ST tag for 6 tribes: Tarun Gogoi supports Ulfa demand Prabin Kalita, TNN | Jul 6, 2013, 12.35 AM IST, times of india

GUWAHATI: Chief minister Tarun Gogoi is supportive of the Union ministry of home affairs (MHA)'s decision to concede pro-talks Ulfa's primary demand that tribal status be granted to six communities in Assam, making it a predominantly tribal state.

Dropping its three-decade-old demand for sovereignty, Ulfa replaced it with a demand for constitutional safeguards for the indigenous people by granting tribal status to the tea tribe and the Koch-Rajbongshi, Moran, Motok, Tai Ahom and Chutia communities. The Registrar General of India has rejected the state government's proposal that tribal status be granted to the communities as many as eight times in the past.

These six communities account for almost 60 per cent of the state's population. There are 14 tribal groups in Assam - outside the two autonomous districts of Karbi Anglong and Dima Haso - in the scheduled tribe (ST) list, constituting 12.8 per cent of the population.

Gogoi said here on Friday, "One of Ulfa's major demands is the ST tag for the six indigenous communities. I also demand the same. After the move, the tribal population of the state will be in majority." The MHA is seeking clearance from the tribal welfare ministry and the chief minister said he's certain the ministry will give its nod.

Gogoi is a member of the Tai Ahom community, which has roots in Thailand. The Tai Ahoms emerged as the most politically dominant community in the state after 600 years of Ahom rule.

The Ulfa hierarchy, too, has tribal community members in leadership positions. The pro-talks faction's chairman, Arabinda Rajkhowa, is an Ahom, while the elusive Ulfa hawks leader, Paresh Baruah, is from the smaller Motok community.

The state's tribal apex body, the All Assam Tribal Sangha, was earlier opposed to inclusion of the six communities in the ST list but is now maintaining a neutral stand. "We would like to be silent. If any group gets the tribal status lawfully, we have no objection," Sangha general secretary Aditya Khaklary said.

The development will have wide political ramifications because in a tribal majority state, the number of assembly and Lok Sabha seats reserved for tribals will see a jump, thereby reducing the scope for suspected illegal migrants from Bangladesh to occupy the political space. "One good thing about this is that it will wipe out all apprehensions that Assam will soon have a Bangladeshi chief minister," Khaklary said.

Why Steven Pinker, Like Jared Diamond, Is Wrong

Why Steven Pinker, Like Jared Diamond, Is Wrong

Tribe in RAPE ..................

By Palash R. Ghosh | March 19 2013 6:19 AM
According to reports in Indian media, some of the men arrested in the gang-rape and robbery of a Swiss tourist over the weekend in the central state of Madhya Pradesh were members of the Kanjar tribe, a nomadic ethnic group found across northern and central India, as well as in Pakistan.
The Kanjar also were characterized as a “criminal tribe” in that they have traditionally generated their income and livelihood from illegal means, including  kidnapping, theft and prostitution.
In his book “Criminology and Penology,” Indian author Rajendra Kumar Sharma described the Kanjar as one of the most “notable” criminal tribes in the country.
Sharma noted that the Kanjar started out as entertainers, often performing song and dance for feudal lords and royalty. When they were replaced by more talented professionals, the Kanjar were forced to find new methods of income – namely they resorted to crime.
“They were hunters and dancers and also outlaws,” he wrote. “There are many folktales about the ancestors of Kanjars and all of them emphasize their dancing skill.”
The stigmatization and criminalization of the Kanjara is even coded into legislation.
In 1871, the British government in India officially listed the Kanjara under the Criminal Tribes Act as a tribe “addicted to non-bailable offenses.” In 1952, the post-independence government of India placed Kanjar under the Habitual Offenders Act.
The Joshua Project, a Christian ethnological association, estimates that the Kanjar population in India totals some 200,000, with about one-fifth of that figure in the state of Rajasthan.
Kanjar have developed such a bad reputation that in parts of northern India and Pakistan, the very term "Kanjar" means pimp or someone of low class (even if they are not members of the tribe).
Robert Vane Russell, a British ethnographer who wrote about Indian tribes and caste structures early in the 20th century, said "Kanjar" was a rather loose classification of various nomadic groups in central India, whom he described as being like "gypsies."
“They are a vagrant people, living in tents and addicted to crime,” Russell wrote.
“The women are good-looking; some are noted for their obscene songs, filthy alike in word and gesture; while others, whose husbands play on the sarangi [musical instrument], lead a life of immorality.”
Russell further stated that the Kanjars (and related peoples) drink alcohol and smoke tobacco, and frequently commit dacoity (i.e., acts of banditry and robbery).
“They eat all kinds of meat and drink liquors; they are lax of morals and loose of life,” he concluded.
India Today reported that tribes like the Kanjar (not all of whom are engaged in criminal activity) are severely stigmatized by mainstream Indians due to their bad reputation.
But it is true that many Kanjar girls are trafficked into prostitution by their own families, one of the few ways they can see for generating income.
Deutsche Welle of Germany reported on a group of Kanjar girls and young women working as prostitutes in Mumbai. An NGO called the Summitra Trust said that more than 1,200 women from the Kanjar (and a related tribe, the Nat) work in Mumbai’s Malwadi neighborhood sex industry alone.
Many of these women were born into the sex industry and are likely trapped there.
"If you see your mother who is a married woman doing household work from 4 a.m. to 11 p.m. and your aunt who is an unmarried sex worker, always dressed up and able to fulfill whatever you ask of her because she has money, then definitely a girl is going to take up to prostitution, not a married life," Surbhi Dayal, a researcher from Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, told DW.
"They [the parents] decide around 10 to 12 years of age if a girl is quite talkative and attractive then she pursues sex work, but if a girl is shy or she is not very good looking ... she will get married.”

