions to buy and sell, they have been able to compete on much fairer terms in the market.
Most of all, the excluded regions and people need better governance, which is much more participatory in nature, for only then will the slogan
of cooperative federalism really acquire concrete substance. Panchayati raj institutions, including the gram sabha, need to be empowered and
activated for this purpose. We need to learn to involve the “last citizens” in decisions that affect their lives, such as taking their consent while
acquiring land for an avowed public purpose.
There is nothing automatic about a decline in inequality under capitalism. The Kuznets Curve remains a mere fantasy if the right programmes
and policies are not in place. Inequality did decline when the appropriate policy framework was adopted in Europe and America during the so
called golden age of capitalism in the mid20th century. These were the decades that saw the emergence of what economist, public official and
diplomat John Kenneth Galbraith termed “countervailing power”. And it is the unravelling of this balancing power and a shift towards free
market fundamentalism that led to the rise in inequality after 1980.
Indian policymakers must recognise the urgent need to redefine the very meaning of reforms so as to make them propoor, rather than
merely procorporate. Without these reforms, inequality in India will continue to escalate and create dangerous tensions, threatening the very
survival of the delicate fabric of Indian democracy.
(Mihir Shah is a grassroots activist who has lived and worked in the tribal regions of central India for the last 25 years.)
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/mihirshahwritesontribalalienationandneedforinclusivegrowth/article7383721.ece 2/2
10/8/2016 Prafulla Das on The lost tribe of Odisha due to acute malnutritionrelated diseases The Hindu
OPINION » COMMENT
August 6, 2016
GROUND ZERO
The lost tribe of Odisha
The Hindu
FEEDING DRIVE: A woman of Tala Nagada village gives her child with ‘Energy Dense Nutrient Rich Food’ distributed by the
government health department to the villagers of Nagada hills in Jajpur district. Photo: Biswaranjan Rout
Nineteen Juang tribal children have died in the last three months due to acute malnutritionrelated diseases in inaccessible hamlets atop
the Nagada hills, in Odisha’s Jajpur district. A public outcry has forced the State government to finally sit up and take notice, finds Prafulla
Das
Kusumuli Pradhan cannot quite remember the date she lost her son. She recalls it was sometime in the third week of June and fouryearold
Charan was running a high temperature. There were rashes on his small frame. Kusumuli gathered him in her arms and walked 27 km to the
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/oped/prafulladasonthelosttribeofodishaduetoacutemalnutritionrelateddiseases/article8949433.ece 1/3
Tata Steel hospital. After watching 10 children die in her hamlet in the past few months, Kusumuli was in a hurry to knock on the hospital
door.
The thirtysomething Juang tribal woman, however, brought the child home after a day of observation in the hospital. Three days later,
Charan died. There was no one to advise Kusumuli to get her child admitted to the hospital just as no health administrator had bothered to
inform her about the importance of getting her children inoculated against lifethreatening diseases. Kusumuli buried her son close to her hut
as her neighbours had done before her. “We make do with whatever we grow near our home and sell our forest produce to buy rice,” says the
grieving Kusumuli. The particular variety of root she plucks is used in brewing a traditional rice beer, Handia, which Kusumuli sells at the
Chingudipal gram panchayat headquarters 20 km away from her hamlet.
The Juangs of Nagada go to the Tata Steel hospital in Kaliapani, set up to cater to the needs of its employees at the Sukinda chromite mine.
The doctor on duty is attending to two girls — Manasi and Rebati, both acutely malnourished. Each day they are weighed. For Kusumuli this
was the nearest she could rush her son to. The governmentrun public health centre is 36 km away in Kuhika. The community health centre
at Sukinda is 46 km away and the district hospital is 110 km away.
Charan’s death had taken the toll of infants who had died in Nagada to 19 in three months. The Naveen Patnaik government woke up to the
news after two local newspapers, Samaja and Sambad, broke the story and local television amplified it.
The administration wakes up
Tents were soon pitched and cots were taken up the hills for the officials to stay. Medicines, food material for new minimakeshift Anganwadis
and government staff, solar lights, water filters and saplings of nutritious fruits and vegetables were making their slow climb. Close to 50
officials are posted here and work on a rotation basis.
There is one permanent Anganwadi in the foothills of Nagada, under the charge of Satyabhama Dehuri. Her job is confined to supplying
packets of nutritional chhatua, a mix of Bengal gram, wheat, peanut and sugar, to the villagers whenever they come down. The Anganwadi
worker is not only required to weigh children but also administer nutritional food to them and ideally should have been located at the top of
the Nagada hills.
Twentytwo undernourished children, all aged under six, from Nagada and Guhiasala villages were admitted to the Tata Steel hospital
following the visit of the officials. Most of these children returned to their hamlets after medical treatment when medical teams started
reaching the hamlets. The infants were kept in the hospital for a week — their condition closely monitored as most of them had malaria and
chest congestion and were suffering from acute malnutrition. They survived.
Deaths on account of malnutrition are not an admission health officials like to make on record. The exact reasons for the young children’s
deaths will never be known as the parents quickly buried their little ones. The two deaths registered in the Tata Steel hospital have been put
down to “malaria and proteinenergy malnutrition”, says Chief District Medical Officer of Jajpur Phanindra Kumar Panigrahi.
As photographs in newspapers and visuals on television channels kept the focus on Nagada, the opposition Congress, Bharatiya Janata Party
and others started visiting Nagada; the government responded by setting a fieldlevel task force and a Statelevel monitoring committee to
keep a close watch.
To any visitor, including this reporter, the children and adults in the hamlets appear in feeble health. Their oneroom huts empty barring a
few pieces of clothing, few kilos of ration rice and some maize they grew near their home.
Although officials remain tightlipped about the prevalence of acute malnutrition among children under five years of age, an official survey by
the State Women and Child Development Department found that 44 children in the age group of six months to five years were suffering from
malnutrition in the seven hamlets atop the hills, and nine more such children had been identified in Ashokjhar, another Juang hamlet situated
in the foothills. As many as 24 of these 53 children are suffering from severe acute malnutrition (SAM) and the remaining are suffering from
moderate acute malnutrition (MAM). The SAM and MAM status of children are known by measurement of upper arm muscles along with
body weight. These undernourished children are now being provided nutritious food and treatment at their homes by the doctors camping
there and being monitored.
