what you may do to add more to the lives of the tribals
Answers
Explanation:
This is the ‘trade’ that has been enacted countless times week after week by these two and their forebears for over a century now. There are an estimated five crore Sukhmatis in tribal India, who gather nearly a hundred types of forest produces whose value aggregates to a whopping Rs 2 lakh crore a year. The produce that begin their journey in the nondescript backyards and farmsteads of Sukhmatis, are raw materials for myriad industries: food, beauty-care products, drugs and pharmaceuticals in and outside of India. The produces return processed and packaged as chocolates, spices, home-care, beauty-care and health-care products, and much more.
This is the curious story of forest produces that are available largely in tribal-dominant pockets. Many urbanites may be aware of, in different degrees, the trade-cycle of forest produces. What they are not aware of is the gross inequity that characterizes this trade cycle. The tribal gatherer, who under law is the ‘owner’ of these produces, receives barely 20 per cent of the last-point sale price of the raw produce; the bulk part gets cornered by a chain of middlemen. At the cutting edge, the first point of sale in the weekly market, the buyer is often a predator, whose credentials are his cunning skills in under-valuing, under-weighing and deliberate under-computation of the exchange payable.
It is a fact widely acknowledged that forests in India have survived mostly in areas that have a high percentage of tribals. This is largely because the tribals traditionally have had an interest in forest conservation and development. Their economy, culture, and every other aspect of life is closely related to forests. They have a symbiotic relationship with forests: the survival of one depends on the survival of the other. Over generations, they have built an enormous traditional knowledge base regarding forests and forest produces.
After 1927, when the Forest Act was enacted, the State adopted a timber-centric, commercial approach towards forest development. Timber, especially high-value timber like teak, found focus. The various ‘crops’ of the forests (the non-timber products) were dismissively clubbed as ‘Minor Forest Produces’ (MFP). The fact is that the tribals’ dependence on forests was chiefly for these MFPs; to them timber was secondary. It was precisely for this primacy of MFP that they were nurturing the trees. However, tribals were overlooked. Their voice went unheard.
The State’s interest being supreme, the mixed forests were systematically replaced by high-value timber plantations. The tribals’ protests were disregarded because they were viewed as ‘encroachers’ and as axemen who posed a threat to forest development. This thinking had disastrous consequences. The forests became places of civil unrest and collective angst. This was conducive to left-wing extremism.
Government after much thought, which took a rather long time, brought the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006. Earlier, Provisions of Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 conferred ownership rights on tribal Gram Sabhas in respect of MFP found in their area. In 2014, the Scheme of MSP for MFP was introduced.