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Survival of the indigenous livelihood systemsM.K. Ravi |
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and forest are inseparable parts in the lives of the indigenous
people � be it in their birth or death, entertainment or rituals /
festivals, they cannot separate the land and forests from their lives. As per the 1971 census of India, the population of the indigenous people is divided into the following categories as per the occupations:
Agriculture and traditional situationLand and forests are mutually dependent in the agricultural systems of the indigenous people. Indigenous people were cultivating traditionally in the forest land. Every year they shift from one place to other, stay and cultivate there so as to keep the land fertile. Even till recently this shifting cultivation system was in vogue. Some other tribes continued to stay in the same place and cultivate seasonal crops like rice, ragi etc.Many villages of the indigenous people were situated either in the forests or in hill areas. The village area and the surrounding land was owned commonly by everyone. In many villages there was common cultivable land the income from which was used by the entire village for common purposes or to help a particular disadvantaged individual. Land did not belong to any one person, but to nature. People had only the right to cultivate in the land, they do not own it. This was the traditional relationship of the indigenous people with land. Land was merely used to live. Cultivation was also undertaken without destroying big trees. The crops grown where also for their immediate food needs and not with any commercial interests. In South India, the indigenous people were cultivating both in wet land and in dry land. Wet land: Where the perennial water sources will be flowing throughout the year.
They were using cow dung and other organic manures as fertilizers. There were some traditional methods to control pests. For example, while cultivating rice, there used to be pest attack during the monsoon and non-monsoon seasons. To protect the rice crop, the indigenous people used to cut the branches of the �paraka� tree and plant them in the rice field. The pests get attracted to these leaves and eat only them, leaving the rice plants safe. The cultivation schedule including sowing the seeds and harvesting the crop takes place only after the permission of the village leader. There used to be celebration and festivals to mark the planting and harvesting season. For example, the �Karkadam-14� festival marks the sowing season for rice in the monsoon (this comes in the English calendar month of July). �Putheri� festival marks the harvesting of rice (this comes in the English calendar month of October). In this festival the harvested grains are collected and kept in front of the houses. The straw of the rice plants is used as a roofing material for the houses and as a feed for the cattle. After the harvesting of rice, various vegetables like grams, pulses, pumpkins, cucumber, gourds etc. were grown in the wet land. Some people were growing Coffee and Pepper also in the dry lands, that is the hill slopes. Cattle: Indigenous people were rearing cattle like cows and goats basically for the dung and milk. They were not consuming beef, though. They were rearing hens also for the eggs and meat. Cattle were quite useful in tilling the land and so were very essential for their lives. Cultivation was basically to produce food crops and the entire operation was done on a cooperative basis. All the people participated in the farming activities and a share was given to even those who do not have any land. If a particular family did not have grains in a year, other families pitched in and provided the grains required, hence there was no question of any one family starving. Forests and traditional situationTraditionally the indigenous people were living in the forested areas and hence their livelihoods were heavily dependent on the forests. Since these forests were natural and mixed, all their requirements were met from these forests themselves. The forests were an integral part of their life, in their cultivation, their birth, death and all the other ceremonies like marriages.Food / Crops: They were following shifting cultivation in the hill slopes to grow food crops like paddy. Since they were moving from place to place, there was no need for adding any fertilisers externally, nor was the soil�s fertility affected. For their food needs, besides cultivation, the forests provided a good variety of products like Greens growing wildly, many tubers, honey, fruits (like mango, jack fruit, Jamun, Kotta, Chadichi, Polanga, Ambalam, Nellikkaya etc.), fishes from the rivers flowing in the forests areas. House: The construction of houses was entirely done using the materials available from the forests, like roofing grass, timber, bamboo, ropes from the forest creepers. Besides, mats for their houses are also made from the forest grasses and bamboo. Household necessities like brooms, basic furniture, tools and instruments etc. are made from various forest trees. Medicines from herbs and trees, firewood for cooking etc. are also collected from the forests. Culture: In all their rituals and festivals, forest plays an important role. For example, hunting is an important element in all their celebrations. Similarly, the indigenous people go for fishing as a group in important festivals. Hunting and fishing is an important element in the cultural life of the indigenous people. They were using bows / arrows and nets for the hunting and fishing respectively. Always they go as a group for hunting. They have strict norms even while hunting. They do not attack animals which are pregnant, those which have small off-springs or those drinking water. Moreover, when they have got enough meat for the group, they stop hunting, since they hunt basically for that day�s food. For fishing, they use small baskets made of bamboo, nets and