Tribal school students to get nutritious food

Tribal school students in Adilabad district will have a surprise of sorts waiting for them once they rejoin their educational institutions after Dasara vacation. The menu in their schools will include honey, the forest produce which Adivasi children relish most but which has gone scarce as a result of decimation of forests.

The food served to tribal children in hostels managed by the Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA), Utnoor, has now become the focus of a study aimed at inducting changes in the menu in order to improve the overall health of the students. All the changes which are on the anvil will be implemented October onwards, according to the ITDA Project Officer R.V. Karnan.

Nutrition, or lack of it, plays a key role in all problems related with health of Adivasis in the agency area in the district. This is a good reason for incorporating changes in the menu of school students numbering about 45,000 studying in 152 Ashram High Schools, Residential Schools, mini Gurukulams and Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas.

It has been observed that Adivasi children shun certain vegetables like potatoes which constitute an alien food item for them.

They are however, comfortable eating other kinds like beans and some leafy vegetables which are usually grown in their homes back in the villages.

“This is why we are handing over the work of supply of vegetables to local self-help groups. The groups will also be supported by the ITDA in raising kitchen gardens and backyard poultry,” Mr. Karnan revealed of the efforts being made to improve health of tribal children.

The ITDA has, in fact, been trying various food items to be served in its educational institutions since the last six months.

“These items have been tried based on the nutritional needs and preferences of the children,” the Project Officer observed.

For example, students liked the multigrain biscuits. “We also want to cut down on rice and provide a better balanced diet,” Mr. Karnan added.

The impending changes will also see iron tablets being administered to Adivasi students, especially the girls, with lemon juice. This is aimed at improving the haemoglobin content in the blood of the children.

Red Sanders Smugglers Lure TN Tribals for Special Skill: HC Panel

CHENNAI: Amid the outcry over the killing of 20 woodcutters from Tamil Nadu by Andhra Pradesh Police, an Advocates Commission appointed by the Madras High Court has said a tribal community of Kalrayan Hills is lured by red sanders smugglers with huge money as they possess unique skills in cutting trees effortlessly and without noise.

Highlighting the need for upliftment of the community identified as 'Malayalis', the Commission in its 35-page report to the court has recommended a Master Plan for development of the hills covering Salem and Villupuram districts of Tamil Nadu.

After perusing the report, a bench, comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice T.S. Sivagnanam, directed the Government Pleader to file the counter within four weeks and to show development works if any carried out in the hills.

"It is interesting to peruse the epilogue (of the report), which classifies the tribals of their special skills as soundless woodcutters, especially in cutting the red sanders. It appears that out of twenty people, who were recently shot down, twelve belong to the area.

"A suggestion was made to utilise the special skills in a development process rather than their lending hands to the red sander smugglers. There is, thus undoubtedly, the requirement of the development of social capital for them and suggestions are contained at the end of the epilogue," the Bench said.

Twenty woodcutters from the state were killed in firing by Andhra Pradesh police in Seshachalam forests in Chitoor district earlier this month, prompting widespread condemnation by political parties and rights groups in the state.

The three-member Advocate Commission was set up by the court on a PIL seeking a direction to the state and central governments to frame and implement a special scheme providing for the education, health, road transport and employment of residents of Kalrayan, Periya Kalrayan and Chinna Kalrayan hill areas.

According to petitioner K R Tamizhmani, President of Madras Bar Association, the hills are inhabited by a tribal community by name Malayalis. The lands are fertile but there was no active cultivation of any crop except in a few pockets. And 90 per cent of the population was in 'pinching poverty'.

The court had earlier directed the Advocate Commission to visit the area and submit a report.

The committee expressed satisfaction about facilities such as drinking water and electricity but underscored the requirement of public health care centres and infrastructure in schools and hostels and recommended a master plan for development in the area.

The Advocate Commissioners, who were present in the court, suggested that instead of pouring money to other things the government may develop the infrastructural facilities in the schools which are in pathetic condition even without toilets and regenerate 53,000 acres of forest land.

The panel also suggested a high-level multi-departmental committee comprising Secretaries of various departments.

The Commission in its report detailed about the skills of the tribals under a sub-heading "Expert Wood cutting Skills & Exceptional stamina to carry wood over long distances – Distinctive `Social Capital’ of the Malayalis".

