Abstract
The COVID-19 situation in India exposed the deep social and economic divide that exists within. Revealing these existing inequities and vulnerabilities, the pandemic situation critically questions what this divide means for the already marginalized communities in India. The founding fathers of the Indian Constitution foresaw the profound challenge of creating social, political, and economic equity with huge diversity. They saw education with development as a solution to create a just society. Therefore, the structures of reservation and economic support were built into the Constitution. However, these government policies of development and education were intensely geared towards integration as a nation-building exercise. Meanwhile, access to education is still provisional, subject to factors like lack of infrastructure, and that access is not always enough for emancipation. Through this chapter, the nation-building exercise will be critically examined in the light of diversity and the missing narratives of the consent of marginal citizens through the post-colonial lens.
TopIntroduction
India is a multicultural society with profound social, economic, and political differences. These differences grow complex, especially with immense diversity existing both within minority discourses and outside i.e., the national discourses on tribes as listed in the Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) list of the Indian Constitution. How the tribal groups are identified, categorized and then integrated into the social, political, and economic structures is intensely embedded in the construction of the term and also in the national policies of development and education. These national programs of government policies therefore entail a thorough and precarious analysis particularly of education and development, on which the inclusive policies are built.
Research has shown that even after 74 years of independence of India, tribal communities continue to be the poorest section of the society, with lower literacy rates and higher mortality rates in the health section in comparison with the national average. These shreds of evidence point to the failure of inclusive programs. The policy lapses require a deeper understanding of the real challenge at the ground level. The macroeconomic framework often ignores the diversity and challenges the traditional systems of marginal communities. The framework can be examined through the post-colonial lens of Stuart Hall.
Hall in his 1989 article, Cultural Identity and Cinematic representation refers to two types of identity that a post-colonial nation adopts, in the nation-building exercise. The first identity is based on the certain dominant identities that are mainstreamed under the nationalist projects to integrate the newly independent nations. What this identity denies is the deep-rooted differences existing in society. All other identities are subsumed under the national cultural identity. The second identity particularly is about acknowledging these existing diversities thereby healing the colonial trauma according to Hall (1989).
India typically follows the first cultural identity in its process of integration. It assumes an upper caste Hindu identity as the Indian identity. This Hinduization of other identities has not only constructed upper caste narratives historically as the Indian identity, but also further embedded those narratives in our policies of our inclusive development. It simply relegates tribal discourses and tribal worldview as unprogressive.
Tiplut Nongbri, (Bengt G. Karlsson, et al, 2006) reiterates this continuation of Sanskritization /Hinduization process of minorities throughout the history of India, especially after Independence. The author details this process to reflect on how the reformist movements of upper caste Hindu was integrated and streamlined with the nation building process. This Sanskritization process is described a little later in the chapter.
Hall (1989) borrows his understanding of the colonization process through Frantz Fanon (1963) where Fanon describes colonialism as a process where a native's brain is emptied of its form and content. This process also distorts and destroys their past by devaluing their history. Therefore, the colonized natives, in order to rehabilitate this abjuration of their history, reconstruct the past. This 'passionate research' of their identity becomes the base of the national culture.
It is this reconstruction of national culture that Hall speaks of, as the mainstreaming of a national identity through particular dominant identities. Thomas (2005) writes about Indian society as a home to many religious diversities like Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Jainism, Zoroastrianism, etc. Currently 22 official languages are recorded according to the Census report India, 2011, where it lists about 121 mother tongue, five castes, about 3000 subcastes and several tribes. Dalits are the lower caste who are considered untouchable and required to serve other upper castes. Sunder Sarrukkai (2012) talks about this sense of pollution and stigma attached to this caste or people who are born into the parents of the caste. This hereditary practice and the definition of untouchability is borrowed from Sarukkai’s Phenomenology of Untouchability.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Indigenous: In United Nations, the working definition of Indigeneity hinges on the original inhabitants/aboriginals of a place. In India, the Scheduled tribes are more affiliated to the term Tribe and sometimes Adivasi and not much Indigenous as it also includes tribes which have settled quite later.
Ashram Schools: Ashram schools are residential schools which impart education up to the secondary level to children belonging to ST.
Caste: A social structure of the Hindus in India, which is occupation-based. There are four castes, Brahmins (performs religious rites and advisers to kings), Kshatriyas (soldiers and fighters and rulers), Baniyas (traders and small craftsman), and Shudras (the lowest who serve the other three castes and scavenge).
Dalit: The Shudras are also called Dalits, who are the lowest caste. They are considered dirty because they are in the occupation of scavenging and therefore untouchable. They live in a deplorable state because they are to serve the other castes. There is a stigma attached to this caste.
Development Aggression: Development Aggression is a term used by indigenous peoples to refer to projects that violate their human rights. It was first used in 1994 in a report about International Human Rights Day and became a focus in 2013 in the International Day for World's Indigenous People.
Adivasi: Adivasis is the collective name used for the many non-homogenous indigenous peoples of India, coined in the 1930s, following a political movement to forge a sense of identity among the various indigenous peoples of India. Also sometimes referred to as early settlers roughly translated as indigenous.
Brahmin: Based on the Hindu social structure with four major castes based on occupation, Brahmins are the high caste, perform religious rites and interpret the religious texts.
Tribe: Tribe is a part of modern consciousness, claiming common ancestry with a distinctive language, culture, customs, etc., and also includes migratory groups practicing animism. This term sits more comfortably with the definition of ST in India as certain tribes arrived and settled much later.