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UPSC Optional 2025Question 15AnthropologyDevelopmental Projects, Forest Policy and Tribal Displacement150 words

Impact of urbanization and industrialization on tribal communities of India (Answer in 150 words)

Model answer & approach

- Impact of urbanization and industrialization on tribal communities of India (Answer in 150 words)
Introduction
Industry took the land and the city took the labour. For tribal India the two work as one, because the minerals and the dam sites lie under the Scheduled Areas.

Body
1. Economic impact: land alienation to mines, steel towns and reservoirs — Rourkela, Singrauli, Bailadila. Tribes are about a twelfth of the population but, on Walter Fernandes's estimates, some two-fifths of those displaced by development projects. Forest livelihood gives way to casual wage labour and seasonal migration to brick kilns and cities.
2. Social and cultural impact: households nuclearise, the youth dormitory and the clan council lose authority, the mother tongue yields to the regional language, and alcohol, tuberculosis and new health risks arrive with the labour camp. Trafficking of Adivasi girls out of Jharkhand is the sharpest instance.
3. Who bears it: the displaced lose most, since compensation is paid for titled land and most tribal holding is customary; the gains go to a small salaried and contractor class.

Conclusion
PESA, the Forest Rights Act and the consent provisions of the 2013 land acquisition law exist because the exchange was so one-sided.
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