Anthropology Current Affairs Magazine August 2020

ANTHROPOLOGY CURRENT AFFAIRS MAGAZINE AUGUST 2020

VISHNUIAS.COM WE PROVIDE A PATH FOR YOUR SUCCESS

CURRENT AFFAIRS ANTHROPOLOGY

A MAGAZINE FOR CIVIL SERVICES PREPARATION

(Welcome To Vishnu IAS online )

(Research and Training Institute for the best civil services preparation in India)

CONTENTS

PAPER -1

PHYSICAL & ARCHAEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

1. Researchers unlock secrets of the past with new international carbon dating standard

2. Archaeologists say they've identified the earliest known bone tools in the European archaeological record.

3. First exhaustive analysis of use-wear traces on basalt tools from Olduvai

4. Termite-fishing chimpanzees provide clues to the evolution of technology

5. How Neanderthals adjusted to climate change

6. DNA Bill can be misused for caste-based profiling, says panel draft report

SOCIO-CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

7. Proving” the language/culture connection

PAPER - 2

INDIAN & TRIBAL ANTHROPOLOGY

1. Jharkhand: Tribal Farmers Tap Solar Irrigation To Cut Migration

2. Conserving ‘Toda Buffalo’ – Named After ‘Toda Tribe’

3. How conserving tribal languages will preserve dying cultures

4. Odisha's Tribal Communities Are Reeling Under a Land Grab Project Masquerading as 'Afforestation'

5. India gets the first-ever Siddi lawmaker.

6. Chhattisgarh’s tribal women keep vigil on their forests

7. Agro biodiversity Initiatives Open Tribal Women’s Horizons

8. Telangana: 80 Koya tribal families evicted from their fields for plantation drive

9. Tribal sub plans fail under Modi regime; Adivasis deprived of benefits in last five years

10. Fighting Malnutrition In Odisha’s Angul, A Story That Inspires All

11. Research: Traditional Knowledge Helps Indigenous People Adapt To Climate Crisis

12. Namath Basai, a big hit among Kerala tribal children

13. Help us assert grazing rights near LAC, it counts: ex- Ladakh BJP chief

14. Panna tribals denied forest entry in the name of animal conservation

15. The ‘quota within quota’ debate

16. Covid-19 reaches the Great Andamanese, why is this worrying?

PHYSICAL & ARCHAEOLOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

1. Researchers unlock secrets of the past with new international carbon dating standard

Radiocarbon dating is set to become more accurate than ever after an international team of scientists improved the technique for assessing the age of historical objects.

The team of researchers at the Universities of SheÞeld, Belfast, Bristol, Glasgow, Oxford, St Andrews and Historic England, plus international colleagues, used measurements from almost 15,000 samples from objects dating back as far as 60,000 years ago, as part of a seven- year project.

They used the measurements to create new international radiocarbon calibration (IntCal) curves, which are fundamental across the scientific spectrum for accurately dating artefacts and making predictions about the future. Radiocarbon dating is vital to fields such as archaeology and geoscience to date everything from the oldest modern human bones to historic climate patterns. Archaeologists can use that knowledge to restore historic monuments or study the demise of the Neanderthals, while geoscientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), rely

6 upon the curves to find out about what the climate was like in the past to better understand and prepare for future changes.

Professor Paula Reimer, from Queen's University Belfast and head of the IntCal project, said: "Radiocarbon dating has revolutionised the field of archaeology and environmental science. As we improve the calibration curve, we learn more about our history. The IntCal calibration curves are key to helping answer big questions about the environment and our place within it." The team of researchers have developed three curves dependent upon where the object to be dated is found. The new curves, to be published in Radiocarbon, are IntCal20 for the Northern Hemisphere, SHCal20 for the Southern Hemisphere, and Marine20 for the world's oceans.

Dr Tim Heaton, from the University of Shefield and lead author on the Marine20 curve, said: "This is a very exciting time to be working in radiocarbon. Developments in the field have made it possible to truly advance our understanding. I look forward to seeing what new insights into our past these recalculated radiocarbon timescales provide." The previous radiocarbon calibration curves developed over the past 50 years, were heavily reliant upon

7 measurements taken from chunks of wood covering 10 to 20 years big enough to be tested for radiocarbon. Advances in radiocarbon testing mean the updated curves instead use tiny samples, such as tree-rings covering just single years, that provide previously impossible precision and detail in the new calibration curves. Additionally, improvements in understanding of the carbon cycle have meant the curves have now been extended all the way to the limit of the radiocarbon technique 55,000 years ago.

Radiocarbon dating is the most frequently used approach for dating the last 55,000 years and underpins archaeological and environmental science. It was Þrst developed in 1949. It depends upon two isotopes of carbon called stable 12C and radioactive 14C. While a plant or animal is alive it takes in new carbon, so has the same ratio of these isotopes as the atmosphere at the time. But once an organism dies it stops taking in new carbon, the stable 12C remains but the 14C decays at a known rate. By measuring the ratio of 14C to 12C left in an object the date of its death can be estimated.

If the level of atmospheric 14C were constant, this would be easy. However, it has fluctuated significantly throughout history. In order to date organisms precisely scientists need a reliable historical record of its

8 variation to accurately transform 14C measurements into calendar ages. The new IntCal curves provide this link. The curves are created based on collecting a huge number of archives which store past radiocarbon but can also be dated using another method. Such archives include tree-rings from up to 14,000 years ago, stalagmites found in caves, corals from the sea and cores drilled from lake and ocean sediments. In total, the new curves were based upon almost 15,000 measurements of radiocarbon taken from objects as old as 60,000 years. Alex Bayliss, Head of Scientific Dating at Historic England, said: "Accurate and high-precision radiocarbon dating underpins the public's enjoyment of the historic environment and enables better preservation and protection.

"The new curves have internationally important implications for archaeological methodology, and for practices in conservation and understanding of wooden built heritage."

Darrell Kaufman of the IPCC said: "The IntCal series of curves are critical for providing a perspective on past climate which is essential for our understanding of the climate system, and a baseline for modelling future changes."

2. Archaeologists say they've identified the earliest known bone tools in the European archaeological record.

The implements come from the renowned Boxgrove site in West Sussex, which was excavated in the 1980s and 90s. The bone tools came from a horse that humans butchered at the site for its meat.

Flakes of stone in piles around the animal suggest at least eight individuals were making large flint knives for the job. Researchers also found evidence that other people were present nearby - perhaps younger or older members of a community - shedding light on the social structure of our ancient relatives.

There's nothing quite like Boxgrove elsewhere in Britain: during excavations, archaeologists uncovered hundreds of stone tools, along with animal bones, that dated to 500,000 years ago.

They were made by the species Homo heidelbergensis, a possible ancestor for modern humans and Neanderthals. Researchers found a shin bone belonging to one of them - it's the oldest human bone known from Britain.

The horse butchery site being excavated in 1990

Project lead, Dr Matthew Pope, from UCL's Institute of Archaeology, said: "This was an exceptionally rare opportunity to examine a site pretty much as it had been left behind by an extinct population, after they had gathered to totally process the carcass of a dead horse on the edge of a coastal marshland.

"Incredibly, we've been able to get as close as we can to witnessing the minute-by-minute movement and behaviours of a single apparently tight-knit group of early humans: a community of people, young and old, working together in a co-operative and highly social way."

The researchers were able to reconstruct the precise type of stone tool that had been made from the chippings left at the site. However, the humans must have taken the tools with them - as they had not been recovered.

At the inter-tidal marshland, which was on what would have been Britain's southern coastline, there was a nearby cliff that was starting to degrade, producing good rocks for knapping - the process of creating stone tools. Silt from the sea had also built up here, forming an area of grassland. "Grassland means herbivores and herbivores mean food," explained Dr Pope.

"The Football", this is a group of more than 100 re-fitted flint shards left over from making a single tool. The hand axe itself was not recovered. But the shape of the tool was revealed by casting the void left within the reconstructed waste material Dr Pope added that it was still unclear how the horse ended up in this landscape.

"Horses are highly sociable animals and it's reasonable to assume it was part of a herd, either attracted to the foreshore for fresh water, or for seaweed or salt licks. For whatever reason, this horse - isolated from the herd - ends up dying there," Dr Pope told BBC News. "Possibly it was hunted - though we have no proof of that - and it's sat right next to an intertidal creek. The tide was quite low so it's possible for the humans to get around it. But shortly after, a high tide comes in and starts to cover the site in fine, powdery silt and clay. It's so low energy that everything is left as it was when the hominins moved away from the site."

The horse provided more than just food. Analysis of the bones by Simon Parfitt, from the University College London (UCL) Institute of Archaeology, and Dr Silvia Bello, from London's Natural History Museum, found that several bones had been used as tools called re-touchers.

A pile of stone shards produced when an early human knelt to create a stone hand axe. The imprint of the person's knee can be seen in the silt.

Simon Parfitt said: "These are some of the earliest non-stone tools found in the archaeological record of human evolution. They would have been essential for manufacturing the finely made flint knives found in the wider Boxgrove landscape." Dr Bello added: "The finding provides evidence that early human cultures understood the properties of different organic materials and how tools could be made to improve the manufacture of other tools.

She explained that "it provides further evidence that early human populations at Boxgrove were cognitively, social and culturally sophisticated".

The researchers believe other members of the group - which could have numbered 30 to 40 people - were nearby. They might have joined the hunting party to butcher the horse carcass.

This might explain how it was so completely torn apart: the Boxgrove humans even smashed up the bones to get at the marrow and liquid grease. Dr Pope said that, far from being an activity for a handful of individuals in a hunting party, butchering could have been a highly social event for these ancient humans.

The project has primarily been funded by Historic England, the Arts and Humanities Research Council with support from the UCL Institute of Archaeology, the Natural History Museum and the British Museum. The detailed findings have been published in a book called The Horse Butchery Site.

3. First exhaustive analysis of use-wear traces on basalt tools from Olduvai

The Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución humana (CENIEH) has participated in an experimental study published recently in the journal Archeological and Anthropological Sciences, on the possible uses of tools fashioned from basalts—volcanic rocks that are highly abundant—at the Olduvai Gorge sites in Tanzania. It is the

16 first exhaustive analysis of the relationships between the petrological characteristics of this raw material and the formation of use-wear traces.

In addition to providing elements of great significance for interpreting human behavior at Olduvai Gorge, the results of this research led by the archeologist Patricia Bello-Alonso furnish a model which will enable comparative studies for lithic industry assemblages in volcanic rocks from different archeological and geological contexts to be conducted.

"The results we have obtained are a fundamental resource for analyzing the ways stone tools were used at the archeological sites located in Beds I and II, in general, and at the Thiongo Korongo (TK) site in particular as, in this area, volcanic rocks are one of the key raw materials for the technological and, therefore, evolutionary development of the different hominin groups that occupied Olduvai more than two million years ago," explains Bello-Alonso.

Reference Collection

The main objective of the research, in which the Museo de Ciencia Naturales and the Instituto de Evolución Humana en África in Madrid also participated, was to determine how traces are formed in basalts at both the macro and micro scales, to enable their use to be identified. To do so, non- retouched flakes were employed and a wide variety of organic materials was worked upon: animal carcasses, tubers, wood, grass, cane and fresh bone.

"Carrying out these operations has allowed us to compile an experimental reference collection for greater understanding of the role played by the internal and chemical structure of basalts in the formation and development of use-wear traces," she adds.

4. Termite-fishing chimpanzees provide clues to the evolution of technology

Researchers, who remotely videotaped a generation of wild chimpanzees learning to use tools, gain insights into how technology came to define human culture. Using the now-ubiquitous manmade technology of motion- activated cameras, researchers who remotely watched 25 immature chimpanzees grow up have documented how humankind's closest relatives living in the Congo Basin acquire their unique tool skills for harvesting termites, a favorite nutrient-rich element of the chimpanzee diet.

Unlike chimpanzees in East and West Africa, who use a single tool to extract termites, chimpanzees in Central Africa's Congo Basin use tool sets--puncturing sticks or perforating twigs plus fishing probes--to harvest the insects from underground nests or towering earthen mounds scattered across lowland forests. Arguably,

18 chimpanzees living in this region have the most sophisticated arsenal of tool-using skills documented in the animal kingdom.

Not only do they use specialized tool sets to harvest termites, ants, and honey, but they customize the implements with different modi_cations to improve their efficiency. Trying to untangle how chimpanzees in the Congo Basin acquire these complex tool tasks, University of Miami biological anthropologist Stephanie Musgrave screened thousands of hours of video that recorded visits to termite nests, including those by forest elephants, leopards, and gorillas, in the Republic of Congo's Goualougo Triangle.

Her reward was identifying more than 660 hours of periodic visits by 25 young chimpanzees belonging to a notoriously elusive subspecies of chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes troglodytes). Recorded over 15 years, this footage captured the development of their tool-using skills from birth until maturity.

Now, in the first study assessing when Central African chimpanzees learn to use and make their unique termite-extracting tool sets, Musgrave and fellow researchers with the Goualougo Triangle Ape Project provide novel insights into how chimpanzee cultures persist over generations--and perhaps how technology came to be a de_ning aspect of human evolution.

"Chimpanzees have the most complex tool behaviors of any animals outside of humans, so studying how their youngsters become pro_cient at these tasks can help us better understand how early humans might have acquired complex technological skills," said Musgrave, an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology and lead author of the study published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology. "Examining the development of these perishable tool kits is of particular interest because our ancestors likely also used perishable tools--made of plants rather than stone-- but these tools are not preserved in the archeological record," she added.

For their study, Musgrave and her co-authors--Elizabeth Lonsdorf, David Morgan, and Crickette Sanz-- conducted the first, direct comparison of tool skill acquisition between two populations of chimpanzees, those at Goualougo and those more than 1,300 miles to the east, in Gombe, Tanzania. Lonsdorf, a professor of psychology at Franklin & Marshall College, studies chimpanzees at Gombe, the oldest field study of wild chimpanzees established by renowned primatologist Jane Goodall 60 years ago. Morgan, of Chicago's Lincoln Park Zoo, and Sanz, of Washington University in St. Louis, co-founded the Goualougo Triangle Ape Project--the longest-running behavioral study of wild Central African chimpanzees. And, in partnership with the Wildlife Conservation Society, they have studied this population of chimpanzees for more than 20 years.

