Political Awareness among Tribes: A Comparison between Two Villages of Jammu and Kashmir and Uttarakhand

Tribes of India are socially and educationally backward. They are alienated from mainstream of nation development since the British rule. This is due to the fact that they have less political awareness. For the success of democracy in a large democratic country like India, it is very important to have a good level of political awareness among its voters. The present research paper is an attempt to know the political awareness among the two scheduled tribe villages, one from Jammu and Kashmir and other from Uttarakhand. Village ‘Hadal’ was selected from Jammu and Kashmir and ‘Birpur Lacchi’ from Uttarakhand. Both are tribal village having 100% Tribal population. Hadal is inhabited by ‘Gaddi’ scheduledtribeand Birpur Lacchiby ‘Buksa'scheduled tribe. Atotalof80 respondents were interviewed 40from village Hadal of Doda district of Jammu and Kashmir and 40 from village ‘Birpur Lacchi’ of district Nainital of Uttarakhand, selected on basis of cluster random sampling. From the empirical observation during survey, it was found that women in Birpur Lacchi hold more freedom in domestic affairs then women in Hadal. In Hadal, 30% respondents were able to identify their MLA, none of women was able to answer the name of their MLA. On the other hand, in Birpur Lachhi, 50% respondents were able to answer the name their MLA including two women. Both the villages had good awareness about party ruling at centre that is 62.5% at Hadal and 60% at Birpur Lachhi. In Hadal, 80% were able to know there Gram Pradhan, that is Halqa Sarpanch, and in Birpur Lachhi, only 76%. In Hadal, 12.5% respondents were able to answer the minimum required age for voting in India, whereas in Birpur Lachhi, it was 20%. In Hadal, only 25% respondents were able to understand language other than Gaddi dialect, whereas in Birpur Lachhi, 60% were able to know other language than Buksa dialect. 80% respondents in Hadal and 85% respondents in Birpur Lachhi informed that they are not satisfied by performance of Gram Sabha. In Birpur Lachhi, there were more interaction of bureaucrats posted in village and Panchayats, but in Hadal, it was less due to no road connectivity. From both the village, none had applied for right to information, and only 5% respondent in Hadal and 7.5 in Birpur Lachhi had knowledge about it. Finally, after a comparative analysis, the recommendations were made to increase the political awareness among these tribes.