BUILDING OF TRIBAL AS A COMMUNITY: A CONTAGIOUS PROCESS
-Urkhao Gwra Brahma
The emergence of the Nation-State
is the fundamental raison-d'être (underlying principle) of emergence of concept
of the Tribe or Tribal. People or group of people, who resisted the joining
larger nation-state entities are labeled as tribe or tribal. The main stream
concept is based on nation-state, those who rule the state forming a certain nation
is the ‘conventional’ or ‘mainstream’. Those who don’t rule any nation-state
and also unwilling to come under the rule of outsider are unconventional or
non-mainstream group of people. The
people or groups of people, who are labeled as tribes, normally don’t rule any larger
state and therefore, they never become part of mainstream. Off-course, at the
modern age those non-mainstream or tribal group of people have also become
ruler of many states even in India also and that very concept has not yet been
re-defined, whether now those ruling tribes have become a part of the component
of already mainstream group of people or
not.
The term ‘Tribe’ believed to be
originated around the time of Greek City-State and early formation of Roman
Empire. The Latin word ‘Tribus’ was transformed to the word ‘Tribe’ meaning a
group of persons forming a community and claiming descent from a common
ancestor. “They have distinct root of origin, common tradition and
characteristics, common faith and believe in certain religion, common
traditional cultural practices and somewhere common language too. Due to gap in
development they are shy to have contact with advanced group of people and
maintain isolation in living from others.” Of course, these factors were only
an analysis of the conditions found in some particular time periods pertaining
to particular group of people. When the constitutions of the modern world stepped
into ancient social system and framed certain definition of tribal for the
administrative conveniences, the division of conventional or unconventional group
begun with its modern version. Later those divisions had been converted to legal
criteria for recognizing particular groups of people as tribal and present
tribal are administered by that law of criteria.
Freedom is what we all inherit it
from the moment our lives begin; it is also the basic human instinct to live,
act and move free everywhere and every time. The civilization has given birth to
the present law and system; a section of privileged people created the Nation-State
concept and they declared themselves to be the ‘mainstream’ of the human
society. On the other hand people known as tribal are declared as
non-mainstream or uncivilized by them and as such they had been placed under
the pigeonhole of tribal. It is the colonial rulers who first began the
establishment of nation-state and rule over the local uncivilized people as
they interpreted. In the time of Kings and Kingdoms the term mainstream and
non-mainstream were hardly found in any word stock as because only the terms ‘Kings’
and ‘subjects’ existed in the glossary of Kingdoms. But colonialist invaders
used to travel with the power of civilization and imposed categories upon the
invaded people for their convenience of rule. The colonial British ruled India,
institutionalized entire social system streamlining them to the concept of
governance and administration founded on the basis of certain constitutions.
They gave the names of caste, community and nationality according to the
conditions found at that time and these are accepted as the opportunity and
privileges today by the people. They are praised for their initiative for
creating certain exclusive provisions in the constitutions for the tribal with
the development purpose though they are said to be inventor of category of
people. As for example from the 1937 onward the ‘Naga Hills District,
North-East Frontier Tract, Lushai Hills and North Cachar Hills’ had been
declared by them as ‘Excluded Area’ under the Province of Assam. These are the
root of origin of present day Tribal Autonomy in North Eastern region and also
rest of India. Freedom of mainstream is a WILL to rule over other by exerting
their power and freedom of non-mainstream is WISH to be free from any kind of such
rule. So we can define that the conflict of two kinds of freedoms divided the
human society into ‘conventional’ and ‘unconventional’ that was re-interpreted
again as ‘mainstream’ and ‘non-mainstream’ later. After being categorized the
freedom of the tribal people remained limited within the technical descriptions
given to them by the constitutional laws in terms of their social, economic and
political rights. But the self pretended mainstream group of people created
boundless freedom for them with regard to their right to development, social
status, economic & political privileges and knowledge.
Colonial ruler
transformed the lands of tribal into commodity, which can be sold, bought,
occupied and transferred too for the benefits. But for tribal, land is a part
of culture based on which, their livelihood stands, folk-tales, folk-songs and
dances originates. Further, the Tribal has no classes based on economic
definition or category of people in group as defined by any constitution. It is
the family or group of family, forming community transmissible to one to
another generation, with inherent tradition. Therefore, there can be no
negotiation in interpretation of conceptual definition. They belong to distinct linguistic, cultural
and historical tradition as community. They are also known in the history for
practicing philosophy of ‘Live-and-Let-Live’ in every sphere of life, which
means co-existence but without giving up their inbuilt traditional identity. We
have SCs and OBCs group of people now in the country but like tribal they don’t
have inherent and contagious tradition. They are just an economic class having
no distinct language, culture and historical tradition. History never ignored that fact also that
anywhere if invaders had been resisted first, then it was from none but the
tribal people because they never agreed to be ruled by any outsiders and fought
for homeland with might. Even in maximum case they fled their homeland in a
group if defeated, to maintain their freedom and community identity from the
domination of invaders. But tribal use
to loss battles, their lands were engrossed because invaders came with
fire-arms and trained military might in counter to their bows and arrows. From
the year 1772 to 1914, as per the records about dozens of tribal revolts
against British colonial rule can be traced back for the rights over land or
payment of wages in India. In the Middle East India many Satyagrahas took
place in 1930 against the restrictions of tribal’s land rights imposed by the
colonial rulers. Those Satyagrahas succeeded many times over the colonial
rulers later and land reforms followed with the framing new land laws. The Bodo
Kocharis in Assam used to work in the Tea Garden since the Assam Company started
Tea Plantation in 1840 and after. In 1848
Kachari Coolies revolted against the defaulter in their payment of
wages, they even Gheraod the superintendent of Assam Company and demanded
payment of three months defaulted wages and accordingly the Assam Company had
to bow down before the agitating Kachari Coolies. From that revolt payment of
wages were never been kept defaulter by the tea company and regarding that a
renown historian Dr. Guha said –“they were able to secure an assurance for no
more default in payment of wages in future.”
