Tribal Women (Tribal Life in India) (Volume-6)

Little attention has been given to the understanding of millions of women dwelling in the villages and tribal areas silently carrying out traditional, domestic and agricultural tasks and unquestioningly adhering to norms that have been espoused for them for many generations. We have to understand these village and tribal women, make them aware of themselves and improve their lot.

The tribal women have, particularly played a dominant role in not only in agricultural operations, but also in the field of crafts and forest based economy. In this way, in the socio-economic sphere, the tribal women have an important position more or less equal to that of men. In spite of all the women welfare rogrammes, benefits have not reached the tribal women. It seems to be essential to save them from exploitation, to enrich their social status and to achieve their glory as respected citizens of India.

In this book the editors have furnished sufficient and indepth studies regarding tribal women in India.

Dr. Devendra Thakur (b. 1939), D.Litt., was formerly Professor in L.N. Mishra College of Business Management, P.G. Deptt., B.B.A. Bihar University, Muzaffarpur. He was Ex-Member, Bihar College Service Commission. He has taught Economics, Co-operation and Extension in the Rural Institute of Higher Studies, Birauli for more than a decade. He completed his Ph.D. in 1970 and D.Litt. in 1989. He was awarded post-Doctoral fellowship by the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India to study problems relating to Tribals.

He visited Naples, Italy, on Italian Government. Scholarship to study plan implementation course. A number of articles written by him on Socio- Economic and Political problems have been published in reputed journals of and also dozens of talks have been broadcast by him from A.I.R., Patna. He is also author of a number of outstanding books.

Dr. D.N. Thakur is M.A. in Hindi, English, Prakrit and Jainology and Ph.D. on the subject "Trends of Traditions of Indian Semantics". He has been a dedicated teacher and always endeavoured to explore new areas of study in different fields of knowledge including socio-economic development of Indian Tribes. Moreover, Dr. Thakur has assisted a lot of South-East Asian research scholars in fulfilment of their works on different subjects. He is still devoted to serve humanity through his writings.

'Man' and 'Woman' are two distinctive terms representing two identifiable human forms, based on biological differences. Nature created these differences for the progression of our society. Both the sexes were made complementary to have a progeny and thus made equally responsible for carrying out nature's command.

But somewhere down the stream of history we forgot nature's design of conceiving complementarity of sexes and started attributing a lower status to women. In an uncivilized society 'might' could have tried to prove 'tight' by subjugating the feelings, emotions and interests of those who could not match his physical strength. Woman's confinement during pregnancy and during post-natal care of children could have made her vulnerable and thus dependent on her partner for the daily needs of family. Woman's lesser physical strength and dependence on man for survival could have reduced her importance in the eyes of man and relegated her to the background. Her contribution as a partner, mother, housewife, social organiser, preserver of traditions and cultural patterns and above all as a stabilizer of an otherwise violent and competitive society was perhaps never realized.

Gradually, a majority of women also imbibed the male notion of woman's unimportance and started keeping a low profile. The voice of rebel was hardly audible. The identity and individuality of women was bulldozed by men and suppressed by women themselves. Their only identity was that of daughters, sisters, wives and mothers of men as fathers, brothers, husbands and sons respectively.

**Contents and Sample Pages**