Gender Inequality Among Tribal Women in Contemporary India A Study of Paraja Tribe in Koraput District

Abstract

The present study emphasises on Gender Inequality among Tribal Women in Contemporary India: A Study of Paraja Tribe in Koraput District . Traditionally women are marginalized, poorer and deprived than the men. Theyface inequality in terms of their basic needs and rights. Employment, education, health and decision making are the areas where the women are discriminated or unequal compare to their male counterpart. Here special emphasis given to Paraja tribal women in order to know gender differences among them. All we know that tribal society is an egalitarian society, therefore we introspect that they are not faces any inequality related to their gender. But the status and position of tribal women depends upon the nature of societies i.e. patriarchal or matrilineal in nature. The position of a woman in matriarchy society is better than the patriarchy society. As Paraja tribe is patriarchy in nature, so the study focuses on to found the gender inequality among Paraja. In case of employment, education, decision making process and health their status is very backward. They are illiterate, ignorance, traditional, conservative and orthodox in character and inaccessibility to get the benefits provided by the Government. The researcher particularly wants to study Koraput district because it is a backward and tribal dominated area of Odisha. It is also the Paraja tribal dominated area which constitutes highest 221828 number of Paraja tribal population, out of 374628 Paraja tribes inhabiting in the state Odisha.