How does the Anthropological Survey set up parameters for classifying Indian population as vulnerable tribal groups or the primitive others?
Dr B S Harishankar
Recently there was a report titled The Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups of India (PVTG) — Privileges and Predicaments, prepared by the Anthropological Survey of India. It made observations on Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups highlighting that, baseline surveys exist for about 40 groups, even after
declaring them as PVTGs. Who are tribes and vulnerable tribes? Are they genetically and socially different from our agricultural societies to keep them apart?
Colonial administrators formulated a policy of isolation and adopted a system of indirect rule to segregate hunting-gathering communities from agricultural and pastoral societies in various regions in India. Armed uprisings and rebellions against the colonial rule by so-called tribes, such as Halba of Dongar, in Bastar Chhatisgarh, Mundas, Pahariya Sardars and Tamars of Chota Nagpur, Bhils and Koli Mahadevs in Gujarat and Deccan, Konds and Juang in Orissa, Santals in Eastern India, Nagas and Synteng in north-east India, Gond and Kolam in Telangana, Kurichiyas and Kurumbas of Malabar were all perceived as vital threats by the colonial government. It was a major strategy by the colonial administration to split agricultural communities from those residing in the forest and mountainous regions. The objective was to prevent any sort of socio-cultural reintegration which might felicitate any united movement against the colonial rule. Remember the notorious Criminal Tribes Act (CTA) enforced in India in 1871, which was argued to crush Thuggees, a cult devoted to Kali.
After 1857, there was a spurt in the publication of ethnological works. George Campbell’s Ethnology of India was published in 1866 to assist the colonial Government in preparing a comprehensive list of races and classes in India. It aimed at creating a special dispensation for the tribes under the 1935 Government of India Act. It was pivotal to the framing of policies and also legal ways of governing and curbing rebellious natives, now labelled as tribes. Besides the growth of Anglo-Saxon racialism, ethnology developed in Britain as a discipline for the study of linguistic, physical and cultural characteristics of dark skinned non-European uncivilised population.
Early anthropology in India depended heavily on missionary and administrative reports. Edward G Smith, member of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain, contended that social anthropology should be recognised as an essential discipline in the training of missionaries. There was intensive lobbying by administrator anthropologists such as J P Mills and J H Hutton with missionary anthropologists. Edgar Thurston was assisted in his survey of castes and tribes of South India by missionaries such as Bishop Whitehead and Bishop Robert Caldwell. Rev. Stephen Hislop surveyed aboriginal tribes of Central provinces. In Assam monographs on Naga communities were prepared by W C Smith, an American missionary.
In Bengal, W W Hunter was immensely assisted by Rev. James Long who wrote in 1856 that ‘tribal people inhabited India before Hindu invasions’. John Wilson, missionary and President of Asiatic Society of Bombay and John Stevenson Scotish missionary of Bombay propagated that following Aryan invasions, there was capture of land belonging to tribal population, who were looted, enslaved and ultimately driven into the forests. It is this colonial missionary theme that has been picked up in Jawahar Lal Nehru University for celebrating Mahishasura martyrdom day. The common theme running in these JNU posters was the Aryan invasion that occurred 4000 years ago and enslavement of original inhabitants in India. Kancha Ilaiah, who campaigned this event in JNU, is a consultant to All India Christian Council.
Few people know that Verrier Elwin who was Deputy Director, Anthropological Survey of India was an Anglican missionary. He was Pundit Nehru’s advisor on NEFA, Northeast Frontier Agency and was vehemently opposed to any integration of hunting-gathering communities with the mainstream agricultural communities in India.
The policy of protectionism towards hunting-gathering communities whom colonial administrators designated tribes, culminated in the designation of ‘Excluded’ and ‘Partially Excluded Areas’ by the Government of India Act 1935 and the consequent scheduling of tribes. The people of India, especially hunting-gathering and pastoral communities have been addressed and named variously by the colonial ethnologists. Relying heavily on Aryan invasion theory, Risley and Elwin called them ‘aboriginals’, Baines included them under the category of ‘hill tribes’, Grigson regarded them as ‘wilder aboriginals’ and Shoobert called them ‘aborigines’. The Anthropological Survey of India was set up hastily in December 1945 barely 20 months before the transfer of power. Anthropologists worldwide have condemned the use of terms like ‘stone age’ and ‘primitive’ to describe tribal and indigenous people alive today.
The term ‘tribe’ in the context of colonial and post-colonial Africa has been a theme of considerable debate. The very concept of tribe, tribal classifications and tribal consciousness is realised as colonial inputs to bend indigenous societies to remain segregated and adapt to the administrative and political demands of colonial rule. South African anthropologist Archie Mafeje contended that “If tribalism is thought of as peculiarly African, then the ideology itself is particularly European in origin”. The Washington-based Africa Policy Information Centre published an invaluable teaching resource to assist educators in dispensing with the use of word tribe in favour of more precise and less racist terminology.
Many Indian anthropologists, still under the influence of the Chicago School led by Boas and Redfield, have accepted the branding of 75 social groups by the Government of India as Primitive Tribes. In 1947, Sardar Vallabhai Patel, Chairman of the Tribal and the Excluded Areas Committee expressed discomfort at the notion of ‘tribe’ in a reply to Rev. Nicholas Roy in the Constituent Assembly. He said tribe is an inappropriate word. Patel said it has been planted and tribal areas were
created for the convenience of the colonial rule.
P P Majumdar of the Indian Statistical Research Institute conducted a statistical study of the Indian population which showed that the people of India cannot be classified into a predetermined group of ethnic categories based on anthropometric data. Eminent palaeoanthropologist, late Kenneth A R Kennedy, in his
palaeodemographic studies debunked myths about invaders, invaded and marginalised tribes. The Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Hyderabad conducted genetic studies in India which prove that castes grew
directly out of hunting-gathering groups during the formation of Indian society. The study showed that it was impossible to distinguish between castes and tribes since their genetics proved that they were not systematically different.
It is in this context that the question arises ‘How did the Anthropological Survey set up parameters for classifying Indian population as vulnerable tribal groups or the primitive others?’
(The writer a senior Archaeological Researcher)
