Democracy in Global Life

The meeting was convened as a precursor to the proposed round-table with various civil society groups, NGOs and individuals working on Tribal and indigenous issues. After the Johannesburg deliberations and WSF, Mumbai, the meeting intended to discuss a number of crucial issues relating to the indigenous people and Adivasis. It planned to discuss the ‘Draft National Policy on Tribal’ of the govt. of India, which has come out recently. The year 2004 is the concluding year of the UN International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People which aims at strengthening solutions for environmental and human rights problems faced by indigenous people. In this connection UN has sought to involve the indigenous people, govts. and NGOs in getting information and feedback on these issues. The meeting was planned to launch a reporting process in relation to the end of the first UN’s International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People (1995-2004) by forging solidarity to oppose the on-going processes that violate Adivasi rights in India and internationally.

The meeting was organised with a view to sharing ‘experience, ideas and information on the problems, which indigenous peoples face, especially in relation to the prevailing conditions of globalization, powers of TNCs and commercial take-over of indigenous lands, resources and identities.’ The meeting also sought to put together and collate the documents generated during more than 70 seminars, workshops, panel debates and discussions conducted during the WSF-2004 at Mumbai on indigenous rights, land and resources and identity of Adivasis. It was expected that the meeting, which is a precursor for the next round table later, will throw up ideas that can be used to confront the policies of the government, TNCs, World Bank and WTO that go against the interest of the indigenous people.

The meeting, which was envisaged as a kind of backgrounder and informal brain-storming session for the next round table, was expected to generate ideas to focus on the tribal issues with activists, NGOs, intellectuals etc. later this month. It was intended to be a close, informal gathering of the people to share their experiences and ideas in the field of Tribal and indigenous people. It was attended by a number of grass-roots activists, prominent academics and individuals working on Tribal issues.

Summary of Deliberations: (1st March, 2004)

Starting the proceedings, Vagish Jha welcomed the participants and outlined the objective of the meeting. He requested the speakers to focus their attention on the draft Tribal Policy brought out by the government recently.

Eminent anthropologist Prof. B.K. Roy Berman kicked off the discussion by terming the Draft Tribal Policy as flawed, both conceptually and factually. At a juncture when a full fledged official Commission is preparing to submit its report, he said, coming out with such an insipid and half baked document looks more like an election manifesto rather than a serious exercise. He lamented the callous governmental approach and cited the failure of the government in managing the forest resources as an example. Prof. Berman pointed out that the forests managed by government are degraded while those under the community management are doing fine. It certainly points out the direction in which we should work for the preservation of forest and the tribal life which is intimately linked to the survival of the forests.

Responding to the draft Tribal Policy, Mr. Prakash Louis, Director, Indian Social Institute and an eminent activist-scholar pointed out that the draft policy has completely ignored the committees and recommendations of the past. He said that in the discussions tribal, indigenous and Adivasi are used interchangeably but the government is deliberately avoiding the word ‘indigenous’ as it may have wider-political ramifications in future. He spoke about the struggles being waged by the indigenous people in Orissa, Kerala, Jharkhand etc. against government policies detrimental to the interests of tribal. In this connection he spoke in detail about the struggle of indigenous people in Nagarnar (Chhattisgarh) against the mining of Iron-ore, Buthanga (Kerala) for land-right and Netarhat (Jharkhand) against the firing range.

Prakash Louis pointed out that the draft policy treats Adivasis as a homogenous group in India. The draft also overturns an earlier judgement of the courts called ‘Samata Judgement’ which accepted tribal’s inalienable right to land. In fact 75% of the displaced tribal have not got any compensation till date. This reflects the duplicity of the government. Also, the document is silent about the mechanism to restore land to the tribal and extending scheduled areas to non-scheduled areas. He lamented the fact that draconian laws such as Armed Forces Special Act in the North East continue to exist. The process of internal colonisation of the tribal society has been going on for long in India and it has taken its toll on them. He felt that the talk of bringing the tribal into mainstream has only resulted in the tribal society adopting dowry-system, emergence of ‘creamy layer’ within them and a section of the tribal-youth being criminalized. Criticising the suggestion of setting up of ‘Tribal Advisory Council’, which is totally ineffective and powerless, he suggested that empowering the Gram-Sabhas is the only way Tribal can survive.