some kinds of arrows. By this, they ensure that they catch only the fish they need and do not harm all the other waterborn insects and creatures. Drinking Water: They get their drinking water from small streams and perennial springs, directly from the ground. Social changes in forestBy the Forest Acts promulgated by the British in 1865 and later amended in 1878, the entire forests were brought under the control of the Government. This put the shifting cultivation of the indigenous people into great danger and they had to abandon this agricultural practice. However, in 1981, the National Committee on Development of Backward Areas on the basis of the recommendations of the National Commission declared that the indigenous people are the owners of the forests, and hence they only have to be entrusted with the responsibility of protecting and managing the forests. The commission also advised that the indigenous people should be allowed to cultivate in the forest lands.The Government has started the concept of Reserved Forests, ostensibly for the protection of the forests, thereby preventing the indigenous people accessing the forest areas. However, practically the commercial interests served by the forest wealth was the main consideration of the successive Governments. The traditional forest based lifestyle of the indigenous people and their cultivation methods were greatly effected by this. The forest were used by the indigenous people as common property and they accessed the forests for their basic needs. However, the Government started giving licenses to private contractors from outside to collect Minor Forest Produce from the forests, like honey. These contractors again employed the indigenous people for collecting MFP from the forests. The economic exploitation of the indigenous people started with this association of the indigenous people with the private non-adivasi contractors / merchants. Once the Government started using the forest wealth as sources to generate income for itself, the indigenous people were prevented from collecting these materials from their forests, which included basic needs like bamboo, honey, fishes, meat, grass, housing materials, medicinal herbs etc. For many products, Government started issuing passes and permission letters for even the indigenous people to collect some of these products after charging a fee. The major destruction of the forests came when the Government started issuing licenses for timber merchants to cut the forest trees. Since the intention of the Government was to exploit the forests for generating monetary income, the species which were grown in the forests were also modified from natural forest trees to commercial species like Silver Oak, Eucalyptus, Coniferous trees like Pine, Casuarina etc. Such man-made forests were grown in thousands of hectares in many States of India. For example, in the State of Madhya Pradesh in North India about 8000 hectares of the forest lands were planted with Pine trees basically for the use of the paper industry. In South India, about 3000 hectares of the forest lands in Tamil Nadu and Kerala were given off to a Government owned Corporation to clear the forests and to grow tea. Moreover, the Forest Department leased out more than 10000 hectares of forest land to big corporate houses for promoting commercial crops like tea, coffee etc. By all these acts, the ownership of the government over the forest was reinforced, thereby alienating the indigenous people from their natural home, i.e., forests. Besides, Government initiated many �development� projects in the Forest areas like Tribal Development Cooperative Corporations, Large Area Multi Purpose Cooperative Societies, Dams., Mines, Tourism industry etc. allegedly for improving the lot of the indigenous people or for the overall good of the society, but actually in order to exploit the natural wealth of the forests at the cost of the indigenous people�s livelihoods. With all these measures, the traditional rights of the indigenous people over the forests and the forest produce have been totally violated and negated. Social changes in agricultureThe cultivation practices of the indigenous people changed over a period of time, primarily due to the policies of the Government related to the forests. On the one hand Government prevented the access of the indigenous people to forests and its produces. On the other, they started giving land documents in the name of individuals for the cultivable land, thereby destroying the community ownership concept of the indigenous people.When other communities, essentially migrants from other areas, started infiltrating into the Gudalur forests and started exploiting the forest lands for making money, the same lifestyle started influencing the indigenous people also. Their cultivable land was encroached by the outsiders, the monetary economy started competing with their sustenance living and as a result of all these competitive forces, cultivation of commercial crops had to be started by the indigenous people to hold on their lands. The practice of common and public ownership of land for cultivation purposes was the traditional way of division of land by the indigenous people. But, when the Government started distributing land to the people and insisted on boundaries of individuals� land, individual ownership of land became necessary even for the indigenous people, because otherwise the land will be occupied by non-tribals or by the Government. Thus, the responsibility of the land also got transferred from the entire community to many individuals. When such Government rules and restrictions were enforced upon this community, their dependence on the forest for many of their livelihood needs were badly affected. Since Government and others started fencing �their� land, the indigenous people also were forced to fence �their� land and clearly had to mark the boundaries. The unfenced land was either encroached by the non-tribals or taken over by the Government agencies. The