It said that local leaders, revenue officials, foresters and others spoke of how the Malayali tribals functioning cohesively as teams of 5-6 persons can fell a tall, full grown tree within a few hours.

The unique part of the woodcutting skills was the near soundless way in which the tribals could cut, prune, size and carry the logs over distances as long as 25-30 kms away without a break.

Forest department officials informed the Commission that major timber smuggling mafia from Andhra Pradesh were the only people who realised the unique skills of the tribals and have been systematically luring them by offering major advances and promising sums of money which they cannot normally earn.

A well-oiled system of labour contractors operates throughout the Hills and they in turn have local agents who collect a group of tribals and send them for illegal felling of red sanders.

The Commission in its report further said locals, including women, told the members about the incarceration in Andhra Pradesh jails of several hundreds of tribal labourers who were lured to illegal tree felling operations.

They spoke in anger against the labour contractors who lured their men folk with promises of high monetary returns with the assurance that the chances of getting caught were slim.

"We were orally told that each person going for tree-cutting to the AP red sanders hills for just a period of 7–10 days could earn about Rs. 25,000 to Rs 30,000," one of the advocate commissioners said.

Directing the state Chief Secretary to examine the matter of appointing a high-level multi-departmental committee comprising several departmental heads to resolve the other problems mentioned in the report and for a master plan.

The Bench posted the matter to July 28 for further hearing.

A study of social exclusion and the silver screen

Conference examines representation of Dalits and tribal communities in Hindi cinema

While there were several events marking the centenary year of Indian cinema in 2013, there was very little focus on the portrayal of the Dalit and tribal communities on the silver screen over the years. It is also true that mainstream Hindi cinema has largely ignored the Dalit and tribal people, or relegated them to insignificant roles.

It was to fill this gap and discuss the issues regarding their portrayal that the Department of Hindi at Pondicherry University has organised a two-day national conference on ‘Hindi Cinema: Dalit and Tribal Discourse’ on October 5 and 6, which is being supported by the Indian Council of Social Science Research. Renowned journalist Dilip Mandal, who is attending the event, said it was the first such conference to focus on these issues.

Organising the conference has been a challenge, says Dr. Pramod Meena, Assistant Professor, Department of Hindi and coordinator for the event. It took the team around two-and-a-half years to get the event together given the initial opposition from the University administration and the period of student protests over Vice-Chancellor Chandra Krishnamurthy.

The conference has been bolstered by the presence of big names in the field like Biju Toppo, considered the first Adivasi film director, Nagraj Manjule, director of multi-award winning Fandry , documentary filmmakers Sanjay Joshi and Manoj Singh, who have been behind the Gorakhpur Film Society movement, which takes films to small cities and towns, as well as Ashwini Kumar Pankaj.

“The idea is to explore why the gaps in portrayal of Dalits and tribals exist, and examine their portrayal on screen with particular reference to Hindi films. Often, the point of view of the communities is missing. The few films that do get made which focus on the people do not reach the halls as well,” says Mr. Meena. Filmmaking is also a medium to save tribal languages from perishing, he said, citing the example of Adivasi film directors Niranjan Kujur and Biju Toppo who make films in tribal languages.

However, there has been a shift, even if slow, with technology and word-of-mouth and social media publicity. In fact, India’s entry to the Oscars in 2016, Court , touches on Dalit issues. “Making films likeManjhi and Peepli Live would not have been possible ten years ago. The multiplex factor has been an advantage,” said Mr. Meena.

Speaking at the conference, Mr. Mandal said it was important to talk about issues facing India, including problems facing the Dalit and tribal people. “In India, we think if we do not talk about or see a problem, it will just go away,” he said, adding that statistics on caste have not been updated in a long while. He also called for clearer surveys on areas like the film-going audience as are done in the U.S. to better understand the issues facing filmmaking today.

The two-day conference will look at areas like the absence of the Dalit and tribal reality in Indian cinema, tragedy of the Dalit and tribal woman, and the Dalit in urban life, among other issues. Screening of Biju Toppo’s Kudukh language film Kora Rajee and Tamil Bodhi Kala group's Padyi , Dalit-tribal poetry session and dramas by the Ashutosh Chandan group have also been organised.