Intervening in the debate Mr. Roy Berman informed that the government has set up a commission under Article 339-1 on tribal affairs. The commission has recently come out with a questionnaire, which is flawed because a number of its questions are irrelevant and majority of the questions is addressed to the techno-bureaucracy. He said that it was wrong to talk of ‘the mainstream’ as India was a ‘confluence of mainstreams’. Talking about the constitutional provision, Prof. Roy Berman pointed out that 5th schedule was paternalistic while the 6th schedule granted autonomy to the tribal. He felt that the 5th schedule should be replaced by the 6th schedule in all Tribal dominated areas. He expressed concern over the declining population of the tribal and said that the success of globalisation was premised on the internal-colonisation of the tribal. However, for the survival of mankind the ethos of tribal life could provide the alternative.

Presenting his paper alternative-life and indigenous people’s right Ville-Veikko Hirvela, the intellectual-activist from Friends of the Earth, Finland pointed out the dominant and destructive influence of the western concepts of democracy and nature which legitimises the destruction of both indigenous people and nature. The western notion of democracy also promotes unequal opportunity to decide. He stressed the need to open space for understanding the life of the earth not primarily according to the concept of
‘Nature’. The concept of ‘Nature’ and sense-perception guided by it are excluding various living indigenous and other perceptions of the surrounding life of Earth by calling them ‘super-natural’ etc. He was critical of the western democracy for its failure to give equal decisiveness for different cultural modes of what is decisive in significance and making sense and for its failure to protect the rights of all lives. His paper ‘Indigenous Means of Subsistence as the Origin of Human Rights to Land, Identity and Natural Resources’ was distributed in the meeting for further discussion and comments.

Prof. Roy Berman pointed out that in the west too there has been various strands of thought and suggested that it is better to look at the two orientations namely ‘Power Orientation’ and ‘Value-Orientation’, which cuts across the geographical boundaries of east and west. In fact many of the values have got a common universal legacy, said Prof. Berman.

Activist and writer Narendra pointed out that in the Adivasi world-view there is no concept of ‘waste’ and ‘utility’. In fact the concepts like sustainability cannot capture the Adivasi world-view towards nature. The tribal looks at nature not as resource but in a much more reverential manner. Narendra also agreed that this world view of the Adivasis was earlier shared by many other communities and it’s under the impact of modernity that we see this difference in the worldviews of the modern and indigenous.

Young grassroots activist from Uttarakhand Mr. Bhuvan Pathak expressed his dilemma on the issue of development, which he said, is now being demanded even by the Adivasis. He felt that the question of development vis-à-vis Adivasi life should be given prominent attention. He wondered if people like himself are really not denying the fruits of development to Adivasis by extolling their ‘values of life’

Thinker-activist Arun Kumar ‘Panibaba’ sought to resolve the contradiction between ‘development’ and ‘tribal way of life’. He felt that it is wrong to impose our notions of history and evolution on the tribal since they consider themselves to be sons of God. Kai Vaara from Siemempuu Foundation, Finland, felt that tribal have something unique to offer us and the question is what we can learn from them for a sustainable life?

Responding to some of the points raised during the discussion Ville-Veikko clarified that ‘Western’ related more to world-view and ideas than to geography. He elaborated upon the intricate relationship between language and development. Language being an unconscious structure of mind, the Western concept of nature in the English language is unable to capture the reality of experience in which tribal lives. He agreed with Kai that interest in the indigenous people is for our survival and the Western world-view has hardly anything to offer for a sustainable life. He accepted that the indigenous people should not be denied the fruit of development but unfortunately the very process of development is premised on exclusion, unequal access and denial of the choice of being what they are.

Vagish K Jha intervened by sharing his experiences during his research on Oral Folk Cultures. He said that in the indigenous tradition, which is predominantly oral, the animate-inanimate, natural-supernatural, social-divine are fused together in a seamless fashion. The tribal world is unique and universal at the same time and there is no contradiction in it. In fact we should aim to facilitate the dialogue which promotes the interaction between the uniqueness and universal elements.

