Edunology - Saumya Aggarwal

Forgotten tribes in India: Light to recovery

Post attending TedxGateway Mumbai last December, see post here, wish to dig deeper into issues brought by Mittal Patel (speaker at Tedx).

Mittal Patel, has been working for Nomadic tribes of Gujarat, which has now taken a shape of Vicharata Samudaay Samarthan Manch (VSSM). VSSM focuses on education, livelihood housing, works in several districts of Gujarat which is always in limelight due to good works by currently best available Chief Minister in India Mr. Narendra Modi. Her video can be seen here.

Various de-notified tribes are spread across India waiting for recognizition from Government agencies. These tribes are spread across India and follow different religion, customs, beliefs, languages and occupations. One such tribe is nomadic, spread across Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Gujarat. It is believed that in Gujarat alone nomadic tribes number cross whopping 4 million which approximates to population of Singapore. Nomadic tribes are not recognized even by local village authorities. They are forced to reside outside main village boundaries without basic ammenties like road, electricity, water, school, hospital and proper shelter. Women are forced to prostitution here y default to earn bread. Community can't even obtain voter id cards (necessary for voting in democratic India) and ration cards (necessary for subsidized government food scheme). In all, they are non existent on this earth. Due to this, they are unable to participate in government rural guarantee work schemes like NREGA.

Mittal Patel, popularly known as Mittal Ben in Gujarat has been successful in garning Government attention for nomadic tribe's issues. VSSM has been conducting field surveys and already submitted details of thousands of people to state election officer. Survey is one part, verification and stamp of local village authorities makes the process complicated. However, more than 10,000 people got voter id card getting recognizition for the first time in history due to her efforts. Gujarat government passed a resolution to give nomadic tribes land rights and allocated over 500 plots bringing much cheer to these people.

Well, work is far from done. It requires human hands and finances to take it to scale. Request readers to contribute to such social causes, I personally believe that they need our voice and time than only money. Let us come togther to make this earth an equal & better place to live in.

This post is influenced by Franklin Templeton "The Idea Caravan" to create awareness on social issues. Franklin Templeton Investments partnered the TEDxGateway Mumbai in December 2012.