We are likely to witness criminalisation of tensions
Most of the problems emanate from social changes
by Rajni Kothari

THERE are two ways of "looking to the future". One, supposedly a "scientific" way, is to predict the future, based on available indicators pointing towards it, using data already on hand which appears to project a particular scenario that is likely to unfold, this or that year, decade, century or millennium. The other, more normative, socio-political intellectually perceived and imagined, what is sometimes described as "utopian", way is to design the future, based on a preferred or desired set of alternatives to what is likely to emerge if present trends continue and the future is a mere projection thereof.

I have in my past work on future, starting with my Footsteps Into The Future: Diagnosis of the Present World and A Design for an Alternative adopted the latter of these two approaches.

Over the years (Footsteps was published in 1974), I have been more and more forced into the latter mould of thinking, both in the global context and within India and large parts of the Third World as the projected scenario, if one were to follow a mere scientific method, has been one that appears to be increasingly despondent, chilly and counter-revolutionary, indicating what I once called a "yawning vacuum" in which even the crusades for creating viable alternatives were finding themselves hemmed in by vested interests — both globalising and indigenous — that were filling the vacuum by highly conservative, reactionary, socially unsettling and politically and culturally neo-fascist framework of both ideas and institutions.

The only course open to democrats and those committed to both social justice and social cohesion based on a pluralist model of national unity and regional and world peace has been to "design" a future that provided a model for humanity that, while no doubt based on dreams for an utopian vision, nonetheless provided the basis for freedom, justice, a balanced social order that could counter growing tensions, confrontations and violence, and a civil society that was able to integrate the best in tradition and new possibilities and openings provided by the modern world.

On the subject matter of this article, "managing social tensions", what is said above is especially relevant, for, as I look at the future that is unfolding before my eyes, I find a grim scenario in which it is not going to be easy to simply "manage" social tensions and something far more radical will be called for.

This will be particularly so because the problems of conflict and tension — religion, caste, language, distribution of resources between states, demands for new states, environmental and water-related disputes, gender divides and growing atrocities on weaker sections, including women and children — are going to be difficult to be handled. What we are likely to witness is a growing criminalisation of tensions. Already on the anvil is a growth of organised crime with the rise of gangs, Mafia operations, thefts followed by murders, and all these not necessarily as a result of poverty and deprivation; quite a few of the gangs being composed of youth belonging to privileged families, flaunting their power around and bringing chaos and crime in their wake. What is emerging and is likely to grow is a simple growth in the psychology of crime and criminality — all of which indicates a possible growth rather than decline in social tensions.

No doubt there are countervailing tendencies at work. There are signs of decline in intensity of conflicts, a scaling down of militancy, some success in delinking diverse sources of tension, some signs of exhaustion and fatigue among agitators and militants and a set of agreements on what at one time appeared to be the basis of social divisions, e.g. what has been achieved through the adoption of the Mandal Commission’s report by all parties.

There is also the growing role of the judiciary in establishing norms and a degree of moderation in positions taken by the media. All this is reassuring though, of course, much remains to be done in arresting the growth of social tensions from our midst.

Meanwhile, new sources of tension and social conflict, taking on ever-changing forms and methods, have arisen, and are likely to grow in the coming months and years. There is taking place quite a lot of increase in violence at various levels and in different social settings, with a fast lowering of restraint on use of both muscle power and money power backing it. This is getting so serious that it is affecting even primary units of belonging, be it family and joint family, marriage and love affairs, inter-generational conflicts, including within single families. In all of these murders take place at the slightest pretext.

Above all, this growing culture of criminalisation is affecting secondary institutional settings, political parties in particular but even business houses, professionals, universities, hospitals, bureaucracy and, of course, the police and paramilitary forces, which are supposed to be providing law and order to the citizens. As this overall culture of violence spreads and is likely to spread even more in the coming future, we are likely to witness the most serious incidence of this in the relations between genders, on the one hand, and generations, on the other. There is a likely possibility of increase in sheer cruelty and aggression in diverse sets of relationships, and a massive decline in compassion.

Despite this wide array of tension and violence, the future that one envisages is not one of disintegration of the Indian nation or even too much erosion of the state. But the real question is not whether we can "manage" all these sources of change and the tensions arising therefrom and somehow hold the country together in a framework of "unity", but rather what precisely is the nature of that unity, how we are going to be able to wield various diversities into a larger unity, how we are going to be able to utilise the very tensions that we are likely to face as a means of forging a future that heralds for us all a truly viable and authentic structure of unity and integrity.

