Chapter 5: Tribal India: Past, Present and Future
In the early 1930s a young Englishman named Verrier Elwin came to the forested hills of central India, half expecting to help “civilise” the people who lived there. Instead he stayed, learned their language, and settled among the Gond and the Baiga. His evenings were spent in a building unlike anything in his own world: the ghotul, a large communal house where the unmarried young people of a Muria Gond village gathered each night to sing, work, tell stories and quietly learn the ways of their community.
The longer Elwin watched, the more his certainty dissolved. These were not “backward” people waiting to be improved. They had their own laws, their own art, their own closely woven society — one that worked on its own terms. Yet he could also see it being pulled apart. Forests were being taken over, land was slipping into the hands of outsiders, moneylenders were arriving, and the young people were drifting towards the towns.
Elwin’s change of heart fed into one of independent India’s hardest arguments. Should its tribes be left alone, absorbed into the mainstream, or offered something in between? In the 1950s Jawaharlal Nehru answered with five guiding principles — a “tribal panchsheel” — meant to let tribes grow, in his words, along the lines of their own genius.
This chapter follows that same journey: what a tribe is, how tribal societies were organised, what contact with the wider world has cost them, and what India has tried to give back.
Diagram
Fig. 5.0-1 – a forested hill hamlet of a central Indian tribal community: traditional thatched homes and a large communal youth dormitory in the foreground, with a newly built road and an electricity line reaching in from one edge, showing tribal life meeting the wider world
By the end of this chapter you will be able to answer each of these questions for yourself.
5.1 Definition and Features of a Tribe
We use the word “tribe” loosely in everyday speech — for a fan following, a close-knit friend group, even a family. Sociology means something far more precise. This section asks two questions: what exactly is a tribe, and what features mark a tribal society out from the communities around it?
5.1.1 The Meaning and Definition of Tribe
The English word tribe comes from the Latin tribus, the name once given to the early divisions of the Roman people. Different societies have stretched the word in different directions over time. In India it has come to mean something fairly definite: a community that has lived in a region from very early times, with its own name, language and way of life, standing somewhat apart from the settled, caste-ordered society of the plains.
Indian languages have their own names for such communities. Adivasi means “original inhabitant” and became widely used during the twentieth century, especially in the years of the freedom movement. Vanavasi means “forest dweller,” and janajati means roughly “folk community.” Each name carries a slightly different emphasis, but all point to the same broad reality.
Why a tribe is hard to define
A tribe, in sociological terms, is a community bound together by a common name, territory, language and culture, tracing descent from common ancestors and living historically as a largely self-contained social unit. That sounds simple, yet scholars have never fully agreed on the definition, because tribes differ enormously from one another.
The Indian anthropologist D.N. Majumdar offered one of the most-cited definitions, drawing together most of the features we will study.
Notice that Majumdar leans heavily on territory. Other scholars were less sure this was essential. W.H.R. Rivers, who studied the Toda of the Nilgiris, defined a tribe mainly by a common dialect and the habit of acting together for shared purposes, because many tribes were nomadic and had no fixed home. This disagreement matters: if experts cannot settle on a single test, how does a government decide who counts as a tribe? India answered that question not with a definition but with a list.
How a tribe differs from a caste
Both a tribe and a caste are communities you are born into, so students often confuse them. But they are organised on quite different principles. A caste takes its place within a graded ritual hierarchy of the wider Hindu society; a tribe has historically stood outside that hierarchy, as a self-contained community of its own.
5.1.2 Key Features of a Tribe
No single tribe shows every feature in full, but taken together the following features describe what a tribal society typically looks like. They fall into three groups: the marks of a shared identity, the way the society is built from kinship, and the overall quality of self-containment.
Kinship, clan and marriage
A tribe is not a crowd of individuals; it is built up from families. Related families are grouped into a clan, a set of people who claim descent from a common ancestor. Kinship of this kind decides a person’s roles, duties, marriage partners and inheritance, which is why the tribe is often described as an extended family writ large.
Marriage, in turn, follows two rules that seem to pull in opposite directions. A tribe is generally endogamous — its members marry within the tribe — so as to protect its identity and cohesion. Yet within the tribe, one’s own clan is usually exogamous — you must marry outside your own clan.
Making a living, self-rule and the youth house
Members of a tribe traditionally follow a similar common occupation suited to their surroundings — hunting and gathering, shifting cultivation, herding or settled farming. Importantly, this shared work is not ritually ranked as high or low, as caste occupations are.
Tribes also have their own political organisation, usually a simple one: a headman or chief, chosen by heredity or by proven ability, working with a council in which members have a real voice. Decisions are often reached by sitting and talking together rather than by command. Many tribes further keep dormitories — communal youth houses where unmarried young people gather to work, sing and learn the ways of the community. These are so central to tribal life that the whole of Section 5.2 is devoted to them.
Unity and self-sufficiency
Pull these features together and you arrive at the quality that best sums up a tribe: its unity and self-sufficiency. Historically a tribe produced most of what it needed, governed itself, worshipped in its own way and drew powerful solidarity from a shared identity. You can picture the whole as a set of circles inside circles, as in Fig. 5.1-1: families sit inside larger clans, and the clans together make up the tribe.
Diagram
Fig. 5.1-1 – three nested circles labelled from the inside out: ‘family’ (smallest, at the centre), ‘clan’ (grouping several families), ‘tribe’ (the outermost, grouping several clans); a short caption noting that the whole tribe shares one name, one territory, one language and one culture
It is worth remembering that these features describe a type, not a rulebook. Real communities shade into one another: some tribes are large and internally divided, some have partly merged with caste society, and some hardly resemble the neat picture at all. That blurring is exactly why defining a tribe is so hard, and why India relies on an official list rather than a single test.