A history of neglect
Odisha has 62 tribes, the highest number among all States and Union Territories in the country, accounting for 22.85 per cent of the total
population as per 2011 census. As many as 13 of these tribes have been identified as Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs), living in
over 500 habitations of the State but mostly in hamlets inside the forested hills across Odisha. The Juang tribe is one of the PVTGs that
belong to the Munda ethnic group and live in Keonjhar, Dhenkanal, Angul and Jajpur districts of Odisha and speak the Juang language, which
is accepted as a branch of the greater Austroasiatic language family. Those who come down the hills at regular intervals have picked up Odia.
It was to bring the Juangs into the mainstream that the Juang Development Agency (JDA) was established in 1975, with its headquarters in
Gonasika Hills in Keonjhar district. Even after four decades have elapsed, the agency has not been able to go beyond the Juangs of Keonjhar,
operating in 35 villages in six gram panchayats of Banspal block of Keonjhar. In fact, around 20 more villages in that block are yet to be
covered. Many other Juangdominated villages in Harichandanpur block of Keonjhar, Kankadahad block of Dhenkanal have remained outside
the purview of the JDA all these decades. As do the hamlets on the Nagada hills. They are inaccessible by road — there is only one way to get
there, and that is by foot.
The tragedy at Nagada involving the Juang tribe exposes the government’s apathy towards the PVTGs, but this is not for the first time that
malnutritionrelated deaths have stalked the tribal children. In 2013, several malnourished Paudi Bhuyan tribal children had allegedly died of
diseases caused by acute malnutrition in Lahunipara block of Sundargarh district, over 200 km away from Nagada. Though the exact number
of deaths is not available in the official records, a food rights activist claims that about 15 deaths were reported from different villages in
Lahunipara. Many deaths of undernourished children in hilltop tribal hamlets in the interiors go unreported as they remain inaccessible.
Following media reports about acute malnutrition among Paudi Bhuyan children, the State Women and Child Development Department, in
consultation with Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes, health and family welfare, rural development and panchayati raj departments, had
prepared a guideline for a convergent health and nutrition plan to address the health and nutritional needs of PVTGs in the State. An official
survey that time detected that as many as 195 children belonging to Paudi Bhuyan tribe were suffering from severe malnutrition in
Lahunipara.
Lastmile connectivity issues
The Nagada deaths raise questions on the efficiency of plans and schemes launched for the welfare of tribals living in inaccessible areas,
including the Nutrition Operational Plan that was drawn up in 2009 to accelerate the pace of underweight reduction in Odisha. About 38 per
cent of children in the State are stunted, its prevalence highest at about 46 per cent among tribal children.
As nutrition needs of the PVTGs remain unaddressed with the failure to ensure road connectivity to their habitations, the government has
also failed to bring them under the ambit of the National Food Security Act. Though ration cards had been issued to a majority of these tribals,
Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) cards elude many of them despite a standing order of the Supreme Court that “ that all households belonging
to six priority groups, one of them PVTGs, would be entitled to AAY cards”.
“It is not geographical isolation alone, but exclusion of the tribals from many government programmes that has made hundreds of children
suffer from acute undernourishment in Odisha. A coordinated approach by different government departments is the need of the hour to bring
all PVTGs living atop forested hills in the State under the welfare programmes,” says Rajkishor Mishra, State Adviser to the Commissioners of
the Supreme Court.
It has taken 19 deaths for officials to now admit that the Juang people in the hamlets atop Nagada hills — Tala Nagada, Majhi Nagada, Upara
Nagada, Tumuni, Naliadaba, Guhiasala and Taladiha — were deprived of basic facilities such as drinking water, primary health care,
electricity, and primary education available under various Central and State schemes due to lack of road connectivity. There is not a single
well in these hamlets and they depend on forest streams for water throughout the year.
Tala Nagada hamlet, the biggest of the seven hamlets with a population of 162, alone reported as many as 15 child deaths. Many residents in
these hamlets do not have even voter IDs and job cards under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. None of
the families have been given land rights under the Forest Rights Act.
The able men and women of these hamlets climb down the hills and walk down 20 km at least once a month to buy ration rice from the gram
panchayat office at Chingudipal or anything from the weekly haat (market) near Kaliapani. Rice and salt is their staple. Since the quantum of
ration rice is never sufficient for their families, they eat boiled wild tuber that they collect from the forest as dinner.
The only initiative to provide informal education to children had begun in Nagada in November last year when Aspire, a nongovernmental
organisation, started a nonresidential bridge course for 100 children, with financial support from Tata Steel Rural Development Society.
CSR funds from the mining companies operating in nearby areas in the district since long, however, had not been utilised for the benefit of
people of Nagada who live just few miles away. Some of these companies are supporting the Aahar outlets being run by the State government
in district headquarters, towns and cities.
The last time a block development officer (BDO) of Sukinda visited Nagada to convince the tribals to leave the hills to be rehabilitated on the
plains was in 2013, says Dharmendra Kumar Sahoo, the local gram panchayat extension officer camping at Nagada. Mr. Sahoo, who claims
that he accompanied the then BDO that time, says that the residents were in no mood to leave their habitat.
On the road to hope
After Odisha Women and Child Development Minister Usha Devi’s comment that the Juangs lack awareness attracted criticism from the
public and the Opposition, the State administration is working overtime to build roads to Nagada using Integrated Action Plan funds by
involving the Forest and Rural Development departments. Senior bureaucrats are drawing up plans to build roads from the Jajpur as well as
Dhenkanal sides.
In the meanwhile, officers and employees of almost all departments of the government have reached Nagada by climbing with great difficulty.
Efforts are on to provide health care and sanitation facilities, and supply free food to children at four newlysetup mini Anganwadis. Officials
have even created two WhatsApp groups among themselves to monitor the delivery of services at Nagada on a regular basis.
Further, an initiative has been taken to identify all inaccessible tribal hamlets across the State by assimilating information being collected from
the district administrations and using remote sensing data from Odisha Space Applications Centre.
