Field Actions Science Reports

The journal of field actions

Special Issue 7 | 2013
Livelihoods

Culture and Development, an Experiment with

Empowerment
Culture et développement, une expérience d’autonomisation
Cultura y desarrollo, un experimento potenciador

Ganesh N. Devy

Electronic version
URL: http://journals.openedition.org/factsreports/2404
ISSN: 1867-8521

Publisher
Institut Veolia

Electronic reference
Ganesh N. Devy, « Culture and Development, an Experiment with Empowerment », Field Actions
Science Reports [Online], Special Issue 7 | 2013, Online since 03 April 2013, connection on 30 April
2019. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/factsreports/2404

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 COMMENTARY

Culture and Development,

an Experiment with Empowerment

Ganesh N. Devy
Ganesh Devy, is a literary scholar and cultural activist. He taught English literature
at the M. S. University of Baroda. He founded the Bhasha Research & Publication
Centre, Budhan Theatre and the Adivasi Academy. In addition to its many fellow-
ships (the Rotary Foundation Fellowship, Commonwealth Academic Exchange
Fellowship, Fulbright Fellowship, THB Symons Fellowship and Jawaharlal Nehru
Fellowship), numerous publications and awards (In Another Tongue, Tradition and
Modernity, Painted Words, Indian Literary Criticism: Theory and Interpretation, A
Nomad Called Thief: Relections on Adivasi Voice and Silence and Indigeniety: Expression and Representation,
The G. N. Devy Reader), he devotes himself to conservation of threatened languages in India and to the pro-
tection of the rights of nomadic and other discriminated tribes. After being the advisor of the Indian govern-
ment on those subjects, he is chairing the People’s Linguistic Survey of India, a nation-wide study of over 700
languages.
Bhasha Research and Publication Centre, Baroda
[email protected]
www.bhasharesearch.org

Abstract. The Adivasi Academy has been implementing a comprehensive cultural approach promoting the
Adivisi community’s empowerment in different ields such as culture, education, healthcare, agriculture and
economy. The Adivasi community had been facing lack of access and marginalization partly due to the British
colonialism; during which many cultural misunderstandings related to communities’ and tribes’ costumes
occurred. Through notably active campaigns, trainings for local people and highlighting cultural conserva-
tion, the Adivasi Academy has achieved many positive outcomes namely major policy debates and commu-
nity’s self-reliance. All these show that cultural parameters can play a key role in development. Such compre-
hensive cultural approach could be replicated in other community contexts in order to foster development and
to ight against social exclusions.
Keywords. Empowerment, community, culture, Adivasi, India, colonialism, Criminal Tribes Act, CTA

Introduction
strategies adopted require to situate the immediate material
I intend to present in this paper the experiments carried out at reality within the residual effects of histories of marginaliza-
the Adivasi Academy, Tejgadh (Gujarat state, India) towards tion or discrimination. This paper proposes that for making
the empowerment of the Rathwa tribal community in western any development intervention genuinely sustainable, the syn-
India and some of the nomadic communities such as Vadi and chronic (material) as well as the diachronic (historical) per-
Chamtha by foregrounding the art and culture of the commu- spectives need to be brought together. It also proposes that
nities as a means to their empowerment. The assumption be- the sustainability of an intervention will be ensured by en-
hind these experiments was that economic marginalization of hancing the community’s capability to internalize the twin
a given community can be much better understood by placing perspective. This paper tries to underscore that the process of
the economic and issues in a comprehensive cultural perspec- internalization of the inter-relatedness of the two dimensions
tive than by looking at them in purely economic terms. The by the community is necessarily an irrational process, and it
empowerment experiments began with the belief that the manifests in the community’s imaginative forms of

