Rural poverty

“Although there has been a decline, the level of poverty in the tribal population is still much higher than the national average and the gap between the two continues to be one of the major issues of concern in poverty discourse in India.” – Virginius Xaxa (Delhi School of Economics) in “The Status of Tribal Children in India: A historical perspective” (Opportunities, Working Paper No. 7, 2011), Institute for Human Development India & United Nations Children’s Fund, India
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=10430

Adivasis rejected the British knowledge and “chose to remain outside the colonial economy and social discourse”: Ganesh Devy – A View of Higher Education in India

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Adivasis confronted the British. They fought the British. They resisted the Raj in every possible way, did not accept the British Raj at all. Adivasis chose to remain outside the colonial economy and social discourse. Even when the universities came up in the 1850s, the Adivasis did not join the Bombay colleges or the Chennai … Read more

What is the Forest Rights Act about? Who is a forest dweller under this law, and who gets rights?

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India is home to nearly 20 Cr. [200 million] traditional forest-dwelling Adivasis and OTFDs [other forest dwelling communities], who derive their subsistence and livelihoods from forest and forest resources over several generations and thousands of years. The passage of the Scheduled Tribes and other Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act (2006), recognizing both the … Read more

Tip | Understanding India’s legislation known as Forest Rights Act and its relevance for tribal communities

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The FRA was enacted in 2006 with the aim of protecting the claims of tribal communities over tracts of land or forests they have inhabited and cultivated for generations. It has the potential to democratise forest governance by recognising community forest resource rights over an estimated 85.6 million acres, thereby empowering over 200 million forest … Read more

“Tribal communities have proven that they are the best guardians of the forest and die-hard conservationists”: Illegal mining destroys the life and culture of the conservators of forests

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Source: “Odisha’s Tribal Communities Are Reeling Under a Land Grab Project Masquerading as ‘Afforestation’” by Abhijit Mohanty (The Wire, 23 July 2020)URL: https://thewire.in/rights/odisha-kandhamal-forest-rights-tribalsDate Visited: 26 February 2022 Illegal mining in forests is destroying the life and culture of schedule tribes, opined Dr H Sudarshan, director of Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra. He was speaking at national … Read more

eBook | Preserving the variety of modern India’s communities and cultures in the making of the nation: Nehru’s empathy for “a people who sing and dance”

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Nehru is not only opposed to muting the tribal into submission but is also opposed to majoritarian Hindu chauvinism that aims at creating a homogenized national community. […] For Nehru, the key is to preserve the variety of communities and cultures in the making of the nation. […] His empathy for a people who sing … Read more