Virtually admitting to the lapses on the part of his government after opposition parties sharpened their attack and sought Governor S.C.
Jamir’s intervention in the matter, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has assured that such tragic incidents would not recur in future. That
responsibility has been entrusted with Development Commissioner R. Balakrishnan, who first visited the Nagada hills as SubCollector of the
then Jajpur subdivision way back in November 1986. As a young officer then, Balakrishnan had walked up the hills and distributed clothes to
the Juang tribals. The situation has not changed even today. “The crux of the matter is connectivity. The topography poses a big challenge.
But efforts are being made on a war footing to overcome the difficulties and ensure service delivery,” he says.
“No politician or anyone from the government has visited our village in recent years,” says Binod Pradhan, 50, one of the Nagada elders.
Pradhan requests for Bidhaba Bhatta (widow pension); his wife had died five years ago after she developed high fever. Little does he know
that the scheme is meant for women. For that matter, most on the hills know very little of the bouquet of welfare programmes they are
entitled to. Perhaps they will, the day the ascent to and descent from Nagada hills isn’t a precarious matter of watching your step.
10/8/2016 Revisiting the legend of Niyamgiri The Hindu
OPINION » COMMENT
January 2, 2015
Revisiting the legend of Niyamgiri
Ashish Kothari
The Hindu
TABOO: “Major incursions like mining and factories are unacceptable to the Dongria Kondhs.” Picture shows them rejoicing in Kalahandi
district of Odisha after a gram sabha voted against mining by Vedanta in Niyamgiri hills. Photo: K. R. Deepak
It will need a caring partnership between the Dongria Kondh, civil society organisations and the government to figure out how to navigate
the very difficult terrain the tribals face
Till last week, I’d never visited Niyamgiri, scene of the iconic fight between the Dongria Kondh tribal group and Vedanta, a powerful
multinational corporation bent on mining in the area. So why have I titled this ‘revisiting Niyamgiri’? Partly because I’ve read so much about
it, heard so much from colleagues, that I feel like I’ve been there before. In a struggle that the global media likened to David versus Goliath,
the corporation was sent packing — this is the stuff of legends. But legends can be simplistic, so the second reason for the title is that when I
did actually go to Niyamgiri last week, it was with the purpose of going beyond the narrative of the antimining struggle; of revisiting the
legend itself.
The Dongria Kondh in southwestern Odisha is one of India’s socalled “particularly vulnerable tribal groups.” They retain world views and
practices that go back millennia, and embody forms of knowledge and relationships with nature that have been lost to many of the socalled
“civilised” peoples. They typify everything that the Indian state and urban educated folks would call “backward”: absence of literacy, simple
levels of technology, shifting cultivation, animism, lack of schools and hospitals, kaccha paths to their villages, no electricity, and so on. And
yet, defying all the stereotypes that go with this characterisation, they — at least for the time being — have triumphed over a private
corporation with all the “civilised” powers at its command. (We heard that Vedanta continues to hope for a reversal of the decision to disallow
it from mining in the area, especially now that an even more corporatefriendly government than the Congress is in Delhi.) The Dongria Kondh
are, however, alert, and absolutely sure they will not allow any incursion by the company.
Read: The significance of Niyamgiri
I went to Niyamgiri with some colleagues to understand the views of the Dongria Kondh on development and wellbeing. They had rejected
mining, but were they rejecting the notion of development itself? Were they saying they were happy as they were? Did they reject everything
coming from “outside,” or did they want some of it — government schemes for instance? Were there differing views within the community?
Walking to a number of Dongria Kondh villages and talking to some of the movement leaders, we got a sense of the powerful spiritual and
rational basis for the rejection of mining. The rules laid down by Niyam Raja, the spiritual source of the territory, included the protection of
forests and rivers, common custodianship of resources rather than individual property, and sharing of labour and its fruits. In such a situation,
major incursions like mining and big roads and factories were simply taboo. Leaders like Laddo Sikaka and Dadhi Pusika were also clear that
they did not want Niyamgiri to go the way towns like Muniguda and Bhubaneshwar did, where the water cannot be drunk and the air cannot
be breathed without falling sick, where houses have to be locked when people go out, and where women face harassment on a daily basis.
Building roads through the territory, they knew, would only bring exploitative forces in. And having realised that getting individual plots under
the Forest Rights Act could encourage individualisation and more deforestation, the community has demanded that the entire territory be
recognised as a habitat right under the Act, with a single title in the name of Niyam Raja.
Kinds of incursions
Unfortunately, however, such incursions have already been made, some rather insidious. Under its wellintentioned but blatantly
inappropriate “welfare” schemes, the state had sought to bring the benefits of “civilisation” to the tribe. Schools hardly functioned in the few
villages that had them, so Adivasi children were brought to ashramshalas or boarding schools where the education is in Odia (the Dongria
Kondh speak Kui language). Adivasi culture is sought to be replaced by the dominant mainstream one. A wellknown educational institution in
Bhubaneshwar, which counts many political and scientific celebrities amongst its backers, has brought thousands of Adivasi children from
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10/8/2016 Revisiting the legend of Niyamgiri The Hindu
across Odisha to give them education; that it has significant funding from corporations that want to establish mines and industries in Adivasi
areas has led activists to wonder whether it is education or brainwashing that is taking place.
Closely following on the heels of the state has been the market. Till recently, the Dongria Kondh economy was almost completely non
monetised. There is now an increasing “need” for money as whatever little the Adivasis have to buy has become more expensive. Items that
they bring to sell are often sold at wellbelow market rates. Typical of Adivasis in India, the encounter with the market is almost always to
their disadvantage.
Finally, there are the incursions of the police and other security forces. The area is supposed to have Naxalite activity, which has given the
state a reason to periodically send in patrols. Both Adivasi leaders and their supporters have been interrogated, framed with charges, including
terrorism, searched, and made to feel unwelcome in their own home.
