Tribal development is often taken to be synonymous with rural
development. The nation has rather risky consequences and is not often realized
that they vary widely in their level of socio-economic development, cultural
background, personality, psyche, language etc. Each of these groups calls for a
unique prescription for development.
Article 46 of the constitution enjoins on the state to
promote with special care the educational and economic interests of the weaker
sections of the people and in particular of the schedule castes and the
scheduled tribes and to protect them from social injustice and all forms of
exploitation. Some others provision enable the president to make arrangement
for implementation of the objective set forth in Article 46. Article 244
empowers him to declare an area as a scheduled or tribal area under the fifth schedule;
the Governor has been vested with the authority to modify state and central laws
and to make regulations for the peace and good government of scheduled Areas. Articles
339 (2) lays down that the executive power of the union extends to the giving
of directions to a state as to the drawing up and execution of schemes for the
welfare of the drawing up and execution of schemes for the welfare of the
scheduled tribes in the state. Further, paragraph 3 of part A of the Fifth
Schedule provides that the executive power of the Union shall extend to the
giving of direction to the state as to the administration of scheduled Areas.
Article 275 provides for financial assistance to state for implementation of
schemes of development of scheduled tribes and raising the level of administration
yin the scheduled areas. Article 15, 16
and 19 make it possible, while legislation on any matter, to take into
consideration and special conditions of tribal in the matter of enforcing the
provisions relating to equality of all citizens.
It would thus, appear that while the scheduled areas are to be
administered as part of the state in which they are situated, wide powers have
been conferred on the Governor for their administration. He has been enabled to
modify Central and State laws in their application to them and to frame
regulations for the peace and good government and, in particular, for the
protection of the rights of tribal in land and the allotment of waste land and
their protection from the money leaders. He is required to consult the Tribes Advisory
council in the state in framing to these Regulations. Not-withstanding such
powers, land alienation continues to take palace, usury is rampant and
incidence of bonded labour does not appear to have substantially abated.
The importance of migration in development countries cannot
be underestimated. It is a major factor in economic development and manpower
planning, it has acquired special significance in the context of
commercialization of agriculture, it has major implications for urbanization,
slums and social change, it has notable feedback effect on the place of origin,
as the migrants maintain different kinds and degree of contact. This important
place that migration occupies in the social and cultural life of the people has
not been commensurate with the attention it has so far received by anthropologists
in our country.
Migration occurs more or less continuously over times, in
order to study its incidence; data have to be complied with reference to
specified periods of time. This interval may be definite, e.g. the life time of
the population alive at a given date. When the data refer to a definite
interval we may say that they measure fixed terms or period migration, and thus
distinguish them from data on life time migration on data based on place of
last residence that lack a definite time reference.
An out-migrant is a person who departs from migration
defining area by crossing its boundary to a point outside in but within the
same country. He is to be distinguished from an ‘emigrant’ who is an
international migrant, departing to another country by crossing an
international boundary. While migration excludes short visits and tours, it
includes different types of both voluntary and involuntary movements; examples
of involuntary movements are migration under such cries as war, transfer of population,
riots, floods, droughts and earth quakes. It also includes marriage migration,
virilocal, uxorilocal or neolocal and transfer migration. There are other situations
of migration where movement is part of peoples earing a livelihood. These are
nomads, shifting cultivators, itinerant traders and salesmen, artisans and
labourers.
Historically, both internal and overseas migration have been
associated with widespread military conquests, agricultural colonization and
populations, expeditions of merchants, trades and religious missionaries, slave’s
trade and indentured labour. These instances of migration currents provided the
basis for early diffusions, culture contact and acculturation theories.
Studies in migration stemmed from theoretical sources,
culture contact theories and the Marxian analysis of colonization and alienation.
While the former approach is dated, the latter is highly significant in
studying the process of migration and its consequences in the capitalist mode
of production. For instance colonization of tribal region in different parts of
India, especially in Bihar, has led to conflicts between the migrants and the
native tribes. Large scale exploitation of the benefits for scarce resources by
the migrants has resulted in conditions of acute relative deprivation of the tribal.
The perception of such conditions by the local tribes has led to militant
messianic and millenarian movement. The problem of ethnicity has assumed an
important place in migration studies especially in the urban contexts. The
tribal ethnicity has currently assumed an important place and it needs to be
studied on priority basis.
The foremost consequence of large scale migration of
unskilled and semiskilled workers to the cities in the development of slums.
To what states do migrants move? According to 1961 census,
the major flows been to West Bengal (especially the industrial belts in the
Hoogly and Damodar Valley regions Maharashtra (greater Bombay and Poona), Punjab
(the industrial towns along the railways line between Amritsar and Delhi),
Assam 9the tea plantation), Mysore (the industrial complex around Bangalore and
the gold fields at Kolar) and Madhya Pradesh (with the heavy electrical
industries at Bhopal).
In terms of proportion of immigrants to total population,
West Bengal and Punjab with 15.7 per cent and 14.2 per cent respectively are
the leading states; Assam comes next with 11.4 percent of its population being
migration followed by Maharashtra with 7.3 percent and the hill state of
Himachal Pradesh with 6.6 per cent.
The growth of land alienation, the establishment of rent and
money leading that called for cash income, and the gradual increase of the
tribal population as the death rate declined, led to the emergence by the
second half of the nineteenth century of a pool of surplus agricultural
labourers.
