Origin and Identity of Tribal Women in Tamil Nadu

Abstract

Traditional the tribal have depended on the word of mouth and legitimacy by the community. Similarly in contrast to the formal litigation based system, truth in their culture was unambiguous. They have developed settled agriculture and did not depend exclusively on such common property resources got around 50% of their food from forest. It also met their other needs like fodder, medicinal herbs and fertilizers. They too got legitimacy from the community. As such, their system is in sharp contrast to the individual based culture of the formal society. The first contradiction arises from that the individual and the written word are the basis of its legitimacy. The tribal regions, being administratively neglect, had neither the physical nor social infrastructure was developed adequately, consequently, literacy is low among the trials. Against the national literacy average of more than 50% among tribal man it is below 30% and among women around 15% as such, a written ownership documents rarity. The administrative apparatus is controlled by the traditionally powerful classes and powerless trials are denied access to it. Besides, much of their economy had depended on the barter system till a generation or two ago. Monetary economy is recent phenomenon. Though more than two thirds of the trials depend on forests for an important part of their livelihood, forest management in India is state centered. In this framework, the process of development has come to be equated with the channelizing of an ever more intense volume of resources, through the intervention of the state apparatus and at the cost of the state exchanger, to sub serve interests of the urban and rural elite, as a results, state subsidies have become a central element of the development process in independent India. Thus they deprived of their basic needs, the trial’s feel into hands of the merchants and money lenders who accompanied the industrial agent. Slowly their land was alienated to the money lender and some of them became bonded laborers.

For centuries together the human grew to become what he/she is now. It is a great achievement. We have a complex system of scientific and technological improvement at our disposal. These discoveries have simplified the entire life of human beings. A vast change can be seen between the lives of the nomadic Pre-historic man and the civilized and culture human of today. One may think that prehistory is a myth and a set of conjectured stories. Today we can find a human with Pre-historic semblance. It is not a hard task to find such human beings, today. The hills tribe who are scattered in countries all over the world more or less resemble the Pre-historic human beings. It at all there are differences between these two groups it is this that the present day hill tribes have a language, established customs and traditions and better livelihood than the Pre-historic human. But their improvements are not quite satisfactory. When compared to the civilized human of today, the trials are for backward. They are yet to shed some of their age-old customs and manners which make them akin to the Pre-historic people.