Problems of Tribal Communities

Overview: Nature and Origins of Tribal Problems

The problems faced by tribal communities in India are not isolated social pathologies but structural consequences of colonial and post-colonial political economy. Verrier Elwin attributed the deplorable condition of tribes to their contact with the outside world, which led to indebtedness and loss of control over land and forests. The nationalist leadership recognised both this explanation and its opposite the view that tribal backwardness stemmed from isolation and addressed both dimensions in the Constitution. In practice, however, development (of a particular extractive kind) became the primary thrust of the State's agenda with minimal regard for protections and safeguards. Tribal-inhabited regions are systematically rich in mineral, forest, and water resources; large-scale development projects have therefore been concentrated in tribal areas, producing a paradox in which the regions of greatest natural wealth contain the highest percentages of tribal people below the poverty line. In 2004-05, 54.2 percent of tribal people in Jharkhand and 75.6 percent in Odisha lived below the poverty line.

The major problems of tribal communities cluster into six interrelated domains: land alienation, poverty and indebtedness, low literacy and educational deprivation, unemployment and underemployment, health and nutritional deficiencies, and the specific vulnerabilities of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs).

Land Alienation

Land alienation the transfer of tribal land to non-tribal persons, corporations, or the state is the foundational problem from which most other tribal difficulties flow. Land for tribes is simultaneously a source of livelihood, a source of identity and ethnicity, a cultural and spiritual anchor (their gods and guardian spirits residing in hills, groves, and forests), and a marker of their territorial sovereignty. The customary ownership of land was by the community, and economic activity was mainly agrarian including shifting cultivation, which fostered egalitarian values in their power relations and organisational systems.

Historical Origins

Land alienation began during the colonial period. British land revenue settlements declared original tribal settlers as tenants while their lands passed to outsiders. Communal land ownership was denied; outsiders took over tribal land and became settled tax-paying cultivators, thereby gaining the support of the colonial government. Heavy rent and taxation drove tribal communities into poverty and into the clutches of moneylenders and traders. British forest policies denied tribal ownership over forests, breaking down the nature-man-spirit complex and creating an identity crisis. The entry of Christian missionaries compounded the loss of cultural identity.

Mechanisms of Land Alienation

Even after independence, land alienation continued through multiple channels. Legal loopholes were exploited: although the Fifth Schedule provided for state laws to prohibit or restrict transfer of tribal land in Scheduled Areas, these laws were circumvented in connivance with state machinery, and illegal alienation by non-tribals continued as an ongoing process. Land was acquired in the name of public purposes: under the Sixth Schedule, autonomous districts have powers to make laws relating to land, but the proviso to Clause 3(a) allowed acquisition of land and Common Property Resources for broad public purposes, displacing tribal people without adequate compensation. Development-induced displacement through the state's exercise of eminent domain acquisition for dams, mines, industries, and roads has been the single largest cause of displacement since independence.

Indirect alienation occurs when land near development projects is polluted or rendered unusable by mining and industrial operations, yet tribal people in the affected area are not entitled to compensation. Illegal alienation takes place through the participation of revenue functionaries, manipulation of records, and incorrect interpretation of laws. Community land has been recorded as government land in survey and settlement operations, since state tenancy laws recognise only individually owned registered land; such community lands lack survey records and appear as government property. Acquisition of tribal lands to settle refugees as occurred in Tripura where 53,318 refugee families settled by the end of 1957, putting pressure on jhum land and the creation of national parks and tiger reserves (as when 245 Baiga families were moved out of the Achanakmar Tiger Reserve in 2009) have also been major drivers.

Magnitude

Rural development surveys indicate that 33 to 35 percent of tribal households have been affected by land alienation. Approximately 80 percent of alienated tribal land has gone to non-tribals. The 1991 census recorded a sharp reduction in the number of tribal cultivators, reflecting this process. Kamal K. Mishra's comprehensive study of tribal land alienation in Scheduled V Areas of Andhra Pradesh, undivided Madhya Pradesh, and Odisha found that 1,396 out of 6,358 sample households (21.95 percent) had lost 6,185.5 acres constituting 24.69 percent of total tribal land in the villages studied. Tribal to non-tribal transfer accounted for 85.95 percent of alienations; the study showed that prolonged indebtedness was the main cause. Saxena (2012) estimated that at least 60 million people were displaced between 1947 and 2004, of whom at least 40 percent were tribal and 20 percent Scheduled Caste; less than 18 percent were resettled.