In the middle of the nineteenth century the British were
looking for a labour force they could recruit to work on their plantations in
Assam and Bengal as tes pickers. The tribal of Chotanagpur were attractive recruits,
they were ‘surplus’, i.e. they were in need of work; they were accustomed to
hard labour; they were acclimated to the hill areas and the distances though
substantial could be traversed by rail, road and steamer, British recruitment
in Chotanagpur region began in the middle of the century, chiefly among the
Santhals and the Mundas. The Santhals emigrated from Santhal Parangas and
Manbhum and the Mundas from Ranchi and Hazaribagh.
If we take 1921 as the peak year of emigration, when slightly
under a million tribal were living in Bengal, Assam and others parts of India,
and when the tribal population of Chotanagpur was approximately three million,
we can estimate that nearly a third of the tribal population had emigrated or
to put the magnitude another way, had there been no out-migration of tribal,
the tribal population of Chotanagpur and Santhal Paranas in 1971, taking into
account natural population increases, would have been about six million instead
of one and a half.
`Actually, it is likely that the long-term demographic
effects have been even greater than the numbers indicate, since the migrants
were young tribal of child bearing age whose fertility would most probably have
been higher than those did not migrate.
There is no exclusive study on the outmigration of the tribal
of Chotanagpur. However, the passing reference of the subject has been made in
some recent studies. Sachchidananda in Changing Munda (1980) has mentioned that
“since early 1970’s there is a seasonal migration among the Mundas of Khunti
area to Punjab where they work as agricultural labourers in the fields of rich
peasants. They art recruited and transported by middleman styled as ‘Sardars’
on commission from the Munda labourers and their employers. The agricultural
labourer from Chotanagpur is a cheaper substitute to his counterpart in Punjab.
He is paid Rs.60/- P.M along with meals, clothing and living room. He is the
period of contract” (p.150).
This has been corroborated by Manjit Singh and K.Gopal lyer
in their paper entitled: Migrant Labour for Green Revolution” (Voluntary
Action, Vol. 24, No.1) wherein they mention that “ the early recruitment of tribal
started towards the close of the sixties when some Panjabi framers having links
with Ranchi brought few tribal for personal work”
Munda, Santhal, Oraon, Ho etc., are the major tribes of
Bihar, A part from these there are some minor tribes also loke Birhors,
Malpaharia, Sauria Paharia, Kumbarbhag, etc. the bulk of the outmigrants
permanent or seasonal are from the major tribes for the reasons mentioned
above.
Migration of tribal of Bihar to tea plantation of Assam,
rural area of Haryana, Punjab etc., industrial complex and urban area of West
Bengal, Bihar and to other state poses several specific problems for
anthropological investigations. Their problems of adjustment are different from
those of non-tribal labourers and presents. There are both the problems of
inter-tribal relations and the tribal and non-tribal relation in such cities
that need to be studied besides their changing economic and property relations
and family and religious life. N.C. Chaudhary in his paper ‘A’ study on Tribal
Migration. (1963) shows that tribes move in groups maintaining their ethnic
identify.
Seasonal migration occupies a very important place in
migration studies, but unfortunately it is the most neglected area. Since the
census data are not useful in this regard, primary studies are needed to
understand the different dimensions of the problem, including working
conditions, the role of middlemen, nature of exploitation and an assessment of
relevant legislations. Seasonal migration has acquired a singular importance in
the context of commercial crops. There are other operations which need seasonal
labour such as bamboo cutting, felling of tree for timber, construction of
road, brick work and other areas like desilting of tanks and canals and
building tanks, bridges and dams. M.S.A Rao (1981) has mentioned in his paper
that country to the popular impression, seasonal migration is work specific and
a certain group specializes in particular job.
Seasonality is relative to economic and social conditions of
migrants at the place of origin and of destination. Seasonal migrants tend to
be exploited by the middlemen and hence the process of recruitment and
different patterns of organization of work needs to be studied in details.
Migration is also considered as an investment in human capital involving
cost-benefit analysis at different levels.
Anthropological approach to migration has been built up over
a period of years in bits and pieces since Marxian culture-contact and
Revenstine’s (1985) theories. Sachindra Narayan (1983) studied the overall
impact of migration on the socio-economic life of the tribal Bihar, the cause4s
and the ramification.
Any study of migration should consider the historical
development of the region, the wide economic and political development which
regulate and condition the nature of employment opportunities. Secondly
economic and social conditions at the place of origin needs to be examined in
order to understand why people move or do not move. At the individual level we
have to consider not only the level of skills and family circumstances but the
whole process of socialization and personality factors. It is important to
realize that economic factors provide only the necessary conditions of
migration, the sufficient conditions are the motivation to move, presence of
resources networks and access to information flows. The latter make migration
section in terms of age, sex, marital status and the phase of development of
the domestic group.
What happens to the migrants at the place of destination,
their problem and process of settlement, employment, success and failure and
their social organization are not entirely unrelated to their contacts with the
place of origin. Hence the continuity interaction process between the place of
origin an of destination is an essential aspect of migration studies.
Thus a large number of tribal migrates seasonally in search
of work to distant places, particularly from those areas where the pressure of
population is high and natural resources have got depleted. It is quit obvious
that they comprise the weakest sections of the country. It will take some time,
may be a long time, before they can find adequate employment opportunities in
the around their own villages. The interstate Migrant workmen (Regulation of
Employment and condition of service) Act 1979 has been passed by parliament to
protect the interests of migrant labourers. It is understood that the Ministry
of Home Affairs had proposed to the state government’s promulgations of a
regulation under the Fifth Schedule of the constitution for safeguarding the
interest of tribal labour, particularly from the malpractices employed by
contractors in Scheduled Area where industries are located.
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