They also pioneered the use of remote video technology to study wild chimpanzee behavior. For their current study, the research team adapted the methods developed at Gombe for studying the acquisition of tool skills. And, they found notable diÞerences in the timing and sequence in which the chimpanzees in these two populations acquired their termite- gathering skills--differences that could relate to the challenges of using and making multiple tools at Goualougo. While infants at both Goualougo and Gombe begin trying to use tools within their first two years, the Gombe youngsters learn to make their tools before or at the same time they become pro_cient at using them. In contrast, the Goualougo youngsters learn to termite fish before acquiring their tool-making skills. In early life, they typically use tools that have been discarded or transferred to them by other, older chimpanzees. Unlike the Gombe chimpanzees, who use varied materials, the Goualougo chimpanzees also carefully select the materials for their tools, almost always from just a few species of plants. And they modify them to improve their efficiency. "They have a mental template of the right tool for the job, and there's no mistaking the different tool types," Musgrave said. "Puncturing tools are made from a species of tree that's very durable and resistant, while fishing probes are made from smooth, pliable stems of vegetation. In contrast to Gombe, the chimpanzees at Goualougo fray these probes with their teeth to manufacture a paint-brush-like tip, which makes the tool 10 times more efficient at capturing termites."

After learning to make their own tools, Musgrave discovered, the Goualougo chimpanzees begin to employ them sequentially--using a perforating twig plus a fishing probe to harvest the termites that inhabit the aboveground nests and a puncturing stick plus a fishing probe to extract them from the much-harder-to-pierce underground nests. The latter task is so arduous that the researchers predicted it would be the last mastered and just by a few chimpanzees. They were right. "I've observed chimpanzees make hundreds of attempts to puncture into a subterranean termite nest," Musgrave said. "Not only does the skill require immense strength but also technical competencies that may continue to develop in adolescence." The findings underscore how the developmental trajectory of life skills can vary considerably depending on the task and across chimpanzee populations, which have unique local cultures. In the study, the researchers note that the variation in tool traditions between sites could be linked to differences in the role of social input from other chimpanzees.

"In previous research, we documented that mother chimpanzees at Goualougo play a more active and helpful role when compared to mothers at Gombe," Musgrave said. "At Goualougo, mothers are more likely to transfer tools to their offspring. This enhanced assistance could be instrumental in the acquisition of skills over the longer time period."

Figuring out how tool traditions are passed on and how this differs within and between species, Musgrave said, could help humans understand the emergence of cumulative culture during our own evolution. "One of the key features of human culture is its remarkable complexity," she said. "It's what we call cumulative. Meaning that ideas and innovations accumulate over time, such that new generations inherit and learn to use technologies that are far more complex than any one individual could invent. Comparative studies give us insights into how technology came to be a defining aspect of human evolution."

But, as Musgrave cautioned, the continuation and expansion of such research depends on the long-term preservation of wild chimpanzees and their cultures--which are increasingly endangered by human activities.

5. How Neanderthals adjusted to climate change

Climate change occurring shortly before their disappearance triggered a complex change in the behaviour of late Neanderthals in Europe: they developed more complex tools. This is the conclusion reached by a group of researchers from Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen- Nürnberg (FAU) and Università degli Studi die Ferrara (UNIFE) on the basis of Þnds in the Sesselfelsgrotte cave in Lower Bavaria.

Neanderthals lived approximately 400,000 to 40,000 years ago in large areas of Europe and the Middle East, even as far as the outer edges of Siberia. They produced tools using wood and glass-like rock material, which they also sometimes combined, for example to make a spear with a sharp and hard point made of stone. From approximately 100,000 years ago, their universal cutting and scraping tool was a knife made of stone, the handle consisting of a blunt edge on the tool itself. These Keilmesser (backed, asymmetrical bifacially shaped knives) were available in various shapes, leading researchers to wonder why the Neanderthals created such a variety of knives? Did they use different knives for different tasks or did the knives come from different sub-groups of Neanderthals? This was what the international research project hoped to find out.

Keilmesser are the answer 'Keilmesser are a reaction to the highly mobile lifestyle during the first half of the last ice age. As they could be sharpened again as and when necessary, they were able to be used for a long time - almost like a Swiss army knife today,' says Prof. Dr. Thorsten Uthmeier from the Institute of Prehistory and Early History at FAU.

'However, people often forget that bi-facially worked knives were not the only tools Neanderthals had. Backed knives from the Neanderthal period are surprisingly varied,' adds his Italian colleague Dr. Davide Delpiano from Sezione di Scienze Preistoriche e Antropologiche at UNIFE. 'Our research uses the possibilities offered by digital analysis of 3D models to discover

24 similarities and differences between the various types of knives using statistical methods.'

The two researchers investigated artefacts from one of the most important Neanderthal sites in Central Europe, the Sesselfelsgrotte cave in Lower Bavaria. During excavations in the cave conducted by the Institute of Prehistory and Early History at FAU, more than 100,000 artefacts and innumerable hunting remains left behind by the Neanderthals have been found, even including evidence of a Neanderthal burial.

The researchers have now analysed the most significant knife-like tools using 3D scans produced in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Marc Stamminger and Dr. Frank Bauer from the Chair of Visual Computing at the Department of Computer Science at FAU. They allow the form and properties of the tool to be recorded extremely precisely. 'The technical repertoire used to create Keilmesser is not only direct proof of the advanced planning skills of our extinct relatives, but also a strategical reaction to the restrictions imposed upon them by adverse natural conditions,' says Uthmeier, FAU professor for Early Prehistory and Archaeology of Prehistoric Hunters and Gatherers.

Other climate, other tools What Uthmeier refers to as 'adverse natural conditions' are climate changes after the end of the last interglacial more than 100,000 years ago. Particularly severe cold phases during the following Weichsel glacial period began more than 60,000 years ago and led to a shortage of natural resources. In order to survive, the Neanderthals had to become more mobile than before, and adjust their tools accordingly.

The Neanderthals probably copied the functionality of unifacial backed knives, which are only shaped on one side, and used these as the starting point to develop bi-facially formed Keilmesser shaped on both sides. 'This is indicated in particular by similarities in the cutting edge, which consists in both instances of a flat bottom and a convex top, which was predominantly suited for cutting lengthwise, meaning that it is quite right to refer to the tool as a knife,' says Davide Delpiano from UNIFE.

Both types of knife - the simpler older version and the newer, significantly more complex version - obviously have the same function. The most important difference between the two tools investigated in this instance is the longer lifespan of bi-facial tools. Keilmesser therefore represent a high-tech concept for a long-life, multifunctional tool, which could be used without any additional accessories such as a wooden handle.

'Studies from other research groups seem to support our interpretation,' says Uthmeier. 'Unlike some people have claimed, the disappearance of the Neanderthals cannot have been a result of a lack of innovation or methodical thinking.'

6. DNA Bill can be misused for caste-based profiling, says panel draft report Syllabus Relevance - Applications of Anthropology - DNA Technology

The parliamentary standing committee on science and technology headed by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh has raised few concerns over the DNA Bill.

They are:

 DNA data could be misused for caste or community- based profiling.  The Bill refers to consent in several provisions, but in each of those, a magistrate can easily override consent, thereby in effect, making consent perfunctory (Meaning of perfunctory: performed merely as a routine duty; hasty and superficial).  There is also no guidance in the Bill on the grounds and reasons of when the magistrate can override consent, which could become a fatal flaw.  The Bill permits retention of DNA found at a crime scene in perpetuity, even if conviction of the offender has been overturned.  The Bill also provides that DNA profiles for civil matters will also be stored in the data banks, but without a clear and separate index. Overview of the DNA Technology (Use And Application) Regulation Bill, 2019:

1. It seeks to establish a national data bank and regional DNA data banks. 2. It envisages that every databank will maintain indices like the crime scene index, suspects’ or

undertrials’ index, offenders’ index, missing persons’ index and unknown deceased persons’ index. 3. It also seeks to establish a DNA Regulatory Board. Every laboratory that analyses DNA samples to establish the identity of an individual, has to be accredited by the board. 4. The bill also proposes a written consentby individuals be obtained before collection of their DNA samples. However, consent is not required for offences with punishment of more than seven years in jail or death. 5. It also provides for the removal of DNA profiles of suspects on the filing of a police report or court order, and of undertrials on the basis of a court order. Profiles in the crime scene and missing persons’ index will be removed on a written request.

SOCIO-CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

7. Proving” the language/culture connection

Over the weekend, several anthropologist called attention to this research report produced by Princeton University (link to full report here). The headline touts the research with the claim that “Machine Learning reveals role of culture in shaping the meaning of words”. My response, and that of many others, was immediately snarky – we didn’t particularly need computers to

28 tell us something that has been amply demonstrated by the entire field of linguistic anthropology for the better part of a century, and by plenty of people paying attention for even longer. There was a bit of pushback on these comments, which ultimately all share a certain thematic element – that even if we already knew this, we, as linguistic anthropologists, should welcome this work, and the attention being paid to it, as a new methodology that supports what we know and do.

The problem with this claim is…it doesn’t do that at all. And here, I have to own up to the fact that my own initial flippant response absolutely does suggest that it does, as I noted “the machines have caught up to my opening lecture in intro to linguistic anthropology”. It is, of course, true that culture shapes meaning within languages, and that we teach that as a central principle of the discipline. The problem is, what the authors of this study mean by that and what we mean by that are fundamentally different things, as becomes apparent when you read beyond the headline. At a certain point, I hoped that reading the paper itself would mitigate some of the concerns I had, but alas, while obviously written in a somewhat less hyperbolic way, the conceptual foundation, methodological application, and interpretation involved in this paper is, to my mind, a frustratingly flawed contribution to the study of the intersection of language and culture, for reasons outlined below.

The crucial issue for me is how the authors define ‘culture’ and establish a quantified version of ‘cultural similarity’. In order to make this machine-based analysis work, culture has to be reduced to a checklist of features. To do so, the authors did in fact draw on anthropology – specifically, the Ethnographic Atlas available at D-PLACE, which is based on the work of GP

Murdock and his students. There’s an interesting anthropological rabbit hole to go down in examining the

30 disagreements between Murdock and Edward Sapir, and critically considering Murdock’s emphatically ‘scientific’ and mathematical approach to studying human social differences. What I would ask the authors in this case, though, is whether they have chosen this approach to studying culture after a careful consideration of historical and contemporary thinking about the concept, or mainly because it is the one that allows them to fit the question of culture into the computational mold they wish to explore. Even the assumption that “languages” map neatly onto “cultures”, as opposed to containing multiple ways of speaking, or ‘languages’ being spoken by diverse groups of people, or to having culture defined by multilingual and multivocal practices, doesn’t hold within contemporary linguistic anthropology.

Further, and relatedly, while the Princeton report about the study touts it as covering a remarkable number of languages, 41 is in fact an absolutely tiny drop in the bucket of global linguistic diversity — a point that becomes even more apparent when you look at the actual list of languages, which include 25 from the Indo-European family, 4 Turkic languages, 3 Uralic, and 1 each from the Afro-Asiatic (Arabic), Sino-Tibetan (Chinese), Dravidian (Tamil), Kartvelian (Georgian), Japonic (Japanese), and Koreanic (Korean) families, as well as Basque.

While I was pleasantly surprised at a few of these inclusions (Georgian and Basque wouldn’t fall in to the ‘usual suspects’ list), most of the list is extremely predictably narrow. Further, one might ask whether these labels even hold up all that well – which Englishes are represented here, or which versions of Spanish, Chinese, or any other “language”? This narrowness is made even worse as the analysis selects further and further for focus on Indo-European languages, because those are the ones about

31 which the kind of diachronic language change information being used to classify degrees of linguistic/historical similarity is most available. The authors don’t justify this choice beyond the convenience level – or really, at all.

Even to find the list of languages, one has to follow the links to get to the 300 pages of supplementary material that they provide. This indicates to me that they don’t think their choice of languages used to make conclusions about ‘universal’ meanings and patterns of language/culture relationships requires explanation. A broader consideration of language at a global level would require attuning to the complexity of the concept of ‘words’, to the ways in which meaning is established in practice, or to the implications of things like polysynthesis in how these forms of ‘universality’ emerge.

To illustrate what I mean, consider how the study talks about kinship terms and alignment. For the authors, the machine analysis demonstrates that this category of terms (at least the most ‘common’ ones – the examples they give are ‘daughter’, ‘son’, and ‘aunt’) tend to translate into other languages with a high degree of shared meaning. I have assigned to introductory ling anth classes to talk about how many cultural beliefs we take for granted, such as the role of names and kinship terms, are in fact demonstrably diverse. Blum’s work is a good example that illustrates how “meaning” is not reducible to semantic “content” or “translatability”, but rather has to be understood in terms of social practice. In other words, even asking the question of “what does this kinship term mean?” requires us to understand how a given culture approaches such “meaning”.

But ethnographic analyses of kinship practices would suggest that even if the terms ‘translate’, they are used in extremely diverse ways. In many parts of Latin America, the Spanish/Portuguese terms ‘tia’ and ‘tio’, which translate as ‘aunt’ and ‘uncle’ are used to refer to almost any adult engaging with children, so during fieldwork in Brazil, I would often be introduced to kids by adults saying something like “Essa tia vem do Canadá” (“This auntie comes from Canada”). Sticking with languages represented on the list here, Susan Blum’s work on “Naming Practices and the Power of Words in China” is one that

This starts to get at what I mean when I say that what this work ‘proves’ does not, in fact, align (pun intended, #sorrynotsorry) with what linguistic anthropologists talk about when they study how meaning is different across cultural contexts. There are major assumptions in the computational work that contradict the understandings of language and culture that most of us work within, and in particular, ignore the ways in which we examine language as a dynamic social practice. The ethnological Atlas material is, of course, not the only criterion the study uses for identifying cultural proximity, but digging in to other aspects of the analysis reveals similar assumptions. As my friend Lavanya Murali noted to me, the treatment of geographic proximity and shared linguistic history, for example, doesn’t really contend with the dynamics of how people interact across linguistic boundaries such that similarities can be produced through interaction, rather than as an inherent property of language — with both these elements, in turn, abstracted from an idea of “culture”. All of this, for me, calls the conceptual framework that this research relies upon into question, and at the very least, demonstrates that this work doesn’t support linguistic anthropologists’ claims about language and culture. As such, this is not a matter of

34 saying the same thing with different methodological evidence, but rather saying something completely different based on an entirely distinct set of assumptions about language and culture – ones that, in fact, I work really hard to teach students to examine as ideological claims rather than fundamental truths. This even presents something of a meta-commentary, as it’s worth noting that meaning doesn’t even align within languages, and that the meaning of ‘meaning’ isn’t always clear and translatable — I could go on, but you get the point.

