Institutional Exclusion and Tribal Interest: Decentralized Government in the Context of Conflicts over Development in India

Abstract

The article investigates whether the political inclusion and representation of Scheduled Tribes through decentralization empower the tribal communities in India to counter the process of exclusion. It examines the capacity of decentralized government to represent the tribal interests and empower the tribal communities in the Scheduled Areas of Orissa, an eastern Indian province. The article concludes that there exists a systematic and strategic exclusion of tribal representatives, who were ready and capable to participate in local government and successfully represent tribal interests. It argues that exclusion and disempowerment of tribal representatives is not an outcome of their backward socioeconomic status or inability to participate in local government, but a result of a political-economic process strategically imposed on them. The article highlights a vicious circle of exclusion, where on the one hand, the tribal representatives performed low because of their exclusion, and on the other inability to effectively function as representatives further led to their exclusion from decentralized government. The empirical work for the article is based on case study of two Gram Panchayats, which were the center of tribal conflict against the Vedanta Alumunia Company in the state of Orissa in India. © 2014 SAGE Publications.