GRAND GESTURES

Earlier this month, nearly 1,500 dancers from across India and 10 countries descended on Raipur for the National Tribal Dance Festival. It was a gala affair with a host of folk performances, music and a variety of food stalls.

- Rahul Noronha

There was, however, more to the festival than just song and dance: the fact that for the Bhupesh Baghel government, this was also an attempt at soothing the tribals in Chhattisgarh wasn’t lost on anyone.

The third edition of the dance festival, held from November 1 to 3 and coinciding with the state’s Foundation Day celebrations, came at a time when assembly polls are just over a year away and the faultlines between Chhattisgarh’s tribal groups—who constitute 31 per cent of the state’s population—and other communities are deepening. In August, Chhattisgarh notified rules under the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996. The tribals had expected that this would give them a larger say through gram sabhas, but they say that the new rules have given more powers to district collectors. In any case, other non-tribal, chiefly OBC, groups had opposed the rules.