Tribals need a movement to better their lot
Almost everything around us these days is influenced by the West. From our mode of transport to the kind of clothes we wear, everything is a copy. Enter a railway coach. The washrooms have a western WC. In fact, railways was given to us by the British. let us see the kind of clothes people wear who travel in trains. Most men wear shirt and trousers. The youth wear jeans and T-shirt. Only the women in their 30s and above either wear a sari or salwar-kurta. But sometimes even they wear a kurta and jeans.
The mobile came to us from the West. The concept of living in an apartment (flat) is also a western idea. Television, refrigerators, almirahs, cooking stove, sleeping on the bed, eating meals at the dinning table, using a spoon, working at the computer in offices and going from one place to another in a car — all are western concepts. The electricity that we use to practically run every gadget in our lives has come from the West.
We if closely look at our lives, everything that we do is increasingly getting western. All things that are primitive are considered to be from the East. The upper caste in the country were the first to drop that bespoke of eastern lifestyle. The rest of the communities followed what the upper caste did. Dalits, too, are enjoying the western lifestyle, but with a difference. They are candid enough in admitting superiority of the western civilisation.
As I have said in previous columns, people all over the world were nomads. They searched for their food, hunted animals and lived in little hutments. We all started off without wearing clothes. We all lived in forests before settling down and building houses, towns and finally cities. We didn’t have a language or a written script. People all over the world communicated using sign language for thousands of years before they learnt how to communicate.
So, where should the tribals in India be in 2050IJ I am not from the tribal belt and therefore capable of making mistakes that is being proposed by me for the good of the tribals in the country. Should the tribals not be following the same trajectory the people world over have doneIJ Shouldn’t the tribals try to walk the path of urbanisation as one of its main goalsIJ Shouldn’t they view living in forests as their emancipationIJ Shouldn’t the tribals, like the Dalits, at least try to walk towards the integration with the mainstream societyIJ
Even though the Dalits are forced to live in small settlement outside the villages, the choice was not theirs, they were forced to do so. Entering the mainstream society thus equals their emancipation. Did the tribals choose the live near the forestIJ If not, then entering the mainstream society ought to equal the emancipation of the tribals. But who will explain this to the tribalsIJ It has to be the educated people of their community.
But for this to happen, the tribals need to produce a whole new generation of people from within their community who is completely in tune with the outside world. This generation will then act as role models for other tribals and spread the message of modernism with the masses.
If there is one State initiative that is worth a praise, it is the Jawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya (JNV) taken in 1985-86. The JNVs provide quality education to children living in villages. With hostel facilities, the JNVs are now spread all over the country. Their result is at par with some of the best public schools in the country. JNV students are studying in IITs and some have even gone on to clear the UPSC exam. True, JNVs are in tribal belts as well. But, that’s not enough. We need to have a policy which needs to cover the following points:
· More JNVs are needed at the district level in tribal areas
· At least six tribal boys and girls should be picked up each year from each tribal village and made to study in JNVs. This will make their integration easy
· Parents who send their children to JNVs should be given a cash incentive
· Students who pass out from the JNVs should be given jobs in the private sector. To begin with, the selection process for such candidates should be easy
· Posting of the trained tribal professionals in metro
The above mentioned steps should make it easy for the tribals to be integrated into the mainstream society. This will be good not just for the tribals but the rest of the people as well. The ideological foundations of integrating with the mainstream will be laid by JNV students who will become part of the mainstream society first. The JNVs should become torch-bearers of a new kind of renaissance among the tribals.
With an initiative like the one being proposed in this column, the tribals will have undergone the same trajectory the people world over have undergone.