Indigenous People

UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs released State of the world’s indigenous peoples: Rights to Land, territories and resources report according to which recognition and protection of land titles and tenure of indigenous people is crucial to attaining SDGs to eradicate poverty and achieve sustainable development by 2030.

Indigenous peoples

• Indigenous peoples are inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of relating to people and the environment. They have retained social, cultural, economic and political characteristics that are distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live.
• Indigenous peoples in India comprise an estimated population of 104 million or 8.6% of the national population, almost 90% of them living in rural areas.
• 705 ethnic groups notified as Scheduled Tribes (STs) spread across 30 States or Union Territories, these are considered to be India’s indigenous peoples that includes 75 identified PVTGs.
• Inherent rights of indigenous peoples:
• Collective and individual right to their ancestral land, territories and resources also, exercise control and management of their right to lands, territories and resources;
• To self-government by their own institutions and authorities within their lands and territories;
• To fair and equitable benefit sharing from conservation and development actions involving their lands, territories, resources, and people
• To conserve, develop, use and protect their traditional knowledge

Challenges for indigenous people in India

• Lack of access to education: due to their geographic and politically marginalized status. Also, education systems and curricula do not respect indigenous peoples’ diverse cultures.
• Health challenges: such as illnesses from pesticides and extractive industries, malnutrition, diabetes and HIV/AIDS due to their limited access to mainstream population and health facilities.
• Human rights violation: most often for defending their rights and their lands, communities etc.
• Land dispossession:  due to economic policies, globalisation, growing search for rich agricultural areas and natural wealth.
• Indigenous traditional knowledge erosion, loss and threats: are undervalued, ignored and under severe threat of being eroded, lost or misappropriated and led to commodification of indigenous cultures by proliferation of products on the market that imitate, misrepresent and profit from the alleged associations.
• Forest issue: forest laws for sake of economic development fatally undermine the vital Forest Rights Act to indigenous people
• In 2019,SupremeCourt issued an order to evict 8 million tribals and forest dwelling people.
• Legal loopholes: poor enforcement of existing safeguards, bureaucratic apathy and corporate neglect of human rights of these indigenous people and muffle their voices.

Measures to be taken

• Education: Community-based education and language programs, need adequate funding and  curriculum development with partnership between indigenous communities and state education structures and policymakers.
• Health care: right to access, without any discrimination, to all social and health services. Furthermore, integrating needs of indigenous peoples into health programmes, plans, projects and policies.
• Implementation of laws: Forest Rights Act, the LARR Act and acquire prior consent of the concerned tribal communities in before undertaking any infrastructure development and mining plans and projects in tribal areas.
• National Action Plan: Govt through meaningful consultations with tribal communities, must formulate its National Action Plan for implementation of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.

Provisions at international level

• Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention 1957:
• First international treaty to deal with indigenous rights, concerning the Protection and Integration of Indigenous and other Tribal and Semi-Tribal Populations in Independent Countries.
• Article 1 indicates that self-identification as indigenous or tribal shall be regarded as a fundamental criterion for determining the groups to which the provisions of this Convention apply.
• United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Article 33 importance of self-identification, that indigenous peoples themselves define their own identity as indigenous.

Provisions in India to protect rights of indigenous people 

• Fifth Schedule of Constitution of India (Article 244)
• special system of administration for certain areas designated as scheduled areas and tribal areas in any state except the four states of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram
• Features of administration in the Fifth Schedule areas:
• Declaration of Scheduled Areas with President in consultation with governor
• Tribes Advisory Council
• Law applicable to Scheduled Areas with governor empowered to direct that any particular act of Parliament or the state legislature does not apply
• Constitution requires the president to appoint a commission to report on the administration of the scheduled areas and the welfare of the scheduled tribes in the states.
• Sixth Schedule of the Constitutions
• It deals with the administration of the tribal areas in the four states of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram.
• Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation & Resettlement (LARR) Act, 2013
• Under act, consent of 80% land owners required for private projects, 70% land owners required for Public-Private Partnership projects and no consent is required for government projects.
• Act exempts 13 laws (such as the National Highways Act, 1956 and the Railways Act, 1989) from its ambit.
• If land acquired under the Act remains unutilised for five years from taking possession, it must be returned to the original owners or a land bank.
• The Act provides the option of employment to one member of an affected family as part of the rehabilitation and resettlement award.
• The Act provides for the establishment of a Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement (LARR) Authority which may be approached in case a person is not satisfied with an award under the Act.
• Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006- recognize and vest the forest rights and occupation for forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest dwellers (OTFD).