situation of tribal community in BIHAR

                                         Status of Tribal Communities in contemporary Bihar

Scheduled tribes (STs) distinguish themselves from other communities with their distinctive culture and isolated habitations and lag behind the rest of the society due to their socio-economic backwardness. According to the 2001 Census, they account for about 84.32 million constituting 8.2 per cent of the country's total population. Primitive Tribal Groups (PTGs) are 1.32 million according to the 1991 Census constituting 1.49 per cent of the total tribal population. After the bifurcation of Bihar in November 2000, its predominantly tribal region became the state of Jharkhand. Lots of people think Bihar did not have any tribal population. In truncated Bihar we have demographically dominant tribes as well as primitive tribal groups, food gatherers and hunters. When we examine the economic condition of these tribes we find that by and large they are settled agriculturist and live in a particular geographical territory. Their economy is marked by the barter system. Labour is shared and exchanged and not sold within the community. Their social life is similar to that of similar tribes in Jharkhand. Their cultural institutions and functions are the same. The recent census suggests that each district of Bihar has some tribal population. The Santhals of Bihar now, after two years, have started to claim that they are the original Santhals and distinguish themselves from the Santhals of Jharkhand. However, marriages of Santhals living in Bihar are being solemnized with the Santhals of Jharkhand and of West Bengal. Is this only a geographical distribution of the population or something more, which gives them the connotation of tribes of Bihar? I think it is something more than geographical distribution. It is their sense of belongingness with the state of Bihar. This sense of belongingness gives a new perspective to their world view. Their cultural, ecological and human emotions give them an image, feeling, bondage, style of life, etc, identifying them as tribes of Bihar. This is yet to be firmly articulated by them. Majority of the tribes of Bihar are settled agriculturist, agricultural labourers or simple labourers. Generally they work as labourers and also migrate as labourers. They hardly get two square meals throughout the year. However, their folklore, folk tales and folk songs, folk music are very rich. When they are involved in singing or dancing it becomes very difficult to imagine that their bellies may be empty. Their dress is similar to those of Jharkhand tribes. They worship nature and Hindu Gods and Goddesses. Tribes of Bihar generally belong to the Mongoloid racial group and have their own dialects with Devnagari as script. Their development has become a myth. They suffer either from deprivatory development, or discriminatory development or derivatory development. They need to be developed as per their 'Felt Need' which may result in their sustainable development. Demographically Santhals are the number one tribe of Bihar, then comes Tharu . After the division of erstwhile state of Bihar which gave birth to Jharkhand, the dominant perception remains that the state of Jharkhand is a separate state for the tribal community. According to the annual report 2008-09 of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, the total population of Bihar is 8, 29, 98,509 of which Schedule Tribes constitute 75, 8,351. The decennial growth of ST population in Bihar has been 32.4 per cent which is 3.8 per cent higher than the rate for general population.The State of Bihar has a total of 33 tribes, which are mainly, Santhal, Munda, Oraon, Lohra etc.   The Scheduled Tribes in Bihar are overwhelmingly rural as 94.6 per cent of them reside in villages. The district-wise distribution of ST population shows that Katihar district has the highest proportion of STs (5.9 per cent) followed by Jamui (4.8 per cent), Banka (4.7 per cent) and Purnia (4.4 per cent). Sheohar district has the lowest proportion of the STs (0.01per cent), preceded by Darbhanga and Khagaria (0.03 per cent each).

The Tribal communities in Bihar, especially Bihar, Arariya, Bhagalpur, Supaol, Kishanganj, Gaya, and so on, owing to their precarious libing conditions, have no conception of a distinct tribal identity.

The tribal people  in our country are known as Adivasis in the ordinary usage of the term. In general, it is applied to people who are considered primitive and who live in backward areas.. In the Indian context, Tribe is thus basically a politico-administrative category and has hardly retained any of its socio-cultural characteristics. This is why, perhaps, our constitution uses the term tribe in its administrative connotation.  In Bihar, for instance, Hinduism is the predominant religion of the tribes of the State as 89.7 per cent STs are Hindus. The tribes professing ‘Other Religions and Pursuations’ account for 6.3 Per cent. Christian tribes are 3.4 per cent and less than half per cent (0.4 per cent) are Muslims.