Consequences

The consequences of land alienation are severe and cascading. Traditional livelihoods based on customary rights over land and forests collapse, converting self-sufficient tribal communities into marginalised agricultural labourers and daily-wage earners in their own ancestral areas. Land is not replaced under most rehabilitation programmes and there is no reconstitution of livelihoods displaced families lose their cultural space and identity as well. Women, who held relatively equal status in tribal societies and participated actively in collecting Non-Timber Forest Produce and cultivating family plots, are particularly disadvantaged after displacement: in resettlement colonies, they are forced into casual labour, often in hazardous conditions. Resettlement sites near mining operations cause respiratory diseases; lack of herbal medicines forces displaced tribals to spend most of their earnings on allopathic treatment. Influx of outsiders into opened-up tribal areas depresses the proportion of tribal population: in Bihar, the tribal percentage declined from 10.7 percent in 1951 to 7.66 percent in 1981.

Case Studies

The Koya tribes of Thottipampu (Telangana) have been losing land to non-tribal moneylenders and landlords since 1975; despite winning several rounds of litigation, court orders were consistently not implemented by local revenue officials, illustrating how legal protections fail at the enforcement stage. The Samantha Case (Andhra Pradesh, 1997) where the Supreme Court stalled the transfer of tribal land to a private mining project established that Schedule V lands cannot be leased to private non-tribal companies. The Korwa tribe of Surguja district is among the worst victims of moneylending: Muslim moneylenders locally called Miyan advanced loans only on mortgage of land, and tribal addiction to alcohol provided the recurring reason for cash loans. The Tharus of the Terai region of Uttar Pradesh have been victims of Punjabi refugee settlement, moneylenders, and traders. The Sauria Paharia (studied by Sachindra Narayan) are exploited by mahajans through faulty accounting systems, possible because the Sauria are largely illiterate.

Legislative Measures and Judicial Interventions

Legislative protections include the Assam Land Revenue Regulation Act 1964, the Madhya Pradesh Scheduled Area Regulation Act 1954, the Maharashtra Land Revenue Act, the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act 1908, the Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act 1876, and the provisions of the Fifth and Sixth Schedules. PESA 1996 empowers Gram Sabhas to safeguard tribal land and regulate moneylending in Scheduled Areas. The Forest Rights Act 2006 provides individual and community forest rights. The Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act 2013 is more progressive but contains a broad definition of "public purpose" that critics argue will lead to continued displacement. The Narmada (Sardar Sarovar) case (2017) established that "no less than land can be given as compensation" to displaced tribals.

Poverty and Indebtedness

Chronic indebtedness has been a major problem for all Indian tribes except for a few northeastern tribes that remained isolated from middlemen and contractors during British rule. Nearly 80 percent of the tribal population is affected by indebtedness. Tribal communities generally borrow from unorganised sources moneylenders and shopkeepers rather than from formal financial institutions.

Historical Roots

The problem began when the British introduced tribal communities to a monetary economy that replaced their barter system. The introduction of cash-based land revenue created the need for money that tribal communities could only obtain through moneylenders. The entry of outsiders moneylenders, merchants, contractors into tribal areas followed from loopholes in money-lending prohibition laws. Faulty land records and addiction to alcohol provided the recurring occasions for cash borrowing. Loss of land rights and forest rights eliminated the productive base for self-sufficiency. Change in expenditure patterns marriage ceremonies, rituals, dowry or bride wealth following contact with non-tribal society generated new debt obligations. Adherence to panchayat decisions regarding fines, and fear of excommunication, prevented renegotiation of debt terms.

