Positive discrimination policy & growth of tribals

Mary Parmar

For building an equitable society, special provisions for the disadvantaged sections, ie, Scheduled Tribes (STs), Scheduled Castes (SCs) and other backward classes have been provided in the Indian Constitution.

Whereas, Article 15(1) specifies that the State shall not discriminate against any citizen on grounds of religion, race, caste, etc, however, provision for positive discrimination has been provided under Article 15(4), which specifies that nothing in this Article shall prevent the State from making special provisions for the advancement of any socially and educationally backward classes or for the SCs and STs. Accordingly, various provisions have been provided in the Constitution  under Articles: 16(4), 19(5), 29(1), 46, 244(1), 275, 322(1), 334, 335, 338(1), 339(1), 341(1) 342(1) etc.

In Himachal, the tribal areas of two districts of Kinnaur and Lahaul-Spiti in their entirety and Pangi and Barmour tehsils of Chamba district constitute the scheduled tribal areas in the State where 31.5% of the tribals live. As many as 68.5% tribals live in non- scheduled areas spread throughout the various districts of the State. The tribal Sub-Plan is in operation in the State since the Fifth Five Year Plan under which 9% of the State Plan funds are provided.  Grassroots planning through the five ITDP (Integrated Tribal Development Projects), decentralisation of the financial powers, single-line administration, protective and anti-exploitative measures, etc, have led to a substantial rise in the socio-economic profile of the tribal people in Himachal as is evident from some of the following prominent indicators.

According to the 2011 census, literacy rate is 77.10% in the scheduled area and 82.95% in the non-scheduled area. The literacy rate of Himachal is 82.80%.   As for employment in the various government departments in the State (as on 31.3.2015), out of the total government employees, ie, 18, 2049 (both gazetted and non-gazetted), 12,324 are STs which is 6.76%. Banking institution per lakh population is forty. Roads and communication along with other infrastructure is continuously seeing an increasing trend.  As much as 97.51% of the villages in Kinnaur and 98.93 % villages in Lahaul and Spiti have been electrified.  Various social welfare schemes and economic development programmes are being implemented in the tribal area for the uplift of the poor with liberal subsidies, incentives and concessional interest rates. Funds under Special Central Assistance and Modified Area Development Approach are also being provided.  However, the number of families living below poverty line in the scheduled areas of Kinnaur, Lahaul and Spiti is quite high.  According to the data of the Rural Development Department, in Kinnaur there are 1,809 BPL families (2013).  In the case of Lahaul & Spiti, there are 2,168 BPL families (2014).  There may be some variation by now in the numbers. It is indeed a matter of concern that in spite of having good decentralised planning machinery and many good indicators of socio-economic development and pumping in of so many funds into the ITDP, there are still so many BPL families in the two scheduled tribal districts. Is it that under the policy of positive discrimination, opportunities have gone only to those occupying vantage positions? 

Where the fault lies needs to be examined.

Thus the bottom line lies in the words of Swami Vivakananda, ‘All the wealth of the world cannot help one little Indian village if the people are not taught to help themselves.”