In addition to all this, I want to ask — why this research? Why ask these questions? This has been a central piece of the critique I have brought to my less-sarcastic Twitter comments, and that still holds after reading the study itself. The researcher interviewed makes the claim that this is the first “data driven” approach to the question, and further explains that the motivation comes from a desire to improve upon the time-consuming need to do things like “conduct long, careful interviews with bilingual speakers who evaluate the quality fo translations”.

The first comment is illustrative of a widespread belief that ethnography is not data, and that valorizes the quantitative and mathematical as “proof”. As many people noted, one of the reasons this raises our hackles is that we have been “proving” the interrelationships between language and culture in any number of ways for years, and this work actually doesn’t engage with any of that material, preferring instead to jump back several decades and use a dataset that conforms to pre-existing assumptions. The second point is more nuanced, but equally worth addressing – what’s wrong with long, careful interviews? In fact, one of the reasons that the list of languages used here is so limited is because those are the ones for which a sufficient amount of long,

35 careful interviews, recorded material, and myriad other forms of data are available. It’s not clear to me, then, that this kind of work in any way does away with the need to develop that material in the first place, raising the question of what it accomplishes. As I noted in tweets, the decisions about what questions to ask are ones that deserve scrutiny, because resources are spent investigating these questions, which means those resources aren’t available for other questions. And if resources are being consumed doing research that ignores and dismisses work on apparently related topics, it does have a negative impact on that work – so, speaking for myself, as a linguistic anthropologist, it’s disappointing and frustrating to see not only the promotional elements of this work, but to see how the project itself represents the questions that we even need to understand regarding language and culture

36 INDIAN & TRIBAL ANTHROPOLOGY

1. Jharkhand: Tribal Farmers Tap Solar Irrigation To Cut Migration

The Chotanagpur Plateau in eastern India, crisscrossed with streams, once was lush green even in winter.

But increasingly erratic rainfall in recent years has made life much harder for the region’s impoverished indigenous subsistence farmers, most of whom rely on monsoon rains between June and September to grow a thirsty rice crop.

“Our land is rich, but our people are poor,” said Gagu Oraon, a farmer from the Oraon indigenous community in

Tukutoli, a village that has struggled with low yields and crop failure.

But now clean-energy technology is providing help, in the form of a new solar-powered irrigation system that helps about 30 local farmers get dependable water, allowing them to diversify their crops without producing planet- warming emissions. Along with rice, the farmers now are growing vegetables and selling the surplus – something that is providing more income and stability at home, Oraon noted.

“For young people in the village, it’s a relief not migrating for work,” he said.

A rising number of Indian farmers are turning to solar- powered irrigation, which agricultural experts say can help communities feed their families and generate income while battling climate threats – all without producing more planet-warming emissions. As part of a project by the Transform Rural India foundation (TRI), a non-profit based in New Delhi, farmers in Tukutoli installed a solar system that pumps water from a small rivulet and provides reliable irrigation to about 30 acres (12 hectares). The farmers can control the amount of water that goes to their rice crops and also grow vegetables such as cauliflower, eggplant, okra and cabbage.

“Tribal communities, who typically do not have access to irrigation, are among the most vulnerable to climate risks,” said Anas Rahman, a researcher with the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), a New Delhi-based think tank.

“Providing access to irrigation is important as a climate adaptation measure.” Solar pumps can be the main pillar for a new vision of more climate-friendly agricultural development, he added.

A view of Gagu Oraon, left, and other farmers who are using solar energy to irrigate their farms in Tukutoli, a

39 village in the Indian state of Jharkhand, October 2019. Thomson Reuters Foundation/Soumya Sarkar

CLEAN ENERGY, READILY AVAILABLE

In the uplands of Chotanagpur Plateau and other parts of Jharkhand, temperatures have been rising and rainfall patterns have become more unpredictable in recent decades, a phenomenon that climate experts attribute to global warming.

A 2018 study by researchers from the Birla Institute of Technology Mesra and Central University of Jharkhand found a “declining trend of cumulative rainfall” in the region between 1984 and 2014. Irrigation can help stabilise crop production in the face of climate change, farming experts say, and solar-powered systems have advantages over diesel systems and rainfed farming. “Diesel contributes to carbon emissions,” said Satyabrata Acharyya, a development expert at Professional Assistance for Development Action (PRADAN), a non- profit working in Jharkhand.

“Also tribal farmers living in remote areas find it difficult to travel long distances to buy diesel from fuel stations,” he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “Solar energy is

40 available on-site, the machinery is easy to maintain and it is clean energy,” he added. RELIABLE INCOME

Until they got their irrigation system, many men from the village of Chandrapur, home to about 100 families from the Munda indigenous community, migrated to places like Kerala and Punjab states in search of work and wages.

Two years ago, rice farmers in the village on Chotanagpur Plateau banded together with TRI to install a solar- powered irrigation system.

“Many of us are now cultivating cauliflowers that fetch a good price in the market,” said Mangra Bhengra, a young farmer who runs and maintains the village’s solar pump. “Who needs to migrate if you can make money in the village?” he asked

Vegetables require less water than rice, and drip irrigation – which puts small amounts of water only where needed – can cut water consumption by 30%-70% while increasing crop yield by up to 60% compared to irrigating fields by flooding them, said Bikash Das, senior scientist at the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).

Access to irrigation also can provide farmers with a more reliable income, since one farm can produce several yields of vegetables each year, he added.

“Many vegetables are ready in three months, which means farmers can gather three or four harvests in a year,” Das said, noting that they can make between 50,000 and 100,000 rupees ($670-$1,340) per year from one acre of vegetables.

Solar-based irrigation projects in India have increased from about 18,000 in 2014-15 to nearly 200,000 in recent years, according to the 2020 United Nations Water and Climate Change report. In the past few years, PRADAN, TRI and other non-profits have helped install more than 700 solar-powered irrigation systems in impoverished villages in Jharkhand, representatives of the groups told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The success of such interventions prompted India’s federal government last year to launch an effort to install about 2 million solar pumps around India by 2022, said the U.N. report.

“There is a strong need for irrigation methods that can provide adequate hydration for crops even with a limited supply of water, without requiring significant energy input or financial capital,” said Das at ICAR. COST HURDLES

Some farmers and climate experts point to the expense of buying and installing such systems as an obstacle to wider uptake of solar irrigation.

The upfront cost of installing a solar-powered system is higher than for diesel-run irrigation, noted Ashok Kumar, a director at TRI.

“But solar is more cost-efficient in the long run, because recurring costs are virtually nil. The rising cost of diesel to run pumps can be prohibitive for smallholder farmers,” he said. Under a $100-million World Bank project, about 2,000 solar irrigation systems will be installed in Jharkhand by 2023.

The Indian government is covering most of the cost of buying solar-powered pumps for the irrigation systems it plans to install across the country, with farmers or non- profits paying the rest.

“In some cases, villagers are even willing to pool their own money to install these systems,” said Kumar.

As solar irrigation systems become more popular, Rahman at the CEEW said many indigenous farmers already have eco-friendly lifestyles.

“We have a lot to learn from them,” he said. “The practices of tribal communities – along with cleaner means of energy and irrigation access – can be the lighthouses that will show the world sustainable ways of agriculture.” Featured image: Farmer Gagu Oraon stands in front of solar panels that power an irrigation system in Tukutoli, a village in the Indian state of Jharkhand, October 2019.

2. Conserving ‘Toda Buffalo’ – Named After ‘Toda Tribe’

Polker Kuttan, a 72-year-old Toda tribal from the Nilgiris, is like a local weather expert – he can predict the onset or delay of the seasonal rains and even the duration of each spell. Polker says that just a whiff of the flowers found in the mund (Toda settlements) would tell him when the next rain spell is bound to happen.

He observes how the rains and their lives have become unpredictable in recent times. “In the last 15 years, everything has changed. The flowers are disappearing and so are the honey bees. We used to collect honey during the summer, but it has become increasingly difficult,” he said. But the change that hits him the hardest is the disappearance of their beloved Toda buffaloes. These

45 buffaloes, so named for their close association with the tribe, are a breed of the Asiatic water buffalo (Bubalus bubalis).

Polker says the buffaloes have reduced to one-tenth of the original population in their villages. A 2013 livestock breed study revealed that the population of pure breed Toda buffalo totaled 3003. “Even the milk yield, which was 5 litres per day per buffalo, has reduced to 1 litre per day. This is primarily because their grazing lands have reduced drastically,” he added.

The close-knit Toda communities live in settlements called munds across the Nilgiris. With many Todas moving out for jobs, only 65 munds remain. Each mund has around 4-10 homes, one or two temples and a buffalo pen near their abode.

For elderly Todas like Polker, the drastic drop in Toda buffalo numbers doesn’t just translate as loss of livelihood. The Toda buffaloes are also an essential part of their culture. The Todas traditionally categorise their buffaloes as sacred and secular and they even have specific dairy temples for different hierarchies of their sacred buffaloes. From birth to death, the Todas rely on these dairies and the Toda buffaloes for every ritual.

Northay Kuttan, President, Nilgiris Primitive Tribal People’s Federation explained, “Todas are very connected to nature. Even our chants are names of nearby mountains, rivers, trees, etc. And the Toda water buffaloes are the crux around which our life revolves. We open our temples only when the sacred buffaloes birth a calf. We have to use its milk to churn butter and ghee (clarified butter). This ghee is then used to light the lamp in our temple. If the buffaloes do not reproduce, our temples will remain closed.” Hence, the Toda buffaloes’ disappearance also directly threatens to dissipate the ancient culture of this tribe.

As per the Central Institute for the Research on Buffaloes, “The existence of this buffalo could be traced back from the earliest reference of Finicio (1603) who wrote of the tribe: “They have no crops of any kind, and no occupation but the breeding of buffaloes, on whose milk and butter they live”. Apart from the Todas, who predominantly own these buffaloes (hence named after the tribe), other communities such as Badagas and Kotas also maintain them in small numbers.” B. Ramakrishnan, Assistant Professor in Wildlife biology, Government Arts College, Ooty, observes that Toda buffaloes are characterised by crescent-shaped horns and short legs, and are ferocious and semi-feral in nature.

“The drastic reduction in their population is worrisome. The numbers are close to only 50 buffaloes in a mund now,” he said.

He opines that this could be because of the successful tiger conservation programme in the region that has led to an increase in the tiger population, which in turn has reduced the buffaloes it preys on. “With the buffaloes’ traditional grazing lands replaced by plantations and farms in the Nilgiris, they go into the forests where they increasingly fall prey to the tigers,” he said.

He recalls how a government initiative helped to build a “buffalo pool” to help the Todas replace the buffaloes killed by tigers so as to alleviate any financial burden on the herders.

“This would definitely help temporarily. But in the long run, increasing the native grasslands (for grazing) in Nilgiris would be the only way to protect the remaining buffaloes,” concludes Ramakrishnan.

Resurrecting the native grasslands

Godwin Vasanth Bosco, an ecologist and writer based out of the Nilgiris, agrees that reviving the grasslands is crucial to the conservation of the Toda buffaloes and other grassland-dependent species like the Nilgiri Tahr. However, both the British and the post-independence government policies have treated the native grasslands like wastelands, replacing them with what was perceived as more ‘productive’ exotic species like Eucalyptus or wattle (for the paper industry).

Conservationists and scientists have proven the importance of native grasslands for various endemic species in the region, including the Toda buffaloes. Last

49 year, the Madras high court had intervened and formed a committee to remove invasive species such as Lantana camara and revive the native shola forests and grasslands in the Nilgiris.

Vasanth tells us that only 9 -10 percent of the native grasslands remain in the Nilgiris. “It would take careful removal of invasive species and replacing it with plugs of native grasses in suitable areas to revive these grasslands,” he said. His organisation, Upstream Ecology, along with Keystone Foundation, has worked on select Toda munds for reviving various native grass species.

He tells us that another larger challenge is that many landowners in Nilgiris (including pastoralists like Todas) lease out grasslands to farmers for growing vegetables.

Toda leader Northay Kuttan, who has also taken initiatives to conserve native trees and grasslands for close to two decades, understands that there are challenges that arise from both within and outside his community. He believes that it would indeed take a large-scale coordinated effort by the natives, NGOs and the forest department to bring back the lost grasslands of their hamlets.

Preserving the genetic pool of the Toda buffaloes

While efforts to revive native grasslands continue, Dr. Anil Kumar, Professor and Head at the Sheep Breeding Research Station in the Nilgiris, has been directly involved in conserving the Toda buffaloes.

“There are only around 1000 bulls in the Nilgiris. The Toda buffaloes are a unique breed of buffaloes that can survive the harsh climate conditions of Upper Nilgiris and are also highly disease-resistant. We have taken consistent efforts to ensure that the germplasm of this native breed isn’t lost. We have observed that the Toda bulls are mostly feral, they stay in the forests and come out only during the breeding season. In most of the herds, the number of calves had reduced due to the paucity of bulls. We have not only reared and studied 18 buffaloes in our farm and returned it to the Todas, but have also trained around 30 Toda youth on first aid, ethnoveterinary practices, vaccines and other ways to prevent calf mortality,” he said. “The Jallikattu protest in Tamil Nadu brought huge focus into the conservation of native cattle. There is a sudden surge of interest in native cattle milk. If we can find a better market value for this rich Toda buffalo milk (Toda buffalo milk has 12 percent fat, as compared to 8 percent fat in normal cows), more and more Todas would come forward to protect these native cows,” he added.

And this is precisely what Toda leader Northay is attempting, “We have sent a proposal to the Tribal Welfare department to market the ghee of our native Toda buffaloes under a tribal brand and are awaiting approval. We have plans to test this organic ghee to understand its properties better and to help our product reach a wider market.”

