Survival International’s Director Stephen Corry has written to Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh and the newly formed National Council for Tribal Welfare, asking them to respect tribal peoples’ rights to their land, and to allow them to make their own decisions about their lives, rather than imposing ‘development’ upon them.
Led by the Indian Prime Minister, the new National Council for Tribal Welfare will review and guide India’s policies affecting the over 80 million tribal people living in the country. The council will bring together Ministers responsible for finance, mines, power generation, the environment, the elected heads of India’s tribal regions and others.
The letter quotes India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s principles for tribal development. Nehru said, ‘tribal rights in land and forests should be respected’ and tribal people ‘should develop along the lines of their own genius and we should avoid imposing anything on them’. He also said, “We should not over-administer these areas or overwhelm them with a multiplicity of schemes. We should rather work through, and not in rivalry to, their own social and cultural institutions.”
Stephen Corry writes in the letter, “Nehru’s words, although now half a century old, are as relevant and perceptive today as they were when they were first written… These principles are especially relevant in order to protect the rights and the futures of the ‘particularly vulnerable tribes’, such as the Jarawa of the Andaman Islands.”
The ancestors of the Jarawa and the other tribes of the Andaman Islands are thought to have been part of the first successful human migrations out of Africa. Several hundred thousand Indian settlers now live on the islands, vastly outnumbering the tribes. Today, the principal threat to the Jarawa’s existence comes from encroachment onto their land, building of a highway through their forest which brings settlers, poachers and loggers into the heart of their land. Tourism is also a big threat to the Jarawa, with tour operators driving tourists along the road through the reserve every day in the hope of ‘spotting’ members of the tribe.
The letter also urges the Indian government to ratify international law on tribal peoples, ILO Convention 169. ILO 169 is a convention of the International Labour Organisation. It is a vital instrument for the protection of tribal peoples. Governments that ratify the convention are legally bound to abide by it. This makes it much more powerful than the UN Declaration on Indigenous Peoples. Every country that ratifies ILO 169 strengthens its force overall, and gives tribal peoples a greater chance of survival.
Stephen Corry said today, “The Indian government’s decision to prevent Vedanta Resources mining on the land of the Dongria Kondh sent very positive signals to India’s tribal people. The new National Council for Tribal Welfare, if it focuses on rights rather than top-down development, could secure the future of millions of tribal people across India.”
About Survival International
Survival International is a human rights’ organization formed in 1969 that campaigns for the rights of indigenous people and uncontacted tribes, seeking to help them to determine their own future. Their campaigns generally focus on tribal peoples’ fight to keep their ancestral lands, culture and their own way of living. Survival works for the people who they call “some of the most vulnerable on earth”. A part of their mission is to educate people from misconceptions that help justify violations of human rights against indigenous people, and the risks that they face from the advancement of corporations, governments and also good intentions based on an idea of “development” that is forced upon them. Survival believes that in fact their alternative way of living is not lacking, they represent a model of sustainability in the environment that they are a part of and they possess a rich culture from which we could learn. For more information, visit www.survivalinternational.org.
Source: Survival International Press Release dated November 1, 2010.
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