Area of Sorrow, Discontent and Potential
Janajati Darpan, the tribal mirror, has held up in this volume, a mirror to the tribal self in Eastern India, the successive governments, vis a vis the tribal, and, to the fate of humanity, minus tribal consciousness. Divided today among states of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and parts of Bengal and Bangladesh, North East India, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, Eastern India is united by a broadly shared ecology of forests, hills and rivers, large natural resources, autochthonous communities, living close to nature, exposure to periodical natural and manmade calamities, and a history of discontent, arising out of contacts with outsiders, bent on exploitation of the human and natural resources for interests, external to the region. Life is hard and people lose their lives every year to tigers in the mangrove forests of the Sundarbans while fishing, catching crabs or collecting honey. In an article titled ‘Havoc in Odisha’, in the Harijan on September 25, 1937, Mahatma Gandhi described Odisha as a land of tears and sorrows, summing up the dire plight of the people in the region in recent history.The articles in this volume have placed the tribal plight in Eastern India in the wider background of their geopolitical history, culture, religion and philosophy, suggesting the strong need to build on local ethos with empathy and understanding for dealing with the afflictions of the tribal in Eastern India. These essays have been read against the history of public policy, tribal response to such policy, and suggestions have been made to introduce essential policy reforms for building bridges between the tribal communities and the Government, and, for securing contribution of the tribal in Eastern India to national and local development.
The Immediate Call: Covid and Amphan
The attention which was focused on Eastern India because of the latest in the series of natural and manmade calamities that hit the region, should not divert us from the problems that have afflicted it as a historic legacy and the continuing lack of a coherent, inter sectoral policy. On May 20, 2020, Cyclone Amphan made landfall between Digha in West Bengal and Hatiya Island in Bangladesh. The Amphan hit Sunderban hard which had already been severely affected by two earlier cyclones, Aila and Bulbul in the years 2009 and 2019. The mangrove archipelago has been faced with an explosion of poor and lower caste population after Bengal partition.The areas worst hit were Ghoramara Dweep and Kalinagar in Kakdwip, Naamkhana, Bakkhali, Frazergunj, Sagar and Pathor Pratima Island in South 24 Parganas. The wind speed was much higher, nearly 180 kmph this time. The water in the shallow, concave bay was funneled by the wind towards the land in catastrophic storm surges. Despite the large scale evacuation before the Amphan descent, the damage was phenomenal.
In the Sundarban, electrical poles were uprooted and the jetties were washed away. The tube wells were contaminated by seepage of saline water. The betel leaf, mango orchards, fishing ponds or bheris were destroyed, as also animal husbandry, because thousands of domestic animals perished and the cattle that survived had nothing to eat or drink. Pregnant women or children below six who are entitled to free grains from the Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme or Anganwadi centers, were confronted with a disruption of these provisions, facing starvation and malnutrition. Online classes and work, was disrupted severely by the damage to the cable networks, mobile phone towers and internet connectivity, apart from the trauma caused to the poor by their lack of preparation for such a sudden shift.
Denotified tribes like the Kheria Sabar in Purulia district, West Bengal, who live by growing tomatoes, cucumber, water melons, found it difficult to sell their harvest and were compelled to allow it to rot, facing the dreary prospect of repayment of loan, which they had taken on heavy interest. The highly stressed infrastructure of the state had a difficult time delivering cash, free ration and subsidies. The abundant mango crop of Malda and Murshidabad districts was completely destroyed. In Kolkata, people were forced to live without power and drinking water for many days. The Matuas in Bangaon at the Bangladesh border lost their livelihood, with the destruction of the plantations in which they could engage in flower picking. Hundreds of kilometers of river embankments, roads and sea dykes were ruined. Thanks to the influx of salt water from the sea and flash floods from rains further inland, the Covid hit the one million strong Rohingya Muslim refugee camps in coastal Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh. The landless Mundas or Mahato, Bagdi, Urao and Rajbangshi of the Khulna and Satkhira districts on the Western coast of Sundarbans, living on khas land in Bangladesh, lost their work at brick kilns, shrimp and crab farms and paddy fields.
Due to the Covid induced ban on entry into forests or movement outside the villages, the Koya, Konda Reddi, Maria Gond and Gutti Koya tribes from northern Eastern Ghats, Andhra Pradesh and Dandakaranya, Bastar, Chhattisgarh lost their forest based sustenance through Minor Forest Produce collection, shifting cultivation and seasonal farm employment. Because of the ban imposed by the National Tiger Conservation Authority on human movement in 50 Tiger reserves for fear of Corona virus infection affecting the tiger population, several tribal groups in adjacent settlements in these areas were cut off from communication, transport and rations.
Policies of the Central Government during Covid and Amphan
The Central Government suddenly imposed total lockdown, without timely warning, rational planning and basic precautions, forcing the migrant labour returning to Eastern India, to live in abysmal and crowded conditions for days, waiting for transport, food, shelter, in different metropolitan towns of the country, and then spread them all over, creating a herd infection. A large number of people died on the road and many committed suicide without any count kept by the Government. Because of this unplanned approach, India had a much larger number of cases and deaths per million population, a much greater rate of acceleration per day, and a much slower recovery rate than its smaller neighbours, Bangladesh, Pakistan or Sri Lanka. India has the unique distinction, of being among the worst performers in the world, along with USA and Brazil. The problem of destitution of these migrants was compounded by the ruinous effect on the economy of their own rural habitats by the demonetization, GST, corporatization, culminating in a drastic decline in the GDP, disruption of local employment and decimation of hilly and forested habitats of the tribal. The impact of Covid and Amphan has only sharpened the misery. 
Once the National Disaster Response Force rushed into the eastern states and between West Bengal and the Odisha Governments, nearly two million people had to be evacuated. After the outbreak of COVID-19, when migrant labourers lost their job and tried to get back from other states to their native place, their vulnerability was severely aggravated by lack of access to basic facilities. Since, the cyclone shelters had been turned into quarantine centers for them, the Governments were compelled, specially in West Bengal, to turn schools, colleges, government offices and village administration buildings into cyclone relief centers, making it impossible to enforce the WHO directions for physical isolation of the Covid patients, or to deal with the power outages, disruption of water supply and water borne diseases.
In fact, tribal villages in West Bengal, bordering Jharkhand, Bihar and Odisha, specially in Purulia, West Mednipur, Bankura and Birbhum, have taken voluntary action to block entry and exit points to their villages with bricks, bamboo and tree locks, along with a sign prohibiting entry. In many cases, the migrants returning home have been asked to stay outside the village. For fear of elephants, the migrants, who had returned from Chennai to Bhagnadih village at the foot of Ayodhya hills in Balarampur police station in Purulia, stayed on Charpays, inside mosquito nets, in a self quarantine, despite being detected Covid free. They were served food and drink by the villagers. Despite being forced to live in makeshift shelters, such migrants have cooperated in the interest of general safety. Village musicians, specially in Birbhum, have come out with jingles and dramatized narratives to spread awareness about protection from the dread disease. The general impression is that the tribal villager has been much more disciplined than the urban people in maintaining queues and social isolation.
The recovery package, announced by the Government of India for Eastern India for coping with the Covid Amphan disaster, has been diluted by its inattention to the primary issue of climate change, in terms of industrial and urban pollution, Co2 emission, erosion of biodiversity and environment, so called developmental interventions. A series of industrial disasters (e.g. gas leak in polymer plant in Andhra Pradesh, boiler explosion in thermal power plant, steel factory and chemical plant in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, and fire in biodiversity rich landscape in Assam caused by natural gas extraction) was caused by the violation by the Central Government agencies of environmental norms and safety standards. In its draft Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification 2020, the Central Government has proposed to relax environmental safety standards for mining, infrastructure, power, real estate and other industrial projects, by taking them out of prior judicial scrutinyand public consultation.A vulnerability index with a percentile ranking of the Central Government’s interventions in socioeconomic, demographic, housing, hygiene, epidemiological and health systems will show resource allocation for risk mitigation to be a low priority.It has permitted loopholes in the patent regime, dominance of transnational corporations, expansion of industrial or commercial farming, use of high yield and genetically modified crops, eroding genetic diversity, seed sovereignty, and food security.
