increasing, those of Primitive Tribal
Groups are stagnant or declining (PTG”s
currently make up less than half of one
percent of the national population.) Taken
as a segment of the national population,
tribal people are less literate, less well
nourished, more diseased, more vulnera-
ble to displacement, and they have small-
er incomes and/or less property than the
non-tribal population.
MTA views illiteracy and lack of formal
education as key signs of backwardness.
The 2004 draft national policy states that
formal education is “the key to all-round
human development” and implies that
extension of formal education to tribal
people is complementary to preserving
and promoting their cultural heritage.
MTA acknowledges “that Scheduled Tribes
in general are repositories of indigenous
knowledge and wisdom in certain
aspects.” The word repository is signifi-
cant: it connotes a resource or treasure
from which not only tribal peoples but
also the nation and the world can benefit.
MTA identifies not only poverty and lack
of infrastructure as explanations for tribal
peoples” low literacy but also their lack of
attachment to ideals of formal education.
The latter is supposed to be due to the
tribals’ “alienation from society” and the
“irrelevance”, to them, of dominant edu-
cational models. It is therefore important
that teaching be conducted in the tribals’
mother tongue “at least up to the primary
level”. While “meta skill upgradation” may
be crucial, curricula are to incorporate
aspects of traditional culture. This educa-
tional ideal is coupled in the draft national
policy with preserving “traditional wis-
dom”, which includes enthno-
medicine/botany, meteorological knowl-
edge, water harvesting, and natural
resource use and cultivation. The draft
national policy notes the need to “transfer
such knowledge to non-tribal areas.” The
implication, once again, is that indigenous
wisdom is a national resource, not to be
ignored or depleted, and that it can be
extracted and understood in isolation
from its socio-cultural context. The draft
remarks on the roles played by traditional
medicine in the adaptability and survival
of PTG”s but also notes that tribal peoples
suffer inordinately from preventable dis-
eases. In language reminiscent of Nehru-
era planning documents, the draft exhorts
the country to “eradicate endemic dis-
eases on a war footing.”
The MTA draft discusses forest villages as
sites of tribal development and cultural
preservation. Tribal peoples over the
years have been forced out of their home
territories or have otherwise been alienat-
ed from the land. Protection of forest
environments and recognition of tribal
groups’ customary rights with respect to
forests is crucial, as is their participation
in forest management. The state is to
play a role via Tribal Development
Cooperative Corporations in regulating the
collection and sale of forest produce.
Provision to tribal villagers of amenities
like safe drinking water and educational
and health care facilities “on par with rev-
enue villages” (i.e., villages in which taxes
are collected and public money spent)
should be given high priority. Public distri-
bution of food and establishment of grain
banks are appropriate means of address-
ing the “food problems” faced by many
forest villagers. While emphasizing tribal
peoples’ “wise” use of resources like land,
the draft national policy also makes criti-
cal claims about their agricultural prac-
tices. “Shifting cultivation”, whose tech-
nologies include the digging stick and the
sickle, is “hazardous to the environment”
and supports tribal cultivators for only
about four months of the year. Shifting
agriculture, the draft asserts, has not
engendered among tribals any “emotional
attachment to the land as an asset or
property needing care and attention” and
History, cculture aand cconservation