Commodification of Tribal Culture

Exotic Tourism and Commodification of Tribal Culture

Archana Prasad

original article: http://archives.peoplesdemocracy.in/2012/0226_pd/02262012_7.html 

REPORTS of the illegal exploitation of tribals in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and in Odisha have been brought to light by videos and news reports in the recent past. Two Jarawa videos from Andamans showed how tourists and the police were forcing tribal women to dance naked in return for food and other provisions. A few days after this came to light, reports from Odisha suggested that exotic Bondo tourism had become commonplace and that the tourist companies were selling ‘primitiveness’ for their own profits. Both these instances showed the ways in which the market has penetrated the tribal areas and how the valorisation of uneven development and poverty has become a way for big companies to link these regions with international tourism market.

THE MAKING OF

AN EXOTIC IMAGE

The perception of ‘tribal culture’ as unique and strikingly different is not a creation of the neo-liberal regime. It has its roots in the development strategy of the Nehruvian era when the ‘tribal panchsheel’ was borne out of the idea that upliftment of tribal people had to take place through a slow process of their ‘modernisation’ even while their culture had to be preserved. The tribes were meant to develop ‘according to their own genius’ and were to slowly be introduced to mainstream economic development and the market. Thus while the cultural and political rights of tribal people were given due importance, their economic rights over land, natural resources and basic services were ignored. Resource rich regions were targetted to benefit heavy industries and were not compensated, especially in terms of providing livelihood security to the tribal people. This was a result of the failure of community development programmes whose design was neither ecologically favourable nor suited to the material reality of the tribal people.

Hence, while health and education indicators showed a stark improvement in the post-independence years, a more fundamental transformation of the tribal peasantry from producers to casual labour was also taking place. Simultaneously, the protection and promotion of tribal culture by the state became a symbol of cultural pluralism that was to symbolise India’s democracy. For the state, tribal culture symbolised song, dance, drama, crafts and all the images promoted by colonial anthropologists in their valorisation of the tribal identity. This narrow interpretation of ‘culture’ was accompanied by the growing economic vulnerability and stagnation of the tribal economy. Such a culture was nurtured through the establishment of ‘tribal museums,’ and culture was regarded as an unchanging thing and totally divorced from the material reality, leading to its objectification. 

This vulnerability has been simultaneously expressed both in terms of an ‘adivasi’ political identity as well as an exotic unique identity. The ‘adivasi’ political identity has largely found expression through a formation of tribal elites who are expressing their opposition to the historical exploitation of their regions and people. It is a form of politics where these newly emerging elites are demanding a greater political space as reflected in the movement for a separate Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand state. Hence, it is a modern identity that is formed, both as an impact of the affirmative action and the uneven development that has resulted from state capitalism. Though its use of primordial culture as a mobilisational and symbolic force also limits its impact in forging larger alliances for broader unities, this identity is fundamentally different from the ‘exotic’ and unique image promoted by the state. State-promoted tribal culture is part of an ideological campaign to justify its own oppression in these regions earlier for state capitalism and now for neo-liberal corporate capitalism. The commodification and commercialisation of tribal culture has to be seen in this context.

THE IMAGE AND

ITS CHARACTER

The Jarawas and Bondas are characterised as people who represent the prototype of a unique and ancient culture. Thus one tour company says in its promotional campaign: “…..the Bonda are semi-clothed, with the women characterised by the wearing of thick silver necklace bands. The tribe is one of the oldest and most primitive, with their culture little unchanged in over a thousand years.” In a similar vein, the Jarawas of the Andamans have been popularly known as the ‘oldest’ tribes whose lifestyle has protected their culture and life from ‘outside’ intervention. The ‘nakedness’ of tribal groups, especially their women, is considered a part of their ‘primitiveness’ and promoted as an example of ‘unique and pristine culture.’

Another aspect of the tribal image is its gendered character. As in the case of the Bonda, the Jarawa video is particularly about the topless Jarawa women who are being made to dance to the tunes of foreign tourists and even police officials. In this sense, the commodification of women is an essential part of the exotic images used by corporate tourist companies to attract foreign clients.

These unchanging images, which are used by the tourist companies, are popularised by ‘primitivists’ and colonial anthropologists as representative of the tribal culture. They are based on the belief that tribal societies have certain essential characteristics because they have been living in an isolated way for centuries. Thus the existence of tribal culture is both ‘primitive’ and ‘exotic’ at the same time. It is exotic because it is unique and not found elsewhere.

