What is the indigenous population?
● The United Nations defines an indigenous population as ‘comprising the descendants of the people who inhabited the present territory of a country at the time when persons of a different culture or ethnic origin arrived there from other parts of the world and overcame them.’
● They live more in conformity with their particular social, economic, and cultural customs than the institution of the country of which they now form a part.
● There are 30 crore indigenous people spread all over the world.
● They mainly reside in Central and South America, India, Africa, and Southeast Asia.
● There are 20 lakh, indigenous people of the Cordillera region of the Philippines, 10 lakh Mapuche people of Chile, 6 lakh of the Chittagong Hill tracts indigenous people in Bangladesh, 50,000 Kunas living east of Panama Canal, 35 lakh North American natives and 10 lakh people of the Soviet north.
● They are facing many struggles and have continued to carry on many social movements to speak about their agenda and their rights.
● One of the most important concerns of the indigenous people is to be treated as equals in the world community.
● The biggest threat that they face is the loss of their land which means the loss of an economic resource base.
● The issues have been greatly neglected as people of various cultures from various parts of the world have overcome them.
● In India, the indigenous people are usually referred to as the scheduled tribes.
● They constitute a total of 8% of the total Indian population.
● Most of them depend on the cultivation of land for their subsistence, with the exception of small communities of hunters and gatherers.
● For many centuries they had free access to as much land as the could cultivate.
● With the British invasion, these lands which were inhabited by the scheduled tribes were subjected to outside forces.
● Although they have a considerable level of constitutional protection in terms of political representation they have not been able to gain many benefits from the development of the country.
● They are the single largest group which have paid a huge price as they have been continuously displaced due to the setting up of various developmental projects.
● Their rights have been continuously neglected in both domestic and international politics for a very long time.
● In 1970 the increasing International contact among the indigenous leaders from all over the world aroused a sense of concern.
● The World Council of indigenous people was formed in 1975.
● Later, 11 more indigenous NGOs have formed that received consultative status in the United Nations.
● We can protect the rights of the indigenous people by forming institutional safeguard rules and creating a social security net