The Dongria Kondh are aware of these issues, but there is some ambiguity on how to deal with them. The increasing use of rather incongruous
looking metal roofs on their houses (the walls were still mud), is symptomatic of a level of confusion. They complained that such roofs make
their houses very hot in summer. Why, then, did they change from the traditional thatch roofs? “Because the government was giving us the
metal roofs.” This was the same response given for why white rice was being eaten when they had their own nutritious local millets and other
grains. Our question on whether the increasing entry of money as a medium of exchange could be problematic was left unanswered. Several
Dongria Kondh families continue to send their children to mainstream schools in the desperate hope that their children will have a brighter
future. Many of them do say, however, that they would prefer schools in their own villages, with Dongria Kondh teachers using Kui language,
and with incorporation of forestfieldbased learning.
The complete narrative
A positive development from the antimining stir is the creation of the Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti, which unites all the Dongria Kondh
settlements. The Samiti is taking up other issues too, such as a movement against illegal liquor brewing. This is a ready platform to take up
other thorny issues the tribe face.
There is no way that with a limited set of interactions, we could do justice to the complex questions we had set out to ask. But we got sufficient
glimpses to convince us that Niyamgiri, both as a place and as a narrative, needs to be revisited. Enabling the Dongria Kondh to decide their
own future, based on their understanding of their past and present, requires deep empathy and understanding from anyone outside of them
who genuinely cares. The David versus Goliath narrative is powerful, and will sustain and inspire, but it is not complete. The market and the
state have inextricably entered their lives. It will need a caring partnership between the Dongria Kondh, civil society organisations and the
government to figure out how to navigate the very difficult terrain they face ahead of them, and for them to continue inspiring and teaching
the rest of the world how to live lives finely tuned to nature.
(Ashish Kothari is with Kalpavriksh, Pune.)
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/oped/commentonniyamgiriandfightbetweendongriakondhtribalgroupandvedanta/article6745650.ece 2/2
10/8/2016 Roadmap to tribal wellbeing The Hindu

HEALTH » POLICY & ISSUES
November 3, 2013
Roadmap to tribal wellbeing
Aarti Dhar
Infant and maternal mortality and neonatal deaths are unacceptably high among tribals. Photo: Akhilesh Kumar
The government sets up an expert committee to develop a national framework to improve the quality of healthcare available to tribals
Recognising that health indicators are generally poor in the country’s tribal areas, the government has decided to develop a national
framework and roadmap to improve the appropriateness, access, and quality of health services among the tribal population.
The national framework will be drafted by an expert committee constituted by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to better
address healthcare challenges of the Scheduled Tribes population, particularly those living in the tribal districts and tribal development
blocks.
As per the 2001 Census, the tribal population was 8.43 crore or eight per cent of the total population, with over 90 per cent living in rural
areas with poor social indicators. Northeastern States have the highest tribal population followed by Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Andhra Pradesh,
Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.
Infant mortality, maternal mortality and neonatal death figures are unacceptably high among the STs because of lack of healthcare
infrastructure, low literacy rates and sometimes traditional practices.
In addition to reviewing the special schemes and programmes and interventions taken by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare,
identify gaps and deficiencies in their implementation, the expert committee will suggest strategic interventions for improved
implementation.
This decision was taken in the wake of a general observation that the health indicators were generally poor in tribal areas and that there was a
need to review the health programmes and approach to improve delivery and performance of health programmes in these areas.
The expert committee will prepare strategic guidelines for States to draw up Programme Implementation Plans, including model District
Health Action Plans for tribal health based on tribal health issues and diseases burden, and review the available health data with a view to
maintaining a regular database specific to tribal health.
The committee, chaired by Abhay Bhang (SEARCH), will have 12 members in addition to representatives from the Union Ministry of Health
and Family Welfare, Secretaries of Department of Tribal Welfare from Chhattisgarh and Odisha and Commissioner Tribal Welfare of Andhra
Pradesh as special invitees.
Asked to submit its report within six months, the expert group will also review the information on health infrastructure and availability of
human resources and make recommendations on interventions to be made to create, or strengthen the existing infrastructure for health in
tribal blocks.
The experts will examine and suggest interventions to address the specific needs of the tribal population, especially the Particularly
Vulnerable Tribal Groups, and suggest specific interventions necessary in collaboration with other Ministries to improve the social
determinants of health in tribal areas, in addition to suggesting ways to improved supervision and monitoring systems.
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10/8/2016 Taking health care to tribal heartland The Hindu
OPINION » COMMENT
November 29, 2015
POLICY INT ERV ENT IONS
Taking health care to tribal heartland
Gunjan Veda
The Hindu
Instead of tribals going to New Delhi, New Delhi had come to the tribals. Photo: Singam Venkataramana
New Delhi travelled to tribal heartland. The expert group offers hope; an opportunity to ensure that the tribals have a say in policies that
are framed for them.
Earlier this month, a motley group of 50 academicians, government officials and activists gathered at Shodhgram village in Maharashtra’s
Gadchiroli district. This is an area known for malaria, malnutrition and Maoists, not necessarily in that order.
Everyone left technology behind (mobile phones and gadgets) to ensure that there were no distractions to the flow of conversation over three
uninterrupted days. It was to talk about an ‘x’ number of India’s 100 million tribal population.
The Health Ministry had decided to hold the workshop on “Best Practices in Tribal Health” in tribal heartland; on a campus surrounded by
lush forests and designed as a Gond village. Instead of tribals going to New Delhi, New Delhi had come to the tribals.
What led to this meeting was another first: the government’s recognition of the differential and unique health needs of tribal communities. In
October 2013, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Ministry of Tribal Affairs’s expert group was to frame a national policy on
tribal health, given the unique sociocultural realities of these communities.
Its chairperson, Dr. Abhay Bang, who along with his wife, Dr. Rani Bang, has, for almost three decades, led communitybased action and
research for and on the health of India’s neonates and tribal people.
Seeking scaleable solutions
As a result, we now have access to multidimensional, national level data; data that has not only been missing from our statistical databases but
also from our consciousness. The results will be presented along with the group’s report at the end of this year.
The three days were fruitful. The group identified 26 areas that have the potential to break some of the biggest barriers to tribal health. Some
are malaria, malnutrition, maternal and child mortality and fluorosis.
