1.
TRIBAL POPULATION
AND THEIR RIGHTS IN
INDIA
RASHI GUPTA – 19CSU241

2.
WHAT IS
TRIBAL
POPULATION
?
• Tribal population have some specific characteristics which are different
from others tribes. They are simple people with unique customs,
traditions and practices. They lived a life of isolation or you can say that
geographical isolation.
• India is known as a Melting pot of tribes and races. After Africa India has
the second largest concentration of tribal population within the world.
Approximately there are about 698 Scheduled Tribes that constitute 8.5%
of the India’s population as 2018 censes. In India aboriginal tribes have
lived for 1000 of years in forests and hilly areas without any
communication with various centers of civilization.
20XX

3.
WHAT
PROBLEMS
DO TRIBAL
POPULATIO
N FACE?

4.
GEOGRAPHICAL
SEPARATION
The culture of the Tribal communities is entirely different from the mainstream or civilized society. The customs, practices and
traditions followed by the civilised people are not understood by the tribal people and they become suspicious of the civilised
people. Different religions are trying to influence these tribal people by their religion and this is being done from the Bri tish colonial
period. Some foreign Christian missionaries in British rule attempted to proliferate their religion in some of the Tribal are as.
Literacy rate among tribes is 58.96% (2011 census). Literacy rate among tribals is very low as they so not have access to
education. Tribal people live in really remote areas with low levels of development which lack in educational infrastructure.
Though tribal literacy rate in Mizoram is 82.71 per cent and in Nagaland, Sikkim and Kerala it is between 57 per cent and 61 per
cent, lack of literacy among tribal people has been identified as a major development problem
EDUCATIONAL PROBLEMS

5.
CULTURAL PROBLEMS
The tribes are of special concern in Indian society in view of their general economic backwardness, low technological development
and complex problems of socio-cultural adjustment to distinctive cultural identity. Most of the tribal people living in India are
geographically separated from the rest of the population. This kind of social as well as physical separation or seclusion has
declined the tribal development.
Rights of tribals over forests is an inalienable and irrefutable historical fact. In Attappady, Kerala alone, over 10,796.19 acres land
had been alienated from tribes between 1960 and 1980. Often law declares these unregistered lands as national parks,
sanctuaries or reserved forests. In some forests the tribal people are not given access to forest produce and grazing of cattle is
rendered illegal by the Government.
LAND ALIENATION

6.
ECONOMIC PROBLEMS
The tribal people are economically one of the most backward communities in the country. According to the reports of Lakdawala
committee and Tendulkar committee for the year 2004-2005 27.5% and 37.2% of scheduled tribes population respectively comes
under below poverty line. These people are often exploited at the hands of outsiders, landlords and money lenders due to their
innocence and illiteracy. The tribes have been involved in the agriculture of the crudest type since ages.
Health and sanitation is a huge problem for tribal people because of illiteracy and ignorance and they are not ready to welcome
the modern concepts of health and sanitation. Blood borne diseases like Hepatitis B virus infection is likely to be high in the
tribal. This together with alcoholism may result in increased number of chronic active hepatitis and cirrhosis of liver cases.
HEALTH AND SANITATION PROBLEMS

7.
RIGHTS OF
TRIBALS AND
INDIGENOUS
PEOPLE IN
INDIA

8.
EDUCATIONAL & CULTURAL
SAFEGUARDS
• Art. 15(4): Special provisions for advancement of other backward classes (it includes STs
• Art. 29: Protection of Interests of Minorities (it includes STs)
• Art. 46:The State shall promote, with special care, the educational and economic interests of the
weaker sections of the people, and in particular, of the Scheduled Castes, and the Scheduled
Tribes, and shall protect them from social injustice and all forms of exploitation,�
• Art. 350: Right to conserve distinct Language, Script or Culture;
• Art. 350: Instruction in Mother Tongue.
SOCIAL SAFEGUARD
Basic Safeguards Provided In Indian
Constitution
• Art. 23: Prohibition of traffic in human beings and beggar and other similar form of forced labour;
• Art. 24: Forbidding Child Labour.

