Tribes are more civilized than Non-tribes

The Dictionary of Sociology defines a tribe as a “social group, usually with a definite area, dialect, cultural homogeneity and unifying social organization”. The tribes have also been defined as a group of indigenous people having a common name, language, and territory tied by strong kinship bonds, practicing endogamy, having distinct customs, rituals, belief, etc. The tribes in India form an important part of our population.

There are perceptions in the people’s minds that they don’t want developments, better life, education, etc. I think these kinds of perceptions are wrong. If we look from the prism of unbiasedness, we will find that they definitely want developments but in a sustainable way. In this article, I will try to put all the stuff where they are leading in our society. I will try to examine their acts and living style which provide better flexibility in society.

Whenever we talk about tribal people, generally some sort of uncivilized images give their reflection in the mind of people. They feel that tribal are illiterate, eat differently, dress up differently, languages are complicated, and live in small huts. So they don’t belong to India and they have a very different world which is uncivilized. It might be possible that their living style and nomadism don’t suit you.

Now the valid question is who would decide the civilization. If some of the customs are alike to other places, it does not mean that they do not belong to India. For example, in the north, people don’t even take a glass of water at their daughter’s house in the context of tradition and culture. But in the South, it does not happen so. So it will not be healthy thought to say that they don’t belong to India. We all are India and they are also a part of it. We have to accept and discuss it thoroughly since they are not phantoms.

They are much more concerned about the environment and ecology than us. I have seen a couple of documentaries based on Tribal people. I got surprised for a while listening to their thoughts on our country and environment. One thing we should understand very clearly is that there is a need to balance development along with forests and productive farmland. It is a scientifically proven fact that our environment is degrading day by day. To save our environment combination of NGOs is working at their level best.

Apart from these things even governments from different countries has been organizing United Nations Climate Change Conference at International level. But lips stop when our tribes people says the same thing. They don’t say anything different. Their languages might be different but essence has always been same. As I think uplifting issues are more important than that of language. But no one tries to dwell into their thought which is a grave concern.

Apart from these things Tribes enrich our culture too. What we do that we launch couple of schemes for the public welfare. A huge amount of subsidies is being given by the governments. A good strength of leakages and corruptions also take place. But in tribe community welfare has been inherited from the generation to generation. To understand this point better let’s take an example.

In Modi government basic focus is financial inclusion. For social security program a huge amount to assets are being used in order to save human values at old age. For these, couple of insurance services are used. But in tribe people it is already available. They have a joint family and it is the duty of the family to take care in unforeseen circumstances. They are not alone if someone husband passes always unfortunately then others take care. If we talk about the Jarwa tribes at Andman Nicobar, there are system of distributing the hunted meat among all the families irrespective of who haunts.

Everybody accuse only government for any challenges because it has filled in the mind of people that it is only responsibilities of the government to care since they vote. But this is not true. We deliver speeches on women empowerment in rhetoric way. Governments allocate fund to achieve the goal of women empowerment. A couple of schemes are being launched. But in tribal community women are already empowered with great strength. At least they are much more empowered than non-tribal community.

There are important things to note that they are adamant with it. They don’t get influenced of western despotic development. Both man and woman cooked their food together, serves foods to their children and walk out together for their work without any sorts of hesitation. Society of non-tribal people are deprived of such mutual understanding and empowerment. So we should learn from those people about these things.

In the society of non-tribal people if young couple fall in love and want to get married then they have to struggle with the society and so called ‘captain of culture’. If we look just near the Delhi, capital of our country, in Haryana society treat couple in a very strange and unusual way. There are a kind of conservative panchayat which is not legal at all called as ‘Khap Panchayat’. They announce decrees for the couple not to enter the village. If they entered to the village by violating their so called decrees, then they would have to pay high cost of it.

That Panchayat impose Send to Coventry to boycott the family from the social stream. Sometimes people assassinated them brutally. A combination of examples is available to proof this fact. But in tribe community a girl chooses their life partner at their own. Their girls have liberty to enjoy equality which has been discussed in our constitution. We make law for the people of the country to get liberty and ensure liberty of girls but when our daughters want to marry with their own partner then viscous circle of culture start revolving around the head.

Even our governments accept that their culture should be maintained, conserve and stored their values in the capacitor of our country. To do it, in 1996 government brought Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act which is a law enacted by the Government of India to cover the Scheduled areas, which are not covered in the Panchayati Raj Act of the Indian Constitution. It was enacted to enable Gram Sabhas to self-govern their natural resources.

In the row of such Gram Sabha there is a Padha System in the region of Jharkhand.  Since the Panchayti raj is defunct in tribal areas the development of work suffers because people at the grass root level don’t have good contacts with leaders. A couple of day back a documentary is being showed on Rajya Sabha Television upon that issue. What I noted that there is good mutual relation between men and women. Even women take part into that along with it so that they can raise their challenges in society.

That is really an impressive thing which attract me a lot. Non-tribal are still deprived of it. I didn’t see women participation as a villager in Panchayti Raj so far. Some of the states have given prerogatives to women to fight the election but not all. In fact, only those women take part who is winner and the rest of the villagers who take part into meeting are not women in even that state also. Apart from it they have a great deal of social rest in their society. In our society if you committed a mistake in arranging bricks to form wall as per measurement then your neighbor would assassinate you just because of inch.

But Tribal people cite that all forest are their own they will live where they want. It shows a very good example of unity in the society which creates social harmony. So, Tribal people are more politically, socially, ethically empowered. They are more civilized than non-tribals because they are very conscious of our earth, environment, unity and culture. It has been said in history that if you want to vanish a country, just ruined their culture country will be automatically devastated. So we should save them and listen their words carefully.