Status of Tribal Sub-Plan in India-A Study on Itda Programmes in Andhra Pradesh

The study of Indian tribal society has assumed a greater attention among the scholars both in India and abroad. Transition of these societies all over the world carved an interesting area for the pursuit of social knowledge. This is particularly explicit in the third world societies where the development transition has acquired an uneven proportion in its direction. Given the context of uneven development, tribal societies in these countries present further backward underdeveloped characters, which are characterized as Fourth World Societies. In brief, the tribal studies in Post-Independence era have found a considerable place in the field of social science research, but the focus on certain fields of research like-clan, custom and primitiveness of the tribal society was more visible than any other area of the subject. The British Government has recognized the distinct pattern of the tribal life and has accorded a special status to them. Innumerable laws were enacted to protect the interests of the tribals. The tribes in many parts of the country were designated as Scheduled Tribes and this has been in accordance to the 1874 scheduled district Act that was promulgated by the British Indian government. Apart from the efforts of the persons like Ambedkar and CVF Haimendorf to uplift the scheduled tribes from their socio-economic degradation, the political exigencies of liberal democracy forced tile successive governments to create favorable conditions for dignified life for the scheduled tribes population broadly described as the policy of protective discriminations, it adopted the protective discriminative policy.