State, Society, and Tribes: Issues in Post Colonial India

144 Pages·2008·0.683 MB·English

by  Virginuis Xaxa

State, Society, and Tribes:
Issues in Post-Colonial India
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State, Society, and Tribes:
Issues in Post-Colonial India
V X
irginius aXa
Copyright © 2008 Dorling Kindersley (India) Pvt. Ltd.
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ISBN 9788131721223
eISBN 9789332506329
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To my wife Chameli
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Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements ix
1. Introduction 1
2. The Transformation of Tribes: The Terms of Discourse 13
3. Tribes as Indigenous Peoples: Discourse and Adivasi Consciousness 28
4. Tribes and Citizenship: Making Sense of Citizenship Rights 41
5. Tribal Movements: Rethinking in a Comparative Perspective 50
6. Empowerment: Forms, Limitations, and Assertions 62
7. The Politics of Language, Religion, and Identity:
Articulation of Social Difference 74
8. Protective Discrimination: Why the Scheduled Tribes Lag
Behind the Scheduled Castes 87
9. Tribal Culture and Ecology: The Changing Dimensions 101
10. Women and Gender: Aspects of Inequality in Tribal Society 113
Index 129
About the Author 133
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Preface and Acknowledgements
My interest in the studies of tribes emerged more from my association with the
Department of Sociology at the Delhi School of Economics and its intellectual
and social environment than out of my own previous research interests, which were
in the field of agrarian and development studies. My intellectual engagement with the tribal
question in India was generated by conversations and discussions with colleagues on issues
and problems concerning students belonging to the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes in
the department and the university. This volume is an outcome of that engagement. Needless
to say, I owe an intellectual debt to my colleagues in the department. I am particularly
grateful to Professor Veena Das for inviting me to join The Oxford Indian Companion to
Sociology and Social Anthropology placing before me a field that would eventually offer me
an intellectual journey. I am also grateful to Professors Andre Béteille and J. P. S. Uberoi for
their keen interest in my work. Interacting and engaging with them has been a great learning
experience and a source of much intellectual enrichment. I would like to acknowledge my
gratitude to Professor Anand Chakravarty for his faith and confidence in me and to Professor
Rajni Palriwala and Dr Rita Brara for reading and commenting on some of the chapters.
Outside the department, I am most grateful to Professor Sharit Bhowmik, Dr Ritambhara
Hebbar, Dr P. D. Khera and Dr Ashley Tellis. Professor Bhowmik, formerly at the Department
of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics and now at TISS, Mumbai, has been a source of
great support all through my career. Ritambhara Hebbar, a faculty member at TISS and an
ex-student of mine read many of the papers included in this volume and provided useful
comments and suggestions. Dr P. D. Khera shared with me his rich and invaluable ideas and
insights in many conversations with him on the tribal question in India. Dr Tellis was generous
in helping me read the proof. I am grateful to Pearson Education India and especially to
Debjani M. Dutta for her keen interest in the publication of this volume.
This endeavour would not have come to fruition but for the support that I have received
from my family. I am deeply indebted to my son Aashish, who, despite my considerable
negligence toward him as a father, has been more than patient with me. Chameli, my wife, has
been a constant source of support. In spite of her ill-health, she took upon herself many of the
responsibilities that were mine to enable me to carry on with this work. My indebtedness to
her could not be expressed in words. I dedicate this volume to her.