The post-lunch session began with a presentation by Arun Vinayak who has been working with tribal in Jharkhand. He pointed out that ‘tribal’ was derogatory and we should instead use the term indigenous. He pointed out at the acts of aggression against the indigenous people at both the levels-internal and external. He gave the examples of the link High-Way project, Netarhat firing range and Damodar Valley Corporations which have displaced a large member of tribal. To improve the condition of Adivasis, he demanded that the control of natural resources should be with the people in the villages. The reality of the situation is that it’s the bureaucracy, which wields the real power. The tribal leadership is passing through a phase of vacuum. Mr. Vinayak said that the spread of Naxalite movement in the tribal areas is an expression of people’s anger. It is an act of resistance against the attempts to crush the Adivasi culture. He agreed that communitarian lifestyle of the tribal can be an effective anti-dote to globalisation. He highlighted the democratic ethos of the tribal society, which is reflected in consensus based decisions and the right to recall as basic elements of tribal community life.

Representative of the Siemempuu Foundation of Finland Mr. Kai Vaara who had come to India to interact with NGOs working with indigenous people, women, land rights, alternative agriculture and lifestyle, environment etc also made a presentation on the occasion. He spoke about his experience in the course of his wide-ranging and extensive interaction with a number of NGO groups and activists. He informed that his organisation is aiming to develop networking among tribal-groups and organisations, which they are funding. During his interactions with tribal groups and NGOs, a core-group has been formed which has a number of active grass-roots workers and organisations in it. These groups have been working on issues like status of women, alternative and ecological agriculture, aforestation, Dalit and tribal issues etc. He felt that bringing together the NGOs would help in mobilisation against globalisation. He expressed his happiness on the work being done by many of the NGOs in the south although he came across instances of internal differences too among the NGOs.

Kai said that in the West there was a strong movement for alternative and sustainable lifestyle and he was looking at connections with such groups in South too. He informed that he had a meeting with a number of women’s group and shared experiences about sustainable life style. Talking about higher education he talked about the possibility of evolving a structure so that learning from traditional cultures and heritage can be made available. A similar effort is on in Canada where the traditional knowledge is imparted through teachers drawn from such societies who are without any formal academic qualification. Speaking of Finnish society, he said that the problems of adjustment with modern life are reflected in high suicide rates. He felt that there is a great possibility of learning from the experience of the indigenous people who have sustained their way of life for thousands of years.

Now it was the turn of Bhuvan Pathak, grassroot activist working in the Kausani valley of the Uttarakhand in Central Himalayas to share his experiences and views. He felt that the basic difference between tribal and non-tribal is the way they negotiate with nature and the world in their daily business of life. The tribal looks at himself as part of nature but the modern man envisages his relation with nature as adversary or at best as consumer of resources. Tracing the historical legacy of Uttarakhand, Bhuvan said that the process of assimilation of Uttarakhand started in 1815 when it was brought under the British control. Gradually it got integrated with the political, economic and educational mainstream. Another watershed is 1952 when the demand for a separate state of Uttarakhand was first echoed. The Indo-China war of 1962 caused a major disruption in the economic life of Uttarakhand, which had a vibrant trade with China. This marked the beginning of large-scale migration in search of jobs and opportunities.

But all through the period, the theme of backwardness has pervaded the ideological, political and even the literary discourse of the state of Uttarakhand. After the onset of green-revolution in the decade of 60s-70s, the traditional knowledge about agriculture practiced in Uttarakhand started getting eroded. Now once again there is a talk of bio-manuring etc. He lamented that the indigenous people are guinea pigs for so many social experiments without having any say about their own-lives. He criticised even the NGOs for distorting the relationship between nature and society by treating nature as mere resource. He also drew attention to the fact that the negative consequences of environmental degradation are obvious even in upper reaches of Himalayas. It is amazing, he said, that the forests which have been ‘offered to Goddesses’ by communities are the most dense and thriving. Can we learn some lessons?

(2nd March 2004)

The second-day’s proceedings were started with a presentation by Harsh Mander, a civil-servant turned activist-academic. He outlined the acute sense of alienation and dispossession among the tribal except at places where they have been assimilated through conversion etc. Here follows the first part of his speech transcribed by Narendra Bastar:

Harsh Mander:

I’ll try to present a framework which may assist further discussion. I’ve spent about 15-20 years of my life working in remote tribal districts of Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh. Much of my, what I’m going to say is actually derived from my first hand observation of a people whom consistently believe amongst the most civilized communities that we have within India in many ways.