Therefore ‘Jarawa sighting’ is one of the activities promoted by the tourist companies. In Odisha, companies also assure the urban and foreign tourists of ‘contact’ with the Bondas. For these tourists the experience is new and different because they are experiencing a lifestyle that is far removed from their own world.

This sense of distance is fundamental to the characterisation of this culture as ‘primitive,’ as these cultures are seen as outside the pale of the mainstream modern capitalist society. If this perception was used earlier to legitimise the ‘civilising mission’ of the colonial powers, it is now being used to pave the way for corporate capital into protected tribal areas.

NEO-LIBERALISM

AND TRIBAL CULTURE

The intrusion of the market through the tourism industry should also be seen as a neo-liberal state’s policy to dilute the protection accorded to tribal areas under Schedule V of the constitution. It also has to be seen in the context of the diversion of 40,000 acres of land per year from the forests on which the tribal groups depend for their survival.

The penetration of corporate capital has also taken the form of the privatisation of mining as well as opening up of markets for forest produce trade.

The increasing activity of big corporate tourist agencies in these regions also appears to be part of this larger trend. Both ‘Jarawa Reserve’ and the Bondo area fall under Schedule V where necessary government permissions are needed to carry out tourist activities. However, in all the reported cases, these permissions were neither granted nor sought by the agencies. Rather, in the case of Jarawas, the law enforcing agencies were themselves involved in forcing Jarawa women to dance to the tune of tourists. As one journalist reported, local tourist guides and agencies charge foreign tourists up to Rs 30,000 for making contact with the Jarawas. Of this, half the amount is paid off to the local police people who are meant to be ensuring that the tribal areas are protected from unfair practices. Similarly, in the Bonda area a big travel agency charges from Rs 1500 to 4000 for visiting one Bonda village.

This profiteering is, however, not limited to tourism but also to natural resources. The Jarawa reserve is well known for illegal sand mining and the removal of wood and non-timber forest produce from the Andaman Trunk road. Similarly, Odisha is well known for conflicts over land and forests in lands that have dense tribal habitations. Therefore the commercialisation of tribal culture is an integral part of the market penetration into these regions and has become more rampant than it was in the past. It is only likely to increase in the neo-liberal era and is part of a larger process of state’s withdrawal from its social, economic and political responsibilities. Thus this trend can be combated only if the image being marketed by the tourist companies is demystified through a sustain campaign against the assaults on tribal areas.

Adivasis hail Nobel for Youyou Tu

Among those who are happy on Youyou Tu being declared joint winner of the 2015 Nobel prize for medicine are the poor Adivasis of Adilabad in Telangana State. They have every reason to be joyous as recognition and honour came the way of the Chinese professor of medicine for her discovery of Artemisinin, a drug to control malaria, the scourge of Sirpur (U), Jainoor, Narnoor, Utnoor and Indervelli revenue mandals in this backward district.

The killer disease torments the hapless tribal people every year and has accounted for a large number of deaths since 1999 when its spread broke out as a major epidemic. This year however, the number of deaths was brought under control due to the use of Artemisinin Combination Therapy (ACT), a treatment made possible only because of Youyou Tu’s discovery.

“Yes, Artemisinin, the drug discovered by Ms. Tu was effective in control of malaria, especially the mortality involved,” vouched R.V. Karnan, the Project Officer of Integrated Tribal Development Agency (ITDA), Utnoor. “Limiting the death toll at 18 was a near miracle as this is the biggest outbreak of malaria since 1999,” he observed driving home the point on ACT’s effectiveness.

The death toll was highest at 1,700 of the 11,000 tribal people who tested positive for malaria in 1999. The next outbreak of malaria in 2007 left 138 dead of the 2,165 patients who tested positive.

The number of the deceased patients due to malaria was 69 in 2012, 24 in 2013, 36 in 2014 and 18 so far this epidemic season. The incidence of malaria nevertheless is much bigger now as the number of the patients who tested positive is a whopping 6,000.

“We stuck to the guidelines of the National Vector Borne Diseases Control Programme (NVBDCP) and the World Health Organisation in giving the ACT which happens to be on a massive scale,” Mr. Karnan said. “We purchased 20,000 ACT units to be given to patients in different age groups no sooner malaria tested positive in individual patients,” he added of the effort and method through which the ITDA went about tackling the recurrent menace.

