Tribals – Who are they ?
- Part 1 -

* L Memo Singh

The terms 'Tribals' and 'Tribal People' have not been precisely defined in the Constitution of India. A skilfully coined phrase 'Scheduled Tribe' occupies a large portion of the Constitution. But the Constitution does not define Scheduled Tribes as such. Article 366(25) refers to Scheduled Tribes as those communities who are scheduled in accordance with Article 342 of the Constitution.

This Article says that only those communities who have been declared as such by the President of India, through an initial public notification will be considered as Scheduled Tribes. Any further amendment in the list, is through an Act of Parliament. The list of Scheduled Tribes is State specific and a community declared as Scheduled Tribe in a State need not be so in another State. Identification of tribals in the Indian social structure was not known before the arrival of the British in the country. British are credited with initiating the task of tribal development. Various approaches, models, concepts and theories of tribal development have been adopted in the country after independence. Thus a question arises—who are tribals in India?

In anthropological literatures, various terms appear synonymous with the term tribe; for example primitive, indigenous, aboriginals, native, naïve, savage, original settlers, adivasi, uncivilised men, barbaric, depressed class, simple society, pre-literate society, backward Hindus, etc. Right from the beginning, several attempts have been made to define the term "tribe". But a common consensus has not been achieved. Different scholars have defined the term "tribe" in their own ways. Their definitions throw light upon some common characteristics of the term "tribe" on the basis of geographical characteristics as tribes reside in forest, hills, etc.

According to Imperial Gazetteers of India, tribe is a group of family which has a common name, whose members speak a common dialect, reside in a common area and observe taboo in marriage, though in the beginning they would not have been observing this taboo. Tribe as described in the Random House Dictionary means "any aggregate of people united by the ties of descent from a common ancestor, community of customs and traditions, adhere to the same leader". Truly speaking, hardly any of the population groups on the Indian mainland can lay claim of being a "tribal" group. The tribals in India comprise the groups which are declared tribals as per an order of the Indian President as the Scheduled Tribes.

The lists of Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes, who were formerly known as depressed classes were published by the President of India, after the proclamation of the Constitution and before the common lists of Other Backward Classes had been published. This is all the more simple and unambiguous to any one who has the knowledge about the Indian social structure that they can easily say who are backward and who are forward, why they have remained backward all these centuries and what criteria is to be adopted to identify them.

The Indian social structure consists of people belonging to many religions, like Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jains, Sikhs, Budhists, etc. While all the other religions have divided people horizontally the Hindus are vertically divided into innumerable castes and sub-castes and each one of them is given a certain social status in the society. Therefore, if one wants to understand the reasons for the backwardness of some sections of Hindu Society, one has to necessarily understand how and when the caste system was established in this country, which is the root cause for the backwardness of the vast community.

The castes were not known to the ancient Indian, that is Pre-Aryans. The castes were the outcome of Chaturvanas, according to Upanishat. The Chaturvanas, that is Brahmana, Kshatriya, Vysyas, Sudras etc were introduced by the Vedic Aryans, who came to India some three thousand years back, to keep their superiority by converting the professional groups among natives into castes and introduced strict caste rules and caste Dharma, which not only maintained the caste system but also kept each caste at a distant.

The Hindus are further divided into castes and sub-caste. Their break-up as per 1931 census roughly is as follows:-

1. Brahmin, 2. Kshatrias, 3. Vysayas, 4. Kayastha, 5. Farmers, 6. Gardeners and Pan Growers, 7. Pastural castes, 8. Fisherman, 9. Tappers, 10. Weavers, 11. Oil Mongers, 12. Salt makers and Earth Digger 13. Viswa-karma, 14. Dhobi, 15. Hajjam, 16. Kumbhar, 17. Tailors and Dyers, 18. Agricultural Labourers, 19. Cotton Car-den (Dhunia, Pinjara, Sahiriya, etc) 20. Herald Group.

Even though the people were named after their traditional occupations, due to modern development most of them have been dislodged from their occupations and they are reduced to manual and agricultural labourers who may form now more than 40% of the total population which excludes scheduled caste and scheduled Tribe population. The social injustice done to the vast section of the society for nearly 3000 years cannot be wiped out overnight.

Interestingly, the social structure of the Mongoloid groups in the North Eastern region is quite contrast to the Hindu Social structure. These Mongoloid groups either preserved their aboriginal identity or they were partially or fully assimilated into Hindu society. Sizable numbers from such groups—Khasi, Mizo, and Naga— have now been converted to Christianity, although they still retain some distinctive attributes of their traditional way of life.

Assam, as it was before the creation of the States of Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Nagaland, which were detached from its territory, provided a home to several ethnic groups and a multiplicity of culture. It extended to the entire North-East except Manipur and Tripura. The history of the Mongoloid groups in Assam is long and their positioning in the society that emerged is extremely complex. Both touch very sensitive chords and as such all generalisations about them will be open to doubts and disputations. On one point, however, there will be no disagreement that this element constitutes the bedrock of Assamese culture and society. Doubtless there have been cultural adaptations and adoptions, but the imprint of these groups is indelible.

In the history of Assam, its most important group consists of the people of Tai or Shan origin known as the Ahom. They established a powerful kingdom in the thirteenth century and continued to rule until the second quarter of the nineteenth century when the British conquered their territory. The Ahoms took others into their fold, freely inter-married with non-Ahoms, adopted the Assamese language, and were gradually Hinduised.

One individual who shaped the cultural personality of Assam and brought about a transformation in Hindu society of the region was Sri Sankaradeva (1449-1569). He was a philosopher, poet, artist, preacher, and social reformer. He found the Assamese society in disarray. His modified version of Vaishnavisim propagated and popularised the notion of salvation by faith and prayer rather than by scarifies and complex rituals. His main thrust was on social reform. Though he had to face much hostility, he continued to preach tolerance and advised his followers not to hurt the religious sentiments of others. It is true that he could not eradicate all the evils of Jati system, but he did unify and integrate Assamese society.

The Social structure of the Mongoloid people of Manipur is not so complex and confused as the social structure of the Mongoloid groups of Assam. There are several theories of origin of the Mongoloid people of Manipur. Given their common origin of the Tibeto-Chineses or Sino-Tibetan background, the Mongoloid people irrespective of the hills and the valley of Manipur had founded their Manipuri Nation providing equality in all respects to its members.

The theory of origin of the Mongoloid pople of Manipur, which is formulated by Shri RR Shimray may be quoted for ready reference; "It is believed that the Meities, occupying barely 700 square miles of Manipur valley, all surrounded by hills, are the descendants of either Makhelians or Tangkhul Nagas. Many from Maram, a direct descendant of settlers from Makhel, are said to have settled along the Koubru slopes facing Manipur valley.

Finally they came down to the valley and settled there just the same way as the Irang Naga village, has shifted from Maohing, just above Kangpokpi, to Chingkhong which is now far in the south following the south west movement from Makhel. It is said that one of the Naga chiefs became the Raja of Manipur Valley. It is also possible that the Meitei tribes, before their conversion to Hinduism had erected the stone in memory of some big occasions. The legend goes that many of the Meitie Tribes and the Naga Tribes had the same forefathers. The languages the Meitei and the Tangkhul Nagas speak have great affinities with each other, as also with that of other Naga tribes of Manipur".

To be continued ...