Those incidents had encouraged tea laborers of other parts of the Assam
also to fight for their timely payment of wages.
The definition of tribal has been
converted to a procedural process from the natural process after the modern
constitutions came into being. As in India the President, under the Art-342(1),
specifies the Tribal or Scheduled Tribe by public notification through the consultation
with concerning Governors of respective states. Further, the Parliament is
empowered to notify any new group of people or community and also to de-notify
any existing group as the tribal. Meaning is clear that status of Tribal is not
permanently fixed for any specific groups of communities only. It is ever
changing, subject to the consideration of the parliament according to the
demands and circumstances. Our Parliament is constituted by politicians of the
country and therefore, the whole procedure of making or not making tribal have
become completely a political process today. The power of the President and the Governors
is restricted to the notification of decision taken by politically elected
Governments. Art-330, Art-332, Art-338, Art-339, Art-342(1) &(2)- and other
related articles are the principal provisions relating to identification and
specification of any group as tribal, right of reservation of seats in
Parliament and Assembly and setting up of Commissions by the President of India
for the welfare of the tribal. On the other hand Sixth Schedule of the
constitution provides Autonomy to the Scheduled Tribe for self rule over
certain specified scheduled areas inhabited by them. If something was assembled
truly for the tribal in the constitution as their rights then it is the Sixth
schedule provision where tribal culture, tradition, language and their
identities are clearly recognized. The provisions also specify the land area or
territory and powers, where they are given to be developed and enjoyed for
their interests. Even the customary laws, if any tribal have been practicing in
their community lives, are also legalized in the modern law system by that
scheduled.
But many things have already been
liberalized for the convenience of the majority community in the Sixth Schedule
system also in the process of development of the constitution. As already said
the status of the tribal is not permanent, existing may not have been de-notified
so far in the North Eastern states but some new have already been notified. Critically
challenging issues for the existing Autonomies are coming up due to such
liberalization in the process. The parliament, in exercise of its power, keeping
on enlisting new groups of people into the directory of STs entitling them same
rights and privileges as enjoyed by old groups. The ST communities, to whom
Autonomies were dedicated at the time of formation, has been put into the
process shifting their rights to new tribe from them in a gradual manner. When
any tribal up-rise or unrest is noticed in any state, their power is attempted
to be watered-down by adding new stream of tribal because the provision has
been used as the tools to control totally their course of lives. One of the fundamental
principles for any group to be identified as the ST is their way of maintaining
distinct ‘tradition’ and any kind of interpolation of meaning may take the
whole concept itself to a great predicament only. The parliamentary process is
seems to be so constrained by the
political situation to keep on changing the list of ST and its related criteria
today and in near future several new groups are likely to be granted that status.
Having looked into that development, time is not too far that the original
tribal communities go for demanding a new constitutional initiative to categorize
separately the existing STs as the ‘Original Tribe’ or ‘Indigenous Tribe’. Constitution
also will have to be so designed to create an exclusive provision to protect
and preserve the original tribe with regard to their culture, tradition and
land as a part of constitutional obligations. As the reason the new groups of STs will keep
on emerging and old group of STs also will remain, a conflict over power
sharing may be the regular course of development in between new and old, which
may not be healthy development for our democracy. In view of the present development of the
human civilization the concept of tribal will be passing through a massive
ad-libbing for the convenience of the running politics. Indian polity itself is
distancing itself from the past truth of the making of constitution, the way
how it was built up and the process how the communities had been developed. It
is more massive in state level as because they are least bound by the past of
the constitution and its historical process, that the way how it has reached the
present stage today. No national or provincial governments have the rightful
explanation of the fact that as to why so many groups are becoming so
enthusiastic to be tribe after the elapse of 70 years of our independence also,
which stoutly defies the government’s frequent claim of development. Rather,
very often and very un-reluctantly it is claimed that, the growth of numbers of
tribal communities either by way of admitting new groups or by way of
maintaining natural growth of their population, is a part of development
process.
A revolutionary change in the
lives of tribal people as a whole and other backward group of people in a
different way should be brought about to achieve the true development age. The
constitution has the legacy to protect and preserve the true indigenous tribe
in a different and exclusive way and the nation builders need to start thinking
about creating special space in the constitutions for them. The same also has the legacy of giving justice
to other backward groups of people or community and they also should be treated
in a different way to bring up their lives in the development cycle at par with
the other developed group of people. Right to equality under Article-14 of our
constitution should not be interpreted in the Judicial Courts only; rather it also
should be applied properly in the area of social, economical and political
spheres of tribal lives.
