1 / "We are the Fifty Lakhs"

India, 2007: After first encountering the tribes in early February, I learned that Gujarat is home to around 50 million people – officially recognised, that is. The tribal population is estimated at five million, an extra ten percent. One tribesman, Ramanbhai Dafer, said to me at the time, “The Gujarat Chief Minister talks loudly about the ‘Five Crores’ people of Gujarat (Fifty million), but he has forgotten about us – he should say, ‘Five Crores and Fifty Lakhs’ (Five Million) – we are the Fifty Lakhs”
Their lack of recognition in the statistics has been symbolically parallel to their lack of rights, lack of homelands, lack of education, lack of healthcare. But the World Bank estimates that 42% of India is below the poverty line, and hardship alone is not a distinguishing feature of any one group.

India’s recent growth has seen the beginning of poverty reduction, but the growth is still disproportionate, the majority of the poor being lower classes and orders in India’s notorious caste system. Tribals fall slightly to one side; with their nomadic and semi-nomadic heritage, they often have no land of their own to live on, have until recently lacked voting rights and therefore political power, plus a historical reputation as criminals.

Within the last four years, a movement for the betterment of tribal people has sprung up in Gujarat under the umbrella of the Ahmedabad-based non-governmental organization (NGO) Janpath. “Jan-path” means the people’s path, and their mission is to show people the way, the direction, but not to do the work for them. They have documented these disparate and often remote tribes and their culture; they have helped them in obtaining voting rights, land rights, education and political leverage. Janpath want the tribes to reach self-sufficiency within a few years, reducing Janpath’s involvement to nothing.

Development brings education and money, but it also brings the outside world with all its influences of fashion, customs and culture. Lifestyle changes, as tribes cease being nomadic and begin to settle, are also part of the picture, with television becoming the main source of news, entertainment and cultural trends. It is inevitable that as something is given, something is taken away, and so we may be witnessing the end of an era – snake charming and other traditions are dying, as the 1972 Wildlife protection act is enforced to prevent snake ownership, and newer, cheaper, more convenient fashions are arriving, making the old ones quickly obsolete. The young frequently do not want to wear the same styles as their parents, and who can blame them?

There are many things changing, but at varying speeds and degrees. Looking at many tribes spread over Gujarat, all at different stages of development, one finds a living timeline, the past and the future, by seeing two tribes in the present: one developed, one undeveloped.
How continued progress will affect them is a little more certain than it once was, although there is no single solution that can be given to all of them.

Even though there are thousands of tribes and millions of tribal people across India, let us not zoom so far out for the big picture that we lose sight of them as individuals.