Podcast - The Future of Tribalism - video Dailymotion

OutlookIndia

Join us as we delve into Outlook's latest issue exploring the complexities of tribal identity and the future of tribalism. Sonajharia Minz, a professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, offers insights into the challenges and promises faced by Adivasis in the ever-changing landscape of post-truth politics. Discover the historical context, linguistic nuances, and cultural resilience of tribal communities.   #TribalIdentity #OutlookMagazine #Tribalism #AdivasiRights #CulturalResilience

Transcript

00:00 Outlook brings to you excerpts from its latest issue titled 'Adivasi' or 'The Earliest Inhabitants'.

00:07 This issue of Outlook looks at the politics of appropriation and resistance in the wake of recent

00:13 developments in the states like Jharkhand and the Union Territory of Ladakh. With the general

00:19 elections due this year, it remains to be seen how the Adivasis, who form more than 8% of the total

00:27 population, participate and how the identity politics shape up in the future.

00:33 The Future of Tribalism by Sonajaria Minz, a professor in the School of Computer and System

00:40 Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University. Irrespective of the quality of education

00:46 received in cities or in the tribal hinterland, Adivasis must arise and claim the promises of

00:53 equality, justice, liberty and fraternity encoded in the constitution to count as citizens rather

01:00 than samples. This is a sincere attempt to assess change in order to estimate the future of tribalism

01:07 in post-truth politics, acknowledging the challenge. In times of rapid changes in various

01:13 global phenomena such as economic growth, technological advancements, artificial intelligence

01:19 etc., to delve into the topic of tribes or for that matter tribalism may not help in correlating

01:27 the trends, looking back in history in order to determine the future. The task begins with

01:32 decoding a gamut of terms commonly used to denote tribals in the existing literature as well as in

01:39 conversations. Here are a few of the many. Defeated people, uncivilized, illiterate,

01:46 culturally primitive, impoverished, exploited, anti-development, technology unfriendly, but,

01:54 exotic, privileged and the self-referred term Adivasi. The assertion of the Adivasis as the

02:02 original settlers of the peninsula has been denied due to the inadequacy of the definition of tribes

02:08 in India, besides the historic and political reasons. Thus, the first matter at stake is the

02:15 identity of Adivasis and all the terms related to their actions such as revolt instead of resistance.

02:22 Some of these autonomous actions for preservation and assertions are known in history as Santal

02:29 Hul, Tana Bhagat movement, Birsa Munda movement including Adivasi Mahabhasha in Chota Nagpur and

02:36 Santal Pargana. Similar historical accounts in other tribal dominated areas of the northeast

02:43 region and western India are also available. Dr. Nirmal Minz and Padmashree Dr. Ram Dayal Munda,

02:51 two first generation Adivasi intellectuals, accelerated the Adivasi discourse in the face

02:57 of the onslaught of development from various national and international fora in the post

03:03 development era. In his numerous writings, Minz passionately raised the issues of identity,

03:09 deprivation, dispossession, complete disregard of the Adivasi self-governance model and issue

03:16 of survival etc. Munda's culture-based reclamation emphasized self-reliance from the perspective

03:23 of self-governance. Dr. B.D. Sharma, on the other hand, based on his first-hand experience as a

03:30 collector in Bastar, overcame the possible biases of a Diku as he interacted with Adivasis in various

03:38 areas of erstwhile Madhya Pradesh and raised and published a systematic critique of the politics

03:44 and outcomes of various commissions from his perspective of unbroken history of the broken

03:51 people. Identity, a descriptor, is not only perception-based or interpretation of survey

03:58 data such as terms mostly used in academic writings have certain paternalistic and pejorative

04:05 connotations but it also includes indices such as relationship with land, language, culture,

04:13 art, philosophy etc. which were the inheritance systematically transferred down the generations

04:20 and have thus survived for thousands of years in the small world of limited needs

04:26 and plentiful resources. For this and more read the latest issue of Outlook.

Podcast - The Future of Tribalism

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