Answer 29 07 2021 15

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DAMP SOCIOLOGY
Q) What are the limitations to the understanding of tribes in India? (20 Marks)
Answer:
Prior to the colonial era the use of a generic term to describe tribal peoples was, on the
whole, absent. The term ‘tribe’ since the 16th century has referred to groups/communities,
which lived in primitive and barbarous conditions of living. Beteille calls it a colonial
construction.
The Sanskritic and Hindu religious texts and traditions and, in the process people with
civilisation described and depicted tribes as. Joseph Bara takes the point even further when
he states that the pre-colonial depiction of the tribal people of India as 'dasyus', 'daityas',
'rakshakas' and 'nishadas', when juxtaposed with the mid-19th century western racial
concept, rather advanced the aspect of bestiality attached to the concept.
Problems with the term ‘tribe’

• Colonial administrators used the category 'tribe' to describe people so heterogeneous
from each other in respect of physical and linguistic traits, demographic size,
ecological conditions of living, regions inhabited, or stages of social formation and
level of acculturation and development was put forward by the colonial
administration. This classification was done for administrative expediency.
• The early ethnographers of the 18th century were not clear about the distinction
between the two terms caste and tribe and used synonymously. Risley used the
phrase ‘caste and Tribes of India’ in a cognate manner.
• The 1901 census defined tribes as those who practised animism. In the subsequent
census’s animism was replaced by the tribal religion. The intent of the colonial power
was to differentiate between the caste and tribe and in this process, they showed that
there is no interaction and interrelationship between the two terms.
Tribes being a part of Hinduism.

• Both Ghurye and Bose, for example, stressed the nature of interaction between tribes
and the larger Hindu society and the ways in which tribes have been drawn into the
Hindu society. They stressed similarities between the two societies. Ghurye called
tribes as “backward Hindus”.
• Surajit Sinha even goes to the extent of viewing tribes as a dimension of little tradition
that cannot be adequately understood unless it is seen in relation to the great
tradition.
• The Sanskritisation thesis also sees tribes being a part of the mainstream society or
aspiring to become a part of the caste society. This idea is also problematic.
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In view of such conception, tribes have come to be primarily studied in relation to features
and characteristics of the larger society. The focus is on how tribes are getting absorbed into
the larger society, the so-called mainstream, by becoming caste, peasant, class and so on.
• Tribes are primarily seen as a stage and type of society. They represent a society that
lacks positive traits of the modern society and thus constitutes a simple, illiterate and
backward society. With change in these features on account of education, modern
occupation, new technology, etc, tribal society is no longer considered to be tribal. If
transformation is in the direction of caste society then it is described as having
become caste society.
• In the process it is forgotten that tribe besides being a stage and type of society is also
a society alike and similar to any other kind of society.
Tribes as ‘indigenous’
Some scholars understand tribes as indigenous. However, this understanding assumes that
tribal people are the original owner of the soil. However, this idea of indigenous is now
accepted by the tribes.
• Xaxa says that the identity that was forced from outside has now been internalised
among the tribes. Today, it is an important mark of identity and consciousness of the
people, an identity that evokes a sense of self-esteem and pride rather than a sense of
lowly and inferior society that often goes with terms like tribe or tribal.
• The declaration of the year 1993 as the international year of the indigenous people
has only sharpened this identity for identity, since then carries certain rights and
privileges with it.
Indian anthropologists have been acutely aware of a certain lack of fit between what their
discipline defines as tribe and what they are obliged to describe as tribes. Yet they have
continued with the existing labels.
Q) The major issues related to the post-independent Tribal Development Programmes

have been the nature of these being non-inclusive and unsustainable. Explain. (20 Marks)
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Ph: +91-8826486658, +918826496658, | Email: [email protected]

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Problems with the term ‘tribe’

Tribes being a part of Hinduism.

Q) The major issues related to the post-independent Tribal Development Programmes

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