Comprehensive Essay on Tribals of India

Nihar Ranjan Ray had an opportunity to hold a national seminar at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Simla in 1969. It is on this oc­casion that he gave a discourse on the definition of tribe. He says:

The so-called tribals of India, it is well known, are the indigenous, autochthonous people of the land, in the sense that they had been long settled in different parts of the country before the Aryan-speaking peoples penetrated India to settle down first in the Kabul and Indus valleys and then within a millennium and a half, to spread out over large parts of the country along the plains and river valleys.

Ray explains the term ‘tribe’ from the historical point of view. He further says that the tribals had an underdeveloped economy; they practiced agriculture and animal husbandry. All over the country the tribals tried to possess as much land as possible.

Tribals in India are known by several names: vanvasi, girijan, adi- vasi, janjati, etc. Before the promulgation of the Constitution, social anthropologists in India made an attempt to define Indian tribes.

Image Source: cdn.youthkiawaaz.com

Much literature has come out on tribes and their way of life. Despite this huge mass there are a few anthropologists who have carried out extensive fieldwork among the tribals.

Among these may be included Verrier Elwin, G.S. Ghurye, D.N. Majumdar, N.K. Bose and F.G. Bailey. Let us try to understand the concept of tribe as developed by some of these Indian anthropologists.

Elwin was not a professional social anthropologist. He came to In­dia as an intellectual and gradually converted to Indian ways of life and thinking as a result of contact with Mahatma Gandhi, the national movement and tribal India.

He was in close touch with Gandhi as well as Nehru, and he studied and lived with several of the country’s little- known tribes. He married a Gond girl and made Mandala as his centre for social work. He is considered to be an authority on tribal meth­ods.

It is in 1943 that Elwin come out with a small pamphlet type book, The Loss of Nerve. The book was received critically. He has ar­gued that the tribals are the original settlers to this land. They lived with nature and their habits and way of life are conditioned by nature.

They have all the excellent characters of human beings. When these tribals come in contact with the non-tribals, they are likely to shed their qualities of life. And, that is their loss of nerve. They should be kept isolated from the mainline of civilization.

The proposition made by Elwin created a debate in India. The Gandhian workers argued that the tribals cannot be kept deprived of the benefits of civilization. Isolation in this case would keep them backward, ignorant, poor and illiterate. At a later stage, Elwin pro­posed a Public Park Theory.

According to this theory, the tribal area should be cordoned off from the main civilization. The tribals will live in the public park. This was his plan for keeping the tribals iso­lated.

However, at the close of his life, Elwin changed his theory and pressed for the integration of tribals on the basis of their genius. Noth­ing of the modern civilization should be imposed on the tribals. This philosophy was given by him in connection with the study of north­east tribals.

G.S. Ghurye was a typical Maharashtrian Brahmin. He was inten­sively oriented to the Hindu way of life. He contested the Elwin theory of ‘Public Park’ or isolation. His argument was that the tribals are a part of Hindu society.

They could be considered as backward caste Hindus. Ghurye was agitated against Elwin and soon after the latter’s book, The Loss of Nerve, he came out with his own book, The Aboriginals, So-Called and their Future in 1943. The book is actually a rejoinder to Elwin. Ghurye’s argument is that tribals all over the country are increasingly assimilating themselves into Hindu castes.

Actually, he devoted two long chapters on tribal assimilation in this book. It is here that he defines tribals as backward caste Hindus. He further says that the problems of tribals are not specific to tribals only. They are problems of backward caste peasants. Thus, according to him, the tribals are both backward caste Hindus, and peasants.

N.K. Bose, another serious social anthropologist, a Gandhian himself, also attempted to define Indian tribes. He says that the tribals are original inhabitants of this country. But they are increasingly com­ing within the fold of Hinduism.

He has dealt with the matter of tribal integration and says that the Hindus have a method of drawing the tribals within the caste system. Hinduism is very liberal and it can provide a place to tribals. While talking on Hindu method of tribal ab­sorption he also pleads for a secular model for integrating the tribals.

F.G. Bailey has studied the Konds of Orissa. In his earlier work he studied the economic frontier of the castes. In this study he argues that the castes have given a new dimension to the economy.

He studies ‘tribe’, ‘caste’ and ‘nation’ and establishes their correlation. It is in this context that he says that the Konds are a tribal group in the sense that they share a common culture and speak a common language.

From a linguistic point of view, Bailey says that tribe and caste have separate identities. In the same way, both these structures differ in their politi­cal organization. Bailey further argues that the tribal political system is segmentary. Its base is agnatic kinship. On the other hand, the caste political organization draws from social legislation.

The Konds have their political relations with the lower castes also. His logic is that there is a continuum from tribe to caste. It is this theme-the tribe, caste and nation-which constitutes the continuum of social change. In course of time the tribals assume the status of a caste and finally the castes lose their entity and integrate themselves in the nation.

In short, Bailey has presented a hypothesis which needs to be veri­fied. He says that the Kond politics is based on agnatic kinship relationship. It is a segmentary system. There are some social anthro­pologists who argue that the tribals constitute a whole society. Bailey, however, does not subscribe to this view. For him tribal society is a segmentary society moving from its status of tribe to caste and finally nation.

The Official Definition of Tribe :

The universalistic definition of tribe is Euro-centric. It has the feudal and colonial background of the 19th century Europe. Its particularis­tic aspect given on the historical background of our country, whether by Ghurye, Majumdar or Elwin, is not homogeneous and varies from one anthropologist to another. In such a confusing heterogeneity, the Constitution has made a way out.

It has laid down a democratic proce­dure to identify the tribals. The tribals are officially defined as Scheduled Tribes. The official definition of Scheduled Tribe keeps in its view the country’s historical experience and tribe-caste relations.

Article 366 (25) of the Constitution of India has defined Scheduled Tribes as “such tribes or tribal communities or parts or groups within such tribes or tribal communities as are deemed under Article 342 to be Scheduled Tribes for the purpose of this Constitution”.

By the Scheduled Tribes Order, 1950, issued by the President in exercise of the powers conferred by Clause (1) of Article 232 of the Constitution of the India, 312 tribes have been declared to be Scheduled Tribes. Later, by an Act of Parliament, some other groups were also included in the schedule.

In the People of India project, K.S. Singh has registered 461 tribal communities in India. Out of the total groups 172 are segments. Many of these are as good as discrete categories.

The total population of the Scheduled Tribes in the country stands at 6, 77, 58,000 (1991 census). They constitute 8.08 per cent of the total population and are spread over all the states except Punjab and Haryana. The largest concentra­tion of tribals is in Madhya Pradesh (23.22%), followed by Orissa (11.46%), Bihar (11.26%) and Maharashtra (11.18%).

The Constitution has provided certain protective and develop­mental safeguards for the development of these tribal groups. They are provided reservation for a period extending to 2010. The main objec­tive of giving certain benefits to the tribals is to draw these communities of people into the mainstream of life.