Northay reveals that Nilgiris heritage and culture society, which he heads, is also planning to breed a pool of pure Toda buffaloes for their temples. It would be a non-profit initiative to conserve their culture.

“There are also plans to use leaf culture, a unique technique to propagate plants using their leaves, with the help of agro-scientists in Coimbatore, to revive native grasslands as grazing lands for our buffaloes,” said Northay, who is leaving no stone unturned to protect what is left of the Toda buffaloes and their culture.

3. How conserving tribal languages will preserve dying cultures

In a culturally and linguistically diverse country like India, there is a need to conserve the tribal languages that are dying.

One of the most complex problems in India is the problem of languages. India has seen many movements to conserve the native languages; even demanding separate statehood on linguistic grounds. Some of them were successful and states like Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra are the results of those movements. These states have their native language spoken by the majority of people as their official language.

However, there are many languages in our country spoken by a good many people that still do not have the official status. Even their speakers are reluctant to demand it, primarily due to the lack of awareness and organisation. Tribal languages of India are good examples of such languages that are spoken by many and the need to conserve them. While many tribal languages are enjoying official status in the north-eastern states, the ones in ‘mainland’ India are not.

The Santali Alphabets

According to People’s Linguistic Survey of India (2013), 480 languages are spoken by tribal people in India. While some of these are spoken by large groups of people, others barely have any takers. Bhili, for instance, is spoken by 2.1 crore people in western India and Santali is spoken by 48 lakh people in the eastern part of the country. Both of these are tribal languages. However, while the former does not have any official status, the latter is the official language in Jharkhand.

One may ask what is the need to conserve these tribal languages. The primary need to conserve any language is

56 to conserve the cultures associated with them. This includes literature, food habits and lifestyle. As Noam Chomsky put it, “A language is not just words. It’s a culture, a tradition, a unification of a community.” When a language disappears, the culture associated along with it also dies.

The second reason to conserve tribal languages is to ensure literacy and education of tribal people. A Bhili child living in Gujarat's Dang district will have to study in either Gujarati or English mediums because his/her mother tongue does not have the official status. Considering the difficulties in studying in a language that is not one’s mother tongue, there is a rise in the number of dropouts or those opting not to study at all. While the national literacy rate is 73 per cent, the literacy rate of the Scheduled Tribes (STs) is just 59 per cent. In Telangana, the dropout rate for the STs is 52.57 per cent and that of other categories is just 29.42 per cent. The language factor could be one of the important reasons leading to such high dropout rates and illiteracy among tribal people. Being educated in their mother tongues will solve this problem. The third reason is to eliminate the feeling of marginalisation and avoiding the communication gap. In areas with high insurgency, the native language is not understood by law enforcement agencies, leading to a gap in communication. The militants benefit out of this gap

57 and the nexus of insurgency continues. To break this, in 2018, the Chhattisgarh Police mandated their personnel to learn the Gondi language. Tribal people can understand the government and law enforcement machinery better if it is available in their own language.

So how can we conserve these tribal languages? The first step is to set up committees of linguists — voluntary or government-appointed — that decide whether what is spoken is a dialect or a language, and whether manuscripts of the language are available or not. If the manuscripts of a language are not available, they can work on what manuscript can be used.

The second step is to publish dictionaries and learning material in the language. For instance, in 2018, the Odisha government published bilingual dictionaries in 21 rare tribal languages. These enable scholars and enthusiasts to not just learn those languages, but also produce great literature, in addition to conserving the existing ones.

The third step should be to allow tribal languages as a medium of communication and education in specific districts and regions. As mentioned earlier, it can reduce the communication gap, illiteracy, and the number of school dropouts.

The fourth step should be promoting tribal languages through cultural and entertainment programs. In February this year, a radio channel in Jharkhand started airing

58 cultural programmes in Asur language, which has only 7,000 to 8,000 speakers. The Asur community started popularising the language within their geographical limits and this aided in the revival of the dying language. If organisations and collectives can make interesting dramas or films in tribal languages, they can have a wider reach and appeal with the younger crowd.

The efforts cannot stop with these steps alone. With the world moving towards the digital platform more rapidly than ever before, the literature, folklore and songs in tribal languages will also have to be digitised for the sake of posterity. With mobile internet, this step will enable these languages to transcend the geographical borders. One useful tool to achieve the same can be Wikipedia that is currently available in 28 Indian languages. Santali became first Indian tribal language to have its version on the platform. While the government must take steps in ensuring the rightful status to tribal languages, it cannot do everything by itself. A healthy nexus and coordination between voluntary organisations, linguists, and the government is a must. India is a treasure trove of tribal languages. These need to be preserved in the interest of conserving the cultural diversity of the country.

4. Odisha's Tribal Communities Are Reeling Under a

Land Grab Project Masquerading as 'Afforestation'

The forest department’s move to aggressively promote commercial plantation activities on community forest land in the name of compensatory afforestation is usurping the forest rights of the tribal communities

Pratima and many others in the village said that the police had threatened to displace them from the forest if they opposed the work of the state forest department. The latter has been aggressively promoting commercial tree plantation by supplanting forests nurtured by tribal communities, which comprise 53% of the population of Kandhamal district.

In the forest land that is being targeted by the forest department, the tribal communities have been growing a diverse food basket of millets, tubers, pulses, and greens. From the forest they collect minor forest produce (MFP) for household consumption and for sale at the local haats, which ensures a major source of income.

Giant trees cut down by the Odisha Forest Department in Pidadamaha village. Photo: Indigenous Uncultivated Food/Susant Kumar Dalai.

In villages such as Pidadamaha, where there are no gas stoves, Mamita Mallick pointed out, they gather fallen twigs, dried leaves and wood, “to make a fire over which we cook our food.” Every household maintains a stock for the rainy season.

Cutting down the forest means cutting the roots of their existence, more so in the wake of the pandemic induced lockdown. With the haats closed and no traders visiting

61 the villages, the income levels of tribal communities have fallen sharply. If anything has kept hunger at bay in Kandhamal during these months, it is the varied bounties of the forest. Moreover, this is a time when migrant workers have been returning to their homes in the wake of the lockdown. The fact that the forest department has chosen to destroy a large part of the traditional forest in Pidadamaha village at a time when their dependence on it is increasing, exposes the department’s total disconnect with the concerns of the communities living in the area.

No wonder the Kondh community of Pidadamaha is so unhappy and angry at the forest department’s action. “It was as if we were watching our children being killed in front of us. Let them try and plant commercial trees in our forest. We will uproot their saplings and destroy their plan,” declared Rajanti Mallick. Then, as the flash of anger subsided, despair took over. “They have killed us. Without the forest, our life is doomed,” she said.

A long association cut short: Rajanti Mallick from Pidadamaha village hugs a tree cut down by the forest department. Photo: Indigenous Uncultivated Food /

Susant Kumar Dalai.

The forest department’s action in Pidadamaha village has been severely condemned by civil society groups and tribal rights activists. Prafulla Samantara, a Green Nobel Prize winner for his work as an environmental and tribal rights activist, told The Wire, “The state forest department’s action was a blatant violation of the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, in a scheduled area.”

Experts working on issues of tribal rights and forest governance point out that what happened in Pidadamaha was not an isolated instance. Every such case has demonstrated that The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers Act, 2006 (Forest Rights Act as it is popularly known), which was enacted by the Central government to address the historical injustice suffered by India’s traditional forest dwellers, is not being implemented properly. Under the Act, as much as 47% of India’s forest land should be under the management of gram sabhas of the Scheduled Tribes. If the claim of the community over forest land is pending, then no external activity is to be allowed on that land.

But there’s a huge gap between word and deed. According to Samantara, the forest department did not have the gram sabha’s approval for its action in Pidadamaha. The sacrifice of natural forest for the

64 promotion of commercial plantation is an attempt to help industries at the cost of Adivasis, he said.

Samantara, who has been campaigning against the destruction of community forests in Kandhamal, said he had already written letters to the Governor urging immediate action. He was clear that the “authorities are simply taking advantage of the lockdown.” Kailash Dandapat, director, Jagruti, a not-for-profit organisation working with the tribal and marginalised communities in Kandhamal, told The Wire, “The forest department has spent crores of rupees in Kandhamal on plantation activities. But they hardly ever consult the local communities on these matters. More importantly, such activities are counterproductive – they usurp the forest rights of the tribal communities.”

Poor implementation of FRA Odisha provides a good example of all that is lacking in the implementation of the FRA. The state’s forests cover around 37% of its topography. They are home to 62 Scheduled Tribe communities and 13 particularly vulnerable tribal groups that make up nearly 22% of the state’s population.

At least 32,711 villages are eligible for the recognition of their rights to community forest resources (CFR) as they have forest lands within their revenue village boundaries.

Sushanta Kumar Dalai, a development professional working with the Dongria Kondh tribal communities in Niyamgiri, Odisha, told The Wire, “Around 23,00,000 hectares of forest can be recognised as CFR in the state.” In practice, experts say, there has been a serious shortfall in the implementation of the CFR – just 3 % of the area under CFR has been settled through the award of legal title deeds between 2006 and 2017, according to an assessment conducted by the US-based Rights and Resources Initiatives, in 2017.

Lockdown woes exacerbated: the forest department’s action in Pidadamaha came at a time when the villagers’

66 dependence on its bounties had increased all the more due to the pandemic-induced lockdown. Photo: Indigenous Uncultivated Food/Susant Kumar Dalai.

That seems to be the reality across the country, too. Y. Giri Rao, director, Vasundhara, a Bhubaneswar-based not-for- profit organisation working on the issue of tribal land rights and forest governance, pointed out the operational challenges, “There are long-pending applications, irregular meetings of sub-divisional level committees (SDLCs) and district-level committees (DLCs), and a lack of clarity about the CFR recognition process.” Ironically, state tribal welfare departments often ended up depending on the forest departments to verify the claims filed by gram sabhas, he said. As a result, pointed out Tushar Dash, a researcher at Community Forest Rights – Learning and Advocacy, “More than 50 % of the claims have been rejected by states without following due procedure.” Activists have repeatedly opposed these abrupt rejections and even challenged them in court, saying these claims need to be reviewed by the state governments. But such reviews are a rarity, Dash said. In the last decade or so, tribal rights activists have severely criticised the way in which non-state actors such as several wildlife conservation groups, tendu leaf contractors, mining corporations and power-plant industries have opposed the CFR rights of Scheduled

Tribes.

“The instances of mining leases being granted in CFR areas without the gram sabhas’ consent has increased over the years,” said Giri Rao. For example, CFR rights were withdrawn on January 22, 2019, at Ghabharra, Chhattisgarh to promote corporate interest in coal deposits. As per the law in India, if forest areas are used for infrastructure and mining projects (non-forest use), compensatory afforestation must be done on an equal area of non-forestry land, or in the case of degraded forest, on double its area. The expenses are to be met from the Fund at the central or state level, depending on the specific instance.

The Central government’s argument is that such a scheme would increase the forest cover. The Modi government is aggressively promoting CA, also seeing it as a way of fulfilling a key commitment made under the 2015 Paris Climate agreement, to check climate change by co-creating carbon sinks of 2.5-3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide.

But that is just one side of the story.

Experts say CAMPA tactically ignores and directly clashes with the landmark FRA. It also goes against the principles of democratic devolution outlined in the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendments.

Manohar Chauhan, an independent consultant working on issues relating to the FRA in Odisha and Chhattisgarh, told The Wire that the CAMPA Act “is legitimising deforestation and acting as a tool to undermine the forest rights of tribal people granted by the FRA.”

Women from the villages of Pidadamaha and Budanpipali protesting the forest department’s act of tree felling. Photo: Indigenous Uncultivated Food/Susant Kumar Dalai.

In Kandhamal and Bolangir districts, Chauhan said, the state forest department has used the CAMPA fund to illegally evict tribals and other forest dwellers from

69 protected areas. “In Odisha and Jharkhand, there have been conflicts due to the encroachment of CAMPA projects in areas claimed by local communities under the FRA,” he revealed. When local communities protested forceful encroachment, forest officials filed false cases against them. They have been arrested and even physically assaulted, forced to sign on blank papers. “In many cases, prior to encroachment or eviction, the forest department obtains consent from the defunct Joint Forest Management committees which have no legal validity,” said Chauhan.

Gopinath Majhi, the Odisha convenor of the Campaign for Survival and Dignity, the forum which advocated the enactment of the FRA in 2006, described how the CAMPA fund has been grossly misused by the forest departments in question. “There are multiple cases of ‘ghost plantations’ [achieved on paper sans any plantation activity on the ground].” In Bakingia village, in Kandhamal, the forest department has violated the FRA by planting 40,000 commercial tree saplings under CA on land claimed by tribals under CFR rights, Majhi told The Wire. There are several reports of forest departments creating monoculture plantations of non-native species under CA projects. Such plantations have not only affected the forest-based livelihood of tribal communities living in and around the forests; the presence of non-native species

70 such as teak, rubber and eucalyptus could lead to ecologically counter-productive outcomes, said Majhi.

In most cases, the areas where plantation activities are supplanting forests are significant for tribal communities at several levels: growing a diverse food basket; gathering MFP; (mahua, tendu, tamarind, amla, harida, bahada and a range of wild mushrooms, tubers, roots, berries and herbs); grazing livestock; accessing cultural and religious sites; and as burial grounds.

However, the practice followed by the forest department, of fencing off the plantation and posting guards at the site, means that tribal and forest dwelling people can no longer access those areas.

Memories of a forest: Manjari and Mamita Mallick sitting where just weeks ago there was a forest which had been nurtured by the village women. Photo: Indigenous Uncultivated Food/Susant Kumar Dalai.

Tribal women have been particularly affected by CAMPA, said Sanghamitra Dubey, Bhubaneswar-based forest rights researcher. “Their source of livelihood is drying up as access to their forest is now forbidden by the forest department. They are under constant fear of arrest and harassment,” she elaborated.

The impact of CAMPA among the particularly vulnerable tribal groups (PVTGs) is devastating. They can no longer cultivate millets, pulses and cereals, which affects their self-sufficiency. For instance, the Kutia Kondh community in Kandhamal used to cultivate 22 varieties of traditional millets, but the monoculture plantations have diminished the seed diversity they had nurtured across generations.

Prashant Sahu, a Kandhamal-based local journalist revealed that as much as “about 60 % of plantations in Odisha are of commercial species. This neither benefits local communities nor naturally restores the forests.”