Need for an Emergency Regional Plan
The complex ecological chain, with an incredible variety of flora and fauna, which maintains the ecosystem and biodiversity of the isolated islands of Sundarban, should be integrated in a shared management plan across borders. The Sundarban mangrove forests are recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, possessing extraordinary bio diversity including the Bengal Tiger and the Olive Ridley Turtle and must be protected for its critically endangered green infrastructure on the same priority as the Amazon and freed from further clearance for infrastructure development. It must be protected by international collaboration as a very important carbon sink and bulwark against coastal flood and cyclone.These low lying regions, being disaster prone, should be given special status as per recommendation of the Fourteenth Finance Commission, 10% contribution coming from the State Disaster Response Fund, the remaining 90% coming from the Union Government.There is a need for a climate action budget integrating every critical socio-economic sector for proactive climate adaptation and disaster preparedness. Widespread deployment of green infrastructure has to be undertaken to replace grey infrastructure on these wetlands to address flooding, and energy resilience has to be ensured through distributed renewable power. Integrated action is necessary for disaster proof infrastructure, crop planning, social security and livelihood protection. The Central Government has to wake up to strengthen the disaster management plan, coastal regulation zone notification, bio-medical and plastic waste management rules. 
In Bengal, many volunteer networks rapidly mobilized and deployed volunteers on the ground to provide aid to affected communities. However, there is a need for sustained action beyond occasional activism, pumping out brackish water from ponds or providing sanitary napkins, milk for babies etc. There is an urgent need for building convergence and ensuring delivery in schemes like the National Social Assistance Program (monthly pensions for senior citizens, widows and differently-abled), Ujjwala (subsidized cooking gas cylinders), Kisan Samman Nidhi (annual payment of Rs 6,000 to farmers), Prochesta (monetary assistance for daily wage laborers during the lockdown in West Bengal) or Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee (MGNREGS, 100 days’ paid work in rural areas), the relief promised under Jan Dhan account for women, to deal with the problem of indebtedness, socio economic exploitation, trafficking, bonded and child labor, rampant among the tribal groups of Eastern India. Part of an informal or marginal economy, without fixed habitation or ration cards, on constant move, in search of employment, or forced by the combined impact of Covid and Amphan, into considering distress sale of live stock, illegal mortgage of patta land given by the Government, these groups need attention on an emergency basis, through coordinated implementation of schemes that have been announced. 
A major shift is required in the infrastructural investment policy, before it is possible to restore the industrial wealth of South Bengal as it was in the 17th century, based on maritime trade, with silk and cotton textile manufacture, shipbuilding, steel, salt, pepper and agriculture. Restoration of the mangroves, forests, coastal lands and ports, replacement of makeshift mud dams with concrete embankments, straw and mud houses by houses made of more durable material, on stilts, is a must for forestalling continuous erosion and submergence. Low lying islands like Mousuni and Marichjhapi have to be permanently evacuated of people, who have to be settled in safer locations. New human settlements, roads or tourist resorts must be planned, and mining licenses must be banned, with respect for the carrying capacity of the eco systems, and, protected area management principles, without mollycoddling corporate interests. 
A  radical change is required in policies for protection of climate and environment. Among the top 20 most polluting cities in the world, 15 are in India. Suspension of industrial activities (including the coal- based sectors), transportation and other activities during lockdown, imposed due to the outbreak of COVID-19, caused rapid improvement in air and water quality across the country. Fragile environments like Junglemahal and Sundarban, which are subject to damage in extreme weather events and industrial pollution, must be kept free of mega industrial enclaves. Water stress, in terms of availability, access and quality, for maintaining basic hygiene and sanitation, was seriously endangered in the region in the recent holocaust. This has to be removed to anticipate and prevent the outbreak of infectious diseases. The main rivers of Junglemahal, Subernarekha and Kansai, smaller rivers like Dulong, Shilavati, Tarafeni, Parang and the numerous tanks and wells have to be protected by contour bunding, check dams and drip irrigation to check the constant loss of ground water through the red laterite soil. Local paddy varieties like Jalkali, Jalmatiyal need to be located and nurtured. Suitable patches should also be identified as culturable areas like the Belpahari Gadrasini hill, and Ghagra water fall, the source of Tarafeni river, that are provided with laterite, red pebble soil and moorum.
In the background of large scale agitation against mega dams and jungle cutting in Uttarakhand, Tehriband, North Kannada Belgadde, Kerala Palghat and Madhya Pradesh, Bodhghat, a Joint Forest Management Project was introduced in Arabari village in West Medinipur in Bengal in 1972. The Forest Protection Committees were introduced in Bengal in 1980-90 in Medinipur, Bankura, Purulia. It is necessary, as a measure of permanence, to strengthen the Joint Forest Management mechanism by synergizing it with programs like Svarna Jayanti (SGSY), Mahatma Gandhi Gramin Karma Sansthan Nischit Prakalpa (MGNREGA), Svanirbharshil Goshthi of Women (SHG), LAMPS, Animal husbandry and Poultry Farming projects. The role of indigenous tribal communities in the protection of forest and wildlife and their regulated access to forest resources have to be recognized for the regeneration of the forests and wildlife in the area. 
A Historical Background 
a.        British Colonial Exploitation
It is essential, for creating a permanent safety net around Eastern India against sudden descent of death and disaster, to take lessons from the history of exploitation of the tribal people and natural resources in this region, and move beyond temporary relief as a solution. The exploitation was initiated by the British through feudal or mercantile intermediaries. They opened up the tribal hinterland to British agents, revenue bailiffs, money lenders, liquor and forest contractors, poppy and flesh traders. They discouraged shifting cultivation practiced by the tribal, replaced community ownership of land by giving away their land to outsiders in private title, introduced Permanent Settlement and Sunset Laws, setting off rack renting. They substituted tree plantations for food crops, and input intensive cash crops for traditional roots, tubers, vegetables. They inaugurated a money market with unequal terms of trade, in which the natural resource, conserved and bartered by the tribal people, was commoditized as merchandise.They restricted tribal access to forest, and reserved it for commercial exploitation, to build railway sleepers and ships, and feed locomotives for the empire.
