Vanishing tribal ethos

Aug 06, 2023

[ M Panging Pao ]

World over, many people consider tribal lifestyle as nearest to living in consonance with nature. Most tribal people lived in harmony with nature and understood that nature should be preserved and conserved since nature provided food, water, firewood, medicines, clean environment for humans to live a comfortable life. Traditionally, tribal people procured food as per body requirements and not as per greed. Wood and bamboo were required to make houses, firewood and thus were planted and preserved. Fowls, ducks, goats, pigs were domestically reared for protein requirements through meat. Occasionally community hunting was conducted by villages during festivals. Tribal people resorted to fishing with traditional equipment to catch fish. In fact, prayers were offered to the divine before cutting big trees and before slaughtering animals. Another aspect is that most tribal people do not go hungry as they have learnt to live off nature. Most tribal people know numerous natural plants, roots, fruits which are edible and easily available in the surroundings.

The advent of civilization, development and modern equipment is transforming this paradigm of sustainable living towards wanton destruction of forests, animals and birds. Availability of accurate automatic weapons led to slaughter of animals and birds. Armed with automatic weapons, hunters ride four wheel drive vehicles with searchlights and slaughtered hundreds of animals. People go hunting almost every day just for fun. Similarly, greedy tribal people started mass killing of fish by using bombs, applying electric current through generators/invertors, poisoning of rivers etc. Easy availability of airguns led to extermination of many birds and small animals.

And the easy availability of portable hand saw machines led to rampant deforestation. Even trees which were of lesser value were felled and sold in the markets for other states. Massive deforestation ultimately led to global warming, extreme weather and massive river erosion wherein thousands of hectares of fertile land were lost. Deforestation also led to extinction/ migration of many species of insects and birds which helped in cross pollination, markers for season change etc.

This transformation from mutual co-existence with nature towards wanton destruction of forests and forest based products are endangering the way of life of local natives. Tribal ethos of living in consonance with nature is slowly dying and the next generation may never see and understand these simple but lofty traditions.

What has led to this perilous transformation from mutual co-existence with nature towards wanton destruction of forests, animals and birds? What has gone wrong with tribal societies? It appears that the wisdom of our society elders, leaders, grandparents, parents have failed in preservation of this key tradition of mutual co-existence with nature!

These key conservation issues need to be discussed and taken up by community/village leaders, intellectuals and the government. With the advent of civilisation and associated lifestyle changes, it appears that citizens want to gobble up everything! Can we say we are killing just for gluttony? Need has been replaced by greed. Do you agree? (The contributor is retired Group Captain, Indian Air Force)