Forgotten people

Its timing may be political,but Xaxa committee can help bring tribals back in meaningful policy debate.

Its timing may be political,but Xaxa committee can help bring tribals back in meaningful policy debate.

The Central government has decided to set up a committee to inquire into the socio-economic status of tribals. Headed by Virginius Xaxa,recently inducted in the National Advisory Council and deputy director of TISS Guwahati,its terms of reference are somewhat similar to those of the Sachar committee that surveyed Muslims countrywide. The Xaxa Committee is expected to submit its findings in nine months that is,roughly around the general elections. The timing appears to be meant to enable the ruling UPA to make a pitch for the tribal vote in different parts of the country,which the Congress has been struggling to hold and consolidate over the past decade. It is,however,for the panel to keep itself unhindered by the cacophony of the electoral schedule,for the task before it has the potential to situate and nuance policy interventions for more beneficial targeting.

There is a lattice of constitutional rights and legal interventions to bring communities included among the Scheduled Tribes into the mainstream as well as to protect them from being overwhelmed culturally. However,as data from the 2011 Census and elsewhere indicates,STs as a collectivity trail the national average on most socio-economic indicators. There are region-specific reasons for this,including issues of isolation,discrimination,regional backwardness,displacement,neglect. There are also the problems of Maoist violence overlapping with predominantly tribal belts in central and eastern India,with tribal rights being used as an excuse by the insurgents not only to justify their tactics but also to sharpen anxieties. In other resource-rich regions,there is political competitiveness in being seen to oppose each other on development projects in the name of local communities. The committees challenge,therefore,is to separate key issues from the ideological haze and bring the tribals meaningfully back in the policy debate.

Unlike the Sachar panel,whose findings were submitted early in the tenure of UPA 1,formulating action on the Xaxa Committees report will fall to the next government. That could even lay the ground for an electoral campaign that is nudged away from inducements to anxiety and towards a more inclusive conversation on socio-economic progress.