Tribal Development in the North Eastern Part of India: Reality and Constrains

Abstract

The idea of “tribes” is particularly complex in the Indian subcontinent, where indigenous/primitive inhabitants were neither eliminated, nor quite absorbed, by the rising civilization in the course of history. It is plain enough that the demography of tribal people cannot loom large in India’s overall demographic scene (the former’s relative size being only a little more than 8%). The ‘practice’ of tribal development started with the British but they never concealed their motive in following the ‘tasks of mercy’. The gravity of situation was well realized at the dawn of independence. In the beginning itself, it was realized that tribals must be ‘integrated’ into the national mainstream—they should neither be assimilated, nor isolated. This paper attempts to investigate Tribal Development in the North Eastern Part of India and try to explain its reality and their constrains. For this the researcher discuss about the concept of tribal development, meaning of Tribal and Development, features of Tribes in the North-East, Barriers or Constrains to Tribal development.

Keywords: North Eastern, Tribal development, Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes

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