indigenous people were forced to meet all their needs from this small plot of land, which is legally assigned or �owned� by them. Since this was not enough for them to eke out a meaningful livelihood, they had to go out seeking employment as agricultural labourers in others� land. So, from being people living as part of the nature, they had to undertake other forms of activities to sustain their lives � like the mainstream society. For example, in Gudalur (situated in the Nilgiri mountains in the South India), the number of indigenous people engaged as agricultural labourers in 1990 was 78%, whereas this decreased to 55& in 1999 as per a survey conducted by ACCORD (a NGO) / AMS (an organisation of the indigenous people) working with the indigenous people of this area. This is how, the traditional lifestyle, their knowledge and cultural wisdom of the indigenous people was made irrelevant and useless in the modern way of living. Many traditional seeds which they used were used in this process. For example, seeds for dry land grains like Karthan (a rice variety), Chama, Muthari etc. and wet land grains like Rice varieties like Thondi, Thonnooranthondi, Mullanpunja, Gandhagashala, Thaichinkan, Veliyan, Chomala, etc. were lost over the years. Now, the cultivation of many of these varieties has totally vanished since there are no seeds. The productivity of many of these grains also drastically reduced, for example, Ragi. The main reason for this is that cultivable area was limited to a few places and people were cultivating only in that area again and again, year after year. New �improved� high yielding varieties introduced by the Government and other agencies which were supposed ti increase the productivity of the land � like common used rice varieties. (�) The productivity of these rice varieties had increased, but simultaneously the cost of cultivation also increased. The main reason for this is that the indigenous people used organic manures like cow dung before and they were not using any chemical pesticides. They used to observe the nature very closely, the season in which rains will appear and the season in which the insects and pests will appear. They tried to avoid these insects and tried to utilise the nature�s rain. So, they did not have to use chemical fertilisers and pesticides. The fertility of the soil was kept intact by using organic materials. In the modern agriculture, even though the grain production increased, the quality of the straw in terms of its length and thickness and its longevity decreased. This was a problem for their cattle and they could not use the straw as roofing material. So, they had to buy feed for the cattle from outside and their housing needs were also not met properly. The old traditional seeds were lost and hence, those who wanted to go back to their traditional crops were also not able to do so. So, everyone was forced to follow only the modern way of cultivation. While the Government provided the agricultural inputs like fertilisers and pesticides needed for the modern cultivation in subsidised rates in the beginning, they started withdrawing these subsidies later. At that time, the cost of cultivation sky-rocketed, but the indigenous people could not go back to their traditional form of cultivation, nor could they afford the costs of these scientific agricultural inputs. Social changes in other aspectsThe other important aspects which changed drastically were Education, Health, Shelter and Dresses. The dress pattern of the indigenous people changed because of the incursion of the non-indigenous people into the forest areas and also because of the commercial way of living.When the traditional knowledge was not enough for the indigenous people and their children to cope up with the demands of the mainstream way of lifestyle, their educational system also got changed. They had to go to mainstream schools for their education which involved expenses.  When
the availability of traditional / natural building materials like
timber, roofing grass and bamboo etc. was denied to the indigenous
people they had to resort to modern construction materials like tiles,
cement, concrete etc. Purchase of these materials involved heavy costs
and they had to buy these products from the �market�. With the loss of medicinal herbs and plants and with the restrictions imposed by the Government, the traditional knowledge available with the indigenous community also disappeared. Since commercial crops replaced the cultivation of food crops, people had to buy food from the market. This resulted in food insecurity and hence started affecting their health. Economic situation of the family became the most important aspect of their lives, affecting their social well-being like in all the other �mainstream� communities. Indigenous people also had to earn money to fulfil all their needs. Though they did not take to business or other commercial vocations like the other communities, they started cultivating commercial / cash crops like Ginger, Plantain, Coffee, Pepper, Tea etc. to earn money. The people who did not possess land had to work in other people�s land as agricultural labourers and earn this income. Since the main objective of agriculture also has become to earn money, the common lands of the village are not being used by the entire village for common purposes as it used to be before. People who could adapt to the modern ways of living �prospered� and people who were slow to change were left behind. This caused divisions within the community as well-to-do people and poor people. But in their traditional way of life, there was equality and all the people were of same status. I am giving some examples below for this division within the community: Earlier, the entire village will build house for a family, help each other by offering manual labour and try to help even those who could not afford to build a house. But, in the new system, building materials have to be bought from the market. This leaves the community