Tag: marginalisation

The Niyamgiri is a hill range situated in the districts of Kalahandi and Rayagada in Odisha. These hills are home to Dongria Kondh indigenous people also known as Adivasi. The hills have one of India's most pristine forests in the interiors.

The Environment and Forest ministry of Govt. of India scrapped a forest clearance given to a mining firm, Vedanta Resources, to mine bauxite in the area and the mining project was scrapped. In 2013, the Supreme Court of India asked the tribal people to take the decision, in which Bauxite Mining Process was rejected in all village council meetings.

From the 1830s onward, Adivasis from Jharkhand and adjoining areas moved in very large numbers to various plantations in India and the world - Mauritius, the Caribbean and even Australia. India’s tea industry became possible with their labour in Assam.

Groups of people or communities may have the experience of being excluded. Their marginalization can be because they speak a different language, follow different customs or belong to a different religious group from the majority community. They may also feel marginalized because they are poor, considered to be of low social status and viewed as being less human than others. The government releases various schemes to gain profit through the influence of these people and groups.

Around 8 per cent of India’s population is Adivasi and many of India’s most important mining and industrial centres are located in Adivasi areas – Jamshedpur, Rourkela, Bokaro and Bhilai among others. Adivasis are not a homogeneous population: there are over 500 different Adivasi groups in India. Adivasis are particularly numerous in states like Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal and in the north-eastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura.

In India, we usually showcase Adivasi communities in particular ways. Adivasis are becoming increasingly marginalized and the people often wrongly believe that Adivasis are exotic, primitive and backward. Often Adivasis are blamed for their lack of advancement as they are believed to be resistant to change or new ideas.

Adivasis practise a range of tribal religions that are different from Islam, Hinduism and Christianity. These often involve the worship of ancestors, village and nature spirits, the last associated with and residing in various sites in the landscape – ‘mountain-spirits’, ‘river-spirits’, ‘animal-spirits’, etc. 

In the social environment too, groups of people or communities may have the experience of being excluded. Their marginalisation can be because they speak a different language, follow different customs or belong to a different religious group from the majority community. They may also feel marginalised because they are poor, considered to be of low social status and viewed as being less human than others.

Losing their lands and access to the forest means that tribal lose their main sources of livelihood and food. Having gradually lost access to their traditional homelands, many Adivasis have migrated to cities in search of work where they are employed for very low wages in local industries or at building or construction sites. They, thus, get caught in a cycle of poverty and deprivation. 45 per cent of tribal groups in rural areas and 35 per cent in urban areas live below the poverty line. This leads to deprivation in other areas. Many tribal children are malnourished. Literacy rates among tribal are also very low.

Muslims are 13.4 percent of India’s population and are considered to be a marginalised community in India today because, in comparison to other communities, they have over the years been deprived of the benefits of socio-economic development.