By Our Reporter
Shillong: Former Secretary General of the Lok Sabha and research professor, Centre for Policy Research, New Delhi, Dr Subhash C Kashyap has pointed out that the tribal people are deprived of their rights in the name of development.
“Big industries are set up in tribal lands in the name of development and the worst sufferers are the poor farmers and the local people,” Dr Kashyap said.
Dr Kashyap was addressing a two-day national conference on ‘Sixty years of the working of Parliamentary Democracy in India: Experience and Prospects’ organised by Synod College and PA Sangma Foundation here on Wednesday.
“We always stress on sustainable growth but the focus should be more on sustainable consumption,” he said adding that poor people are deprived of their rights and continue to die. “Nobody talks of land reforms nowadays,” he opined.
Stating that traditional institutions are the backbone of the tribal communities, Dr Kashyap said traditional institutions are better when it comes to decision making.
He stated that after Independence, the traditional institutions are given the freedom to take their own decisions but the problems and complications arise when the exercise of power by traditional institutions is not given full play.
“They (traditional institutions) like the panchayats and the like should be allowed to govern their own communities according to the traditional set-up of the community,” he reiterated.
Turning to the process of electing the President of India, Dr Kashyap said that traditional heads of various institutions should also be allowed to participate.
Highlighting that the union government should concentrate only on essentials and let the respective state governments do the rest, the former Lok Sabha Secretary General said it is high time to make the Centre shed its extra weight.
“In reality, it is not the lower level government that should depend on the higher level government but it should be the other way round,” Dr Kashyap observed while claiming that the Union Council of Ministers headed by the Prime Minister is a ‘sham’.
He further stated that it is high time to prove India as a democratic country in its real sense by transferring power to the people right at the grassroots level.