at the mercy of market forces and hence they could not help each other. In the traditional agricultural system, the extent of cultivation was basically decided by the ability of the people to plough etc. But, in the modern and commercial cultivation, the inputs and labour can be purchased by paying money. When people can afford to pay more, they try to cultivate more thereby spoiling the fertility of the soil to unsustainable levels. The traditional health system involved basically the herbal medicines and the payment was mostly in kind to the traditional healing men. But, in the modern medicinal system, they had to buy the medicines. Coupled with this was the non availability of herbal medicines and the lack of interest of the traditional healing men to pursue their traditional knowledge. All this social changes in agriculture, education, health and shelter resulted in many cultural problems for the indigenous people like many other communities. For example, the values symbolising the indigenous community like equality, cooperation, helping, tendency etc. were lost, thereby creating an identity crisis for the indigenous community. The WTO agreement signed by the Indian government and subsequent developments have caused lot of social change in the national arena. In the local level, among all other marginalized and poor people, indigenous people also tried their bit to hang on and not be pushed out completely from the scene. But the shift happening in trade in the national level got reflected in the local, rural areas also. The way the market functions and the import-export situation is such that it will eliminate or marginalize the whole lot of farmers and agricultural labourers. The import-export relationships of different nations have affected the ordinary people too. The selling prices of most of the agricultural produces have fallen. At the same time prices of necessary commodities have gone up. To take some examples: In the international trade of pepper � as other exporting countries were ready to sell pepper in comparatively lower prices. Indian farmers could realise only low prices for their produce. In the table below, we can see the prices that could be realised by producers from different countries over the last few months:
Average expenses by the producer to sell 20 kg of green leaf in the market is Rs. 110. Now, compare this with the average income for 29 kg by farmers in Gudalur taluk over the last few months. Along with given is the expenses as a percentage of income:
To assure that they get the best prices throughout the year, we�ll have to develop a system wherein the powdered tea can be marketed directly to the consumers elsewhere. That means we�ll have to develop direct links between the producers and the consumers. ACCORD is trying to do something on these lines. For example, ACCORD is trying to organise links with other organisations like ATP in Germany. Similarly, the Society also procures products like pepper and coffee from its members and sells it collectively to assure fair prices. The expenses related to health are common among the indigenous people. In this globalised era, the expenses are too high that no one can bear it individually. The Gudalur Adivasi Hospital started exclusively for the indigenous people with this idea of assuring good care for the patients. Now, around 12000 of the indigenous population are insured for a period of five years through a group medical insurance scheme. Each member pays a premium to access the benefits of this scheme. A trust by name Vishwabharathi Vidyodaya Trust has been formed to address the education needs of indigenous people. A matriculation school is being run by this trust. An education fund has been formed, to which AMS members would contribute , to inculcate the feeling of ownership among the community. Some of the Adivasi members have started a financial endeavour by name Adivasi Mutual Fund. They started by contributing the seed money through shares. The members save some amount of money and put it in the fund. This money is being used to advance credit facilities to the members. To run many of the developmental activities, there�s a requirement of some common source of income and a collective asset. A plantation of about 176 acres was purchased for this purpose. The income from this estate will be used for common expenses in health, education etc. In Adivasi villages during the old times, there used to be such common property resources. ConclusionTo deal with the difficulties in entering the mainstream society and that too in this increasingly globalised times, the producers and consumers should cooperate with each other and should develop a strong relationship among them. We had the opportunity to meet and exchange views with the Mayor of Hamm city two weeks ago. He was telling us that over ten thousand workers had lost their jobs because coal and steel was being delivered in Germany at 75 % the cost of producing it here from Australia. We have a similar situation in the Nilgiris. Thousands of tea plantation workers are unemployed because India is allowed the import of tea from Indonesia at a cheaper price. Tomorrow the Indonesian workers may be unemployed if the businessmen import tea from China at a cheaper price. Thus, it appears that big business is playing games with us.Like an octopus globalisation has spread its deathly tentacles across the world and is squeezing the life blood out of the ordinary working people everywhere. The only way it can be fought off is by ordinary people the world over taking up a united struggle. We must not only produce the goods, but also organise our markets and above all use each other�s produce. Only then can we, the ordinary people of the world, the real one-world, continue to survive and live in a globalised economy, that was meant for our exploitation. |
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 Das
Adivasi-Tee-Projekt ist eine AG der Bundes-ESG |
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