Scheduled Tribes

The dominant discourse in relation to education of Scheduled Tribes and other so-called weaker sections remains mostly concerned with logistics of providing a package. The inherited colonial dispensation that controls education, its institutions, and governance, is treated as a given absolute. It is to be recognised that not merely education for all, but the democratisation of education lies at the core of justice in education. The struggles for self-determination and self-governance by Adivasis have provided ample legal space to alter the present governance in education to democratise and establish community self-governance in education.

Compared to the bulky literature on caste and democracy, we still know little about the form and functioning of democratic politics amongst tribes. This is a serious lacuna, one which, at the level of sociology, impedes the kind of careful comparison that has long proven fruitful to capture the inner logic and intricacies of social life. If caste is deemed central to any understanding of contemporary Indian politics, what about those states and constituencies in which tribes preponderate numerically?

What does it mean to be left in Tripura today? In retrospect, the success of the left in Tripura depended on the recognition of the contrarian geographical impulses of ethno-nationalism. It is argued that efforts by the left to eradicate these geographies of ethno-nationalism not only implied an abandonment of this mode of dissidence, but also that these efforts ensnared the left into gratuitous, quiet militarisation of the state underthe garb of peace and development.

The Maharashtra government's village forest rules seek to overturn the rights regime established in the letter of the law by the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act and the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act 1996 in terms of both community rights, as well as the rights over minor forest produce. Moreover, the rules write away the future rights of the community over forests and their management and control over minor forest produce in perpetuity. These are also ultra vires of the rules regime agreed and enacted by an act of Parliament.

How can we create just and non-discriminatory spaces in universities when the discriminatory practices are not obvious and apparent? The author suggests two ways—reporting and addressing indirect discrimination and a periodic discrimination audit of educational institutions.