Tribals and Development: Countering the Myths

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4lKI0b-J5k Duration: 277.7s

Ambrish Mehta (00:05): Most of the tribals, you ask them, this is the myth. The tribals don’t want development. This is complete myth. They don’t want better life for themselves and their children and their families. First of all, no outsider has any right to say that they must live like this. That is our first thing. At the same time, we would also believe that in the name, no government has the right to displace them in the name of their work. Because then we are not carrying out any developmental activity for them. They’re basically making making them sacrifice for the development of others. That is what has happened throughout the last sixty years after independence that we have asked. Right? We have not really given them an alternative of developing themselves. We have given them the alternative of sacrificing for the development of others. That has has happened. And that is the thing which is creating resistance, protest, and all these things are because of that and not because the the tribals don’t want development. They want development. They want education. They want good health. They want good houses. Tribal women who said that they’re dead. They don’t enjoy living in these kachcha huts where they’re where they they have to do back-breaking work every year. They want good houses where they don’t have to work all the time, and they don’t have to spend most of the time maintaining those houses. These types of things are happening. And the main thing which we have found and which we have thing, because what happens that it all depends on how much you do you have the right over the resource or not? As soon as FRA titles, people started receiving FRA titles. First thing they have done in most of the villages, and, you know, I am sure this must be true for all all over the country where the people have issued proper titles. First thing they invest in, to develop the land. They would carry out land levelling activity. They would create irrigation infrastructure. They would create construct farm ponds. They would create even orchards, mango orchards, and all this. So their overall view of that land, initially, they could not do these things because the land did not belong to them. And they would be investing their hard earned money from the labour which they go out to the cities and earn money. Whatever money they earn from their migrant through migration, they are investing in these lands. And the productivity of the land is going up like anything. And this we could see only in very few years, over three years, the whole landscape of the villages have changed. And where you saw initially barren, unirrigated land, you now see cultivated lands with greenery all over the year. And growing forests. Now they have improved productivity, and they are selling their produce. They are growing vegetables. They are growing mangoes for sale in urban area. And they are they they they are demanding irrigation so that the productivity goes even further. All these things are happening. And they are all of them with little bit economic security. Once the economic situation started improving through earnings from the labour and through this improved level of productivity, the first priority is education of the children. They are the children are they are spending a lot of money. Send them children for education outside because locally, there are no good schools. So they will send them outside in residential schools where they have to gain much more money. It’s not that they get free education. And even for higher education, technical education, nurse, and all of the things, they are the type of farmers that’s spending a lot of money. So these are the these are this is what they want. The most important thing is that you give them the rights, and there is no conflict between development and environment. Forests also can also become healthy, and tribals can also prosper. That is what we we believe in and live in.