Paper Contents
Abstract
Abstract:The indigenous natives or tribes in India are designated as Scheduled Tribes in the constitution of India. They are the most backward and marginalized community even after passing more than seventy years of independence. There are over 700 tribes with overlapping communities in more than one State in India among which 75 of this community have been identified as particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTGs) based on the parameters as the determinants of the community based socio-economic development by the Government of India. The present study was conducted to excavate the status of the tribal development with special reference to West Bengal by the application of the tribal community development index (TCDI) through simple average (SA) approach incorporating socio-economic and demographic parameters such as literacy, health status, working force participation, sex ratio and income. From the study, it was explored that the tribal people in West Bengal were unequally concentrated among the districts of West Bengal. Dakshin Dinajpur (7.02), Darjeeling (6.48) and Jalpaiguri (2.88) districts were identified as high tribal concentration area while Howrah (0.03), Kolkata (0.05) and South 24 Pargana (0.11) districts were fall in the low tribal concentration area. TCDI was also highly variable from district to district. The highest and lowest value of TCDI excluding income was found in Kolkata (81.18) and Cooch Behar (33.52) respectively. On the other hand, TCDI including income was highest at the Howrah (50.42) and lowest at the Uttar Dinajpur (37.82). The overall scenario was depicting that the tribal community of the study area was far beyond the total development of the state and the most deprived community. The realistic local priority-based policies are required to elevate the socio-economic status of the tribal people of the state.Introduction: The need for equal and rational community development is one of the strongest sought of humanists throughout the globe which motivates the researchers in the fields of social sciences to seek fruitful strategies for balanced social development. The origin of the term Tribe was traced back to the ancient Greek city-state and it was defined as a group of persons forming a community and claiming descent from a common ancestor (Oxford English Dictionary, 2019, p. 339). The tribal people are sharing 6.2% of the total population of the world and having about 4000 unique indigenous languages. They are lived in every region of the world but most of them are confined in the Asia and the Pacific region (70%) followed by Africa (16.3%), Latin America and the Caribbean (11.5%), Northern America (1.6%) and Europe and Central Asia (0.1%) respectively (Cultural Survival,2067 Massachusetts Avenue, 1972) (https:www.culturalsurvival.orgissues). The social discrimination and injustice are the worldwide problems and about 260 million people are being humiliated by such problems based on work and descent. One of the significant goals of sustainable development is to eliminate social discrimination and to create equal opportunities for all to promote balanced development in societies all over the world (Mosse, 2018). The causes behind the miseries of the tribal population of the world are the expansion of colonial power, inability of the tribes to adopt economic transitional situation and rapid advancement in the technology, deprivation, and negligence by the privileged society, the cultural orthodoxy of tribal people and lacuna in the developmental policies of the concerned government. They are propelled from their native places to the places of socio-economic inconvenience due to encroachment of the people of the advanced societies (Cardoso, 2001). In the Indian Subcontinent, the tribal population is collectively termed as Adivasi means the indigenous native of the land. For the safeguard and socio-economic development of the tribal population of the nation these ethnic groups are scheduled as Scheduled Tribes in the constitution of India, Article 366 (25). The sharing of the Scheduled Tribes was only 8.65% to the total population of India (Primary Census Abstract, Data highlight Census of India, 2001) (https:idsn.orgwp contentuploadsuser_folderpdfNew_filesIndia2013INDIA_CENSUS_ABSTRACT-2011 Data_on_SC-STs.pdf) and about 45.9 % of the members in the tribal communities had the lowest wealth possession in India (National Family Health Survey NFHS 2015-16) (https:archive.indiaspend.comcover-storyscheduled-tribes-are-indias-poorest-people-18413). On the basis of tribal population concentration total seven regions were identified in the whole country i.e., north zone, north-east zone, central zone, southern zone, eastern zone, western zone and island region. The Dhebar Commission (1960-1961) had reported that discrimination and inequality against tribal people was the common scenario in India in the