By Our Correspondent
RAIPUR/BHUBANESWAR: In a significant development, the International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Studies (IUAES) has removed the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS), Bhubaneswar from the list of institutions to host the World Anthropology Congress (WAC) 2023.
This was communicated in a letter addressing the Vice Chancellor of Sambalpur University, Prof. D.K. Behera on 16 August 2020. Preparations for the WAC 2023 were given to four Indian institutions: the Indian Anthropological Association, Utkal University, Sambalpur University and the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS).
The move of IUAES came following a research report written by Tata Institute of Social Science (TISS-Mumbai) Alumni and noted social activist, Goldy M George that was published in The www.indianewsdiary.com, bearing headline “Adivasis protest awarding of World Congress of Anthropology 2023 to KISS,” dated July 23, 2020.
Earlier more than two hundred Adivasi leaders, academics, activists, representatives of people’s movements and student organizations and others concerned with Adivasi rights have submitted a petition to the IUAES against KISS Bhubaneswar, Odisha, being chosen to host the WCA 2023. The petition was submitted to Junji Koizumi, president of International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES), and to the vice-chancellors of Utkal and Sambalpur universities, Soumendra Mohan Patnaik and Deepak Kumar Behera, respectively. The signatories appealed to the respective institutional heads to sever ties with KISS citing grave concerns.
Clarifying its position of serving ties with KISS, IUAES letter said “the role of KISS in organizing the next World Anthropology Congress was to provide infrastructure, logistics and other necessary resources, while the remaining three institutions are responsible for the academic and anthropological dimensions. However, there is mounting national and international controversy regarding the involvement of KISS. In deference to the many anthropologists from within India and across the globe who have expressed their opinion on the matter, and after following a careful consultative process at various levels, the IUAES Executive Committee deliberated and decided to withdraw its collaboration with KISS regarding the organization of the 2023 World Anthropology Congress.”
According to available information, this mega event, which will be held from 15 to 19 January 2023, is expected to be attended by more than 10000 delegates from over 150 countries. The IUAES is the largest gathering of academicians and researchers in the fields of Anthropology and Ethnology in the world. It is also the oldest meet of the scholars engaged in the scientific study of humankind. India will be hosting this prestigious meet after a long gap of 45 years.
Why Adivasis and anthropologists oppose KISS?
Indian indigenous people have come up strongly against institutions engaged in factory schooling which instead of rendering education to Adivasi children is more engaged in alienating the subjects from their roots of culture and history. The opposition to hosting the World Congress stemmed from the position of its critique that factory schools like KISS disinherit Adivasi children from their histories and describe Adivasi ways of life as “backward”, “primitive”, “uncivilized” and “uncultured”. For example, referring to Mankirdia Adivasi community in Odisha, Achyuta Samanta once said, “…. they fill up their stomachs only with the forest products and cover their bodies with the leaves of the plants. There are 13 primitive tribes in Odisha. They live, they sleep, on the branches of the tree. They are known as Mankirdia – means monkey. The name of the primitive tribe is known as Mankirdia that is monkey. There are so many varieties of primitive tribes. They don’t understand anything….”
KISS is a residential school exclusively for Adivasi children based in Bhubaneswar, the capital of Odisha state. Its founder Achyuta Samanta is currently the Biju Janta Dal (BJD) Lok Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) for Kandhamal, Odisha. At present KISS houses about 30,000 girls and boys from different Adivasi communities from Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Mizoram, West Bengal, Assam, and other states. KISS therefore refers itself the “first ever tribal university” of the world, to which Adivasis scholars have their strongest discontent.
Institutions like KISS consistently deconstruct the historical contribution by anthropology and ethnology on indigenous people through a systemic process of factory schooling. In such institutions, Adivasi children remain in an experimental laboratory like space under the pretext of education. The letter from Adivasi scholars and anthropologists argued that in KISS children are encouraged to speak and read Odia only, which is not the mother tongue of the students in most of the cases. Adivasi festivals are discouraged and their celebration seldom happens. Instead children observe Saraswati Puja or Ganesh Puja, putting them under the influence of high caste Hindu practices.
According to Survival International, “there are around two million tribal children worldwide who are being taught in factory schools, where they are stripped of their indigenous identity and indoctrinated to conform to the dominant society. In these schools, children are cut off from their homes, family, language and culture, and are often abused emotionally, physically or sexually. Just in the Indian state of Maharashtra, for example, almost 1,500 tribal children died in residential schools between 2001-2016, including over 30 suicides.” Tribal and indigenous scholars argue that education must be under community control rooted in the people’s own land, language and culture. It should instill a sense of cultural pride among indigenous people rather than a sense of guilt.
