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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