The integration of tribals into the mainstream society created difficulties, One of the reasons being:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → They were gatherers who practiced shifting cultivation and did not have the necessary skills for other activities.
Option (1) They refused to move out and accept new areas of dwelling. — Incorrect. Tribals were not given a choice. Their lands were acquired for mines and dams, and millions were displaced without any appropriate compensation or rehabilitation; the difficulty lay in what happened to them, not in a refusal on their part.
Option (2) They were gatherers who practiced shifting cultivation and did not have the necessary skills for other activities. — Correct. Tribal livelihoods rested on the forest, on gathering produce and shifting cultivation. When the forests were reserved for timber and their lands taken for development, the mainstay of their livelihood was gone, and they were forced either to use the forests illegally or to migrate in search of wage labour. A people who had lived by the forest had to find new ways of earning, which is the difficulty the option points to.
Option (3) They could not be educated. — Incorrect. This is a prejudice, not a reason: nothing about tribal people makes them unable to learn. Their hardships came from losing their forests and lands.
Option (4) They continued to live the same way as before. — Incorrect. Their way of life was broken, not kept: denied access to forests and land, they had to change how they lived and earned.
Note: The idea that the tribals lacked the skills for other activities is not in NCERT (2025-26); the answer is marked as per the NTA answer key, since Option (2) alone rests on their forest-based livelihood.
NCERT (2025-26): “Adivasi Struggles … The impoverished and exploited circumstances under which adivasis live can be traced historically to the pattern of accelerated resource extraction started by the colonial British government and continued by the government of independent India. From the late nineteenth century onwards, the colonial government reserved most forest tracts for its own use, severing the rights that adivasis had long exercised to use the forest for gathering produce and for shifting cultivation. Forests were now to be protected for maximising timber production. With this policy, the mainstay of their livelihoods was taken away from adivasis, rendering their lives poorer and more insecure. Denied access to forests and land for cultivation, adivasis were forced to either use the forests illegally (and be harassed and prosecuted as ‘encroachers’ and thieves) or migrate in search of wage labour.…” “…After the Independence of India in 1947 the government’s monopoly over forests continued. The policy of capital-intensive industrialisation adopted by the Indian government required mineral resources and power-generation capacities which were concentrated in Adivasi areas. Adivasi lands were rapidly acquired for new mining and dam projects. In the process, millions of adivasis were displaced without any appropriate compensation or rehabilitation.…” |