Dear Friends,

Johar!

In the month of May I had gone to Orissa for ten days. There was a week long career guidance camp organized by a voluntary organisation for the college going boys and girls at Kesramal, Sundargarh district of Orissa. A group of thirty boys and girls had come for the camp. During this time they were given an overview of the situation of tribals in Orissa in general and Sundargarh in particular. They were taken through various exercises to analyze self, processes to prepare themselves for various professional courses and options for self-employment. Many speakers were also invited to share their experiences and information about the different opportunities.

All of us will agree that access to information is very important today. But there are many of our brothers and sisters still struggling to access the daily news paper. We can not expect them to access information technology like internet or email. They are not aware of the situation around them. How can we expect them to compete with others either for admission in higher education or for job, or even fighting against the forces operating against our society? I have seen in the past that when the church would organize any youth rally, the religious leaders would encourage the parents to send their children and the youth would attend such rallies in large numbers. But when a career guidance camp was organized to help them for their own future plan, it was surprising to see only thirty boys and girls though there are more than thirty thousand catholic families in Sundargarh district. (Information was circulated among the Catholics alone).

During this time, there was a protest against the Central government's decision to give 27% reservation to OBCs in the country. Though the issue started with 27% reservations to OBCs, most of the arguments in the nation were centring on why there should be reservation for the SCs and STs. Many of our own tribal brothers and sisters had shared their view against the reservation for tribals. They did not realize that a miniscule of us are in a better condition where as most of our brothers and sisters are still to get the opportunity what they have been deprived for generations. I am not saying that tribals are in any way less intelligent. But most of us are deprived of the opportunities to actualize our potentials for various reasons. In this year of admission test at Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, out of 125 students, nine SC and ST candidates have been able to make it to the open category merit list for the MA in Social Work (MSW) course. I am sure this is true for many other institutes. However this should not make a case for arguing against reservations. As in this case without reservation about thirty of SC/ST students would not have got a chance to join TISS where they would get the best of education free of cost for two years.

We have also been witnessing the struggle of our brothers and sisters in Jharkhand, Orissa and Chhattisgarh against the capital intensive and dominating state and market. The ruthless exploitation of minerals and the mining based industrialization in the area has led to the struggle between survival and profit interests. The voices of the people have been suppressed by powerful state machineries. We have cases from Kalinga Nagar and Sundargarh in this issue which give glaring examples of violation of human rights.

There are challenges for us at various levels. Let us reflect ourselves and see how did we come up to this stage? How many of us, from our society have got this opportunity of what we are today? Who are our forefathers, because of whom we are what we are today? Can we do some thing for our brothers and sisters, who have less opportunity than us, who have not been able to get what we have got?

We have come a long way. But many of our brothers and sisters are lagging behind. Let us join them in their struggles.

Dr. Bipin Jojo (editor@tribalzone.net)