Tribal is also human being

When police Inspector Narendra Shukla looked inside an AC train coach at Jabalpur Railway Station one day, he saw four frightened tribal girls huddling around a middle-aged woman.

Shukla became suspicious and came to know that the woman was a placement agency agent trafficking the girls under the pretext of providing them employment. The police handed the girls back to their parents.

Many such shocking stories and data find place in this new anthology of gender reportage, edited by Dolly Thakore.

Trafficking is common in all 29 districts of Madhya Pradesh, says Geetashree, a journalist from Mandla district, in her report "Journey in the Darkness of Agony".

She cites the National Human Rights Commission pointers "that most of the girls are trafficked from tribal areas and sold either in the sex market or in Punjab and Haryana, where the sex-ratio is very low".

Patna`s Nivedita Jha, a writer on women`s issues, quotes March 2009 figures to highlight the extent of neglect and gender discrimination among women labourers in Bihar.

She says six million women are engaged in construction work and 16 million in the unorganised sector.

"Figures reveal that the proportion of women as labourers is increasing. But they get fewer wages despite laws for same work-same pay. The cause for this is the belief that women are secondary to men," Jha says.

Labour organisations say greater participation of women in the workforce is due to migration from Bihar to other states, as well as increasing poverty. The writer justifies her claim with trends cited by government agencies.

The media has been engaging with gender issues in India for the last three decades when increasing reports about female foeticide began to come out from the heartland states.

But more media and advertising professionals "have now started filtering works by using a gender sensitive lens", says the anthology.

It puts together more than 80 reports to present a holistic picture of the gender injustice in the country and the new ways manifest in society.

The facts are shocking.

A.L. Sharda, director of Population First, which partnered to bring the compendium out, says the 2001 census came as a shock to many working on the issue of pre-natal sex determination.

"While some decline was anticipated, we did not expect the fall in sex ratio to be as sharp from 947 in 1991 to 927 in 2001," Sharda says in the book.

It was acknowledged that the sex selection was the "culmination of many forms of violence, deprivation and undervaluing of a girl in spite of the innumerable laws and policies enacted to protect her rights".

The stories deal with gender abuse that is apparent and masked - from agonising realities women are subjected to every day to the macabre. The seamy belly of gender atrocities in India finds its way into the mainstream in descriptions of `The Cervical Cancer Bazaar` about young women being given anti-cancer shots by an international NGO to meet inoculation targets.

A study by WaterAid about tribal women from Saharia in Sheopur in Madhya Pradesh says women were locked up in cowsheds during menstrual periods. They used "any material from rag to straw, ash mud and paper as a sanitary guard", thus dying of "rust and pest poisoning" transmitted through such material.

