When a country of billion people takes pride in a few medals it wins in the Olympics, it explains why mediocrity is so deeply steeped in our culture. A large number of tribal communities have a huge stamina, are very athletic and can be powerful sportsperson. But even in the skills in which they are good, they don’t get the premium attention and resources. It might look surprising that Manipur alone got two medals. Imphal and its hinterland is one of the few districts of India from where we have received the largest number of innovations. But when you look at the Town Hall of Manipur, the neglect becomes eloquent. Why is it that the margins of the country cannot become part of the mainstream unless they resort to violence or occasionally prove their excellence? 

There are 15 different interventions that can transform the tribal regions such as: [a] by the end of 12th Five Year Plan, we must ensure that at least 50 percent of the forest produce is valorised in situ. Unless we add value locally, there is no major dent on poverty possible; [b] a science and technology consortium has to be created for adding value ex situ to at least 2000 herbal leads for human, agricultural and animal health practices with their IPRs protected at the community level. The benefit sharing arrangements can create a new social contract between the tribal communities and the academia and corporations; [c] Building community knowledge registers so that their biodiversity and other physical and cultural resource based knowledge is documented for lateral learning, i.e., people to people and also for developing decentalised enterprises for local product development. 

In terms of administrative and educational changes it is proposed that [d] tribal regions should never be used as a place for punishment postings. The communities deserve the most dedicated and efficient officers; [e] every block must have a Navodaya Vidyalaya to provide high quality educational services to the tribal children with local language facility; [f] a helpline must be created to answer the questions children cannot understand in their mother tongue if possible; [g] the teachers from northeast, the educated tribal region of the country may be hired on priority for posting in less developed tribal regions. It will generate opportunities for the educated youth of northeast and provide empathetic teachers for the other tribal regions; [h] sports academies may be created around outstanding archers, athletes and other sportspersons. They should be given direct grants from district innovation fund or through a pool of CSR funds of various mining and other companies. The medal tally of the country will then see better results; [i] a call centre needs to be set up for counseling and providing full information for various educational and technological opportunities in tribal. Just as the ministry of agriculture runs a countrywide call centre, one needs a similar facility for tribal region. The transaction costs involved in accessing various entitlements of tribal communities should also be reduced through such a call centre; [j] the emerging policy of providing mobile phones to poor people should be used not only for monitoring the delivery of various programmes, but also for mapping the mind of knowledge rich, economically poor communities; [k] a portal can be created where tribal communities can upload their cultural creativity, sculptures, art work, music, etc., with copyright protection.  The e-commerce facility may enable the creative people to be paid for download of their work for personal use and licensing fee for commercial use. So much of tribal art is used without any attribution or compensation; [l] a programme for creating multimedia, multi-language educational content be created so that technology students of IIT, NIT, IIM, etc., are encouraged to contribute towards this goal. Such open source content would empower children even in areas where dedicated teachers are not available; [m] a district social venture fund be created to invest in the innovative ideas of tribal youth; [n] the tribal communities can teach outstanding social values of collaboration, sharing and respect for life. The gender relations are also very fair in most of the tribal communities. Lessons about liberating institutions can be learnt by rest of the country and finally [o] we should create supply chains for tribal craft and other products through post office network. 

It is true that constituency for tribal communities is weak. Instead of spending tens of thousands of crores in fighting our own people, would not it make sense to invest in their ideas and co-create solutions in partnership with them?