Challenges of Tribal Cultural Traditions and Customs: a Study of Gujarat
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KCG-Portal of Journals Continuous Issue-47|February – March 2021 Challenges of Tribal cultural Traditions and Customs: A study of Gujarat Abstract Today, the tribals of Gujarat are facing a different problem because they are getting caught up in the so- called development process. The tribals are stuck in a paradoxical situation. On the one hand, they are forced to migrate and migrate in the name of development. On the other hand, the culture of tribals is being destroyed by various means. Such as the tribalization of Sanskritization due to the effect of modernization and urbanization. Due to such problems, tribals are facing the problem of survival. The tribals are being forced to forget their indigenous identity. Tribals are being brought into the mainstream through religion. They are being misled and separated from their culture in the name of religion. The influence of Hindu and Christianity is increasing among the tribals. Religious thinking is being imposed on the tribals through various newspapers and other organized methods. Media is playing an important role in this process. Adivasis are forgetting their traditional and indigenous culture and imitating other's culture. Imitation of Hindu and Christian culture is taking place on a large scale. Both religions are trying to propagate religious thinking and there are also attempts to create communal disputes between religions. Both religions are unilaterally propagated in tribal areas. In the name of religion, the converted Hindu and Christian tribals are forced to fight among themselves. Due to the influence of these religions, tribals are leaving their culture behind and practicing Hindu and Christianity on a large scale. Key Words: Tribal, Cultural, Religion. Introduction Culture is an intrinsic part of all societies in the world. Each society has its own different culture. And society cannot be established without it and is considered an important part of life. Similarly, the Adivasis of Gujarat have their own culture, which is prestigious and culturally different from other societies. The culture of Adivasis is dependent on nature, that is why tribals and water, forest and land are related to each other’s close relationship. It is considered an ideal culture in the world. The Adivasis are identified with their culture. In this way, culture is a means of saving the existence of society. Culture is essential for the survival of society. For example, culture can be compared with a parent. A child cannot live without its parents, in the same way Adivasis cannot live without natural culture. They practice unity with nature by saving each other’s existence (Hardiman, D. 2002). Religion is indeed a universal feature of human culture. Not because all societies promote faith in spirits, but because everyone recognizes in some form or the other. And are extra-inspiring of reality. Apart from its psychological significance, such a religion is a dynamic force that binds social groups together. Coordinates their activities and provides a spiritual backdrop for every phase of their social life. It means how religion has a reciprocal relationship with social institutions and every social fact and religion has complementary validation. Sometimes religion helps to maintain the practice of social cooperation. For example, the head of a village has given his help to anyone who asks. Religion for some time supports authority and thus helps in positive maintenance of customs. The first chieftain is always worshiped in any tribal village, he goes to the group of deities. For this reason, the surviving chief also gets an aura of religious acceptance around him, allowing him to exert control over the villagers (Naik, T. B.1956). 1 | P a g e KCG-Portal of Journals British classified about Tribals The British attempted to have classified information about the tribals. In the 1871 census report, they were classified as “Aborigines”. A person, animal, or plant that has been in a country or region from earliest times. Aborigines, the original native fauna or flora of a region. In the census report of 1881 and 1891, they were specified again as “Aboriginal”. Under the category of agricultural and pastoral castes formed a sub-heading called ‘forest tribes’ in the census report of 1901, they were classified as ‘’Animists” Animism is the doctrine that every natural thing in the universe has a soul. Animism comes from the Latin word anima, meaning life, or soul. People often think of “primitive” beliefs when they think of animism, but you’ll find the belief in the spiritual life of natural objects in all major religions. and in 1911 as “tribal animists or people following tribal religion” in the census report of 1921, they were specified as “hill and forest tribes”. The 1931 census described them as ‘primitive tribes’ and in the census report of 1941 they were classified as “tribes” only (Verma, R. C. 1995). If Spencer has assumed that the experience of