How to do this in a period when the relationship between the "majority" community and the various "minorities" — including minorities and marginalised communities within the "Hindu" fold, the Dalits, the Adivasis, the OBCs — is in turn likely to affect the traumatised sections of women of both sets of communities who are targets of growing atrocities and humiliations, both physical and psychological, and also the young and the very young (children) who are experiencing growing feelings of isolation and loneliness? On the external dimension, too, there is likely to be growing tensions not only between Hindus and Muslims here in India but also between India and Pakistan.

In dealing with all this we need to realise that as the causes of tension lie in social — and political — change, quite a lot of which is of a compelling nature and cannot be wished away, the tasks that face us in "designing" an alternative future are also not managerial but political (and to an extent socio-economic, and in an equal measure, cultural).

The point then in designing a future that is different from the present and the past is not one of managing conflicts and tensions but of actually resolving them — as definitively as possible. Not all sources — or symptoms —of tension or violence can be resolved. What is involved is the need of a model and a philosophy of overcoming them.

For, not only are the challenges we face a consequence of basic social change, the very "crisis" in which we find ourselves is a "crisis of change".

What we face today is a deeply divided nation governed by a coalition government that has let loose a series of upsets in the slowly growing attempts at carving out a "consensus" both at home and vis-a-vis our neighbours — with Hindutva undermining the consensus raised on Mandal and nuclearism undermining an international and security environment that was being patiently negotiated. The tasks that now face us in rebuilding consensus and overcoming a variety of social tensions and increasing violence in the social arena are still mind-boggling.

What we need to address ourselves to is how to impart creative tensions in the body social and the body politic and how to move the arena of tensions from being corrosive to being creative.

The writer is an eminent political thinker and analyst.

Land grabbing increasing at an alarming rate
Tribals’ alienation will lead to armed
conflicts with the state
by K.D. Jha

IT would be a tall order even for a futurologist to divine what the future holds for the tribal people of India in the first 25 years or so of the next millennium. For me, a layman with no more than a nodding acquaintance with some of the tribal people of the country, it was a daunting proposition.

Before I proceed to guess their future, I should like to mention some basic facts about the tribal people of India. Census 1991 reports the total tribal population of India as 67,785,380 which is 8.8 per cent of the total population of the country. Tribal people comprise 10.8 per cent of the rural and 2.23 per cent of the urban population. The decadal growth of their population in the 25 states and Union territories between 1981 and 1991 shows that it increased in 12, declined in 12 and remained static in one. Their sex ratio of 972 was much better than the all-India average of 929.

Literacy among the tribal communities of 29.60 per cent was far below the national average of 52.21 per cent and well below that of the Scheduled Castes of 37.41 per cent. Female literacy of 18.19 per cent was even lower in Rajasthan (4.42 per cent), Andhra Pradesh (8.68 per cent), Orrisa (10.21 per cent), Madhya Pradesh (10.73 per cent), Bihar (14.75 per cent) and West Bengal (14.98 per cent). Honourable exceptions in literacy were Mizoram (82.71 per cent), Lakshadweep (80.58 per cent), Nagaland (60.59 per cent), Sikkim (59.01 per cent) and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (56.62 per cent). But the tribal population of Madhya Pradesh alone is eight times the population of all these territories put together! What’s more, over half the total tribal population of India lives in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Orissa.

There are 543 tribal communities listed as Scheduled Tribes under the Constitution of India. Their population varies from a few hundred to a few hundred thousand. Other than the very small number of nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes, who are gradually taking to a settled life, all other tribal communities are deeply attached to their homeland.

The area inhabited by the tribal communities is nearly a fifth of the total geographical area of the country. Much of it is hilly, forested and mineral rich, but some tracts are so eroded that they appear like moonscapes. Almost all the forests of India lie in the tribal areas. The Indian Forest Survey, 1993, reports that thick forests with a crown density of 40 per cent or over, comprise only 11.73 per cent of the total geographical area of the country. There has been a rapid decline in forest cover over the past five years and some experts estimate the area under thick forests to be no more than 7 per cent.

Wide swathes have been cut through dense forests to build roads and railways and to lay high-tension power lines. Good forests have been clear-felled to make room for industries and mines. Major river valley projects have submerged large chunks of forests. Large thermal power stations and major iron ore, coal and bauxite mines have come up in the midst of forests causing irreparable damage to the environment.

The tribal communities are inalienably associated with the forests. The state refuses to recognise forests as a life-support of the tribal communities living in and around them. It exercises first right on this asset and has persisted in pursuing the anti-people colonial forest policy in an even more unscientific way inimical both to sustainable management of this asset and the tribal communities who draw sustenance from it.

