No rights, only charity for India's indigenous and tribal peoples

The Draft National Policy on Tribals of the Government of India states that the thrust of the Nehruvian policy is to respect the tribal peoples’ rights in land and forest. However, in the implementation of the programmes for the indigenous and tribal peoples, there has been little application of the rights - the main reason for the failure, in the words of Draft National Policy on Tribals, to “translate the constitutional provisions into a reality”. The rights based approaches i.e. incorporation of the rights accorded to the indigenous and tribal peoples under the constitution and various laws in the development of policies and implementation of programmes concerning them are indispensable if the Draft National Policy is to have any meaning.

Unfortunately, the programmes of actions suggested in the Draft National Policy on Tribals do not incorporate rights based approaches. The government of India continues with charity approach. Many of the measures included in the National Policy including education in mother tongues of the indigenous and tribal children were raised in the first Five Year Plan for 1951-1956. Obviously the programmes have failed. There is simply no reference to the recommendations made in the evaluations and studies of the Programmes Evaluation Organisation of the Planning Commission of India and the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Welfare of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes about the existing policies, programmes and laws concerning the indigenous and tribal peoples.

The failure of the programmes to bring indigenous and tribal peoples at part with the general population and increasing marginalisation of indigenous and tribal peoples are reflected from increasing gap in education. According to the census figures, the gap between the general population including the Scheduled Tribes and the Scheduled Tribes was 18.15% in 1971, 19.88% in 1981 and 22.61% in 1991. Since the Scheduled Tribes, who constituted about 8.1% of the total populations according to 1991 census, are also included in the general population, in actual terms, the gap in the literacy rate is much higher.

Although the female literacy rate of indigenous/tribal peoples has increased substantially from 4.85 per cent in 1971 to 18.9 per cent in 1991, the gap between indigenous females and the general female has been widening with 13.84% in 1971, 21.81% in 1981 and 21.10% in 1991. The increase in literacy rate of the indigenous and tribal peoples, in particular female literacy rate, at all India level can be attributed to the high rate of literacy in North East India. The literacy rate of the indigenous and tribal populations in Madhya Pradesh according to 1991 census was 21.54% with female literacy rate of 10.73%. However, the literacy rate according to 1991 census was 41.59% in Arunachal Pradesh, 52.89 % in Assam, 59.89% in Manipur, 49.10% in Meghalaya, 82.27% in Mizoram, 61.65% in Nagaland and 60.44% in Tripura. The female literacy rate according to 1991 census was 29.69% in Arunachal Pradesh, 43.03% in Assam, 47.60% in Manipur, 44.85 in Nagaland, 78.60% in Mizoram, 54.75 in Nagaland and 49.65% in Tripura.

The drop out rate among indigenous and tribal peoples is very alarming. Various steps taken by the State governments to check drop out including free distribution of books and stationery, scholarship, reimbursement of examination fee, free bus travel etc have failed. The Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes of the 13^th Lok Sabha in its 23^rd Report of February 2003 on the Working of Integrated Tribal Development Projects in Rajasthan reported that the delay in disbursement of scholarships is one of the reasons for increasing drop out of indigenous and tribal students. No evaluation of the programmes on education including the Ashram schools under the Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) was conducted so as to understand the shortcomings and suggest corrective measures.

The Draft National Policy advocates teaching in mother tongue of the child. Yet, it suggests very few concrete measures as to how to implement it. The policies towards the tribal languages have been discriminatory. There are no separate bodies on tribal languages although the government has established National Council for Promotion of Sindhi Language.  According to the 1991 census, many indigenous languages were spoken by more people than Sindhi. The Tribal Languages Research Unit has been put under the Kendriya Hindi Shikshan Mandal.

The standards of health of indigenous and tribal peoples remain deplorable. The Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes of the 13^th Lok Sabha in its 23^rd Report of February 2003 stated that hundreds of posts of medical staff in Tribal Sub-Plan areas in Rajasthan have been lying vacant. The State government of Rajasthan could not give any answer as to the reasons for not filling up the vacancies.

