Displacement and Resettlement in the Name of Development: A Unique Case of Resettled Colony of Multi-Tribals in Nagapura

Displacement has been an inseparable part of human natural history since time immemorial. In India, the post-independence period has witnessed more displacement, especially of the tribals, in the name of national development as tribal habitats are often resource-abundant regions. This paper looks at the unique and novel idea of pushing fifty families belonging to three different scheduled tribes, originally inhabiting the Nagarhole National Park, to the fringe of forests and ‘resettling’ them in a common colony in the Hunsur taluk of Mysore district. The colony is known as Nagapura II. The three ethnic groups, viz., Betta Kuruba, Jenu Kuruba and Soliga, are traditionally involved in basket making, honey collection and shifting cultivation, respectively, thus having different means of survival. In the last 30 years, they are being, by persuasion and sometimes by force, shifted from the forest to fringe areas and have been persuaded to adopt agriculture, educate their children and participate in political affairs. It has not been a smooth affair for these ethnic groups to give up their traditional way of life, which has been followed meticulously generation after generation, and now adapt to something which they never knew, in just one or two generations. Some of the effects are very painful like the ever-growing alcoholism that was not their customary practice. Therefore, the need of the hour is to not blindly follow common plans and programmes of tribal development, rather to develop an inclusive approach of development which tries to understand issues from the community's perspective, so that their traditional and modern means of life do not clash with each other. In this endeavour, anthropologists can play an important and critical role.