“In 1995, the district collector of Mandla contacted the National Institute for Research in Tribal Health (NIRTH) at Jabalpur. In Tilaipani
village, all the children had knockknees and severe pain. They had fluorosis,” said Dr. Tapas Chakma, senior scientist with NIRTH. His team
then focussed on a commonly grown weed, rich in calcium, iron and vitamin C that could help mitigate fluorosis.
Dr. Sudarshan from the Karuna Trust showed how publicprivate partnerships with northeast Indian governments have taken health to the
hinterlands. The Chhattisgarh government highlighted its outsourcing human resource recruitment, while doctors from Jan Swasthya Sahyog,
Bilaspur, pushed for communityrun crèches to fight malnutrition. Village women trained by the Society For Education, Action and Research
in Community Health demonstrated how they treated sepsis and used ambubags to save newborn children.
Policy priorities
Each of the practices offered a ray of hope for a population that has long been relegated to the peripheries of India’s development story.
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/oped/takinghealthcaretotribalheartland/article7927736.ece 1/2
10/8/2016 Taking health care to tribal heartland The Hindu
Now some key policy issues that could determine the state of tribal health in India. For instance, is outsourcing the answer to providing quality
care in tribal areas? Is volunteerism in health services sustainable? Can Ayurveda, Yoga, Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoepathy
doctors or nurses fulfill the human resource gap created by lack of doctors in tribal areas? Most importantly, what are the priorities for tribal
health and who determines them?
Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, Director General of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) called for greater collaboration between
academia, civil society and government to conduct multicentric evidence studies. “It is important to include anthropologists, sociologists and
economists in health research,” she said, while asking for a sharing of ideas and evidence in tackling the sickle cell disease.
Sickle cell disease is an inherited condition where the hemoglobin in red blood cells is abnormal and may block the passage of oxygen, resulting
in severe pain and gradual damage to vital organs. It can only be prevented, not cured. According to ICMR, the sickle cell gene is widely
prevalent among some tribal groups, with a prevalence rate of 140 per cent.
“We have launched a screening programme in 18 States. This will enable us to know the problem. But what of the solution? At the end of the
programme, lakhs of people would know that they carry the disease or the gene for it,” she said.
“What recourse will we offer them?” Dr. Swaminathan asked. She laid stress on the need for projects that reduce morbidity and mortality
among sickle cell carriers.
Evidence from Gujarat, which initiated sickle cell screening in 2006, shows that premarital counseling to prevent transmission does not work.
It also presents itself as an ethical conundrum. The State needs to ensure that carriers, particularly girls, do not face discrimination.
Perhaps the Bangs’s experience of sickle cell testing best frames the policy question. “When we started work in Gadchiroli in 1986, we
detected sickle cell disease and tried to discuss the way forward with the tribals. They laughed and said, “Who told you this is our problem?”
For them, malaria and child mortality are much bigger issues as most sickle carriers lead normal lives.”
So, who determined that sickle cell screening is a priority in tribal health? Did someone study the impact of sickle cell on the life and
productivity of tribals?
This takes us back to the main question. Do our policies address the priorities of tribals or do they set priorities for them? Unfortunately, it has
been the latter. But this time New Delhi travelled to tribal heartland. The expert group offers hope; an opportunity to ensure that the tribals
have a say in policies that are framed for them.
Will we let it move forward? Only time will tell.
(Gunjan Veda is a former policymaker and coauthor of Beautiful Country: Stories from Another India.)
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/oped/takinghealthcaretotribalheartland/article7927736.ece 2/2
10/8/2016 Taking healthcare to India’s remote tribes The Hindu
OPINION » COMMENT
September 2, 2014
Taking healthcare to India’s remote tribes
Soumya Swaminathan
Special Arrangement
UNACCEPTABLE: Underfive mortality rates among rural tribal children remain startlingly high, at 95 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2006.
The right to good healthcare must be addressed using modern technology, innovative approaches and by involving tribals in developing
solutions for their problems
In his address to the nation on Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke about inclusive development, with food security, safe
housing and sanitation being the rights of every citizen. Health is intimately linked to these essentials of living. The health status of India’s
tribal communities is in need of special attention. Being among the poorest and most marginalised groups in India, tribals experience extreme
levels of health deprivation. The tribal community lags behind the national average on several vital public health indicators, with women and
children being the most vulnerable.
Several studies on maternal health show poorer nutritional status, higher levels of morbidity and mortality, and lower utilisation of antenatal
and postnatal services among tribals. Underfive mortality rates among rural tribal children remain startlingly high, at 95 deaths per 1,000
live births in 2006 compared with 70 among all children. A recent study in Melghat area of Maharashtra revealed that 80 per cent of tribal
women weighed under 50 kg and 74 per cent of underfive children were malnourished. “Starvation deaths” continue to be reported from
tribal areas, including from advanced States like Kerala.
Health problems prevalent in tribal areas include endemic infectious diseases like malaria, tuberculosis, and diarrhoeal diseases, apart from
malnutrition and anaemia. What is worrying is that the prevalence of chronic diseases such as hypertension and diabetes mellitus, hitherto
rare in these populations, is rising, and stroke and heart disease are now the leading causes of death. Some of the highest rates of tuberculosis
in the country have been reported from the Sahariya tribe of Madhya Pradesh. Similarly, deaths due to malaria occur disproportionately
among tribals.
Reasons for poor health
Research has shown that 75 per cent of India’s tribal population defecates in the open and 33 per cent does not have access to a clean source of
drinking water. Insanitary conditions, ignorance, lack of health education and poor access to healthcare facilities are the main factors
responsible for the poor health of tribals. Further, displacement from their traditional forest homes and natural source of food and lack of
livelihoods makes them dependent on the public distribution system (PDS) and other government handouts for survival. Most tribal groups
are traditionally huntergatherers and not accustomed to agriculture — their diets, therefore, are now severely limited in fruits and vegetables
as well as good sources of protein (including fish and meat). Polished rice and cereals available through the PDS have replaced diverse dietary
food baskets.
