Being Indigenous — 2

A while ago had written this about being indigenous

Yesterday, over a really long, absorbing and amazing conversation with Kalyan Akkipedi of ProtoVillage, I listened to his experiences and learned a lot vicariously.

One major deepening of my thought process was about what had bothered me about “being indigenous”. People claim this on their origin or birth, or that of their parents. That’s a very broken way of looking at belonging. What Kalyan described from his experience of over 10 months living with the tribes across central India, I learned this about what makes one indigenous :

• Self sustenance — even to the point of rejecting offers of free help and goodies from outside. One may have many arguments at the superficial level against this, but at a deeper level and when read with the others this is a powerful thought.
• Interdependence and a flat society : The acknowledgement of others’ roles in your life, the conscious interdependence and the creation of multiple contextual leaders responsible for various things one depends on in the local context.
• Never harm the earth/water/air. Don’t think this needs any explanation.

This is what makes you indigenous, anywhere. Not language, not the visible artefacts of tradition, not claims of belonging and patriotism.

Do also listen to him here about the constructed idea of poverty.