In 1857, after the mutiny, the British started large scale felling of the forest through thekedars. They replaced multitier non-timber mixed community forestry by economic plantation of single tier, look alike, timber forestry, useless for mulch, shelter, food, fodder and nistār, which were part of traditional tribal entitlements. They replaced the unwritten custom by written statutes. They introduced contract in place of domestic distillation of liquor by the tribal. They notified and hounded nomadic tribal groups who dared to raise their voice and resist as criminal tribes.The Lodhas and Bhumijas, being pushed to the wall, started loot and in 1871 the Criminal Tribes Act was issued to designate them as habitual criminals. In 1878, the Forest Act was introduced to take away their traditional rights of harvesting forest produce. In the latter half of the 19th century, they combined with the Zamindars of Junglemahal through the Andrew Yule Company to displace the tribal and cultivate Sal and Sagoun in the reserved revenue forest. In Bastar, Chhattisgarh, which was then treated as part of eastern India, the British imposed oppressive exactions including Begār and Bisāhā, extraction of labour and food grain,by billeting Government functionaries on villages.They restricted the traditional Pānḍums or festivals associated with subsistence and livelihood rituals in the forest. 
b.        History of Tribal Discontent during Colonial Days
Being uprooted from their traditional rights, subjected to tyranny, the Lodhas, Bhumijas, Santhal, Munda, Mal, Bagdi, Kora, Bagal and Baigas turned to rebellion, across Bengal, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha, against eviction from land, forcible extraction of minerals, industrial exploitation and installations. A series of movements were mounted, from late 18th through the 20th century, against the economic and social order introduced by Dikus, outsiders. The insurrection of Chuārs, Kols, Larkā Kols united Orāons, Hos and Muṇḍās against the nontribal rent farmers. In 1855, Sidho, Kanho, Chand, Bhairav Santhal began the Hul agitation around the epicenter of Damin-e-Koh in Rajmahal hills, Medinipur, Birbhum, Bankura, Chhota Nagpur and Hazaribaag. They inflicted pharkati, cutting of wings or mutilation of limbs, on oppressive landlords and money lenders, in full acquittance of their extortionate practices. In the Ulgulan (revolt) in the Birsait movement, Birsa Munda spoke in the name of the Muṇḍā clan God, Sing Boṅgā. He derived inspiration from the Santhali Hul (revolt), led by Sidhu, Kanhu in the name of the clan God and Goddess, Chāndu Boṇgā and Jaher Erā. He opposed the forest settlement and declared a Muṇḍā kingdom, while, Sidhu and Kanhu had announced a Santhal kingdom. Orāon Bhagats installed a Kurukh Dharm. In Chhattisgarh, Gunda Dhur led the Bhumkāl revolt against the rule of contractors under the British regime in 1910. The messianic and millennial character of the tribal movements against colonial oppression was derived from the deep bond in tribal life between their religion, life and livelihood. In a representation in 1928 to the Indian statutory commission, Mundas and Oraons of Chhotanagpur protested that though they were regarded as Mlechhas, Kols (pigs), they too were human beings, with a past longer than that of any other race in India with a native genius for democratic government. They claimed entitlement to an equal if not larger share in the government of their own people. The Tāmār revolt in late 18th century, the Kol insurrection in early 19th century, the Sardāri movement, known as Mool Ki Larāi or fight for the roots, and Birsāit movement in late 19th century were initiated to restore the ancestral tenurial systems like Khunt Kaṭṭi and Mānki Muṇḍā system of local governance. 
Twenty three Mahals were carved out in Birbhum, Malbhum and Medinipur to create the Junglemahal. As early as 1670s, the Bagdi rebellion took place in Chetuya Barda Pargana of Medinipur against the oppression of Zamindar Shobha Singh. East India Company suppressed the rebellion to get the rights from the Mughals over Kolkata, Sutanuti and Gobindapur. Apart from the oppression of the dual government, introduced in 1765, under the East India Company and the Nawabs of Bengal, the small land holding Raiyats of Junglemahal faced unprecedented exploitation by zamindars for meeting the demands of the British after the imposition of the Permanent Settlement in 1793, which took away their rights. In 1773, Kharui, Khayra and Majhi rebellions took place against the British and feudal tyranny. The Nil rebellion took place in 1859 in Lalgarh, Nayagram, Bans Pahari, Bel Pahari and Chilkigarh against British indigo planters, who were exploiting the cultivators as bonded labour after taking away their land at abysmally low prices. Dinabandhu Mitra in Nildarpan, wrote in vivid words, ‘ad angul chungite at angul barud purile kajei fate’, ‘if one forces eight finger scoops of gun powder in half a finger size barrel, it is bound to burst’. In 1798-99, the childless widow queen Rani Shiromani of Medinipur led Dhangars, Kurmis and Santhal in the Chuar rebellion, in collaboration with local feudal talukdars, jagirdars and pykes against excessive rack renting in Junglemahal. The British sent an expedition under Ferguson to suppress this rebellion and hanged the leader of the rebellion, the Maharaj of Panchkot. In Singhbhum, Barbhum, Manbhum, Dalbhum, Patbhum, feudal lords of  Bonai and Keonjhar fought shoulder to shoulder with their Ghatwals, against the British. In 1922, the asahayog or the non cooperation movement struck Medinipur and the insurgents resorted to the caves of the Chendapathar hills of Bankura for doing revolver practice.In Odisha, Kolahas, Gonds, Santhals, Birjhals, Khonds, joined Surendra Sai in the first war of independence. South Odisha hill tribes in Koraput, joined the Quit India movement. Kudmis were part of the Garhjat movement, asking for end of colonial rule. Heroic tribal women like Bangara Devi of Malkangiri, Khara Parvati of Koraput, Shanti Devi of Kajenderi undertook guerilla war against the British.
c.        Tribal Discontent in Independent India
The continuing tribal discontent in the region after independence in 1947 shows the urgent need for correcting colonial policies of forestry, which have been compounded by the mega developmentalism of the Indian state. Dongria and Jharinia Khonds opposed the establishment of Aluminum plants in Gandhamardan hills. Depletion of water table, disruption of agriculture, erosion of rights over the use of jal, jangal and jamin due to Government action fuelled agitation against violations of environmental and human rights. A series of movements were mounted in Odisha against the various hydel, steel, refinery projects by the tribal, with NGO support and judicial intervention. In 1952-54, after the abolition of the Zamindari, the zamindars took advantage of the laxity of enforcement, to indulge in massive cutting of trees, decimating the Junglemahal. As part of the new industrial policy, imported eucalyptus tersticornis and akashmani or acacia auriculiformis started being planted.Nothing could grow under their shadow and they were destructive of biodiversity in the lateritic soil of Junglemahal, which was overtaken by land erosion and timber famine. In 1967, Charu Majumdar, Kanu Sanyal, Jangal Santhal started armed rebellion, insisting on distribution of land to the landless in Naxalbari. Santhal, Munda, Mal, Bagdi, Kora, Bagal and Baigas were banded together in Gopiballabhpur by Santosh Raina to attack zamindars and jotdars from Brahmin, Karan, Sadgop, Tili, Khandayt caste affiliations. They imposed liquidation of Mahajani debts, cut their crop and started mass slaughter. Shasha Mahato and Kotesvar Rao, alias Kishanji, began armed rebellion against installation of Jindal Steel in Sal forests and against fixation of unfair prices for procurement of minor forest produce in Kendu leaf, Babui grass and Kurkut or red ant eggs. This was brought to an end with the killing of the two leaders by joint action of state and central forces. 
Action Proposed by Community Spokespersons
This brief historical account of the history of exploitation and discontent provides a background to the suggestions generated by grass root representatives of the tribal people in the region in this volume for correcting mistakes and sins inherited from history. 
a.        Inclusion
The volume has pointed, first of all, to the radical need of providing protection to the identity and dignity of the tribal groups of Eastern India against social, political and economic exclusion, to ensure their participation in the process and benefits of development. A decolonization of the mind is suggested,alongside an empathy with the unique natural environment of the region, and immersive exposure to the linguistic and cultural diversity of the people. An analysis by Anirban Sahu of the discussion on tribes by Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya describes the concerns of the people of Sundarban delta over exclusion through class, caste, gender, economic and academic/intellectual stereotypes, and asks for their agency, participation and inclusion in the mainstream, individual and collective rights, socio- political and cultural recognition. The misery and hardship of the shrimplet catching fisher folk in Raimangal Estuarine in 24 Parganas in Sundarbans, is caught unerringly in the translation by Baisali Hui of the narrative ‘The Shrimp-catchers of the Mangrove Forest’ by Niranjan Mandal. The narrative provides a dire warning for protecting them in their hazardous profession, in which they get their legs bitten off, catching fish in shark infested waters. Their sorry plight has to be alleviated by providing an adequate share from the profit made by Babus from such catch, made in blood, sweat and tears. Indiranil Acharya draws attention to the exclusion, from electoral rolls, of the ‘sea-gipsy’ or ‘sea-nomad’ ‘Bajaus’, who use torches made of cod liver hide or oil, and can spend considerable time beneath sea water. He urges respect for them as the most skilled swimmer tribe of South East Asia, who survived the 2004 tsunami in wooden canoes, the fury of nature surging beneath and passing them by. 
