pati answer

7/30/2019 Pati Answer

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INDIGENOUS AND THE TRIBES

Tribe in India has been a debated topic in colonial and post colonial times. Andwith the coming of new techniques of studies, it further got boosted. It began

as an endeavour of the colonial officials who were trying to generate

knowledge about India and this process is known as Orientalism. Here we can

connect to what Bernard S. Cohn argues about knowledge and power that the

colonials created knowledge in order to rule India. Ethnography was one of the

tools used to generate knowledge about different kind of people who

inhabited India. And this led to the extensive study of the Tribes in India. When

we examine the reasons behind such endeavours, we see a bigger motive

behind it. The colonials either wanted to assimilate them with the settled

communities or exterminate them to claim their land and forests. And one of

the best examples of such ethnographic endeavours was by Herbert Hope

Risley. He studied and differentiated people of India on the basis of scientific

racism. This was done to establish racial superiority of a specific group of

people over other. Thus while doing this, he writes of various groups of people

in India such as the Aryans, Indo-aryans, Dravidians, Mongoloids. He

considered the Aryan people as a superior race as they did not originally

belong to the subcontinent and the Dravidians as an inferior race because

they, he considered were the original inhabitants of India. Thus they were

considered the ‘Indigenous’ people of India. He could not establish a clear cut

division between tribes and caste and argued that tribes preceded caste. Thus

considering the tribes who belonged to the Dravidian race as the original

inhabitants or indigenous of India.

In this essay, we will look at the discuss about different ideas related to

indigenous people and how the use of the word has helped in claiming new

political as well as social status for the tribal people everywhere.

From 19th

century, as Andre Beteille write, tribes were not just seen as a type

of society but now they were tried to be placed in the stages of evolution and

according to it they were considered to belong to the primitive stage. Thus

they were more often seen as isolated, self-contained primitive social

formation. Some scholars went to the extent of describing them as savage,



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barbaric, animalistic. But these labels become a problem when it came to the

question of their (tribes) identity. Such labels were used for a century of

research. But now new phrase were coming up which were not related to any

type of society or stage of evolution rather ‘priority of settlement’. Thus the

term ‘indigenous people’ come up. Now historical evidence was used to show

that some tribal people of a particular region was indeed the indigenous

people of that place. But it needs to be kept in mind that not all tribal people

were the indigenous people hence the word cannot be used in general to

describe tribes.

The term indigenous, as argued by Beteille, was becoming popular for its

political correctness. The term became more significant as it helped to gain

substance for being the original inhabitant when there were other people

residing in the same area who could be considered foreigner or alien as more

often now there was much more intermixing of people which sometimes led to

obliteration of the original settlers. But the situation in India was very different

from places like America, Australia. In these places, there was a sharp

distinction between indigenous people and the new settlers. They (indigenous)

did not have any kind of interaction with the latter until they (new settlers)

entered their land but in the Indian situation, there are evidence which showsthat the tribes had always intermixed with the outside world. Thus calling a

tribe completely indigenous to a place that belonged only to them is

problematic. Archana Prasad also talks extensively on this intermixing of tribes

and in her case the Gond tribes with the Marathas in pre-colonial times. B.B.

Chaudhury also talks in similar lines about intermixing of tribal people and non

tribal people in Ashoka’s time. He states that with the emergence of complex

society, the forest dwellers and his forest space enters into the orbit of a

different social order, and in most case the degree of incorporation dependent

on numbers of historical factors. The forest itself becomes the locus of the

state, and through various processes of interaction with complex society, the

fundamental change in forest society is the formation of its own elite groups, a

complete reorientation in the nature of its relationship with the world outside,

and acquisition of both symbols and substance of political authority from the

contemporary complex society.



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Another criteria for describing a tribe as indigenous is mentioned by Virginius

Xaxa who writes that apart from being known as the original inhabitants, the

marginalization of these people by colonial settlers or other people from

outside the region become important while categorising these tribes as

indigenous. And the third criteria is that these people govern their life in terms

of their own social, economic and cultural institution rather than the laws of

the state which otherwise governs the people of a territory.

Xaxa highlights the point that in the Indian situation it is also difficult to call

some people indigenous/aborigines and some not because they might not be

original to that particular region they belong to but can be the original settlers

of India. This can work the other way round as well. Ghurey also talks in similar

lines.

The coming of the Aryans has been taken as the mark for identifying original

inhabitants of India. Xaxa writes that even though the Dravidians inhabited

India before the Aryans, but they were not given the title of indigenous by the

state because they were not marginalised. Thus for Xaxa, marginalisation was

an important criteria for gaining the status of indigenous. Also that giving the

title indigenous by the state was not necessarily for empowering them, but

was rather a smart move to integrate these people into the larger political and

social system.

Some scholars argue that it is difficult to give the status of indigenous to tribe

because more often the tribes themselves talk about migration. These have

been instances were tribes have been push out of their regions and they had

to travel to new places to settle or sometimes the larger hindu society has

gulped them. Thus claiming the status of being the original inhabitant becomes

difficult for tribes. For example the nagas have been said to have come to India

around 1st

millennium BC.