I’ll really start of by saying that I’m stunned by the fact that in a state like Madhya Pradesh out of 40 tribal seats 36 went to the BJP. I’m equally stunned by observing a full scale communal riot in a district like Jhabua which has been least written about and which I’ll come back to it is the first time I’ve been a communal riot in a tribal area which looks exactly like a Hindu-Muslim riot in every respect, with the same features and I’ll come back to that as well. I also recently traveled to Paris of Chattisgarh and I saw a whole degree of communal mobilization. Therefore a lot of what I’ve said is not even reflected here but I’d like to start and end with this because I think it reflects a new phase in both the crisis and the expropriation and appropriation of tribal communities by vested interests. This new phase and perhaps the most dangerous of all phase in a whole series of crisis.

What is the nature of the Adivasi crisis and the Dilemmas of state intervention because if Vijay was giving what would we like to people as an Adivasi manifesto, part of the crisis that I don’t think any of us can say with assurance that we would like to see ABCD things happen and be assured that from those will automatically and necessarily flow of a reversal of a whole tide of injustice and what I’d describe as internal colonization of the tribal people in India. Firstly, what is the centrality of ..... when you look at the dalits what is their central aspiration, in a sense both dalit and tribal people share a lot of burdens with other poor people as illiteracy, landlessness, poor health - they share a whole range of burdens that poor people bear.

But there is something that dalits exclusively bear, there is something that tribals exclusively bear. I think we need to understand that first. To my mind the centrality of the dalit aspirations is one of seeking equality and dignity within the mainstream social, cultural and economic system. One, intrinsically they have been part of this very so-called mainstream but they have been kept at the very bottom and subjected to a whole range of indignities. The Adivasi people are not, to my mind, seeking equality within the mainstream social order, its not been their aspiration. I say this with some qualification because somehow this latest wave of communalization doesn’t seem to be compatible with this analysis and that’s why I say that I’ve been raising more questions than trying to answer.

But up to now my belief is that a dalit has been thought psychologically that he’s been in the nature of the work that they’re not aware of the way they’re treated and the kind of separations they’re subjected to. They have this intense psychological burden of social discrimination. But the Adivasi whether he’s sitting in his ‘Langot’, he talks to you always looking in the eye as an equri. He never has an internal sense of interiority imposed otherwise. Therefore, what then is the crisis of the Adivasi, which is uniquely his? Somewhere in what I’ve observed in the last 15-20 years of working with them is that on the one hand they have been treated like an internal colony, on the other there is a forced assimilation into the mainstream economy and culture and society on terms that are completely unequal. And they cannot deal with that, with the very forces of integration. Historically, policy makers are always form between the two poles of isolation and assimilation.

Tribal communities have never been fully isolated except for a very few ..... there’s always been some degree of interaction with the largely economy, society and culture. In the very nature of their geographical isolation - hills, heres is and mountains - there’s been a high degree of freedom to develop according to their own gening and to organise their society and the economic arrangements internally. I see that in a qualified way because it has never been absolute .... there has been some interaction but relatively a higher degree of isolation. This isolation was suddenly and savagely broken down by British colonialism and its adtermain. It was because these were locations which had the greatest wealth of to resis, minerals, a whole range of natural resources that needed to be explored; therefore preparing or in any way making them partners in this process these places were suddenly opened up and integrated.

The metaphor for road is often used..... because a road on the one hand is considered the symbol of development because it is only with the road that new seeds can come in, the doctor can come in, modern science and its benefits can come in. So, it is the road through which development will come in; but it is the same road through which forest will be cut, moneylender will come in, the government servant, the politician and the whole nexus which is exploitative in nature. So, one school of thought which witnessed the impact of this sudden opening up of tribal areas and how unequant has been their ability to respond to it. People like Verrier Elvin had proposed a policy of isolation. He was attacked for this policy and they said he wanted to preserve tribal people as museum pieces etc. There is another exire me view at the other end of the pole which is one of assimilation. It is that the sooner you make them like us the better it is. I think it would not be unfair to say that the Christian missionaries for instance followed a pretty much of an assimilation policy. A lot of the opening up of these areas by the administrators, with the exception of Arunachal - and it is significant that Arunachal was opened up much more sensitively with the direct involvement of people like Verrier Elvin; it is the only state in the North East which has not seen militantly and it is not a coincidence that this happened.

