Opinion | Here's To Tribals And Their Endless Fight For Jal, Jungle, Zameen

There is a lot going on this week. Opposition parties united in their demand to ask the government to roll back 18% GST on life and health insurance - an issue affecting 45 crore of the middle class. Banner headlines from Bangladesh. Vinesh Phogat. The silver lining of Neeraj Chopra and Indian hockey. 

In all of this, some subjects do not get the column centimetres they deserve in newspapers, nor do they make for content for clickbaits.  

On 29 June this year, a young MP from the Bharat Adivasi Party, representing Banswara, led a unique march. His supporters carried blood samples in protest of a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) minister's remark suggesting a DNA test to prove he was Hindu. The young MP stood firm - they were Adivasis who didn't need a DNA test to define their identity. 

So today, on International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, your columnist is writing about an issue, often ignored - tribal rights in the last decade of the ruling dispensation. 

To begin, here's how the Ministry of Tribal Affairs fared in India Budget 2024: 

• The word 'Scheduled Tribe' appears only once in the Budget speech.
• Allocations for National Commission for Scheduled Tribes - a constitutional body, reduced from Rs 22 crores to Rs 20 crores. 
• PM Jan Jatiya Vikas Mission budget cut by 62%. 
• Allocations for the National Tribal Welfare Program went down by 10%. 
• Development of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) received only Rs 20 crore

Displacement And Dispossession

According to the Xaxa Committee on Tribal Communities, over 40% of those displaced by development projects are tribals. The Forest (Conservation) Amendment Act, 2023, was rushed through the Lok Sabha in just 38 minutes, with only four MPs participating. 

This Act weakens clearance requirements and gives blanket exemptions, impacting forests, wildlife, and indigenous communities. Procedurally, the Bill should have been sent to the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change for scrutiny. Instead, it was sent to a Joint Parliamentary Committee which was packed with BJP MPs. The committee approved all amendments despite six MPs submitting dissent notes.

Between June 2022 and July 2024, over 1,000 projects received forest clearances, while only six projects were denied clearance between 2018 and 2022. Interestingly, at least four companies that topped the list of electoral bond donors are notorious for violating forest and tribal rights. 

Questions in Parliament have revealed that the Great Nicobar Project worth Rs 72,000 crores will lead to a felling of 10 lakh trees and alter the face of the Ecologically Sensitive Area. 

Consider this:

• The Tribal Council of Nicobar Island withdrew its No-Objection Certificate for the project.
• The Government hasn't consulted the original inhabitants-the Shompens (a PVTG tribe) and the Nicobarese.
• The Anthropological Survey of India wasn't consulted either.

Misgovernance 

Speaking in Lok Sabha, the Finance Minister claimed that the BJP government secured the rights of people from the Scheduled Tribes (ST) in India. But the situation on the ground tells a different story. Eklavya Model Residential Schools have more than 10,000 vacancies across the country. Announced two years ago, the Venture Capital Fund for Scheduled Tribes (VCF-ST) is still not operational. 

Socio-economic indicators for the ST population in India are also worrying. Six out of 10 ST women and seven out of 10 ST children are anaemic. Four out of 10 children over six years of age have had no schooling. Five out of 10 of the ST population belong to the lowest wealth quintile. Crimes against STs increased by 14%, with Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra recording the highest number of assault cases on ST women and children.

Homogenisation 

In 2022, the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes put out a book called Contributions of Tribal Leaders in the Freedom Struggle. The book which faced sharp criticism for downplaying Adivasi resistance to caste structures, is a replica of an e-book by the Akhil Bharatiya Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (ABVKA, an RSS affiliate focused on organising religious events in tribal areas). At the time, the NCST was led by a former member of the ABVKA. In fact, both BJP and RSS commonly refer to the ST population as "Vanvasi" (forest dweller) rather than "Adivasi" (original inhabitants), which reflects their long-standing stance. The ABVKA runs 21,000 projects in more than 16,000 tribal areas, most of which are religious in nature.

The 2024 Lok Sabha elections threw up these numbers. In 47 ST reserved constituencies, the BJP's seat count fell from 32 in 2019 to 24, while the opposition's rose from six in 2019 to 19 in 2024. 

As the world observes International Day of the World's Indigenous Peoples, Adivasi communities in Hasdeo, Singrauli, Talabira, Gare Pelma, Chhindwara, and elsewhere are resisting the takeover of their jal, jangal, and zameen. 

We stand by them as they fight the good fight. 

(Research credit: Anagha)

(Derek O'Brien, MP, leads the Trinamool Congress in the Rajya Sabha)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author