Tribes and Tribal Communities of Odisha: Culture, Society and Development Issues
This domain tests knowledge of Odisha's tribal communities and the social and policy issues affecting them. Odisha has 62 Scheduled Tribe communities, including 13 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups, and tribes form a substantial share of the state's population. The exam expects specific communities, cultural features, and development debates rather than stereotypes.
Core concepts
- Major communities include Kondh, Gond, Santal, Oraon, Munda, Saora, Bonda, Juang, Koya, and Paroja. They differ in language, kinship, economy, and ritual.
- Many practice clan exogamy and village-level councils. Livelihoods include shifting cultivation (podu), terraced farming, forest produce, and wage labor. The Dongria Kondh are known for terraced horticulture in the Niyamgiri hills.
- Development issues include land alienation, displacement by mining and dams, forest rights, and inadequate health and education services.
- Legal and administrative measures include PESA 1996, the Forest Rights Act 2006, ITDAs, MADA clusters, micro-projects, and PVTG conservation plans.
Worked example
A mining proposal affects a Dongria Kondh area. An anthropological reading notes that the hills are not just land but a ritual and livelihood landscape. The community's gram sabha claims rights under PESA and FRA, and free, prior, and informed consent becomes central. The reasoning connects culture, land tenure, and law rather than treating development as only an economic calculation.
Traps
Do not treat tribes as homogeneous or isolated. Tribe is not caste, and all tribal people are not shifting cultivators. Matrilineal or women-centered customs do not automatically mean matriarchy. Development is not automatically opposed to tribal interests, but displacement and consent must be analyzed.