5.2 Dormitories in Tribal India
Of all the institutions of tribal life, the one that has fascinated outsiders most is the youth dormitory. In many tribes, the unmarried young do not simply live with their parents; they belong to a house of their own, where they grow up together, work together and are trained for adult life. This section asks what such a dormitory is, how it arose, what it does, and why it is now fading.
5.2.1 What is a Dormitory?
A dormitory is not a hostel in the modern sense. It is a communal institution of the village, a house set aside for the tribe’s unmarried young people, where they gather each day to live, work, learn and be prepared for their future roles.
The institution goes by many names. Among the Gonds it is the gotul; among the Oraons the dhumkuria; among the Mundas and Hos the gitiora; and among several Naga groups the morung. Behind the different names lies the same idea: a house that raises the young collectively rather than leaving each family to do it alone.
Dormitories differ in one important way. Some are single-sex, keeping separate houses for young men and for maidens, as among the Hos. Others are mixed, shared by both, as among some Gond groups. In every case the dormitory is a recognised part of the village, given its own space and its own rules.
5.2.2 Origin of Dormitories
No one can date the first dormitory. Anthropologists caution that the origins of any very old institution are hard to trace, because such institutions grow slowly out of the ordinary needs of everyday life rather than being founded on a single day. Still, scholars have offered several plausible explanations, and these do not so much compete as add up.
Shelter, defence and cooperation
One explanation looks to security. In early tribal life the able young were needed to guard the village at night and to hunt in groups, so it made sense for them to sleep together in a common place, ready to act. From this practical arrangement of defence and cooperation, the dormitory may have grown.
A second explanation is economic. Hunting, gathering and later cultivation all rewarded joint effort, and a house of young people ready to work as a team was a real asset to the village. The dormitory, on this view, began as a way of pooling youthful energy for shared tasks.
Training the young
A third explanation stresses upbringing. A tribe without schools still had to pass on its skills, customs and discipline to each new generation. Gathering the young in one place, under the eye of their seniors, was an efficient way to train them — and, some scholars add, to let them grow towards adult and married life a little apart from the world of their elders.
None of these explanations rules out the others. The likeliest story is that dormitories began from simple needs — safety, cooperation, training — and, once useful, took root as a settled institution that then served many purposes at once.
5.2.3 Features and Functions of Dormitories
The common features
Wherever they are found, dormitories share a recognisable pattern. There is usually a fixed age at which a child joins — among the Oraons, as young as four or five. Admission is informal, but attendance is not optional: everyone of the right age is expected to come, and those who break the house rules can be punished. The village sets aside a particular building or space for the purpose, and among girls’ dormitories an elderly woman of the village often acts as matron and supervisor. Seniors instruct juniors in an orderly, sometimes strict, arrangement of duties.
What the dormitory does
The functions of the dormitory explain why tribes valued it so highly.
Its first and greatest function is socialisation — the process by which the young are taught the ways of their society and grow into full members of it. In a world without formal schools, the dormitory was the school: the place where children learned to farm, fish, hunt, sing and behave as their tribe expected.
Closely tied to this is the transmission of culture. Night after night, seniors passed on songs, dances, myths, folklore and custom, so that the tribe’s whole way of life travelled safely to the next generation. The dormitory also trained the young for their adult roles, preparing them to take their place as workers, spouses and members of the community.
Beyond the young themselves, the dormitory served the village. Its members helped at marriages, house-building and harvests, so the institution became a way of channelling youthful energy into community service. And it was, not least, a place of recreation and friendship — of collective play, music and lifelong bonds among young people of the same tribe.
Picture the scene in Fig. 5.2-1: a large youth house at the edge of the village, a fire, and a group of young people learning from an older member.
Diagram
Fig. 5.2-1 – a communal tribal youth dormitory in the evening: a large thatched longhouse where a group of unmarried young people sit around a fire while an older youth teaches songs and skills to the younger ones; generic and non-identifiable
5.2.4 Culture Contact and Its Impact on Dormitories
No institution stands still once the wider world reaches it. Culture contact — the meeting of a tribe’s culture with the language, religion and lifestyle of the surrounding society — has reshaped the dormitory, and in most places it has weakened it.
Two directions of change
Contact can work by accommodation. Among the Maria Gonds, for example, the office-holders of the gotul came to borrow official-sounding titles from the government administration around them, fitting an old institution to a new setting. Here the dormitory bent to the outside world without breaking.
Far more often, though, contact has worked by disruption. Formal schools, wage work in distant places, and religious conversion have each drawn the young away from the dormitory. Where a church or a school claimed the evenings that once belonged to the youth house, attendance fell, and in some places the institution quietly disappeared.
The cost of the loss
Anthropologists who studied the tribes of the Northeast recorded what this loss meant. Studying dormitories in Assam, C. von Fürer-Haimendorf and J.P. Mills observed that when young people were freed from the dormitory their relations with their own parents could actually improve — but once they lost this non-formal training centre altogether, their ties with the elder generation and its knowledge grew strained, and a sense of insecurity spread among the young. Mills noted, writing of the Rengma Naga, that the state of a village’s dormitory was a fair measure of the health of the village itself.
The lesson many scholars draw is that the decline of the dormitory is not a small thing. Because the youth house held the tribe’s teaching, discipline and solidarity, its decay is often read as a sign that the tribe’s whole way of life is under strain. Some tribes, embarrassed under urban influence, even came to deny that they had ever kept such an institution.
Yet the story is not only one of loss imposed from outside. Part of the change is chosen by tribal youth themselves, who leave the dormitory for schooling, jobs and a wider world that offers real opportunities. The honest conclusion is that culture contact has rarely combined the old and the new; more often it has hollowed out the dormitory, and with it a piece of tribal tradition — even as it opened other doors.
