“Who are the tribals in India?’ has been an interesting and vexing question. None of the Indian languages have appropriate term for tribe. The concept of tribe emerged in India with the coming of the British. The problems for the British were how best to protect the tribal areas for the ‘time being’ and how to distinguish them from castes. Gradually the concept of reservation emerged  and through that emerged the idea of scheduled tribe in independent India”

Definitional problem of Tribe deals with two interrelated problems. Firstly, Highlighting the problem in the definition of tribe. Secondly, evolving an understanding of tribes in Indian context.

Problem in the definition

Commonly, Tribes have been defined as a group of indigenous people with shallow history, having common name, language and territory, tied by strong kinship bonds, practising endogamy, having distinct customs, rituals and beliefs, simple social rank and political organisation, common ownership of resources and technology.

The Imperial Gazetteer of India has defined tribe as “collection of families bearing a Common name, Speaking a common dialect occupying and processing to occupy a common territory and is not usually endogamous through it might have been”.

According to D. N. Mazumdar , A Tribe is a social group with territorial integration, endogamous with no specialization of functions, united in language or dialect and recognizing Social distance with other tribes or castes without any obligation attaching to them. `

A tribe is a social group with territorial affiliation, endogamous, with no specialization of functions, rules by tribal officers, hereditary or otherwise, united in language or dialect, recognizing social distance from tribes or castes but without any stigma attached in the case of a caste structure, following tribal traditions, beliefs and customs, illiberal of naturalization of ideas from alien sources, above all conscious of a homogeneity of ethnic and territorial integration’.   

Such definitions are not very helpful because when the situation of tribes is examined carefully not only do we find a lot of variations in their life styles but also many of these features are shared by the caste people. The people of India include a very large number of tribes who exhibit high degree of variation in terms of variety of features. Defining such people must face the challenge of these variations, which manifest in terms of economic, linguistic, socio cultural or even racial differences.

This raises the problem as to how to distinguish them from castes.

Historically, various authorities have described them by different names. Sir Herbert Risley and Lacey, V. Elwin and A.V. Thakkar called them “aboriginals”. Grigson regards them as “hill tribes or wilder aboriginals”. Hutton call them as “primitive tribes” . Elwin calls the Baigas, the “Original owners of the country”. The eminent Indian anthropologist and sociologist, G.S. Ghurye calls them “backward Hindus”. Dr. Das renamed them as “submerged humanity”. Despite these differences, the tribal groups are presumed to form the oldest section of the national population hence the term “Adivasis” (original inhabitants) has recently become current to designate these groups. The term aboriginal, aboriginal primitives have been used in this context.

In the pre Independence period tribal groups were understood through mainly two view points.

Firstly, the people called tribals were through to live in remote forests and hilly areas, enjoying a free life of their own. The geographical isolation has been considered the central theme of such understanding of tribe.

Secondly the tribes were considered groups were living in close association with the caste groups or other groups and what differentiated them from other groups were these typical socio-cultural features unlike the caste system. In this understanding those groups which were not considered part of caste hierarchy or belonging to other mainstream groups, were considered as tribes. This understand came from vast number of anthropological accounts generated with respect to various tribe in India in Pre Independence period.

Historically the tribal groups have also under gone a process of transformation in terms of their typical features like language, religion, culture, economic situation etc. Particularly in the post Independence period there has been a changes in the tribes to an extent that it has posed a problem of defining the tribe. The diversity and heterogeneity among various groups have been seen in following terms:

Geographical isolation

Firstly, now a day’s tribe are no longer considered geographically isolated presently there are only few primitive tribal groups who are living isolated geographically, rest of the tribal population is living in close association with the adjoining groups i.e. ‘Ghurye’, ‘Dubey’, ‘Srinivas’, ‘Sinha’, ‘Srivastav’. For example , the Dublas of Surat District (Gujarat) do not live forests. They live in fertile plains in the midst of advanced communities like the Anavils and Banias; nevertheless, they are included in the list of Scheduled tribe. On the other hand, the Pankas found in the jungles living with the Marias near Chitrakot and Kutumsar in Bastar are excluded.   

Thereforr, Geographical isolation , in the case of majority of tribe does not fit in the case of Indian society.

