CONCEPT OF TRIBE IN INDIA

“TRIBE” is the one of the most interesting concept of anthropology and also of this whole
human world disregard of the discipline. It is also relatively less explored and confusing
concepts in the human history. We can trace its origin but not able to examine it fully. It is
very difficult to classify tribes. “Tribes”, although pervasive throughout but dealt always
locally. There cannot be universal definitions and doctrines for the tribes.

This paper examines the concept of tribe in India considering its all dimensions.

Introduction:
The term, “tribe” originated around the time of the Greek city-states and the early formation
of the Roman Empire. The Latin term, “tribus” has since been transformed to mean, “A
group of persons forming a community and claiming descent from a common ancestor”
(Oxford English Dictionary, IX, 1933, p. 339, as cited in Fried, 1975, p. 7). Historically, the
designation of a group as either a tribe or a band was often rather haphazard, as the process
usually depended upon colonial administrators who had a poor understanding of indigenous
political practices and the fluid nature of traditional social structures.

In anthropology, a notional form of human social organization based on a set of smaller

groups (known as bands), having temporary or permanent political integration, and defined
by traditions of common descent, language, culture, and ideology. By the mid-19th century,
many anthropologists and other scholars were using the term, as well as band, chiefdom,
and state, to denote particular stages in unilineal cultural evolution. Although unilineal
cultural evolution is no longer a credible theory, these terms continue to be used as a sort of
technical shorthand in college courses, documentaries, and popular reference works. As an
anthropological term, the word tribe fell out of favour in the latter part of the 20th century.
Some rejecting it and some objecting the negative connotations that the word acquired in the
colonial context. Thus, many anthropologists replaced it with the designation ethnic group,
usually defined as a group of people with a common ancestry and language, a shared cultural
and historical tradition, and an identifiable territory.

Concept of tribe in India: pre-colonial and colonial construct

When it is said that tribe is a modern category, it is not meant that the communities that are
right now referred in that way did not exist before modernity. In 43 tact, what is meant is that
these communities have been re-forged and put under one banner "tribe" during colonial rule
and this bracketing affected not just the identities of the members of the community, but also
their destinies in modernity.
"Tribe" as we know it today as the category that was officially consolidated in the post-
colonial India as the Scheduled Tribes was first categorized by the British.

But this does not mean that the native categories were all made from thin air by the
colonialists. The British constructions were importantly influenced by the already existing
elite constructions in Indian society.

Many researchers have focused on the colonial times for studying "tribal" communities.
Neeladri Bhattacharya blames them for not paying any attention to the pre-colonial
experience: “The social lives and practices of forest dwellers and peasants, shifting
cultivators and pasturalists, were crucially affected by the way they were seen by state and
society, as well as the self-conceptions of their own practice. Research on the theme, limited
as it is, has tended to focus on the colonial period, and argumensts about dramatic changes in
state attitudes have often been made on the basis of implicit unexplored assumptions about
pre-colonial societies.” This makes it imperative to at least take a quick look at the pre-
colonial dominant constructions of the tribes.

 Pre-colonial construct:

In her work, Romila Thapar examines the image of the barbarian in ancient India. She thinks
the image draws its genesis from "the curious situation of the arrival of the Indo-Aryan-
speaking nomadic 45 pastoralists in northern India who came into contact with the
indigenous population (possibly the remnants of the urban civilization of the Indus) and
regarded them as barbarians."13 She adds that the distinction that was made with the
indigenous population was a linguistic one (between the Sanskrit speakers and the non-
Sanskrit speakers) and to a lesser degree, a racial one. The word that was used to describe the
"other" in Sanskrit was mleccha

By the time of the ‘Mauryan’ Empire, a distinction seems to have emerged about various
tribes amongst the dominant culture. Thus, ‘Kautilya’ mentions ‘aranyacaras’ and atavikas.
They were seen to be lower than the people inhabiting janapadas but tamed unlike the
atavikas. Another level of the pre-colonial construction of the tribe also betrayed some
grudging respect to the jungle tribes. Thus the atavikas were seen to be "well-organized and
brave, practically autonomous and fond of looting and killing.

