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Abstract
The article critically examines the gendered impacts of state-led development among the Reang tribal community in Tripura (Northeast India) and outlines causes of gender-based inequalities that affect Reang women’s ability to engage in livelihood, achieve financial independence and participate in political affairs of the state. The article outlines two interlinked arguments. First, gender-based inequalities are not adequately addressed by the postcolonial Indian state which tends to homogenise members of tribal communities through development policies by privileging ethnicity over gender. Second, gender-based inequalities are also not adequately addressed within the Reang community highlighting complex intra-tribal dynamics wherein differential notion of inequalities among the Reangs and position of certain influential actors within the community determines which issues are addressed and which are marginalised.
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank the anonymous peer reviewers of Asian Ethnicity for their valuable feedback and comments in the earlier draft of the article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Momsen, Gender and Development.
2. McIlwaine and Datta, “From Feminising to Engendering Development,” 369.
3. The fieldwork for this study was conducted in 2013 and 2015 in two districts of Tripura – South District and Dhalai. Qualitative research methods (interviews and participant observations) were adopted in this study with a view to capture the diversity of responses within the Reang community in their experience of state-led development. Although the Reangs are a numerically small tribal group, the community is internally diverse. Capturing this diversity is one of the main aims of study. For this research, 150 respondents, comprising of Reang men and women, NGO workers and government officials were interviewed. The respondents were selected from different socio-economic backgrounds, occupations, locations and age. Pseudonyms have been used to protect the identity of the respondents.
4. The Northeast India comprises of eight federal states of Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura.
5. McDuie-Ra, “The Constraints on Civil Society beyond the State: Gender-based Inequality in Meghalaya, India,” 366.
6. McDuie-Ra, Civil Society and Human Security in Meghalaya, 173.
7. Acharyya, Insight into the Reang.
8. Jhum cultivation (also known as shifting cultivation) is a method of cultivation in which land is cultivated temporarily and then left fallow for regeneration. In Tripura, the slash-and-burn farming method is used in which land is cleared for cultivation by cutting down the vegetation and burning it to provide nutrients to the soil from the ashes. In India and elsewhere in South Asia, the jhummias are referred to as those who practice jhum cultivation and jhumming is intrinsically related to the identity and culture of those communities practicing it. In the past few decades, there is a growing debate on the feasibility of jhum cultivation, especially in the context of growing population and reduced availability of land for jhum. In the dominant academic and policy circles, jhumming is often referred to as a primitive form of cultivation that has severe environmental consequences and is considered as unsustainable. See Willem van Schendel, “The Invention of the “Jummas”; Gupta,” Shifting Cultivation and Conservation of Biological Diversity in Tripura, Northeast India.
9. See note 7.
10. Gaikwad, “Revolting bodies, hysterical state.”, McDuie-Ra, “Between National Security and Ethno-nationalism.”, McDuie-Ra, “Fifty-year disturbance.”
11. In this article, the author uses the term ‘backward’ and ‘primitive’ within inverted commas to highlight the specific language of policy and academic literature on development in Northeast India as well as outlining those used by the respondents.
12. See note 1.
13. Razavi and Miller, From WID to GAD.
14. See note 1.
15. Peet and Hartwick, Theories of Development.
16. Jaquette, “Women and Modernization Theory,” 271.
17. Connell, Gender and Power.
18. Rathgeber, “WID, WAD, GAD,” 491.
19. See note 1.
20. Young, Gender and Development.
21. See note 1.
22. See note 18.
23. Moore, Feminism and Anthropology.
24. Kabeer, Reversed Realities.
25. Rathgeber, “WID, WAD, GAD.”
26. Kilby and Olivieri, “Gender and Australian aid policy.”
27. Moser, Gender Planning and Development.
28. Rathgeber, “WID, WAD, GAD”.
29. Chowdhry, “Engendering Development?”
30. Krishna, “Genderscape.”
31. In the past three decades, the concept of intersectionality has emerged as an innovative analytical tool to theorise subjects’ experiences of identity, discrimination and marginalisation. The term was first coined by Crenshaw (1991) to highlight the discrimination faced by black women situated at intersections of multiple grounds of identity in ways that cannot be wholly subsumed within the traditional boundaries of race and gender discrimination. Although the analytical tool of intersectionality was first used in feminist theorising, it has been widely adopted to examine intersections of oppression at all levels from organisational practices to individual acts. The literature on intersectionality is voluminous. Some of the key studies are listed here. Crenshaw, Mapping the Margins; McCall, “The Complexity of Intersectionality”; Bilge, “Recent feminist outlooks on intersectionality”; Yuval-Davis, “Intersectionality and feminist politics”; Collins, “Black Feminist Thought.”
32. Many countries in Asia have implemented state-led development programmes that serve a range of purposes like restrictions on jhumming, religious conversions, altering traditional rights over land and cultivation, reforming customary land rights, denying access to forests and control over natural resources and accelerating infrastructure provisions for initiating further development intervention in these remote areas. See Sengupta, ‘State-initiated development and the Reang ethnic minority in Tripura (North East India).’; Duncan, ‘Legislating Modernity among the Marginalised.’; Li, The Will to Improve.
33. The literature on impact of state-led development of ethnic minorities is voluminous. Some of the key studies are listed here. Duncan, Civilizing the Margins; Jonsson, Mien Relations; Guo, State and Ethnicity in China’s Southwest; Cao, “Introduction to Ethnic Minorities and Regional Development in Asia”; Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed.
