Change of Resource Base and its Impact on Livelihood Pattern of Tribal Community: a Focus on Rampurhat-I C.d. Block, Birbhum District, West Bengal, India

Living in the distinct physical environment the tribe represents a community of people. They live in isolation, engage in primitive subsistence economy and have their own norms, beliefs and cultural traditions. As they are habituated with adverse physical set-up of the environment, so they depend on only the fixed and limited resource base of their own habitat. But in present global scenario this traditional culture has been adversely affected by the impact of popular urbanized culture.

The forestry and subsistence agriculture were the means of livelihood for the tribal community of Rarh Bengal as well as in western part of Birbhum district. Over the last thirty years the basalt quarrying has been emerged as an important means of livelihood especially for the tribal people in the northwestern part of Birbhum. In the present study an attempt has been made to explore the impact of basalt quarrying on livelihood pattern of tribal community in some selected mouzas of Rampurhat-I C.D.Block. At the same time it deals with the microscopic analysis about the deconstruction and devaluation of tribal culture in respect to their traditional beliefs and value system.