The NVBDCP has banned mono therapy of Artemisinin derivative drugs as these could eventually lead to development of resistance for malaria drugs.

Demand for doing away with clause grows

## Land alienations issue

Non-tribal people living in the tribal mandals of Adilabad district have thrown light once again on the AP Scheduled Areas Land Transfer Regulation 1 of 1970, which envisages safeguarding the interests of tribal people in the Agency tracts of Telangana. They made the demand for relaxation of the Regulation in a memorandum to Utnoor RDO after the district police cancelled permission for a public meeting convened under the banner of the Agency SC, ST, BC and Minority Aikya Vedika at Utnoor, the hub of tribal affairs.

The non-tribals want government to allow transfer of land and other immovable properties between non tribals and non tribals and providing pahanis on lands being tilled by the non-tribals in the Agency area since long. The LTR 1/70, as it is commonly known, bars all such transactions, except those taking place between tribals and tribals.

The Act in question came into being in the erstwhile State of Andhra Pradesh as a result of non-tribal immigrants dispossessing tribals of huge extents of land through sheer exploitation.

In her paper published towards the end of the last century, C. von. Furer-Haimendorf: Half a century of his imprint on Tribal Welfare in Andhra Pradesh , Hyderabad-based social anthropologist Urmila Pingle, however says exploitation was already visible in the 1940s as Gonds were ousted from the lands cultivated by their forefathers. She also identifies the cause of struggle by Gond martyr Kumram Bheem’s to be land issues of Adivasis.

‘Select candidates from vulnerable tribal groups’

The Kerala Adivasi Forum, a tribal movement in the State, has urged political parties to make a declaration of rights to ensure the rights of tribespeople in the forthcoming local body elections in the State.

Speaking to mediapersons here on Sunday, Sreejith Munderi and Divya Panamaram, president and secretary of the organisation respectively, said that the political parties had favoured only forward communities among the tribal people such as Kurichiya and Mulla Kuruma sects so far.

They were yet to select candidates from vulnerable tribal communities such as the Paniya, Kattunayakka and Adiya tribes.

The political parties should consider giving proportional representation to all tribal communities in the election. All the local administrative bodies in the State should constitute special standing committees for the welfare of tribespeople and the chairman of the committee should belong to tribal communities, Ms. Divya said.

The utilisation of government funds for the welfare of the tribespeople should be on the basis of population in each wards. Special measures should be adopted to conserve and rejuvenate the tribal art forms and tribal medicine, she added.

They also raised demands such as effective implementation of Forest Rights Act; launching of new enterprises in the tribal sector to procure and market minor forest produces; start poverty alleviation schemes similar to Kudumbasree to empower tribal women; launch pre-primary schools in tribal language at all tribal hamlets to curb school dropouts; protect tribal burial grounds; and make all tribal colonies free from alcohol, for which all liquor outlets in tribal areas should be closed.

Ms. Divya said the organisation would support the political parties who would favour their demands.

Telangana move to include sub-castes in ST list decried

Strongly opposing the proposal of the Telangana government to include the economically weaker sub-castes in the list of Scheduled Tribes, representatives of different tribal organisations decided to present their views to members of the Telangana ST Commission during its visit here this week.

“The commission has been appointed by the Telangana government, but its recommendations are sure to be noted by the Government of Andhra Pradesh and we wish to make it clear that we will not accept any move by the government to dilute the benefits guaranteed by the Constitution to the Scheduled Tribes in the State,” R.S. Dora, president of the Adivasi Reservation Samrakshana Samiti, said here on Sunday.

The commission, which is enquiring into the status of the tribal people in Telangana, is actively considering the petitions of Boya Valmikis, Vadderas and Gangaputras for inclusion in the ST list on the grounds that they are economically and socially weaker sections and they do not fit into the definition of tribes as accepted by the government. 
“Further, each of the communities far outnumbers the entire tribal population of the State,” K. Rama Rao, president of ST Employees’ Welfare Association, said.

Members of the commission S. Chellappa and HK Nagu are scheduled to visit Paderu on October 27, Araku on October 28 and Visakhapatnam on October 30. “We are urging all the representatives of the tribal people to petition the commission against inclusion of the three sub-castes,” O. Ramalingam, legal advisor to the AP ST Employees’ Welfare Association, said.