© Author(s) 2013. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Published 3 April 2013 http://factsreports.revues.org/2404
 Ganesh N. Devy: Culture and Development, an Experiment with Empowerment

expression. declare a community ‘criminal’ were made arbitrary to the

The experiment relates to two social groups: the communi- extent that the question of inclusion of a given community in
ties listed in the oficial records as the Tribes of India, and the the list was taken completely out of the judiciary’s purview.
communities inscribed in the colonial Indian history as the After this, even an attempt by any member of the community
‘Criminal Tribes’ (these are not to be confused with the Tribes to move out of the district without informing the local au-
mentioned in the former category). These latter were ‘noti- thorities became a punishable offence. The act of questioning
ied’ as ‘criminal’ during the colonial period (1871 Criminal the notiication in any form too came to be seen as a criminal
Tribes Act: Devy, 2007: 14-20; Schwarz, 2010: 9-10), and offence. The colonial government’s right to detain such com-
subsequently ‘denotiied’ (1952-56) soon after Independence. munities and to do whatever the government decided to do
They are now known as ‘Denotiied and Nomadic Tribes’ with their lives came to be seen as a lawful right and duty of
(DNTs). The total population of Tribes – also described in the the government oficials. The oficials were charged to pre-
government terminology as Janjati, or known popularly as pare Registers of Criminal Tribes; and once a register was
Adivasis (the indigenous)-- is approximately 90 million, that prepared for a given district, even the very same oficial was
of the communities notiied during the colonial times as not allowed to make any deletions in it. The nature of the
‘criminal tribes’ is projected at 60 million(Devy, 2007) declaration was made entirely non-negotiable and absolute.
though their exhaustive Census has not been carried out for The victims of this draconian law were given no legal re-
the last eighty years. Both these are getting rapidly pauper- prieve. The onus of proving that they were not criminal fell
ized and stand at the tail end of the human development index on them, but they were left with no rational argument since
within the Indian context. The igures for their illiteracy, their being born in a certain community itself was seen as a
child mortality, food insecurity, indebtedness, non-proitable crime. The persons belonging to these tribes had to spend
migration, non-access to credit, and to formal education and their entire lives proving to the authorities without any spe-
healthcare are uniformly higher than the overall national ig- ciic reason that they were not criminals. Thus, life itself be-
ures for these categories of disadvantage (Devy, 2007: 128). came a trial for them without any let up whatsoever. The
communities ‘Notiied’ under the Act acquired the form of
The Historical Context of ‘Criminal Tribes’ some ‘social raw material’ for use in empire-building. The
members of these communities came to be used in the colo-
The British colonial rule in India was not only a political and nial construction projects of railways and factories. The law
economic enterprise; it was also an experiment in restructur- provided for the authority to bundle up and shunt them as and
ing a complex society. For the irst two centuries of colonial where they were of use: “Any tribes, gang or class, which has
contact, beginning with the arrival of the East India Company been declared to be criminal, or any part thereof, may, by or-
at Surat in 1600 to the establishment of the Asiatic Society in der of the local government, be removed to any other place of
Bengal towards the end of the 18th century, the colonial imag- residence” (Devy 2007: 140). Even children were not viewed
ination had great dificulties in understanding the complex with any special sympathy. The government decided that the
weave of the Indian society. Out of these dificulties arose Superintendent of the speciic settlement was to be asked to
many misconceptions and myths about communities and so- function as the ‘mother’ for the children. The infamous CTA
cial conventions. At times these were as comical as the idea asked for forced ‘isolation’ and ‘reform’ of the communities
that India is a country of snake charmers and magicians. But listed. These included coin makers, entertainers, migratory
in many instances the wrong reading of the society resulted in peasants, stray wandering groups, nomadic communities,
untold human misery. This very same ‘knowledge’ formed long-distance traders and such others. The CTA required cre-
the basis for formulating law during colonial times. The story ation of ‘settlements’ as reformatories with ‘strict proce-
of the communities known as ‘denotiied’ is without doubt dures’. These procedures kept becoming increasingly inhu-
the most mind-boggling tale of inhuman collapse of man. Forced labour became the daily fate of the inmates. The
compassion. CTA of 1871 went through several revisions, every revision
During the 1830s, the colonial government appointed bringing in new forms of ‘punishment’ for being born within
William Henry Sleeman (1788–1856) to prepare a list of in- the listed communities. The last of the CTA was passed in
stances of assaults on wayfarers in central India (Dash, 2005: 1924. By then a total of 191 communities had been brought
Chapter II & III). He took to this task with an amazing devo- under its purview.
tion and produced a voluminous list of violent episodes. The
list would not have amounted to much had it not been for the The Loss of Forest
turn of events during 1857 in central India. In the wake of the
battles fought and lost by the Indian states, all isolated and About the same time as the CTA was getting formulated, the
potential groups of soldiers, and even those who were likely colonial government produced another list of communities
to be in the supply chain for them, came to be seen as candi- under the caption ‘the Tribes of India’. These were the com-
dates for the Sleeman-list. Later, it was this list that became munities that had come in conlict with the British rule on the
the basis of the 1871 Criminal Tribes Act (CTA). issue of imposition of the government’s sovereign authority
Once the traditional occupations of the nomadic and semi- over the forest areas. During the 1860s, the British had cre-
nomadic communities were brought under the scanner, the ated a Forest Department, primarily to provide good quality
colonial government provided for their being oficially de- timber for building railways and naval ships. The forest
clared ‘Criminal Tribes’. The government’s powers to dwelling communities in India opposed the colonial takeover

