Social issues

India has been a country of multiple diversities like linguistic, religious, and cultural diversities since ancient times. After independence, various demands of reorganization of states on the basis of various aspirations comprising of cultural similarity, linguistic identity and others emerged from different parts of India. Though the government reorganized various states and also formed new states but cultural units have been intact in India till this day.

• Recently Chhath parv has been celebrated in Purvanchal region, which comprises the eastern end of Uttar Pradesh and western end of Bihar, where Hindi-Urdu and its dialects Awadhi and Bhojpuri are the predominant language.
  
• Population living in green revolution area that comprises Punjab, Haryana and west Uttar Pradesh practices nearly same traditions and represents a single cultural unit.
  
• Influence of Dravidian culture can be seen across all South Indian states, food habit of people living in these states is similar, wedding rituals are same.
  
• North eastern region comprising 8 states represents as a single cultural unit in terms of their traditions.
  
• Rice fish culture has also been practiced across all coastal regions in different states.
  

It shows that cultural units in India are not necessarily concurrent with states and beyond the boundaries of formal division of states.

Scheduled tribes of India, due to developmental displacement, and in absence of proper rehabilitation initiatives, have faced cultural discrimination and socio-political and economic exploitation. Due to lack of education and skills, for decades these tribes continued to be oppressed at the hands of the larger society.

To undo these injustices and to safeguard tribal rights, the government undertook several constitutional and legal initiatives, significant among which have been Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities), 2015 and Panchayat (Extension to the Scheduled Areas), Act, 1996.

The SC & ST PoA, 2015 prohibits the commission of offences against members of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SCs and STs) and establishes special courts for the trial of such offences and the rehabilitation of victims, thereby preventing any potential social discrimination faced by the SCs and STs.

PESA empowers the scheduled tribes to safeguard and preserve their traditions and customs, their cultural identity, community resources and also their customary modes of dispute resolution, thereby helping them from being vulnerable at the hands of larger society and also protecting their identity and culture from the onslaught of dominant culture.

These two legal initiatives have perhaps played the greatest role in addressing the concerns and in protecting the rights and cultures of various tribal groups in India.