PVTG-focused welfare schemes deal with material deprivation but often neglect linguistic and cultural survival. Critically analyse, citing the Kurumbas of Attappady.

The Ministry of Tribal Affairs classifies the Kurumbas of Attappady (Palakkad) as a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG). They are one of Keralam's five PVTGs, with only 2,719 people (2024) [1]. Their case shows that PVTG welfare tracks houses and roads well, but pays little attention to whether a community's unwritten language survives.

Material focus: what the schemes achieve

• Village-level targeting: PM-JANMAN records PVTG populations village by village and district by district in Kerala. This helps it deliver housing, roads and health services to every eligible habitation [2].
• Mobility: Connectivity and hostels open up education and jobs outside the valley [1].
• Recognition: PVTG status itself admits that these groups face distinct vulnerability, which gives them a basis for wider claims.

Cultural blind spots: the critique

• No language indicator: PM-JANMAN's data checks physical assets. It does not ask whether children still speak the home language [2].
• Welfare can speed up language shift: Kurumba is oral, with no script. Members who move away for study or work switch to Malayalam [1]. So a scheme can meet its own targets while the number of Kurumba speakers falls.
• Statistical invisibility: In 2011 the Census published separately only the 270 of 1,369 mother tongues that had 10,000 or more speakers [4]. Kurumba gets folded into "others" [1]. Without a published count, it is harder to make the case for teachers, textbooks and funding.
• Recording, not revival: SPPEL lists and records endangered languages by zone [3]. It does not bring them back into everyday use.

Counter-view

• A Census line or an archive cannot stop a language from fading on its own. Jobs and migration drive the shift [1]. Material security also gives a community the confidence to keep its culture, so the two goals support each other.

Way forward

• Add a language-vitality question to PM-JANMAN surveys.
• The Registrar General should publish the full mother-tongue list, with district-level tables.
• Use SPPEL recordings to make early-grade primers, in line with NEP 2020 and Article 350A.
• Adopt UNESCO's Global Action Plan approach: preserve, revitalise, promote [5].

PVTG welfare has rightly put material deprivation first, but development that wears away a language is incomplete. Adding cultural indicators to schemes like PM-JANMAN would give practical effect to Article 29. It would also ensure that communities like the Kurumbas are counted not only for housing, but as living linguistic communities.