5.3 Tribes in Contact with the Wider Society
For most of history India’s tribes lived largely on their own, in hills and forests the plains rarely disturbed. That changed as the state, the market, the missions and, later, development projects reached into every corner of the country. When a tribe’s culture meets a larger and more powerful one, what happens to it?
Sociologists describe three broad outcomes, shown in Fig. 5.3-1. A tribe may be absorbed into the dominant culture (assimilation), it may take on many of its traits while keeping its own identity (acculturation), or it may hold itself apart and protect what it has (isolation). These are not neat, separate boxes — real tribes often show a mix — but they give us a useful way to read the “cultural condition” of tribal India today.
Diagram
Fig. 5.3-1 – a simple branching diagram: a single box ‘Tribe meets the wider society’ at the top, with three arrows leading down to three outcomes — ‘Assimilation: absorbed, own identity lost’; ‘Acculturation: culture changes, own identity kept’; ‘Isolation: stays apart, own identity protected’
5.3.1 Assimilation
Assimilation is the process by which a smaller group gradually gives up its own culture and merges into the dominant one, until the two become a single group and the smaller loses its separate identity.
Assimilation can happen in two very different ways. Sometimes it is imposed: the dominant society passes laws, sets policies and spreads norms that tribal people are pushed to follow, so that their own customs are set aside. More often it is slow and almost invisible: tribal children are enrolled in mainstream schools, tribal workers join the wider labour force, and tribal families are drawn into the festivals and habits of the people around them. Over time, the older way of life simply fades.
It matters to ask who gains and who loses from this. The dominant society gains labour and a more uniform population; the tribe loses its distinctness. And the process is often justified by an attitude, not a fact — the belief that tribal culture is “primitive” and “replaceable.” That is a value judgement made by the more powerful side, and a sociologist treats it as something to explain, not something to accept.
In India, the classic form of assimilation has been the slow drawing of tribes into Hindu caste society. This is exactly the process the sociologist N.K. Bose described.
5.3.2 Acculturation
Not every contact ends in total absorption. Acculturation describes what happens when two cultures come into continuous, close contact and one or both are changed as a result — the weaker one usually changing more, yet often keeping a separate identity of its own.
The idea was given its classic form by three anthropologists, Redfield, Linton and Herskovits.
A.L. Kroeber made a similar point, adding that the influence may run both ways or overwhelmingly one way, and that at its extreme acculturation can shade into the full absorption we call assimilation. That is the key to telling the two apart. Acculturation is culture change through contact; assimilation is the end of the road, where a separate culture disappears altogether. Because acculturation usually flows from a more powerful society to a weaker one, it too tends to involve pressure — sometimes open force, more often the quieter force of schooling and economic need.
5.3.3 Isolation
The third outcome is isolation — remaining apart. Some tribes have deliberately kept their distance from the dominant groups around them, guarding their own beliefs, customs and way of life rather than being drawn in.
Isolation comes in two forms, and it is important not to confuse them. One is chosen and protective. A tribe that does not depend on outsiders for its livelihood can afford to hold on to its identity with confidence; certain Gond groups, for instance, have kept their culture with pride and are respected by their neighbours. Here isolation is a strength — a way of surviving change on one’s own terms.
The other form is imposed and costly. A tribe cut off from roads, schools, health care and markets is “isolated” too, but as a kind of exclusion that leaves it poor and unheard. This is why isolation cannot simply be praised or condemned; it protects identity but can also deepen disadvantage.
These three outcomes also set up one of independent India’s hardest policy choices: should tribes be left in isolation, pushed towards assimilation, or offered a middle path? India’s own answer — a policy of integration, meaning gradual development without forced loss of culture — is the subject of Section 5.6.
5.4 Present Conditions and Problems of the Tribal People
The tribe we met in Section 5.1 was self-sufficient, resting on its land, its forest and its own self-rule. Today that base has been badly shaken. As the wider world reached in, many tribes lost the very things their life depended on, and a chain of problems followed: land loss feeds poverty, poverty feeds debt and migration, and each hardship makes the next worse.
This section looks at the main economic and social problems of tribal India, and at the solutions that have been tried. (The political problems — regionalism and separatism — are the subject of Section 5.5.) Because the problems are tangled together, we take them in clusters rather than as a long list.
5.4.1 Land Alienation
The single deepest problem is the loss of land. Land alienation means the passing of land out of tribal hands into the hands of non-tribals — a serious blow to a people whose identity and livelihood are rooted in their territory.
Tribes have long been wary of outsiders, whom the Munda and Santhal call the diku — the moneylender, trader or official who comes from outside and takes advantage. That wariness has proved well founded. Under colonial rule, new land settlements, revenue systems and forest laws reached into tribal country. The state declared itself the owner of the forests, cancelling at a stroke the customary rights tribes had always held over them, and drew tribal people into farming, mining and wage work on terms set by others.
After Independence the pressure continued in a new form. Land was acquired for dams, mines, factories, roads and expanding towns — much of it in mineral-rich tribal belts. So the very “development” of the nation often came at the cost of the people who had lived on that land the longest.
The consequences run deep. Tribal families that once owned their land became tenants or wage labourers on it, or migrated in search of work. Impoverishment bred resentment, and in some regions that resentment fed into unrest and extremist movements. The loss was not only economic; it struck at a people’s sense of who they were.