ghosts speeds up beliefs about souls and thus “animism”, and assumes the assumption that starting from the beginning of religion to see doubles in water and dreams According to Taylor's perception, why should it be accepted? Spencer's doctrine “the cult of the ancestors” was converted to universal worship of the nature of “naturism”, so that “no psychical mechanism necessitating it”. From time to time, they appear again that the concentration of the dead is not “primitive” for the various forms of Max Muller’s “naturism,” so that the gods and their names gave good terms to the words, giving simple meanings developed as additional meanings, because in response to “marvellous forces” of humanity (Trompf, G. W., 2011). The British deployed anthropological terminology to classify these unequal people. The concept of jangli was translated into the word ‘jungle tribe’ so that they can be defined in the context of their habitat forest (which means forest instead of ‘wild’ in English) and their relation organization to tribal based ‘Tribe’ in some cases, they were defined by colonial rulers as ‘animist’ in the form of their ‘primitive’ religiousness. In the twentieth century, the bureaucracy of ‘Scheduled Tribe’ was labeled in response to this many of them have claimed that, for tribals, or ‘native residents’ (Hardiman, D. 1999). Overview of Tribal communities of Gujarat The Bhil community is a primitive people. According to the 2011 census, the Bhils are the largest tribal group in India. They constitute about 38% of the total scheduled tribal population of India. The Bhil tribe is found in the states of Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh. It is spread in the central region of the Indian headland, most of it in the area covered by the forest-clad mountains trinity, Sahyadri and Satpura in the Vindhyas. The tribals are spread over the districts of the eastern belt of Gujarat state. This tribal belt is connected with South Rajasthan in the north, Madhya Pradesh in the east and Maharashtra in the south. In which Bhil tribals be inherent in on a large scale. Most of Gujarat’s Adivasi population lives in the hilly highlands on the eastern border of the state. The 2011 Census of India recognizes thirty tribes in the state of Gujarat. The tribals of Gujarat constitute 15 percent of the total population. They are especially spread in the districts of Aravalli, Mahisagar, Dahod, Panchmahal, Chhotaudipur, Bharuch, Narmada, Surat, Navsari, Vapi, Valsad and Dang. In the period after independence, two things have happened for the tribals as a result of the apportionment of the state. First, Bhil physical and social geography was abolished by the linguistic division of states. Some Bhils are included in Rajasthan, some in Gujarat and others in Madhya Pradesh. In which there was an attempt to eliminate Bhil and Adivasi language by dividing Gujarati into Hindi and Marathi language state. He was Gujaratised in Gujarat. The tribals had to do their schooling in the state language, ignoring their own language and dialects. They lag behind speaking and writing in Gujarati with mainstream non-tribals. For the same reason they can be easily identified as tribals by pronunciation. The tribals on the other hand were Hinduized by the state. In each census the column for religion was increasingly filled as Hindu. For example, Gamit was prefixed as Hindu Gamit, Vasava as Hindu Vasava and Bhil as Hindu Bhil. And during admission to schools, this Hindu identity was reinforced in the school records and forcibly written Hindu in the school certificate and the Janjati certificate. And to discuss Hindu in schools in the course of hymns and education. Different Hindu sects have contributed to the Hinduization of tribals such as ‘Swami Narayan’, ‘Sita Ram’ and ‘Sat Keval’ etc. The 2 | P a g e KCG-Portal of Journals Bhagat or Bhakti movement and later a host of other movements hastened the process of Hindisation. Upward mobiles moved tribals to Hindu sects faster than others (Lobo, L. 2002). Hindu fundamentalists claim that the Adivasis origin is Hindu. They support the classification of the Indian state of the Scheduled Tribes as Hindus, if clearly claimed otherwise. However, state classified systems are also political interventions: After independence, nationalist anthropologists argued against granting a specific religious identity to the Adivasis and professor of sociology, G.S. Ghurye claimed that they were “backward Hindus”. According to this view, differentiating “Adivasi” from “castes” and claiming an “aboriginal” status for Adivasis was a move suggestive of the colonial policy of divide and rule. And yet the “Scheduled Tribes” category was not completely dissolved it was protected, though with the Adivasi classified as Hindus (Baviskar, A. (2005). What the sinister bombast of the Hindu right obscures is that the fact that they themselves are engaged in a programmed of hegemonizing Adivasis, involving in this case the inculcation of loyalty a nation state which is defined in terms of a monolithic, syndicated form of Hinduism.