In pre-Independence India forests were fairly extensive and full of wild animals and birds. Tribal communities living in and around them were much smaller and had relatively easy access to them. They hunted, trapped and snared a variety of wild animals and birds which complemented their diet with rich proteins. They also gathered roots, tubers, fruit and vegetables which added to the quality of their food. Wild animals then were so plentiful that at certain times and certain places they were declared to be vermins and could be freely hunted. Many tribal communities let their livestock run wild into the forests to grow and batten. The harvest over, brave young men and boys went into the forest to locate and lasso these feral animals both to break them for farm work and to feast on those that got badly hurt. It was dangerous fun, but much enjoyed. All that is now memory stuff of tales told by the fireside by senile old men to their incredulous children.

The concept of land as property was introduced in India by the British colonial rulers. Prior to this, land was regarded as a resource even by the feudal landlords. They collected a share of the produce from the tiller. Once land became property, it could be assigned, transferred, mortgaged or sold by its owner. This involved paper work, hence the process of preparing systematic land records began during British rule. As the administration then did not reach the remote and far-flung areas, tribal lands remained mostly unsurveyed and community/family ownership of land continued. With the administration gaining greater access to the tribal areas, land records began to be prepared and, in keeping with the practice prevailing in the non-tribal areas, ownership of land in the tribal areas was vested in individuals. This changed the entire tribal concept of land ownership. A piece of paper, which most recipients could neither read nor understand, became the sole proof of ownership of land.

Development has imposed its own costs on the tribal communities. Many rivers, which water the plains downstream, rise in tribal country. Their steep gradients and the gorges they have cut are eminently suited to building large reservoirs for power generation and irrigation. Unfortunately, the area that comes under submergence lies in the tribal country. Entire villages and close-knit tribal communities get uprooted from their habitat only to end up as flotsam and jetsam. Tribal country is also mineral-rich, hence large-scale mines of coal, iron, bauxite, copper, limestone and diamond have already come up in the tribal areas devastating large areas and displacing local communities. Large pit-head thermal power stations have been built to utilise the vast coal deposits occurring in the tribal areas. Again, it is the tribal communities who suffer the menace of fly-ash. Breach of tailing dams and ash ponds in the recent past had disastrous consequences for the tribal communities. The pace of such development is bound to pick up in the years ahead with all its attendant consequences for the tribal communities.

A decade from now or maybe two, agriculture will no longer be able to sustain most agriculturist tribal communities who will be further impoverished. The more enterprising as well as those distressed by family circumstances will move out of their habitat in search of livelihood to be assimilated finally in mainstream society as ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water completely losing their tribal identity. While at Port Blair, I saw some Andamanese town- dwellers with distinct physical features which hold them apart from the settlers from the mainland. I was told that they were mostly menial workers indistinguishable in dress and speech from the rest among whom they lived. The situation is no different on the mainland: only proximity blurs one’s vision.

The fortunate few among the tribals who have the benefit of elitist education have left their communities for good to settle down among the non-tribal people as white-collar workers. Their offspring in the years ahead will never return to their homeland. The relatively less fortunate who have found employment in plantations, mines, factories and elsewhere in the urban areas, nor their children, will never revert to their rural community either. A majority of the tribal people will certainly live as communities loyal to their hearths and homes, but a quarter century hence their native habitations will have turned into ghettos — islands of deprivation, poverty and misery.

A Gaddi asked me whether I was a Hindustani; a Bodo asked me whether I was a Bengali; my Naga friend introduced me to his colleagues as ‘my Indian friend’. These are straws in the wind showing the alienation of the tribal people from mainstream society. Where grievances are allowed to fester, alienation increases, culminating in insurgency. The turmoil in the north-eastern states, the unrest in south Bihar, the Naxalite violence in the tribal of Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra underscore this denouement. Violence begets violence.

State violence is retributive and the tribal hotheads can never hope to achieve their objective by taking up arms, however, much they nurse their delusion. Since desperate people are not amenable to reason, armed conflicts with the state will intensify in the next few years further alienating the tribal communities from mainstream society which will become even more intolerant and aggressive against the tribal communities.

I am saddened by this gathering storm which will break early in the next century uprooting and washing away many tribal communities to set them adrift in hostile waters, perchance to land among strangers on inhospitable shores where they will have nothing to call their own. Cassandra was cursed not to be believed. So am I!

The writer is an expert on tribal affairs.