Clarification of IUAEU
The IUAEU letter signed by Junji Koizumi (President) and Noel B. Salazar (Secretary-General) clarified that this decision was arrived at without prejudice with respect to the workings of KISS. However, the IUAES remains dedicated to its founding mission to unite the anthropological community – nationally, internationally, within the IUAES and the World Anthropological Union (WAU).
The IUAES Executive Committee’s decision was informed by the principle that there should be undivided support for such an important matter as the organization of the WAC. IUAES remained firmly committed to hold the next WAC in India, and therefore has requested anthropologists, associations and institutions in India and worldwide to assist to solve the difficult in arranging logistical and necessary finance. The IUAES has appealed to the remaining three Indian congress organizers – the Indian Anthropological Association, Utkal University and Sambalpur University for continued support and help for a successful WAC 2023 in India.
Adivasi intellectuals and leaders welcome IUAES’ decision
Adivasi scholars and leaders have welcomed the decision that IUAES has detached itself the factory schools like KISS. Welcoming the decision former director of Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Guwahati campus Virginius Xaxa, who headed a high-level committee on Tribals set up by the Prime Minister’s Office in 2014 says, “this decision has punctured the scope of a fake credibility of being the saviour of Adivasi. Samanta would have legitimized this claim world over, sitting on top of demonization of indigenous culture and tradition. Today we talk a lot about equality of different groups. Diversity is the hallmark of contemporary society, where one needs to have a conscious attempt to respect culture and traditions. When you don’t appreciate your own culture and tradition, they make you look inferior as someone without any value. In factory schools like KISS there are other problems like how many of the teaching staff are Adivasis?”
There are other questions too. Elin Lakra another Adivasi woman rights activist raised that the question that why such an event be organized at a private institution, particularly which is promoting a detachment of Adivasis from their culture? “Why didn’t the IUAES approach tribal universities like the one in Amarkantak? Institutions that are engaged in detribalizing the Adivasis should be abandoned for any anthropological activity. Else it would be the reinstatement of the colonial phase of history,” said Lakra.
Adivasi leader across have welcomed the decision of IUAES stating that those running factory schools in the name of Adivasi education are not real well-wishers of tribal people. Chhotubhai Vasava, a prominent Bhil Adivasi leader, founder of Bharatiya Tribal Party and Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA) from Jhagadia constituency, Gujarat says, “dominant caste people create social organization to betray Adivasis. They use Adivasis as scapegoats for their political agenda. If they are social workers, then why should people like Achyut Samanta come into politics? That means they have some other agenda to permanently kill the Adivasi identity.”
It is to be remembered that most of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoUs) signed in Odisha are those related with industrialization and mining on Adivasi land. In this context Xaxa raises the question as, “why is the state government promoting such MoUs at one end and factory schools at the other? These are rich mineral zones, yet the people living in those areas are called poor. It is in a way the bringing back of the colonial state of seventeenth and eighteenth century. They would finally tell us that whosoever follows the Adivasi culture are ‘primitive’, ‘savagery’, ‘uncivilized’, ‘uncultured’. This withdrawal is against such politics of exclusion and in favour of the notion of diversity.”
The Ministry of Tribal Affairs provides funds for Adivasi education under Tribal Sub-plans every year. These funds are for education and creation of schools and institutions within tribal areas as per the sub-plan norms. Challenging the idea of private institutions Vasava says, “children should stay with their parents and carry forward their studies without losing their culture and identity. Institutions like KISS in a way imprisoned the children, where they are not allowed to go home for their festivals and culturally important days. We welcome and thank the decision of the IUAES.”
The problem of identity and genocide exists
The problems related with factor schools remain intact. A study by Jo Woodman titled “Whoever controls the education of our children controls our future” says that millions of indigenous children are forbidden or discouraged from speaking their mother tongue at school. This threatens the survival of indigenous languages. The fundamental cause of language extinction is when children no longer speak the language of their parents. This is a disaster, because indigenous languages are fundamental to understand the culture, life and historical legacies. Factory Schools could turn Adivasi and indigenous children – who have their own language and culture – into compliant workers-of-the-future. The world’s largest Factory School stated that it turns “tax consumers into tax payers, liabilities into assets,” says Woodman.
Big corporations and extractive industries often sponsor Factory Schools. These companies want to profit from indigenous land, labour and resources, and Factory Schools are a cheap means to try to secure this in the long term. KISS, funded by mining corporates like Vedanta, Adani among many others, who have an eye on Adivasi land in Odisha, is no different. Woodman goes on to state, “extractive industries in India and Mexico support schools which teach children to embrace mining, and to reject the connection their people have to their lands as ‘primitive’.” States use schooling as a means of inculcating patriotism and quashing independence movements, which, in the long run, erases indigenous identity.