It was unfortunate that even after 70 years of Independence, members of Tribes in the Agency areas do not have access to basic amenities like potable water, health and education. The political parties in power instead of looking at implementing the rights enshrined in the Constitution were swayed by electoral compulsions and planning to add ineligible communities to the list, O. Rama Murthy of Girijana Aikya Vedika said.

Representatives of different tribes, ST employees’ welfare associations, ST students’ association, Girijana Aikya Vedika and political parties met on Saturday and deliberated on the common stand to be taken on the issue. The meeting unanimously decided to oppose the move to include sub-castes into ST list and planned to take up demonstrations on the subject at different places in the State.

Representatives of various tribal organisations have decided to present their views before panel

Adilabad - 506 tribal land holdings entangled in litigation

The land issue has come to dog the agency tracts of Adilabad district once again, threatening to disturb its peace, and could even result in pitting disadvantaged Adivasis against powerful non-tribals.

Relaxation in rules sought

The latter living in the tribal areas are demanding relaxation of the Andhra Pradesh State Scheduled Areas Land Transfer Regulation 1959 and its subsequent Amendment 1 of 1970 (LTR) to the extent that it facilitates transfer of land and other immovable property between tribals and non-tribals.

The LTR, which guarantees safeguards to tribal properties, renders any such demand illegitimate, yet its tardy implementation has left much to be desired and dispossession of the Adivasis of their lands continues in some form or the other. A few thousands of acres of land belonging to Adivasis and at least 80,000 acres of government land are under illegal possession of non-tribals in the five agency mandals of Indervelli, Utnoor, Narnoor, Jainoor and Sirpur (U) in addition to over 20,000 units of immovable properties.

In order to protect the interests of Adivasis, the Nizam's government had in 1946 incorporated the 1917 British regulation on land transfer in agency areas.

This was subsequently converted into the LTR in 1959 and amended by an order of the Supreme Court in 1970 only to prohibit land transfer between tribals and non-tribals and rendering null and void all earlier transfers which had been done without permission of the district Collector, who is agent to the government.

The LTR Amendment 1 of 1970 also envisages restoration of lands to original tribal owners through the office of the Special Deputy Collector (SDC) looking after its implementation.

To date 8,394 cases of encroachment on tribal lands had been booked involving an extent of 54,421 acres of which 7,888 cases have been disposed of involving 53,034 acres.

"As many as 4,334 cases involving 28,500 acres of land were decided in favour of the Adivasis and nearly 23,900 acres of land was restored to 3,386 of them," said Utnoor Revenue Divisional Officer and SDC A. Ailaiah.

"There are 506 cases still pending trial," he said, quoting figures.

Unreported

The figures may not reveal the actual intensity of the problem as Adivasis continue to shy away from lodging cases against encroachers.

The population of the aboriginal tribes is about 3.5 lakh only but it is spread over three-fifths of the 16,000 sq km of the district's geographical area incorporating 412 notified villages in 32 of the 52 revenue mandals.

Having come in the back drop of the 75th martyrdom anniversary of legendary Gond leader Kumram Bheem on October 27, the demand of non-tribals has helped bring the land issue into sharp focus. Kumram Bheem's name is synonymous with Adivasis’ struggle for land rights and rights on water and forests and the tribes are likely to raise the issue at the martyrdom anniversary at Jodeghat.

While non-tribals press for relaxation of the ‘trbal land for tribals only’, tribal groups may raise the issue at the martyrdom anniversary of Kumram Bheem, who fought for their rights

Wayanad tribes yet to benefit from tourism

Tourism detrimental to Adivasis, nature, says study

While tourism promoters are listing Wayanad as one among the top 50 must-see destinations in the entire world, a comprehensive study conducted by two social anthropologists from Germany has found that nature tourism is turning a severe challenge not just to the region’s biodiversity and wildlife but also to its highly vulnerable tribal community.

As per the 2001 census, the population of Scheduled Tribes in Wayanad district is 17.43 per cent of its total population as compared to 1.14 per cent for Kerala overall.

“Introduced as a panacea for Wayanad’s agrarian and ecological crisis, tourism has resulted in ‘zooification’ and ‘exoticisation’ of tribals and that verges on racism,” observes Daniel Munster of the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittneberg, and Ursula Munster of Department of Anthropology, Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich.

The findings of their six-year-long research activity, accessed by The Hindu, reveal the other side of nature tourism, which turned highly exploitative in the case of tribals and environment in Wayanad.