This very savage process of opening up of these areas and they are not a people who’re defenceless...... its a complicated process..... but they’re a people who chose t be defenceless. They chose not to engage with the rules required in the larger system, the system with competition, acquisitiveness..... things we take for granted .... conquest over nature rather than harmony with nature..... an essential process of truth and ethics which is more important. All of this sounds romantic and I’ve observed with all the breakdowns that have happened that people still try to hold on an ethical system and to a way of the which is completely unequant when they confront people like us. Anecdotically, I’d like to give a couple of examples. We have a law of restoring land to tribal people.

When I first joined as a young I.A.S. officer in Madhya Pradesh I was very excited about implementing that law and a lot of the years that I spent in the service have been around implementing this law which gives you the rrved with all the breakdowns that have happened that people still try to hold on an ethical system and to a way of the which is completely unequant when they confront people like us. Anecdotically, I’d like to give a couple of examples. We have a law of restoring land to tribal people. When I first joined as a young I.A.S. officer in Madhya Pradesh I was very excited about… a couple of examples. We have a law of restoring land to tribal people. When I first joined as a young I.A.S. officer in Madhya Pradesh I was very excited about implementing that law and a lot of the years that I spent in the service have been around implementing this law which gives you the rrved with all the breakdowns that have happened that people still try to hold on an ethical system and to a way of the which is completely unequant when they confront people like us.

Anecdotically, I’d like to g’s time and how do I know whether a fraud look place or did not; how can I take back something that my ancestors had given their word for even it is was on exploitative terms etc. So, to begin with there were 99% people who refused to give any evidence of fraud, only 1% did. I am giving this as an example as to why I feel that they are unequal; not because there’s any weakness within them but just that they have chosen to have ethical principles around which they’ve anchored their social organisations and organisation of their own lives is so contrary to survival within the way we run our economies and societies.

Another episode which comes to my mind and which is quite funny too, is that I and my wife were walking in a ‘Haat’ where we saw this tribal person selling water melons and after my wife bargained it out and while this person was weighing it she asked, ‘I hope these water melons are sweet’ to which he said, ‘no they aren’t sweet’. Start led and thinking that he hasn’t heard her, she again asked, ‘I hope the watermelons are sweet’ to which he again replied, ‘no they aren’t. I’m telling you they aren’t sweet. Then she asked, ‘then why I take it’ and he said, ‘if you don’t want to take it then don’t take it but I know they aren’t sweet’. We are used to people here who put sacharine on their knives and they cut it and you eat it and you go home and you find....... then she came back at the end of her marketing and she found this man still sitting with his melons and telling every person who asked him that no weren’t sweet.

At one level it can seem as the height of foolishness but at the other end it does represent to my mind the height of certain civilised principles; that even for ordinary livelihood which one wouldn’t even consider as a process of deceit they find themselves unable and unwilling to engage in when a people who have their own way of living life are suddenly forced to integrate with something that is far more powerful - and being founded on a completely different set of ethical, social, political principles - they’re just completely unequal to that. It is not surprising that the impact on tribal communities everywhere in the world has been the same whether it is the red Indian or indigenous people of South America or any part of the world, you over the last couple of centuries they have lost and been expropriated of everything they owned. That is one part of what has happened.

The other part has also been something that is described as extreme sense of anger, a sense of despair where as a people they seem to have lost, lost hope & the will to collectively survive and move on ....... that despair doesn’t happen where they’ve been assimilated, like where the Christians have succeeded in assimilating them they won’t have that sense of despair. But they’ve lost.... lost the way that they look...... but where they’ve tried to retain their original way of dealing with life, world, nature and the people around them - the absence of competition, acquisitiveness, control and deceit - and tried to hold on to these and have seen how they’ve worked only against them and dispossessed them further and further.

He doesn’t even have to supervise and it I new my entire crop was going and wouldn’t even bother to cultivate. But they will cultivate it with their full energy and then they will harvest it and spend money even it they have to go to the moneylender even without someone telling them to do it. And in those terms they’ll never be able to ...... their dispossession and pauperization but also their profound sense of despair. That’s why drinking has become alcoholism. That is one of the indications of .... drinking as a way of joyful celebration to one where drinking is a way of dealing with despair. You see a very different kind of drinking.

In this process of dispossession they’ve lost, there’s an extreme dependence on the money-lender, they’ve also lost all fertile lands and have been pushed more and more either into landlessness or owning the most rocky and infertile of lands and they keep loosing them. As someone who’s been in the administration I’ve done calculations and I found mind boggling figures of now they’ve lost the lands; and also how despite some very strong laws - as I said I’ll come back to them - now the strongest of laws have been completely unequal to projecting them from landlessness. What has been the way that the state has tried to intervene historically, since independence? As I said, probably the most sensitive phase has been at the time when Nehru was alive and was Advised by anthropologists like Verrier Elvin and others.

