Criminalisation of tribes have been normalised: Ruchira Gupta

­Thiruvananthapuram: The tribal community of India have been marginalised and it has now become a normal practice criminalising them, said activist and journalist Ruchira Gupta.

 

She was talking at the session 'The great dispossession: Indian tribal identity and their unacknowledged war' as part of the Mathrubhumi International Festival of Letters organised at the Kanakakkunnu Palace in Thiruvananthapuram.

 

Cartoonist and film director KP Sasi, who was also the moderator of the session, said that Adivasis are a group of people who are the real owners of land especially forest areas and it is we the modern people that invaded them. Disparaging the tribes started back in history at the times of Ashoka. Adivasi massacre was a common term in those times and even now it continues, he added.

 

Ruchira further added that the British exploited the tribal people stealing everything from them and replacing their rights in manufacturing of indegenouis medicines, bamboo industry and many other areas. 

 

"Even the police and government are interested in sidelining the tribal community," she said citing a tweet by Kiran Bedi calling the tribal people as habitual offenders. "They themselves have forgotten that they are actually equal to other people".

 

Sharankumar Limbale, Marathi language author, poet and literary critic said that it is hightime that we accept them and stop keeping them away from the mainstream. Talking about how an untouchable soldier, Matadin Bhangi, opened the eyes of Mangal Pandey igniting the first spark of the Indian Independence, he said that Harijans or Dalits are the people of God. 

Concluding the session he urged that the Indian Constitution and the mindset of the people need to be modified for the betterment of the tribes.