Tribal Communities in India

Definitional Problems

Arthur Wilke noted: "For years ambiguity has stalked India's official portrait of tribal people." Sociologists, anthropologists, and social workers are still not on the same wavelength about the definition of a tribe. The term "tribe" is used loosely to describe over 700 communities notified under Article 342 of the Constitution: communities that constitute about 8% of India's population spread across about 15% of its geographic area.

Why Traditional Definitions Fail

Traditional Criterion	Empirical Problem
Living in forests	Dublas of Surat and many others live in fertile plains, not forests
Primitive religion (animism)	Continuum from tribal gods to Hinduised tribes to those converted to Christianity or Islam
Geographic isolation	Hundreds of tribes (Bhils, Santhals, Irulas) are not living in isolation
Primitive economic system	Many peasant groups live by equally primitive economic systems without being classified as tribal
Economic backwardness	Many tribes (Khasi, Gond, Bhil) are more economically specialised than non-tribal neighbours
Common language or dialect	True in Assam and Central India but not for many Western and Southern Indian tribes
Political organisation	Some tribes have no single chief or even a tribal panchayat
Joint ownership of property	Among the Hos, exclusive joint ownership is not practised

Why definitions broke down further: dynamics of tribes have changed; tremendous population increase and migration; welfare policies have disrupted traditional patterns. DN Majumdar: except for Eastern India, ethnic strains have crisscrossed throughout the subcontinent.

The Tribe-Caste Continuum

FG Bailey suggests the definition of tribe should be seen as a continuum with tribe at one end and caste at the other:

• Srikanth: tribals; semi-tribals; acultural tribes; assimilated tribes
• Ghurye: Hinduised tribes; partially Hinduised tribes; hill sections
• DN Majumdar: primitive tribes; tribes with some degree of association; Hinduised tribes
• Verrier Elwin: most primitive; individualistic; detribalised; tribal aristocrats

Even Beteille concedes: "There is no satisfactory way to define a tribe. It can only be explained through a continuum."

Ministry of Tribal Affairs: Official Criteria

Primitive traits; distinctive culture; geographic isolation; shyness from the general population; backwardness. Mnemonic: RIPPELD: Religion; Isolation; Political organisation; Property; Living place; Economy; Dialects.

Geographical Spread

• North-Northeast Zone: Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, and seven Northeast states
• Central Zone: West Bengal, Odisha, Bihar/Jharkhand, southern UP, southern Rajasthan, Gujarat, MP, Maharashtra
• Southern Zone: AP, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Andaman and Nicobar Islands

Major tribes (Census 2011): Bhils (about 1.7 crore), Gonds (about 1.3 crore), Santhals (about 65 lakh). Mostly patrilineal, but Garos matrilineal. Religions vary: Nagas/Mizos/Santhals, Christianity; Bhutias/Lepchas: Buddhism; Bhils: Hinduism. Occupations: food gathering, forestry, jhum cultivation, wage labour.

Colonial Policies and Their Impact

Mnemonic CAFE: Christian Missionaries; Administrative policies; Forest policies; Exclusion.

Administrative Policies (Three Phases)

Phase 1 (1782-1827): Paharias of Rajmahal Hills revolted against Hindu zamindars. Administrator Cleveland created special tribal administration giving jurisdiction to local elders: failed due to corruption.

Phase 2 (1855-1919): Santhal Rebellion (1855) led to a separate Santhal district. Queen's Proclamation (1858): right to own culture. 1861 Act: special tribal administration. 1870 Act: Scheduled Tracts created. 1919 Act: Backward Tracts introduced (only law modification) alongside Scheduled Tracts (exclusive administration).

Phase 3 (1919-1947): GOI Act 1935: Partially Excluded Areas (Governor sought advice) and Wholly Excluded Areas (Governor's discretion). British feared tribals joining the freedom movement. In practice, isolation was compromised by extractive interests in mineral-rich tribal regions.

