Abstract
Land is a promising asset that acts as a stimulus for indigenous people to act and respond within their natural limits. The natives enjoy great kinship with the land. They deem the land as one with the humankind: a living, breathing, and thinking being. They believe that they live under the constant protection of the green produce of the land and they ought to protect it in return as it plays a key role in determining the possibility of survival of the tribal community. Any attempt at enforced displacement, tribal eviction, land encroachment, land diversion, or land alienation leads to disintegration of the tribal community. Trespassers trying to dispossess the aboriginals of their land not only impact the indigenous ethnic formations but also affect the ecological balance. The chapter provides an incisive sociological scrutiny to trace the origin of the pressing crisis of tribal land alienation, by adopting Gopinath Mohanty's Paraja as a case study, to understand its catastrophic repercussions on the forest communities and the natural habitat.
TopBackground
Land plays a vital role in the life of the indigenous communities. It has social, cultural, economic importance for the natives. It is the food and fodder of the natives. It adds more than just a utilitarian value to the life of the forest communities. It has multiple facets. As a metaphor, it blurs the interconnections between human and non-human objects. As a symbol, it compresses the temporal and spatial distances. As a being, it is both masculine and feminine in character. As the Mother Earth, it is a giver, nourisher and protector of all beings while as a father, it takes care of the economic concerns of the individual. As an invisible spirit, it is full of wonder and mystery. As a metaphysical transcendent, it spiritually elevates the soul and fills the mind with romantic visions. It endows the indigenous group with a feeling of belongingness so much so that the forest dwellers sense of self is not separate from the land (Chopra, 2016).
Behura (1982) rightly opines that “land is the base for apprehending tribal people’s identity, culture, religious ethos and personhood, because the peculiarity and uniqueness of native culture and tradition lies in the centrality of land to which natives are emotionally and culturally attached” (p. 1). It is the perpetual dependency on the land that enable the natives to live life as autonomous beings. Given the fact that the people of the hills and the jungles attachment to the land forms an axis of their collective identity forging an ethno-historical and ethno- cultural significance, it becomes imperative to explore the question of human agency generated by colonial intervention, exploitation and inequality. To advance the research, the critical review shall utilize Blauner’s (1969) theory of internal colonialism to understand its impact on the Paraja, a south Asian indigenous tribe of Orissa.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Displacement: A way of removing a person or a group from their authorized place.
Mortgage: An asset that can be leased in lieu of another asset.
Dispossession: An act of robbing someone of their land and property.
Adivasis: A collective group representing the aboriginal tribal population.
Forest Guard: Appointed personnel to guard forest reserves.
Paraja: A community of indigenous people belonging to eastern Koraput.
Financial Tyranny: Implies misuse of power for personal gain.
Eurocentric: A practice of imposing a worldview of the western civilization.
Money Lender: A person who lends money on purpose and charges interest.
Goti: A debt bound labourer.