Although the government has provided for the establishment of Primary Health Centres (PHCs) in tribal areas for every 20,000 population
and subcentres for every 3,000 population, quality healthcare is not available to the majority of tribals. Posts of doctors and paramedicals are
often vacant. Additionally, the nonavailability of essential drugs and equipment, inadequate infrastructure, difficult terrain and constraints of
distance and time (one Auxiliary Nurse Midwife is responsible for 1520 scattered villages), and the lack of transport and communication
facilities further hinder healthcare delivery. The geographical and infrastructural challenges to public health and the lack of healthrelated
knowledge among tribals are exploited by quacks (unqualified medical practitioners), who are often available at the doorstep. Though some
traditional practices and superstitions persist, acceptance of modern medicine has increased in recent years, but access to good care is the
major issue. Levels of illiteracy are high, with 47 per cent in rural areas and 21.8 per cent in urban areas being unable to read and write. Better
educated tribal communities will be better aware of their healthcare needs (and rights) as well as of better careseeking practices.
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10/8/2016 Taking healthcare to India’s remote tribes The Hindu
Though successive Five Year Plans have provided for the needs of tribal populations within different schemes, and a large amount of funds are
allocated, little improvement has been noted on the ground. The poor health of tribal populations cannot be overcome by mere establishment
of more PHCs and subcentres. Scarcity of trained manpower for health is a major problem and an obstacle to the extension of health services
to rural and tribal areas. Traditional healers, who are often the first point of care, can be sensitised and trained to deliver simple interventions
like ORS for diarrhoea and antimalarials as well as to refer patients to the PHC in a timely manner. Tribal boys and girls (who complete
school but often have no further opportunities) could be trained as community health workers or nurses and incentivised to stay and work in
their own communities. A successful example is the ASHWINI Gudalur Adivasi hospital in the Nilgiris, where the management and most staff
(except the doctors) are tribal. Nutritional counselling and education, establishment of kitchen gardens and provision of a more diverse range
of food items through the PDS would help in curtailing macro and micronutrient deficiencies. More research needs to be done on the traditional
herbal medicines used by tribal people and their use encouraged, wherever beneficial.
Scaling up models
The theme of this year’s International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples was “Bridging the gap — implementing the rights of indigenous
people.” Tribals’ right to good healthcare must be addressed using modern technology and innovative approaches and most importantly, by
involving the community in developing solutions for their problems. Health is intimately linked to food and nutrition security, safe housing and
availability of sanitation and clean drinking water. There are many successful examples of good healthcare delivery in remote tribal areas in
our country (almost all involving dedicated NGOs working with the people). These models need to be scaled up in order to improve the lives of
the most vulnerable and marginalised citizens of our country.
(Soumya Swaminathan is director, National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis, Chennai.)
Correction
>>In the Comment page article, “Taking healthcare to India’s remote tribes” (Sept. 2, 2014), there was a reference to a
study in Melghat district of Maharashtra. It should have been Melghat area.
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/oped/takinghealthcaretoindiasremotetribes/article6370400.ece 2/2
10/8/2016 The burden of criminal neglect The Hindu
OPINION » COMMENT
January 3, 2015
The burden of criminal neglect
Kalpana Kannabiran
The Hindu
“The government set up a committee that found the state complicit in the neglect of tribal peoples.” Picture shows landless tribal people at the
Jan Satyagraha rally in Agra. Photo: V. V. Krishnan
The absence of state accountability is at the core of issues facing tribal communities
The Report of the High Level Committee on SocioEconomic, Health and Educational Status of Tribal Communities of India, under the
chairmanship of sociologist Virginius Xaxa, was circulated last week. The 431page report details the situation of tribal communities:
Scheduled Tribes, denotified tribes and particularly vulnerable tribal communities. Taking on board the findings and demands of social
movements, NGOs, researchers and bureaucrats, the report consolidates what we already know about the situation of tribal communities in
this country. Without detracting from its significance as an archive, it is important to revisit some basic questions at this moment that have
been brought to the fore yet again.
Sixty per cent of the forest area in the country is in tribal area. Fiftyone of the 58 districts with forest cover greater than 67 per cent are
tribal districts. Three States — Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand — account for 70 per cent of India’s coal reserves, 80 per cent of its high
grade iron ore, 60 per cent of its bauxite and almost 100 per cent of its chromite reserves. Forty per cent of those displaced by dams are tribal
peoples. A look at violent conflict, whether in Schedule V States or in Schedule VI States, shows that “the state is involved in all of these
conflicts in some way or another.” Not surprisingly, the areas where these wars are being waged (with the state as party) are tribal areas with
rich mineral reserves. The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act guarantees impunity to state perpetrators of extrajudicial murder and assault,
and there are a large number of peaceful mass movements against the appropriation of tribal homelands by the state and by corporations.
While there is a generally discernible occupational shift in tribal communities, the committee observes, the focus of national state agencies on
mainstream categorisations of agricultural labourers, cultivators and the omnibus category of nonfarm workers masks the finer details of
tribal workworlds and therefore obstructs an understanding of shifts therein. The need for tribal communities to have continued and
uninterrupted access to forests for livelihoods and the responsibility of the state in securing these livelihoods, ensuring their viability, and
providing an account of their diversity; creating enabling conditions for the dignity of work and sustainability; and plans for protecting and
removing both conflict and livelihood degradation caused by the repressive presence of the forest bureaucracy in tribal areas are issues that
merit greater attention.
The absence of state accountability and responsibility are at the core of the problem.
Governance of tribal areas
The question of autonomy in scheduled areas has been set out in Schedules V and VI of the Constitution. In Schedule V areas, the Tribes
Advisory Council — a body with elected and community representatives from Scheduled Tribes — will advise the governor on matters of
administration and governance in scheduled areas. Extensive review has shown that although governors are vested with enormous powers
with respect to Schedule V areas, they have been found uniformly tardy in the matter of submission of reports and in respecting the
constitutional guarantee of autonomy to tribal areas — leading the High Level Committee to recommend the setting up of a cell “in order for
the Governor to properly carry out the duties of the post visàvis protection of the tribes” (emphasis added) with a whisper that this cell
should not just turn into another bureaucratic institution with little interest in tribal affairs. The deliberations of the Tribes Advisory Councils
have been found to be tokenistic, and the councils themselves filled with bureaucrats and ministers instead of representatives of tribal
communities with effective voice. Even with the Autonomous Councils in the Schedule VI States, which have a more robust formal autonomy,
the committee finds that “there is a huge discrepancy between the formal rules guaranteeing autonomy and the informal workings of
autonomy on the ground.”