What is more frustrating is that the claim of the Kutia Kondh community to that land has been recognised under the FRA and yet that area has been devoured by a CA project. “This is the face of the forest bureaucracy,” said development professional Dalai. In his view, such actions “could further increase displacement and unrestrained exploitation of the forest dwelling communities.”

According to a 2017 study conducted by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), over 70 % of these plantations have been executed on forest lands instead of non-forest lands.

“This is in violation of Para 3(2)(i) of the guidelines issued under the Forest Conservation Act, which states that compensatory afforestation must be undertaken on non-

72 forest land in the same district where forest land has been diverted for non-forest purposes,” pointed out Majhi.

In Odisha, large-scale commercial plantations have been initiated by the forest department in areas where forest rights have either been recognised under the FRA or where such recognition is still pending. In most cases, gram sabhas were not consulted in the process. A study conducted by Vasundhara in 22 villages of Kandhamal and South Forest Divisions of Kalahandi district found that plantation projects had been initiated without the consent of gram sabhas.

When the forest stood tall, Pratima Mallick’s daughter, and many others, would make plates by stitching siyali leaves together, for sale. That is not possible now. Photo: Indigenous Uncultivated Food/Susant Kumar Dalai. Under the CAMPA Act, the gram sabha is required to give its consent for afforestation. What is happening in Odisha is just the opposite. The Act is alienating it from the decision-making process when it comes to the management of natural resource management in tribal areas.

As far as the regeneration of degraded forests is concerned, there are any number of examples in Odisha where tribal communities have proven that they are the best guardians of the forest and die-hard conservationists.

“Involving tribal communities in forest management will strengthen conservation efforts,” was the view of Jagruti director Dandapat. He was unequivocal that “they should be considered as allies by the forest department.” Empowering them by recognising their land and forest rights under the FRA could go a long way, he felt. The importance of community-based conservation initiatives cannot be overemphasised, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. What the state government should be doing is develop afforestation plans in collaboration with the gram sabha, especially in the fifth scheduled areas.

Experts say the plantation of non-native species cannot regenerate natural forests. “Timber is not the solution; the focus should be on indigenous species of forests which would provide food, shelter and medicine for the local communities,” Rao, director of Vasundhara, stressed. “The local community is more likely to protect the forest which gives them their means of survival and food security. It will be a win-win situation,” he added.

His view was echoed by Joy Daniel Pradhan, Delhi-based development practitioner who has extensively worked with the tribal communities in Odisha. “The forest department should play the role of a facilitator rather than act like a colonial and post-colonial forest bureaucracy,” he said.

Pradhan’s logic was simple — if the government allows the present level of tribal dispossession from forests and access to its resources, it is bound to exacerbate conflicts. In fact, that is already happening.

The solution to the problem lies with the gram sabha. The guidelines issued by the Ministry of Tribal Welfare (MoTA) in 2015, stated that the gram sabhas should be involved in CA activities, and their prior consent obtained before carrying out any plantation; also that CAMPA funds can be directly transferred to the gram sabha for

utilisation. However, the guidelines were never translated into action.

Experts point out that the onus should be on the forest department to ensure that all CA activities are accomplished with the prior and informed consent of the gram sabhas. However, it has been seen that it is the forest department which undercuts their role. As usual, everything boils down to a question of intent. Pratima Mallick of Pidadamaha village had the last word on this issue when she said with great clarity, “The forest department babus (officers) should protect the forest. It is their duty, but you see they are happily destroying our forest. Who gave them the right to do so?”

5. India gets the first-ever Siddi lawmaker.

India is home to about 60,000 people from the community which descended from Bantu people of Africa

Presence of Siddis in India can be traced back as far as the 7th century. It is believed that they were first brought in by Arabs as slaves followed by Portuguese and Britishers. They have been craftsmen, mercenaries, sailors and merchants. Most of the community members now depend upon agriculture or manual labour.

Shantaram Budna Siddi, who lives in Hitlalli village of Yallapur in Uttara Kannada district, became the first Siddi tribe member to be nominated for the Karnataka Legislative Council. The state government has nominated five persons to the Council on Wednesday including Shantaram. In his statement to The Hindu, he said that till now he could do whatever little help he can provide to the people.

On Wednesday, Karnataka governor Vajubhai Vala appointed 5 new MLC members from the BJP and Shantaram Budna Siddi, the state secretary of Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram was one of them.

“I did not understand it fully. I thought someone might be playing a prank. I went home for lunch. It was then that my wife and I started getting calls continuously, congratulating me for the nomination,” he added while telling about the experience when he first learned about becoming an MLC. The fascinating history of the Siddi community

Siddis is an isolated community that is spread along the coast of Gujarat, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. Their roots trace back to Africa. They have an estimated population of 50,000 to 60,000. Most of them are practising Muslims, but many of those who live in Karnataka are Catholics. Majority of their population is concentrated in Junagarh, Gujarat.

However, some reports mention that the Siddis living in Karnataka and other parts of India had not even found out about each other till recent years, because they have been living lives of seclusion in different states, their ancestors having come from different African ports centuries ago.

Their main occupation is agriculture, but it is hard to find landowners among the community. Most of them work as labourers in the field. Their community members often migrate to metro cities for better jobs and lifestyle.

Presence of Siddis in India can be traced back as far as the 7th century. It is believed that they were first brought in by Arabs as slaves followed by Portuguese and Britishers. Many Siddis came to India as merchants, sailors and mercenaries. In later years, the community migrated to forests to avoid conflicts and lead a quiet life. Siddis of Gujarat

The Siddis of Gujarat had come to the erstwhile princely state of Junagarh. There are some reports which say the King of Junagarh had fallen in love and married a woman from East Africa and she had brought over a 100 slaves and servants with her, who settled down with their families around the Gir forests.

Over the years, the Gujarat government has started some development programs to help the marginalised community often struggling with poverty. In 2010, the

79 then government had started an initiative that trained the Siddi community members as eco-guides in the Gir forest region. Unique traditions and culture, a blend of Indian and African heritage

They have unique traditions and still follow some of the cultural practices blended with Indian culture and African heritage. Their folk dance, Dhamal, is known for its unique style in which the male dancers paint their bodies and move to the drum beats. Artists who perform Dhamal are often regarded as some of the best tribal dancers in India as well as abroad. Dance moves in Dhamal resemble the folk dances of Africa. Siddis’ history is India is hard to track mostly because of lack of interest shown by the government authorities and fellow citizens. However, some of the markers indicating their importance in history is still nurtured in the form of architecture. The beautifully carved tree-of-life latticework into the stone windows of Sidi Sayed Mosque, Ahmedabad, is one of the finest examples of their craftsmanship. The community is still struggling to get land rights and mark their presence at the higher positions in the hierarchy. The inclusion of a tribe member as MLC may bring some hope and change for the community.

6. Chhattisgarh’s tribal women keep vigil on their forests

A group of women sits huddled in a circle for a meeting, in a village in Lundra forest range of Chhattisgarh’s Surguja district, about 100 kilometres away from state capital Raipur. At the sarpanch Dhaneshwari Bai’s house, a resident of the village, has called an urgent meeting after she spotted a few tree stumps in the forest, indicative of recent felling. The women decide to start round-the-clock patrolling of the forest, in light of the recent violation. The women of Karahi, a village with about 100 households, patrol in groups to protect the forest from further damage.

Earlier, Karahi had a moderate climate throughout the year, but recently, extreme weather events such as droughts have started impacting the residents, mentioned Mangho Bai, a resident of the village. “We are not literate, but we have come to know that the weather is affected owing to massive deforestation,” she said.

The villagers depend on the forest for firewood, medicinal herbs and vegetables and fruits. However, some people would cut a huge number of trees, Mangho said, adding that it prompted her and her sisters in arms to start patrolling.

Reminiscing the greenery that prevailed over the village when she had first come after getting married 15 years

81 ago, Basanti Bai, another resident of the village, said the green cover now stands depleted and bald patches have emerged.

Karahi became famous three years ago when its women started the initiative to tackle damage to the forest. Several other women from nearby villages have also joined this vigilante force. From patrolling inside the forest to raiding houses of the accused, it’s all in a day’s work for these women.

Twenty-five years ago, a few women here had come together to form a bachat samooh (a financial savings collective) to encourage financial saving. Three years ago, they also introduced saving trees under their agenda.

Declining greenery

The forest cover of Surguja district was 45.55% of its geographical area in 2009 and 45.02% in 2019. The exploitation of the forests has affected forest produce and many fruits, such as mahua and amla (gooseberry), are only found rarely now, villagers say.

“Earlier we used to collect shatawar, kali musli, galfuli and many other natural medicines that helped cure many diseases. But these days, it is difficult to find such plants in the forest,” stated Shiv Sagar Ram, a resident and local medicinal plants expert, attributing the decline to deforestation.

“Kaanda [a root vegetable] used to be our primary vegetable during summers and could have been found by digging one or two feet, but now the particular species [of the vegetable] has vanished from the forest,” he added. Situated in the northern part of Chhattisgarh, Surguja district is spread over plateaus, highlands, plains and hills with a large portion of the total area covered by forests. The majority of the local inhabitants comprise tribal people and migrants from other marginalised groups. The residents use resources from the forest to fulfil their daily requirements such as fuelwood, medicines, timber wood for constructing houses and agricultural equipment.

Forests in the Eastern Ghats are also witnessing the adverse impact of human activities on the number of tree species.

Additionally, a study has showed that forest cover in the Eastern Ghats was low around village settlements, indicating the correlation between human presence and declining greenery.

Modus operandi

Women of these villages in Surguja district are determined to save their surroundings from a similar predicament. In their meetings, a list of threats to the forest is prepared. In one such meeting, it was found out that a century-old

84 tradition of constructing mandaps (small tents for worship) during weddings and festivals was the major cause of deforestation. Another threat was from the local woodcutters, who sell wood in the market after cutting down big trees. Villagers also collect wood from the forest but as per the guidelines of the forest department, they are not allowed to cut green trees. However, women found that some villagers were violating that regulation as well.

Sumitra Purte, an active member of bachat samooh, mentioned that the first step was creating awareness regarding the importance of forests. They explained the importance of small trees in the forest ecology, and urged the villagers to use old wood for events, she added.

Whenever a family in the village organises a pooja (prayer ceremony), a villager alerts the group and the women approach the family to discourage them from cutting trees. However, it has not been easy for a women-only group to convince people. They had to raid houses and confiscate wood.

Bhulsi Bai, sarpanch of a village, told Mongabay-India that they increased the pressure on the residents, while also raising awareness. Her manifesto underlined the importance of the forest and she has been elected for a second consecutive time. “We are still struggling to curb the activities of professional woodcutters. Being a woman, there is always

85 a fear of security while going to the forest, so male members of our village also started helping us in this cause. They help us with torches at night while we go for patrolling,” Bhulsi added. Shiv Sagar, who is member of a volunteer organisation Van Raksha Samiti (forest protection committee), coordinates with the forest department to protect the forest. He mentioned that the forest department would provide them with the necessary equipment like torches for night patrolling. However, he says the forest department is not supportive of their initiative.

He said, “Sometimes we seize wood but the officials take two to three days to respond. Sometimes we take wood by ourselves to the wood depot of the forest department, but we didn’t receive much support.” Forest density improving in Surguja

The regular patrolling by the women acts as a deterrent for those wanting to cut trees in the forest region. Their endeavour has started to show results as small trees are not being felled anymore and the forest’s tree density is beginning to improve. The front face of the village is green once again and one can see the dense forest near the road while entering the village. Though the total area of forest in Surguja has reduced, the area of very dense forest has more than doubled in the last

10 years – from 320 square km in 2009 to 706.72 square km in 2019. This shows that though the dense parts are improving, open forest area and moderate forest near the village are facing depletion. When Mongabay-India tried to get a comment from forest officials on this issue, the conservator of Surguja district, A.B. Minz stated that he was not aware of the initiative by the women and forest ranger Priyanka Pandey was not available to comment on this issue.

Recognising the efforts of women groups, Nirmala Kirkita, a local activist and resident of a nearby village, stated that earlier, people would use certain tricks, such as cutting the bark of the tree to kill it, but increased awareness among villagers have stopped it.

The group of about 70 women organised in 8-10 groups across seven villages have stayed connected through mobile phones.

Local social activist Nirmala Kirkita points to the forest saved by villagers.

“Mobile phones are really very helpful in our work,” said Fircho Bai. Almost every household of the village owns a mobile phone and it is easy to communicate and gather for meetings, she added.

7. Agro biodiversity Initiatives Open Tribal Women’s Horizons

Kaliamma Nanjan, 70, sings as she cuts through her farm in Kerala’s Western Ghats. She deftly navigates the slopes of Attappady in Palakkad district with the gravity-defying dexterity of a mountain goat. Her silver-grey hair and bright saree vanish as she enters her mosaic-like 3.5-acre farm — her own agrobiodiversity haven. There is one acre each of paddy, little millet and finger millet, and the remaining area is divided between vegetables for daily use, hyacinth beans, corn, and pulses. Kaliamma is part of a unique project as a “Master Farmer” with the Kudumbashree Mission to promote and mainstream agrobiodiversity by reviving traditional and sustainable farming practices called panchakrishi.

Agrobiodiversity is the sustained management of various biological resources including multi-cropping, trees, herbs, spices, livestock, fish species and non-domesticated resources within fields and forests. By breaking away from the silo of limiting agrobiodiversity to conservation, the Kudumbashree project integrates increasing farm productivity, boosting nutritional security, and providing market access to tribal communities in remote areas.

Agrobiodiversity to drive away hunger

Kudumbashree, Kerala’s programme and network for women’s empowerment and poverty eradication with over 4.3 million members, has its hands in many pies. It has floated special projects for tribal women living in the 745 square km Attappady block in Palakkad in 2017.

“These were initiated to address the socio-economic issues faced by the tribal areas,” explained Shithish VC, District Programme Manager at Kudumbashree. “The panchakrishi programme focuses on sustainable agriculture and preservation of biocultural diversity, making the farmers self-sufficient and improving market access.”

The Western Ghats is an agrobiodiversity hotspot, and in Attappady indigenous methods like panchakrishi protect it.

