Catalysts but Not Magicians: Role of NGOs in the Tribal Development

Abstract

The territories inhabited by the tribal communities of India often attract a wide variety of external agents and agencies for variety of reasons. One very important segment of such agencies often cites development and transformation of tribal communities as the prime objective. The "official" category is the agency of planned change, and its responsibility is to work in accordance with the profile of the job or institution. Besides this, there is another important category, "social worker," whose presence is voluntary, at least in theory. The dominant section of the later is popular as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). In recent years, efforts are made to bring together the activities of government and NGOs to maximize the benefit to tribal communities and to speed up the process of social and economic transformation. The idea of government organization and nongovernmental organization (GO-NGO) partnership gained momentum. The results of these partnerships proved positive when compared with the programs implemented by the government organization alone. Several NGOs are successful because they train local youth as resource persons according to the needs of development initiatives. However, it is not necessary that every development activity implemented by them would be successful. In this context, the article examines the role of NGOs in the process of tribal development by analyzing their activities and the results.

International Organizations, Institutions and the Indigenous people

“…Gawas (2017) scrutinized the fifth schedule of the Indian constitution in Goa in the areas of land alienation, money lending, displacement, and industrial development projects which adversely affected tribes of Goa and failed to commit proper achievements. Thamminaina (2018) explained the activities of NGO in comparison with governmental programme of tribal development. The author felt that the NGO can act as a bridge between government agencies and the people by playing an active advocacy role which can implement the projects successfully and produce better results.…”

Institutional support for tribal farmer interest groups in Erode district of Tamil Nadu, India

“…Thus it would also lead to build group cohesion and solidarity, which encourage mutual support. Many Governments and Non Governmental Organizations (NGO) had tried to organize farmers into groups and put together them into the advancement process by actively involving them in production, transfer of technology, planning, marketing, implementing and monitoring different developmental projects on agriculture rural development (Thamminaina, 2018). Tamilnadu Tribes are maintaining their own way of life and they were settled mostly in heavily forested area.…”

“Development” definitions of internally displaced people and the government: A study of the Chenchu tribe in the Nallamala forest of southern India

“…Later, the Indian Forest Act of 1927 provided some privileges to the tribal people to collect firewood, timbers for household construction, and forest products for handicrafts, quarry stone, hunting, and fishing, and also petty jobs at the Forest Department (Mahapatra, 2002). In 1975, the Indian government recognized the Chenchu tribe as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) due to its low economic and literacy levels and isolated living in the forest (Thamminaina, 2018).…”