World Tribal Day Special: Efforts to Save  World

World Tribal Day is celebrated every year on 9 August for the social, economic and judicial protection of the fundamental rights of the tribals. For the first time, Tribal or Indigenous Day was celebrated on 9 August 1994 in Geneva.

Article is written by Deepa Chandravanshi

Talking about the relevance of this day- Mahatma Gandhi, research scholar researching tribal society and culture from International Hindi University, Vaibhav Upadhyay

World Tribal Day is celebrated every year on 9 August for the social, economic and judicial protection of the fundamental rights of the tribals. For the first time, Tribal or Indigenous Day was celebrated on 9 August 1994 in Geneva.

The word Adivasi is derived from two words ‘Adi’ and ‘Vasi’ which mean ‘native’. There are about 700 tribal groups and sub-groups in India. There are about 80 ancient tribal castes among them. Tribals constitute as much as 8.6% (10 crores) of India’s population.

History and Tradition of Tribals

In ancient Sanskrit texts, tribals were addressed by the name ‘Atvika’ and Mahatma Gandhi addressed the tribals as Girijans (people who live on the hills). The term ‘Scheduled Tribe’ has been used for the tribals in the Indian Constitution.

The following are the grounds for the inclusion of any community in the category of Scheduled Tribes – Primitive characteristics, distinctive culture, geographical isolation, hesitation or backwardness in contact with a large section of the society.

The indigenous knowledge tradition of the tribals is quite rich. Its richness is also the reason for its exploitation at times. Many times it happened that the people of big industrial houses cheat the tribals to get their indigenous knowledge.

Many examples of this are found in related fields. A high-level committee under the chairmanship of Virginius Jhajha was constituted in 2013. The original word “caste” was defined in the tribe by this committee.

In this paper, it has been told that after displacement, tribal castes leave their original occupation and get involved in other work. After a time, these tribals gradually forget their real and monopolistic knowledge.

Pro. Khudiram Toppo had mentioned this in one of his articles-

20 per cent of the entire geographical area of ​​the country is a tribal area, where it is estimated that 70 per cent of the national resources are minerals, forests, wildlife, water resources and cheap human resources, yet people here are getting displaced, due to to which they lose their native and their lives.

The rich indigenous people are turning away from knowledge.

This is the reason that the search for indigenous knowledge in India’s research and experiments has emerged as a new trend in today’s era.

In the past years, much such research has been done through which it has come to the fore that in tribal development, the development is being implemented in the tribal areas by the institutions or the government system; The prior arrangements of the society are not being taken into account due to which the schemes are not being implemented properly.

In Nambia, Jussi S. Jauhiainen and Lauri Hooli reported that the tribals quickly accepted the development that was associated with their culture.

Tribal world and knowledge tradition

Tribals have an amazing knowledge of disaster, defence and development. It is mentioned in historical books and texts how the Mughals or the British establish their suzerainty over India, but when they think of entering the tribal areas, they have to face them.

Similarly, Jarwa tribals of Andaman saved themselves in a terrible natural calamity like a tsunami and anticipating that some terrible natural calamity was about to come, convinced the people of this subject area that the tribals had an amazing understanding of the disaster. Similarly, there is a tradition of help in the tribal society which is called ‘Halma’.

Under this, when a person or family is unable to overcome the crisis on himself even after all his efforts, then all the villagers gather for his help and get him out of that difficulty with their selfless efforts.

It is such a deep and generous tradition to help a person in distress. This tradition or knowledge came into the discussion when in 2018 given the terrible water crisis in the country, the tribals this time called Halma for Mother Earth.

The result was that in just a few days, thousands of water conservation centres were set up free of cost at other places in the country. The special thing about this indigenous knowledge is that engineers and skilled technicians who have done IIT from big metros are also joining it with their full interest.

Nitin Dhakad is an engineer by profession but when he joined this tradition in 2015, he was very impressed with this tradition, the result is that since 2017 he is leaving his job and inspiring people to work under this tradition.

Society and ways of living

Folk medicine knowledge is also an important knowledge of the tribals, which is used for community use. It gets the approval of those members of the society who have established it based on their experiences. It is completely based on logical assumptions.

The modern medical system calls it disorganized medical knowledge, but folk medical knowledge is related to the process of a person’s transference and its most important condition is to keep it transferred, this is also the power of this knowledge.

The tribals used their knowledge not only for themselves but for the entire nation. Remembering his contribution to the freedom movement will complete the ‘Azadi Ke Amrit Mahotsav’.

It was the nectar of the tribals towards the nation that gave birth to heroic warriors like Siddu and Kanhu, Tilka and Manjhi, Birsa Munda etc.

Today, when the country is celebrating the nectar festival of freedom; Remembering the heroes of freedom. In such a situation, it is also necessary that the love of the tribals and their unique sacrifice made in this love should also be remembered.

The ‘Damin Rebellion’ of 1790, the ‘Larka Movement’ of 1828, the Santhal Rebellion of 1855 were all such movements in which a large number of tribals sacrificed their lives. The commitment of tribals or forest dwellers to their soil is the commitment and respect towards the nation.

Tribals have been doing the work of awakening not only the nation but also through their public communication medium. The Bengali folk drama ‘Jatra’ was used extensively in the freedom struggle.

The traditional form of folk anthem ‘Pala’ was also used in public awareness and freedom movement. In this way, many such examples are found in history, where the tribals kept the light of freedom alive through the medium of public communication.

In this way, this indigenous knowledge tradition of tribals can become a medium of strong solution for the country and the world, there is a need to mark this indigenous knowledge and give it scientific recognition.

The former President of the country, Dr Kalam had said that if we really want to become self-reliant in the field of science and technology, then there is a need to not only ease the opportunities of scientific research in the country, but also the illiterate villagers or common people of India who make inventions.

They also need to be used by giving scientific validation.