On 9/26/07, Deepa Mohan wrote: > Also I want to say that often, those with simple lifestyles (let's > say, for example, the Gond tribes, or the Irulas, or the Soligas) are > not counted as people living with Nature; they are counted as poor, > because poverrty is measured by how much money you have in the bank, > not how much you are able to survive without it. I remember that > movie, "The Gods Must Be Crazy." It made a valid point about the > currency of currency.
I read this remarkable book about the tribes of the Andaman : <http://www.amazon.com/Land-Naked-People-Encounters-Islanders/dp/0618197362> though it makes for a fair amount of depressing reading on the Indian State. One interesting statement in the book is from a chairman of the national SC/ST (scheduled cast/tribes) commission, on the lines of "these are our brothers, they must be made to live like humans, and uplifted on par with upper castes". That essentially meant forcing them to wear trousers and making them eat tinned food, and giving them various diseases. This closely parallels what happened to many African tribal groups during colonialism. Yeah, essentially all these "caste-less" (no "hinduness" here :) ) tribes have been forcibly classified by bureaucrats as lower castes, much to their detriment.