Over 10,000 tribals live in Attappady, with a majority displaced from the farm sector over the years. Land conflict, intensive farming, marginalisation have resulted in worsening socio-economic indicators including malnutrition, child deaths and food crisis linked to land alienation and the loss of their traditional agriculture in tribal communities, the government has noted. Kudumbashree entered Attappady with a host of projects after malnutrition claimed 58 lives in 2012-2014.

“For this project, Kudumbashree has mobilised its community-based networks and aligned with the Mahila Kisan Sashakthikarana Pariyojana (MKSP), under the National Rural Livelihoods Mission,” Sai Dalvi, District Mission Coordinator in Palakkad, said. There are 192 hamlets and over 840 ha under panchakrishi farming, producing pulses, tubers, paddy, millets, and vegetables.

“Government and farmers organisations need to be the base, but the farmers should have the autonomy,” explained Ramanatha Rao, a geneticist formerly with policy and think-tank Bioversity International.

Mainstreaming agrobiodiversity

“We need to pay attention to what farmers want,” said Rao. “Production-oriented agriculture has sacrificed agrobiodiversity and farmer well-being while compromising on environmental protection and nature

91 conservation. For long, we have looked at these aspects disparately, without an integrated approach.”

Mainstreaming involves integrating specific components of biodiversity into other sectors for the generation of mutual benefits, as noted in Mainstreaming Agrobiodiversity in Sustainable Food Systems published in 2016. However, this isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach. Governments, farmer organisations and consumer associations can influence programmes and policies that can combine agrobiodiversity with tourism, conservation, increasing productivity, resilience, climate change mitigation or adaptation, nutritional security, food sovereignty or poverty alleviation.

“Unscrupulous, aggressive utilisation of resources for mass-production of a few staples and monocropping has led to long-term impact on the environment and farmers,” explained Shakeela V., Director, MSSRF Community Agrobiodiversity Centre in Wayanad, Kerala. Over the decades, Wayanad, also in the Western Ghats, has seen intensive production of rubber, pepper, tea and rice.

Shakeela trains small farmers to use traditional agrobiodiversity knowledge and sustainable farming and has overseen the conservation of over 1,000 species of crops, trees and wild plants found in Wayanad. Studies in Kerala show an increase in species number and plant density with decreasing holding size and the total number of plants went up to more than 600 per ha.

There are nearly 5,000-70,000 plant species documented as human food. Of these rice, wheat and maize provide half the world’s plant-derived calories. More than 90% of crop varieties and over 75% of plant genetic diversity has been lost since the 1990s as farmers left local varieties and landraces for genetically uniform, high-yielding varieties, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation. As a result, over 800 million people within the agricultural sector live below the poverty line, the World Economic Forum noted. Women keep an eye on nutrition

Research has shown that women farmers and indigenous people across the world are at the forefront of agrobiodiversity knowledge and conservation — particularly in small landholdings where they select, improve and adapt plant varieties, manage livestock and have more specialised knowledge of wild plants used for food, fodder and medicine.

Acknowledging the gendered roles in farming is essential to effect any change, Rao noted. Historically, women have focussed on nutrition and health of their families, preferring to plant a variety of crops and foraging for wild and semi-wild plants to meet these needs, he said.

“If I plant only bananas or rice, what will I eat the rest of the year,” asked Poonama, 66, a marginal farmer from Agali block. “I grow as many varieties as possible, so we

93 don’t have to depend on others for food. I rarely buy anything from the market.”

Poonama in her farm.

Agali’s women farmers are among the few who have not given up on panchakrishi. “Our aim is to find the people who practice this, and make them train the next generation of farmers,” Dalvi said.

Poonama, like her neighbours, also has hens, goats and cows to secure her family’s nutritional needs. “Even if one crop fails due to a pest attack, poor rainfall or other unforeseen reasons at least another will succeed,” she noted.

For instance, this season Kaliamma’s harvest includes 40 kg of paddy, 50 kg of corn, 30 kg of pulses, 15 kg of beans, and over 180 kgs of vegetables. Most of this is saved for her family’s use and the rest is sold. Despite recent floods impacting the yield, there’s enough for her family of over ten members to eat. Crops like millets, for instance, are climate-resilient and nutrient-rich.

As global temperatures increase, Palakkad, the rice bowl of Kerala, has also suffered climate variability. Two years of floods were preceded by frequent droughts and water shortages impacting the farm sector. Despite the lower output, panchakrishi has so far helped these women mitigate and navigate through the unfolding climate crisis by diversifying their risk and food basket. The importance of market linkages

As a Master Farmer, Kaliamma’s job is to impart her panchakrishi knowledge to younger farmers and students. Her unscripted syllabus includes techniques on staggered multi-cropping of a variety of cereals, pulses and vegetables; reading the weather; assessing soil health; converting the farm waste into manure and balancing the ecosystem of their farm.

However, training isn’t enough. In order to bring tribal farmers into the mainstream, the role of farmers organisations in ensuring market linkage is critical. Kudumbashree procures the produce from women’s

95 farms for its local community kitchens and for retail sales under the in-house brand Hill Value, representing products from Western ghats.

“Agrobiodiversity initiatives won’t work if farmers don’t earn,” explained Shakeela. “You can’t have a disconnect with the market and the supply chain.”

Kaliamma is upbeat since urban consumers took to local varieties of millets. “I am assured of selling it, earlier that was uncertain,” she explained.

“Millet prices have shot up from around Rs 30-40 a kg a few years ago to Rs 100-120, it’s because the demand for indigenous food and products has increased. It is an incentive for farmers to produce it. Thereby preventing it from vanishing,” explained Rao. “This is what we call conservation through use.”

8. Telangana: 80 Koya tribal families evicted from their fields for plantation drive

The forced displacement of tribals will not only cause loss of livelihood and social distress, it would also adversely impact ecosystem restoration, activists have warned

Farmers of the Koya tribe of Satyaranarayanam of Ganugapadu in Bhadradri Khotagudem district of Telangana have complained that they have been evicted from their lands by the state government which has been undertaking plantation drives under the Haritha Haraam programme. The programme, launched in 2015, aims at large scale tree plantation to increase tree cover in the state from 24% to 33%. About 80 families from the tribal community say their

97 fields – around 200 acres – have been taken over for the purpose, and their livelihoods threatened. The families have been cultivating pulses, millets and cotton. In 2019, the district collector had forwarded petitions from the villagers seeking grant of forest rights to them. This process had not been completed

Farmers said labourers engaged under MGNREGA from neighbouring villages had dug trenches to begin the plantation drive on June 17, and they were prevented from accessing their fields although they had already sown crops

Villagers said their claims under the Forest Rights Act were still pending. In 2002, a similar attempt to take over forest lands had been made by the state forest department. After that, cases were booked against 20 tribal families and these people then made several petitions to the district authorities. After the Forest Rights Act came into force, the earlier petitions were used to show as evidence that the families had been cultivating the land all these years.

Lingaraj, a Left activist who has been visiting the village often, said, “About 50 people were rounded up and taken to the nearest police station, where they were threatened that they would be placed under preventive detention if they did not sign on a statement agreeing not to protest the plantations, so they were forced to do that.”

This is a scheduled area, and under the law gram sabha consent is necessary for such plantation in the area. No gram sabha consent was sought in this case. Villagers were also informed that podu land (agriculture land which under the traditional farming practices of the local tribes, is practiced on hill slopes; the land may be left fallow for some time and cultivated in some seasons) in neighbouring villages would also be taken over for the government for this purpose.

Using police force to evict poor tribal farmers from their lands is against the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act 1996 and Forest Rights Act, 2006. Under the Forest Rights Act, no member of a forest dwelling scheduled tribe or traditional forest dweller can be evicted till the verification and recognition procedure under the Act is complete. The gram sabha is the authority to initiate the process to determine community and individual rights under the FRA, and a final decision is taken by the district level committee.

In an appeal to Union minister for tribal affairs Arjun Munda, the activists state that there is need to review the Haritha Haraam programme of the state government which is using funds under the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) to undermine the fundamental rights of tribal communities. The forced displacement of tribals will not only cause loss of livelihood and social distress, it would

99 also adversely impact ecosystem restoration, the activists warn.

Former CPI-M MP and leader of the Adivasi Adhikar Rashtriya Manch Midiam Babu Rao said he had intervened recently after 35 tribal families from Mulakapalli village in neighbouring Khammam district were similarly evicted, and they were later allowed to take care of their crops.

Local activists say members of the Left intervene, but since the intervention is through political pressure rather than taking legal recourse, the problem is solved only for a little while, and the threat of eviction continues to haunt tribal farmers. Forest officials of the state government could not be reached on phone for comments on this matter.

9. Tribal sub plans fail under Modi regime; Adivasis deprived of benefits in last five years

10 0

Among the objectives of the Tribal Sub Plan has been to look after the basic needs of the tribals. The records show that the money was spent, but never to serve the needs of the targeted masses.

Each of government plan has its own tragic story. One burning example is Tribal Sub Plan (TSP). Brain child of Planning Commission, it became Scheduled Tribe Component as the Planning Commission became NITI Ayog. The purpose was to provide compensation to mining affected adivasis uprooted from their home grounds that were mostly rich in mineral resources like coal, iron ore, the basics for industrial growth. Gesture showed empathy as every ministry was asked to contribute to the fund meant for the sub plan. The commission had asked the coal ministry to contribute eight per cent of the budget to TSP and to ministry of mines, four per cent. The fund was getting richer with every passing year.

Among the objectives of the TSP has been to look after the basic needs of the tribals, including livelihood, health, education and finally a roof on the head. But nothing gets visibility on the ground, though the money keeps pouring. Between 2011 and 2018, the records show that the money was spent, but never to serve the needs of the targeted masses.

10 1 It never percolated to the lower depths where the adivasis spent their lives, though routinely forced to move out. The funds that have been meant for them are distributed among the coal companies like CCL, SCCL, MCL. The funds collected in the name of tribals get never spent to serve the interest of the adivasis, it is only to open the grounds for their peril.

In fact, the entire spending goes instead on regional exploration, detailed drilling and conservation safety, the jobs that are directly targeted at spotting the mines with minerals, safety of the mines and finally mining and digging the wealth from under the ground. It is blatantly obvious that these projects are meant to serve the interest of monopolies alone, who in their turn are least interested either in the progress of the country or its people.

Institutions like Geological Survey of India received the funds meant for the tribals to find out the mineral treasures in Hyderabad, Kolkata, Nagpur, Jaipur, Shillong and several other areas. They spent the funds in mapping, surveying and to locate the exact point where the treasure could be found, which meant the inhabitants in those areas were soon to be uprooted. Their live were just superfluous junk and development could not be delayed for them!

In 2014-15, the budget grant from the ministry of mining was 1075.00 (all in lakhs) out of which, in the eastern region, basically in Kolkata, a sum of 276 was allotted and

10 2 275.79 was spent, in central region of Nagpur, 200 allotted and 199.89 spent, in western region, in Jaipur, 160 and 159.69, in southern region, in Hyderabad, 260 and 257.76, in northern region of Lucknow, 110.00, and 109.15, in north eastern region, in Shillong, 68.52, and 68.05, by the Geological Survey of India in the financial year of 2014-15.

Finally in 2017-18, the same process continued, of allotment and expenditure, but the welfare measures for the adivasis was never mentioned in the total scheme of things. In response to one of the RTI queries, it was said that coal ministry does not allot any fund directly to states, instead it forwards the fund to government coal companies, and Central Mine Planning and Design Institute Ltd (CMPDIEL) and till 2017- 18, had cleared 205 crore for the same.

In this period, CMPDIEL spent from this fund ₹41 crore 59 lakh for promotional regional exploration, then more was spent on detailed drilling which amounted to 82 crore 32 lakh. In the entire scenario, meant for the welfare of the tribals, only missing point is that of the tribals, they still wander homeless, starved, and slogging to keep the two ends together. So far as the ministries that have to release funds for TSP are concerned, 2015 CAG report says that the fund has been released for such states that have according to 2011 census, no tribal population. Yojna Ayog had issued instructions that the fund not spent could be released to

10 3 tribal welfare ministry, but no such step has been taken till today.

In last several years, attempts were contemplated to develop the handloom industry among the tribals, but in textile ministry, the TSP fund has only a meager share of 1.2% of the annual budget. However, the claims were made that despite the meagre share, it has contributed 6.02%, which is equal to 61 crore, 81 lakh, National Handloom Corporation also got 30 crore, yet myth gets dispelled when in 2018, he reality got unveiled.

National Handloom Corporation had received no money on TSP. It has also come to light that the National Handloom Corporation had received a grant of 68. 27 crore in 2013-14, to develop and grow, but by 2017-18, this amount came down to 18.19 lakh, which shows the unconcern of the government towards the issues of unemployment among the tribals. Surprisingly, according to reports on the website of the NITI Ayog, in 2018, 20 organisations received TSP funds, but in response to RTI query, only 18.19 lakh was distributed among only four organisations and not twenty. These are the facts that bring to light the bleakness and the consequent suffering that the masses in the country are going through. Yet despite the odds, and the horrors of the status quo, despair cannot be allowed to set in. Future is still there with its immense possibilities.

10 4 10. Fighting Malnutrition In Odisha’s Angul, A Story That Inspires All How a remote district became a sterling example that people can overcome their nutritional adversity with will, guts and wisdom

Located in a remote corner of Odisha is a small district of about 6,232 square km, named Angul. A small district, it has got its own story to tell about its efforts in battling malnutrition and showing its people the path towards healthy life.

Angul is bounded by Dhenkanal and Cuttack to the east, Deogarh, Kendujhar and Sundergarh district to the north, Sambalpur and Sonepur to the west, and Boudh and Nayagarh in south. It has a considerable population of

10 5 scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and localised population of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG)s, who are much more deprived in every way. Endemic malnourishment Malnourishment has been a very common part of people’s life for long. Most of the women are still undernourished, as a result of which their children are also deprived of the basic needs they require to lead a life of well-being. Though the district on the whole displays better performance on the basis of indicators such as anaemia, underweight and stunting of children under age five, yet undernutrition continues to be a matter of concern for the villagers.