Role of Moneylenders

Moneylenders exploit their position through several mechanisms: faulty land records and nexus with local revenue officials enable land mortgage and eventual land-grabbing; simple documentation-free loan processes make moneylenders accessible while formal banks remain remote; high interest rates trap borrowers in cycles where principal can never be repaid; and the bonded labour system converts unpaid debt into permanent servitude. The diku a word used by tribes of Jharkhand such as the Mundas and Oraons to refer to outsiders, especially exploitative traders and moneylenders became a symbol of colonial and post-colonial economic domination.

Bonded Labour

Tribal indebtedness frequently leads to bonded labour. Sahariya tribal groups in Baran, Rajasthan continue to work as bonded labour for landlords under the hali system, one form of bonded labour banned under the Bonded Labour (Abolition) Act 1976. Sahariyas are tricked into accepting loans at exorbitant interest rates and subsequently work for big landowners without wages. Among Juang PVTGs in Odisha, many families labour in debt repayment under a system locally called goti, despite the Orissa Debt Bondage (Abolition and Regulation) Act 1948 and the central law. Article 23 of the Constitution prohibits traffic in human beings and begar (forced labour), and is significant for Scheduled Tribes since a sizeable proportion of bonded labour is of tribal origin.

Poverty Data

In rural India in 1993-94, the overall poverty rate was 50.3 percent; among Scheduled Tribes it was 65.9 percent. Between 1993-94 and 2004-05, only Scheduled Tribes lagged behind all social groups in poverty reduction, recording only a 3.7 percentage point reduction compared to 8.5 percent for all groups. By 2009-10, the tribal poverty rate stood at 47.4 percent. Between 2009-10 and 2011-12, Scheduled Tribes again showed the least progress, with only 2.1 percentage point reduction while all other groups exhibited substantial reductions. The paradox is that the states with the greatest mineral and forest wealth Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh have the highest tribal poverty rates.

Government Measures and Gaps

Measures include promotion of settled agriculture, improvement of PDS delivery in tribal areas, laws to prohibit land alienation and regulate moneylending, MGNREGA for wage employment, TRIFED for marketing forest produce, Tribal Haats, Vandhan Yojana for promoting savings through Self-Help Groups, and the Tribal Sub-Plan. Limitations persist: lack of political will, weak enforcement of laws, fines under money-lending laws not updated for inflation, and non-implementation outside Scheduled Areas. The Planning Commission identified a two-pronged strategy of long-term credit facility and raising the repaying capacity of tribals through improving economic conditions.

Low Literacy and Educational Deprivation

Tribal literacy rates have historically been among the lowest of any social category in India. As per the 1991 census, the scheduled tribe literacy rate was 29.6 percent, compared to 37.4 percent for scheduled castes and a national average considerably higher. The 2011 census showed tribal literacy at approximately 59 percent, still well below the national average of 74 percent. Among tribal children, 42.2 percent dropped out before completing primary education.

Structural Causes of Educational Deprivation

The most fundamental barrier is that formal education is conducted in a language different from the tribal mother tongue. Unlike Scheduled Castes, who generally share the regional language with the dominant community, most tribal children must first bridge a linguistic gap before they can access educational content. A child taught in Hindi or Oriya when her mother tongue is Gondi or Santhali faces a double disadvantage that cannot be overcome simply by building more schools. The curriculum is also culturally alien tribal knowledge of forests, agriculture, and ecology is neither valued nor taught, making formal schooling an instrument of cultural disconnection rather than empowerment.

Infrastructure barriers are severe: absentee and poorly trained teachers are common in remote tribal areas, schools are physically distant from dispersed settlements, and the cost of sending children to residential schools is prohibitive for poor families. Midday meal programmes have improved attendance but have not addressed drop-out rates, which spike particularly at the transition from primary to secondary school. Among PVTGs, literacy rates are substantially lower than even the general Scheduled Tribe average. The Lokur Committee reported abysmal education infrastructure in tribal areas.

