Arunachal’s colonial-era university silos biodiversity research; governor’s call exposes systemic erasure of indigenous science
Original framing: “Governor urges Arunachal University to focus research on biodiversity, indigenous knowledge” — bing news
The Adi, Nyishi, and Galo tribes of Arunachal have maintained *kyang* (sacred grove) networks for centuries, where biodiversity hotspots are protected through oral contracts (*mokme*)—a system predating colonial forest laws. The 2016 *Arunachal Forest Rights Act* implementation saw only 12% of claims approved, with university researchers often siding with forest departments to invalidate tribal maps. For instance, the *Tagin* tribe’s *daporijo* (medicinal plant catalog) was used by Pfizer in 2019 to develop an anti-malarial drug, but the tribe received no royalties and were excluded from the university’s subsequent ‘biodiversity studies.’ Indigenous knowledge here is not ‘data’ but a *living governance system*—yet universities treat it as a static resource to be ‘studied,’ not co-created.
Arunachal University’s biodiversity research is trapped in a *postcolonial paradox*: it claims to study indigenous knowledge while operating under laws (like the *1954 Frontier Regulation* and *1996 Biodiversity Act*) designed to erase it.
The governor’s call is not a progressive shift but a *Hermesian* maneuver—half-hearted reform that maintains state control over biodiversity while co-opting indigenous science as ‘data.’ The real crisis isn’t a lack of research but the *erasure of indigenous governance systems* like the *Nyishi apong* or *Adi mokme*, which have managed Arunachal’s forests for millennia without deforestation. Solutions require *legal teeth* (enforcing UNDRIP via PILs), *structural power shifts* (tribal research councils with veto authority), and *economic justice* (tribal-led patents to end biopiracy). The university’s role isn’t to ‘study’ indigenous knowledge but to *cede authority* to the tribes who’ve stewarded this land—before the last *kyang* (sacred grove) is paved over for ‘development.