Development Team

Paper No. : 05 Tribal Culture of India Module : 09 Scheduling Tribal Communities and Primitive Groups in India Development Team Principal Investigator Prof. Anup Kumar Kapoor Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi Paper Coordinator Prof. Anup Kumar Kapoor Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi Dr. Mitashree Srivastava Content Writer Department of Anthropology, University of Delhi Content Reviewer Prof. A. Paparao Sri Venkateswar University, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh 1 Tribal Culture of India Anthropology Scheduling Tribal Communities and Primitive Groups in India Description of Module Subject Name Anthropology Paper Name 05 Tribal Culture of India Module Name/Title Scheduling Tribal Communities and Primitive Groups in India Module Id 09 2 Tribal Culture of India Anthropology Scheduling Tribal Communities and Primitive Groups in India Prologue: ‘Tribe’ is a value loaded term. In India, it is essentially a polito-administrative category; therefore, for all practical- even most academic- purposes, “tribe is a tribe which is included in the list of Scheduled Tribe”, popularly called STs. The objectives of this module are: To examine the processes involved in scheduling and de- scheduling tribal communities at the level of administration as required by the Constitution of India also; and also to know the present status of Primitive Groups in the country. Conceptualization of Tribe There is a close connection between Anthropology and tribal study. Though anthropology originated and developed after studying tribal communities of colonial countries of Africa and Asia including India still ethnographers is not agreed upon a common definition of the term. Let us have a quick brief appraisal of the term. The Webster Dictionary defines tribe …”as a social group comprising numerous families, clans, or generations together with slaves, dependants, or adopted strangers…”.In ancient Rome the word “tribus” was in use to refer to division of people, etc. How to conceptualize a community as a Tribe is a complex issue for ethnographers have defined them on the basis of what they observed in the field. As a result, no common definition is acceptable. Definitions are the way of looking at a phenomenon. It varies from person to place and time. In general, tribal communities, as seen by the classical ethnographers, are said to be original inhabitants of a region: small, self contained, self sufficient, isolated, homogeneous and autonomous communities. In this sense a word quite popular these days is “indigenous, not in the sense of autochthones, but in the sense of being rooted to their immediate surrounding regardless of time depth. Living in that surrounding the tribesman developed their own culture in interaction with ecology in unique ways. Modern ethnographers have picked up “those ways” in their own styles. In context of India,the following definition of Professor D.N. Majumdar has found wider acceptance frequently cited in govt reports and text books: “ A tribeis a social group with territorial affiliation, endogamous, with no specialization of functions, ruled by tribal officers, hereditary or otherwise, united in language and dialect, recognizing social distance from other tribes or castes but without any stigma attached one, beliefs and customs, illiberal of naturalization of ideas from alien sources, above all, conscious of ethnic and territorial integrations” . Today these criteriamay not be found in tribal communities but if a community displays three or more at a time the same can be treated as a tribe. To be sure, as a social category a Tribe is merely a conceptual, it existed in undefined past, and what exist today are “tribes in transition”. 3 Tribal Culture of India Anthropology Scheduling Tribal Communities and Primitive Groups in India While a detailed socio-demographic profile of the tribals will be found in elsewhere in this module a general account of distribution of tribal population may be summarized as below: Numerical Strength of STs In the Census of 2001, the number of persons enumerated as ST was 84,326,240 (or 8.20% of the total population in the country).The corresponding percentages in 1951, 1961, 1971, 1981 and 1991 were 6.5, 6.87, 6.97, 7.76 and 8.08. These are however, not fully comparable as the lists have been expanded thru time; and area restrictions of the tribal communities have been removed in several States and Union Territories. We will come to this point later on. Numerical strength of individual STs has a wide range. As per census of 2001, there are four communities each having more than 30 lakh persons. They are Bhil, Mina, Gond and Santhal. On the other hand, 35 Andamanese were counted in 1991. The heavy tribal strength States in the country are, viz. Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Maharastra, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh. Each contains 50 lakh more individuals. These eight States together contain 75% of total STs Population (84,326,240) in the country. Another way of putting tribal strength is in terms of tribal dominated States in the country. For example, Mizoram contains 94.50% of its total population. In decreasing order are Lakshadweep (94%), Nagaland (89%), Meghalaya (85.9), Arunachal Pradesh (64%), Dadar and Nagar Haveli (62%). STs are scattered all over the country except Chandigarh, Panjab, Haryana, Delhi and Puducherry. To sum up, the term scheduled/scheduling was created during the British administration. Certain areas/tracts of British occupied territories demarcated by the then Administration. In order to protect tribal autonomy of the tribal communities the first serious attempt was promulgation of the Scheduled Districts Act-16 in 1874. By this act the tribal regions were kept apart from the jurisdiction of general administration, but in case of necessity the general law may be imposed in restricted areas by the competent authority. In 1918 Montagu Chemsford submitted his report for the protection of backward areas/primitive tribals; accordingly, Government of India Act of 1919 was introduced. Subsequently, the backward areas were classified into two groups: Complete excluded areas and Modified excluded areas (in which general laws could be imposed after modification by the Governor. In 1929, the Simon Commission suggested not to extend any representation of Tribal areas in administration because of “backwardness”. Subsequently,’ backward areas’ and ‘tribal tracts’ were reclassified as ‘Excluded’ and ‘Partially excluded’ regions. Lusai Hilly districts, Naga Hilly districts, Kachar hills of Kachar district and north-eastern tracts were declared as Excluded areas. The British parts of Garo Hills districts, Mikir, Khasi and Jaintiya hills (except Shillong and Cantonment 4 Tribal Culture of India Anthropology Scheduling Tribal Communities and Primitive Groups in India municipalities) were declared Partially Excluded areas. In addition tribal populated habitations and tribals living in large number were put under Excluded and Partially excluded areas respectively. These areas were kept under the jurisdiction of Provincial administration. Further, in these areas general laws were not imposed by the Central and provincial governments. However, the Governor was given power to impose such laws if necessary. After Independence the same provisions were maintained in the Constitution scheduling tribal groups under its the Schedule V and Schedule VI to be described shortly. Scheduling tribal communities For the first time the tribal communities have been laid down by the term Scheduled tribe in the Constitution though criteria have not been laid down in it. Here reference of two Articles are required, namely Articles 356 and 340. Article 356(25) states- Scheduled tribes means such tribes or tribal communities or parts of or groups within such tribes or tribal tribes as are deemed under Article 342 to be scheduled tribes for the purposes of this Constitution. Ostensibly, in this definition no definite criteria have been laid down. Article 342 (1) of the Constitution empowers to make initial recommendation of the list of scheduled tribes in different States and Union territories after consulting Governors of the States/Union territories concerned, any modification in the list can only be made by the Parliament. Clause (2) of this Article is about amendment in the list of scheduled tribes. “Parliament may by law include in or excludes from the list of scheduled tribes specified in a notification issued under clause (1)” noted above. Now issue is of determination of criteria for a tribe still to be settled by the competent authority. In the first Report of the Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and scheduled Tribe (1951) it was stated that the State Governments were requested to suggest criteria for determining as to which tribes should be treated as Scheduled tribes. In Appendix IV of the Report criteria suggested by 14 State Governments were indicated. They offered conflicting views in this regard. However the following features appeared in common: 1) Tribal origin, 2) Primitive way of life and habitation in remote and less easily accessible areas, 3) General backwardness in all respects. The first Commissioner, Shri L. M. Srikant had suggested a special committee should be appointed by the Government to solve the issue of deciding criteria for enlisting a tribe as scheduled tribe. In the subsequent years the First Backward Classes Commission (set up in 1953 under Article 240) was 5 Tribal Culture of India Anthropology Scheduling Tribal Communities and Primitive Groups in India entrusted with the task of making recommendations for the revision of scheduled tribes list. This Commission laid down the criteria as follow: “Tribes live apart in the hills and even where they live in the plains, they lead a separate excluded existence and are not assimilated in the main body of the people. Scheduled tribes may belong to any religion. They are listed as scheduled tribes because of the life led by them.” Above statement is debatable with respect to two points: Assimilation and excluded life. Some sections of tribes like the Oraon, Munda, Santhal, Gond, Bhil are very much assimilated and they do not live in isolation.

Load more