Nehru and Elwin on Tribal Development: A contrasting perspectives

Verrier Elwin, a citizen of Great Britain, came to India in 1927 as a Christian missionary. Exactly a year later he got the chance to meet Mahatma Gandhi and become attracted to his philosophy, woven around the reformation of grassroots society in India. Gandhi’s vision on emancipation of the oppressed was so persuasive and practical that it worked like magic in transforming Elvin from a religious man to a ‘phi anthropologist’. At the beginning of his career he was tempted to work among the untouchables, but he could not stick to this decision for long. Once, in an interaction, Jamnalal Bajaj mentioned tribes and hinted their unique social system and economic life. Elvin now become fascinated by tribes and shifted his interest from the untouchables to the tribes, from the people suffering from hierarchy-based inequality to the people facing disadvantage of isolation. From then he never deviated from this focus, rather he went on studying tribes throughout his life, first in central India and then in the North-East. In the course of his study he was able to understand many aspect of the tribal life, ranging from the socio-cultural domain to their poverty and depletion of their livelihood. He took Indian citizenship in 1954. Jawaharlal Nehru, then prime mister of India, appointed him Anthropological Advisor to the government of India and assign him the task of implementing the tribal welfare program, particular in the North-East. Both Nehru and Elwin, one as an architect of modern India and other as an anthropologist-cum-philanthopolist, contributed diversely to the discourse on tribal development.

To develop the proper understanding about the tribal development in India, we need to understand these negative and positive experiences which will provide a complementary view of the development process. So that here we are focusing and analyzing the Nehruvian and Elwin approaches in the context of tribal development in India.

The debate between Nehru and Elwin on tribal development gained grounded after independence, and, therefore, claimed an intrinsic link with the national development discourse. To the extent that Nehru was an extreme nationalist, Elwin was the moderate nationalist; the trend of national development was more pronounced in Nehru’s approach whereas Elwin’s concern was confined to the welfare of the tribes, a segment of the nation. In other world, Nehru modeled his approach on the lines of the western paradigm and unequivocally proposed uniform application on this model for the development of all section of people, irrespective of gender, cast, tribe or religious background. The areas of his vision of development were wider and more diverse from fostering human dignity, world peace, democracy, planning and development, socialism, secularism, Indian national hood, science and technology to overall change through consent and non violence. In specific context of tribes, he recognized the importance of education, health and stable subsistence as the important means for their development.

Elwin more or less referred the same things, but differ with Nehru in approach. In his disputed isolationist approach, Elwin insisted that the tribes should maintain a selective distance from the mainstream socio-political-economical system, which was, however, not accepted to Nehruvian patriotism. It might be possible that Elwin had changed his approach from isolationist to integrationist under the influence of a Nehru.

Regarding tribal development, Nehru said “ I have no doubt that development and changed so-called progress will come to them, because it is becoming increasingly difficult for any people to live their isolated life cut off from the rest of the world. But let this development and change be natural and be in nature of self development with all the help one can give in the process”. To active this ideology of development, Nehru borrowed the western paradigm and set it in a tribal context. He was, however, against understanding tribal social and cultural identity in this development process. It is noticeable that by exposing colonial rule as responsible for the misery and backwardness of the tribes, Elwin initiated decolonization of the tribal development approach earlier than Nehru. Nehru later reshaped the decolonization process with the inclusion of modern technology, market forces and scientific outlook as added means for their development.

Nehru aimed to wipe out the gap between the rich and the poor, to offer equal opportunity of development to all, and ensure equal participation in the development process. Elwin did not pay attention to the persisting discrepancy among classes, his concern was confined to the gap between the ‘savage’ and ‘civilized’ between the so called modern people and innocent tribes. Elwin discarded the theory about the threshold of pain; that the ‘savage’ are internally stronger and better able to bear pain that the civilized that are more delicate and wound be hurt more.

The Nehruvian approach could not retain it uniformity in ideology and practice. Nehru subscribed to principle to the principles of not interfering and not uprooting tribes during the introduction of new development prorgammes, but in practice almost all the large scale industries and big dams planned during his lifetimes were established in tribal areas, causing massive displacement. Nehru may have been right in introducing such development programmes from the larger perspective of national development, but he was equally wrong for not devising an acceptable mechanism to confirm tribal participation in that development process.

The approaches of both of these stalwarts were not free from their respective political interests. Nehru showed special political favors for NEFA tribes, more than for tribes of living in the rest of India. Nagaland became full state in 1963 on his approval. After his death, his successor Indira Gandhi offered separate statehood to Manipur and Meghalaya and raised the status of Arunanachal Pradesh and Mizoram to full-fledge states. Till this period, none of the central or southern tribal regions ever got such a privilege, either in the form of separate statehood or as autonomous councils, although they had tribal populations about four times higher than in the north-east.

