INDIGENOUS AND THE TRIBES

Tribe in India has been a debated topic in colonial and post colonial times. And with 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 shows that 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 Ashokas 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.

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 wasnt much interaction 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 global democratic 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 tribals. They challenged the states 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 tribals 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 cant 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 Martinezs 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 delegates that 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 cant 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.