2 Field Actions Science Reports

Ganesh N. Devy: Culture and Development, an Experiment with Empowerment

of their forests (www.vanashakti.in/evolution). They neither had not been placed within the print technology came to be
cared for the colonial government nor did they understand the seen as ‘inferior’ languages. After Independence, the Indian
idiom of the British law. Not surprisingly, most of these con- states were conceived as ‘linguistic states’. If a given lan-
licts were often violent and involved armed clashes. Since guage had a script and printed literature, it was granted a ter-
the political idioms of the conlicting parties were radically ritory as a separate state within the Union of India. Languages
divergent, it became dificult for the colonial rule and its di- that did not have printed literature, even though they had rich
plomacy to forge treaties with the forest dwelling communi- traditions of oral literature, were not given such states. The
ties. Communities located at all such areas of conlict were State language became the medium of school education. A
bundled together by the colonial government within the term special Schedule of Languages (The 8th Schedule) was creat-
‘tribe’. Soon after the need to conceptualize ‘tribes’ became ed within the Indian Constitution. In the beginning it had a
clearer, a sophisticated machinery of scholarship was put in list of fourteen languages. At present the list has twenty-two
place to enumerate, describe and deine the Indian tribes. The languages in it. It became obligatory for the government to
historical, linguistic and cultural differences among these commit all education related expenditure on these languages
communities were so vast and complex that it would have alone. The languages spoken in India far outnumber the lan-
been impossible for any rational scheme of sociological clas- guages included in the Eighth Schedule. Most of these lan-
siication to place them in a single conceptual category. While guages are spoken by the Adivasis and the DNTs and are on
all this was happening in India’s political history, already a way to a rapid extinction, if not already gone.
branch of Orientalism in Europe had emerged in the form of
Anthropology, perhaps more appropriately ‘savageology’ Cultural Intervention
(Devy, 1998: 110) Some of the attributes discussed in ‘sava-
geology’ were applied to the Indian ‘tribes’, and tribes came When I started noticing during the 1980s the alarming dispar-
to be seen as necessarily primitive. By the end of the 19th ity between the development of other classes and communi-
century, the concept of tribe and the notion of criminal tribes ties, on the one hand, and the development of the Adivasis
had received acceptance even among the educated Indians-- and the DNTs, on the other hand, I felt drawn to exploring the
writers, journalists and lawyers. As a result, when the 1891 link between denial of access to the means of development
version of the CTA was enacted, or when in the following and the ‘structural aphasia’ imposed on the marginalized lan-
year the register of forest codes was prepared,(Devy, 2007) guages. Towards this end, ‘Bhasha’, which means ‘language’
there was no evident protest from any quarter. By the turn of or ‘voice’, was founded in 1996 as a Research and Publication
the century, the tribe had come to stay as an unchallenged Centre (henceforth referred to as Bhasha) for documentation