Diagram
Fig. 5.4-1 – a flow diagram of how tribal land is lost: ‘customary (unwritten) tribal ownership’ → ‘colonial forest and land laws + debt to moneylenders + acquisition for development’ → ‘land passes to non-tribals and the state’ → ‘tribe becomes tenant, wage labourer or migrant’
Tribes did not lose their land quietly. The nineteenth century saw powerful uprisings against the loss of land and rights — the Santhal rebellion, or Hul, of 1855–56 in the Santhal Parganas, and Birsa Munda’s Ulgulan, the “Great Tumult,” around 1899–1900 against the takeover of Munda land. Birsa Munda is honoured across India today, and his birth anniversary is observed as a day of tribal pride. Such revolts pushed the colonial state into passing protective laws.
5.4.2 Poverty, Indebtedness and Bonded Labour
Once land and forest access shrink, poverty follows. To be poor, in the plainest sense, is to be unable to meet basic needs — enough food, decent clothing, a proper home. Large numbers of tribal families fall below that line, and poverty then pushes them into a second trap: debt.
Formal banks are hard for tribal people to use, since they demand paperwork and rarely lend for “non-productive” needs. But life brings unavoidable expenses — a marriage, a funeral, a festival, the treatment of an illness. So people turn to the village moneylender, the mahajan or sahukar, who lends easily but at ruinous rates of interest. This is indebtedness, and because the interest compounds, a small loan can grow into a debt that outlives the borrower.
At its worst, debt turns into bonded labour — the most extreme problem of all.
Diagram
Fig. 5.4-2 – a cycle diagram (arrows forming a loop): ‘small loan taken for a wedding, funeral or illness’ → ‘high compound interest’ → ‘debt repaid through unpaid labour’ → ‘wages too low to clear the debt’ → back to ‘debt grows’, with an arrow out of the loop labelled ‘debt passes to the next generation’
The state has tried to break this trap. The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act of 1976 declared bonded labour a social and economic evil, cancelled the outstanding debts of bonded labourers, provided for their release and rehabilitation, and punished those who kept them. Yet the law’s promise has been only half kept: rehabilitation has often failed, and bonded labour survives in brick kilns, small industries and farms. The honest lesson is that a law can abolish a practice on paper while poverty keeps it alive on the ground. The remedies that reach deeper are the obvious ones — easier institutional credit, fair-price shops, year-round work at fair wages, and an end to the drink debts that moneylenders use to bind people further.
5.4.3 Livelihood, Unemployment and Labour Migration
The tribal economy was built on land and forest. As access to both has narrowed, tribes have been left without steady work. Forests brought under state control no longer support them as before; land divided among heirs each generation grows too small to live on; and where tribal people seek work as mine or factory labour, they often find skilled or non-tribal workers preferred. The result is widespread underemployment.
Older ways of farming have come under pressure too. Shifting cultivation — known as jhum and by many local names — is the practice of clearing a plot, cropping it for a season or two, then leaving it fallow for years while moving on. It suited a time of plentiful forest and few people. But rising population and concern for the forest have led governments to restrict it, and the restrictions, however well-meant, cut into a livelihood on which many families still depend.
With too little work at home, tribal people increasingly migrate. After the harvest they travel to towns and building sites, brick kilns and road works, selling their labour far from home. This is a hard, unprotected life: migrants bear their own travel costs, live in poor shelter, adjust to unfamiliar surroundings, and may not see their families for long stretches. Because they move without records, they have little secure identity, and women in particular are exposed to exploitation. The migrant is, in a sense, the modern face of land alienation — a former owner of land turned into a floating wage worker.
The solutions all point the same way: making a living possible where tribal people actually live. That means reviving forest-based and cottage industries, improving irrigation and modern farming, encouraging animal husbandry and crafts, and drawing tribal women into local, skilled work rather than distant, unsafe labour.
5.4.4 Housing, Health, Education and Everyday Life
The loss of land and livelihood shows up, finally, in the texture of everyday life — in homes, health, schooling and access to information.
Housing
Tribes who once moved with the season, or built light huts of grass, bamboo and leaves, are ill-suited to permanent settlement, and the forest materials they relied on are now scarce. Government housing colonies have sometimes been built for them, but many did not fit tribal needs and stood empty. Sensible solutions provide free forest materials, interest-free building loans, and houses designed with tribal ways of life in mind — not against them.
Health and nutrition
Distance and poor communication keep many tribes outside the reach of health services, so they still lean on indigenous medicine and, at times, on witchcraft and sorcery. Where clinics are few and clean water scarce, illness spreads easily. Alongside this runs malnutrition: the forest foods — roots, shoots, leaves and fruits — that once balanced the tribal diet are less available as forest access shrinks, while modern nutritious foods remain unfamiliar and unaffordable. The answers lie in working health centres, health education, care for mothers and infants, clean water, and letting people gather the forest foods they know.
Education
Tribes had their own way of educating the young — the dormitory we studied in Section 5.2 — but it cannot meet the demands of modern life. Formal schooling, however, has spread only slowly, and tribal literacy remains well below the national level.
The table repays a careful reading. On literacy, the gap is wide: roughly three in five tribal people were literate against nearly three in four Indians overall, a clear sign of the education problem. Yet the second row tells a very different story. The tribal sex ratio is higher than the national figure — more balanced between women and men — which fits what we learned in Section 5.1 about the relative social equality of tribal societies. Tribal India, then, is not simply “behind”; it lags on some measures while doing better than the mainstream on others.
Low tribal literacy has clear causes: children drop out because families migrate for work, poverty pulls them into labour, schools are distant, the medium of teaching is often not the tribal language, and the syllabus and school calendar rarely match tribal life. The remedies — residential schools, teachers drawn from the community, tribal language and culture in the curriculum — are the subject of the government’s educational policies in Section 5.6.
