Hutton, Thakkar, Ambedkar, and Elwin

34 Pages·2017·0.99 MB·English

NMML OCCASIONAL PAPER
HISTORY AND SOCIETY
New Series
86

Debating Tribe and Nation:
Hutton, Thakkar, Ambedkar, and Elwin
(1920s-1940s)

Saagar Tewari
Assistant Professor, Jindal School of Liberal Arts and Humanities,
O.P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat, Haryana

Nehru Memorial Museum and Library 2017

© Saagar Tewari, 2017
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Debating Tribe and Nation: Hutton, Thakkar, Ambedkar and Elwin
(1920s-1940s)1

During the period 1920-1950, an intense debate surrounded the ‘Tribal Question’, the issue of
the future of tribal communities in the emergent Indian nation. This paper seeks to situate the
debate historically, analysing in particular the arguments made by certain key figures involved in
this discourse especially J.H. Hutton, A.V. Thakkar, B.R. Ambedkar and Verrier Elwin. In order
to map the ideological landscape of this late colonial discourse, the work and opinions of this set
of ideologues and protagonists must be engaged with, based as they are on different vantage
points.
For too long now, the intellectual history of the discourse on the tribal populations and their
future in independent India has been trapped within the binary limits of the Isolation/Protection
versus Intervention/Assimilation debate.2 In attempting to move away from this divide, this
paper seeks to trace an earlier history through which I hope to show that the tone and tenor of the
discourse on tribal populations was not set by Verrier Elwin and G.S. Ghurye, as has often been
claimed,3 but found its first articulations in the works of frontier administrators such as J.H.
Hutton. These administrators, in turn, were influenced by the prevailing trends in British

 Revised version of the Seminar Paper presented at the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, 9 June 2015.
1 This paper has been assembled out of my doctoral thesis titled ‘Tribe and Development: Nation-Making in Bastar,
Central India (1930s-1980s)’ submitted in 2014 at the Centre for Historical Studies, School of Social Sciences,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
2 The debate arose over the question of whether (and how) the Nation-State should include the tribal people in its
path towards ‘progress’ and ‘development’? By the 1940s, most leading anthropologists, administrators, and
activists working amongst tribal communities had come to be divided into two camps: the Isolationists/Protectionists
on the one hand, and the Assimilationists/Interventionists on the other. Both groups shared an evolutionary
understanding with regard to tribes and held that these communities were different from the ‘mainstream’. The
differences between them lay in their respective views about whether the tribal people should remain isolated or
should instead be assimilated.
3 There is a long series of publications which assumes the centrality of the so-called ‘Ghurye-Elwin Debate’. A few
key ones are Ghosh, Anjan. 1989. ‘Whither Indian Sociology?’, Other Sociology 1; Nongbri, Tiplut. 2006. ‘Tribe,
Caste and the Indigenous Challenge in India’, in Bengt G. Karlsson and Tanka B. Subba (eds), Indigeneity in India,
pp. 75-95. London: Kegan Paul; Singh, K.S.. 2006. ‘G.S. Ghurye, Verrier Elwin and Indian Tribes’, in A.R. Momin
(ed.), The Legacy of G.S. Ghurye: A Centennial Festschrift, pp.39-45. Bombay: Popular Prakashan; Sinha, A.C..
2005. ‘Colonial Anthropology vs Indological Sociology: Elwin and Ghurye on Tribal Policy in India’, in Tanka B.
Subba and Sujit Som (eds), Between Ethnography and Fiction: Verrier Elwin and the Tribal Question in India, pp.
71-85. New Delhi: Orient Longman; Xaxa, Virginius. 18th December 1999. ‘Tribes as Indigenous People of India’,
EPW; Xaxa, Virginius. 2003. ‘Tribes in India’, in Veena Das (ed.), The Oxford Companion to Sociology and Social
Anthropology in India. Oxford: OUP.
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Saagar Tewari