category constitutive of the primitive in Indian society. and study of literature in the Adivasi languages. The ultimate
horizon of obligations for Bhasha at the moment of its incep-
Marginalization and Language tion was to document and publish ifty bilingual volumes of
Adivasi literature. Little did I know as its founder that beyond
In the pre-colonial Indian epistemologies of language, hierar- the horizon many new worlds were waiting for it!
chic segregation in terms of a ‘standard’ and a ‘dialect’ was Within months of commencing the work on the ifty-vol-
not common. Language diversity was an accepted fact of life. ume series, many Adivasi writers and scholars approached
Literary artists could use several languages within a single me with the idea of starting a magazine in their own languag-
composition, and their audience accepted the practice as nor- es aimed at the Adivasi communities and to be read out rather
mal. Great works like the epic Mahabharata continued to ex- than for individual reading. Bhasha accepted the idea. The
ist in several versions handed down through a number of dif- magazine was called ‘Dhol’ (the drums), a term that has a
ferent languages almost till the beginning of the twentieth totemic cultural signiicance for the Adivasis. We started us-
century. When literary critics theorized, they took into ac- ing the state scripts combined with a moderate use of diacritic
count literature in numerous languages. Matanga’s medieval marks to represent these languages. The response to the mag-
compendium of styles, Brihad-deshi, (Devy, 1992: Chapter azine was tremendous. More Adivasis approached Bhasha,
II) is an outstanding example of criticism arising out of the and asked for versions of Dhol in their own languages. In two
principle that language diversity is normal. During the colo- years’ time, ‘Dhol’ started appearing in ten Adivasi languages
nial times, many of India’s languages were brought into the (Kunkna, Ahirani, Gor Banjara, Bhantu, Dehwali, Pawari,
print medium (Devy, 1992: Chapter III). Writing was known Rathwi, Chaudhari, Panchamahali Bhilli, Dungra Bhilli, re-
and scripts such as Modi and Nagari were previously in use. spectively). When the irst issue of Chaudhari language Dhol
Paper too was in use since the Thirteenth Century as a vehicle was released at the Padam-Dungri village in South Gujarat, it
for written texts (Devy, 1992: Chapter III). However, despite sold 700 copies in less than an hour. This was a record of
being ‘written’, texts had been circulating mainly through the sorts for a little magazine. Inspired by the success of the oral
oral means. Printing technology was introduced in India dur- magazine, our Adivasi collaborators started bringing manu-
ing the last quarter of the eighteenth century. With it, new scripts of their autobiographies, poems, essays and anthropo-
norms of literature were introduced, privileging the written logical studies of their communities which they wanted us to
over the oral, and bringing in the idea that a literary text needs publish. Subsequently, in order to highlight the oral nature of
be essentially mono-lingual. These ideas, together with the Adivasi culture, we launched a weekly radio magazine which
power relation prevailing in the colonial context, started af- was relayed throughout the Adivasi areas of Gujarat and
fecting the stock of languages in India. The languages that Maharashtra. All these initiatives together gave birth to a