Differential Tribal Performance

A notable pattern is that larger tribal groups Gonds, Bhils, Santhals have lower literacy rates than smaller groups, because larger groups tend to inhabit more remote and less administratively developed areas. Tribes that experienced early Christian missionary activity Mizos, Nagas, Khasis have achieved remarkably high literacy (Mizoram consistently exceeds 91 percent), demonstrating that the gap is not intrinsic but institutional. Oraons, with relative absence of internal chiefs and kings and early exposure to Christianity and modern education, also performed better than the average. Minas of Rajasthan and Khasis of Meghalaya are other examples of tribes that have done relatively well due to internal social differentiation providing reference points for educational aspiration.

Constitutional Safeguards for Education

Article 15(4) empowers the state to make special provision for the advancement of socially and educationally backward classes, enabling reservations in educational institutions. Article 29(1) guarantees the right of any section of citizens having a distinct language, script, or culture to conserve the same significant for tribes like the Santhals who have their own script (Olchiki). Article 350A obliges every state to provide facilities for instruction in the mother tongue at the primary stage to children of linguistic minority groups. Despite these provisions, implementation remains deeply inadequate.

Unemployment and Underemployment

Tribal communities face both open unemployment and structural underemployment the latter arising from their dependence on seasonal agriculture, shifting cultivation, and collection of minor forest produce, which provide income only for part of the year. Tribal economies have traditionally been self-sufficient in terms of subsistence but have generated little surplus for participation in the market economy. The entry of outsiders, the restriction of forest access, and the loss of land have converted self-sufficient communities into a pool of marginal agricultural labour without the skills or social networks to access organised-sector employment.

Structural Barriers to Employment

Geographical distance from centres of government employment and industry, combined with the linguistic barrier (conducting interviews in state languages that are not the tribal mother tongue), creates a systematic disadvantage. The collectivist ethos of tribal societies where individual achievement is less valorised than communal solidarity contrasts with the individualist performance orientation of the competitive examination and corporate hiring system. Tribes lack the historical exposure to white-collar occupations that Scheduled Castes acquired through their positions in the caste division of labour: tribes were engaged in agriculture, hunting, and forest-based activities, not in the craft and service occupations that gave scheduled castes calculation, reciprocity, and commitment in their work orientation.

Despite constitutional reservations of 7.5 percent in central government services, actual ST representation in public sector banks, financial institutions, and insurance companies stands at only 6.55 percent below the mandatory level. Vacancies in ST-reserved posts remain unfilled, partly due to claimed unavailability of candidates and partly due to discrimination. The Xaxa Committee noted severe under-representation and pending vacancies in Central Government services and recommended a transparent policy with no rejection of eligible ST candidates on the ground of "no suitable candidates found."

Recommendations

The Xaxa Committee called for agro-based training institutions and labour-intensive processing industries in tribal regions; micro-credit on reasonable terms for SHGs, cooperatives, and Gram Sabhas; support for organic farming and eco-forestry; micro watershed development as the top priority for tribal agriculture; and credit facilities for ST entrepreneurs on par with other social groups. MGNREGA, Kaushal Vikas Yojana, Vandhan Yojana, TRIFED, and e-commerce linkages (Amazon tribal stores) represent recent government initiatives, though their reach in remote areas remains limited.

Health and Nutritional Problems

Tribal communities experience substantially higher burdens of disease, malnutrition, and mortality than the national average. Their health situation reflects the intersection of poverty, geographical isolation, environmental exposure (living in forest and hill areas endemic for malaria, filariasis, and other vector-borne diseases), inadequate public health infrastructure, and cultural distance from biomedical health services.

Disease Burden

Malaria is the dominant health problem in tribal areas: the majority of malaria deaths in India occur in tribal-inhabited forest and hilly regions of Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, and the Northeast. Sickle cell anaemia whose allele is maintained at high frequencies in malaria-endemic tribal populations of central India (Gonds, Bhils, Oraons) through heterozygote advantage adds a significant genetic disease burden. Tuberculosis, malnutrition-related conditions (including kwashiorkor and marasmus in children), and waterborne diseases (cholera, diarrhoea, typhoid) are prevalent. In mining project resettlement sites, proximity to operations causes respiratory diseases. After displacement, the loss of access to forests eliminates the availability of herbal medicines that tribal communities have used for generations.

