THE RIGHTS OF THE NATIVE COMMUNITY IN TAMIL NADU -A STUDY

The word ‘tribe’ is a generic term used to identify distinct groups sharing certain
characteristics. One need to be cautioned here that when we say common characteristics it does
not mean identified, but characteristics identified by anthropologists with high degree of
abstraction. In reality each tribal community is a word itself. They have their own distinct culture,
language, political system, religion, territorial affiliation, and are self sufficient as a society.
Historically they are often pitched against non tribal for controlling the resources,
mainly their ancestor land. Millions of tribal perished in this process. Many more they have been
absorbed into non-tribal society, there by permanently losing their tribal characteristics.
Presently the ethnic conflicts, incessant wars, conflict induced famines, development process and
land hungry non-tribal are displacing the tribal freedom their ancestor land.