Distinct culture

Secondly the tribes are considered culturally humongous group in term of a common dialect, practices, religion, food, clothing habits etc. Tribal membership, connotes sharing of the ethos and aspirations of the tribe. Tribe now a days are generally split up into several sections, some more advanced than others, and intermarriage and intra-tribal relationship are restricted. The Santhals of the Santhal Parganas have their territorial affiliation and are conscious of their homogeneity and even of their ethnic origin, but the tea garden coolies or the agricultural population in Dinajpur, who were originally from the Santhal Parganas, no longer feel the same way.

In cultural term tribes do show some distinctness but the regional variations cannot be ruled out moreover due to the ‘acculturation’ influence of adjoining population and proliferation of global media in tribe is taking a way this distinctness.

Linguistic separation

A large number of the tribes, the Santhals, the Mundas, the Oraons, the Khonds, the Gonds, the Korkus, speak languages which either belong to the Kherwari or Mundari group of languages or to the Dravidian family, and are, more often than not, different from the languages of the plains people among whom they have their being or with whom they have a large amount of social intercourse. The languages of the latter in most cases belong to the Indo-Aryan family.

Many of these tribes, though they have preserved their tribal languages, can and very often do employ the Indo-Aryan languages of the surrounding people in their routine intercourse. Many of them thus are bi-lingual, having their own mother-tongue and having more or less acquired the language of the neighboring people. There are others, like the Baigas, who have taken up the Indo-Aryan tongue of the locality in place of their own language, whatever it might have been. Others like the Bhils speak languages which are dialects of the local languages. In all cases the languages spoken by the so-called aborigines were till recently only spoken tongues and had no scripts of their own. Needless to say, they have had no literature, the only kind of it being what is known as folk-literature, viz., folk - songs and folktale. There is some poetry enshrined in some of the folk-songs. Whether the poetry is of high value or not, naturally these folk-songs make a strong appeal to the aborigines who have been accustomed from their childhood to listen to and to chant their tunes.

Social organization of tribe

Thirdly, the social organization of tribe is considered unique in terms of absence of cast type of organization. Specific kinship organization distinct marriage rules and diverse social arrangement tribe in this sense are definitely distinct but at the same time there are various other groups also which are distinct socially but still are not tribe.

Functional interdependence

Fourthly, tribe can also identify functional interdependent within their own community. This also calls for interactional autonomy with respect to adjoing groups. This point towards the self sufficiently and independent nature of the tribe but in this case again the process of assimilation has made functionally depended on the others group. Dr. Ghurye conducts an in-depth research on this aspect and concludes that tribes were always in a state of functional interaction with caste Hindus.

Administrative notion

Fifthly, the administrative notion of tribe considered them as a Scheduled also suffer with a number of problems i.e. the criteria of backwardness use of such definition may apply only part of the tribe. In the same way numbers of tribes have adopted a Christian faith still they are recognized as tribes. For tribes of North East Apart from this other ingredients type homogeneity, territorial integrity also suffers with the same problem.

Economic backwardness

Sixthly, tribes are generally considered as economically backward as comparing to adjoining groups. In this sense the presence of a traditional economy (Non-monitised), primitive means of resources and primitive means of exploiting and are often taken as indicator of tribal group i.e. particular occupations, dependence of forest produce, shifting cultivation, use of traditional technology are some of the example but again there are huge population in India which have shifted to settled agriculture, taking employment in industry and even government and other jobs by taking modern education i.e. Negi of Uttar Pradesh and Mena of Rajasthan show their visible presence in civil services. This again proposes a definition of tribe problem. In some areas they were just as advanced as the rest of the population; for example the Gond in Nagpur Tahsil is no different from the Kumbi, the Raj Gond in Jabalpur is just as advanced as the Lodhi, and so on.

Therefore, Backwardness is a relative term, and every caste or community may be more or less backward as compared to other castes or communities.

Scheduled status as tribes

In the Constitution, the criteria have not been clearly stated. They are listed as scheduled tribes because of the kind of life led by them”, which is considered as peculiar[1]”. A tribe may be “scheduled” or may not be. The scheduled status is given for the purpose of providing certain benefits. Article 342 of the Constitution attributes “isolation, backwardness and cultural distinctiveness” as the characteristics of the Scheduled Tribes.

Therefore, certain groups though may be tribes may not be considered so. Moreover , A tribe may be converted to Christianity/Hindusim, but , it still remains a tribe’ but may not get scheduled tribe status.

Finally the typical attitude of tribe in distinct political organization, Psychological conservation etc cannot test regional variability.