5.5 Regionalism, Separatism and Tribal Identity
The losses of Section 5.4 — land, forest, livelihood — have a political side. Many tribes feel that their regions are rich in resources yet poor in benefits: the minerals, timber and water are taken away, while the people who live there get little say and little share. Out of that feeling grow two political responses, which the syllabus asks us to understand together: regionalism and separatism.
The two are related but not the same. One demands a fairer deal within the nation; the other seeks to loosen or break ties with it. Keeping them apart is the key to this section.
5.5.1 Regionalism and Tribal People
Regionalism is a sense of loyalty to one’s own region, together with the demand that the region’s distinct interests, resources and identity be recognised and given their due.
Why does regionalism arise so strongly in tribal India? The reasons trace back to a mismatch of power. Tribal areas are rich in minerals, forests and water, and the wider economy wants those resources. But the decisions about how to use them are usually made by, and for, the non-tribal majority. Even in states with large tribal populations, tribes are often thinly represented in the bodies that decide their future. Development, when it comes, tends to serve dominant groups first, so tribes bear the costs — displacement, lost land — while the benefits flow elsewhere.
Regionalism is the demand to correct that imbalance: a fair share of development, some control over local resources, protection of tribal identity, and a real voice in decisions. Importantly, this is a demand made within the country, not against it.
Regionalism is not only a story of grievance. When tribal regions have organised with strength, they have won real gains. The long movement for a tribal homeland in the Chhotanagpur belt, for instance, contributed to the creation of new states in 2000, and such assertion has brought both development and a renewed pride in tribal culture. As Fig. 5.5-1 suggests, regionalism sits at the milder end of a spectrum of political demand.
Diagram
Fig. 5.5-1 – a horizontal ‘intensity of demand’ spectrum arrow with three points marked left to right: ‘Regionalism – a fair share and recognition within the nation’ → ‘Autonomy – self-government for the region’ → ‘Separatism – breaking away from the larger entity’
5.5.2 Separatism and Tribal People
Where regionalism seeks a better place within the nation, separatism goes further.
A separatist movement usually arises when a group comes to feel sharply distinct from the majority around it — in ethnicity or culture, language, religion, historical identity, economic interests or political representation. When several of these differences pile up, and the group feels its identity is threatened, the demand can shift from a fair share to autonomy, self-rule for the region, and at times to full separation.
The two sides of separatism
Sociology asks us to weigh separatism fairly, and there are two sides to weigh. On one side, many such movements begin from genuine grievances — the loss of land and resources, weak representation, and a real fear that a distinct culture will be swallowed up. Seen this way, separatism is a cry for autonomy and cultural protection.
On the other side, prolonged separatist conflict carries heavy costs. It can bring displacement, as people are forced to leave their villages; erosion of the very culture it set out to defend; economic hardship; and militarisation — an atmosphere in which fear and armed force shape daily life. These costs fall hardest on ordinary tribal people, who are often the least prepared to bear them.
There is a further, subtler problem. When one tribe asserts its own identity strongly, it can unsettle its neighbours. A movement for a separate homeland led by one large community may leave smaller communities in the same area — as some felt during the Bodo movement in Assam — worried about being overshadowed. So an act meant to protect one identity can threaten another, and overlapping claims to the same territory become a fresh source of tension.
Towards solutions
Because separatism usually springs from real wrongs, force alone rarely settles it. The lasting answers, most sociologists agree, lie in addressing the underlying grievances: inclusive development that reaches tribal people, honest political dialogue, firm protection of tribal rights, and genuine recognition of cultural identities. India has, in fact, channelled many autonomy demands short of separation — through self-governing councils for tribal areas and, in a few cases, entirely new states — turning some conflicts into peaceful forms of self-rule. The political future of tribal India will depend on whether recognition and a fair share can arrive before grievances harden into permanent division.
5.6 Government Policies for the Upliftment of Tribes
We saw in Section 5.3 that a nation facing its tribes has three broad choices: leave them isolated, absorb them by assimilation, or find a middle path. Independent India chose the middle path — development with protection of tribal culture — and built a large body of policy around it. This section surveys those policies briefly: the guiding philosophy, the constitutional safeguards, the commissions, the economic programmes and the educational measures.
5.6.1 Tribal Panchsheel
The philosophy behind India’s approach was set out in five guiding principles known as the Tribal Panchsheel. They express a policy of integration — helping tribes develop and join the national mainstream without forcing them to abandon their own way of life.
- Tribal people should develop along the lines of their own genius; the imposition of alien values on them should be avoided.
- Tribal rights in land and forest should be respected.
- Teams of tribal people should be trained and used to carry out administration and development, rather than crowding tribal areas with outsiders.
- Tribal areas should not be over-administered or overwhelmed with too many schemes at once.
- Progress should be judged not by the money spent or the statistics collected, but by the quality of human character and life that develops.
Read together, these principles reject both extremes. They rule out leaving tribes to stagnate in isolation, and they rule out crushing their identity through assimilation, as Fig. 5.6-1 shows.
Diagram
Fig. 5.6-1 – three labelled boxes in a row: ‘Isolation – leave tribes apart’ (left) and ‘Assimilation – absorb tribes fully’ (right), with the middle box highlighted: ‘Integration – develop tribes while protecting their culture (India’s choice: Tribal Panchsheel)’
5.6.2 Constitutional Safeguards for Tribes
The Constitution weaves protection for tribes through several of its parts. (We have already seen, in Section 5.1, how Article 342 identifies who the Scheduled Tribes are.)
As a guiding aim, Article 46 — a Directive Principle — requires the state to promote the educational and economic interests of the Scheduled Tribes and to protect them from social injustice and exploitation. To pay for this, Article 275 provides special grants from the Union to the states for tribal welfare and for the administration of tribal areas.
