President Droupadi Murmu and golden days for Tribals
Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao
The Pioneer (28-07-2022)
(With Murmu occupying the top
constitutional office, all efforts should be made for socio-economic
empowerment of Tribals-Editor)
In her maiden address to the
nation, soon after her swearing in, the 15th President of India Droupadi
Murmu, said that, it is the power of Indian democracy that a daughter born in a
remote Tribal area could reach the highest constitutional post of the country. Yes,
it is true that Droupadi Murmu is the first member of a tribal community to
hold the nation’s highest office. Her Excellency richly deserves congratulations
from every Indian in general and every Tribal in particular, with an
affectionate hope that she will do her best to elevate many more tribals on par
with Her, so that they would reach not only such highest positions but also excel
at the grassroot, district, state and central level, In all elected bodies.
Unfortunately, it took 75 long
years thanks to Congress and BJP led governments at the center to think of a
tribal to make the first citizen of India. Nobody knows how many more years it
would take to elect a tribal as Prime Minister, said to be the real executive
according to Indian Constitution! Nobody also knows when tribals in large
numbers will be able to get elected to legislatures and parliament from a
general constituency.
The untold stories and Tribal
issues in India are umpteen right from their day-to-day livelihood to their
habitation, their land, their health and medicine, facility for their drinking
water, their education and so on. These were not properly addressed by the
successive union governments. Few states like the newest and 29th
state Telangana came out with several, role model schemes but at the national
level much more has to be done. Prominent among them is the land issue which
requires a concerted effort and now that a Tribal has occupied the highest
post, one can hope and be confident, that she will use all her good offices to
exert influence on her government at the center for a better deal to her
community which suffered a lot in the blame game of Congress and BJP parties
that were in power most of the time.
Telangana state government gives top priority for the welfare of
Tribals by implementing number of schemes conceived by Chief Minister K
Chandrashekhar Rao for them, from time to time. They include among others;
Micro Irrigation, residential schools and colleges, study
circles, overseas scholarships, Kalyan Lakshmi, subsidies under Economic
support, Aasara pensions, ST special development fund through ST Sub Plan,
making Thandas as Gram Panchayats etc. Perhaps these could be studied by the
Rashtrapathi Bhavan in the near future and forwarded to union government to be
replicated all over the country.
This apart, ensuring accelerated development of Scheduled Tribes with emphasis
on achieving equality, focusing
on economic, educational and human development along with ensuring
the security and social dignity
and promoting equity
among
the Scheduled Tribes has been successfully attempted by Telangana government.
This is made possible by earmarking
a portion, in proportion to
population of Scheduled Tribes in
the State, of the total Pragathi Paddu (Development
Fund) outlay of the State of Telangana as the outlay
of the Scheduled Tribes Special Development Fund of the State. If any amount of Special Development Fund remains
unspent, it will be compensated in the next financial year in the same
proportion on the reach of actual expenditure to total budget estimate of Pragathi
Paddu at the end of a financial year in the manner prescribed. This
can also be implemented at the national level.
Of
all the issues the tribal in India continue to face is the land in the tribal
area and its alienation to non-tribal in multiple ways either for exploitation
for mining or otherwise. Several governments have come and gone, important
judgments by apex courts were pronounced in this regard but the basic problem
persists.
One of the assets of the tribal is the
availability of minerals in their areas. Very large number of mineral deposits
exist in the tribal tracts in India, of which much is known but remain under
exploited or unexploited and thereby left un-utilized. If these areas are
properly investigated and exploited, there will be tremendous development of
mining and mineral based industries resulting in industrial employment for the
tribal. However, most of tribal habitats are
in forest areas and hence there may be some disturbance to terrestrial
configuration. But there can be no mineral development without this
disturbance. It is
also a fact that, in tribal belts which are
in forest and scheduled areas, mineral resources development is more
complicated than development in other areas.
And hence, vast mineral potential in tribal areas
can be commercially exploited, perhaps involving tribal community, and number
of downstream mineral industries can also be developed for value addition and
exports. When this is achieved it would not be difficult to create any
permanent arrangement to create a “Royalty Developmental Dividend Fund” for
tribal development and much needed tribal empowerment
Tribal can also be uplifted by suitably granting
certain percentage of shares in mining business. This will naturally make them
aware of the importance of mineral in their land holds and steadily make them
know the intricacies in the business and trade and thus encourage and promote
them to join the stream of business management. Ultimately this will enhance
their standard of living. All these will cater to
their needs, and will cause a general improvement in their living condition.
Mining of mineral deposits
will undoubtedly expedite, development of infrastructure facilities such as
roads, bridges, transport development, electrification, communication,
irrigation, hospitals, schools, educational facilities welfare amenities and
several other social and economic conditions such as employment generation,
population control, literacy, education, health, water and provision of food
security. Care should however be taken to see, that, all the mining industry in
tribal areas should absorb majority of tribal population, as workers so that
tribal and tribal alone could get employment depending on the suitability.
The tribal can be made to
form small cooperative societies so that they can be involved in several fields
such as small business concerns and cooperative stores and for trading.
Displaced tribal from these areas have to be suitably rehabilitated and can be
considered for allotting to them selected areas with suitable private technical
guidance in developing coffee plantation, farming, sheep rearing, social
forestry etc. In the process if the tribal becomes financially strong then he
or she will be able to compete with others socially, politically and
economically.
While this is so, at one point of time, following
a historical Supreme Court Judgment dated July 11, 1997 (25 years ago) in a
Public Interest Litigation, the then President of India KR Narayanan announced,
that, a “Committee of Governors” would be formed to look into the serious
inadequacies in the implementation of programs for the welfare of Scheduled
Tribes. The Supreme Court judgment also came out with several recommendations
and what was the follow-up from the successive central governments subsequently
is not known. Whether the committee was formed or not is also not in the public
domain.
As observed by one academician, if
one wants to get results in tribal areas there is no alternative other than
creating a decentralized administration with integrated multi-functional
approach, where executives from different departments are accountable to the
tribal development administrator. Let us hope that the new President of India Droupadi
Murmu will ensure golden days for Tribals. END