Forest Policies

• Lord Dalhousie declared teak state property; restricted Minor Forest Produce collection
• 1855: formal forest policy; 1865: restrained local customs
• 1878 Forest Act: Reserve, Protected, and Village forests; restricted tribal ownership; beginning of community alienation from forests
• Five successive Acts (1901-1927) transferred forests from common property to state property
• 1952 National Forest Policy: national interest paramount; Adivasis treated as "enemies of the forests"; traditional rights abolished
• 1988 Forest Policy: people-oriented objectives; still retained exclusive state ownership
• Forest Rights Act 2006: corrects historic injustice; three types of rights: user rights (MFP), ownership rights (4 hectares/family), control rights (communal land). Gram Sabha consent mandatory for forest land diversion. IPR on traditional knowledge recognised.

Christian Missionaries

Contributed schools and hospitals in remote areas. Main ideology was assimilation into Christianity: disrupting traditional cultural practices. Contributed to high literacy in the Northeast (Nagaland, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh among most literate states).

Colonial "Criminal Tribes"

The Criminal Tribes Act 1871 allowed the colonial government to notify an entire community as a "criminal tribe", making every member a suspected criminal by birth. It applied first to the North-Western Provinces, Oudh and Punjab, was extended to Bengal in 1876 and to the Madras Presidency in 1911, and was consolidated in 1924.

Why the category was created

• A caste theory of crime: colonial officials read Indian society through caste and assumed that occupations were hereditary. If weaving and carpentry passed from father to son, they argued, so did crime, and some communities were seen as hereditary professional criminals.
• Suspicion of mobile people: nomads, pastoralists, itinerant traders, entertainers and peddlers (Banjaras, Pardhis, Sansis, Kanjars, Nats and others) escaped land revenue, census and police control. A state built on settled agriculture saw mobility itself as a threat.
• Order after 1857: the colonial state wanted to police groups that lay beyond its control.
• Forest and grazing laws: as forests were reserved and grazing restricted, communities who lived by them lost their livelihoods and some turned to petty crime, which seemed to confirm the stereotype.

Implications

• Surveillance: registration, passes for travel, regular roll calls at police stations and arrest without warrant.
• Settlements: many were confined in reformatory settlements and made to work on farms and in factories, some run by the Salvation Army.
• Stigma and poverty: communities were branded criminal by birth, cut off from land and from their traditional occupations.
• After independence: the Act was repealed in 1949 and the communities "denotified" in 1952, but Habitual Offenders Acts in many states carried the label forward. Denotified tribes (DNTs) still face police harassment, custodial violence and exclusion. The death of Budhan Sabar of the Kheria Sabar community in police custody in Purulia, West Bengal, in 1998 became a symbol of this, taken up by Mahasweta Devi and G.N. Devy in their campaign for DNT rights.
• Commissions: the Renke Commission (2008) and the Idate Commission examined the condition of denotified, nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes and recommended special measures for their inclusion.

Sociological significance. The criminal tribe was a colonial category that turned a stereotype into law and so produced the marginality it claimed to describe. Meena Radhakrishna (Dishonoured by History, 2001) shows how it served colonial control over labour and movement. It also shows how state classification can create lasting social identities, as the census did for caste.

Issues of Integration and Autonomy

Assimilationists: tribes should be absorbed into larger Indian society; uniform administration; colonial baggage labels should go.

Liberals: integration with autonomy; respect for plurality; self-governing rights alongside mainstream participation.

Nehru's Panchsheel (CLTOR)

• Culture: encourage tribal arts; do not impose anything on them
• Land rights: tribal rights in land and forest must be respected
• Team: train their own people for administration; avoid too many outsiders
• Over-administration: do not overwhelm with schemes; work through their own institutions
• Results: judge not by statistics or money but by quality of human character evolved

BN Majumdar proposed "Limited Assimilation": absorbing useful tribal practices while preserving autonomy. UN Dhebar Commission (1960) endorsed integration policy. The singular success of NEFA (now Arunachal Pradesh), implemented under Verrier Elwin's guidance, resulted in the only Northeast state not convulsed with militancy, and certain tribes achieving 100% literacy. Elwin: "Integration can only take place on the basis of equality: moral and political equality."

