ICT
is becoming an integral part of our urban life these days. There is hardly anything
in our day to day life where we do not have the intervention of the ICT. It has
captured not only our physical space but our mental space as well. It is hard
to visualize our normal life specially in the urban areas when do not have any
accesses to ICT. Mobile
phones, tablets, computers, television, internet are the prominent words which
find enormous space in our vocabulary. The entire focus of our lives has been
shifted to communication and connectivity.
If
we drag our memory to few years back we would see a lot many things happening
around us without the help of any gadget or technology. The machines entered in
our lives to support and assist our day to day functioning. Industrial revolution
as it has been quoted in the “Third wave” by Alvin Toflar was to make our life
lot more easier Despite that still there were things and that too in a large
number where we were using our own manual skills and potential.
Now
those days are over. The blue chip has occupied very large space in our mind.
The man developed the technology but it has over shadowed the human life with
its ever increasing reach and speed.
The
Third wave in Toflar’s word is of information alisation. Resultantly ICT can
not be separated in any manner from our urban life.
But
is it the same in the rural areas, that too backword rural areas which has a large
number of tribal populations. We have been so preoccupied with our speed and
advancements that we completely neglected the situation of our villages in the
era of ICT.
As
we all know Tribal world over have their own customs, traditions, myths and
culture. India
is no exception where a large number of different Tribal groups reside in
different parts of the country. There are some states in the country where
Tribal population percentage is substantial and they are treated as Tribal Dominated
State. Newly crafted
Chhattisgah is one of them where the tribal population percentage is 32 as per
the 2011 census. When people living in urban areas have left their culture and
tradition behind due to various reasons the tribal have retained them to a
large extent and they are meticulously following them. It would be a matter of
surprise for many that despite all the best efforts of the Govt. to pull the
Tribal population out of their “Backwardness”, very little could be achieved in
India
since independence. Govt. has been providing special privileges to these areas
but as it happens with most up the schemes, the implementation at the grassroot
level exposes the reality.
It
is also a point of consideration that very few among the Tribal have serious
complaints about the lack of facilities being extended and are happy with their
age old customs and traditions. If we compare the present phenomenon of ICT we
would find these tribal are still using their own traditional communication
system quite effectively.
This
paper is aimed at dealing with the cultural impact of ICT over these tribal and
their adaptability towards it. This paper would also try to analyze the reach
of ICT to these areas and acquaintances of the tribal population to the ICT.
As
a case study we have taken Ambagarh chowki block, which is in the Rajnandgaon
District of Chhattisgarh state in India. It is a remote Tribal block,
which also touches the border of Maharashtra.
Left wing extremism is also quite evident in the remote areas of the block. The
total population of this block as per the 2011 census is 94,883 with a 14.91%
growth in ten years. The remarkable features of this block are the male female ratio
where we have 1067 female over 1000 male. It is a rare sight specially in India
and slap on the so called developed urban in blocks. The total tribal
population of the block is 46,782 which is 49.31% (majority of the Tribal
belong to the Gond, Halba and Kanwar tribes).
There are 09.90% scheduled castle population too in the block. Literacy rate is
higher here and reaches up to 79.84%.
All
these tact do not show the real picture of the block. This block does not have any
technical education institutions. It has a very few centers providing the facility
of Internet. Mobile users are not acquainted with other applications of the
mobile phone.
