‘Commission for tribals should look at challenges, reservation’

MYSURU: A large number of reservation posts remain vacant for many years, and it is neither good for institutions nor the people aspiring for those posts, said V V Bhat, former secretary to the government of India.
Inaugurating the national seminar on ‘Tribal Development in Contemporary India: Issues and Challenges’ organized by the Department of Studies in Anthropology at the EMRC Auditorium at Manasagangotri campus here on Tuesday, he said, “Why is the National Commission for STs not able to study the phenomenon and come up with suggestions for amendments to procedures which will help the government introduce changes. The commission has a much larger responsibility of bringing in suggestions to make the system of reservation work better. The lawyers, constitution experts and practitioners of anthropology should come together to address these issues in an inter-disciplinary way. People cannot blame it on the inefficiency of the government or institutions.”

He also mentioned that inputs from academic, research and actual research are required for policy making by the government.

Bhat also mentioned that many developmental schemes of the government are not in tune with local requirements across the country, as they suffer from standardization and stereotyping. “We need appropriate development programmes tested by anthropology research at the field level or at the level of the state government,” added Bhat.

University of Mysore vice-chancellor C Basavaraju said, “There are so many personalities in the university system who never like to shoulder the responsibility of the university, rather they would like to go away at the end of the their tenure. When every teacher and non-teaching staff shoulders the responsibility of building the university, the university can be improved not only physically but also intellectually and academically. Universities are places where real knowledge flows to society… In this line, the department of anthropology is doing a good job.”

“Even after 70 years of Independence and 67 years of enforcement of the Constitution, we are discussing the problems of tribals; by this time, many of the problems affecting tribals should have been resolved. In spite of the introduction of elementary education, a large number of tribal children, especially girls, continue to be out of school. Most of the tribals are deprived of basic elementary education. The perennial problem of tribals is geographical separation. It is unfortunate that they have to live outside the mainstream. They are the people responsible for conservation and protection of natural resources, while the rest of the population devastates natural resources. They have become victims of superstition beliefs, and we need to make them aware, and enlighten them about the adverse effects of superstitions. If the conditions of tribals are improved, the economy of the state will also improve,” added Basavaraju. RK Mutatkar delivered the keynote address.