Villages in South 24-Parganas in West Bengal, ravaged by cyclone Aila, have written new "rules" for women: No defecation during daytime. A woman can attend nature`s call only after sundown.

The accounts have been edited for the maximum gut-wrenching impact, forcing readers to introspect about the real situation on the Ground Zero of the battle for equal rights for sexes.

IANS/By Madhushree Chatterjee

AIRO seaches life to dignity among tribes ..........

India's 'human safaris' banned, as fight for tribal rights goes on

India finally halted the practice of allowing tourists to ogle the native tribes of a secluded Island in the Andaman Islands. But with a growing tourism industry there, the battle might not be over. 

By Shaikh Azizur Rahman, Correspondent / March 2, 2013

Each year, thousands of tourists pay tour operators on the archipelago to catch a glimpse of the native semi-naked and naked Jarawa tribesmen and women - the main attraction for most tourists, despite several laws (beginning in 1956) banning tourists from coming too close to the protected tribe.
Then, last year, a tourist video of tourists ordering semi-naked women to dance went viral on the Internet, spurring national and international condemnation – and a new interim law, which was actually enforced on the island, starting last month.
It appeared to be a win for both activists and the tribe. But with a growing tourism industry the mainstay of the archipelago, the battle might not be over. India’s Supreme Court asked the island’s authorities to decide this month whether the small tribe, which is believed to be descendants of the first people to move from Africa to Asia, should be forcibly assimilated in the mainstream society or remain in isolation.
Activists argue that forced assimilation is an infringement of the tribe’s rights, and is unnecessary.
The decision whether the Jarawa will join mainstream society should not rest with the Islands' authorities, says Sophie Grig, of the UK-based indigenous rights advocacy group Survival International.
“It must be up to the Jarawa to decide how they want to live their lives – it is not a question of isolation or mainstreaming, but of the Jarawa making their own choices about their lives and their future,” says Ms. Grig.

RECOMMENDED: How well do you know India? Take the quiz.

For centuries, the Andaman Islands were hardly visited by anyone other than the prisoners sent to serve their time there, and the guards who ran the prison. It has only been since the 1990s that mainland Indian tourists started flooding the Islands, which are now home to some 380,000 people.
In the 1970s the government of the Andamans began the construction of a 230 mile-long road to connect Port Blair, the largest town, and capital of the territory, with Middle Andaman and North Andaman Islands to supply essential provisions and medical facilities to the settlers in far-flung areas. Activists warned then that the road, which cut through thick forests inhabited by the Jarawa, could have devastating consequences for the isolated tribe, not accustomed to outsiders and susceptible to disease.
When the Andaman Trunk Road was finally opened in 1998, the tribe’s men shot arrows at the passing vehicles and even killed some settlers, showing anger at the intrusion.
However, as the hostility to outsiders, especially among younger Jarawas, has begun to wane in recent years with more exposure to visitors via the road, tour operators also grew bolder about offering more interactions to clients, putting the tribe at risk. Various rules were placed on the frequency and number of vehicles permitted on the road at a time. Still, in 2002, after pressure from activist groups such as Survival International, India’s Supreme Court ordered the road be closed to tourists.
But Andaman authorities did not enforce the court order to close the road, as it saw the road as a lifeline for settlers.
"I think the real reason they haven't done it [before],” says Grig, is because “it's not popular with the settlers on the Andamans, and the tribes are a small population with no power or influence. The administration claims that the road is a lifeline but it's only a lifeline because they haven't put an alternative route in place."
Last month, amid fallout from the viral video of the tribeswomen dancing, Survival International wrote to the Supreme Court urging "immediate action" to have Andaman authorities enforce the past orders. Two weeks later, the court ruled that the "disgraceful" Jarawa tourism must be halted immediately. This time, the Andaman authorities closed the road to all tourist vehicles last month.
 “We are happy that now the ‘human safari’ has been banned. But tour operators and many others are seeking the ban be overturned. We hope the Supreme Court will convert the interim order to permanent one soon,” says Jarawa rights activist Denis Giles. 