Two special arrangements govern how tribal regions are administered. For most tribal areas, the Fifth Schedule sets up “Scheduled Areas,” giving the Governor special powers and providing Tribes Advisory Councils. For certain areas of the Northeast — in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram — the Sixth Schedule creates Autonomous District and Regional Councils that can frame their own rules on land, forests, shifting cultivation, inheritance and social custom. These are the “self-governing councils” mentioned in Section 5.5.
Tribes are also given a political voice through reservation — the setting aside of seats for Scheduled Tribes in the Lok Sabha (Article 330) and in the State Legislative Assemblies (Article 332), along with reservation in education and public employment. Finally, the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (Article 338A) exists as a watchdog, to investigate complaints and safeguard tribal rights.
5.6.3 The Backward Classes Commissions: Kaka Kalelkar and Mandal
Alongside the framework for Scheduled Tribes, India appointed commissions to study social and educational backwardness more broadly. The First Backward Classes Commission (1953), chaired by Kaka Kalelkar, was set up to identify backward classes and recommend measures for them; its report was largely not acted upon. The Second Backward Classes Commission (1979), chaired by B.P. Mandal and known as the Mandal Commission, recommended reservation for the Other Backward Classes in central government jobs and education — a recommendation later implemented and much debated.
It is worth being clear about scope. These commissions dealt mainly with the Other Backward Classes, which are a distinct category from the Scheduled Tribes; the safeguards for tribes come through the separate framework described in Section 5.6.2. The commissions matter here because they are part of the wider machinery by which India has tried to address inequality, and questions of reservation remain a live public debate on which citizens hold differing views.
5.6.4 Economic Programmes and Facilities for Tribal Development
To turn the Panchsheel promise into practice, the government ran a series of economic programmes. A few of the main ones are noted below.
Special Central Assistance and the Tribal Sub-Plan
Under the Tribal Sub-Plan approach, a share of development funds is earmarked for tribal areas, and Special Central Assistance provides extra central money on top of it, largely for family-based, income-generating schemes to lift tribal households above poverty.
The 20 Point Programme
Launched in 1975 and revised since, the 20 Point Programme is a broad drive against poverty and for social justice. Several of its components — on land, housing, employment and welfare — carry specific benefits for Scheduled Tribes.
Integrated Rural Development Programme (IRDP)
Begun in 1978–79 and extended across the country in 1980–81, IRDP gave families below the poverty line a capital subsidy and cheap credit to buy income-generating assets — livestock, tools, materials for a craft. Tribal families received a higher rate of subsidy. The idea was sound, but uneven implementation limited its success.
Large Sized Multi-Purpose Cooperative Societies (LAMPS)
LAMPS are cooperative societies designed for tribal areas. A single society provides tribal members with credit, seeds and other inputs at fair prices, and helps them market their crops and minor forest produce — the aim being to free them from the grip of the moneylender.
Support for crafts, home industries and agriculture
Tribal skills in crafts and home industries have been encouraged through bodies such as TRIFED, which markets tribal handicrafts and forest produce, while agricultural support — irrigation, seeds and credit — helps settle and strengthen tribal farming.
5.6.5 Educational Policies for Tribes
Because tribal development depends so heavily on education, a special effort has gone into schooling. The constitutional basis lies in Article 46 (already noted) and in Article 350A, which directs that mother-tongue instruction be provided at the primary stage — important for children who do not speak the state language at home.
The Right to Education Act of 2009 made schooling free and compulsory for all children, with special attention to disadvantaged groups including Scheduled Tribes, and the National Education Policy of 2020 has stressed teaching in the mother tongue, special education zones in tribal districts, and support for first-generation learners.
These policies are delivered through dedicated institutions. Ekalavya Model Residential Schools offer free, good-quality residential schooling to ST students; Ashram Schools provide residential education in remote tribal areas to cut dropout; and Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalayas run residential schools for girls. Bringing tribal language, culture and teachers into the classroom is now a recognised part of the effort.
5.7 Summary
What a tribe is
- A tribe is a community bound together by a common name, territory, language, culture and line of descent, and living historically as a largely self-contained unit. It differs from a caste in that a caste is one rank within the ritual hierarchy of the wider society, whereas a tribe has stood outside that hierarchy, governing itself.
- India does not define “tribe” but lists communities as Scheduled Tribes under Article 342. The typical features of a tribe are a common name, territory, language, culture, religion and totemic ancestor; a kinship structure of clans and families; endogamy of the tribe with exogamy of the clan; a shared occupation; a simple political organisation; youth dormitories; and an overall unity and self-sufficiency.
The dormitory
- The dormitory is a communal youth house — the gotul, dhumkuria, gitiora or morung — where unmarried young people live, work and are trained. It probably grew out of the needs of defence, economic cooperation and the upbringing of the young.
- Its chief functions are socialisation, the transmission of culture, training for adult roles, community service and recreation. Culture contact — schooling, wage work and religious conversion — has weakened the dormitory, and its decline is often read as a sign of wider strain on tribal life.
Contact with the wider society
- When a tribe’s culture meets a stronger one, three outcomes are possible: assimilation, in which the tribe is fully absorbed and loses its identity; acculturation, in which its culture changes but a separate identity survives; and isolation, in which it stays apart to protect what it has.
- Assimilation is really the end-point of acculturation, where a distinct culture disappears; N.K. Bose’s “Hindu method of tribal absorption” describes the classic Indian path of tribes into caste society. Isolation may be protective and chosen, or costly and imposed as exclusion.
The problems tribes face
- Land alienation — the passing of tribal land into non-tribal hands through colonial land and forest laws, debt and acquisition for development — is the deepest problem, turning owners into tenants, labourers and migrants. Protective laws exist but are weakly enforced.