In order to deal with the economic and political exclusion, several articles have emphasized the crying need to bring a halt to the social exclusion of the tribal people in the region. It is pointed out in "Dark Night under the Lamp" by Shyamal Kumar Pramanik that there is a continuing need to stop the ongoing indignity of ill treatment of Dalits as Pariahs. He describes how they are forbidden funeral, participation in village ceremonies, and punished for daring to do Garba or riding a horse in wedding, as a pretension to equality with their betters in social hierarchy.The example of the Khediya Sabar is provided in ‘A denotified nomadic tribe in Purulia’, to demonstrate the dire need to establish their identity, for improving their access to benefits. Initially notified as a criminal tribe, subsequently denotified as ex criminal tribe, they have been divested of access to forest or even forest based employment, with every change in dispensation, from the British to the Government of Independent India. They must be provided with aadhar and labour card for finding employment in NREGA, self employment, or Government help for kitchen garden, poultry, house hold based work. A drama titled ‘Nachni’, by Raju Das, translated by Shubhendu Shekhar Naskar, draws attention to the plight of tribes considered criminals, whose house would be burnt and who would be beaten by the police and expelled from the village in case of any crime in the village. The pathetic memory of Basinibala is evoked by her son, whose only wish is to give a decent burial to his mother and other Nachnis in the forest, which alone he considers his own. The drama begins with a Jhumur song of a Nachni expressing the unfulfilled longing to wear a nightgown, a jacket, a precious sari, a sunglass, carry a tiffin carrier and have a betel leaf in the mouth. This song is a poignant commentary on the life and death of the beautiful Basinibala, who used to dance for rich landlords to the music of her husband, the Jhumuriya, and the drum of his companion, the Rasik. She was still treated as prostitute and outcaste, and on her death, her body was dragged to the jungle, tied to the back of a cart, and torn and consumed by beasts and vultures. The son of Basinibala voices the profound agony of his people who have been treated as beyond the pale of the God or laws of the upper caste people, and demand to be treated as human. The tragic story draws attention to the dire distress and disgrace faced by the social pariah in isolated enclaves and the need to eradicate barbaric relics of exclusionary social practices immediately.
A few other essays describe the remarkable literature produced in the region about the need for bridging cultural divides and paving the way for emotional inclusion. Birendra Kumar Bhattacharya’s (1924-1997) Yaruingam (meaning “Autonomy”), a remarkable Assamese novel (analyzed by Anirban Sahu) describes the Naga struggle for finding an autonomous identity through a transitional period in World War II, British ruled and independent India. A moving love story is told of a Naga boy and girl, whose life was disrupted by the clash of the Azad Hind Fauj with the British and by Japanese invaders. Their heroic saga of healing their emotional trauma is placed against the continuing divide between the changes wrought in their culture, festivals and ceremonies, by Christian Missionaries, and their loyalty to taboos and prescriptions, social and moral norms, Gods and spirits, realms of life and death, heaven and hell, native to Nagaland, like Rikhu and Anija, Kamio and Kathi Kamam, and Sun God. A wider perspective on Naga history is gained from description in the epics, Mangal Kavyas, and in recent Bengali literature, of the oppression faced by the tribal in the forest, as peasants or labor, and stigmatization of their women as witches. In a conversation with Shubhendu Shekhar Naskar, Raju Das reveals the anatomy of Dalit consciousness, as a Namasudra writer, playwright, actor and activist. He has managed his theatre group, by working as a night watchman and pulling a paddle rickshaw, with tribal, Muslim and visually challenged actors. He is inspired by the memory of the discriminatory treatment meted out by higher castes to Mahishyas and Tantis in his native village in Bangladesh; the sad plight of refugees displaced from Bangladesh in 1971; the life and work of pioneer Rajbongshi and Poundra leaders in West Bengal; the Bengali translation of the writings of Baba Saheb Ambedkar and Jyotiba Phule; the pitiful condition of oppressed lower caste groups, depicted by Utpal Dutt in his revolutionary theatre and street dramas, and, by Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay and Manik Bandyopadhyay, in their novels.
b.        Partnership for Protection of Forest and Environment
Several articles in this volume have suggested reorientation of the policy regarding forestry and environment in the region. The article on Buxa forest ‘The Tiger loses its sleep...‘, written by Sri Upal and translated by Rajeshwari Datta, demonstrates the damage done to the environment in the name of its protection. The centuries old interdependence of the tribal people, wild life, forests and the river, was disrupted by the creation of the Buxa Forest Division, reserving the forest for predatory royal hunts in 1877-78, and, from 1983 onwards,for a tiger project, a national garden or a reserve forest. The exclusion of the tribal inaugurated large scale slaughter of wild animals for royal game, exploitation of the forest for British colonial and imperial objectives, and erosion of the protective shield of the people, provided by their symbiotic link with forest. It is correctly suggested that all is not yet lost if the Forest Department gives up its hostility to tribal association with the forest, its wildlife and tourism. This will only restore the informed, participative engagement of the Rabha, Koche, Meche, Toto and Dukpa tribal with forest conservation, arrest flash floods in the river, by permitting clearance of stones floating down from Bhutan, and revive memories like Atish Dipankar travelling to Bhutan and Tibet by this route. It will also reanimate the pre British history of the Buxa fort as Pashakha Jong, and, in British days, of the railway transport between Buxa and Jainti in Alipurduar, feeding the Jainti Dolomite factory with stones extracted from the river; of the successive developments of a British Barrack, detention camp of Indian freedom fighters, Tibetan refugee camp and border post; and the exchange of letters between Tagore and the Buxa camp prisoners in 1938 on the poet‘s birthday, through the Buxa Post Office. A co partnership of the Forest Department with the tribal may yet restore the earlier tea, wood, orange and tobacco crop, save rare species like the Indo-Malayan pangolin, reticulated python, clouded leopard, marble cat, crested king fisher and serpent eagle, Himalayan griffon from extinction, and rejuvenate the Buxa forest as a haven for camping, trekking, nature, wildlife, butterfly and bird watching, dark sky photography and star gazing. Licensed home stay, guide and first aid training, mobile ambulances and ideological and practical commitment of the Forest Department to a unique, landscape based, conservation tourism, based on an itinerary through history, boosted by tribal participation, emerge as suggestions from this article. Further suggestions for such partnership emerge in ‘An Interview by Shibshankar with Janaki Shikari- the first Birhor girl to pass the Higher Secondary Exam’, keen on a nurse training course. She tells us about the ways and means of drawing into collaboration the Bir (forest) hor (people), or Uthalu, from Dhanbad, Jharkhand, living in forest around Ajodhya pahar, Purulia. Their language, mixed with Santali, Mundari and Panchporgania, has to be preserved. The resources given to them already by the State Government in land, pucca houses, goats and hens, vegetable, seeds and fertilizers, BPL cards, weekly rice, and wheat quota, free primary education, have to be fortified by providing more farming land, drinking water, old age allowance and pension, cows, scholarships and vocational training for self- employment. The “Adim Jonojati Birhor Jumit Gaota” group, formed by them for singing and performing at festivals, should be harnessed for Ajodhya pahar tourism, and also, for building on their skills in Chihorlata rope making, and making ethnic forest food from mushrooms, greens, fruits, Koril. Their services should be used for guiding eco tourists around an itinerary on surrounding hills named after Gods Lusu Buru, Kuku Buru, Marang Buru, Chahri Buru, Matha Buru, Ajodhyia Buru etc. and for celebrating Sanghi-Bonga, Baha Bonga, Burubonga , Korom, Sohrai. Sustainable eco tourism has to build on the deep bond of the Birhors with the surrounding landscape. 