'Beastly condition'

For years Indian settlers in Andaman have been demanding the protected Jarawa tribe be mainstreamed with society, arguing that it is meaningless to keep an area so big reserved only for an estimated 300 to 400 members of the Jarawa.
Last year, India Tribal Affairs Minister V. Kishor Chandra Deo announced that the Jarawa were living in “beastly condition” and that it was unfair to leave them isolated that way, though recommended mainstreaming them gradually for their own good.
An Indian Parliamentary standing committee noted in a report last year that it, too, favored mainstreaming the tribe in an effort to economically develop the islands. Though it gave no estimate on what that would look like.
"We recommend the [tribal affairs] ministry to review the policy of Jarawa tribes, which should aim at facilitating a slow and smooth process of transition, i.e. bringing Jarawas into the mainstream with minimum damage to themselves and their cultural heritage," the committee said in its report to the Parliament.
"Like everyone else, the Jarawas have right to development," says Bishnu Pada Ray, a BJP member of Parliament.  "If we push them further into isolation, we take them away from the light of development, and it's sheer injustice to them."
Mr. Ray says he's convinced that mainstreaming the Jarawas would empower the community. "Jarawa children should be taught modern life-skills and they should be provided all amenities of modern life as we enjoy them. Their children should be placed in modern schools. They should be helped to get good jobs in modern society. They should take part in the development process of the nation.... Jarawa children also have the right to become engineers, doctors, or other modern professionals.... I don't believe that any well-wisher of the community would ever want to keep them in isolation."
The Indian settlers – most of whom arrived to farm, fish, and do tourism-related business after the Andamans hit the tourist map – are eying the forest resources and the valuable land that is home to the Jarawa, says Mr. Giles.
“In their vested interest they resent the protected status of the tribe or the existence of the Jarawa reserve,” he says.
Most activists who have worked closely with the Jarawa agree that the tribe’s people lead a life that is happy in their own terms and that they prefer not to come out of the forest.
“Some years ago the [Andaman] authorities brought En-Mei, a Jarawa boy, to the city for medical treatment after he received an injury in the forest. After the treatment he went back to forest.
“Like most of his people, he very clearly said that he preferred to live deep inside the jungle – away from ‘outsiders,’ ” says Giles, who interviewed En-Mei.

Successful independence

“When tribal people around the world have been forced into the mainstream, rates of disease, depression, addiction, and suicides soar. Mainstreaming strips tribal people of their self-sufficiency unity and pride and leaves them struggling at the very edges of society,” says Grig.
“It also causes tribal peoples enormous trauma. They find themselves in an alien environment, stripped of everything that gave their life meaning.”
Where tribal people’s land and resources are protected, they have a better chance at surviving and can adopt aspects of outside life, on their own terms, says Grig, pointing to the successful example of the Enawene Nawe tribe of Brazil, who have been permitted to handle their own “development” and maintain their own independence. “There is no reason why schooling and medical treatment has to be done by outsiders and outside tribal peoples lands,” she says. “It can be something they can be supported to do themselves, on their own land, in their own way – if it's something that they decide they want."
Forced mainstreaming, on the other hand, could turn out like the Aborigines in Australia, she says.
“Attempts to mainstream the Aborigines have brought displacement, impoverishment, and the destruction of their communities,” says Grig.  “Despite living in one of the richest countries in the world, compared to other Australians, Aborigines are six times more limey to die as an infant, eight times more likely to die from lung or heart disease, 22 times more likely to die from diabetes. Their life expectancy at birth is 17-20 years less than other Australians,” she says.

Reproductive Rights of Tribes

Indian tribal women demand their reproductive rights

Anumeha Yadav

20 September 2012

 

Primitive Tribal Groups (PTGs) living in Chattisgarh, India, struggle to provide for their families and are forced to lie about their identity to overcome the sterilisation restriction owing to a three decade old order of the Madhya Pradesh government that restricted PTGs from being targeted during the sterilisation drives of the time.

Sarguja: A three decade-old Madhya Pradesh government order has several adivasi families in Chattisgarh in a quandary. They struggle to provide for themselves but are turned away by government officials if they try to restrict their family size.

"I do not want more children but the 'mitanin' (village health worker) says she cannot take me or anyone from my community to the clinic for an operation," says Phool Sundari Pahari Korva from Jhamjhor village, located in the forests of Sarguja district in north Chhattisgarh. She has five children – her oldest is 18 and the youngest, a daughter, is six months. All of Sundari's four younger children have frail limbs and bellies swollen by malnutrition; the skin on her younger son’s chest has peeled off due to an infection.