- Poverty pushes tribes into indebtedness to moneylenders and, at its worst, into bonded labour. The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act of 1976 abolished bondage in law, but poverty keeps it alive in practice.
- The loss of land and forest brings unemployment, restrictions on shifting cultivation, and migration into unprotected, low-paid work far from home.
- Everyday conditions — poor housing, weak health care and nutrition, low literacy and poor communication — remain serious problems. Yet tribal societies show relatively greater gender balance, with a sex ratio higher than the national average.
The political response
- Regionalism is the demand for recognition, development and a fair share for a region within the nation. It arises because tribal resources are exploited while tribes are under-represented, and strong regional movements have won development and even new states.
- Separatism goes further, seeking autonomy or separation. It springs from real grievances but can bring displacement, cultural erosion and militarisation, and one tribe’s assertion of identity can alienate its neighbours.
What the state has done
- India chose integration over both isolation and forced assimilation, guided by the five principles of the Tribal Panchsheel: develop tribes along their own genius, respect their land and forest rights, train tribal people themselves, avoid over-administration, and judge results by human character rather than money spent.
- Constitutional safeguards include Article 46 (educational and economic interests), Article 275 (grants), the Fifth and Sixth Schedules (special administration and autonomous councils), reservation of seats under Articles 330 and 332, and the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (Article 338A).
- The Backward Classes Commissions of Kaka Kalelkar and Mandal addressed social backwardness more broadly, mainly for the Other Backward Classes — a category distinct from the Scheduled Tribes.
- Economic programmes (Special Central Assistance and the Tribal Sub-Plan, the 20 Point Programme, IRDP, LAMPS, and support for crafts and agriculture) and educational measures (Article 350A, the Right to Education Act, NEP 2020, and Ekalavya, Ashram and Kasturba Gandhi Balika schools) aim to lift tribes. The overall record is mixed: real gains sit alongside continuing land loss, poverty and weak implementation.
5.8 Key Terms
- Acculturation — culture change that results when two cultures come into continuous contact and one or both are altered, though a separate identity may survive.
- Assimilation — the process by which a smaller group is fully absorbed into a dominant culture and loses its own distinct identity.
- Autonomy — self-government for a region or group within a larger political entity.
- Bonded labour — a system in which a person unable to repay a debt is forced to work for the creditor, losing freedom of work and wage.
- Clan — a group within a tribe whose members claim descent from a common ancestor.
- Common culture — the shared customs, festivals, music, dress and myths that a tribe passes down and is known by.
- Common language or dialect — the shared speech of a tribe, which carries its oral tradition across generations.
- Common name — the shared name by which a tribe knows itself and marks its identity.
- Common occupation — the similar subsistence work shared by a tribe’s members, not ritually ranked as high or low.
- Common religion — a tribe’s own shared beliefs, usually centred on the worship of nature and of ancestors.
- Common territory — the definite region a tribe treats as its home and the source of its livelihood and identity.
- Common totemic ancestor — a shared ancestor, often a totem, from whom a clan or tribe traces its descent.
- Culture contact — the meeting of a tribe’s culture with the language, religion and lifestyle of the surrounding society.
- Dormitory — a communal youth house in a tribal village where unmarried young people live, work, learn and are trained for adult roles.
- Endogamy — the rule of marrying within one’s own group; a tribe is generally endogamous.
- Exogamy — the rule of marrying outside a specified group; within a tribe, one’s own clan is usually exogamous.
- Fifth Schedule — the part of the Constitution providing for the special administration of Scheduled Areas in most tribal regions.
- Indebtedness — the condition of being burdened with debt, common among tribes who borrow from moneylenders at high interest.
- Integration — the policy of helping tribes develop and join the mainstream without forcing them to give up their own culture.
- Isolation — the condition in which a tribe keeps itself apart from the wider society to protect its own culture and self-rule.
- Land alienation — the transfer of tribal land into non-tribal hands through sale, mortgage, debt or acquisition.
- Malnutrition — a condition of poor nourishment, arising as forest foods grow scarce and modern nutritious food remains out of reach.
- Political organisation — a tribe’s usually simple system of self-rule, led by a headman and council in which members have a real voice.
- Regionalism — loyalty to one’s own region and the demand that its interests, resources and identity receive a fair share within the nation.
- Reservation — the setting aside of seats or posts, for example in legislatures, education and public jobs, for Scheduled Tribes and other groups.
- Scheduled Tribes — the communities officially notified under Article 342 as entitled to special protection and support.
- Separatism — a movement or ideology in which a group seeks autonomy from, or separation from, a larger political entity.
- Shifting cultivation — a form of farming in which a plot is cropped for a season or two and then left fallow while cultivation moves on.
- Sixth Schedule — the part of the Constitution providing autonomous councils for certain tribal areas of the Northeast.
- Socialisation — the process by which the young are taught the ways of their society and grow into full members of it.
- Totem — an animal, plant or object regarded as the sacred kin and emblem of a clan, often protected by taboos.
- Tribal Panchsheel — the five guiding principles set out for the development of tribes, expressing a policy of integration.
- Tribal Sub-Plan — the approach of earmarking a share of development funds specifically for tribal areas.
- Tribe — a community bound by a common name, territory, language, culture and descent, living historically as a self-contained unit.
- Unity and self-sufficiency — the quality of a tribe as a largely self-contained community that meets its own needs and governs itself.
5.9 Points to Ponder
If it is so hard to define a “tribe” that India relies on an official list rather than a single test, does the word “tribe” name something real in society, or mainly a legal category the state has created?
The dormitory once taught the young almost everything they needed to know. As schools, jobs and cities take over that role, is the decline of the dormitory a loss, a gain, or simply a change — and for whom?