Concept of socio-cultural among problems the tribal community in Bihar

 Tribal community has some own tradition and culture.  However, in schools medium of education are Hindi and English. Hindi, the official language of Bihar and the medium of instruction in government primary school, is as foreign to them as any other imported tongue. In the tribal areas in Bihar, lots of people are living in difficult conditions.. In many villages, there are no drinking water facilities.  In many tribal areas of Bihar, children are suffering from skin disease & malnutrition. A large number of malnutrition cases are found in tribal children in Bihar. We can see there are lots of programme are working in health sector of Bihar .but its not working properly in Bihar’s tribal areas I  think from that sector nobody are visiting a single time in  a village .and  also there is need oh awareness in tribal areas in tribal area tribes  do not even get twice a meal a day. Tribes of Bihar suffer from goiter due to lack of iodine. Leprosy and tuberculosis are also common among them. Infant mortality was found to be very high among some of the tribes. Malnutrition is common and has affected the general health of the tribal children as it lowers the ability to resist infection, leads to chronic illness and sometimes leads to brain impairment.

Programmes and plans among the tribal community in Bihar

Scheduled tribes have been referred  to in the Indian constitution as “backward classes” in article 15(4) ,16(4) ,338(3) ,and 340(1) .it is under the directive principle of the constitution (article 46) that the constitution enjoins upon the state government “to promote with special care and educational and economic interest of the weaker sections of the people , and in the particular in scheduled tribes and SC and shall protects  them from social justice and all forms of  exploitation . The Tenth Plan has made a commitment for their social and economic empowerment and towards providing social justice so as to fulfil the constitutional obligation of raising their status to that of the rest of the society. The nodal ministry for Welfare and Development of the STs is the Ministry of Tribal Affairs. An outlay of Rs. 1087 crore was made during Annual Plan 2003-04 for undertaking various welfare and developmental works to empower tribals. Special Central Assistance (SCA) to Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) is a 100 percent grant to undertake a number of developmental schemes with a focus on family oriented income generating schemes, creation of critical infrastructure and also to extend financial assistance to Self Help Groups, Community Based Activities, Primitive Tribal Groups and Forest Villages. Rs. 500 crore was allocated for Annual Plan 2004-05. Grant in aid under article 275(i) is being provided to the states with an objective to raise the level of administration in the states covered under scheduled areas to bring them at par with the rest of the states. Rs. 330 crore was allocated for Annual Plan 2004-05 under this strategy. The scheme of post-matric scholarship continued to be implemented. The scheme plays an important role in higher studies and empowerment of the tribals. Economic empowerment of the scheduled tribes continued through extending financial support to Finance Corporations and Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation (TRIFED). Accommodating people's growing demands for their inclusion in society, for respect of their ethnicity, religion and language, takes more than democracy and equitable growth. Also needed are multi cultural policies that recognize differences, champion diversity and promote cultural freedoms, so that all people can choose to speak their language, practice their religion and participate in shaping their culture, so that people can choose to be who they are. Government support and facilities provide to the ST communities in the field of education and health has been made available to them since 1951. But all sections of tribal population have not been in opposition to utilize them. From the state & central government for the promoting education and improvement of health they providing lots of facilities and assist them. But why the condition of education and health is not in well situation? Why they do not want to change his ritual? Why they are not attracted for development? Why diseases are rising day by day? Why unemployed in these community?  If we ask this question then we find lack of awareness .because in these communities never any governmental and nongovernmental inspection happened.  In schools maximum teachers are belong from general caste so they teaching in Hindi and English and tribal’s are mostly use his own language so the communication gap between tribal children and non tribal children is also responsible for poor education status in tribes of Bihar. Tribal community of Bihar lives under poverty line. The tribes follow many simple occupations based on simple technology. Most of the occupation falls into the primary occupations such as hunting, gathering, and agriculture. The technology they use for these purposes belong to the most primitive kind. There is no profit and surplus making in such economy. Hence there per capital income is very meager much lesser than the Indian average. Most of them live under abject poverty and are in debt in the hands of local moneylender’s .In order to repay the debt they often mortgage or sell their land to the moneylenders. Indebtedness is almost inevitable since heavy interest is to be paid to these moneylenders.