Sabutri Bai Korva says the nurse who helped her get sterilisation done was going to be suspended/ Photo credit: Anumeha Yadav/WFS

The reason that Phool Sundari, a Pahari Korva adivasi, was denied sterilisation at a local government clinic: A 1970s order of the Madhya Pradesh (MP) government that restricted Pahari, or Hill, Korvas and four other Primitive Tribal Groups (PTGs) living in Chattisgarh from being targeted during the sterilisation drives of the time.

The original intent was to protect the PTGs, a term recently amended to Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups, from 'extinction'. The PTGs were adivasi groups dependent on pre-agricultural technologies that had stagnant or declining populations. But 30 years on, the Chhattisgarh government has continued to enforce this anachronistic order adding to the economic burden of these families.

Sabutri Bai, Sundari's neighbour, recounts that she got sterilisation done after giving birth to her sixth child three years back but was surprised at what followed. "When the staff at the Lakhanpur clinic found out I am a Pahari Korva, they were going to dismiss the nurse who allowed me to get operated," she says. "It makes no sense. We have 1.5 acres land. How do they expect us to provide for more and more children?" asks her husband, Phool Chand Ram, who used to work under the rural employment guarantee act, MNREGA, two years back but gave it up when he got wages only a year later. Their eight-member family survives by selling firewood, earning Rs 100 (US$1=Rs 55) for every two-day trip they make into the depleting forest.

Over 50 kilometres away, in the villages of Batauli block, the situation is similar. Pahari Korvas struggle to provide for their families and are forced to lie about their identity to overcome the sterilisation restriction. "I stopped producing nursing milk after I gave birth to my fourth child. I could only give my babies rice-water. When I wanted to get the operation done, the malaria link worker (a government health worker) said I should give my caste as Majhwar or else the Shantipada hospital would not do it," says Mangli Bai Korva of Govindpur village.

The original order, passed on December 13, 1979, identifies PTGs, including Pahari Korvas, Baigas, Abujhmaria, Birhor and Kamar tribes, in 26 blocks in MP to be excluded from sterilisation but allows them access to contraceptives. "You have been given district-wise targets for sterilisation. An exception should be made for tribal communities whose population is stagnant or decreasing... they should have access to other contraceptives if they require. ...Everyone except these communities will be encouraged to get sterilised…," reads the two-page order.

Adivasi families in Sarguja, however, say they have never heard of temporary or permanent contraceptive methods such as birth control pills, condoms, or the copper-T, an intrauterine device. Further, while the order permits PTG families to go in for sterilisations after procuring a certificate from the Block Development Officer, neither health workers nor tribals are aware of this provision and most have no direct access to block officials.

A discussion among Pahari Korvas in Batauli, on whether or not the government should allow the operation, generated diverse reactions. While the youngsters burst into giggles, Shri Ram Korva, who has six children, wonders loudly with faultless logic, "If the thought is to preserve our population, then that is good. But if we are forced to say we are Majhwar or Oraon at the clinic, won't we stop being Korvas anyway?" Jhoolmati Korva, a village elder, has the final word, "If the couple wants it, they should be able to get the operation even after giving their correct name."

Sarguja has over 4,500 Pahari Korva families. Since 1996, they have been the focus of several development schemes, which promote agriculture, animal husbandry and horticulture, executed through the Pahari Korva Development Agency. But despite good intentions and adequate resources – last year, the agency had a budget of Rs 3.72 crore – district officials admit not much has changed. "Schemes do not get implemented properly because there is little coordination among various departments. We are now trying to involve the Pahari Korva Mahapanchayat in planning the use of funds," says R. Prasanna, the District Collector. "Maybe if the Mahapanchayat made a collective appeal, the government will reconsider the sterilisation order," he adds.

In the three decades since the order has been in force, the PTG population has increased but their access to health and nutrition has stayed as uncertain as ever and it is this fact that is central to the debate over the restriction. National Family Health Survey-3 data shows that compared to the national average of 46 per cent of underweight children, 70 per cent children born in PTG families are underweight. Malaria and diarrhoea epidemics are frequent every monsoon. In the instance of Pahari Korvas, the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) is 166 deaths per 1000 live births, more than double the national average, says a 2007 study by researcher Sandeep Sharma. The study also records the crude death rate as well as birth rate among these adivasis – more children are born, but many more die.

