Tribal Development in India

Tribals in India present a significant degree of cultural and ethnic diversity. They differ in their socio-cultural levels as well as in their behavior patterns. Tribal situation in the country poses peculiar problems of development, not encountered in other areas. The peculiarities can be broadly summed up as geographical, demographic, socio-cultural and exploitative. Tribal development indicates serious challenges to the policy makers, administrators and development activists. The socio-economic forces of modernization and development have no doubt brought some benefits to the people of respective areas but the benefits accrued to them have been largely out weighted by the harm more to them. Development induced displacement, in voluntary migration and resettlement has also cause marginalization of tribals and presented enormous problems to them. The new economic regime has led to privatization and marketization of economy and thus it has been treated as powerful threat to the survival of tribal communities. The socio-cultural change among the tribal communities has no doubt empowered the tribals, however, their cultural identity is under severe stress. The human development indices also demonstrate the backwardness and marginalization of tribal communities in India. The book throws light on important dimensions of tribal development and social change in India in the context of new policy regime and environment. The book contains 36 papers dealing with different dimensions and aspects of social change and development of tribal communities in India. A few papers also highlight the important issues pertaining to tribal and backward communities of Bangladesh and African countries. The papers mainly deal with the issues of refugees, aging, religious and cultural identity, ethno-medicine and traditional health seeking behaviour, migration, land alienation, demographic change, women health, socio-cultural adaptation, tribal development programmes, ethnicity, etc. This book will be useful in understanding the dynamics of social change and development among tribal communities of India to the policy makers and those who are interested in this field.