 Colonial construct:

The colonial times saw large scale remoulding of the Indian society. Very often, these
changes were talking to and taking from earlier forms of power available in India. It was a
dialogue between European constructions of categories and native constructions. Surely, they
operated with a power difference between groups evolving the categories. All categories were
remoulded to suit modernity. The category "tribe" was one such.
There were many institutions that were connected to the colonial production of categories.
Among others, this broadly includes the colonial State, academic, especially anthropological
writings, and missionary writings.

The post-colonial Indian State's perception of the tribes was directly connected to the colonial
construction of the tribe. Kamat proves this point in the following way: Scheduled Tribes list
and Scheduled Tribe areas refer to the Government taxonomy of tribes introduced in 1950,
though it is substantially based on the 1936 Census by the British Government. Therefore, it
is quite clear that it is important to look at the colonial administrative category that emerged
through their Census to get an idea of what the roots were of the post-colonial administrative
category.

However, what is argued here is that the "tribe" with its anthropological and evolutionary
meanings of "not advanced" and lagging behind in the evolutionary scheme developed along
with colonization and modernity. In India, the notion of the tribe developed as communities
outside caste and there also developed definite notions of primitivity along with it. This has
also led to the post-colonial Adivasi identity creation.

The Census, especially colonial Census as discourse that is primarily responsible for
constructing the category "tribe". Census is the enumeration of people. The idea of people
becoming a population is very much there in the act of Census taking. The governable subject
who willingly submits to the mechanisms of the State power is the imagined subject of
European Census. But, the Indian Census, though drawing from these roots, does not imagine
a hilly formed individual. Instead, what is enumerated is a wealth of communities.

The classificatory methods used by the British, angered many a native subject. Thus, the
1881 Census shows that the resistance of the Bhils against the Census operations had to be
quelled by the deployment of the army because they were "superstitiously" against it. Census
is not just the data of the number of human beings. It is the data of classification. And this
classification gives us an idea about how the people are imagined to be divided. This means
that while the British thought they were just recording the groups available in this country,
what was happening was that they were defining and constructing through these
classifications. They remoulded the communities. This is why I say tribe is a modern
category.

The Terms Used for Tribes in Various Census Reports

Year Term Used for Tribe

1891 "Forest Tribes" under "Agricultural and Pastoral
Castes"
1901 "Animists"
1911 "Tribal Animists or People Following Tribal
Religion”
1921 "Hill and Forest Tribes"
1931 "Primitive Tribes"
1941 "Tribes"
Tribes and Hinduism:
Hindu has been defined against Muslim and other religions with Semitic properties in the
colonial period. It has been seen as the default religion of the country. The tribes have not
been included in the religion Hindu though constantly there are references to their closeness.
In fact, even when the tribes themselves have specifically asked to be included in the
category, they have been excluded from the category. Moreover, the brief trial at including
the tribe as religion in the 1881 Census also shows that the British Census officials
maintained the distinction between the Hindu and the tribes.

At the same time, the Dalits have been without any doubt included in the category, Hindu.
There are constant references to the indistinguishability between the lower forms of
Hinduism and the tribal religions.

Concept of tribe since independence:

Under the Constitution of India certain tribes have been specified as the Scheduled Tribes.
There are 67.7 million scheduled tribes India. It is to be noted that only those tribes which
have been included in the list of Scheduled Tribes are given special treatment or facilities
envisaged under the Constitution. The Constitution neither defines nor lays down any criteria
for specifying the Scheduled Tribes. The term Scheduled Tribes first appeared in the
Constitution of India. Article 366 (25) defined scheduled tribes as "such tribes or tribal
communities or parts of or groups within such tribes or tribal communities as are deemed
under Article 342 to be Scheduled Tribes for the purposes of this constitution". Article 342,
which is reproduced below, prescribes procedure to be followed in the matter of specification
of scheduled tribes. The Fifth and the sixth schedule are the specific constitutional schedules
which deals with scheduled tribes.