www.factsreports.org 3
 Ganesh N. Devy: Culture and Development, an Experiment with Empowerment

small but focused publishing and book distribution house, situation could be identiied and provided immediate relief
which now works under the name ‘Purva-Prakash’, and is the locally and referred to urban hospitals for further treatment.
irst community owned publishing programme for Adivasis Thus, beginning with aesthetics, we came up to anesthetics.
and DNTs. Purva-Prakash has been self-supporting though Often, shortages caused by the larger economic forces push
not so much a commercial venture as a cultural and literary a social sector from its subsistence-farming character into be-
platform for intellectual concerns, and a forum for expression coming pauperized labour providers. The acute food short-
in people’s own languages. ages faced by the Adivasis in Kalahandi and Koraput in
Oral literature, unlike written literature, is not an exclusive Orissa, and their mass migration to the mining districts in
verbal or lexical art. It is inevitably intermixed with song, other states are not exceptional stories. Though their main
music, dance, ritual and craft. So, Bhasha was drawn to the occupation is agriculture, Adivasis have been under-nour-
craft of Adivasi communities, initially in western India, and ished throughout India, and sadly enough starvation death is
subsequently from all over India. This resulted into Bhasha’s not uncommon among them. In 1999, Bhasha decided to set
craft collection and craft training initiatives, further leading up food-grain banks for Adivasi women to address the issue
to the formation of an Adivasi craft-cooperative under the of food security. Initially, we had decided to follow the gov-
name ‘Tribals First’. The objects one identiies as craft are ernment model of food grain banks; but we realized that they
not produced in Adivasi communities for aesthetic pleasure had come to be seen by Adivasi villagers as charity distribu-
alone. They are invariably an integral part of their daily life. tion events, and so we chose to set up the grain-banks without
Often, such objects carry with them an imprint of the super- any government contribution and entirely through local par-
natural as conceived in their myth and imagination. The ticipation. Our consideration at this stage was that no effort
shapes, colours and the forms of these objects relect the towards reducing the Sickle Cell incidence was likely to suc-
transactions in the Adivasi collective unconscious. Often, one ceed if it was seen in isolation from the question of forced
overlooks the fact that the metaphysical matrix of the Adivasi migration and food-insecurity. Food-security and healthcare
thought process differs markedly from the philosophic as- form, for Bhasha, a single concern.
sumptions of the dominant cultural traditions in India. A year earlier, in 1998, we had decided to establish the
Therefore, sometimes simple concepts and ideas, which look DNT-Rights Action Group. It was the irst national campaign
perfectly natural and secular, can provoke Adivasis into re- ever taken up for the cause of the DNTs. In this campaign we
acting negatively, and even violently. moved the National Human Rights Commission and various
Ministries of the Central Government to abolish the Habitual
Development Challenges Offenders Act and to provide a rights protection mechanism
for the DNTs. Bhasha’s energetic campaign for the DNT
I learnt the hard way that there is a common source for the rights received an overwhelming response from the denoti-
dominance of the red colour in Adivasi art, and for their utter ied communities. We had opened up a long festering wound.
unwillingness to donate blood even when a kinsman is in dire As a leader of that campaign I had to give a very serious
need, namely, the supernatural belief that the domain of thought to turning the anger and frustration among the de-
witchcraft is red in colour. Medical sciences maintain that a monized, brutalized and politically vandalized DNTs into a
certain genetic mutation, required in order to ight malarial constructive energy. In order to contain the anger, I decided to
fevers, has made the Adivasis prone to the Sickle Cell disease use the most ancient method of getting people angry without
(Tapper, 1999). On learning about the Adivasi trauma, we de- making them destructive, which is ‘theatre’. My experience
cided to check the statistics of the Sickle Cell anemia in of handling the violence within the minds of these communi-
Gujarat where Bhasha was most active. Blood testing of the ties has left me profoundly convinced that theatre is probably
Adivasis is a challenging task. So we decided to draw up the most powerful cultural means of sensitizing communities
mathematical models, and at the same time composed an ex- about the mutual entanglement and dependence of economic,
tensive family-tree through a survey that took us over two social and cultural rights of several competing and clashing
years to complete, to isolate certain localities, villages and social sectors. Bhasha has now its own theatre group ‘Budhan’
families that could provide clues for coming up with the most named after a DNT killed while in police custody. (Devy,
reliable projections. We found that nearly thirty-four percent 2003; Schwarz, 2010). Apart from the Budhan Theatre, we
of Gujarat’s Adivasis have been ‘carriers’ of the genetic dis- have so far successfully established four annual cultural fes-
order, and for about three and a half percent of the population tivals in as many locations of Gujarat, one of which is Dandi–
the Sickle Cell disorder is ‘manifest’. This means, at least in the place made sacred by Gandhi’s salt-satyagraha. Adivasi
principle, about two hundred and ten thousand of Gujarat’s and nomadic performers go to these four locations on their
seven million Adivasis are likely to not attain the age of thirty own and people from several states participate in thousands.
(Devy, 2003). What is even more saddening is that the avail- These ‘melas’ (festivals) are now there to stay. The DNT
able healthcare system has not been sensitive to the epidemic rights campaign of Bhasha resulted into setting up of a
scale of the gene disorder; and in most instances it remains National Commission by the Government of India.
inaccessible. As a result, Bhasha decided to launch its health- Additionally, a Technical Advisory Group (TAG) was created
care programme under the title ‘Prakriti’. Obviously, we did by the Prime Minister’s Ofice. I chaired the TAG and pre-
not wish to create large hospitals but rather a small and func- pared a comprehensive report for the government which was
tional clinic. To this end, we started training local persons as used for bringing in a new legislation and a comprehensive
community health workers so that the patients in the ‘crisis’ social security scheme for the DNTs.

