Re-envisioning Tribal Disentanglements by Tracing the Roots of Law and Technology: Substantial Transformations in place of Lip Service Interventions

Abstract

Tribals, the people of the land, have undergone abrupt and meteoric changes in the underpinnings of epistemicide, ecocide and indigenocide. Industrial civilization is in the process of completing its destruction of technologically simple but indigenous tribal cultures. It is becoming apparent that in the disguise of modernization there is a drastic modification of these cultures, which is ironically considered imperative for civilization as well as beneficial for them in long term. In recent years we may detect a rekindling of scholarships on questions concerning the tribals, whose lives have been impacted by tremendous transformation in technology and legal system. A spurt of technological development in the last three decades has laid some foundational reshaping in the behavioural aspects of tribals. Their social construction in conformity with innovative technology like FinTech is attracting a new kind of attention. This paper objectifies how the ongoing legal and technological developments have impacted the lives and cultural ethos of the tribals. It seeks to find whether those changes have uplifted their life’s vitality or have affected them adversely. The Constitution of India endows the tribals with special rights not to be violated by the state, but the question arises and the enquiry is how much that has been implemented positively since independence. This inquiry is perceived to fulfil holistically the need for systematizing law and technological advancement in reference to tribal’s rights and to contextualise it. From time to time, the union, as well as the federal governments, have formulated various schemes to provide the tribal population with a decent standard of living so that they can develop along national lines. This study endeavours to diagnose whether those outlays have met the envisaged outcomes.