Tribal Life of India

By Jaypee Mishra

Put your foot on the land of India and you can feel the difference. The Scorching Heat, the harsh yet soft rain drops, the snow which melts and the golden leaves which fall upon you as you cross the streets. In the midst the of the Himalayas, the mighty Tungbhadra River and the three seas which surround the country, there live the people of India called – The Indians.

Running with the life, changing with the time and adopting with the winds, the people of this country have not changed much. They still value their values and yet walk with the beast of Modern Life. So if the question of – Are there any Tribes Left in the Country comes, one has has to say – No. For all the normal environment, we don't get to see any of the Tribes. The people which we see in the normal day to day life are ones – who speak the same language, wear almost the same clothes and have the same variety of food. So where is the question of Tribes being ALIVE come from? And do they exist. For all those who are in doubt – there are tribes in India. Several of them and covering all the parts of the country.

But to find them, one has to go deep in the forest or places which seem to be lacking of inhabitation. There in the forelone places, you will find the Tribes Of India – living and thriving.

India is a country of tribes. Why so .. for the reason India is made of Villages. And till the day there are Villages in the Country, there are bound to be Tribes. So how many tribes are there. I am not from a Government Department, or else I would have been able to give you an exact count. Roughly saying the tribes make 2 – 3 % of the entire population of India.

Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh are some of the states which comprise of Tribes of India. To mention some of them are the Mundas, Orans, Santhalis, Bodos, Dimasas, Gaddis. They are a part of India. These have been living for generations in the lands of the country called India.

Several research teams from the Government organization, each year do research on these tribes. It is impossible to find the original way of living of these tribes these days. Yet there are tribes, rare of them who still live the way their ancestors lived. To see how they live and what they do, one has to go and live among them with the help of a Guide. For the reason that most of them still speak their own languages and are not very familiar with Hindi or English language. Like the Bodo Tribe, they speak Tibeto – Burmese language, Mundas speak Mundese language. Living in the aboriginal forms, these are still able to sustain their lives with the help of the Government. However there are other tribes which have changed with the time – keeping some of their ancestral values and adapting some of the new ones. Hmars, Dimasa and the Orans are some of them.

To be able to live and survive in the coming age, these tribes have taken to odd – jobs for survival – making shoes, doing fishing, making shafts and so on. These jobs make there survival seemingly good , still the survival seems blurred. Still there lies the danger of slow extinction - these tribes need to be protected by us all.