Non-agrarian livelihood

As per their findings, the settler cash-crop farmers of Wayanad who hitherto used environmentally destructive capitalist farming processes, struggling against wildlife, Adivasis and the forest department are now partially shifting to a post-agrarian economy that includes non-agrarian livelihoods and large-scale investment in tourism.

“In their practice of nature tourism, they ironically value and commodify the same forests, wildlife and tribal people. These three elements were seen by them for many decades as obstacles to capitalist development,” the study says.

The prevailing agrarian crisis in Wayanad is the outcome of ‘de-peasantisation’ or transition from land-based livelihoods to market-based ones, the study adds. “The low productivity of degraded agricultural fields forces small holders to sell their land, making it available for real-estate investors, who have been responsible for the mushrooming of cottages and resorts that block elephant corridors and water sources. Moreover, ginger cultivation outside the State has brought new agrarian capital to the district to invest heavily in tourism that turned exploitative to local communities.”

Land reforms

The researchers say the land reforms initiated by successive governments in the State had very little redistributive effect in Wayanad. “It legalised large-scale land grabbing by settlers and bypassed claims of the Advasi population. Now tourism is helping commodification of Wayanad’s nature and culture for middle-class consumption,” they say.

Quoting official data, they say Wayanad’s tourism is predominantly domestic. The share of international visitors was marginal ranging from a 0.28 per cent in 2002 to 0.4 per cent in 2004.

“Critically analysing a project of the District Tourism Promotion Council (DTPC) to take the visitors to tribal huts, they quote an young officer who encourages the visitors to donate ‘a sum of at least Rs.100 to the respective family as a contribution to the village economy.’ The tribal hamlets are now turning ‘ethnic village zoos’ where Adivasi images are preserved on the same conceptual level as elephant encounters and other wildlife adventures.

“All the tourist sites in Wayanad are ecologically wasted and tribal temporary employees at each spot recruited under eco-tourism initiative are just cheap labour,” they feel. The participatory forest management initiatives in Wayanad are turning labour reserves of Adivasis for manual forest works, they say.

They suggest more involvement of Adivasis in the formulation of tourism policies and restrictions on nature tourism.

World Indigenoud Day- Of tribal communities, traditions

Students joining a dance performance by the Kadar Tribes as part of the World Tribes Day celebrations in Madurai on Monday.— Photo: R. Ashok

Tribals from across state showcase art and culture

Members of tribal communities from across Tamil Nadu including the Paliyar, Kadar and Muduvar tribes convened in the city to celebrate the International Day for Indigenous people or the ‘World Adivasi Day’ on Monday.

Organised by the Ekta Parishad, an organisation working with marginalised sections of the society and Lady Doak College, discussions with activists and cultural programmes were held to mark the occasion.

Members of the Paliyar tribe from Kodaikanal enthralled college students by performing their traditional songs on string and wind instruments and women from the Kadar tribe near Valparai performed a traditional song in accompaniment to tunes played on percussion instruments by the men.

“We perform this dance for all occasions in our village, be it happy or sad. The song has been known to our community for generations and was written in a language which is a mix of Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi,” said D. Radha, a Kadar tribeswoman. As many as 68 Kadar families reside near Valparai, she added.

Vanishing customs

R. Ravi, a member of the Kadar tribe said that many of their practices, customs and traditions which remained largely unknown to the outside world were vanishing. “While we used to work as forest gatherers and get our daily food from there, most of us have taken to small-scale farming now which has led to a drastic change in our dietary patterns and made us more vulnerable to diseases,” he noted.

Thangaraj, a paliyar tribesman from Madurai said that the majority of them remained ignorant about their age-old traditions with regard to dance and music. “Every paliyar settlement in Madurai, Kodaikanal, Theni or Bodi worships Palichiamman, a deity we believe resides in a hill nearby. Recent restrictions by the forest and other departments have left us unable to make the trip up the designated hill and offer our prayers on auspicious days,” he explained.

The college students who attended the celebrations were addressed by V. Kathir, Founder of Evidence, an NGO and T.V. Parvathavardhini of Littles Trust on the need to be aware about issues concerning tribals and their rights.

Speaking about the celebrations, S. Thanaraj, Activist and Coordinator of Ekta Parishad said that it was important for the public at large to be aware of how development and other external factors had affected the lives of indigenous tribes across the country.