Anthropology which had begun to emerge around the time of the First World War. Therefore, by
the 1940s, the discourse on the tribal question was almost two decades old and this pre-history to
the debates needs to be charted. Before we begin to do this, however, a few preliminaries are in
order.
The Background to the Debates
Central to the late colonial debates on the tribal population was the issue of ‘scheduling’4 of
predominantly tribal areas in the British Indian Provinces. Scheduling was the act of committing
certain areas to a written list or inventory of ‘special administrative regimes’; here, normal laws
and regulations prevalent in the rest of British India would not be applicable. Practically, it
meant territorial segregation of predominantly tribal areas as far as judicial and legal
administration was concerned. The colonial administrators vouchsafed it as a viable method for
ensuring ‘protection’ to ‘primitive’ tribal communities from the degenerating effects of ‘culture-
contact’ with ‘civilized’ areas. These special administrative regimes were divided into two
categories viz. ‘excluded’ and ‘partially excluded’ areas.5 As the nomenclature suggests,
notifying tribal areas under these categories meant that they were excluded, either totally or
partially, from the legislative powers of the elected Provincial and Central Legislative
Assemblies and Councils. The underlying belief behind this categorization was that modern
representative democracy with electoral politics and law courts was highly unsuited to tribal
communities. Thisbelief also presumed that owing to their peculiar socio-economic and cultural
institutions and practices, the tribes were unfit to responsibly exercise the power of the vote.
Instead, they could manage their life well with the help of tribal ‘customary laws’.
Many of these assumptions had their roots in the nascent discipline of anthropology which vitally
shaped this discourse in the run-up to Indian independence. In this period, anthropology was a
subject whose contours and methodologies were still in the process of being worked out. While it
is true that a number of ‘field-work’ based ethnographic studies by figures like J.H. Hutton, J.P.

4 The root of this key word lies in 14th century Latin term schedula which again is derived from scheda meaning ‘a
strip of papyrus’ which was a surface used since ancient times by Egyptians, Greeks and Romans for recording of
writing, Chambers 21st Century Dictionary, Allied Chambers (India) Limited, New Delhi, 2001 (2005 reprint), p.
1255.
5 This denotes a semantic shift from the administrative category of ‘Backward Tracts’ as used in the framing of the
Government of India Act 1919 to a new reformed Constitution provided to British India under the Government of
India Act 1935.
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Debating Tribe and Nation: Hutton, Thakkar, Ambedkar, and Elwin (1920s-1940s)

Mills, Verrier Elwin, William Archer, Christopher von Furer-Haimendorf and W.V. Grigson etc.
were published at regular intervals from the 1920s onwards, only a select few of these
individuals (Hutton and Haimendorf) had received rigorous formal training in the discipline.6
But despite the self-trained character of these protagonists, their published works rapidly
established their stature as anthropologists. Since many of them came from the ranks of the
Indian Civil Service (ICS), the visibility that their works received, was vitally dependent upon
their perception as power-elite close to the higher echelons of the British Indian ruling
establishment. Even non-official figures in this group like Elwin and Haimendorf gained
prominence as ‘experts’ on the Indian tribal communities thanks to the patronage they received
from their anthropologically minded ICS brethren. They were not, however, the founding fathers
of this tradition and many of their arguments drew from a much earlier lineage of similar
anthropologically-minded administrators.7 Given this background, the characterization of their
published works merely as scholarly ethnographies misses out on the significant role that these
texts played during the twilight of British rule in India.
Taken together, there is a remarkable unity in the ideas of this ‘knot of men’8 whose writings
played a crucial role in the articulation of ideas and strategies designed for the protection of tribal
communities in future India. Without analysing this body of work, it is almost impossible to
theorize the bridge which connects the late colonial to the post-colonial period in relation to the
discourse on the Indian tribal population.
At the time when these protagonists were propagating their ideas, the issue of the future of tribal
communities was literally at the margins of the constitutional deliberations then taking place.
The twin aspects of the ‘Communal’ question i.e. Hindu-Muslim relations and the Depressed
Classes issue received the lion’s share of attention.9 Additionally, in the virtual absence of an