Parliament may by law include in or exclude from the list of Scheduled tribes specified in a
notification issued under clause(1) any tribe or tribal community or part of or group within
any tribe or tribal community, but save as aforesaid, a notification issued under the said
clause shall not be varied by any subsequent notification.

Thus, the first specification of Scheduled Tribes in relation to a particular State/ Union
Territory is by a notified order of the President, after consultation with the State governments
concerned. These orders can be modified subsequently only through an Act of Parliament.
The above Article also provides for listing of scheduled tribes State/Union Territory wise and
not on an all India basis.
The principal criteria adopted for specifying communities as the Scheduled Tribes include:

(i) Relative geographical isolation

(ii) Distinctive culture
(iii) Traditional occupation of a definite geographical area
(iv) ‘Primitive traits’ depicting occupational pattern, economy, etc.
(v) Relatively lower level of techno-economic development

This criterion is not spelt out in the Constitution but has become well established. It subsumes
the definitions contained in 1931Census, the reports of first Backward Classes Commission
1955, the Advisory Committee (Kalelkar), on Revision of SC/ST lists (Lokur Committee),1965
and the Joint Committee of Parliament on the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes orders
(Amendment) Bill 1967 (Chanda Committee), 1969.

Tribe v/s caste:

This dilemma between the tribes and caste have been since British period which is continued
after independence as well. The British colonial administrators also viewed the Indian
population in terms of two broad categories – caste and tribes. That is why a number of
British administrators – scholars compiled and published ‘Handbooks of Castes and Tribals’
pertaining to different regions of colonial India.

I feel, this argument is permeated by the absent presence of the criteria of defining Hindu
religion—caste. The Census officials, like many other Britishers, felt the essential
characteristic of the Hindu religion was caste. The ease with which the British excluded the
tribes from Hindu was because they were conceived of as outside caste, and therefore as
outside Hindu. But, the Dalits were not given this opportunity of being seen as outside caste.
In the eyes of the British, they were both united in a system that recognized communities
placed in a particular hierarchy. The quotes from the Census do prove that they viewed caste
as the distinguishing feature of Hinduism. State was this individual's social expression. In
direct contrast was the society imagined to be practising primitive communism—the tribal
society. The differences existed, and there were “real communities” that approximated (and,
in some cases, were the ideal types of) the textbook definition of tribe. However, a large
number of communities, classified as “tribal”, dwelt in close proximity to “caste”
communities, having long-standing relations of exchange with them. These relations have
obviously contributed towards a myriad of similarities between them, thus bringing castes
and tribes closer, leading to a deviation of both the social formations from their ideal
definitions. The important point, however, is that albeit these similarities, the tribes have tried
to maintain their respective identities, and so do castes.

Dilemmas in defining tribe in India:

 1. Multiple terms – There is not one single term to designate the same community.
Scheduled Tribes is an administrative term used for purposes of 'administering' certain
specific constitutional privileges, protection and benefits for specific sections of
people considered historically disadvantaged and 'backward'. However, this
administrative term does not exactly match all the peoples called 'Adivasis'. Also, the
United Nations and multilateral agencies generally consider the STs as 'indigenous
peoples'.

2. Differing situations in power control - The introduction of the alien concept of

private property began with the Permanent Settlement of the British in 1793 and the
establishment of the "Zamindari" system that conferred control over vast territories,
including Adivasi territories, to designated feudal lords for the purpose of revenue
collection by the British. This drastically commenced the forced restructuring of the
relationship of Adivasis to their territories as well as the power relationship between
Adivasis and 'others'.

References:
Beteille, A. (1986). The concept of tribe ith special reference to India. European journal sociology,
297-318.

Bindu, K. (2011). The tribe in the early census reports: constructing the nation, hindu and outside
hindu. Delhi: Shodhganaga.

husnain, P. N. (2008). Tribes and caste. Lucknow: University of Lucknow.

India, M. o. (2016, September 29). Definition: scheduled tribe. Retrieved from Ministry of tribal
affairs: Government of India: http://tribal.nic.in/Content/DefinitionpRrofiles.aspx