So, is the government hiding dismal malnutrition and high mortality numbers with a sterilisation ban? "Independent surveys show the government undercounts the level of malnutrition. For three years between 2007 and 2010 the state reported zero deaths from malaria and diarrhoea to the central Ministry for Health and Family Welfare," says Sulakshana Nandi, a public health activist based in Raipur. "Block and district clinics in Raipur and Mahasamund were out of stock of contraceptives when we visited this January. PTGs are in a bind because they neither get adequate nutrition nor access to contraceptives," she adds.

The ban has been a matter of public debate in the state since an investigation by journalists in Kawardha district last year traced how dalals (middlemen) from MP were luring Baiga tribals across the border for sterilisation for Rs 1,000, ironically as part of MP government's continued sterilisation drives. Since then PTG communities such as Kamars in Gariaband district and the Baigas in Kawardha have organised public meetings demanding that the government remove the ban and focus instead on improving access to public services. "Baigas want to restrict their family size for their well-being, not because of Rs 200-300 that we could earn as incentive for sterilisation in clinics in MP," asserted Bhaigla Singh Baiga, a community leader while addressing the Baiga Mahapanchayat meeting in Taregaon in May 2012.

Government officials have taken notice of these demands. "I agree that the demographic situation has changed and that informed choice should be available to everyone. It is, however, incorrect to blame high mortality on the failure of state services; 'anganwadis' can provide only supplementary nutrition, substantive nutrition has to come from the household," says Kamalpreet Singh Dhillon, Director-Health Services in Raipur.

But nutritious food continues to be elusive for the Pahari Korvas living deep inside the Mainpat and Khirkhiri hills. Today, they wait for both their right to food and their freedom to decide family size. 

SOURCE: Women's Feature Service

Naxals face stiff tribal resistance

Naxals, who could establish a foothold in 58 districts, have been facing stiff resistance from two tribes in the country, one in Central India and the other in the eastern part, for the past three decades, resulting in many bloodbaths.
Marhias of Chhattisgarh and Bondas of Orissa have refused to give in to the Naxals despite coercions and threats from them. The Marhia tribe, particularly, has paid a heavy price for defying the Reds, who have killed nearly 650 members of the community and forced hundreds of Marhia families to desert their villages. “Bastar’s Marhia tribe has stood up to the threat of Maoists for the past three decades and have not given in to them till date,” additional director general of police (Naxal operation) of Chhattisgarh Ram Niwas told this newspaper on Friday.
Marhias, who constitute nearly one third of total around 30 lakh population of Bastar, are considered aggressive in nature and abhor any kind of dominance by others, particularly in their religious matters. “Naxals have made many unsuccessful attempts to penetrate the Marhia tribals, who are spread in the districts of Bijapur, Dantewada, Sukma and Narayanpur in Bastar region. But all such bids ended in bloody battles between them, leading to deaths of many Marhia tribals in the past three decades,” ethnologist Niranjan Mahabar, who is considered an authority on Bastar tribals, told this newspaper.
In fact, majority of members Salwa Judum, the anti-Naxal vigilante force, comprised Marhia tribals who were forced to flee their homes and live in refugee camps amidst hostility with Maoists since early 2000.
Mahendra Karma, who belongs to the tribe, had led judum movement in Bastar in 2005 to force the Naxals vacate village after village, till the campaign was put to halt in 2009.
Similarly, the Bondas of Malkangiri district of south Orissa, a primitive tribe having a total population of around 6,600, have foiled the attempts by Naxals to penetrate them in the last three decades.
“The Naxals had cultivated three Bonda youth, who have completed Class 8, in 1998, to create base among the tribe, who reside in two gram panchayats in Bonda hills in the district. But they gave up when the Bondas ostracised the youth for entertaining the Naxals,” former Malkangiri district collector Satish Gajbaye, who was in Raipur, said.( the Asian Age,Jul 21, 2012 - Rabindra Nath Choudhury | Age CorrespondentRaipur)