There are certain reasons that have played a pivotal role in giving rise to malnutrition in Angul. Lack of awareness and literacy among the women have led to inadequate care for children, which has in turn led to excessive prevalence of anaemia and stunting. The mothers in the district are not very aware of the healthcare services that they should avail for themselves, and especially for their children, by getting themselves registered in the anganwadi centres. Moreover, wrong feeding practices and lack of proper care of women during pregnancy and delivery have contributed to widespread undernutrition in Angul district.

The movement for nutrition

10 6 Then came Angul Pushti Adhikaar Abhiyaan (APAA), a programme initiated by the people of the district to foster nutrition and promote good health for women and children. The movement aimed at educating the women of the district, to make them realise the importance of nutrition.

A movement that brought over 2.000 people together from different parts of the district--including the sarpanch, anganwadi workers, ward members and various influential people—on one platform to address the issue of malnourishment, AAPA made sure to free Angul district from the clutches of malnutrition. It also aimed at imparting all the major schemes of ICDS, such as Hot- Cooked Meals (HCM), Take Home Ration (THR), and Supplementary Nutrition Programmes (SNP) to the children and to mothers. Key objectives

10 7 The AAPA has five key objectives:

·To increase people’s awareness of anganwadi centres and raise demand ·To monitor ICDS services through three primary committees--Jaanch Committee, Maatru Committee, and committee of Panchayati Raj Institute members—by building their monitoring capabilities. ·To train and support anganwadi workers in reaching out to the section of people who are not able to avail the facilities. ·Create community platforms to discuss issues around nutrition. ·Encourage participation of the sarpanch across villages in discussions, so that they can foster nutrition in their districts. Monitoring change

“We formed the Jaanch Committee to monitor the overall development of the children,” says Bidyut Mohanty, head of non-profit, SPREAD, who has played a pivotal role in giving the programme momentum, ensuring that it reaches all the people of Angul. The Jaanch committee has a number of responsibilities to fulfil, he explains: to ensure that the children on Angul are leading healthy and quality life, to ensure that they get access to healthy hot cooked

10 8 meals, and to ensure that they all are registered with the anganwadi centres. “The committee consists of nine members, including anganwadi member, and also people who are the beneficiaries,” Mohanty adds. The committee members are pivotal in eradicating malnourishment. They have a huge role to play in ensuring that the ICDS services reach the children in a smooth way. “As members of the Jaanch, we conduct meetings to monitor proper development of children. We look into the quality and quantity of food being served,” says. Antaryami Raul, who heads the Jaanch committee.

Anita Sahoo, another active member of the Jaanch committee says, “We ensure that the children get different food items, including sweets, such as laddoos, to eat, but whatever they get should provide them with nutrition.”

Strategies adopted

10 9 ·Meetings headed by the sarpanch: AAPA encouraged sarpanch-headed meetings, to bring the issue of malnutrition into the community’s notice and elicit political response. The sarpanch actively organised meetings in their respective gram panchayats with the support of AAPA members. The objective was to create awareness on the services provided by ICDS to poor children, who did not get access earlier.

·Knowing the grievance: Addressing the grievances of beneficiaries, pertaining to the ICDS service, was a major concern. Therefore, meetings were held for the members of Jaanch and Maatru committees, as well as Anganwadi workers. Beneficiaries were also invited to express their troubles in getting access to services. ·Training committee members: The members of the pivotal committees were imparted proper training, to make them capable of effectively monitoring the ICDS services, and taking adequate actions in response to problems faced by the beneficiaries in availing the ICDS services.

·Ensuring transparency: The ICDS guidelines emphasise the need to display names and photographs at anganwadi centres, so that the community members would have information about who to approach. This was not the case earlier. Therefore AAPA decided to introduce transparency in the system by encouraging the policy of putting up of names and photographs of Jaanch committee and Maatru committee members. Until now,

11 0 AAPA has been successful in spreading transparency in about 91 centres.

Removing the roadblocks AAPA has been largely successful in its mission across the district through a number of innovative measures. The Nandpur village of Angul block is one such example, reflecting AAPA’s successful intervention in providing the beneficiaries the right amount of eggs under Supplementary Nutrition Program (SNP), one of the six services offered under ICDS. It has ensured that the children, including pregnant mothers in Nandpur, received the required amount of eggs, keeping in view that they get nourishment. The beneficiaries before the intervention used to get only 10 eggs a month, under the Take Home Ration scheme (THR), and three eggs under the Hot Cooked Meal scheme. AAPA’s intervention, helped all the 60 beneficiaries of the village in getting access to 12 eggs under THR and HCM schemes respectively.

Odisha is one of the few states to provide eggs to combat under-nutrition, along with Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Bihar, Tripura and West Bengal. In the Suabasasahi village of Pallahara block in the district, around 20 beneficiaries earlier were not getting access to HCM, as anganwadi centres were located far away. The AAPA team collaborated with the Self –

11 1 Help Groups (SHGs) in the area to provide HCM to the people.

A mission nearly accomplished With the collective efforts of the people, the committee members, and the anganwadi workers, Angul has by far achieved its goal in few areas. It, however, is still striving its way to eradicate malnourishment in other areas as well through innovative methods and community inputs. District Collector of Angul, Manoj Kumar Mohanty, has sent a proposal to the Government for more anganwadi centres to operate in other inaccessible areas of the district and is making efforts to come up with better strategies to spread awareness on undernutrition. The point is to encourage people of Angul to participate in collectively removing malnutrition, he explains.

Angul is on its to becoming the nutrition champion of Odisha. A sterling example that with the right kind of interventions and methods each village across the country can become another Angul.

11. Research: Traditional Knowledge Helps Indigenous People Adapt To Climate Crisis

Indigenous peoples, who make up 5% of the global population, are among the most vulnerable groups. They

11 2 face issues ranging from poverty and human rights abuses to the climate crisis.

Nevertheless, Indigenous peoples contribute significantly to biodiversity conservation and sustainable natural resources management.

The do so, in both terrestrial and marine ecosystems, through their traditional knowledge. This knowledge has been handed down through generations.

My research from October 2018 to January 2019 found the traditional ecological knowledge applied by Orang Suku Laut of Lingga Regency in Riau Islands Province, Indonesia, could be adopted as ways to reduce the impacts of the climate crisis. Orang Suku Laut and climate change

The Orang Suku Laut, an indigenous Malay people, have been living as sea people or sea nomads since the 16th century.

11 3 However, in the early 1990s, the groups divided into three types: the nomads, the semi-nomads, and the sedentary.

Currently, they mostly inhabit the east coast of the Sumatran mainland and Riau Archipelago.

The highest population of Orang Suku Laut, 30 groups, 806 households and 3,931 inhabitants, live in Lingga regency of Riau Islands province, around 1,000 kilometres from Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia.

My research analysed the interaction between cultural practice, cultural belief and adaptive capacity, or traditional ecological knowledge of Orang Suku Laut, as they struggle with impacts of the climate crisis.

Fikret Berkes, an applied ecologist from University of Manitoba, Canada, in 1993 introduced the term traditional ecological knowledge as a social science approach.

This approach, in the context of climate science, can reveal how the complex knowledge system of Indigenous peoples deal with impacts of climate crisis.

My research concluded 80.18% of Orang Suku Laut had experienced these impacts – rising temperatures affecting seasonal patterns, more diseases, water scarcity – on their lives. Climate change adaptation by Orang Suku Laut

11 4 For hundreds of years, the Orang Suku Laut have practised a way of life that incorporates the ancestral culture and nature as the source of life.

My research divided this traditional knowledge into cultural practice, cultural belief and adaptive capacity, which underpins the tribe’s ability to adapt to climate impacts. 1) Cultural practice

The cultural practice of Orang Suku Laut is weather forecasting through natural signs, such as wind patterns, fish or bird movements, sky observations, ocean currents and temperature.

The tribe also practises a nomadic lifestyle based on the annual changes in seasons. In this way they avoid the impacts of disasters such as drought and sea storms.

The monsoon rainfall pattern heavily influences the seasonal calendar of Orang Suku Laut.

Using this pattern, they can predict North Season as the season with hydrometeorological disasters, East Season as the season with high fisheries productivity, South Season as the dry period, and West Season as the wet period.

They are still using this cultural practice, or traditional knowledge, and it’s essentially adaptable to non- Indigenous groups.

11 5 2) Cultural belief

In the theory of traditional ecological knowledge, scientists consider cultural belief, which embodies taboo and animism concepts like other well-established religions, an inseparable part of environmental management by indigenous communities.

Orang Suku Laut still observe the cultural belief called Pantang Larang, a rule passed down for generations to enforce customary law, such as a ban on cutting down trees, or catching specific fish species.

Pantang Larang is heavily linked to the tribe’s spiritual values. For the ancestors, Pantang Larang is linked with the use of magical powers, ilmu (spell) and pengasih (mantra), to reduce rain intensity and avoid storms at sea.

This cultural belief is a dynamic and reflective traditional ecological knowledge. It connects spirituality and taboo to protect nature.

11 6

3) Adaptive capacity

The adaptive capacity of Orang Suku Laut can be seen in their architecture and the practice of local migration. The Orang Suku Laut adopt a vernacular architectural style, using local materials and traditional knowledge, for their buildings and boats. Their stilt house, Saphaw, and rowing boat, Sampan Kajang, are made from Mentango or Bintangur wood, a hardwood tree easily found in the tropics and lowlands, such as Riau Archipelago.

11 7 The roofs and walls of the house are made of Mengkuang leaves, a variety of thorny pandanus plant that grows on the coastal shore and tropical small islands.

The architectural designs of Orang Suku Laut have been protecting them from sea storms, rising temperature and other extreme events while adopting the principles of ecological sustainability.

This is one of their adaptive capacities.

Another capacity is local migration. The tribe moves from one island to another during the northern monsoon, which usually brings massive storms.

They migrate as a way to protect themselves from droughts, high tides, extreme events and diseases and group conflicts.

This seasonal migration could serve as an indigenous- based strategy for climate change adaptation. Recommendations and development

My research found 55% of Orang Suku Laut understand the need to integrate science and technology with their traditional ecological knowledge to adapt to climate impacts.

However, there are challenges, including declining practices of traditional beliefs, such as rituals and spells,

11 8 because most have converted to new religions (Islam or Christianity).

In addition, current government policies do not pay much attention to traditional ecological knowledge, along with the state of Indigenous peoples relating to social, economic and political issues at all levels.

Nevertheless, the government can start by including this knowledge in the Indonesian Action Plan on Climate Change Adaptation as part of community-based climate adaptation.

And it can support further interdisciplinary research on Indigenous peoples and climate change.

Another recommendation is to constantly apply the principle of free, prior and informed consent in every development that involves Indigenous peoples and their lands. This would uphold their right to give, or withold, their consent for any development agenda carried out on their ancestral domains.

Policy should also aim to determine the plans suitable for customary laws and territories to achieve sustainable community-based, natural resource management.

12. Namath Basai, a big hit among Kerala tribal children

11 9 The Kerala State government is carrying out a unique programme called “Namath Basai” of teaching tribal children in their mother tongue.

Key Points

. The programme is being implemented by the Samagra Shiksha Kerala (SSK). o SSK is an overarching programme for the school education sector extending from pre-school to class 12. o It aims at improving school effectiveness measured in terms of equal opportunities for schooling and equitable learning outcomes. . It has succeeded in retaining hundreds of tribal children in their online classes using their mother tongue as language of instruction.

12 0 o Teaching in the tribal language has to a good extent stopped students from dropping out, which is quite usual in hamlets . It offers pre-recorded classes through a YouTube channel in three tribal languages in Attappady valley in Palakkad District Kerala. o These languages belong to the Irula, Muduka and Kurumba tribes. . It is being introduced in the tribal belts of Wayanad and Idukki as well. Classes are offered in the Oorali, Muthuvan and Paniya languages in Idukki. o Wayanad has the highest number of tribals in Kerala followed by Idukki. Kurumba Tribe

. Popularly known as Mala Pulayans, Hill Pulayans and Pamba Pulayans. . Traditional occupation : Foraging and shifting cultivation o Collect forest products like honey, wax, soapnut, turmeric, ginger and wild cardamoms. o Art of body tattooing. o Skilled in manufacture of baskets and mats . Religion: Animism (belief in spirituality of objects, places, and creatures) and Totemism (Worship of any species of plants or animals thought to possess supernatural powers)

12 1 Irula or Irular Tribe

. Occupation: Agriculturists o Grow Paddy, Ragi, dhal, plantains, chillies and turmeric . Religion: The majority worship Vishnu under the name of Rangaswami and Siva without differentiation. o Some practice animism and worship the tiger. Mudugars or Muduka

. Have social divisions at kal (clan) level. . Traditional Occupation: Food gatherers and hunters. . Religion: Hinduism o Worship Shiva

13. Help us assert grazing rights near LAC, it counts: ex- Ladakh BJP chief

Demchok in south eastern Ladakh, in military parlance an area called sub-sector south, and Chushul, which is closer to Pangong Tso, are the two places where the graziers experience the most pushback by Indian security forces, mainly the ITBP which means the border posts.

A former J&K minister from Ladakh in the PDP-BJP government has said Indian security forces must help the

12 2 semi-nomadic people of the area assert traditional rights over the land near the Line of Actual Control instead of preventing them from taking their livestock to graze on these pasture lands as they do now. Chering Dorjay, who was Minister for Co-operatives and Ladakh Affairs until 2018, and until recently president of the BJP in Ladakh, told The Indian Express there was concern among the people of that area that if India does not succeed in getting the PLA soldiers to go back to status quo ante positions, “there will be no end” to how much land Ladakhis may lose.

“As far as we are concerned, there has been no question of our people going to the lands on the Chinese side, but our security forces create problems for us even when we take our animals to graze in pasture lands on our side. This has been a problem from the beginning,” said Dorjay.

“From the other side we have seen that their army or border police follow a modus operandi by which they push nomads from their side to our side. They send them first to encroach, and come behind them later,” said Dorjay, who has raised this issue many times with the

12 3 security forces as well as with the administration of J&K (at the time when Ladakh was part of the former state).

Senior security officials acknowledged that there were problems between the local people and the security forces over permission for grazing, and said the ITBP prevents tribesmen from going into certain areas even on the Indian side because it obstructs their patrolling, with animals and people coming in the way. There is also the “unspoken” suspicion, one official said, that some may be informers for the other side.