Tribal societies often show a more balanced sex ratio and less rigid ranking than caste society, yet are commonly called “backward.” What does this tell us about the yardsticks we use to decide whether a society is “advanced”?
India chose integration — development without the forced loss of culture. Can a community really modernise its economy while keeping its culture intact, or does one usually come at the cost of the other?
Protective laws bar the sale of tribal land, yet land alienation continues. Why do laws meant to protect the weak so often fail in practice, and what would it take for such a law to actually work?
Isolation can protect a tribe’s identity but can also deepen its disadvantage. How would you weigh the value of holding on to a way of life against the benefits of joining the wider world?
5.10 Objective Questions
- Which Article of the Constitution provides for the notification of the Scheduled Tribes? [1 mark]
- Article 46
- Article 342
- Article 330
- Article 350A
- The rule that a person must marry outside their own clan is called: [1 mark]
- endogamy
- exogamy
- polygamy
- monogamy
- The dhumkuria is the youth dormitory of the: [1 mark]
- Santhal
- Oraon
- Bhil
- Toda
- Read the assertion and reason and choose the correct option. [1 mark] Assertion (A): A tribe is generally endogamous. Reason (R): Marrying within the tribe helps preserve its identity and cohesion.
- Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A.
- Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A.
- A is true but R is false.
- A is false but R is true.
- Read the assertion and reason and choose the correct option. [1 mark] Assertion (A): Assimilation and acculturation mean exactly the same thing. Reason (R): In both processes a tribe always loses its separate identity completely.
- Both A and R are true, and R is the correct explanation of A.
- Both A and R are true, but R is not the correct explanation of A.
- A is true but R is false.
- A is false but R is false.
- Match each name in Column A with the correct description in Column B. [4 marks]
| Column A | Column B |
|---|---|
| a. N.K. Bose | i. administration of the Scheduled Areas |
| b. Mandal Commission | ii. the Hindu method of tribal absorption |
| c. Tribal Panchsheel | iii. reservation for the Other Backward Classes |
| d. Fifth Schedule | iv. five principles for tribal development |
Fill in the blank: The transfer of land belonging to tribal people into non-tribal hands is called ____________. [1 mark]
Fill in the blank: Under the ____________ (Abolition) Act of 1976, the bonded labour system was declared a social and economic evil. [1 mark]
A movement in which a group seeks to break away from a larger political entity to gain independence or greater autonomy is called: [1 mark]
- regionalism
- separatism
- integration
- assimilation
5.11 Check Your Concepts
Define a tribe. [2 marks]
What is a dormitory? Name any two tribes and the names by which they know their dormitory. [2 marks]
Differentiate between assimilation and acculturation. [3 marks]
Differentiate between regionalism and separatism. [3 marks]
Distinguish between a tribe and a caste with the help of examples. [4 marks]
Give the main reasons for the widespread alienation of tribal land, with examples. [4 marks]
Describe the functions of the dormitory in tribal society, and explain why it is now in decline. [6 marks]
State the five principles of the Tribal Panchsheel, and evaluate how far India has kept this promise to its tribes. [6 marks]
5.12 Passage-Based Questions
- Read the passage and answer the questions that follow. [5 marks] In a tribal village, the young people once spent every evening at the youth house at the edge of the settlement, where older boys and girls taught them songs, skills and the customs of the community. Nowadays most children attend a school in the nearby town and rarely visit the youth house, which stands almost empty. The elders complain that the young no longer know the old ways.
- Name the tribal institution described in the passage. [1 mark]
- What was the main function of this institution? [2 marks]
- Which process is weakening it, and why? [2 marks]
- Read the passage and answer the questions that follow. [6 marks] A tribal family loses part of its land when a development project comes up nearby, and mortgages the rest to the village moneylender to pay for a wedding. Unable to clear the loan, the head of the family agrees to work in the lender’s fields until it is repaid. After each harvest, his son travels to a distant brick kiln to earn a little more.
- What is the problem called when the family’s land passes into non-tribal hands? [1 mark]
- What is the condition called when a person is forced to work to repay a debt? [2 marks]
- Suggest two measures that could help address the family’s situation. [3 marks]
- Read the passage and answer the questions that follow. [5 marks] A tribal region rich in minerals and forest is chosen for a large mining project. The community has seen earlier projects take its land and give little back, so its leaders organise to demand a fair share of the benefits, protection of their sacred groves, and a real voice in the decision — but they do not wish to leave the country. In a neighbouring area, however, a movement has begun to demand a separate self-governing homeland.
- Is the first community’s demand an example of regionalism or of separatism? Give a reason. [2 marks]
- State one cause behind such tribal political movements. [1 mark]
- State two possible negative consequences of prolonged separatist conflict. [2 marks]
5.13 Practice With Data
- According to the 2011 Census, the literacy rate of the Scheduled Tribes was about 59%, while the all-India literacy rate was about 73%. [3 marks]
- By how many percentage points did ST literacy fall short of the all-India figure? [1 mark]
- What does this gap suggest about the state of education among tribal people? [2 marks]
- According to the 2011 Census, the sex ratio of the Scheduled Tribes was about 990 females per 1000 males, while the all-India sex ratio was about 943 females per 1000 males. [3 marks]
- Which group had the more balanced sex ratio? [1 mark]
- How does this finding connect to the social character of tribal societies discussed in the chapter? [2 marks]
- In a tribal village there are 520 females and 500 males. The sex ratio is calculated as the number of females per 1000 males. [3 marks]
- Calculate the sex ratio of this village. [2 marks]
- State whether it is above or below the 2011 all-India sex ratio of 943. [1 mark]