4 Field Actions Science Reports

Ganesh N. Devy: Culture and Development, an Experiment with Empowerment

Economy and Culture 2002, when the Hindu money lenders bribed, coaxed and
threatened a pliable section of the Adivasis into making
Ever since the Adivasis were brought under the provisions violent attacks on the families and properties of the Muslim
of the Colonial Forest Department, their access to forest money lenders. Several hundred houses were burnt down,
produce has been continuously diminishing and they have hundreds were injured, many lost their lives, and the live-
depended merely on rain-fed cropping. These historical lihoods of thousands of Adivasis and Muslims were ad-
legacies have forced them into a chronic indebtedness. At versely affected (Devy, 2003). At the height of the riots
the same time, the rising costs of seeds, fertilizers, fodder we felt that perhaps the money-lenders may succeed in
and electricity, as well as the need for educating children restoring once again their stranglehold on the Adivasi
have multiplied the cash needs of the Adivasis. Unlike the economy. But, we found that more Adivasis started form-
caste Indians, who irst earn and then spend, the Adivasis ing SHGs after the riots. In 2011, the total number of SHGs
like to spend irst and then earn, just enough to meet those formed by Bhasha was at 2200, involving about 25000
expenses. As such, their need for short term borrowing has families and with a credit worthiness of over 80 million
increased over the years. The repayment of loans is very rupees ( approximately two million USD.)
rarely defaulted by them, even when no written contracts
are signed. In fact, these needs and habits should have Training the Community for Development
been seen as a great opportunity by the formal banking
sector, which is barely in existence in the remote and inac- Bhasha has been providing training for the management of
cessible Adivasi villages. The credit delivery is almost the groups, directing them to establishing viable occupa-
non-existent, and it invariably takes a third party interven- tions for getting increased income, and enabling them to
tion to make the system work. For a majority of the form small and easily manageable federation of the SHGs.
Adivasis institutional banking, requiring complicated doc- The new occupational avenues we have opened before the
umentation at every stage, is an alien notion. On the other Adivasis include honey cultivation, specialized gum-tree
hand, the procedures of a private money lender are easily plantation, brick-making and masonry, craft training and
understood by the Adivasis though the interest rates are organic cropping. In the matter of setting up of micro-en-
exorbitant. terprises by putting to use the credit available, the mini-
When we noticed in 1999 that the interest rates ranged mum guiding principle we have followed is that the activ-
between 60 to 120 percent, we took up the task of setting ity should not lead to migration to the urban centres.
up micro-credit Self-Help-Groups (SHGs). Our challenges Therefore, we have been focusing more on the agriculture
were far too many: getting the Adivasis to understand and based value-addition activities.
accept the formal bank institution as an economic person Over these years, I have noticed a great hunger for
was a challenge of some magnitude; but even greater was learning among the Adivasis. Contrary to the popular im-
the task of educating the bank employees on their own pression, the Adivasis do want to send their children to
schemes, the micro-credit policies of the NABARD schools. Their aspirations are belied because the primary
(National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development) education in the Adivasi villages is burdened with its own
and the economic concerns of an NGO such as Bhasha. numerous structural problems. I have noticed that given a
The trickiest question was the peculiar social character of set of dedicated teachers even in the tiniest Adivasi ham-
the private money lender. These are extremely inluential lets, children shape up as potentially excellent university
among Adivasis, and they maintain extremely complicated entrants. Therefore, at Bhasha, we decided to take up a
and not easily terminable accounts with their clients, a sys- programme of helping Adivasi children by establishing, in
tem that treats cash, land, grains and labour as inter-con- about eighty villages, support schools, to help those who
vertible currencies. Not surprisingly, therefore, the mon- have missed schooling altogether, or those who lagged be-
ey-lenders teamed up against Bhasha’s SHGs as soon as hind in their school studies. Bhasha Trust established the
the Adivasi farmers stopped going to them for loans. I felt Adivasi Academy at Tejgadh in 1999. Since 2000, we have
quite amazed when some of the SHG members started been teaching the young men and women of the area a
bringing in currency notes, all new and serially numbered, subject that we have named ‘Tribal Studies”, by which we
to pay off the bank loans they had received barely a month mean “The study and understanding of how the Adivasis
ago. On enquiring, we found that the money-lenders had perceive the world.” The attempt is to make our students
been distributing these notes liberally to whoever was pre- relect on their own situation, motivate them and to put
pared to step out of the SHG. them onto the great task of empowering the Adivasi vil-
The unease of the money-lenders continued to increase lages by helping them to be self-reliant. The Academy of-
as Bhasha’s Micro-inance programme cut into the private fers short term training in micro-inance, and Diploma
credit market. There were moments when I felt that we courses in Tribal Rights, Food-Security and Development,
should get into a dialogue with the money-lenders in order Publication and Rural Journalism and Tribal Arts and
to circumvent the conlict and to introduce an ethical ele- Museum Studies. The students are required to go out in the
ment in their operations. But I had a naïve hope that the villages and set up SHGs, food-grain banks, water banks
formal banking system may quickly step in and grab the and promote the use of solar energy and organic farming.
opportunity. The money-lenders continued to feel threat- Based on their experience of ield work, the students are
ened and destroyed. Their fury expressed itself in March required to write dissertations.