6 Hutton was awarded a Masters degree in Anthropology from the University of Oxford in 1919. Christoph von
Furer-Haimendorf received his formal training at the University of Vienna in 1930s.
7 A few key figures in such a list are Augustus Cleveland (late 18th century), Captain Thomas Wilkinson (first half of
the 19th Century), E.T. Dalton (latter half of the 19th Century) and H.H. Risley (late nineteenth and early twentieth
century). All of them belonged to the administrative cadre of the Bengal Presidency.
8 I have borrowed this term from Stokes, Eric. 1982 (1959). The English Utilitarians and India. New Delhi: OUP,
p.9.
9 Most of these discussions took place in the process of drafting a workable constitutional arrangement which sought
to create India as a ‘Federation’ of British Indian Provinces as well as the Princely States. Following a lot of paper-
work and the three Round Table Conferences, the federation ideal remained unfulfilled as the Indian Princes chose
to remain out of the fold. However, for the British Indian Provinces, the Government of India Act 1935 was
successfully created, whereby, the contentious ‘Communal Award’ provided representation for Muslims, Anglo-
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articulate and English-educated middle class amongst the tribals themselves, this handful of
European men sought to position themselves as the only real representatives of the interests of
tribal communities.
Finally, the discourse on tribal futures was not a standard political one. Rather, it had long-term
constitutional implications.10 Most of the debates took place in connection with the provisions
for excluded and partially excluded areas under the Government of India Act, 1935. In many
ways, these debates fed into the larger constitutional discourse on the protection of minorities.
The framework of excluded and partially excluded areas, in fact, went on to provide the basis
and rationale for what we know as the Fifth and Sixth Schedule areas under the Indian
Constitution.11 It is noteworthy that the bulk of administrative and legal protection accorded to
tribal communities in the Indian Constitution owes its origin to this debate. Although there are
vital differences of detail between colonial and post-colonial regimes, the fact remains that the
ideological underpinnings of tribal development in independent India owe their origins to this
late-colonial discourse. In studying the work and opinions of several of the participants in this

Indians and, Sikhs etc. based upon separate electorates. The stand-off between M K Gandhi and B R Ambedkar over
the inclusion of Depressed Classes in this framework, the former’s epic fast and the resultant Poona Pact are too
well-known to recall. My interest in this set of discussions centre around the categories of excluded and partially
excluded areas provided by Sections 91 and 92 of the said Act which territorially segregated several large
predominantly tribal areas of the empire and put them outside the purview of the legislative powers of the elected
councils and assemblies. A lot of exciting new research has started happening on this transformative phase of
constitutional statehood in India.
10 Here, I am differentiating between ‘political’ and ‘constitutional’ purely in terms of the effects that this discourse
generated over a length of time. I think that politics, fundamentally, is the process of garnering vocal allies for the
fulfillment of an agenda, while a Constitution is a consensual framework which defines legitimate limits to the
conduct of all politics. The resolution of political questions is usually somewhat more matter-of-fact, conjectural,
and recurrent than constitutional ones which often involve debates and deliberations over a set of procedures which
may be amended, albeit, far less periodically. Also, barring a few notable exceptions such as the Constitution of the
Weimar Republic, constitutional resolutions often have a much longer life-span than political ones.
11 In November 1949, the Constitution Assembly of India adopted two terms to denote predominantly tribal areas in
the emergent nation-state. The first was ‘Scheduled Areas’ and the other was ‘Tribal Areas’. The areas thus
categorized under both these heads formed the Fifth and the Sixth Schedules of the Indian Constitution. In case of
the former, a Tribes Advisory Council (TAC) was formed in the states where these areas administratively fell under.
The TAC was to have a maximum of 20 members, at least three-fourth were to be tribal MLA’s of the state
legislature. It was a purely advisory body which provided its recommendations on various kinds of laws to the
Governor of the State. The Governor, if he chose to pay heed to the recommendations, was vested with the power of
debarring or modifying any central or state law found unsuitable for implementation in the Scheduled Areas. The
Fifth Schedule areas are now constitutive of the states of Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh,
Rajasthan, Orissa, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh etc.
On the other hand, the tribal areas under the Sixth Schedule lists those found in the north-eastern states of Assam,
Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram. The Sixth Schedule differs significantly from the Fifth on several counts. It offers
far more decentralization of executive powers which operate under the autonomous district/regional councils.
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Debating Tribe and Nation: Hutton, Thakkar, Ambedkar, and Elwin (1920s-1940s)