But some scholars who are in favour of using the term indigenous argues that

it is not appropriate to say that the non tribal population absorbed or

subjugated the tribal population since pre-colonial times. They rather argue

that there was peaceful co-existence between tribal and non-tribal people.

Thus tribes could claim the right of being indigenous as there wasn’t muchinteraction or any kind of subjugation or conquest until the coming of the



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colonials. Infact the tribes remained distinct because they escaped

subjugation by the larger kingdom or chose to stay away from the state in

present time.

Bengt G.Karlsson , asserts that the working group has provided a globaldemocratic and liberal forum and has allowed indigenous organisations as well

as other non-governmental organisations to participate. He states that the

working group as a critical site for the indigenous cause and it placed many

issues on the global agenda. Were we could witness the creation of a new

globalised political space. There was this need to assert oneself as ‘indigenous

people ‘ and being indigenous became the new way of placing oneself in the

world. Within the anthropology world there were two main arguments

regarding the usage of this term. The first opposition which we can call

‘substantivist ‘ , relates to the problem of finding universally acceptable criteria

or definition of indigenous people. Another type of opposition was the

‘political’ one; it was argued that political mobilization based on

indigenousness would prove to be a disastrous as it might lead to ethnic

conflict.

First he looks at the statements and interventions made by indigenous

representatives at the UN Working group in Geneva. We could see trajectories

of oppression, experiences and memories of genocide, ethnocide, loss of land,

economic deprivation and political marginalization were translated into a new

language that emphasised a common indigenous predicament.

He states indigeneity as a travelling discourse and argues that rather than

concentrating on authenticity our concern should what is left out or silenced

by predominant language of indigenous activism. When the first delegates of

India participated in WGIP, the main concern was to refute the state position

and claim indigenous status for the previously known tribal’s. They challenged

the state’s notion, saying they were indigenous people and since pre historic

times have been subjugated by a system of values and institutions maintained

by the dominating group.

A newly established organisation called the Indian council of indigenous and

tribal people was represented, they argued that the Indian government

persistently dismissed the term ‘indigenous peoples’ because they wanted to



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keep the tribal’s as dependent receivers of welfare assistance rather than as

peoples of their own right to develop themselves. He gives the example of the

Nagas, who were fighting for full independence and claimed to be neither part

of India nor Burma. Such participation became controversial for WGIP because

of their insistence on independence. As they has no intention of supporting

breakup of existing states, the later Naga statements mostly focused on human

rights violations and towards the end on peaceful negotiations with the Indian

government.

Even in case of Tripura there was ongoing struggle due to large scale

immigration and they asserted self determination as a ‘born’ right of every

man. The organization that has taken up arms for this cause they stated can’t

be branded secessionist, as Tripura was never an integral part of India. The

delegates also focused on single cases like damn construction, establishment

of wildlife sanctuaries. Another persistent participant at the WGIP is Bodo

organisation who advocate for the formation of Bodoland, a separate ethnic

homeland for the Bodos.

The single most controversial issue for the Indian delegates was related to

report by UN specialist M .A Martinez. He mostly stated that neither Asian nor

African situation qualifies for the usage of the term ‘indigenous people’. The

response of the Indian delegates was extremely critical. They argued that

Martinez’s ‘selective view of the colonial background’ has misled him. He failed

to grasp the process of re-colonization of indigenous peoples and nations. He

marginalizes a huge number of indigenous peoples who were subjected to

some of the worst forms of oppression in the world history. Some of them

even went on to say that Martinez applied the same type of racist-caste

discrimination his people suffered. Karlsson agrees with the Indian delegatesthat there was superficiality regarding the African and Asian situations. He

violates the central principle of self identification; it should be the indigenous

people themselves who should be a part of the process of indentifying who the

indigenous people are. He states that to be recognised as ‘indigenous people’

matters so much to the Indian tribal organisations because that status has a

wide range of internationally approved rights and safeguards attached to it,

most of all the right to self determination dealing to conflict and negotiation

with the sate and other powerful interest. He states power as a central aspect



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to be considered, claims made by dominant groups. And the intolerance and

hatred against the ones considered as intruders or outsiders. He states the

situation in northeast India, where inter-ethnic violence is on the increase like

the Bodo aspiration for Bodoland, which lead to violence against Santhal tribes

and Muslim immigrants. He argues that with the ethnic complexity in

northeast solution can’t be separate homelands for each ethnic community.

But he states that the collective experience of the global indigenous

movement, shared in forums like WGIP sessions can be useful. He states that

exclusion was simply not needed, when we can facilitate peaceful ‘inclusive

alternative

The term indigenous which was initially taken as a point of reference has

gained importance as a marker of identity and articulation of choice of the

tribal people who claim their rights not just in national but international

forums as well with the status of indigenous people. They articulate their right

of self determination by taking up or claiming indigenous status. Not that this

title has been taken by the tribes themselves but were given by outside world

but now they learnt the right way to use it for their own benefits. Many parts

this identity has gone to the extent of claiming separate state as mentioned by

Karlsson thus giving it to a newer and higher level of political overtones.



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