The suggestion for participative involvement of the tribal in forest based tourism has been combined with percipient observations about the utility of drawing on tribal ecology wisdom practices for protection of the environment and for recognizing and incorporating the sanctity accorded in such practices in the strategy for preserving the integrity and inviolability of the environment. Solution for the virus of caste, religion and the current pandemic is thus identified in the need for learning from the history of the Kurmis in the article ‘The Corona Virus Pandemic vs. Totemic Kurmi Community’. There is an urgent need to resolve the uncertain, disparate status and identity of Kurmis, who are designated differently as E.B.C, Extremely Backward Class in Jharkhand, O.B.C, Other Backward Class in West Bengal and S.E.B.C, Socially and Educationally Backward Class in Odisha. It is also necessary to learn from the way the Kurmis combine deep reverence for the sacred landscape with a pragmatic approach of harvesting it for their health and well being. It is vital to join them in treating their terrain as Shiva bhumi and inviolable, as it stretches across Mayurbhanj in Orissa, Parashnath Hill centred ‘Sikharvum’ state, Nagpur state in Chota Nagpur and eighteen parganas of Kharagpur and Medinipur. It is important to respect the practice of their Laiya/Naiya hereditary priests, who go to the Garamthan village shrine to offer sacrifice to the Sun God and Earth Goddess, on a mound or boulder below tree, as Burhababa and Burhimai, Mahadev Shiva and Mahadevi Shivani, or, as Jahirimai and Jahariburhi. A sharing of their sense of the sacred will help in nursing their ancestral knowledge of using flowers, seeds, leaves, vines, shrubs, herbs, roots as food and medicine, energy and immunity booster. This will create a community based partnership for guarding their ecology from industrial, chemical and atmospheric pollution, and provide insurance against lethal diseases and pandemics, bred in urban squalor. The ethical philosophy of the tribal people is also narrated through a story contrasting the wages of falsehood and truth granted by Garaam Thakur respectively to a cheat and a truthful beggar, and, a Ho poem, equating the ups and downs of life, with the highs and lows caused by vicissitudes of elements in nature.The article " The Oral Literature and the Social Life in Rabha Society " by Sushil Kumar Rabha shows how it is possible to join hands with the Rabha to search and recover the story of their lost generation through Hausuk Souru or matriarchal lineage, and maintain the integrity of their natural habitat by building on their practice of associating creation of art with mango and black berry groves.The empathetic connection with nature maintained by the tribal is provided through a discussion of Munda philosophy by Satya Narayan Munda. The Mundas sing to Sarna Bongas, Gods of sacred groves, and powers of sky and earth, at Sarhul festival. They invite Ba Sarna, Buru Sarna, Jaher Sarna, Desauli Sarna, Hatu Sarna, to sit together and converse. They invite the clouds to shower rain, generate crop, fruits, flowers and herbs. They warn against damage to the trees to protect environment and avert tiger attack. Similarly, in an interview with Shovan Maity, Garjan Kumar Mallick tells us about the deep respect, worship and ceremonies dedicated by Dhimals to the sun and moon, village Gods, rivers, ponds, hills, jungles, fields, crops, stones, roads. He mentions the need to draw the attention of academicians, researchers, social workers and the government, for overcoming the indifference of new generations, preserving Dhimal heritage and solving their problems.
The unique approach of the tribal in protecting themselves against epidemic and disease through their deep respect for the rhythm of seasons, work and festivals, in tune with the rhythm of nature, cutting across all sectarian divides, is explained in a few articles. In an interview of Ramchandra Singh Munda by Kaushik Roy and three Santhal poems, titled ‘Waiting for the Bygone Days…’ ‘Broken Rhythm’, ‘The JungleBird’, Mundas speak of staying connected to their soil, fighting marginalization and incursions of decadent cultural influences. The Santhali poem has moved from rhythm to free verse and translations have been undertaken of Santhal poets Sadhuramchand and Thakurprasad Mirmu, Gorachand Tudu and Sarodaprasad Kisku into Bengali, and, of Rabindranath Tagore and Jibananda Das, from Bengali into Santhali. The three Santhal poems provide moral and spiritual exhortation for dealing with the pandemic by addressing Diba-kisun, by invoking Santhal deities inhabiting Lughu and Ghantabarh hills near Paresnath, by celebrating descent from heroic ancestors Pilchu Haram and Pilchu Burhi, and, by remembering the sacrifice of Santhal freedom fighters, Tilka Majhi, SidhuKanhu, Birsa Munda. They insist on the urgency of Santhal self cure by sharpening the agony of Santhals in being unable to perform the langre dance in colorful Fagun, and being quarantined in Khairigarh fort, in these strange, unfamiliar times. They add to the poignance of this broken rhythm of life by comparing their confinement to the threshold, due to a virus, with the condition of Sita, confined to the Lakshman Rekha; by mourning the empty and lonely arena of Jaher than and tamarind trees; silence of the Dhamsa and Mandal drums; and, by envying the jungle bird its freedom to sip the fountain water, dawn rays, cool moonlit night, fragrant fruits and flowers. The poems vibrate with the anticipated joy of dancing like peacocks with outspread feathers in the Arun Forest, and singing like birds on dried acacia branches by river side, once the Pandemic is over. A further discussion has been provided in the article " Dhimal Tribe During Pandemic " by Garjan Kumar Mallick about the herbal, shamanistic and midwife food and medicine of the Dhimal tribe from North East India. They have protected themselves from the Malaria Kalazar ridden area of Terai by refraining from poisoning air, water and soil. They oppose wrongful extraction of fish from the river using poison or electric shock. They reserve the western room for the family head and family deity Sadi Berang, cover the floors with a thick layer of grass and cow dung, store water in clay pitcher and drink it in bamboo glass, avoid spice and oil, take bath in hot water with neem leaves. In the recent pandemic, they have guarded themselves by using terai species like ferong, kurchil tekor, birali, customary purity pollution and social distancing practices, and non synthetic material like pecheng or banana leaf or bark for storage of food and drink. It is clear from this account that tribal mid wives and shamans have to be taken into confidence to pass on their knowledge of the medicine food chain to their sons, close allies and to members of the community, who are willing to treat them like parents.