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/oped/commentonissuesfacedbytribalcommunities/article6749215.ece 1/2
10/8/2016 The burden of criminal neglect The Hindu
As a remedy, the committee recommends that Governors’ Cells be set up in all Schedule V States to assist the Governor, although details
about the functioning of such cells set up in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Rajasthan are not yet known.
Also read: Taking healthcare to India’s remote tribes
What might be the modalities for an ad hoc “cell” to show a constitutional authority the right path to ‘good governance’?
Data reproduced in the report from the years 198182 showed a drop out rate of 91.65 per cent before completion of tenth standard, with a
participation in higher education of 1.62 per cent among the Scheduled Tribes. While flagship programmes and policies have been introduced
with laudable objectives, the committee observes that inadequate infrastructure, poor teaching and learning materials, lack of focus on teacher
education, and the impact of armed conflict on teacher absenteeism and school functioning, and practices of discrimination and stigmatisation
in schools have affected tribal children most adversely. Added to this is the rampant and routinised corruption in government schooling
system, an issue that has not been addressed, but one that has an immediate and disastrous effect on the child’s and teachers’ wellbeing. All
of these together hold tribal children in a chokehold, pushing them back into ghettoised suboptimal learning possibilities and grinding poverty.
Tribal lifeworlds
Where does the solution lie? Might common schools be an answer? Should schooling continue in the “separate and unequal” mode? And most
importantly, the state and adult citizens hold the responsibility for protecting the rights of all children in trust. It is no longer a question of
quibbling over numbers — of schools, teachers, dropouts, enrolment, etc. If the outcome is that tribal children do not get a decent education,
the state is responsible both for the absence of due diligence and for direct derogation of fundamental rights of children. On another level, the
question is not merely one of the exposure of tribal children to the world outside; more critical is the need to promote an understanding of
diverse tribal lifeworlds in all children through a restructuring of education.
Tribal land alienation and dispossession are at the crux of the crisis tribal communities face across the country — acquisition of land by the
state using the principle of ‘eminent domain’; manipulation of records and incorrect interpretation of law; encroachment of tribal land by non
tribal people and immigrants; creation of national parks; and armed conflict resulting in forced migration and eviction from homelands. There
are questions related to the routinisation of arbitrary arrest, illegal detention and torture in custody of tribal people living in conflict areas.
There are no figures publicly available on the demographic profile of prisoner/detainee populations in Schedule V areas. The important
guarantee under Article 21 of the Constitution — right to life and personal liberty — is in a state of perpetual suspension in tribal areas. If one
were to go by the data and observations put forth by the High Level Committee, once more we learn that the state is waging war at every
level against tribal communities across States. Added to this is criminal neglect and violent corruption that has systematically obstructed the
delivery of public goods and services. There is a proliferation of reports — of bureaucratic writing generally —as an end in itself.
What are we to do with this information? The government set up a committee that found the state complicit both directly as perpetrator and
through the absence of due diligence in genocidal neglect of tribal peoples.
Where do we go from here?
(Kalpana Kannabiran is professor and director at the Council for Social Development, Hyderabad).
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/oped/commentonissuesfacedbytribalcommunities/article6749215.ece 2/2
10/8/2016 The significance of Niyamgiri The Hindu
OPINION » EDITORIAL
May 3, 2013
The significance of Niyamgiri
The Supreme Court has strongly endorsed the role of the gram sabhas as democratic decisionmaking fora on issues of individual, community
and cultural rights of tribals and traditional forest dwellers. Its recent ruling in the Niyamgiri bauxite mining case has farreaching impact
because environmental laws such as the Forest (Conservation) Act, the Forest Rights Act and the Environment (Protection) Act are given
scant respect by industrial project proponents looking for natural resources. This trend has accelerated in recent years, with national
development being measured by a single number, the Gross Domestic Product. Under pressure, the Ministry of Environment and Forests has
generally adopted a benign approach to enforcement. In the bauxite mining project promoted by the Vedanta group in Odisha, the Ministry
made a welcome exception and recorded “violations too egregious to be glossed over.” The Supreme Court order in the case, endorsing the
rights of tribals under the Forest Rights Act and the Panchayat (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act to make fresh claims and designating the
gram sabhas as the competent fora to decide them, should end strong arm measures against defenceless communities. It is beyond doubt that
there is an organic connection between tribals and the land, and this has been accepted by the Supreme Court in another case in 1997. That
bond must be respected.
Besides this fundamental issue, several key questions relating to negative externalities caused by development projects have also been
addressed: diversion of forest land for industry should be compensated through payment of Net Present Value; separate funds must be
earmarked for compensatory afforestation and wildlife management; designated pretax profits should be allocated for development of
scheduled areas. Unfortunately, such basic requirements are often portrayed as impediments to economic growth, and environmental losses
stand ignored. Moreover, a transparent, independent assessment mechanism to monitor implementation of conditions set for grant of
clearance does not exist. In Odisha, for instance, environmental rules and conditions were brazenly violated by Vedanta Alumina when it
launched the expansion of its project before clearance was given, a fact recorded by the Saxena committee of the Environment Ministry. Now
that the gram sabhas, and thereafter the MoEF have another opportunity to revisit the Niyamgiri project, they must ensure that tribal rights
are recognised. The Supreme Court order is a good precedent for all projects that have environmental and social consequences. Development
is a natural aspiration, but it must be genuine and not result in the loss of even the existing quality of life.