Understanding of tribes in Indian context

Bailey (1960) has suggested that the only solution to the problem of definition of tribes in India is to conceive of a continuum of which at one end are tribes and at the other are castes. Sinha (1965) too thinks of tribe and caste in terms of a continuum but his ideas are more elaborate and he brings in the concept of civilisation. For him, the tribe is ideally defined in terms of its isolation from the networks of social relations and cultural communications of the centres of civilisation. It has been suggested that wherever civilisations exist, tribes can be described, defined and analysed only in contrast to that civilisation which it may fight, serve, mimic or adopt but cannot ignore.

In India, there are numerous examples of tribes transforming themselves into the larger entity of the caste system; others have become Christian or Muslim. They also join the ranks of peasantry and in modem times become wage-labourers in plantations, mining and other industries. Thus, in our concept of tribe we should not overlook these changing aspects. Evolving and understanding of tribes necessitate the due consideration of such diversity and variation. The possibility of a community having all the typical features of tribe has remote. These typical features as discuss include geographically isolation, common dialect, common social organization, typical cultural attribute like totemic economic specifically and backwardness.

 Therefore , it is very difficult to given an exact criterion for distinguishing tribe. Scholars have tried to define the term tribe by enumerating their characteristic features, by considering them as a stage in the evolutionary framework, by distinguishing them from castes and by considering them as a part of Indian civilisation.

In this way instead of generating a single definition of tribe various sociologist and committee have identified tribal group rather than a single definition of tribe.

Shrikant Committee divided the tribes into four categories : Tribals, Semi-tribals , Acculturated tribals and  Assimilated tribals  Ghurye divided them into three classes: first, members of fairly high status within Hindu society, viz., Raj Gonds; second, partially Hindu zed and, thirdly, hill sections.  Assimilation of the tribals attracted a number of anthropologists. Ghurye characterized the tribals as backward Hindus (1963) and argued that any attempt to isolate them from the mainstream of India life would be meaningless. 

Majumdar (1947) held “Hindus influence” responsible and gave a threefold classification : (i) real primitive, (ii) primitive tribe with a degree of association with Hindu caste and (iii) Hinduzed tribes whereas Elwin (1943) talked about it as the “external influence” and suggested four types of tribes, viz., (i) most primitive, (ii) individualistic and used to outside life, (iii) detribalized and (iv) tribal aristocrats. In the Indian Conference of Social work in 1952, four divisions of tribals were made: (i) tribal communities, (ii) semi-tribal communities, (iii) acculturated tribal communities and (iv)totally assimilated tribals. Dube (1960) classified them into five categories considering  the present habitation and behaviour of the new communities which come in contact. According to this classification they are : (i) aboriginals living in seclusion, (ii) tribal group with some village folk association, (iii) tribals living in mixed villages, (iv) tribals who have been forced to live as untouchables, and (v) tribals enjoying a high social status.

These classifications reveal that the process of assimilation has been a part and parcel of the Indian  tribal culture. Many anthropologists have explained it in their own ways. Sanskritization of Srinivas (1957) and tribe-caste continuum model given by Sinha (1965) for the Bhumijs, by Srivastava (1966) for the Bhutias by Sachchidananda (1970) for the Gonds explain the phenomenon. L.K.Mahapatra (1968) feels that there was an age-old process of cultural assimilation in Orissa especially among the tribes like the Binjhal, Bhuiyan, Gond, Kond, etc. The Hos (Majumdar, 1950 and Rai, 1967) have exclusiveness as an important character but much has been adopted form the Dikkus (the Hindus neighbours). In the Dikku Andi way of marriage, a Brahman presides over the ceremony. The Parhayas feel proud to be called Hindus. The Bhumijs are new Hindualized (Sinha, 1965).

Thus the definition of tribe  depend on their habitat, cultural customs, beliefs, ways of living, dialect and social and economic conditions.

Reviewing the literature on tribes and peasantry Andre Beteille wrote in 1987 that there was no satisfactory way of defining the tribal society. Arguing that it was difficult to call any one a tribal in Indian society, rather the agrarian society was comprised of a heterogeneous body of peasants cut up into various ethno-linguistic categories. In a similar vein Guha also argues that historically informed anthropologists like G.S. Ghurye and D.R. Gadgil were justified in repudiating the categories of aboriginals and tribals and that the historical record supported such skepticism.