c.        Language for Culture in Development
A discussion undertaken in a few other articles in this volume on tribal language and literature provides the key to building of bridges between culture and development. It has to be realized that the diversity of languages and dialects has to be preserved, not out of any romantic notion about preserving the fossilized past, but for conserving terms and categories of recognition, classification and utilization of human and natural resources, preserved by the local communities through generations. It is, therefore, necessary to carry the research embedded in these articles forward to elicit environment specific developmental strategies, in collaboration with local communities. Suhrid Kumar Bhowmik discusses the songs and vocabulary of the nomadic Kakmaras (crow killers), who came, driven by famine, flood and cyclone from Telangana through Odisha, to settle in Midnapore, in Contai and Tamluk subdivisions. A study of their vocabulary provides a clue to their nomadic ways and the continuing use of Brahui Kui, Nayek Podi, Gondi, Kurukh Oraon, Khond and Sanskrit words.The forests, the intricately woven network of water bodies, marshes and wetland, rivers, canons, creeks and inlets, embankments and the evergreen mangrove forests of geoa, garan and garjan trees, can provide inspiration for creative writing. An enormous, untapped literary and knowledge resource exists in the amalgam and variations of languages and dialects of different origin, which are distinctively different from the Bangla dialects spoken at the islands of Patharpratima, Kakdwip, Namkhana or Mathurapur. Out of 102 islands of the Sundarbans, 54 were made habitable during the colonial rule in the 18th century by clearing the wilderness. Because of the low cost of land, the Sundarban has received people from Paundra, Namoshudra, Bagdi, Kaibarta sub castes from Khulna, Satkhhira (now in Bangladesh), people from Medinipur, rendered homeless by flood, and fishermen and honey collectors, who use Jongla Bhasa, with words traceable to the 11th century AD treatise Shunya Purana by Ramai Pandit. A vast store of untapped material for literature also lies to be harvested, in worship rituals, oratory, mantras, choric songs, performances. thaans and dargas,  associated with folk deities Banbibi, Manasa, Dakshin Rai, Ali Madar, Barkhan Gaji, Shah Janguli and Manik Pir; at Gajon, Balaki, Palagan rituals performed by wives of the fishermen, crab catchers, boat men and the honey collectors, while sending them off  to forests or the sea;  and, in dreams, lore, charms and incantations used by  astrologers, soothsayers and witch doctors, to ward off wild beasts of land and water. Bonbibir Johuranama by Munshi Mohammad Khater, Raimangal Kavya by Krishnaram, Gajikalu Champavati by Abdur Rahim, the play on the life of Dukhe have drawn on some of this material. Sri Niranjan Mondal, author of Badabaner Padabali and Ujan Bhatir Kathakata, explains that his fiction bears the influence of the Hingalganj- Gosaba dialect. He articulates the need for evoking the dauntless spirit of these people in their struggle for existence on the lines of Marathi litterateur Arjun Dangle in the forefront of the Dalit movement, and, in Bengali literature, on the lines of Padmanadir Majhi (The Boatmen of Padma) by Manik Bandyopadhyay, Ganga by Samaresh Basu, Titas Ekti Nadir Nam (A River Called Titas) by Adwaita Mallabarman. 
The approach to research on the cultural and linguistic heritage of the communities has been amplified in a few articles. Biswajit Haldar offers a glimpse of a few Westerners’ interest on the folk cultures of Bengal, pointing to the need to follow up the dedicated research of scholars like David Mccutchion, Jeremy Hanse or Rowena Potts, who studied themes like ‘Majars’ of India by undertaking field study of exorcist performances at Sitalamangal Palagan or of Pirer Mela at Majar burial grounds in villages. An analysis is offered by Bimal Kumar Toppo in "The Endangered Tribal Languages of North Bengal," about the Aryan, Austric, Sino-Tibetan, and Dravidian racial genealogy of Indian languages and dialects, and their coexistence and fusion in Eastern India and tribal Bengal. A way has to be found out of the steady decrease in the number of officially recognized languages despite the difficulty of providing education, employment or room on printed notes in a multiplicity of languages or scripts, or sustaining their survival and growth. The exclusion of languages with less than 10000 speakers has to be reviewed because it has contributed to the shrinking in the number of their speakers. The fusion and amalgam of words in North Bengal demands creation of bridge glossaries and dictionaries for characterizing terms of daily use and vanishing knowledge systems about management of resources, subsistence and livelihood, unique to the hilly and forested agro climatic landscape. The blanket use of racial nomenclatures as cognitive categories of differentiation is avoidable in view of the linguistic fusion, for the recollection and revitalization of vanished elements of ecologically sustainable practices. There is an urgent need for building a participative bio cultural, linguistic and electronic democracy with the cooperation of each linguistic/dialect group, with all the technical help that can be mustered. A romantic acknowledgement of the linguistic diversity, resigned reflection on its loss, or mere technical analysis have to give way to community based efforts, without chauvinistic competition or lobbying for patronage, confined to micro nuclear niches. 
There is a great need in such research for combining the study of structure with the study of content. Emphasis has been laid by Nildari Sekhar Dash in " Documentation of a Dialect through the Use of a Dialect Corpus " on the creation of a digital dialect corpus, a common core lexicon, using a convergence of eco, ethno, anthropo, geo and socio linguistics, phonological, grammatical, syntactic and semantic resources, for computer aided interaction, annotation and interpretation. In dealing with unscripted and oral languages, developed in the lap of nature, with eco specific variations, it is necessary to ensure that the variety, surprise and flexibility of the language is not frozen or fossilized in such an exercise. Before using such a corpus for e-governance, the author’s warning about the appreciation of the difference between auditive vs. visual, acoustic-vocalic vs. orthographic language has to be understood. It is not the quantity or the structure, but the quality and content of the data, that will yield access to the cognitive, conceptual, symbolic, core values of the language, spoken by the tribal groups. Failing this, the dictionaries, sketch grammars, lexical databases, confine to the study of addition, elision, assimilation and phonemic transformation of speech sounds, words and phrases, may well throttle the language itself. This has to be an intensely participative process to succeed.  
A few articles have focused on the need to use the language study to correct marginalization of identity, for deriving the best and finest elements in the body of expressions in an individual tribal group.It is not enough to give official status to the Ho language as per the suggestion of Biren Tubid in his interview. The number of children being trained at Duan near Balichak in Paschim Medinipur and the involvement of community members has to be increased. Shyamal Kumar Pramanik, in his interview by Supromit Maiti, speaks about the influence of the black literature of United States and Black Panthers of Maharastra on Bengali Dalit poetry, which is featured in Chaturtha Duniya by the Bengali Dalit Literary Association. This influence must be supplemented by imbibing the strong commitment to the oppressed and marginalized in the history of Bengali literature. The interview given by Sushil Kumar Rabha to Madhabi Karmakar mentions that Koch Mongolian Rabha, a language spoken in forest and used as a medium of education in schools in Assam, is yet to gain similar recognition in West Bengal. The efforts of Rabha Unnoyon Parisad (Rabha  Development Council) to promote the Rabha language Kocha-Krou in Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri and Coochbihar of North Bengal are admirable. However, there may be a need to fortify such efforts by working out a balanced blend of the traditional Rabha matriarchal social system and male control on social norms.A description is given by Dinesh Mudi in an interview with Arpita Raj about the efforts by Kora writers to preserve the Koda script by reducing it to written form and software, as Nagchiki. The story of the Koda migration from Chotanagpur after a fight with Hoons, their Nagabonshi heritage and protection offered by the five hooded Panchanag, culminates with the description of the shape and name of their alphabet, derived from the materials or phenomena in daily use or view, like sun and moon, human limbs, arrow, axe, scythe, fishing hook, umbrella handles, spade, mushroom, betel leaves, grasshoppers and snakes.
The Remedy: An Analysis
a.        Reversal of Colonial Policy
A reading of the present volume would lead to an inevitable conclusion. Any strategy for amelioration of the tribal condition in these areas of discontent requires a direct confrontation with the history of tribal integration into a colonial economy.It would be necessary to reverse the history of an unequal transfer of land and natural resources, and oppression, involving rack renting, exploitative trade, usury, forced labor, corvee, deprivation of lands and rights to forest produce, reckless exploitation of resources for capital formation, substitution of commodity diversity for seed diversity. Long term measures are required to repair the permanent damage done to the traditional tribal infrastructure by British taxation and settlement policies and expansion of colonial capitalism, steered with the support of parasitic landowners, money lenders, liquor, flesh and poppy contractors, speculators and agents. This situation has not been improved by the continuation of British colonial policies by the Central Government in Independent India. It is necessary, while dealing with the impact of a pandemic or Amphan, as natural calamities, to also deal with the disruption of the nature-culture symbiosis, the homogenization, technification and biocultural reductionism, inaugurated by the British, and promoted by a new born alliance of the corporate elite with the rulers at the Center, in collusion with oppressive middlemen.