However, Dorjay says the main reason that the ITBP stops the graziers is because “they want a peaceful tenure” and fear that permitting people to set up grazing camps may lead to confrontations with the Chinese.

Between December and March, the Changpas, semi- nomadic shepherds of the south eastern Ladakh area, cross over the frozen Indus with their Pashmina goats and yak to a plain called Skakjung, where grazing does not take place in the summer so as to preserve the grass there for the winter. Here, Dorjay said, the Chinese had encroached steadily into traditional Ladakhi pastureland. He recalled an incident from 2008-9, when he was chief executive councillor of the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council (Leh), to show that being assertive is the only way for India to safeguard its territory.

12 4 That winter, the Chinese had uprooted some Changpa rebos (woollen tents) in Skakjung and pushed them back, even burning one tent.

“Some people called me, and said I should go to Skakjung to express solidarity with people, which would help their morale. I took the Nyoma SHO and we went in 10 vehicles to meet the affected people. They told me what had happened, and as the migration season was coming to an end, and the grass on that side was also finished, they were planning to return. But I told them to remain there for the next week or 10 days, otherwise the Chinese would get the impression they had succeeded in their plan. I replaced the burnt tent, sent 10 truckloads of fodder for their livestock, and also installed three handpumps. From that year until now, we have had no problem in that area from the Chinese,” he said.

“Our Army and ITBP never do this, they never go and confront the Chinese like this,” Dorjay said, observing that it was because of “constantly downplaying incidents” that people in the area had lost winter pasture lands on the north bank of Pangong, where dry grass was plentiful on the south facing ridges, and people would take their livestock until some 15 years ago.

Dorjay, who belongs to the Lakruk area of Ladakh, said people living on the south bank of Pangong could see that Chinese soldiers had not fully withdrawn from Finger 4 to

12 5 Finger 8, and they could also see building activity on the other side.

“Our people can see dozers, road-building activity is going on. Earlier, we never used to see any Chinese, now they are fully visible to people living in the villages on the opposite side,” he said. At night, as the lights come on, their presence becomes particularly visible. “People have noted this, and they fear the Chinese are not going to go back. They are making permanent structures, they have taken control of that land without firing a shot,” he said.

“If they don’t go back, our people say there will be no end to it. They are very much agitated, they think now they have come 8 km, next time they will come in more, and one day, they will take the whole of Pangong,” he said.

14. Panna tribals denied forest entry in the name of animal conservation

12 6

Women are now overburdened with the responsibility of fetching food for the family. Earlier, tribals would collect food and firewood from the forest

A ban preventing tribal men from entering the forest to collect woods in the name of wildlife protection has made the life of community women miserable in Panna.

The ban has become more intense in the past five years. Take the instance of Hiriya Bai, a 70-year-old woman, from Saur tribe.

12 7 Bai jokes that if she claims her family has meat for food, there is every possibility of arrest on the charge of killing animals.

The septuagenarian has to manage food for her family as men in her community are banned from entering the forest.

The situation is worse as there is no other kind of work available due to the prevalent drought. The only option for poor, landless families is to collect wood and sell it in the market.

For Bai and other women from her community, the only source of making money is collecting forest woods and selling them in the local market. If women fail to collect woods, it means their families have to go hungry. The ban The so-called conflict between tribals and wild animals has led the forest department to prevent the entry of tribals inside the forest.

The Panna National Park situated along the banks of the Ken river extends over 543 kilometres. Generally known as a tiger reserve, other species such as the leopard, wolf, gharial, blue bull, chinkara, sambar, wild boar, sloth bear, cheetal, chowsingha, Indian fox and porcupine are commonly found. A separate sanctuary for gharials has also been set up.

12 8 Kusum Bai, the wife of Ram Kumar and resident of Manki village, said the ban has put too much pressure on women.

She said that she had to visit the forest twice a week to collect woods which fetch her Rs 200 a week.

It is not possible for her to visit often as she has to look after two small children and carry out other domestic duties.

According to her, her family members get to eat only chapattis with salt thrice a week. One of her children was recently admitted to the Nutrition Rehabilitation Centre for severe malnourishment.

Her husband went to Delhi to get some work, but failed to get any. He returned a month ago and is forced to sit at home.

Similar is the story in Manaur village of Panna. Tribals complained that they were not allowed to go inside the forest. “It is not an easy task,” said Hironda Bai, a 65-year- old woman. “Sarkari julm badh gaya hai pichhale char- panch saalo me” (The government pressure has increased in the past three to four years).

Teerath Gond from Gadihara village said that the women in the family have to get wood for domestic needs such as cooking, apart from selling it in the market to earn money. This is putting extra work burden on them.

12 9 Restricting poor tribals from entering the forest area is not restricted to one or two regions. It has been noticed across Panna as well as in the neighbouring Chhatarpur district.

Hukum (30) from Singaro village visits Chhatarpur, which is about 60 kilometres away from his village, to appear in court.

He has been doing it for the past two years, his father Mannu (60) said, lamenting that the only mistake his son did was to captur some fish when he went to take bath in a river nearby.

Forest officials arrested him and kept him in custody for seven days. The family has already spent 20,000 on the case so far. Both the father and the son said that forest officials do not let them enter the forest area.

The ban has led to a serious crisis and brought about a change in tribal food habits. The tribals had always depended on the forest for food supply. Hiriya Bai recalled days when mostly food supply used to come from the forest and her family got to eat nutritious food often. Though forest officials are restricting villagers in the name of protecting wild animals, the latter argue that wild animals and tribals have been living together peacefully for years.

13 0 A forest official said on the condition of anonymity that he has been ordered to protect the wild animals and so do not allow tribals to enter the forests.

15. The ‘quota within quota’ debate

(Paper 2 : 7.1 SC/ST - constitutional safeguard)

Supreme Court has referred to a larger Bench the question whether SCs and STs should be sub- categorised for reservations. What are the arguments for and against this? How has the court ruled in the past?

13 1 On Thursday, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court reopened the legal debate on sub- categorisation of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes for reservations, or what is commonly referred to as “quota within quota” for SCs and STs.

While the Bench ruled in favour of giving preferential treatment to certain Scheduled Castes over others to ensure equal representation of all Scheduled Castes, it referred the issue to a larger Bench to decide. This was because in a 2005 ruling, also by a five-judge Bench, the Supreme Court had ruled that state governments had no power to create sub-categories of SCs for the purpose of reservation.

Since a Bench of equal strength (five judges in this case) cannot overrule a previous decision, the court referred it to a larger Bench to settle the law. The larger Bench, whenever it is set up by the Chief Justice of India, will reconsider both judgments. What is sub-categorisation of SCs?

States have argued that among the Scheduled Castes, there are some that remain grossly under-represented despite reservation in comparison to other Scheduled Castes. This inequality within the Scheduled Castes is underlined in several reports, and special quotas have been framed to address it.

13 2 For example, in Andhra Pradesh, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Bihar, special quotas were introduced for the most vulnerable Dalits. In 2007, Bihar set up the Mahadalit Commission to identify the castes within SCs that were left behind.

In Tamil Nadu, a 3% quota within the SC quota is accorded to the Arundhatiyar caste, after the Justice M S Janarthanam report stated that despite being 16% of the SC population in the state, they held only 0-5% of the jobs.

In 2000, the Andhra Pradesh legislature, based on the findings of Justice Ramachandra Raju, passed a law reorganising 57 SCs into sub-groups and split the 15% SC quota in educational institutions and government jobs in proportion to their population. However, this law was declared unconstitutional in the 2005 Supreme Court ruling that held states did not have the power to tinker with the Presidential list that identifies SCs and STs. Punjab too has had laws that gave preference to Balmikis and Mazhabi Sikhs within the SC quota; this was challenged and eventually led to the latest ruling. What is the Presidential list?

The Constitution, while providing for special treatment of SCs and STs to achieve equality, does not specify the castes and tribes that are to be called Scheduled Castes

13 3 and Scheduled Tribes. This power is left to the central executive — the President.

As per Article 341, those castes notified by the President are called SCs and STs. A caste notified as SC in one state may not be a SC in another state. These vary from state to state to prevent disputes as to whether a particular caste is accorded reservation or not. According to the annual report of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, there were 1,263 SCs in the country in 2018-19. No community has been specified as SC in Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland, and Andaman & Nicobar Islands and Lakshadweep.

In the 2005 decision in E V Chinnaiah v State of Andhra Pradesh and Others, the Supreme Court ruled that only the President has the power to notify the inclusion or exclusion of a caste as a Scheduled Caste, and states cannot tinker with the list. Andhra Pradesh had submitted that the law was enacted as states had the power to legislate on the subject of education, and reservation in admission fell within its legislative domain. The court, however, rejected this argument.

The Constitution treats all Schedule Castes as a single homogeneous group. If all SCs are treated as one group, what are the grounds for sub-categorisation?

13 4 The basis of special protections for SCs comes, in the first place, from the fact that all these castes suffered social inequity. Untouchability was practised against all these castes irrespective of economic, education and other such factors.

However, the Supreme Court has engaged with the argument on whether the benefits of reservation have trickled down to the “weakest of the weak”. The concept of a “creamy layer” within SCs was upheld by the court in a 2018 judgment in Jarnail Singh v Lachhmi Narain Gupta.

The “creamy layer” concept puts an income ceiling on those eligible for reservation. While this concept applies to Other Backward Castes, it was applied to promotions of Scheduled Castes for the first time in 2018.

The central government has sought a review of the 2018 verdict and the case is currently pending.

Punjab’s law applies a creamy layer for SCs, STs in reverse — by giving preference to Balmikis and Mazhabi Sikhs. This is the case that has now led to reopening the debate on sub-categorisation of scheduled castes.

In the E V Chinnaiah case in 2005, the court had held that special protection of SCs is based on the premise that “all Scheduled Castes can and must collectively enjoy the benefits of reservation regardless of interse inequality” because the protection is not based on educational,

13 5 economic or other such factors but solely on those who suffered untouchability.

The court had held that merely giving preference does not tinker, rearrange, subclassify, disturb or interfere with the list in any manner since there is no inclusion or exclusion of any caste in the list as notified under Article 341.

The states have argued that the classification is done for a certain reason and does not violate the right to equality. The reason they have given is that the categorisation would achieve equitable representation of all SCs in government service and would being about “real equality” or “proportional equality”. What are the arguments against sub-categorisation?

The argument is that the test or requirement of social and educational backwardness cannot be applied to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The special treatment is given to the SCs due to untouchability with which they suffer. In a 1976 case, State of Kerala v N M Thomas, the Supreme Court laid down that “Scheduled Castes are not castes, they are class.”

The petitioner’s argument against allowing states to change the proportion of reservation is also based on the perception that such decisions will be made to appease one vote-bank or the other. A watertight President’s list

13 6 was envisaged to protect from such potential arbitrary change.

Also, in the current case, the court relied on its 2018 ruling in Jarnail Singh to buttress the point that social inequities exist even among SCs. However, since that ruling is pending for review, the petitioners argued against relying on it. In the Jarnail Singh case, the court held that the objective of reservation is to ensure that all backward classes march hand in hand and that will not be possible if only a select few get all the coveted services of the government.

“The constitutional goal of social transformation cannot be achieved without taking into account changing social realities,” the court ruled.

16. Covid-19 reaches the Great Andamanese, why is this worrying?

13 7

While five among the nine Great Andamanese who are infected with Covid-19 are residents of Port Blair, four live in the remote Strait Island that is reserved for the tribe.

Nine members of the dwindling Great Andamanese tribe have tested Covid-19 positive, setting off alarm bells in the Union Territory. While the Andaman and Nicobar Islands have so far recorded 2,985 novel coronavirus cases, 676 of which are active, it is for the first time that cases are reported from among the five Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) living in the islands. Besides the Great Andamanese, the other four PVTGs are Jarawas, Onges, Sentinelese and Shorn Pens. Among the

13 8 five, the Great Andamanese are the only ones who visit and live in the capital city of Port Blair frequently. The PVTGs are communities that are more vulnerable among tribal groups, and are put under a special category by the government of India.

While five among the nine Great Andamanese who are infected are residents of Port Blair, four others live in the remote Strait Island that is reserved for the tribe. Who are the Great Andamanese?

Anthropologists classify the Great Andamanese as part of the Negrito tribes that inhabit isolated parts of Southeast Asia and the Andaman Islands. Linguists Anju Saxena and Lars Borin, in their book, ‘Lesser-Known Languages of South Asia: Status and Policies, Case Studies and Applications of Information Technology’, write that “recent studies by geneticists indicate that the Andamanese are possibly related to the Negritos of the Malay peninsula and in the Philippines”.

13 9

Originally, the Great Andamanese were ten distinct tribes, including the Jeru, Bea, Bo, Khora, and Pockiwar, each with its own separate language. In 1788, when the British first tried to colonise the islands, the Great Andamanese numbered between 5,000 and 8,000. However, several members of the tribe were killed in encounters with the British to protect their territories. Later, many were wiped

14 0 out in epidemics brought in by the colonisers, such as measles, syphilis and influenza.

After the 1857 mutiny, the British government sent thousands of mutineers for life imprisonment in the Andamans. A penal colony was established for the purpose. The new phase of settlement caused the death of many Great Andamanese as they succumbed to diseases and imperialist policies.

“In the 1860s, the British established an ‘Andaman Home’ where they kept captured Great Andamanese. Hundreds of the tribe died from the disease and abuse in the home, and of 150 babies born there, none survived beyond the age of two,” says a report in the Survival International, which is a human rights organisation campaigning for the rights of tribes.

By 1901, the population of the Great Andamanese was down to 625. By the 1930s, the number had further gone below 100. In 1970, the Indian government removed the remaining Great Andamanese to the Strait Island. At present, only about 59 members of the community survive — 34 live in the Strait Island, the rest are in Port Blair.

The language of the Great Andamanese, Sare, has largely been lost, with the last surviving speaker dying earlier this year. The tribe now speaks mostly Hindi.

14 1 “Major factors contributing to the diminishing population of the Great Andamanes include environmental ‘disturbances’, contagious diseases as a result of contact with city dwellers, and a high mortality rate assisted by addictions to alcohol, tobacco and opium,” write Saxena and Borin.

Unlike the other PVTGs in the Andamans, the Great Andamanese are in contact with the general population since they visit Port Blair frequently, thereby making them more vulnerable to Covid-19.