Thoughts On Indigenious People
While walking around Wayanad we passed through a tribal settlement and this tribal lady allowed me to take a picture of her along with her kid.
These indigenous people have been relocated from nearby areas by the government. They have been given a free home and get a free monthly ration. According to the manager of the hotel we were staying at, the tribal men end up working just a couple of days a week doing odd jobs in local businesses and spend the rest of their time relaxing and drinking. It was obvious to me, he didn’t like the fact that the government was handing out stuff to them while everyone else had to work hard to make a living and better their standard of life.
But if you look at it closely, the lifestyle of these indigenous people didn’t involve working hard, saving money so that they could buy stuff they didn’t end up enjoying because they were busy working hard to buy more stuff that they wouldn’t be enjoying. They used to live off the land and not think too far out into the future. But now that we have taken over their land, its only fair that we provide them the lifestyle they have been enjoying for centuries and have felt no need to “improve” it.
The beautiful tea garden that we walked through was once a thick jungle and a home to these indigenous people where they lived in harmony with nature. They took just what they needed and gave back enough to continue the cycle. Now that we have cleared their forests and replaced it with plantations for mass producing all kinds of stuff, can we really expect them to break their backs and work hard every day in these plantations?