It is necessary, in such a remedial effort for correcting historical wrongs, to symbolically recognize and mark tribal freedom trails and ecology wisdom traditions, encompassing archaeological, paleontological, historical, tangible and intangible elements of heritage. These heritage freedom trails across forests and hills, will provide elements of adventure, ritual and ceremonial tourism, evocative of millennial elements and the tremendous hardships faced in the tribal freedom struggles. The tribal belt in Eastern India has to be seen as a living museum and cultural landscape which will serve as a dynamic workshop for the regeneration, validation and celebration of life enhancing knowledge systems and traditions of tribal people, for sustainable development.
b.        Shared Culture for Development, Beyond Divisive Categories
The articles in the volume provide a key to the resolution of inter faith and intersectional divides that complicate rational discussion or equitable distribution of developmental benefits. An encompassing linguistic and cultural study is both a means and an end of catalyzing tribal culture for tribal and national development. Such study demonstrates the convergence of tribal, Jaina, Buddhist and Brahminical cults and rituals in tribal areas of Eastern India. This convergence is based on a deep, simmering connection of the tribal groups with all organic and inorganic communities in nature. Their profound bond with the forests, hills, rivers, animals, plants have created a shared philosophy of seeing the visible and invisible universe as interpenetrated, cutting across ritualistic differences, and inducing a commitment to the integrity and inviolability of the environment. Their knowledge systems, despite being oral and unscripted, are preserved transgenerationally, and would reward respectful study and collaborative use for sustainable harvesting of natural resources. 
We need to cure the human condition, smitten by discontent and exploitation in these areas, by what the renowned Odisha writer Gopinath Mohanty describes in his novel Mati Matala as an anthropology of love. He describes how he has worked with Gadabas, Kondhs and Saoras all over the sacred land of Odisha, in its dust, water, stones; how his breath has merged in its wind, his sweat has soaked its soil, and his laughter, words and flute have echoed among its people, who have provided him with a place in their homes. The 15th century Oriya poet, Balaram Dasa has celebrated the role of the depressed and disadvantaged in his Jagamohan Ramayana. In Adibhoomi, Pratibha Roy has talked about the primal land of Bonda highlanders. In the story of "Stanyadāyinī," Mahasweta Devi tells us the poignant story of Stanyadāyinī, the breast feeder, who dies, drained and diseased, after giving the suck to children other than her own, somewhat in the manner in which the mother nature, nurtured by the tribal, is being destroyed in providing nourishment to the bio prospecting pirates, children other than nature’s own. In her Aranyer Adhikar she celebrates Birsa Munda’s Ulgulan. In Choti Munda, she speaks of Choti Munda’s attempt to restore the old moral economy nonviolently.
The Mangal kavyas celebrate the confluence of cults. Dharmamangal accepts Kalu Dom as the Commander in Chief of Lausen, who is treated as part of the Sun cult. Bhils see themselves as descendants of tigers. Tāntrik Sahajiyā cults, Chenchu, Bhādu, Jāri, Sāri, Bāul songs, unite Hindu, Muslim and tribal communities of Sundarban and Jangal Mahal. Buddhist tantric Jāṇguli Devī, folk deity Manasā and Chengmuri Kāli, Biṣahari, Olāi, Chelāi meet and exchange attributes in their iconography. The Manasa snake cult joins hands with the Buddhist Tantric Sunya cult of Ramai Pandit in Sunya Purana, recalling Nagarajuna’s Sunyabad. Dharmathakur is venerated as analogous to Siva. Siva becomes Mallesvara in Mallabhum and Ind Parv is celebrated as worship of Indra. Kendua Devi or Bandurga is worshipped in Kendu tree forest in Dhalbhumgarh. Rankini is given homage by Bhumijas in Titua parv at Bhairabthan in Belpahari. The Patabonda festival is dedicated to Hudur Durga along with Bhuyang dance. Lodha and Brahmin priests worship together in Jayachandi temple in Patharkati and Peetalkati in Sankarai block in Jhargram. Santhals consider Pilchuharam and Pilchuburi as their ancestors. Santhal Marangburu is offered worship in Shildah by Orgonda Bhairavas. In Deopahar, Mahatos act as priests. Kurmi Mahatos and Munda Bhumijas dance Chau in Purulia with masks. Lodha, Savara, Meriya and Bagdi men dance Changdu, in a half circle. Munda, Bagdi and Bhumij dance Paik dance on ranpas or stilts, though there are no Paik soldiers using stilts any more.   
In Sunderban, the tribals also worship Jarasan, Panchuthakur, Panchanun. Manasa Mangal, Rai Mangal, Surya Mangal have been enacted in Sundarban at the junction between life and death, river and ocean around the Neta Dhopani Ghat. Since the 13th century AD, the tribal Buddhist and Hindu sects have converged in Shiv Mangal and the cult of Dharma Thakur to induce fertility and protection of hunting gathering practices. Dharma Thakur gives eyes to the trinity and ties Adya Shakti with Shiva. Kali appears as Bhadra, Raksha, Dakshin, Smashan, Nishi, Maha and Unmatt Kali. Banbibi, Dakshin Roy, Kalu Roy, Dharmesh, the Sun God, Surna Burhia of the grove have been in worship among the forest based tribes. Apart from the feast of Sal blossom, the Gaon Bandha festival has been celebrated to protect the village. Jhumar, Raybense, Karam, Pata, Dandshahi dances, puppetry or Putulnach have been in vogue. Alkap in Malda and Murshidabad offer social satire. Patuas of the Navasakha group of castes observe both Hindu and Muslim customs and paint in miniature formats. Navapatrika is dedicated to nine plants. Sakambhari is consecrated to offering of new crop to ancestors. Durga or Aoniboni become paddy or harvest deities in pots. Ksetra Thakur, made of grass and plants, is worshipped as caretaker of paddy fields. Worship is offered to Manasachali or terracotta snake tower.
In Odisha, Sabaras have been worshipping Lord Lingaraja of Bhubaneswar as Bādus or servitor priests as also in Sabari Narayana in Chhattisgarh. Sabara tribal poets like Sabarapada and Gundaripada celebrate the union of Sahaja Sundari and God intoxicated Sabara in 8th century AD Buddhist Caryā songs. Medieval Natha Siddhas of Odisha like Kanhupa, Luipa and their guru Sabarinatha have preached a philosophy of Śūnyavāda, emptiness, uniting śūnya and pūrṇa, void and plenum. Bhima Bhoi, a Kondh tribal from Radhakhol area of Western Odisha, has propagated this philosophy in the late 19th century as Mahimā Dharma, based on the cult of Alekha, Parama Brahma, the formless being, and Piṇḍa Brahmāṇḍa vāda, to unite the phenomenal with the noumenal. The Gandha Mardan or medicine mountains at Paikmal, Bargarh district of Western Odisha in Bora Sambar (deer swallowed by the cobra) has temples jointly managed by Brahmin and Dholkhond priests. Niyam Giri hills in Kalahandi and Rayagadha are considered to be the domain of Niyam Raja Peku and Dharni Penu, the Earth Goddess. The Sabara Kondh and Bhuiyān had been consecrating kings of Pāl Lāhārā, Kalahandi and Keonjhar with crowns of Suālatā jungle creeper and Siāri leaf umbrella, as Devarāja, Mahāpraphu or regents of God.
