Rahul Gandhi’s assurance to the tribals of Orissa’s Niyamgiri hills might have been just a small step for him, but it was a giant step for the nation’s tribal population which has been valiantly resisting displacement in the name of development. It has opened the floodgates for a relook at several other development projects where

millions are in danger of being displaced, and Mr Gandhi has earned accolades from several NGOs for bringing this issue into sharp focus. It will also strengthen the hands of India’s “green” politician-crusader — minister of state for environment and forests Jairam Ramesh — who sometimes appears to be fighting a lone battle against the displacement of tribals and degradation of the environment. Certain parties have dismissed Mr Gandhi’s claim to be the “sipahi” of Niyamgiri’s tribals as mere politics, but some NGOs see this as a sign that he might be following in the footsteps of his grandmother Indira Gandhi — and her concern for the poor.
There are scores of other tribal-dominated areas across India crying desperately for help. The Polavaram Dam in Andhra Pradesh, bordering Orissa, will completely submerge 12 villages in Orissa and about one lakh persons in over 200 villages where two-thirds of the population belong to the Koya tribe. Around 48 huge dams are proposed to be started in the Northeast in the coming decade, which will not only cause a massive displacement of tribals but also considerable destruction of the region’s biodiversity, on which their livelihood depends. Between 1947 and 2000, around 60 million people are estimated to have lost their means of livelihood in the name of development — of which a significant 40 per cent are tribal people — constituting just 8.6 per cent of India’s population. This, proportionately, is an unduly high percentage — which only serves to drive home how various governments have betrayed tribals ever since Independence, particularly in the nine states where they are dominant.
The Fifth Schedule of our Constitution offers India’s tribals special protection, with the governors of the states in question being charged with ensuring this, but in many cases they have abandoned their responsibilities. Only in rare cases has the government taken the side of the tribals to ensure implementation of the law, but more often than not the police is used to coerce tribals into giving up their land. Cases of sexual harassment, molestation and even rape of tribal women have been recorded at Lohandiguda in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region, and evidence of this was even submitted to the National Human Rights Commission. But the NHRC, after sitting on the matter for a while, bounced it back into the court of the state’s director-general of police, where of course it fizzled out. Is it any wonder then that the Naxal/Maoist rebellion is gathering strength in this area? A number of projects in this belt and in Dantewada were cleared without fulfilling the provisions of protective legislation, and in complete disregard of the Special Protection to Tribals Scheduled Areas Act 1996, under which every new development which alienates forest land needs the consent of gram sabhas. It was the tribals’ “basic swaraj” document, but till date only the state of Madhya Pradesh has framed rules to give effect to this law.
If the government is really serious about ensuring the protection of the tribals, which is guaranteed under the Constitution, it must take direct and more effective steps to implement this landmark legislation. Perhaps Mr Rahul Gandhi could take his initiative further and turn into a valiant “sipahi” for the entire tribal population of the country. This would certainly prove a huge boost to the grassroots organisations fighting for the cause of the tribals comprising over eight per cent of India’s population.