Tribals in India: A Challenge to Theology

After studying the same set of Indian tribals twice, the first time in the 1940s and again three decades later, the Aus­trian anthropologist Haimendorf1 was stunned by the difference thirty years had made to them. During the first study these communities were self-reliant, their economic status was better than that of many of their Hindu neighbours, and women among them enjoyed more freedom than their high caste counter­ parts did. But by the 1970s, they required poverty alleviation programmes. So the scholar asks: “Why do these communities that were se lf- reliant till recently need poverty alleviation programmes today? Why have women among them suffered more than the rest?” The theologian will then be a partner with the tribals and other marginalised communities in the search for a pattern of development that com­ bines industrial development with a social infrastructure. The categories which have till now been excluded from the benefits of development have to be given priority in the form o f education, health, nutrition and other inputs that can help them to encounter other groups as equals and not as suppliers of cheap raw material and labour as they are to­ day. The livelihood of the tribals and their value system can be the starting point in this common search