development perspective. Despite the indigenous native of the land, they are far beyond the light of the advanced and privileged societies of India. In the different five-year plans of India, 75 communities out of 427 tribal communities were identified as particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTGs) based on the parameters as the determinants of the community based socio-economic development. The PVTGs were characterized by an extremely low level of literacy and engaged in economic activities like hunting and gathering. There were nine structural features could be used to designate the economy of the tribal communities in India included forest-based economy, domestic mode of the productions, use of very simple indigenous technologies, absence of the profit motivating economic transactions, community as a unit of economic cooperation, the gift in the ceremonies, periodical nature of the markets and interdependence in the society (Vidyarthi, 1976). They were inhabited in the diversified geo-ecological conditions along with their distinctive socio-cultural heritages and economic backgrounds throughout the country. The encroachment of the people of the privileged societies in the territories of the tribes had created disturbances and hampered the indigenous nature of the tribal societies (Basu, 2000). Since the initiation of the caste system in the Indian society the tribal people have been excluded from the mainstream of the society and being deprived of the socio-economic opportunities for maintaining the quality of life to the standard of life (Ministry of Labour Employment, New Delhi, 2017) (https:labour.gov.insitesdefaultfilesCh-1%281%29.pdf and Mog and Debbarma 2018). The study area, West Bengal is under the Eastern Tribal zone of the country and sharing 5.65 % of the tribal population to total tribal population of the nation and 5.80% of the total states population (Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, 2011) (https:censusindia.gov.in2011censusSC-STpca_state_distt_st.xls). The rate of literacy of the tribal in the state of West Bengal was very low (43.4%) and even it is significantly lesser than the national tribal literacy rate (Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, 2011) (https:censusindia.gov.in2011censusSC-STpca_state_distt_st.xls). The cycle of the poverty is evident from the rate of poverty (43.00%) in last two decades (Ministry of Tribal Affairs, 2016-17) (https:tribal.nic.inwritereaddataAnnualReportAnnualReport2016-17.pdf) and about 48.8% of the Tribal population belong to the agricultural labour (Office of the Registrar General & Census Commissioner, 2011) (https:censusindia.gov.in2011censusSC-STpca_state_distt_st.xls). Despite adopting several welfare schemes by the government of India during the five-year plans to elevate and strengthening the socio-economic conditions of the Scheduled Tribes in the post-independence periods but these schemes were failed to fulfil the goals (Frank, 1969). The schemes of the Indian government for the welfare of the tribal communities were not implemented efficiently that resultant to stagnation and very low progress in the socio-economic status of tribal people (Ministry of Tribal AffairS, New Delhi, 2015) (https:tribal.nic.inrepositoryViewDoc.aspx?RepositoryNoTRI28-08-2017110639&fileDocsTRI28-08-2017110639.pdf). The contemporary gloomy socio-economic scenario of the tribal communities of India is proving a relevant space for the intensive studies about the status of these communities to excavate the applicable strategies for elevating the quality of the tribal livelihoods and to eliminate the discrimination in the community development. Such studies can also assist the planers and bureaucrats to introduce and implement realistic schemes for enhancing the socio-economic status of the tribal communities of India. The complete development in a nation could not be achieved until the equal development of the backward communities to the mainstream of the society (Thorat and Newman, 2007). The present study was aimed to formulate a tribal community development index (TCDI) in the course of simple average approach of different districts of West Bengal, India by using indices namely index of literacy (Li), index of female literacy (Fli), index of schooling (si), workforce participation index (Pw), male work index (Wmi), female work index (Wfi), index of health (Hi), sex ratio (Rs) and index of average income (Ii). The discrimination in the development of tribal community in the state of West Bengal would be exposed more comprehensively and it might be helpful to the policy makers for searching the fruitful strategies to elevate the socio-economic conditions of tribal people and to minimize the disparity in the community development.
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Copyright © 2023 David Durjoy Lal Soren1. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License.