debate, it needs to be emphasised that they were consciously crafting their ideas, often in
response to each other as well as to the overall contours of the debate.
The first section is concerned with the ideas and policy interventions of John Henry Hutton. He
was a staunch supporter of complete territorial segregation of predominantly tribal areas from the
emergent constitutional scheme. By forcefully arguing for total exclusion, Hutton worked with
enthusiasm to ensure protection to tribal communities inhabiting British India. His role in
delineating ‘Tribal Religion’ as distinct from Hinduism through the Census Report of 1931 has
been analysed. Significantly, Hutton used this argumentative strategy to demand separate
electorates for the tribal communities in the emerging constitutional set-up.
The second section deals with the debate which A.V. Thakkar, a Gandhian nationalist and social
worker initiated with J.H. Hutton over the issue of providing guaranteed representation to the
tribal people. Thakkar pointed out fundamental flaws in the manner Hutton handled the sensitive
data of the 1931 census. In Thakkar’s articulations, we also find a distinct nationalist policy with
regard to the place granted to the tribes in the emergent body-politic of India.
The third section outlines the correspondence between A.V. Thakkar and Verrier Elwin. It is
here that terms like Protectionists and Interventionists first made an appearance. This marks the
mature stage of the discourse on tribal populations in India.
The fourth and final section captures a very interesting public debate between A.V. Thakkar and
Dr. B.R. Ambedkar on the issue of representation to the tribes in the elected bodies at the central
and provincial levels. This debate led to the framing of education as a major marker of
backwardness among tribal communities.
Section I
John Henry Hutton:
Territorial Segregation, the 1931 Census and Separate Electorates for Tribal Communities

In order to critically locate the late colonial debates on the future of the tribal population, it is
necessary to first situate the ideas and career of John Henry Hutton. A scholar-administrator who
was appointed as the All India Census Commissioner of the 1931 Census operations, Hutton
came to play a pivotal role in the formation of this discourse.
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Hutton’s ideological paradigm on the tribal question bore the imprint of the Diffusionist school
of thought, dominant in the British anthropological circles since the turn of the nineteenth
century.12 Diffusion referred to ‘the spread of cultural attributes from one culture to another
through contact between different cultural groups’.13 The Diffusionist views on culture-contact,
as seen in the work of its chief proponents W.H.R. Rivers and Henry Balfour, were developed
with regard to the study of the Melanesian islands in the Southern Pacific Ocean. The native
communities in these island societies were geographically tucked away from the possibility of
any massive intervention from mainland ‘civilized’ societies. However, with the onset of
European colonialism, their ‘isolation’ was broken which, it was argued, resulted initially in ‘loss
of interest in life’ and ultimately led to the depopulation and virtual extinction of the native
societies.14

Hutton served as Assistant Commissioner of Mokoching sub-division and Deputy Commissioner
of the Naga Hills from 1913 to 1929. This long administrative experience in a tribal landscape
instilled a conviction that although culture-contact between higher and lower cultures was
inevitable, its effects were largely detrimental to the primitive communities. Drawing upon
Balfour’s application of the Diffusionist framework to the Naga Hills, Hutton extended it further
and became a champion of this point of view in Indian anthropological circles.15 In 1929, he was
made the All-India Census Commissioner for the soon to be conducted 1931 census operations.

The 1931 census report is, in the words of K.S. Singh, ‘easily the most comprehensive of all such
reports complete with maps, statistics, ethnographic accounts, and the provinces reports together
with a three volume all-India report’. Its extensive format owed a lot to Hutton who, unlike
previous heads of the census operations, was formally trained as an anthropologist.16

12 For details see, Kuklick, Henrika. 1991. The Savage Within: The Social History of British Anthropology, 1885-
1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
13 Marshall, Gordon (ed.). 2004. A Dictionary of Sociology. New Delhi: OUP, p. 160.
14 Rivers, W. H. R. (ed.). 1922. Essays on the Depopulation of Melanesia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
15 There is evidence to suggest that Henry Balfour and J.H. Hutton shared a good friendship. For instance, Balfour
visited the Naga Hills when Hutton was in-charge of it and consistently patronized his academic endeavours. In
return, Hutton donated several cultural artefacts for the Pitt Rivers Museum at the University of Oxford which was
headed by his benefactor.
16 Singh K.S., 1989 (reprint). ‘Foreword’ in J.H. Hutton, Census of India 1931: With Complete Survey of Tribal Life
and System. Delhi: Gian Publishing House, p. i.
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