The Ghurye-Elwin Debate on Tribal Policy

From the late 1930s, the anthropologist Verrier Elwin and the sociologist G.S. Ghurye argued over how the state should treat India's tribes. Their debate set the terms of tribal policy after independence.

Elwin: protection and freedom. Elwin, who lived among the Gond and Baiga of the Central Provinces, held that contact with outsiders (moneylenders, traders, landlords, forest officials, police and missionaries) was destroying tribal life. In The Baiga (1939) and The Loss of Nerve (1941) he described land alienation, debt, bans on shifting cultivation and contempt for tribal custom producing a loss of zest for life. He proposed that the most vulnerable tribes be protected in reserved areas, "national parks", where the entry of outsiders would be controlled and tribes could live by their own ways until they could meet the wider society as equals. For Elwin, freedom for the tribals meant freedom from exploitation and freedom to keep their land, forests, dances, dormitories and beliefs.

Ghurye: assimilation. In The Aborigines "So-called" and Their Future (1943), later revised as The Scheduled Tribes, Ghurye rejected the idea that tribes were a separate people. He called them "backward Hindus", imperfectly integrated sections of Hindu society, pointing to centuries of contact, shared deities and the Hinduisation of groups such as the Bhils and Gonds. Isolation, he argued, would keep them backward and served the colonial strategy of dividing Indians through excluded areas. Their future lay in assimilation into the Hindu and national mainstream through education, settled agriculture and reform of customs such as drinking.

Points of contrast

• Identity: Elwin saw tribes as distinct peoples with their own cultures, Ghurye as part of Hindu society
• Contact: for Elwin it caused exploitation and cultural loss, for Ghurye it was the path to progress
• Policy: temporary protection and isolation against assimilation
• Politics: nationalists accused Elwin of colonial isolationism and of treating tribes as museum specimens, while Elwin saw "uplift" as a cover for exploitation and cultural destruction

Resolution. Elwin himself moved towards integration. As adviser on tribal affairs to the North-East Frontier Agency, he set out in A Philosophy for NEFA (1957) a path of development without imposition, and Nehru's foreword to its second edition (1959) stated the five principles of tribal Panchsheel. Nehru's policy of integration steered between Elwin's isolation and Ghurye's assimilation, and its spirit survives in the Fifth and Sixth Schedules, PESA (1996) and the Forest Rights Act (2006).

Assessment. Ghurye's view denied tribal identity and ignored the exploitation that contact brought, and the displacement of Adivasis by dams and mines since independence bears out many of Elwin's fears. Elwin's early view was romantic and paternalist, treating tribes as fragile cultures to be preserved rather than as citizens with rights and aspirations of their own. Tribal movements today demand neither isolation nor assimilation but control over land, forests and self-government.

Constitutional Safeguards

Provision	Content
Article 15(4)	Special provisions for educational advancement of STs
Article 46	State to promote educational and economic interests of STs; protect from exploitation
Articles 330 and 332	Reserved seats for STs in Lok Sabha and State Assemblies
Article 339(1)	President may appoint Commission on welfare of STs
Article 342	President notifies Scheduled Tribes in consultation with Governor
Fifth Schedule	Administration of Scheduled Areas; Tribal Advisory Councils
Sixth Schedule	Autonomous District Councils for Northeast tribal areas
PESA (1996)	Gram Sabha empowered for land acquisition consent, MFP management, dispute resolution in Scheduled Areas

Problems of Tribal Communities

Displacement: Walter Fernandes estimates 60 million+ displaced by development since independence: disproportionately tribal. Big dams (Sardar Sarovar, Hirakud, Tehri), mining, wildlife sanctuaries, linear projects. Rehabilitation woefully inadequate. Narmada Bachao Andolan (Medha Patkar) is the most prominent resistance movement.

Forest and land alienation: Despite FRA 2006, implementation inadequate. Forest departments continue filing encroachment cases. Mining leases allocated over tribal objections. Colonial legacy of treating tribals as encroachers on ancestral lands persists.

