BY SANCHET BARUA
THE shocking manner in which tribal demonstrators were treated in Chhattisgarh, and women stripped off their clothes doesn’t speak well about our commitment to ameliorate the sufferings of the indigenous population of the country.
India is a signatory to the UN Convention on the rights of "Indigenous People" estimated to be more than 350 million and spread across the country. According to a UN document, "indigenous peoples are descendants of the original inhabitants of many lands, strikingly diverse in their cultures, religions and patterns of social and economic organisation". For centuries, however, their special relationship with land–an elemental symbiosis crucial to their survival–has been threatened by colonialists and demands of others for living space, food and resources. In recent decades, indigenous peoples have been the victims of some of the most damaging aspects of development. These include dams and irrigation projects, road construction, mining and destructive environmental practices such as deforestation.
Rights of the Tribals
The UN document identified 22 principles to protect the rights of indigenous population such as the right to be protected from genocide, to maintain and develop their distinct ethnic and cultural identities, to use their own languages, to own and control their traditional lands and territories, to be compensated for lands that have been confiscated, to be consulted on development projects that will affect them, to exercise autonomy in internal and local affairs, and to participate on an equal footing with all other citizens and without adverse discrimination in the political, economic, social and cultural life of the state. The nub is that the impressive goals listed in the draft declaration are to be implemented "through constructive dialogue and the political will of the member nations". This is a tall order considering that the sensitivities of striking a measured balance between the aspirations of indigenous peoples and the interests of national governments.
The difficulty arises primarily because both the working definition of indigenous people and the draft declaration of their rights are posited in such a manner that indigenous people and the rest of the people that constitute a nation within a given sovereign political entity emerge as contradictory categories with antagonistic and irreconcilable interests. This is bound to be viewed as a distinct threat to the stability of national regimes, particularly in countries where the exercise of nation-building is of recent origin.
A Backward Community
The International Labour Organisation’s rejection of the integrationist approach to social, cultural and economic development as disruptive of the ethos and lifestyle of indigenous peoples is bound to exacerbate the above fears of newly emerging states even more. For them, such prescriptions will strike as yet another version of the colonial device of divide and rule earlier practised in the form of excluding or partially excluding tribal areas. The overt aim behind the excluded areas was to offer constitutional protection to the tribals against exploitation and unequal competition. Though not without a laudable objective, a covert dimension has been attributed to the move–that is, to drive a wedge between the people.
In the Indian context alone, examples of the sway of such obscurantist belief systems over the tribal world leading to institutionalised violence are a dime a dozen. Witch-hunting in the literal sense of the term continues to be an un-redeeming practice in most of the tribal areas in the country. That tribal customs sanction it does not make it any less iniquitous. All kinds of calamities ranging from bad crops and scanty rainfall to cattle or human plague have been attributed to the witches.
The point is not that tribals are unredeemed savages; rather they are heir to weaknesses and vices as we all are. Leaving them in isolation will be as good as perpetuating their vices as well as virtues, and denying them the opportunity of growth. Nor is it the case that India’s record in the upliftment of the tribals is exemplary. In fact, they continue to suffer much of the indignities that their counterparts in other countries are subject to.
As much was admitted by Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh when he candidly observed last month, while inaugurating the national conference of the Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad, that laws aimed at ameliorating the conditions of tribals were being observed more in the breach than in compliance. Crores of rupees have been spent on various schemes, but the fruits are yet to reach the intended beneficiaries on any significant scale. Much more remains to be done.
Tribal Development
But it is a moot point whether the model provided in the UN draft declaration will not serve to delay, if no thwart, a thrust on tribal development. The fact that the central government has not declared the tribals as the indigenous people in India’s context despite pressure from the Indian Council of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples is a pointer to the shape of counter-productive stand-offs that could stall tribal development programmes and their participation in such programmes.
The demand could give rise to ticklish situations in case of nomadic tribes like the Gujjars while identifying the land over which they can claim to exercise traditional native rights. Even while tribal proprietary rights over land and forests are conceded theoretically, the need to balance this with the reasonable needs of other sections of people for the same resources should be apparent. Working these competing claims may not be as easy as it seems on paper.
One has only to look at the raging ethnic cleansing between the Nagas and Kukis in the north-eastern state of Manipur to see that the apprehensions of the government on the issue are not far-fetched. Both the Nagas and Kukis are tribes and part of the movement for declaration of tribals as indigenous peoples. Yet, the Nagas are vehemently rejecting the Kuki’s claim to the indigenous status in Manipur’s context.
The ongoing struggle to oust the Kukis from the predominantly Naga-inhabited areas of Manipur originated in the Naga concept that the Kukis are nomadic interlopers and, therefore, can have no right on land, forest or other resources that they need to sustain their lifestyle. It is this narrow and intolerant perception that has precipitated the civil war that has claimed over 600 lives so far. Worse still, the bloody internecine conflict holds out no prospects of being resolved in the near future.
It is not as if the Kukis are interlopers of a few decades’ standing. They have been part of the state’s mosaic for over three centuries now. The Naga-Kuki clash should illustrate the mischief to which the concept of indigenous peoples can lend itself to. –INAV
