Paper short abstract:

In this article we discuss the predicaments of Indian tribespeople/Adivasi in terms of their struggle for self-rule. The other issue is survival issue and protection of livelihood practices. Tribespeople in north-eastern India have a variety of agro-ecosystems , managed through low-intensity management to middle-intensity management systems. Shifting agriculture, home gardens, valley land wet rice cultivation, rotational fallow and the traditional horticulture and cash crop farming systems, contribute to rich crop biodiversity where a variety of species and cultivars are handled and conserved by the tribes of the region. There is need to elucidate scientifically the conservation-related traditions, linking such traditions to livelihoods that can survive the onslaught of modernization

Paper long abstract:

A review of literature shows that much of intellectual energy is wasted in searching definition of the 'tribe' concept in anthropology. In recent decade transnational concerns over indigenous people, indigenous rights and indigenous development has re-ignited indigeneity debate. This article analyses these debates in the context of the anthropology and its contemporary advances, with support of a few case studies. Today the most important resistance to neoliberal capitalism has emerged around land struggles, wherein tribes are facing dispossession. As anthropologists the concern should be to judge the pragmatism of the customary laws, their federal support base as also to grapple with the ways that law defines the social environment through legal categories. Need also is to see the decriminalize categories / legal knowledge regimes, including confrontation within 'legal-pluralism'. Tribespeople in north-eastern India have a variety of agro-ecosystems , managed through low-intensity management to middle-intensity management systems. Shifting agriculture, home gardens, valley land wet rice cultivation, rotational fallow and the traditional horticulture and cash crop farming systems, contribute to rich crop biodiversity where a variety of species and cultivars are handled and conserved by the tribes of the region. There is need to elucidate scientifically the conservation-related traditions, linking such traditions to livelihoods that can survive the onslaught of modernization.

Paper short abstract:

The paper based upon empirical data from the Baiga, a Primitve Tribal Group, inhabiting an area exploited by mining, outlines the ground realities responsible for the creation of a situation threatening the very survival of the community.

Paper long abstract:

Mining, in the vicinity of their habitats, has come to pose a big threat to life and the livelihood of people in most parts of India. The affected people are often helpless to face the miner- administration - politician network. On the backdrop of such a situation, an in-situ study has been conducted along the Chattishgarh -Madhya Pradesh border, a scheduled area, inhabited by the Gond, the Baiga, the Panika and the Kisan communities.

The field data, from the Baiga tribe, a Vulnerable Primitive Tribal Group of the area, tracks down the modus operandi in short circuiting the rights of the tribal communities, over their forest, land and other community resources. The study points out that in spite of the TAC (Tribal Advisory Council), and the PESA, massive mining in and around its habitat, has been continuously depleting the fuel, fodder and number of other life supporting minor forest produces; and threatening the very survival of the tribe.

Paper short abstract:

This paper is going to focus on Indigenous People and notion of Nation State in respect to northern West Bengal, India.

Paper long abstract:

This paper is going to focus on Indigenous People and notion of Nation State in respect to northern West Bengal, India. Unity in diversity is key theme of India and Nation States still exist in form of State within State but in cognition and pro-Indian forms.

Traditionally, globe is divided into Magical, Buddhist and post-Buddhist world. Innovations occurred during pre-Aryan, Aryan and post-Aryan realms. Agrarian India is more prone to caste, caste-like institutions, agriculture oriented religions, trade-based religions, syncretism and self-sufficient villages.

Little republics, Urban Centers and Indigenous Statehoods are not unlikely in South Asia. On the basis of transnational trade routes, indigenous Statehoods took their shapes. India, however, has mostly accepted the cognate of Shahi and its close ties with Iran and Eurasia. Shahi believes in unification of South Asia in various ways. Commonwealth incorporates India as an important member.

Transnational trade route from Sino-Tibet, Sikkim-Bhutan Himalayas, North Bengal and North East India and Bangladesh to Bay of Bengal as well as river ways there core of emergence of so many indigenous statehoods locally. They, earlier or later, accepted unification with India. Kamtapur and Koch Bihar in the vicinity of Torsa or Amu Chu tributary of Brahmaputra-Jamuna River mouth in Indo-Bangladesh were exclusive during the Turk-Afghan, Mogul-Rajput and British India.

In this high time of globalization, notions towards these indigenous statehoods formulated by Rajbanshi social fold incorporating so many castes and tribes have revived. Nation States still exist in local cognition and are influenced state policies.

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Paper short abstract:

The paper unpacks the imagery of the Russian state as being in moral debt to its people. It explores the case of allegedly Russian people claiming indigenous status within the Russian Federation. Through these claims, Pomors hope to receive benefits in fishing and other subsistence activities.

Paper long abstract:

The liberalisation of the political regime in post-Soviet Russia has led to the rise of new ethnic identities. All-Russian census of 2002 revealed that 6,581 people in the Russian Federation stated their nationality as Pomor. The name Pomors has been traditionally applied to Russian people living in the White Sea and Barents Sea coastal area.

The unique nature of Pomor identity movement lies in the fact that while the Russian state has repeatedly referred to Pomors as quintessence of Russian people, to pursue its political agenda in different historical periods, Pomors today claim their status of a small-numbered indigenous people within the Russian Federation. One of the arguments people give to justify the idea that the state should grant Pomors such a status is that it is thanks to Pomors that Russia owns Arctic territories nowadays, as they were the people who moved to northern margins of Russia and endured severe conditions for hundreds of years.

Pomor identity movement is an outcome of uneasy relations between the state and people in the wake of the demise of the Soviet Union. Infrastructure and social services significantly deteriorated in the area during the post-Soviet period, prompting people to refer to the state as having left them to survive on their own. The proposed paper will unpack the imagery of the state as being in debt to its people. It will explore claims that allegedly Russian people make to the Russian state in order to make it fulfill its moral obligations towards them.