The political maneuvering in Elwin‘s approach is evident in the shifting of his concerns from the central tribal region to the north-east in the later part of his life. He gained his first hand experience of vulnerability of tribes after his studies in central region and also developed his isolationist approach on this basis; but he applied it in north-east, not in the central tribal region. One could not blame Elvin for this, because he did seek the support of Gandhi to apply this approach to the tribes of central region, but Gandhi never acceded to his appeal. He shifted to the north-east when Nehru provided a political base to apply his ideas.

The major drawback in Elwin and Nehru’s approaches was that they were confined to certain region and particular tribes; they could not provide an all India framework for the development of tribes. At the same time, they left enormously valuable feedback for tribal policy for the 21^st century in that they showed that neither complete isolation nor large scale and sophisticated development programme minus tribal participation was feasible. We need a revised formula of decentralization and lager participation of the tribes in development policy and implementation.

"Range of development discourse on Tribal Development of India"

Tribal development of India edited by “Govindra Chandra Rath” is based on the contemporary debate. This volume is a collection of so many researches papers depicting diverse experiences in tribal development in India over more than 50years. In the introduction, it presented a wide range of development conversation or discourse, in the viewed from the perspective of tribal development of India.

According to 2001, census of India the tribal population in India is more than 83 millions. It is 8.08 percentage of the total population. This large ration of tribal population is being neglected by the commission and officials of the country. There are so many tribes and community in India which are facing many problems as political, cultural, social, economical and educational problems from long decade.

The main problem is their exploitation. As they are coming in contact with outsiders, they are being treated them like a commodity and use them as slaves. Their social and cultural structure is being disturbed and disorganized. After independence, first time it was considered that their security is as important as security of others. To develop their identification, separate development programs, have been introduced. Although, much work has been done in field of economic, social and political spheres, yet there is a great need to make new and practical prgrammes.

There are so many political, cultural, social, economical and educational problems of this community, but the important problems are related to health, nutrition and educational development.

As we know that foods is one of the most basic needs. We cannot live without it. Food gives us the energy for everything we do- walking, talking, working, playing, reading and even thinking and breathing. It helps keep body healthy and fit. When they are not able to get two meals a day how is the concept of nutritious food applicable to them.

Lack of medical facility is another problem for them. Due to lack of services they suffer and do not get any treatment on time as Hygiene a problem is very common in rural as well as in tribal areas. Due to unhygienic condition their children suffer with many diseases like measles, mumps, polio, tetanus and whooping cough. But tribal parents are ignorant of these things because of unawareness.

Education, in its broadest sense, refers to the ways in which people learn skills and gain knowledge and understanding about the world and about themselves. Country spends a large amount of time and money to provide education for their citizen with different program and schemes but this is lacking in the tribal belt which creates new problems. In short their problems are as follow-

1) Due to poverty, instead of sending their children in school, they send them to for labour work to earn money.

2) The dropout rate of tribal people children seems high in primary schools. This is a great concern as it worsens their situation.

3) The youth of tribal community, who take higher education, start rejecting their cultural aspects. Therefore the benefits of higher education are proving to be detrimental to that tribe.

4) Due to lack of agriculture as an occupation, maximum people do not accept the utility of such education.

5) With the increasing tendency of unemployment, the interest towards education has been decreased.

6) The misuse of tribal scholarship and other beneficial services have discouraged the present system of education.

So that there is great need of making a strong public opinion to propagate proper education programmes, so that they can get regular support and attention.

As currently there are 300 million indigenous people living in over 70 countries. They have come together to seek help from the UN to put an end to their poverty as well as to social discrimination against them. In response, the UN has taken some decisive steps. Among these is a series of programmes under the declaration of the international Decade of the world’s indigenous people, aimed at strengthening international cooperation on redresses of crises in the areas of human rights, environment, development, education and health. Who emphasized that indigenous people have higher rates of infant mortality, lower life expectancy and more cases of chronic illness than the non indigenous people in the countries. They are poorest of the poor there for needs to concentrate on finding an effective strategy to mitigate these crises.

Long before these international efforts, India also had already made attempts to improve the condition of its tribal population. Consisting of the 461 groups (according to the people of India project), Among them about 80 % live in central belt , extending from Gujarat and Rajasthan in west, and across the states of Maharashtra, MP, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, and Orissa, to west Bengal and Tripura in east. Most of the remaining 20 % live in northeastern states of Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, and in union territory ode Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Andaman and Nicobar and Lakshadweep. Andhra Pradesh has the largest population of tribal among the southern states of India. Since the inception of Five year plan India formulated a series of developments policies pertaining to the welfare of tribes. Nehru the main architect of five year plan had strongly supported the ideas that the tribes should be able to enjoy the advantage of modern medicine, education, agriculture and economic growth, but certainly not at the cast of the rare and precious values of their life.

