TRIBALS AND WOMEN SECURITY

This may kindly be reckoned as reciprocation, though belated, to the letter dated from your good self impressing upon the dire need of safeguarding our beloved sisters. I bow my head before you in full veneration more to your fatherly stature as you embody yourself against the cruelties meted out to our siblings. Yourself representing the head of state, by words and deeds, conveyed a clear strong message to the society as to the evils of such inhumane treatments which made our society sensitize this delicacy with all its emotional potential. As a lawmaker and a people's representative, I find myself in desperation that we with such effective grass roots administrative mechanism could hardly check this savagery, that consensually worded against all time but seldom practised, even in this so called progressive society. What is penned hereafter would, I hope, appeal to your fatherly senses and may be signalling the absurdity of the complacency we all revel in. The chronicle of tribals in Kerala is nothing but the mainline history of our state. We the society as a whole spearheaded by the Government have been endeavouring over the years for the holistic development of this lot against all odds. Hereby, I believe, they have been apparently lifted to the bare minimum standard of living which one could measure in terms of human development metrics. The saying" when all discourse takes place along tribal lines, rhetoric matters, facts don't" will definitely be an eye-opener if one strides towards their real life and cults. Given the stand alone ethos they own and tenets they glued to, vocal exercises, out of uninformed of those, over their plight are well nothing short of lip service. The tribals need be aligned to the general stream to enjoy the developmental potentials the rest enjoy, but in due regard to the nuances of their customs and likings. Nevertheless, it is worrying that there exist crude cults and rituals amongst tribals in Kerala out of their sheer ignorance. The very existence of Child marriage, practice of keeping off girl children during their menstruation, which all informed societies fended off centuries back, could be hard to believe; yet it is there, to be more specific, rife among Muthuvan and Mannan sects of central Kerala. Of course, Government with its machinery are labouring up against these evils, but not to the desired extent of uproot given its feeble clout on the target group. We should go beyond the banal methods of lecturing and admonition to fix this bane, and inferentially, if to fetch tangible results, there should be single minded concerted efforts of compulsive and binding nature. For one, it is inhumane and heart rending when small girl children are virtually ostracised and physically distanced from their beloved ones in their purely natural biologically vulnerable sessions and cast them off to insecurity. Odd protests from within are reportedly treated with excommunication in the same way as one can see in khap panchayats of North India. Your good self might have noticed the recent news report from Attapady where chieftains banned some youths from having access to their ‘ooru’ upon having spotted with beef food. Such outrageous behavioural patterns, even from a tribal community, would elicit strong incense and undoubtedly orient our morale towards a strong conviction to uproot these evils. However, when we go in for translating these considered decisions into practice, there is every possibility of stiff resistance from the custom seasoned tribes. yet informedly, the ray of hope is there, the youths and students among them are apparently repulsive to such crude customary, still unethical practices. The traditional tribal folk once out against vaccination volunteered to receive it when warned of to have access to Govt offices and public places only if vaccinated. What we can learn from such is something more than, of rather compulsive and binding by statute measures required to curb such atrocities. To this effect, Scheduled Tribes Development Department, ST promoters, Panchayat, People's representatives, Teachers, ASHA workers, Health personnel, Anganwadi workers, ST Hostels, MOdel Residential Schools, youths and students of the hamlets with whom tribal people engages on a daily basis could be roped in and the outcome would be, I aver, miraculous Aside from the tribal community, on a panoramic study into it, there do exist suchlike inhumane and discriminatory behaviour, deeds and atrocities to women and children in various religious and community sects across Kerala. incidences of this sort are definitely infringing upon the fundamental rights, personal liberty and privacy as guaranteed by Constitution of India. The supreme court in the famous Sabarimala verdict categorically emphasized the unconstitutionality of such practices falsely shielded with traditional righteousness Concludedly, it is high time that these enormities were checked for good and all. In my considered view, absence of proper effective legislation is the bane causing such savageries and on all terms be freezed by law. It is hence my humble submission that all executive and judicial machinery should rise to this badly wounded plight of our beloved children and women who are being subjected to cruel treatments over centuries in the name of conservation of community protocols and a comprehensive legislation shall be made and operative with vigil to see that such are matters of oblivion and do natural justice to the till date inflicted victims. This plea may kindly not be construed as an advocacy for too rigid a standard of law to contain tribal people, but, in fact, conversely I do honour their intrinsic innocence and ethos.