34. Duncan, “Legislating Modernity among the Marginalised.”
35. Li, The Will to Improve.
36. McDuie-Ra, “The dilemmas of pro-development actors.”
37. Schendel, “The Dangers of Belonging.”
38. Ministry of Tribal Affairs, “Scheme of Development of Primitive Tribal Groups.”
39. McDuie-Ra, “The dilemmas of pro-development actors”, Saikia, Jungles, Reserves, Wildlife; Venkatachalpathy, “Coining Words.”
40. Elwin, India’s north-east frontier.
41. Marriott, The Other Empire.
42. Pratap, The Hoe and the Axe; Schendel, “The Invention of the “Jummas”.”
43. McDuie-Ra, Civil Society and Human Security in Meghalaya.
44. Shneiderman and Turin, ‘Seeking the Tribe’.
45. See 38.
46. McDuie-Ra, “50-year Disturbance.”
47. Baruah, Durable Disorder; Kikon, “The predicament of justice.”
48. MoDONER, North eastern region vision 2020.
49. Guyot-Réchard, “Nation-building or state-making?”
50. Certain areas in the Northeast are classified as ‘disturbed’ by the Central Government of India and are subject to militarisation. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act can be applied to any area declared ‘disturbed’ in the Northeast. In such areas, the Indian Army has extraordinary powers that allow firing people ‘even to the causing of death upon any person acting in contravention of any law and order’. It also permits arresting any person without a warrant ‘against whom a reasonable suspicion exists that he has committed or is about to commit a cognizable offence’. The Act is not open to judicial review and cannot be contested by local or the state governments. See Ministry of Home Affairs, “The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958”.
51. Ministry of Home Affairs, “The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act 1958.”
52. MoDONER, North eastern region vision 2020-Vol 1.
53. MoDONER, North eastern region vision 2020: Vol 2.
54. See note 38.
55. Government of Tripura, Tripura Human Development Report.
56. Ibid.
57. Ibid.
58. Ibid
59. Ibid.
60. Directorate of Economics & Statistics Planning (Statistics) Department, Economic Review of Tripura, 2014–2015.
61. See note 58.
62. See note 30.
63. See note 55.
64. Government of Tripura- Directorate of Economics & Statistics Planning (Statistics) Department, Economic Review of Tripura, 2013–2014.
65. See note 6.
66. TCW, Land Rights of Women in Tripura.
67. See note 56.
68. TCW, Land Rights of Women in Tripura.
69. Fieldwork notes, 2015.
70. Ibid.
71. See note 66.
72. See note 69.
73. Ibid.
74. Ibid.
75. The Hindu, “Tripura CM leads rally against funds cuts in MNREGA.”
76. See note 69.
77. Ibid.
78. Ibid.
79. Ibid.
80. Government of India, National Family Health Survey-4 (2015–2016).
81. See note 69.
82. White, “Depoliticising development.”
83. Nongbri, Development, Ethnicity and Gender.
84. Agarwal, A Field of One’s Own.
85. See note 43.
86. Fieldwork notes, 2013, 2015.
87. See note 55.
88. See http://www.ttaadc.gov.in/.
89. Panchanadeswaranan and Koverola, “The voices of battered women in India.”
90. Chhachhi, “Forced identities.”
91. Srivastava, “Multiple dimensions of violence against rural women in Uttar Pradesh.”
92. Kelkar, “Women and structural violence in India.”
93. Gaikwad, “Revolting bodies, hysterical state.”
94. McDuie-Ra, “Violence Against Women in the Militarized Indian Frontier.”
95. Fieldwork notes 2013, 2015.
96. Hussain, Homemakers without the men.
97. See note 69.
98. Kikon, “The predicament of justice.”
99. Chenoy, Militarism and women in South Asia.
100. McDuie-Ra, “Fifty-year disturbance.”
101. See note 69.
102. Ibid.
103. Baruah, Durable disorder.
104. McDuie-Ra, “Between National Security and Ethno-nationalism.”
105. Xaxa, “Tribes as Indigenous Peoples of India.”
106. See note 100.
107. See note 43.
108. See note 69.
109. Ibid.
110. See note 66
111. See note 69.
112. Ibid.
113. Krishna, “Gender, Tribe and Political Participation.”
114. Ibid.
115. See note 43.
116. Nathan, “Timber in Meghalaya.”
117. See note 84.
118. Darlong, To Jhum or Not To Jhum.
119. Nongbri, “Timber Ban in North-East India.”
120. See note 83.
121. See note 86.
122. See note 69.
123. Ibid., 2013.
124. See note 86.
125. See note 64.
126. See note 56.
127. Ibid.
128. Fieldwork notes, 2013, 2015.
129. See note 86.
130. See note 69.
131. Baviskar, In the Belly of the River.
132. Shah, In the Shadows of the State.
133. See note 43.
134. See note 36.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Mayuri Sengupta
Dr Mayuri Sengupta has completed her PhD from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of New South Wales. Her doctoral thesis explores how state-led development is experienced by tribal communities in Tripura (Northeast India). She has completed her MA and MPhil degrees in Political Science from Jawaharlal Nehru University (India). Her research interest includes politics of development in South Asia.
Author’s postal address: School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, The University of New South Wales, Kensington, Sydney, New South Wales, Postcode- 2052, Australia