“There are a lot of values and ethics of living followed by tribes which need to be taken seriously. While development has rampantly affected them, the fact that they can rejuvenate and conserve the environment in their own way has been overlooked,” he said. For the members of the Kadar tribe who danced to traditional songs played on simple instruments by the tribesmen, their performance didn’t end there. A group of students from the audience who were attending the celebrations joined them on stage and were taught a few simple steps by the tribeswomen. Among the girls who joined in were two foreign students from the Lady Doak College, who enthusiastically participated and learnt the dance moves from the tribeswomen.

The songs performed by the Paliyar tribe too were received with loud applause and claps from the student-audience to the beats.

“The government should support us by giving us platforms to perform our dances and music on. It will help us keep our art alive and also support us immensely,” said R. Selvi, a tribeswoman.

Non-tribals acquiring tribal art skill

Some non-tribal women in Odisha have started learning tribal Saura paintings. Thirty girls from families displaced for the now-shelved mega steel project of Tata Steel in Ganjam district of Odisha are learning this art form.

The training is being given at the rehabilitation colony on the outskirts of Berhampur under a project named ‘Srujanika’ by Tata Steel. They would undergo training for two years.

‘World Act’, a social organisation involved in art and craft training and marketing, is managing the project and imparting training.

The first batch of this programme has started and more batches would be started later.

According to trainees like Sibani Patra, it is not difficult for them to pick up intricacies of Saura painting because they used to draw traditional Odia jhoti at their homes during festivals since childhood. She and other trainees feel that they would try to innovate by adding up modern elements to attract the urban art lovers.

Manas Ranjan Nayak, one of the trainers, is hopeful that the girls would be able to produce marketable products within a year. They may use Saura paintings to produce marketable things of day to day use like decorative pieces, block printed fabric, greeting cards, folders, photo frames, bags, wall hangings and large paintings. They have already started transforming small stones into Saura painting artefacts.

Although said to be around 5,000 years old, Saura painting is still practiced in tribal villages in Rayagada, Gajapati, Ganjam and Koraput districts of Odisha.

These paintings include two dimensional unique motifs of humans, horse, elephant, sun, moon. The painting form is unique as they do not differentiate between male and female forms as in tribal community both have equal status.

Displacement cuts life expectancy among tribal people

Displacement does more than efface identities and disrupt livelihoods, it can reduce life expectancy, finds a DNA study of a tribal community relocated from Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary.

Around 8,000 Sahariya tribal people were moved out of their ancestral homes in Kuno in 1998-2002 to make space for Asiatic lions brought in from Gujarat. The families suffered “acute stress” as they coped with their radically changed life in unfamiliar, semi-urbanized surroundings 10 km away, says a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

To find a possible link between these tumultuous life changes and lifespan, scientists studied their subjects’ “telomeres” – the protective caps on either end of a chromosome – which are known to be associated with aging and disease. Premature telomere shortening has for long been used as an indicator of psychosocial stress and accelerated human aging.

Researchers studied physical stress (cortisol), psychosomatic stress (through self-assessments) and then conducted high resolution studies of telomere length among 24 individuals from the relocated Maziran village in the forest core.

They compared the results with identical tests on 22 individuals from Behruda village (in the sanctuary’s buffer) where no relocation took place (but the residents faced certain stressors such as “benign neglect from the Indian state”).

Those in the relocated Maziran, they found, “have statistically significantly shorter telomeres” compared with those in Behruda. “Consistent with expectations, we found significant associations between each of our stress measures… and telomere length,” they conclude. Telomere shortening has already been associated with several stress-inducing situations. But most studies in these scenarios have been conducted in “Western, educated, industrialized and rich” societies, say the authors adding that this could, therefore, possibly be the first study to link stress to telomere length in a developing country.

Telomere shortening among displaced tribal communities shows that these DNA stretches are clearly “a pan-cultural biomarker of compromised health and aging,” says the paper.

During interactions, parents among the displaced Sahariya families “expressed deep uncertainty about the future, particularly with respect to the welfare of their children, and wished to return to their predisplacement lives.”

Sahariyas are among the most marginalised communities, steeped in poverty, with high illiteracy rates and are geographically isolated.

Keywords: Madhya Pradesh’s Kuno Wildlife Sanctuary, tribal community, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

- Source The hindu