There was at least sensitivity to some of these issues and to that eternal debate about whether they should be isolated or whether they should be assimilated. They talked about a golden mean, somewher in between, where they said that they’ll be allowed to develop according to their genius but they should not be deprived of the benefits of modern science and development and so on. That was a very good statement of intent but I don’t think they’ve ever been able to develop or reach that balance. But at least the aspiration was there. I feel that after that first phase our approach to tribal areas, the approach of the state has been - frankly - that of a colonizer with less and les even stated attempts to ...... ...... you know like we have a sensitively to bio-diversity .... the importance of allowing cultural diversity to be preserved even for its own sake; and the sensitivity to respect different ways of economic and social organisation has not been there. Our principal approach has been to expropriate.

But on a positive end, the expropriation has been though, say, the land alienation(?) act or the forest policies. The land alienation(?) act actually overrides all laws to project tribals from land alienation. It is really ironical, even recently when I was in Chatisgarh, earlier they used to acquire large tracts of tribal land for public sector profects. A more recent trend that I’ve observed - like when I was in Chatisgarh - it is now using the land acquisition act to happily acquire land from Tribal people for private industry. Private industry is, under the law, debarred from buying land from tribal people. They haven’t even bothered to amend that act. All they do is that the government itself will forcefully acquire land from tribal people and then allocate it to Jindals and various other groups. The approach of forest and mining has also been one to ..... again, I was traveling recently to interior parts of Chatisgarh .... the ...... terror that people can have is it they’re told that there is can under your (house) .... because then you are cost forever. So, the approach of the state has largely been to extract forest wealth, land, minerals and water from tribal areas with now not even the (?) of sensitivity to projecting the tribal people and their own interests.

But it would be fair to say that there have been a lot of positive attempts in theory. There have been very sensitive and pro-people traditions within government both the political leadership & the administrative leadership in collaboration with anthropologists and social activists to develop a whole series of very progressive measures. I would like to briefly, talk about those and what they sought to achieve and where they’ve failed to some degree. One broad of interventions to my mind has been constitutional and legislative.

Reporting of the seminar continued by the discussion on the basis Harsh Mander’s speech :

Elaborating the various administrative and legislative measures for the indigenous people, Harsh said that there have been some positive steps in the past such as the legal provisions to protect the tribal right to land and positive discrimination in favour of the Adivasis. One such provision is 170(B), which seeks to protect the tribal right to land by shifting the burden of proof on the non-tribal. However, the political-administrative will to implement it is lacking since most of the leaders have benefited from grabbing tribal land. Same is the story with the Tribal Sub Plan which sets aside 23% of the budget for tribal. This again is ‘adjusted’ and spent under heads which benefits only the bureaucrats and political leaders. However the laws relating to joint forest management, manufacturing the traditional liquor and PESA are progressive steps towards safeguarding the interest of the Adivasis. In case of PESA though, it has suffered from a ‘minimalistic interpretation which deprives the tribal of many of the advantages granted under PESA.

Going on to the political question, Harsh expressed his anguish at the communalisation of tribal in Gujarat, Jhabua and many other tribal dominant places. RSS has been actively engaged in mobilizing tribal on communal-riots. The RSS has been recruiting tribal as ‘soldiers of hate’ in its campaign of communalising the tribal society. He wondered if it could be understood properly as an expression of identity crisis of Adivasis?

Commenting upon Harsh’s presentation Arun Vinayak said that in Jharkhand, they have been successful fighting the RSS efforts to communalise the tribal. He criticized the Nehruvian approach to tribal development. Citing the example of Damodar Valley corporation (DVC) he said that it led to displacement of the Adivasis without any benefits accruing to them. The provisions of PESA are being subverted by the state governments who pass laws to bypass it. He exhorted that it is only through fight and struggle that Tribals can get the laws implemented

Ville-Veikko said that the modern law and juridical structure itself has a colonial legacy and premised on force. In fact the dispossession of the indigenous people forces them to turn communal and racist as happened in South Africa. He talked of the inadequacy of the legal system to capture the tribal right. Vijay Pratap requested the speakers to focus first on tribal way of life and the universal conflict inherent in the process of assimilation vs isolation.

