LIVELIHOOD OF VULNERABLE GROUPS IN MANIPUR

National conference on “Livelihoods of Vulnerable Groups: Empirical and Theoretical Dimensions”, 26-27 SEPTEMBER, 2019, Department of Anthropology, University of Hyderabad, with IGRMS, Bhopal and Anthropological Survey of India, Kolkata.

Paper title: LIVELIHOOD OF VULNERABLE GROUPS IN MANIPUR

Vijay Prakash Sharma , Former Director, Institute for Human Development, ERC, Ranchi.

Introduction

In India and especially in Manipur tribal, the vulnerable groups inhabit the hills and forest surrounding Manipur valley. The total area covered by the state is 22.327 sq. kilometers. This has two distinct physical region i.e. narrow valley and rugged hills. Valley is inhabited by Meitei (Hindu) community whereas hills are inhabited by vulnerable tribal groups. The tribal communities distinctively divided into two major steams 1) NAGAS and 2) KUKI-CHIN ZO. For this presentation, I will concentrate on the second one and its subdivision popularly known as HMAR with a population of 49081 as per 2011 census. They inhabit Churachandpur district of Manipur state covering 35 villages. They are one of the highly educated tribal communities of Christians now. There was only one mettle road when I conducted my first study in 1987 and the Hmars were fully traditional folks. This was published as a book in 1992 entitled “THE HMARS OF MANIPUR: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL EXPLORATION”.

The changing livelihoods of HMARS:

Forest is the cornucopia and they get grains, ripe corn, fruits and vegetables from this store house. The forest provide them not only food grains, but   building materials such as thatch and cane, bamboo etc. It provides them immense s cope for hunting and trapping wild animals. It also made them available large land area for Jhoom (slash and burn) cultivation which is now restricted by the government forest rules. They uses to grow cotton in their Jhoom fields to weave wonderful cloths (PUON) on the back strap loom at their homes but now changing to mill cloths. They also use to weave baskets for their daily use from canes obtained from forest. Even after modern changes in their livelihood, their basic livelihood still dependent on agriculture. If we look at the data from field from 1983 to 1990 we find that the livelihood dependency of Hmars on forest was 93% which reduced to 80% in 1991-2002 i.e. a sharp reduction of 13% in five years which further reduced to 75%  now. The rate of employment rose to 18% against 4% earlier.  Little  change in business percentage from 3% to 7 %. Hmar people still live below poverty line even after government interventions to raise their livelihoods. The traditional art and craft has drastically declined. On the whole, Agriculture remained the main occupation of the Hmars. Their main livelihoods were food production and almost all socio-cultural life was connected with it.

Due to the government intervention, Churachandpur district appear to be very developed in terms of income, health , employment, education and literacy. It is also an area where level of aspirations, peace, security and happiness are very low but many of them feels that valley people are best preferred and hill people are neglected that they consider discriminatory. These hill tribes often come into conflict with valley people and government.

Introduction of money as medium of exchange totally changed their old barter system of exchange. Indebtedness is increasing due to this in their society.

The traditional subsistence economy of Hmars gradually integrated with market economy. There is a great shift from traditional way of 1987 to modern system in 2010. Government programmes like IRDP, JRY,AND EAS introduced new agricultural and other occupational practices which is changing Hmar standard of life and livelihoods by bringing about economically better and higher standard of living. Development of communication enabled better education and exposure to the outside world. The Hmar youths are going to outside cities like Delhi, Banglore, Mumbai etc. for higher education in addition to their own towns like Churachandpur, Silchar, Aizwal. The Hmar community has lion’s share in government jobs now.

The Concern-

1.     Conflict between groups is a major concern to be looked into.

2.     Social honor like Thangshuo  and other old traditional values though still continue but changing gradually.

3.     More political and material consciousness entered into Hmar society and changing their value system.

4.     They feel that though they have money now but not happy as they uses to be. Now they only go to their jhoom fields to appreciate the crop or complain if they are not good. Now they calculate how much they will earn from it. Community collaboration in agriculture like olden days disappeared.

5.     One thing, growing dependency on other and corruption also entered into Hmar society which was totally absent in olden days.

6.      In comparing from my early study in 1987, there is a great shift from tradition to modernity and Hmar society is growing at par with other mainstream communities but loosing self confidence as they feel they are victims of growing dependency.

7.     Hmar villages with strong traditional institutions find it easier to internalize new approaches and technologies, as well as upgrade their knowledge.

8.     In order to obtain greater impact, the intensity of government projects needs to be provided based on the local institutional capacity available at village level, rather than being predetermined and delivered in an equal manner across all villages.

9.     The design of future development projects should be more realistic about the formal extent of community involvement.

10.  The sustainability of community institutions must be viewed in terms of a much longer time-scale than simply the five /seven years of project duration for empowerment and community participation.

References-

Sharma . V. P,  1992 The Hmars of Manipur : An Anthropological Exploration, Anmol Publications Pvt. Ltd. New Delhi.

Vatse. I.Z. 2010 Impact of Development on The Hmars of Tipaimukh in Churachandpur District, Manipur . Unpublished PH.D thesis, Department of Anthropology, NEHU, Shillong.