Assessment for Scheduled Tribes in India

Risk Assessment | Analytic Summary | References

Risk Assessment

There are three factors that promote the continuation of future rebellion by the Scheduled Tribes: the ongoing rebellion; territorial concentration of tribes in certain regions; and repressive actions by the government. Factors that could inhibit future rebellion include India's history as a stable democracy and its efforts to negotiate agreements with disgruntled minority groups. During 2000, of the three new states created in India, both Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, contain significant tribal populations. An active effort by the federal and state governments' to promote economic development in tribal areas could also help assuage key concerns about poverty and the general backwardness of tribal regions in relation to the rest of the country.

Analytic Summary

The Scheduled Tribes, also referred to as adivasis (original inhabitants), are spread across the central, northeast, and southern regions of India. The various tribes resided in India long before the Aryans who arrived around 1500 BC. The tribals were socially and geographically isolated following the entry of the Aryans and then subsequently the Muslims and the British.

The more than 50 tribes that constitute the Scheduled Tribes speak a multitude of languages (LANG = 2). They are also religiously diverse, with some following animism, while others have adopted Hinduism, Islam, or Christianity. The social customs of most tribals distinguish them from the country's majority Hindu population.

The category of Scheduled Tribes was established in 1950, three years after India's independence. It sought to encompass the country's diverse tribal groups under a common banner in an effort to help address the disadvantages the tribes encountered and to integrate them into the mainstream of Indian society. Along with being geographically and socially isolated, the tribals have historically been politically underrepresented and their regions of residence economically underdeveloped. Scheduled tribe status under the Indian constitution means that seats are reserved for tribals in political forums such as the parliament, along with job reservations in the civil service and educational institutions (POLDIS00 = 1; ECDIS00 = 1).

Despite official policies aimed at improving the status of the tribals, significant disparities remain. The Scheduled Tribes face significant demographic stresses due to deteriorating public health conditions in relation to other groups in the country. For instance, sanitation facilities and access to clean drinking water are severely limited in both urban and rural tribal areas. Further, the Scheduled Tribes have lost their lands as the country has adopted large-scale projects such as the Narmada dam project. The construction of numerous dams across Gujurat and Madhya Pradesh states has resulted in thousands of tribals losing their lands and in a number of cases they have not been provided with alternative property as compensation.

There are a number of common grievances among the Scheduled Tribes. The protection of their culture and lifeways is a key issue along with desires for self-government through the granting of broad autonomy. Encroachment on tribal lands by other groups and commercial interests has gained international attention in recent years due to government-sponsored mega-projects such as the Narmada dam system. Limited economic opportunities in tribal areas have also meant that the Scheduled Tribes are among the poorest in Indian society and they have been left out of the country's economic liberalization campaign launched in the early 1990s.

The interests of the Scheduled Tribes are primarily represented by broad-based conventional organizations but there has been an enduring militant force that draws some significant group support (COHESX9 = 3). Conventional tribal interests have traditionally coalesced around specific issues such as demands for the creation of a separate tribal state (Jharkhand Mukti Morcha) or the protection of tribal land (Narmada dam project).

Beginning in the mid-1960s, the Maoist Peoples' War Group (PWG), also referred to as Naxalites, launched an armed struggle to press for land reforms (REBEL65X = 4). The Naxalite movement first arose in West Bengal state and was an uprising by largely landless tribal cultivators in Naxalbari in 1967. Some members of the Peoples' War Group seek the creation of an independent tribal state. Protest movements by the Scheduled Tribes have continuously occurred since the 1950s while the PWG rebellion is still underway as of 2000 (PROT50X = 2). The government's counterinsurgency campaign against the PWG has included arrests of group members and the use of limited force during demonstrations. Transnational support for the Scheduled Tribes has largely been from nongovernmental organizations such as Amnesty International and other issue-specific NGOs such as the Friends of the Narmada and the International Rivers Network.

In recent years, sporadic violence has erupted as right-wing Hindu groups have attacked tribal Christian communities as part of their campaign to stem the alleged spread of Christianity in India.

References

Ashworth, Georgina, editor, (1977), World Minorities, Volume 1, Middx., UK: Quartermaine House Ltd and Minority Rights Group.

The Europa Yearbook, Far East and Australasia 1993.

Keesings Record of World Events, 1990-94.

Girdner, Eddie J., "India Burning Fundamentalism and the Politics of Caste", Asian Profile, Vol. XXIV, October 1993.

Lexis-Nexis Library Information, 1990-2000.

Plant, Roger, (1994), Land Rights and Minorities, London, England: Minority Rights Group International, #2.

Rahman, M. & Zafar Agha, "A New Assertiveness", India Today, April 30, 1994.

Varshney, Ashutosh, "India's National Identity, Hindu Nationalism, and the Politics of Anxiety", Daedalus, June 1993.