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/thesignificanceofniyamgiri/article4677438.ece 1/1
10/8/2016 Constitutional conversations on Adivasi rights The Hindu
OPINION » COMMENT
July 24, 2015
Constitutional conversations on Adivasi rights
Kalpana Kannabiran
The Hindu
Impoverished: “For Adivasis, equality of opportunity remains largely unfulfilled.” Picture shows Adivasis from Koraput, Odisha, in
Visakhapatnam. Photo: K.R. Deepak
A little used provision in the Constitution may hold the key to protecting the interests of Scheduled Tribes as they fight to hold on to their
traditional lands
Even 67 years after Independence, the problems of Adivasi communities are about access to basic needs. These include, but are not restricted
to, elementary education, community healthcare, sustainable livelihood support, the public distribution system, food security, drinking water
and sanitation, debt, and infrastructure. For them, equality of opportunity remains largely unfulfilled. In this context, it is important to stress
that the values of tribal culture are transmitted in a manner that protects the right of the bearers of knowledge to determine the terms of the
transmission without exploitation or commodification. Nor can the Adivasis’ unhindered access to land and forests, including full access to the
commons, especially in scheduled areas, be understated. Tribal communities have, over the decades, witnessed the fragmentation of their
habitats and homelands and the disruption of their cultures through predatory tourism. All this has left them shattered and impoverished.
Entire communities across States have been dispossessed systematically through state action, and have been reduced from owners of
resources and wellknit, largely selfsufficient communities to wage earners in agriculture and urban agglomerates with uncertain futures. Yet,
we can scarcely forget that the rights of tribal communities in India are protected by the Constitution and special legislations.
Rights enumerated
While most of these protections are available to groups named in The Constitution (Schedule Tribes) Order 1950, there are some tribal
communities that fall within the categories of Scheduled Castes (SC) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) and some that don’t fall into any of
these categories. Within the category of Scheduled Tribes (ST), there are over 500 groups listed of whom roughly 70 are part of the sub
classification Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups, a small cluster of groups that include the Jarawas of the Andaman Islands, the Chenchus
of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and the Baigas of Chhattisgarh. These groups face an acute crisis of survival, evident in their rapidly
dwindling numbers. Therefore, they are in need of special protection even within the larger ST category, protections in relation to nontribal
communities as well as in relation to other tribal communities. Notwithstanding these complex intersections and overlaps (and exclusions in
some instances), tribal communities, especially the STs, are the subject of special constitutional attention.
The right of tribal peoples to development through pathways that affirm their autonomy and dignity, as set out in Article 21 and under
Schedules V and VI of the Indian Constitution, is often seen as the core of Adivasi rights. And indeed, they are. The oftquoted Samata
judgment of 1997, rich in its defence of the rights of Adivasi communities to their homelands, posits an interreading of Articles 14 (equality),
15 (nondiscrimination), 16 (equality of opportunity), 17 (abolition of untouchability), 21 (life and liberty), 23 (right against exploitation) from
the Fundamental Rights chapter of the Constitution and Articles 38 (securing a just social order), 39 (guiding principles of policy) and 46
(promotion of educational and economic interests of SCs, STs, and other weaker sections) from the Directive Principles of State Policy.
The constitutional arguments in the High Court of Andhra Pradesh resisting the Polavaram dam centred on whether the state could alter
(diminish) the boundaries of a scheduled area without presidential assent. Submergence, in fact, alters boundaries, causes disappearance of
villages and village institutions, and renders people from these communities vulnerable through dispossession by displacement — all of which
are the subject of special protections for the STs. The largest volume of litigation in scheduled areas has to do with nontribal occupation of
tribal land and the blatant derogation of land transfer regulation laws. Financial inclusion poses the third major problem: despite policy
commitments to financial inclusion of vulnerable communities as a measure to lift them out of debt bondage and predatory money lending and
usury, moneylenders continue to thrive in tribal areas.
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/oped/adivasirightsintheconstitutionandtheirtraditionallands/article7457164.ece 1/2
10/8/2016 Constitutional conversations on Adivasi rights The Hindu
Hidden provision
It is in this overall context that I flag an unused constitutional provision as perhaps holding a key to the justiciable, mandatory protection of
the interests of the STs as distinct from other marginalised groups.
Article 19 of the Constitution is commonly understood, through text and case law, as a provision that protects freedom of speech, expression,
assembly, association, movement, residence and calling. The first clause of Article 19 reads as follows: 19(1) All citizens shall have the right (a)
To freedom of speech and expression; (b) To assemble peaceably and without arms; (c) To form associations or unions; (d) To move freely
throughout the territory of India; (e) To reside and settle in any part of the territory of India; and (f) omitted (g) To practise any profession,
or to carry on any occupation, trade or business. Clauses 19 (2) to (4) set out the reasonable restrictions to speech, assembly and association in
the interests of public morality, decency and integrity and sovereignty of the state — these aspects and their restrictions are what figure most
often in animated fashion in debates around Article 19.
Clause 5 of Article 19 reads as follows: 19 (5) Nothing in sub clauses (d) and (e) of the said clause shall affect the operation of any existing law
in so far as it imposes, or prevent the State from making any law imposing, reasonable restrictions on the exercise of any of the rights
conferred by the said sub clauses either in the interests of the general public or for the protection of the interests of any Scheduled Tribe
(emphasis added).
In other words, an important part of Article 19 protections have to do specifically with protection of interests of STs (Clause 5) as distinct from
other marginalised groups through limitations on right to freedom of movement [subcause 1(d)] and right to freedom of residence [sub
clause 1(d)]. This, I would argue, when read with existing protections (for instance as set out in Samata or similar cases) offers a core and
express fundamental right protection to Adivasis (as distinct from legal/ statutory protection) from a range of state and nonstate intrusions
in scheduled areas as well as from the perennial threat of eviction of Adivasis from their homelands.
It is the interests of STs that are paramount in this fundamental right provision, which is presented importantly as a restriction on an
enumerated right that is clear and specific — not a restriction of a general nature, namely, the “sovereignty and integrity of India” or “public
order,” “decency” or “morality,” as is the case with the other constituent freedoms in Article 19.
Understanding the situation of tribal communities is key to understanding the Constitution, its framework and its possibilities in the fullest
sense. Perhaps it is time to reinvigorate our reading of the Constitution in the troubled times we live in. We may find answers to other
questions as well around an idea of justice that we grapple with every day.
(Kalpana Kannabiran is Professor and Director, Council for Social Development)
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/oped/adivasirightsintheconstitutionandtheirtraditionallands/article7457164.ece 2/2

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