Indigenous peoples resilience and their dress rehearsal

–Monikangkan Barooah |

The Indigenous tribes of Baigha of Madhya Pradesh and Dongria Konds of Odisa has won over their age old struggle over their land have established the first ever indigenous rights. The Baiga community is one of the 75 particularly vulnerable tribal groups, has been granted the habitat rights under the Forest Rights Act (FRA) on the basis of a gazette notification, issued by the British Government, dating back to 1890 provided the basis for giving habitat rights to the Baigas.  On the other hand, A three-judge bench, headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi, of the Supreme Court on 6th May, 2016, rejected Odisha government-owned miner, Odisha Mining Corporation (OMC)’s petition for mining rights in the Niyamgiri hills, in the sacred hills of the primitive tribe, the Dongria Kondhs. The judgement is a decisive victory for the Dongria Kondhs who have been opposing mining right from the beginning in the Niyamgiri hills.

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The resilience of the indigenous people over their adversaries has been tested over time, be it on environment, agriculture, their traditional knowledge and now on their right over their land. The traditional knowledge of the Adi community in Arunachal Pradesh recognises nine different types of soil based on their texture, fertility, colour etc. and grows eighteen varieties of Rice and around thirty five different vegetables. The villagers also keep a stock of smoke-dried meat and fish for lean periods which can be consumed in addition to fresh meat from sacrifices of domestic animals during festivals.

The Samis, Europe’s only recognised indigenous people, inhabits in the northern areas of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia, have been herding reindeer in the frozen landscapes since the Ice age. Reindeer herding is vital to the Sami Tribe’s culture and the traditional knowledge, methods of land and resource management have proved their resilience to adapt to the rapid climatic changes over a thousands of years.

The changing climate and landscape has forced the indigenous Inuit of Canada, Greenland and Alaska, to alter their hunting and harvesting time. Loss of sea ice and threat to the existence of species like polar bears, seals and marine birds that they rely on sea ice as habitat are a worry for the indigenous Inuit people. The arctic ecosystems are uniquely related to the livelihood of Inuit culture. It is for the interests of the Inuit the Arctic ecosystems are balanced and any adverse steps would result in breaking the resilience of the indigenous Inuit people.

Indigenous peoples across the world play a unique and valuable role in managing a sizable share of around eighty percents of world’s biodiversity and thus safeguarding nature is a fundamental part of their livelihood. Accordingly the environmental outcomes have been found to be far better in the areas collectively controlled by indigenous peoples. For instance, in the Brazilian Amazon, the rate of deforestation in indigenous peoples’ territories is less than ten percent in comparison to the rates throughout the rest of the region.

It is pertinent that human health and their relationship with nature are inevitably intertwined. This holds true across many dimensions of health, including the potential for the transmission of germs as a Pandemic. The scientific community is in unison that so far the exact origins of the covid-19 have not been traced and confirmed, but there are indigenous peoples group who have been worrying  about the threat of an epidemic. It is their traditional knowledge and relationship with the nature that they have experienced with and have long been known that the degradation of the environment has the potential to give a free rein to the disease. It is the experience, their observation and behaviour that evolved their resilience to fight a pandemic. In a pandemic, the use of local resources signifies the much needed importance of the communities continuing their practices as they have been doing for ages.

Amidst the COVID-19 outbreak, indigenous peoples are facing threats of encroachment of their traditional territories in the name of development. They may have resilience to fight a disease and other unforeseen challenges but to fight an organised, globalised means are beyond their understandings and knowledge. It would be pertinent that the regimes do not force indigenous communities to turn their back on traditional systems of agriculture and natural resource management techniques, which enhanced their resilience to adapt and survive for ages. As we fight the spread of the pandemic, it is more important than ever to safeguard these peoples and their knowledge. At this crucial point of trajectory, the world needs the traditional knowledge, wisdom and resilience of indigenous people.

The COVID-19 pandemic shows that the world needs to strategise the way they engage with the present environment ecosystem. The untenable agricultural practices such as encroaching on forests and other sources of biodiversity are precisely what have brought the organised and thickly populated human habitat into closer contact with the germs that triggers a pandemic. Indigenous peoples have long warned of the consequences of exactly of these kinds of practices. The traditional lifestyle of the Indigenous people is a source of their resiliency and the advanced colonised human habitats has much to learn to cope up such menace.

The livelihood of indigenous people like the Adi tribe in Arunachal Pradesh and the Sami and Inuit of Canada, Alaska etc. have taught us much about how to reorient our relationship with the nature and reduce the risk of future pandemics. But the harsh reality is that they have to face a host of challenges from a unified and yet modern globalised world. In some places, the pandemic is even contributing to violations of Indigenous peoples rights to land and territories. The Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification, 2020 has been introduced recently, here in India to do away with consents of the inhabitants to grab their land in the name of development. In Assam, the catastrophe of Baghjan blowout amidst the pandemic and lockdown along with the perennial flood has devastated the environment and its ecosystem. As the north-eastern states are located in high-seismic zone-5 area, the proposed EIA 2020 notification gives undue importance to the building and construction industry as well as construction of Big dams, which will no longer require appraisals from the expert panels of the environment industry and thereby attracts more damage to the indigenous people than its benefits. As a strategy the oppressive regime exercises control is by dramatising a population’s powerlessness by subjecting it to daily indignities. To inflict indignity on indigenous peoples now seems to be the Government’s strategy.

Even though the right of self determination of the indigenous peoples is recognised worldwide, the UN declarations are not legally binding to all the member nations. However the right of self determination of the indigenous peoples over their land and resources is in the process of attaining the status of jus cogens and thereby the rights would be protected by the international community.

The pandemic is less a transient, an accidental disruptor after which the world will return to a new normals than it is dress rehearsal for challenges to face for the indigenous people. History is accelerating, and the leaders, values, institutions and ideas that guide society are going o be tested severely by the struggles ahead. The battle of Baiga and Dongria Konds may have won but the resilience of the indigenous people from the onslaught of the uniformed and globalised world is yet to be tested.