When The Hindu newspapers, described as one of the world’s largest English-speaking newspapers, pledged to no longer refer to tribal communities in India as “primitive”, it was hailed as significant since the term is still widely being insensitively used in that country and global media to describe certain groups of societies.
The word “primitive” is a word in India’s educational, political and social systems that some have considered necessary to be removed in its present context when speaking of tribal people.
It is often in use when discussing tribes that are considered less technologically and materially advanced, or more traditional than the so-called modern societies. It is in fact, a belittling expression that continues to encourage prejudice toward these traditional groups and does a great disservice to the various tribal communities.
According to the movement “proud but not primitive”, which campaigned for the ban, no media should be using the word to describe India’s tribal peoples, as it is derogatory and dangerous. Such a word leads to assumptions of their way of life as inferior and out of touch with today’s world, which in turn leads to the thinking that they must be ‘developed’ and brought in line with today’s world.
The movement’s concept of removing words that promote discriminatory behaviours and thinking is not new. In the U. S., certain words that encourage racial stereotyping have also successfully been removed from media and educational systems, as well as in political and most social circles.
As the movement declared, there is need to change the way others think, talk and write about tribal peoples, to ensure their ways of life and rights are respected. Such an approach should be considered not just in India, but around the world.
In Guyana, the removal of the word “reservation”, recently being used to describe Amerindian villages or areas, is also necessary since it encourages the idea of American Indian reservations, of which the squalor of the majority of these is well- documented and acknowledged.
Indeed, American Indians were forced onto areas created and labelled reservations by the American government, after the tribes were defeated in bloody battles that some have later even called genocide – something that has been glorified in the modern Hollywood culture of the U. S. That is certainly not the case here in Guyana, historically or presently.
On U. S. Native American reservations, its government provides housing subsidies, free healthcare and welfare cheques (prompting many outsiders to believe in the “myth of prosperity” which then spreads resentment), leading to the development of what some tribal leaders have called a “culture of dependency” among the tribes within these reservations.
Such an idea is an insult to our indigenous Guyanese who, as the recent Amerindian Heritage Month has revealed, are holding their own as independent communities; receiving benefits from the government just like other Guyanese fishing, agricultural or mining communities, to name a few, do.
If we must imitate Americanisms, care should be taken to understand the context and history of such words since, as is obvious, the word “reservation” is a clear injustice to our indigenous societies here.
Like the word primitive suggests backward societies, “reservation” helps to maintain a dangerous idea that our tribal communities are corralled and depressed, and completely dependent on government. The continuing vibrancy of Guyanese tribes attests to the fact that they are neither depressed nor living in the type of poverty inherent in American reservations.
In fact, as the Rupununi Christmas Fair and the upcoming Rupununi Music and Arts Festival suggest – just two of the many cultural activities among indigenous communities – Guyanese tribal communities are thriving in their dynamic cultures, and their villages are anything but similar to what is a “reservation”, a word being bandied about in some quarters.
As one Indian tribal elder is quoted as saying, “For us Adivasis (tribal people of India), every tree is like a house. That is what the forest is for us. We are not backward, it’s just another way of life.”