Dr. Vishnu Mahapatra, associated with Ford Foundation, felt that such meetings are still in the philanthropic mode as Adivasis themselves are not present here. In fact, comparing with the Dalits/ scheduled caste, who have been engaging with the political system, he said that the Adivasis have kept aloof. It is also true that, strangely enough, the upper castes and Adivasis find themselves closer to each other in terms of ritual and treat the scheduled caste people as inferior. He observed that there seems to be an incentive in making new laws and setting up institutions but no incentive in implementation of law or letting institutions be effective and functional. He found PESA capable of extending the frontiers of tribal right further. He shared his dilemma as to whether tribal should only confine themselves to their institutions and practices, which may be sometimes oppressive and exploitative.

Noted environmental activist Dunu Roy said that the conflict between assimilation and isolation is an old and historical one and can be seen in the example of Eklavya. The tribal ethos is essentially based on equity and sustainability with a communitarian ethic. He criticised the government for setting up different standards for different social groups. For example while farmers are expected to work for profit and surplus, the expectation from trial is to promote sustainability.

Academic and author Suresh Sharma pointed out that in the globalised world ‘mainstream’ has many levels which are closely linked to each other. He said that modernity does not give the option of being left alone and it’s unrealistic to look for a policy that will let Adivasis remain outside the pale of modernity. It would be better to give them a choice with a sense of continuity, which may be different from the past. He said that the market is acting to work as a universal grid that links the natural resources globally. Speaking of the identity crisis, he said that conversions could be seen as an urge to negotiate better deal with the world by linking up to larger and more powerful units. It also reflects the acceptance on the part of Adivasis of the impossibility to be left alone. In fact in the modern world, it is the individual choice rather than the collective identity, which is the core of the terms of exchange between the individual and the world. But simultaneously, the options of resistance and identity by making something one’s own and by individual judgement are however diminished by structural linkage of judged significance under globalized sense and language.

Vagish Jha said that the tribal world-view is fluid and inclusive and it has the capacity to incorporate many of the elements of the mainstream too. Commenting on the communalisation of tribal, he felt that the secular and modern people are unable to deal with anything that is even distantly religious. He felt that there might be a possibility to take into our fold the huge number of non-communal, religious organisations, individuals who, he felt, will prove effective in countering the communalisation of society at large and tribal in particular. Faced to choose between American consumerist individualism and backward looking reactionary collectivism based on hate the latter is almost a natural choice for a society confronting existential crisis. He felt that the growth of fanatic communalism should be seen as the crisis of modern ideology - an ideology that can promise a collective liberation. The reason why tribal are getting into the fold of religious-communal people is that in the absence of any liberating ideology like socialism, religion provides the ‘hope’ of collective liberation. Any effective alliance to counter the communal / fascist onslaught has to discover the radical potential of tradition. But modern intellectual tradition is inherently suspicious and at best would like to acknowledge the instrumental worth of indigenous wisdom. But to work with them, we’ve to belong to them, he asserted.

Ville-Veikko commented to Suresh Sharma’s comments on tribals’ possibilities of making something one’s own. He noted that modernity has strong institutions and processes, which control how and in which form and sense things can be made one’s own emotionally, physically, mentally, etc. only by defining literal significance as the decisive. Tribal significance resists this co-opting of everything into the fold of modern globality, which demands all to become re-presented in some literal definition for being own to something. Practices of making things own for something are controlled by structures of making their sense literally ‘proper’. These structures are decisive for how things and rights can be made one’s own and they exclude the possibility of equal participation of tribal sense.

Vijay Pratap sought to clarity that the debate is not between Adivasi and modern but between communitarian-participatory and exclusivist ideologies and worldviews. He said that in the past India has existed not as a big country but as a conglomerate of units-Janpadas which had distinct cultures, institutions and were participatory in nature. He wondered why tribal languages can not be used in schools at primary and secondary levels.

B.K. Roy Berman again pointed out that the tribal worldview is inclusive with community orientation and its self-perception is that of rootedness. In fact for the Adivasi society isolation and contact has been going on for thousand of years but isolation in the modern sense is a new phenomenon. He felt that today the indigenous world-view is vital for saving the world.