Naxalism: The Red Corridor (Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, AP) is the epicentre of Naxalite insurgency: drawing support from landlessness, displacement, denial of forest rights, and caste violence. State's "Operation Green Hunt" criticised for treating a socio-economic problem as a law and order problem.

Poor development indicators: Literacy 59% for STs vs 73% national average (Census 2011); highest dropout rates; significantly higher infant and maternal mortality; 75 PVTGs (Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups) showing population stagnation.

Cultural erosion: Tribal identity carries social stigma. Traditional knowledge and arts commodified (Madhubani, Warli, Gond art) with little community benefit. Liquor proliferation breaking traditional cultural controls.

Elite capture: A small educated tribal elite corners the bulk of reservation benefits while the most marginalised tribals in remote areas receive little: the creamy layer problem.

Lack of voice: Despite reserved constituencies, tribal representation is mediated through mainstream parties. Gram Sabhas under PESA remain weak: poorly funded, dominated by local elites.

Tribal Movements

Three broad forms of tribal response: coexistence (Meena and Bhils in Rajasthan); absorption into dominant group (Khond and Oraon through Hinduisation); secession seeking political independence (Nagas, Mizos: led to separate states).

Colonial-era revolts: Santhal Hul (1855-56): Sidhu and Kanhu against zamindars; led eventually to Santhal Pargana. Munda Ulgulan (1899-1900): Birsa Munda's millenarian movement; Birsa died in custody; led to Chhota Nagpur Tenancy Act (1908). Khasi Rising (1829-33): U Tirot Sing resisted British annexation.

Post-independence movements: Naga movement (NNC; Nagaland statehood 1963; insurgency continued); Mizo movement (Laldenga; peace accord 1986; Mizoram statehood); Jharkhand movement (separate state 2000; Chhattisgarh also created); Narmada Bachao Andolan; forest rights movements demanding FRA 2006 implementation.

Government Schemes and Institutions

Scheme/Institution	Purpose
Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA)	Policy, planning, coordination, central sponsored schemes
Tribal Sub Plan (TSP)	Earmarked funds across ministries for ST development: skill development, horticulture, dairy, fisheries, education, sports, culture
NSTFDC	Credit and interest subvention for tribal self-employment
TRIFED	Marketing of MFP; value chain development; Tribes India outlets
MSP for MFP	Minimum Support Price for 87 Minor Forest Produce items; prevents trader exploitation
PVTGs	Special assistance for 75 most vulnerable tribal groups
Eklavya Model Residential Schools (EMRS)	Quality residential education for tribal children; one per block with 50%+ ST population
Van Bandhu Kalyan Yojana	Outcome-based convergence of all schemes; 14 thematic areas
District Mineral Foundation	Mining royalties spent on welfare of mining-affected communities
NCST	Investigates safeguards, recommends policy changes

Virginius Xaxa Committee Recommendations (2014)

• Gram Sabha to be empowered even for linear acquisitions traversing tribal land
• Acquired but unused lands to be returned to original tribal owners
• Tribal cooperatives to get priority in mining leases in scheduled areas
• No large dams in areas inhabited by PVTGs
• Naxalite-related killings to be probed by independent judicial enquiries
• Strict enforcement of PESA and Forest Rights Act
• Dedicated tribal health system with community health workers from within communities

Challenges in Tribal Development

• Historical colonial exploitation: forest and land alienation still not fully reversed
• Displacement with inadequate rehabilitation
• Physical remoteness: poor infrastructure and last-mile connectivity
• Language barriers: teaching in non-tribal languages creates educational exclusion
• Weakening tribal research institutes: poor funding, lack of tribal researchers
• Inefficient TSP fund utilisation: siphoned to non-tribal projects
• Security issues: Naxalism conflates genuine tribal grievance with insurgency
• Elite capture of reservation benefits
• Environmental degradation affecting tribal livelihoods and health
• Lack of voice and representation in contemporary political circles