www.factsreports.org 5
 Ganesh N. Devy: Culture and Development, an Experiment with Empowerment

Conclusion References
Dash, Mike. 2005. Thug: The True Story of India’s Murderos Cult.
Over the last two decades, the Adivasi Academy has carried London. Granta.
out several experiments in the area of Adivasi development. Devy, G. N. 1992. After Amnesia: Tradition and Change in Indian
It has initiated major policy debates in relation to the eco- Literary Criticism. Bombay. Orient Longman.
nomic, social and cultural rights of the DNTs and the Adivasis. Devy, G. N. 1998. Of Many Heroes: An Indian Essay on Literary
However, the vision inscribed in these experiments has al- Historiography. Hyderabad. Orient Longman.
ways been that of the communities themselves. The cam- Devy, G. N. 2006. A Nomad Called Thief: Relections on Adivasis
paigns and the enterprises were more oriented towards gener- Silence. New Delhi. Orient Blackswan.
ating the process of self-reliance rather than achieving Devy, G. N. 2007. Report of Technical Advisory Group on Denoti-
ied, Nomadic and Semi-nomadic Tribes. Oficial Document,
quantitative success. There has been a conscious attempt at
Ministry of Social Justice, Government of India.
recovering the cultural memory of the nomadic and Adivasi Schwarz, Henry. 2010. Constructing Criminal Tribe in Colonial In-
communities, and investing it into economic and social dy- dia: acting Like a Thief. Chichester. Wiley-Blackwell.
namics in such a way that culture could be ‘monetized’. Tapper, Melbourne. 1999. In the Blood: Sickle Cell Anemia and the
These experiments have, from time to time, faced the ortho- Polarities of Race. Philadelphia. The University of Pennsylvania
doxy of funding agencies in that the ‘projects’ that could not Press.
promise a direct economic output were rarely supported by www.vanashakti.in/evolution.html
them. This has, however, been seen by the Adivasi Academy
as an opportunity to become self-reliant rather than as a stum-
bling block in ‘development’. It is therefore that the Adivasi
Academy has not stopped functioning even for a day despite
long spells of having no external funding support. Irrespective
of the nature of the interventions, each and every intervention
has been fully owned by the Adivasi and the DNT commu-
nity for which it was conceptualized. This is probably the
most signiicant and ‘valuable’ feature of the Academy’s ex-
perimentation. It can therefore be replicated in the context of
any community in the world which faces lack of access and
marginalization. Similar experiments elsewhere, taken to-
gether with the learning at the Adivasi Academy, will help us
in developing the precise method of working out the conver-
sion between economic capital and social capital.

Note

Information about Criminal Tribes Act 1871 is available in

the unpublished report by the Technical Advisory Group
(TAG) on Denotiied, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes
(2006) appointed by the Ministry of Social Justice,
Government of India. The author was the Chairperson of
TAG and the author of the TAG Report. The population of
Denotiied and Nomadic Tribes can only be estimated on the
basis of the 1931 Census which was the last census to have
clearly enumerated all nomadic and semi-nomadic communi-
ties in India. The estimate of 60 million is based on the ield
research done by the DNT Rights Action Group from 1998 to
2007 culminating in the drafting of the TAG Report. The
Government of India has accepted the TAG recommenda-
tions to carry out a DNT Census and modiied the Census
2011 exercise to include community-wise enumeration of the
DNTs.
A Modiied version of paper published in The Indian
International Centre Quarterly, Autumn 2012.

6 Field Actions Science Reports