Intervening in the debate Harsh Mander said that in his view heightened religiosity does have a dangerous implication for communalisation of the tribal society. He gave the example of ‘Gayatri Parivar’ which was active in tribal areas. It itself it was not communal, but currently many of its preachers were active in helping the RSS communalise the tribal. The Adivasis today face a real threat of extinction in India similar to what happened in the US with indigenous Red Indians. However, even the traditional system of ‘self-governance’ or tribal-laws may themselves have problems.

The afternoon session started with a presentation by Mr. Devinder Sharma, a renowned food right expert-activist and author. Mr. Sharma spoke at length about the huge subsidies provided to agriculture in US and Europe. In fact the WTO was acting on the behest of US to force-open the agriculture market of India and other third world countries to avert the crisis looming over the US economy. In fact the control of the food market gives immense power and leverage as has been borne out abundantly in India just before the green-revolution in India. The $360 billion subsidy that US provides to its agriculture will hardly be impacted under the WTO provision of cutting down subsidies by 21% in the next 6 year. He also deplored the multi-functionality clause under which US and Europe want to protect their subsidies. He criticised the western NGOs, also who want export-subsidy to go but are silent about agricultural subsidy in US and Europe. He demanded that India should ask for complete phasing out of subsidies in US and Europe Before it opens up the agriculture under WTO obligation.

Talking of the recent thrust to documentation of traditional knowledge, Devinder Sharma cautioned that we should learn from the earlier experience with regard to Germ-plasm of plants which were stored in US and now come under patent. He feared that the same experience may be repeated in case of traditional knowledge too. He advocated that to beat the patent regime there should be a concerted effort to patent the traditional knowledge before it gets patented in the US. The patenting of gene by the companies in US and Europe is seriously affecting research in India. He felt that patenting is creating a kind of scientific apartheid in the world. He also drew attention to the huge urban migration in India and China caused by the decline of agriculture in these countries.

In his opinion, quite often, the politicians are not properly briefed and informed by their officials and the intelligentsia about many of the issue. He spoke of his experience with the WTO provision about agriculture and the impact of well-informed briefing of the political class.

The current shift in WTO from agriculture to investment is a clever shift to divert the attention of people. He reminded people that the entire debate about raising agricultural productivity was misplaced. In India for instance with the current technology and seed, production can go up many fold. Even this level of production is enough to feed the current population if there is proper management of the food grain in the country. He informed that it was not surprising that in India, Kalahandi from where a number of hunger deaths were reported, is a food surplus area..

He criticised the Genetically Modified (GM) crops and said that GM Crops don’t increase productivity but at best reduce ‘crop-loss’. If the total food-grain available in the world is distributed evenly, Mr. Sharma pointed out, there would be surplus for 840 million people after satisfying the needs of everyone.

Agreeing with Devinder Sharma, Ville-Veikko said that documentation of traditional knowledge may lead to commercialisation. However, he said that even without subsidies to US and European farmers, things may not be better for India or its farmers if subsidies are exchanged to new investment or competition agreements. Such WTO agreements would allow big European and US agri-business corporations to take over the lands in the South for their transnational food production. He felt that there is a need to look at the entire gamut of WTO provisions and their total impact on agriculture of developing countries. Bhuvan Pathak commented that unless we get into the philosophical underpinnings of modern agriculture and in fact the relationship with nature and environment, our agriculture and rural population will continue to suffer. It is not justified to look at the traditional agriculture as ‘backward ‘.

Devinder Sharma responded by saying that it was the political will of the government that made Green Revolution possible. The Green Revolution did serve its purpose but we should have tried to learn from our experience about salinity, land-degradation etc. which has become a major problem today.

In his concluding remarks, Roy Burman summed up the proceedings spread over two days. He said that world could learn a lot from Adivasi life. Talking about forest-management he reiterated that community managed forests and national resources are much better preserved compared to those which are under government management. At the international level, he said that the ILO convention 107 of 1959 is flawed since it looks at indigenous people as living on a lower level of existence and expects than to catch up with modern world. But ILO-convention169 of 1989 has many positive things despite its Euro-centric bias. He appealed that countries like India should ratify it provisionally. He also criticised US and Europe for duplicity in their approach towards Adivasis.

The meeting ended with a Vote of thanks by Ville-Veikko Hirvela and Suresh Nautiyal. They expressed the hope that it will provide good background for the proposed meeting on indigenous people and tribal issues later this month.

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