LIVES AND LIVELIHOOD OF TRIBALS IN NAXALITE AFFECTED VILLAGES: A STUDY IN SUNDARGARH DISTRICT OF ODISHA

The live and livelihood condition of the tribal people living in the Naxalite prone villages are more deplorable as compared to the national and state averages of the tribal people in India and Odisha. Nearly 90 percent of them are living below the poverty line and their quality of living i.e. housing, access to sanitation and safe drinking water, basic and tertiary education and health care delivery system are in a gloomy state. They eke out their livelihood by performing multiple activities, such as agriculture, causal labor, hunting, forest food gathering, tribal art and craft work, etc. A single activity is insufficient to provide survivable sustainable livelihood for them. A colossal percentage of them are the marginal land owner and land holding is insufficient to provide sustainable livelihood. They are still in the primitive stage of development and faraway from the modernity. The deplorable socio-economic conditions and apathy of state apparatus has created discontent among the tribals’ and the Naxalite problem is an upshot of socio-economic problems and governance deficit of state apparatus. Because of non existence of market and state activities the ‘development’ is completely ramshackle in these tribal villages and it has provided a platform to the naxalite to operate their nefarious activities in these villages detached from the mainstream.