Human Rights, Inhuman Wrongs-Plight of Tribals in Orissa

Plight of Tribals in Orissa Vidhya Das IN the backward reaches of backward and poverty-stricken Orissa, live the communities of tribal people, subsisting off the hill slopes, clutching at crumbs of employment and development thrown at them, trekking for days and miles to go to a market, trudging for leagues and leagues to get medical help, having to die to get into the papers, and slogging to feed the contractors, the landlords, the moneylenders, the politicians, that happy group of vested interests who have deemed it their right to make their living and considerable fortunes out of the land, labour and other resources of the tribal people. And yet these people dance and sing and celebrate their festivals with zeal and mirth, and roam free spirits on their bountiful hills. They own no land, they are called 'sukhavasi' (the carefree), they bear no grudge. They live a life wedded to work, and ask nothing of anybody, knowing that when their capacity for labour is over, so is their life.