E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Is There an Alternative to… 165plants, thermal power stations, hydro-electric projects andschemes for the protection of wild life. The callousness withwhich tribal have been dispossessed of their lands, uprootedfrom their habitations and their traditional economic and socialsystems, and thrown to the mercy of powerful forces withwhich they were unfamiliar, and the inadequate respect given tothe federal concept are all responsible for the sullenness, andthe challenges that we are witnessing today in these areas.Many of our tribes fear that their identity and their life systemsare being destroyed by ‘outsiders’ who have tricked them, andlaid claim to their land resources. The system has failed toprotect them. How then can they retain faith in the system?In what part of the system should they repose theirfaith-the legislators, the politicians who are hand in glove withtheir exploiters, the bureaucracy on the spot, the forest officers,the contractors, the poachers, the police, the judicial system thatis too distant; too costly, too complicated, too awe-inspiring forthem? They are unlettered. They do not know the intricacies ofthe law that are promulgated by the government. They do notknow how to preserve their lands, their traditional ways andeconomies. They are dazed when they are told that they havebecome poachers or illegal trespassers in their traditionalhomelands. They are sent out into cruel exile by those whoclaim legal rights to their century-old possessions. In thissituation, they begin by asking for cultural autonomy, move tothe demand for administrative autonomy, and then to thedemand for separation or secession. This is the syndrome thatwe now witness in many of our tribal areas.I do not think it is necessary for me to deal in detailwith the similar syndrome of escalating demands, that one seesin territorial units that have ethnic, religious, or linguisticgroups that claim an identity of their own. Here too, one seesescalating demands leading to the demand for separation, and