Prologue:

While cleanliness, rapid urbanization, equal pay, nepotism and other modern-day issues are very relevant, more cancerous and grim problems are tucked away neatly in the corners of our country, India. These are so far away that they seldom make it to our knowledge. 

This article is an attempt to bring to light the problems faced by the Adivasi community in India, which present themselves in stark contrast to the modern Indian population, and also to suggest a future course of action.

Who are they?

Having presence in almost every state within India, Adivasis are the indigenous populace of a state who live lives marked by “distinctive culture, geographical isolation, shyness of contact with the community at large, and backwardness” and even identified on the basis of “primitive traits.”

With numbers spread out in all states, they were granted a status of Scheduled Tribe under the Constitution of India with an aim to provide them with certain benefits and enable social mobility—reservation is one such example. 

Their Lives:

The lives of Adivasis vary from place to place depending on many factors. 

I - Take the example of the Adivasi population of Chhattisgarh. The mining potential of the land, especially in districts like Bastar, has drawn the attention of many private players. Despite the commercial attraction of such projects, mining operations come at the cost of excavating and depleting the land; a cost that does not sit well with the indigenous population that treats their lands with a sense of sacrosanctity. While the level of education among the tribal of Chhattisgarh is not impressive, what definitely is, is their zeal for opposing the intrusion over their land--although some have gone to an extreme and ravenous end by turning to Naxalism, many resort to peaceful protests that include modern endeavors such as journalism, activism, social-media campaigning and such. 

To the dismay of private players, the endeavors of the Adivasi have achieved significant limelight, rendering the plans of industrialization and commercialization difficult to execute. In response, private players have retaliated—many used the government machinery to wrongfully arrest and torture the prominent voices of the tribals in an attempt to set an example for the rest. 

To imagine that the use of the word ‘torture’ would communicate the real depth of the crisis would be an overestimation. Consider this: about seven years ago, a resident of Chhattisgarh was arrested, molested, stripped, and raped to an extent where stones had to be removed out of her vagina. Later on, in an interview she specified the morbid details of her time in jail and put the real meaning of ‘torture’ into perspective; and this clip of a local journalist’s exposé of a fake encounter enlarges that perspective. Reports of police shooting down tribals framed as Naxalites are common. 

If the interview, exposé and reports are to be believed, private industries have deeply penetrated the government machinery, bending it their way in their pursuit to kill dissent and achieve profit maximizations, even at the cost of lives. 

II - While the Adivasi of Chhattisgarh fight an intrusive government, some Adivasi areas of Jharkhand are seeking more government intervention so that a forgotten promise may be enforced—one of equal opportunity and social mobility, conveniently overlooked where the land or people have little profit to offer.

A video clip that recently surfaced on social media, featured the maker of the video, Manish Kumar, seeking help from all quarters of the intelligentsia so a hospital, school, electricity and more importantly a police station can be placed in his small and unmapped village of Ghatgaon in Gumla, situated in the remote interiors of Jharkhand. He says, the only school in his village has two rooms and students of different grades are taught simultaneously. 

Crimes like murder happen in broad daylight but go unreported in the absence of a police station in the village. Locals have nothing but the forest to rely on for food and essentials. And while he sits in Delhi to make this video, he mentioned he is the only one in his village to have received the education that he has and who has been able to come this far along—others still live a medieval life. All aspects that form the basis of equal opportunity are absent from his village and he expresses his strong will to bring about change in the same breath as his helplessness and cry for help.

III - Another contrast is presented by a group of Adivasis called ‘Jarawa’ who live on Andaman & Nicobar Islands and insist on remaining isolated. They survive on the surrounding flora and fauna and live a life full of culture, traditions and nutrition. Many intrusions into their territory have been attempted over the years but most have been met with a violent response; writ large has been their intention to remain un-trespassed. Whether it was commerce or curiosity that lead the way of the outside populace to enter the domain of the Jarawa, what matters is that their presence was foreign, uninvited and disastrous.  

The unrelenting government was bent on ‘mainstreaming’ these tribals. In India, says a page on Survival International, “mainstreaming refers to the policy of pushing a tribe to join the country’s dominant society. It has a devastating effect on tribal peoples. It strips them of their self-sufficiency and sense of identity and leaves them struggling at the very margins of the society. Rates of diseases, depression, addiction and suicide within the tribal community almost inevitably soar.” The page further reads that “in 2010 the Andaman Islands’ member of parliament called for ‘quick and drastic steps be taken to bring the Jarawa up to the basic mainstream characteristics’ and for children to be sent to residential schools in order to ‘wean’ them away from the tribe. He described the Jarawa as being ‘in a primitive stage of development’ and ‘stuck in time somewhere between the stone and iron age. Influential figures in India, including government ministers, have often called for the Jarawa to be assimilated, believing that they are ‘backward’ or ‘primitive’. This request, however, has not come from the Jarawa, who show no sign of aiming to leave their life in the forest. A reading from this report says, roads cut through the heartland of the Jarawas—the women of the community are often pressurized for sex by outsiders and their cottages are used as lodges as outsiders freely smoke marijuana in there. 

Fortunately, the struggle of the Jarawas gained international attention and their mainstreaming efforts received some serious flak. In 2013, the Supreme Court reprimanded the authorities when many illegalities were unearthed in a video that surfaced where policemen could be seen forcing Jarawa women to dance for tourists. Thereafter, the government has had to go back on some of its policies. But the problems persist, largely unabated. 

The way ahead:

It would be amiss to not quote Mr. Jaipal Singh Munda, an Oxford pass out Adivasi of international repute, who saidthe following in the Constituent Assembly on 16th December 1946:

“As a jungli, as an Adibasi…I am not expected to understand the legal intricacies of the Resolution. But my common sense tells me that every one of us should march in that road to freedom and fight together. Sir, if there is any group of Indian people that has been shabbily treated it is my people. They have been disgracefully treated, neglected for the last 6,000 years. The history of the Indus Valley civilization, a child of which I am, shows quite clearly that it is the new comers — most of you here are intruders as far as I am concerned — it is the new comers who have driven away my people from the Indus Valley to the jungle fastness…The whole history of my people is one of continuous exploitation and dispossession by the non-aboriginals of India punctuated by rebellions and disorder, and yet I take Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru at his word. I take you all at your word that now we are going to start a new chapter, a new chapter of independent India where there is equality of opportunity, where no one would be neglected.” 

The Government of India must realize the difference between governance and interference in order to restore the delicate balance of Adivasi lives. There is more at stake than just preservation of a few communities—a government keen to drive urbanization and capitalization even at the cost of its citizens represents an appetite that will not stop at the exploitation of some groups, rather it  would eventually engulf every segment of our population that promises profit in exchange. Therefore, the words of Martin Luther King Jr. were not misplaced when he said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Any plan, to be successful, would require a partnership in governance with the Adivasi community —one that is not struck in haste but with due care and diligence. 

Ansh Karnawat is a lawyer practicing in Mumbai, India who likes to write about sidelined social issues, public policy, criminal trials as well as law and order. Hasrat is proud to promote Ansh’s thought-provoking piece of work.