Analysis of Tribe in the South Asian Context

Tribal, or Adivasi, in the South Asian context has been an important self-identification, in the face of various invasions, British colonial rule and the present-day Indian state. The analysis of tribes differs in the South Asian region in the way the concept of nativity is inadequate in defining tribe. What’s more, there is a uniquely complex tactic of assimilation, involving Hindu hegemonic structures, rather than a tactic of eradication which differs from other regions. In this paper, I will investigate what makes the category of tribe difficult to analyze in the South Asian context.

The indigenous-settler dichotomy is one that can be successfully unpacked in the context of regions like North America. There was an active genocidal project carried out by settlers from Europe to eradicate the Native populations. That genocidal project continues today with the erasure and subsequent eradication of tribes that remain present-day. On the other hand, the idea of nativity and tribe are difficult to unpack in the context of the South Asian region due to a varied context. Andre Béteille makes a point that the designation of the label of “indigenous” requires the existence of settlements and usurpations. This is certainly evident in South Asia. However, there has been a slow and steady process of migrations that took place so far back in history that it makes it questionable to call present-day descendants settlers. This makes nativity difficult to define. Hence, the blanket term of “indigenous people” being synonymous with “tribal people” can be misleading in the context of the South Asian subcontinent.

The ambiguity in nativity, through the lens of territoriality, language or religion, proves to make the process of analyzing tribes in the South Asian region difficult. I will begin by discussing the issue of analyzing tribes through territoriality. The South Asian region has witnessed continuous migrations, whether that is due to various usurpations and invasions of the region or the constant migration of hunter-gatherer and pastoralist communities. Due to this, territoriality becomes an ambiguous plane to determine nativity. For example, in many multi-caste villages in West Bengal, people of tribal origin have settled from elsewhere while there are simultaneously non-tribal people in the village that have resided there for a longer time.

Apart from territoriality, investigating ambiguous paths of language and dialect as markers of tribal identity is also necessary. There has often been a false dichotomy of tribal vs. non-tribal languages stated, with tribal languages being primitive dialectics belonging to Austri-Asiatic and Tibeto-Burman families while non-tribal languages belonging to Indo-European and Dravidian families. This dichotomy is quickly contradicted when we see that several tribes speak a regional language or so called “advanced” language and have no specific dialectic of their own. It is difficult to pinpoint if and when adoption of regional languages by tribal populations began. Another issue is that one cannot say that tribal dialects have existed longer than regional languages, especially given the existence of various Dravidian languages. This reinforces that language isn’t always a means to categorize or define tribe, in the South Asian context.

Religion is another important plane of investigation in the analysis of tribe in the South Asian region. While there certainly has been a distinction between tribal religions and predominant Hinduism, this dichotomy is difficult to create when there are various examples of tribal lineages establishing Hindu kingdoms. Furthermore, it is a fact that the thousands of castes and tribes present in South Asia over centuries have influenced each other’s religious beliefs and practices for centuries. Taking the ambiguous plane of nativity in the context of territoriality, language and religion, it can be said that tribalism is not synonymous with indigeneity. Hence, the categorization and analysis of tribes in South Asia is difficult to carry out through the concept of indigeneity, unlike in other regions like North America.

It is evident that amidst various external settlements and internal migrations, tribal and nontribal populations have historically coexisted for millenia. The way colonial and imperial regimes interacted with and controlled tribal populations differs from the frequented explicitly genocidal tactics seen in regions like North America. Rather than a tactic of eradication, there has been a historical tactic of assimilation applied when interacting with tribal communities.

It is the issue of caste that makes the analysis of tribe in the South Asian region so uniquely complex. Béteille points out how in regions like Medieval Poland and Morocco, there has also been a slow assimilation of tribal society into general society. It is a uniquely Indian characteristic for tribal assimilation to be accompanied by the formation of the caste system. It is to be noted that this tribal absorption most often involved the conversion of tribal populations into low-castes within the Hindu fold. This elicits how this assimilationist tactic in the South Asia region not only existed to maintain Hindu caste hegemony but structurally subordinate tribal populations.

While the analysis of tribe in the South Asia context requires us to investigate the “Hinduization” of tribe, it requires us to go beyond it as well. This assimilationist project affects many Adivasi communities, but there are simultaneously many self-sufficient tribal communities that have escaped Hindu caste absorption such as various tribes in Andaman Islands.

The analysis of tribe in the South Asian context poses to be uniquely complex as the concept of nativity is inadequate as a plane of analysis. Furthermore, rather than a project of eradication, the assimilationist project of Hindu tribal absorption is instead applied, which often blurs the line between tribe and caste, making tribe a complex point of analysis. While many Adivasi populations have been assimilated into Hindu hegemonic structures, there are also various tribes that live in self-sufficient communities untouched by both Hindu society and the state. In this way, the analysis of tribe in the South Asian context is uniquely complex in the way it must take into account the various contradictions that simultaneously exist.