Thoughts On Indigenious People
 

I just returned from a 1,530 km long road trip with my sons to beautiful Wayanad in Kerala, India.

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While walking around Wayanad we passed through a tribal settlement and this tribal lady allowed me to take a picture of her along with her kid.

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These indigenous people have been relocated from nearby areas by the government. They have been given a free home and get a free monthly ration. According to the manager of the hotel we were staying at, the tribal men end up working just a couple of days a week doing odd jobs in local businesses and spend the rest of their time relaxing and drinking. It was obvious to me, he didn't like the fact that the government was handing out stuff to them while everyone else had to work hard to make a living and better their standard of life.

But if you look at it closely, the lifestyle of these indigenous people didn't involve working hard, saving money so that they could buy stuff they didn't end up enjoying because they were busy working hard to buy more stuff that they wouldn't be enjoying. They used to live off the land and not think too far out into the future. But now that we have taken over their land, its only fair that we provide them the lifestyle they have been enjoying for centuries and have felt no need to "improve" it.

The beautiful tea garden that we walked through was once a thick jungle and a home to these indigenous people where they lived in harmony with nature. They took just what they needed and gave back enough to continue the cycle. Now that we have cleared their forests and replaced it with plantations for mass producing all kinds of stuff, can we really expect them to break their backs and work hard every day in these plantations?

For what reason?

It's always complicated. Subsidence living is very good when it's going well (the scenario you described) but there is a downside: starving in times of drought,famine, natural disaster, often regular seasons of little or no food, high levels of infant mortality, short life spans and a dozen other negatives. Not saying what is right or wrong but history shows most people have chosen to more to urban environment for the hope of a better life when they've had the opportunity.

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Their forests have been taken over and converted into plantations.

Agree. Personally, I would prefer to work hard, save, invest and improve my life. But that's because I've been born and brought up in a society that thinks that's the right way to live a life. But what if I wasn't born in such a society and a normal life meant something else?

Just wondering, that's all.

To some extent that's why I travel; to see my life and the society I live in through the lens of what decisions others have made and the lifestyles that have come from those decisions. I suppose we naturally tend to think that the world we're brought up in is the standard by which others are "judged" (if you're brought up in the west anyway) but the more I've seen of other cultures and societies the less certain I am of that.

Displaced, separated from their land and severed from their ancestry, they'll be paid off and a culture of dependency will develop. So it goes. Broken Republic by Arundhati Roy is a pretty devastating read into the worlds most unreported civil war between the Indian state and indigenous communities.

Deelip you may be surprised to hear that this very thing has become almost endemic in many areas in the UK today. Not for the same reason of relocation you mention but simply because some people are too lazy and don't think they should work or are too fat to work! Shocking also, the fact many are second or even third generation that continue choosing this lifestyle. Ridetheworld "says a culture of dependency will develop" It certainly has for some here in the UK. We refer to it as western progress :rofl:

I hope the Indian Gov. can strike a good balance and keep things as you have described which appears, "fair" for both sides.

India is a third world nation and is unable to dole out free money to lazy people like how its done in first world nations. I guess the only reason we are doing this to tribals is because their number is very small. If the tribals had a sizable population, their lands would have been taken and they would have been compensated (often inadequately) like how the government does to regular citizens when they want to build a highway or something.

Going to Kerala many years ago changed my outlook on life.

I would have said the vast majority of people in that state have a sense that their position in life is unchangeable and so only work as much as is really necessary. When you are sitting under a coconut tree that provides not only nourishment but many basic products, it's hard to think why you should do more. Are people happy? I've never seen so many smiling faces in India compared to the sour looks on people's faces in hard working London.

In the 1950s Kerala was the first part of the world to democratically elect a communist government and since then power tends to see-saw between communist and other parties.

The tribals are considered the original inhabitants of India. So what the Indian government is doing sounds honourable given that they've confiscated the tribal lands.

By comparison the Europeans did a piss-poor job of looking after the stone age tribes they found when they 'invaded' America and later generations of American-born pioneers engaged in ethnic clearing and other dubious practices.

It is unfortunate (for them) that these indigenous people who were living a pretty simple hunting and gathering live were displaced in order to permit a plantation to be built. At first glance, it appears to us that their life would have been better if they had been left alone.

But, fellow forum member Naval Architect made a very good point when he wrote:

Subsidence living is very good when it's going well (the scenario you described) but there is a downside: starving in times of drought,famine, natural disaster, often regular seasons of little or no food, high levels of infant mortality, short life spans and a dozen other negatives.

A similar situation has played out in Canada, but without the relocation. When European settlers first arrived in Canada many years ago, Canadian aboriginals were living a similar subsistence lifestyle way hell up north on the shores of James Bay - an area so hostile to life in general that no Europeans ever settled within 700 miles of them.

Our government has since provided these aboriginals with housing, food, health care, etc., yet the result has been an unmitigated social disaster, with rampart addiction, dysfunction, suicide, etc... despite the fact that these aboriginals were never relocated and never encroached upon.

I offer no opinion, other than to suggest that 'nothing lasts forever', and that it is unrealistic to hope that any population group can continue to live the same lifestyle in the same place forever. Sooner or later, a point in time will come when it is better off for the group to move. In the case of the Irish during the famine, this was about 1848 or so. In the case of the Canadian aboriginals in Attiwapiskat, this time has since passed.

Here are links to two thoughtful articles about the problems that can arise when indigenous populations are, in fact, left in place with the false hope that they will continue to happily live a subsistence lifestyle. It compares two groups of Canadian aboriginals in the same general area, one of which adapted and joined contemporary society, the other the one that elected to try and continue traditional subsistence living:

'People have to move sometimes': Former Prime Minister Chretien weighs in on Attawapiskat crisis

Why Quebec’s Cree are thriving while misery reigns across James Bay at Attawapiskat

The group in Attiwapiskat may have been fairly content, despite their poverty, prior to the arrival of internet, satellite television, etc. But, now that they can see how the majority of people in contemporary society live, it's pretty clear that the youth of the Attiwapiskat community are not exactly happy with their 'traditional' location and subsistence lifestyle.

Michael

We, mankind, were much better off when we had Aztecs making human sacrifices to the sun gods (or was that the Mayans, or perhaps both?).
Meanwhile, the N American tribes were raping, pillaging and generally putting down the folks in the next village; much the same as in the middle East today.
Then there is Africa.

And don't mention the border Reivers.

Charles Darwin got it right; adapt or die out, the same as every other species on the planet.

Thoughts On Indigenious People
 

The 'scrounges' and third-generation benefit claimants is largely a myth created by the Tory press used to soften the public for their dogmatic austerity measures taken mostly against the poor, children, and disabled people. Go look at the difference between benefit fraud and tax evasion. It's utterly incomparable, less than a drop in the bucket. Thanks to the Panana papers now we have proof that the real evil isn't the benefit fraud but off-shore tax havens and systematic tax evasion.

Thoughts On Indigenious People
 

At least regarding Aztec Societies, human sacrifices was a myth, there is no evidence whatsoever to support it. It is likely a corruption from the way in which it was seen by Aztec warriors as dishonorable to kill your opponent on the field (they would be taken prisoner and executed later on).

All was well in the world of those good old days.
 

That's OK then; I expect the prisoners were very content with that deal.

Just so long as we don't mention the Border Reivers.