From “Needs”-Based Development to “Desired”-Development: Locating the Freudian Idea in the Social and Economic Development of Tribals Following the New Economic Reforms in India

Abstract

This paper addresses tribal development in India, where tribal people are not only marginalized but also dispossessed in the process of economic reform. Within the tribal societies a massive transformation is taking place, with a crisis-ridden “needs”-based society being transformed into a “desires”-based consumer society. The process is accelerated by neoliberal public policies that promote the idea of “desired development.” This article seeks to document the nature of change in tribal societies which, through the planning for tribal development, have made the transition from “needs”-based to “desired” development. Within this process of transition, the paper attempts to locate the Freudian idea in tribal development planning in India that subjects tribals to persistent poverty, underdevelopment and marginalization. Hence, this paper seeks to contextualize the transformation in the “logic” of public and corporate socio-economic development programmes implemented among tribal groups in India within the broader changes that have characterized the gradual and sometimes fraught transitions in capitalist social relations.

Keywords:

• tribal
• needs
• desires
• Freudian development
• India

Notes

¹The term “tribe” or “tribal” is contested. The tribals are basically forest dwellers who prefer to be called “adivasies” (primitive inhabitants, indigenous people). In administrative language, they are known by the governments in India as “Schedule Tribes.” In Europe, America and elsewhere the term tribe or tribal may be derogatory, but in India it refers to a community of people who live on hilly terrain and in forests and who remain underdeveloped in terms of health, education and income by comparison with their non-tribal neighbours.

²The New Economic Reforms in India, which were launched during 1991, have had two components: Structural Adjustment Programmes and Stabilization Policies, with other disinvestment policies as advised by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The Structural Adjustment Programmes have sought to bring about privatization and liberalization, whereas the Stabilization Policies have been aimed at devaluing the currency; creating a free and deregulated market; eliminating and reducing subsidies; reducing control by the nation-state over its macroeconomic affairs especially in the matter of budgetary policy and monetary policy; and removing welfare policies and facilities provided by the state. This reflects the basic features of the neoliberal economic policies which were part of the deal with the World Bank and IMF, and that provoked criticism inside and outside India on the grounds that this programme was the handiwork of the Bretton Woods institutions. This deal did not leave any space for mobilizing internal resources to meet the economic crisis. The takeover of the Indian economy by market forces could not deliver as per the promise of the new economic reform programme (Chandrasekhar and Ghosh 2002).

³The understanding of tribal culture and society expressed here is the product of a year of fieldwork in the Kalahandi district in the eastern Indian state of Orissa.

⁴ Aparigrah is a Sanskrit word that implies the value of non-accumulation or of not keeping anything more than necessary for one's minimal needs.

⁵Tribals feel that everything which is outside their society, their production and their forest network is videshi (foreign) to them. For example, anything from the district capital of the Kalahandi district of Orissa in India is foreign to the tribals of the Thuamulrampur region of Kalahandi.

⁶The Constitution of India includes the following provisions for the development of the tribal population. Article 14 provides equal rights and opportunities, Article 15 prohibits discrimination, Article 16(4) directs the state to make special provisions for the development of citizens belonging to the backward classes, and Article 46 directs the state to take special care concerning the educational and economic interests of the weaker section of the population with special reference to the tribal population. Articles 275(1), 332 and 335 provide for affirmative action through reservations, and Article 340 empowers the state to appoint a Commission to investigate the condition of the socially and educationally backward classes with special reference to the tribal population. In addition, the Fifth Schedule to the Constitution lays down certain principles to protect tribal areas by categorizing their territories as Schedule Areas. The 73rd and 74th Amendments to the Constitution of India aim to ensure effective participation by the tribal population in the process of planning for development and in politics.