The hill and forest based communities of Eastern India are united by an indelible sense of their interdependence with the environment. They have combined, irrespective of their group identities, to maintain the integrity of their ecosystem services. They have sanctified their livelihood sustenance practices by personifying and worshipping every element, organic or inorganic, in nature. An interdisciplinary exercise has to be undertaken for reconstructing the oral history, mental geography, migration narratives, history of vegetation, waters, landscape and environment, psychological and spiritual affinities of these tribal groups, from their visual and performing arts and rituals. This exercise will rebuild broken bridges of understanding, transcending identities and differences, for securing the contribution of these communities for harnessing development to eco specific strategies. The skill based programs of the Government have to focus on the nurture and harvesting of the tribal ecology wisdom traditions in Eastern India. The taboos and prescriptions in the tribal lore should be recognized to identify and protect the associated knowledge in the food medicine chain, based on local herbs. It is useful to explore the herbal, trophic, nutritive and therapeutic values of the plant, fruit or animal species used by the Bhumija, Kora, Lodha, Munda and Santhal as totemic symbols, like Shol fish or Nagkili for the Mundas. It is also vital to investigate, protect and regenerate the life sustaining properties of depleted germ plasm and vanishing biota in sacred groves like the Garamthan and Sihal, protected by Lodhas, or Sasan, Sarna or Jaherthan, protected by tribal communities, including Koras, in Chhotanagpur, with offerings of earthen horses at various tree trunks. The 1778-79 Rennel map shows tribal settlements, which have disappeared after declaration of tiger reserve at earmarked places like Haldibari, Subarnakhali. The vanished categories of classification of land, upland byde, medium upland kanali, lowland bohai in Purulia should still be considered relevant in water conservation and cultivation by self help groups. These are offered only as glimpses of the vast, untapped, but languishing and dying wisdom of the Eastern Indian tribes.
c.        Protection for Cognitive Autonomy
The initiative for correcting historical wrongs inflicted on the tribal people of Eastern India will be one of protecting their indicator cultures, which are the first to be affected by adverse ecological change, in fragile and bio-culturally rich forests, mountains, coastlines and savannas. The right and capability of the tribal community in the region to codify, classify and represent its knowledge, through both ideas and expressions, should be recognized through a sui generis community intellectual property right regime. They should not be domesticated into the global I.P.R. regime by requiring them to make defensive disclosure of a prior art database for the components of their knowledge. The state has to build its partnership with the tribal on the pattern of the Matatua Declaration on Cultural and Intellectual Property Rights on Indigenous People, 1993, Aoteoroa, New Zealand. On the line of this declaration, the state must install a collective rights regime for the tribal. That should be based on retroactive coverage of their historical and contemporary works, recognition of the multi-generational coverage span of such works as also of their co-operative rather than comparative framework.The tribal recognizes not only consumptive values of the environment in its biomass but also non-consumptive values of watershed protection, photosynthesis, climate regulation.A moratorium should be placed on the commercialization of genetic materials in tribal custody, pending development of appropriate community mechanisms for their management. Protection has to extend the right of the First Beneficiary to the direct descendants of the traditional custodians of tribal knowledge. Provision has to be made against the debasement and de-signification of culturally significant tribal terms of equity, efficiency and economy, preserved in local knowledge, through the inappropriate and inauthentic use of universal Latin taxonomy, alien to local contexts. Tribal knowledge should not be the subject of an unequal transfer with capital rich regions of the country, nor subjected to international nationality and territoriality conventions for the purpose of recognition and conservation. No hegemonic, cannibalistic translation of tribal knowledge of archaeology, geology, botany, entomology, bacteriology, soil chemistry, composite use of vegetable medicine garden, orchard, compost heap, should be done by a normless market, without prior informed consent, co-directed use and adequate compensation of the tribal. In corporate, commercial interventions, such compensation should be given on the pattern of sharing of benefits in the Inuit Trust Fund, Canada and Future Generations Fund, Peru. We should recall the example of Maoris of Vanu Atu Island, who, on attaining independence from Australia, protected their land, forest, waters, sky and natural resources as Tāongā, appointing themselves as Kaitāki or custodians. Needless to say, this is necessary to put a brake on the misguided policy of ‘mainstreaming’ tribal people, who are being steadily eased out of their habitats and merged in the general mass of people, with a steady loss of their linguistic, cultural and ecological identities. This will avert the apparently irreversible trend of integrating tribal backwaters with the global market economy, mediated through a few corporate giants, aligned with self-aggrandizing elements, posing to be one with the state. One recalls the Kari-Oca Indigenous Peoples’ Declaration, Brazil, 1992 in this context : “We feel the Earth as if within our mother. When earth is sick and polluted, no human health is possible. To heal ourselves, we must heal the planet and to heal the planet we must heal ourselves.”
Correcting the Roadmap
It is obvious that the tribal situation in Eastern India demands an understanding of the history of the tribal people, their deep bond with their environment, their cultural heritage, based on this bond, and the seminal role of their culture, as a catalytic element in the development of durable solutions for the protection of the region, from a continuous chain of calamities. Emergency measures, adapted in response to such calamities in a region specific plan, have to be reinforced by a holistic plan, cutting across all segments of life, livelihood, human and natural resource management strategies, and, integrated with the nature culture symbiosis, nurtured by communities, irrespective of sectarian divides. The conception and execution of this plan has to be undertaken as a collaborative exercise by the state with the tribal communities and all stakeholders. Janajati Darpan proposes to combine contemplation and advocacy of such plan, with its implementation, as a measure of human and environmental security. 
A select list of references consulted:
1.    K.S. Singh (Ed.). 1982. Tribal Movements in India, Vol. 1, Manohar Publishers, New Delhi.
2.    K.S. Singh (Ed.). 1983. Tribal Movements in India, Vol. 2, Manohar Publishers, New Delhi.
3.    Kalyan Kumar Chakravarty (Ed.). 1994. The Indian Family: An Alternative Strategy for Human Survival, IGRMS, Bhopal.
4.    Kalyan Kumar Chakravarty (Ed.). 1996. Tribal Identity in India: Extinction or Adaptation!, IGRMS, Bhopal.
5.    G.N. Devy, Geoffrey V. Davis & K.K. Chakravarty (Ed.). 2009. Indigeneity: Culture and Representation, Orient Blackswan.
6.    K.K. Chakravarty. 2011. Introduction in G.N. Devy, Geoffrey V. Davis & K.K. Chakravarty (Ed.) Voice and Memory: Indigenous Imagination and Expression, Vol. 2, Orient Blackswan. 
7.    Kamal K. Misra (Ed.). 2012. Tribal Movements in India: Visions of Dr. K.S. Singh, IGRMS, Bhopal and Manohar Publishers, New Delhi
8.    Kamal K. Misra (Ed.). 2014. Dissent, Discrimination and Dispossession: Tribal Movements in Contemporary India, IGRMS, Bhopal and Manohar Publishers, New Delhi.
9.    K.K. Chakravarty. 2014. Introduction in G.N. Devy, Geoffrey V. Davis & K.K. Chakravarty (Ed.) Knowing Differently: The Challenge of the Indigenous, Routledge. 
10.    Tapas Maity (Ed.). 2016. Jangalmahal Katha, Upatyaka, Medinipur.
11.    Kalyan Kumar Chakravarty. 2019. The Benighted and The Disinherited, 28th Gopinath Mohanty Memorial Lecture, Bhubaneswar, 20th April, 2019, Odisha Sahitya Akademi, Bhubaneswar.