9.
ECONOMIC SAFEGUARDS
• Art.244: Clause(1) Provisions of Fifth Schedule shall apply to the administration & control of the
Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes in any State other than the states of Assam, Meghalaya,
Mizoram and Tripura which are covered under Sixth Schedule, under Clause (2) of this Article.
• Art. 275: Grants in-Aid to specified States (STs&SAs) covered under Fifth and Sixth Schedules of
the Constitution.
POLITICAL SAFEGUARDS
Basic Safeguards Provided In Indian
Constitution
• Art.164(1): Provides for Tribal Affairs Ministers in Bihar, MP and Orissa;
• Art. 330: Reservation of seats for STs in Lok Sabha;
• Art. 337: Reservation of seats for STs in State Legislatures;
• Art. 334: 10 years period for reservation (Amended several times to extend the period.);
• Art. 243: Reservation of seats in Panchayats.
• Art. 371: Special provisions in respect of NE States and Sikkim

10.
ART.19(5) SAFEGUARD OF TRIBAL
INTERESTS
• While the rights of free movement and residence throughout the territory of India and of acquisition
and disposition of property are guaranteed to every citizen, special restrictions may be imposed by
the state for the protection of the interests of any Scheduled Tribe.
• (For example, state may impose restrictions on owning property by Non Tribals in tribal areas.)
ART.23 HUMAN TRAFFICKING
Basic Safeguards Provided In Indian
Constitution
ART.29 CULTURAL AND EDUCATIONAL
RIGHTS
• Traffic in human beings, beggar and other similar forms of forced labor are prohibited. This is a
very significant provision so far as Scheduled Tribes are concerned.
• According to this article a cultural or linguistic minority has right to conserve its language or
culture. The state shall not impose upon it any culture other than the community's own culture.

11.
FORESTS RIGHTS ACT 2006
The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of
Forest Rights) Act, 2006 is a result of the protracted struggle by the marginal
and tribal communities of our country to assert their rights over the forestland
over which they were traditionally dependent. This Act is crucial to the rights of
millions of tribals and other forest dwellers in different parts of our country as it
provides for the restitution of deprived forest rights across India, including both
individual rights to cultivated land in forestland and community rights over
common property resources.
The law concerns the rights of forest-dwelling communities to land and other
resources, denied to them over decades as a result of the continuance of
colonial forest laws in India.

12.
FORESTS RIGHTS ACT 2006
Types of rights under the act are:
1.Right to hold and live in the forest land under the individual or common occupation for habitation or
for self-cultivation for livelihood by a member or members of a forest dwelling Scheduled Tribe or other
traditional forest dwellers;
2.The right of ownership, access to collect, use, and dispose of minor forest produce( includes all
non-timber forest produce of plant origin) which has been traditionally collected within or outside village
boundaries;
3.Other community rights of uses of entitlements such as fish and other products of water bodies, grazing
(both settled or transhumant) and traditional seasonal resource access of nomadic or pastoralist
communities;
4.Rights including community tenures of habitat and habitation for primitive tribal groups and pre-
agriculture communities;
5.Rights in or over disputed lands under any nomenclature in any State where claims are disputed;
6.Rights for conversion of Pattas or leases or grants issued by any local council or any State Govt. on
forest lands to titles;
7.Rights of settlement and conversion of all forest villages, old habitation, unsurveyed villages and
other villages in forest, whether recorded, notified or not into revenue villages;

13.
FORESTS RIGHTS ACT 2006
Types of rights under the act are :
1.Right to protect, regenerate or conserve or manage any community forest
resource which they have been traditionally protecting and conserving for sustainable use;
2.Rights which are recognized under any State law or laws of any Autonomous
Dist. Council or Autonomous Regional Council, or which are accepted as rights of tribals
under any traditional or customary law of the concerned tribes of any State;
3.Right of access to biodiversity and community right to intellectual property and
traditional knowledge related to biodiversity and cultural diversity;
4.Any other traditional right customarily enjoyed by the forest dwelling Scheduled Tribes or
other traditional forest dwellers, as the case may be, which are not mentioned in clauses-1 to
11 but excluding the traditional right of hunting or trapping extracting a part of the body of any
species of wild animal.
Eligibility criteria :
• Eligibility to get rights under the Act is confined to those who “primarily reside in forests”
and who depend on forests and forest land for a livelihood.
• Further, either the claimant must be a member of the Scheduled Tribes scheduled in that
area or must have been residing in the forest for 75 years.

14.
THANK YOU