Diverse trend in tribal development before 1990s:

Ideologically the strategy of tribal development suggest extra care being taken during implementation of any schemes among the tribes, the kind of development we then strive for among the tribes are an equity that oppose all exploitation and inequality, a sustainability, that’s is ecologically sensitive to, and respectful of the environment, and a participation of people in both, making the decision that affects their lives actively and implemented them as well. So that, the process thus rejects the exogenous development model, like large scale industries or big dam projects and for development of tribes we needs an effective strategy for the progress of tribes.

This arguments and counter-argument can be re-examined in the tribal context, taking the effects of various development schemes in to account. We may briefly point out that the establishment of big industries and construction of big dams in the past did not benefit the local tribes significantly. That was so because of tribal interests were neither given priority nor was their development in built into the target of those projects.

Therefore, the idea form of tribal development is appropriately identified as non-industrial but pro-local, one which intends to make local resources and environment more congenial to providing for a stable livelihood for tribes.

Other way we can say that the small scale welfare schemes pertaining to family welfare, capacity building, income generation, health, education and social justice have made a significant contribution in improving the overall conditions of the tribes. Many such schemes have been implemented by government or NGOs in tribal areas. Such as:

First scheme was Juang Development Agency (JDA), started in KEONJHAR District of Orissa in 1970, the scheme has major achievement in both health and economic areas. They tried to make them self reliant to issued health cards and started to begin to operate cooperative in their areas. JDA had many negative effects on the tribe, forcible divorce the community from their age-old shifting cultivation to commercial exploitation of forest wealth. Later on when forest department enforced restriction on use of forest resources these tribes were pushed back to the condition of virtual landlessness.

Second scheme is Bonda Development Agency (BDA), it based on a community name called Bonda, and they used to live closed life. BDA started its operation, the community members come to work in its development programmes as wage labour but later it got know that the idea of development was imposed on them from above, it destroyed their economical independence, made them subservient to an exogenous systems and finally devaluated their culture.

The third schemes is rehabilitation scheme implemented under the Vansada Project of the Bhartiye Agro – Industries Foundation (BAIF), volunteer organization have multiple network in several states. Started 1982, A salient feature of the rehabilitation project was the wadi program i.e. allotment of one acre of waste or degraded land to each family where its member could grow fruits, forest trees and fodder. It was recorded that wadi project helped tribes in many respects. Thought this projects the wasted land become more in used and these family started to earned 3000 to 5000 annually. The success story behind this scheme after implementing evaluation of project was the effective leadership and scientific management. Later it also mentioned that the success of any tribal development program needs a balance between the felt needs and the real needs by many scholars.

The kind of development that tribes of India have been witnessing in last five decades may be summarized under three responses: positive, negative and suggestive. The positive responses’ highlights the achievements of the ongoing development process as reservation empowered the tribes and providing some concession in education and jobs. But the negative responses’ rejected arguments like that it said that though reservation and other scheme there are only few individuals get such benefits but for the whole tribes we need to do some all round development in everywhere. Last one suggestive response usually get articulated from losing side of the development process but certain features make them different from negative responses,

There are multiple agents working in India of the development of tribes, like government department, missionary institutes, civil society organization like NGO, s and the activist of human right movement. Some of them have all India network and many others work at either state or local level. We are discussion two big such organization here, which have all Indian network. One is Akhil Bhartiye Adivasi vikash parishad (All India Tribal Development Council) and second is the Adivasi bhartiye Vanvasi kalian Ashrum (All India Tribal Welfare Home).

The Prishad was totally congress supported organization founded by a veteran tribal leader, Karthik Oraon, in the 1970s. Its head office located in Delhi and has branch were spared across many tribal areas. The Parishad mainly intended to enhance the political participation of tribes and safe guards the tribe s vote banks of congress party. But it did not have any significant contribution in the development of tribes except involving the tribes in policy-making process. Other way the Ashram, in contrast has been undertaking a series of programmes in remote tribal villages. It is pro- Hindu organization With RSS ideology. Established in 1952, has branches all over the country except Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab and Pondicherry. In 2002 the annual conference of this organization is held in Varanasi and they informed the press that the organization had launched various welfare schemes for development of tribes. These schemes aim at development in agriculture, health, child education, sports, cultures and also celebration of Hindu festivals. Ashram helps people in formation of Self help groups in tribal areas and connect them with various income generating program to make them more self reliant and independent.

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