By Kaveri Pillai ’23
Staff Writer
Nobody is above the law.
This idea, shared by many democratic countries, creates credibility that the legislative arm of the government embodies. In democracies with growing populations like India and the U.S., it is the codified law that holds sanctity together. When someone is involved in breaking the law, they are rightfully persecuted. Yet there are certain social groups, specifically Indigenous peoples, that miss out on these fundamental rights.
Indigenous groups worldwide do not benefit from the promise of justice. A new wave of activism seems to have engulfed the larger public when it comes to awareness and campaigning for Indigenous rights. The divide that was created between the people of today and the people who simply do not fit in, often seen as the “other,” is commonly traced back to the colonizers and their vicious journey of pillage and plunder. 18th century India might have fought against the British before our tryst with destiny, but the “divide and rule” policy that they implemented is something the government has to deal with today.
The 1979 Mandal Commission signed by the then-Prime Minister of India Morarji Desai was one of the few steps taken to formally identify the “socially or educationally backward” classes. Initially what might have been seen as a monumental constitutional right for scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in the Indian subcontinent, — the protests regarding reservation of seats in universities and civil service job posts are — is what made this social movement for Indian Indigenous groups a rather turbulent one.
This first step toward justice laid the foundation for various Indian activists who challenge the myopic legislation and the unfair execution of the same. However, this wave of activism gets diminished when confronted by the oppressive national government. Since 2018, 16 activists who have been lobbying for Adivasis, the native tribes, have been arrested under the pretense of belonging to the radical left Naxal group. The recent arrest of a Jesuit priest, Father Stan Swamy, further ignites the flame of intolerance that has been fueled by the right-wing government.
Swamy, who has been a beacon of hope for the tribal community in the state of Jharkhand, has spent 30 years of life-fighting for the Fifth Schedule of the Indian Constitution, which is supposed to grant free land and autonomy to the Indigenous groups of India. A believer in leveling out the scales and bringing peace to the ostracized, Swamy has also tried to advocate for native land for the creation of small and big industries.
Coloring a Christian priest’s act of service and goodness as a threat to the purity of Hinduism is just the first tactic used by the not-so-secular ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. By labeling Swam a “Maoist,” the government has successfully shown the country and the world that India will never truly welcome Indigenous peoples as Indians. The irony that the ones who were colonized are now playing the role of the colonizer is something that unfortunately goes beyond national borders.
The United States has established its global hegemonic status as the leader of the free world despite denying its own citizens freedoms for political reasons. The tales of the first few American presidents and the botched-up narrative of history reify this long-standing animosity white Anglo-Saxon Protestants have regarding Indigenous peoples. This connection between native identity and native land echoes the need for tribal sovereignty, self-governance and legitimate autonomous rule that was earlier promised by the United States Supreme Court in the McGrit v. Oklahoma case in July.
However, like all power-hungry government bodies, the Trump administration gave the Environmental Protection Agency full access to the once-promised independent Muscogee Creek region of Oklahoma in October. Under nefarious acts like the Toxic Substances Control Act, which can, in a stupendous change of events, overrule a Supreme Court hearing, hazardous waste and toxic air pollutants can be discarded into this preserved land. What the government fails to realize is that this genocidal move does not only threaten the natives’ access to clean water or even a sense of personal land, but also normalizes the fact that Indigenous land has no meaning to a 21st-century society, and the people inhabiting this land are seen as anything but human.
The separate colonial contexts of both India and the United States include different yet similar problems ranging from slavery to economic suppression. However, what seems to be a constant is the ill-treatment toward Indigenous groups and the legislation that is passed by these “democratic” countries, which creates a divide between national citizens and native peoples.
The world we now live in revolves around money and political gain. In this fight to achieve absolute power, the Indigenous population has been conveniently left out. This stifling nature of governmental bodies will soon enough crush the spirit that drives such groups and will reduce ethnic history to forgotten anecdotes that will be dominated by the spoils of oppressive modern states.