Nutritional Status

Tribal children have among the highest rates of stunting, wasting, and underweight in India. Food security is chronically insecure, depending heavily on common property resources forests, water bodies that have been progressively restricted. The real issue for PVTGs is non-provision of health facilities as well as denial of their right to sufficient, nutritious food. Tribal communities borrow money primarily for non-productive purposes including meeting daily food and health expenditure: a high percentage cite financial incapability as the major hindrance to using healthcare facilities even when treatment is nominally free in government hospitals they cannot afford incidental expenses such as travel, boarding, and (informally) bribes to healthcare staff.

Reproductive Health

Some of the worst reproductive health abuses have occurred in the name of population control. Among Kattunayakan tribals in Wayanad district, Kerala, tribal women have been coerced or intimidated into undergoing sterilisation in order for health workers to meet sterilisation targets. Such practices violate the reproductive rights and autonomy of tribal communities. Infant mortality rates and maternal mortality rates remain significantly above national averages in tribal areas.

Infrastructure and Access

Most resettlement colonies and tribal habitations lack proper public health facilities and protected drinking water. The Public Distribution System (PDS) functions poorly in remote tribal areas, leaving nutritional deficiency unaddressed. Approximately one percent of the total health budget flows to tribal areas despite their outsized disease burden. The Mungekar Committee and Xaxa Committee both emphasised that the health crisis cannot be addressed by routine administration and requires mission-mode approaches with community participation.

Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs)

The most marginalised among Scheduled Tribes are the 75 groups designated as Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (formerly Primitive Tribal Groups or PTGs), identified on the basis of pre-agricultural technology, stagnant or declining population, very low literacy, and subsistence-level economy. The Scheme for Development of PVTGs came into effect from April 1, 2008, and seeks to adopt a holistic approach through Conservation-cum-Development (CCD) plans valid for five years, funded entirely by the central government.

PVTGs face all the problems described above in accentuated form, along with additional vulnerabilities: forced sterilisation (Kattunayakans, Kerala), forest-driven displacement (Baiga of Achanakmar Tiger Reserve, 2009), denial of forest rights (Kattunayakans denied honey collection from Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary), and continued use of colonial-era language ("primitive," "backward") in official documents about them. Literacy among PVTGs is far lower than even the Scheduled Tribe average. Many PVTGs classified as such have not yet been notified as Scheduled Tribes, denying them the constitutional protections available to STs.

The National Advisory Council (2013) recommendations for PVTGs included: giving all such groups ST status, access to rights under the Forest Rights Act, social audits of development programmes, a special census to ascertain their numbers, a rights-based approach to empowerment, a habitat approach to livelihood strategy, single-window governance instead of multiple agencies, and free rations during lean and rainy seasons. The NAC cautioned specifically that vulnerabilities may be exacerbated rather than reduced through poorly designed government intervention, and that no development project should be imposed without informed consent and community participation.

The Xaxa Committee Framework

The Xaxa Committee (High Level Committee on Socio-Economic, Health and Educational Status of Tribal Communities, 2013-2014, chaired by Virginius Xaxa) provided the most comprehensive recent survey of tribal problems. Its findings confirmed that all the above problems persist and are in many cases worsening. Key recommendations included: a rights-based and non-displacement approach to development in tribal areas; strict enforcement of land protection laws and restoration of alienated land; Gram Sabha participation in identification and restoration of land through PESA; monitoring agencies at national and state levels to prevent land alienation; return of unutilised land acquired by governments and PSUs to original landowners; attention to land and water sources polluted by industrial and mining projects; and rehabilitation of tribals displaced by conflict in Chhattisgarh and the Northeast.

The Xaxa Committee's framework locates tribal problems not in the social or cultural characteristics of tribals as earlier colonial and development discourses implied but in the structural conditions of a development paradigm that systematically appropriates tribal land, forests, and water while excluding tribal communities from the benefits. The solution lies not in tribal assimilation into mainstream development but in a transformation of the development model itself toward one that respects tribal rights, identity, and priorities as its foundation.