In its Eight Report of November 2000, the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Welfare of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes of the 13^th Lok Sabha stated that the actual requirement of doctors in tribal areas/scheduled areas in Madhya Pradesh was 1434 and the government sanctioned these posts of doctors. However, out of 1434 only 985 doctors were posted in tribal areas as on 1 July 1997. The reasons given by the State Government for not posting the sanctioned doctors were remoteness of areas, non-availability of basic facilities and tendency of the doctors to get posted in urban areas.

The government of India has also failed to take any measures to protect the vital medicinal plants, animals and minerals necessary for the full enjoyment of right to highest attainable standards of health by indigenous peoples.

In an evaluation of Integrated Tribal Development Projects (Study No 166 of 1997), the Programme Evaluation Organisation of the Planning Commission of India stated that most of the schools in TSP areas were lacking teaching staff and in most of the States having TSP areas, the medical facilities were not available upto the mark and about 78 percent of the sample villages had no Primary Health Centre within a distance of 5 kms.

The misuse, diversion and non-utilisation of funds meant for indigenous and tribal peoples are rampant. The Planning Commission in its Report No. 3 of 1999 reported that “the Assam Tribal Development Authority spent Rs. 4.03 Crore towards purchase of teaching aids for educational institution having 50 percent or more Scheduled Tribes (ST) students which was earmarked for family oriented income generation schemes for ST population below poverty line.  It was further disclosed that the purchase was against Government sanction of Rs. 1.50 Crore only. Proper procedure for the purchase was not followed and quotations were called without mention of the specific items”. The Planning Commission urged that “such purchases are required to be investigated and responsibility fixed” but no action has been taken.

The issues of availability, accessibility, acceptability and adaptability must be taken into account in the formulation of the programmes for right to education and right to highest attainable standards of health under the Draft National Policy. Primary and secondary education must be freely available and compulsory to all including indigenous and tribal peoples. An in-depth analysis of the reasons of high drop out rates and an evaluation of the Ashram Schools in Tribal Sub-Plan areas should be conducted.

The right to education through mother tongue of the child at primary level be recognised and adequate resources be provided by the Central Government. In order to facilitate education through mother tongue, a study be undertaken as to the requests made so far under Article 347 of the Constitution of India relating to the recognition of non-scheduled languages at the State level and measures be taken to recognise these languages and provide necessary funds for their promotion and preservation. The “Tribal Language Research Unit” under the Kendriya Hindi Shikshan Mandal be separated and made into an autonomous body under the Ministry of Human Resources Development, Government of India to promote and protect tribal languages. There is a need to launch a special scheme for “Appointment of Teachers and Training on Tribal Languages” with a view to assist the States and Union Territories for promotion and propagation of tribal languages for a period of 20 years and it be fully funded by the Central government of India. In addition, a National Council for Promotion and Preservation of Indigenous and Tribal Languages as an autonomous body be created similar to the National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language.

The suggestion of the Draft National Policy to “encourage qualified doctors from tribal communities to serve tribal areas” is an attempt to further ghettoize the indigenous peoples. Serving in the rural areas for a period of 10 years with five years exclusively in Tribal Sub-Plan areas must be made mandatory for all government doctors and necessary administrative measures need to be taken. All the vacancies of medical staff in the Tribal Sub-Plan areas need to be filled up within a specified time frame. The government should provide additional benefits to medical staff working in TSP area and concomitant budgetary allocations need to be made under the TSP.

The government needs to promote traditional health care system and all measures be taken for protection of vital medicinal plants, animals and minerals necessary to the full enjoyment of health of indigenous peoples. “Traditional and Alternative Medicinal Act” be adopted with a view to (i) improve the quality and delivery of health care services to the indigenous and tribal peoples through the development of traditional and alternative health care and to integrate it into the national health care delivery system, and (ii) to seek a legally workable basis by which indigenous and tribal societies would own their knowledge of traditional medicine and the government would provide resources to enable the indigenous peoples to design, deliver and control such services so that they may enjoy the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

(To be continued)