CHAPTER‐I

INTRODUCTION: ISSUES AND CONCERNS

While this thesis was underway, a fierce movement against the

amendments in the Chhotanagpur Tenancy Act, 1908 and the Santhal
Parganas Tenancy Act, 1942 in various parts of present-day Jharkhand.
The Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) and All Jharkhand Students Union
(AJSU) coalition Government, led by Chief Minister Raghubar Das in
Jharkhand has astutely passed amendments to the two aforementioned
laws in the Jharkhand Legislative Assembly, despite massive virulent
protests. Presently, the central Indian tribal belt, namely, Jharkhand,
Chhatisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, is raging with ‘Pathalgarhi’ – the stone
slab engraved with the rights of the local tribals, Constitution of India and
the Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas (PESA) Act, 1996.

Such resistances of the tribals depicts their assertion for equal citizenship
of India and the first right over local resources in the wake of big capital
intruding into tribal areas for large-scale mining, industrial and other
projects. The movement is a sequel of the cry of the tribals – ‘jal, jangal,
jamin hamara hai’ (‘we have the first right over local resources - water,
forest and land’). In all these, the component of the distinct tribal identity
was at work, overtly or covertly.4 At several junctures, the idea of being
adivasi has given rise, in certain specific contexts, to tribal movements of
various hues. At times, these movements pressed for special political,
social or religious status, and at times for their right on the local land and
other natural resources.5

4
At present, movements for ‘domicile’ status and Sarna religious code, the identity
assertion is discernibly seen in the region under consideration.
5
The analysis of various struggles of the tribal peoples asserting their rights as
indigenous peoples are well documented in Biswamoy Pati, ‘Survival As Resistance:

18
 Introduction: Issues and Concerns.

The gist of the tribal aspirations over the years had been their overt feeling
or consciousness of being one people, vis-à-vis the mainstream
population. The present exposition is an effort to understand the nature of
such cultural consciousness of the tribals in historical perspective. The
phrase ‘cultural consciousness’ is used here, in the broad sense of culture
being a system of social institutions, values, beliefs and practices. The
context is British colonialism and post-independence India. Furthermore,
the term ‘tribal’ has been consciously used throughout this thesis,
retaining the essence of the political terminology of ‘adivasi’ and
‘indigenous peoples’. The rationale behind this to question the post-
modernist standpoint that the term ‘tribe’ is a ‘colonial construct’, which is
not the case.6

The Tribal Situation:

As per the statistics of the 2011 Census, India is an abode of 8.43 million
tribals, which comes to approximately 8.6 per cent of the aggregate
population of India. Although, there is a multitude of ethnicity, culture and
language amongst the tribes, there are certain similarities in their way of
life. They generally live a closed community life and have a set of cultural
norms different from the neighbouring mainstream societies. Within this,
some are pastoral, some are nomadic and others are settled,
agriculturalists. The tribal societies were buffered by thick forests and
mountains in all sides. They were, to use the words of a missionary
ethnologist writing in 1909, ‘closely associated as regards territory,

Tribal in Colonial India’ in Biswamoy Pati ed. Adivasis in Colonial India: Survival,
Resistance and Negotiation, Orient BlackSwan, New Delhi, 2010, pp. 237-268.
6
We shall see this in the subsequent chapters while dealing with the research questions
outlined in the present study.

19
 Introduction: Issues and Concerns.

occupations, manners and even traditions...[with] past vicissitudes are

interwoven just as their present lives are.’7

Given the milieu free trade imperialism, the colonial establishment in

India increasingly exposed the tribal society to the outside world. This
exposure resulted in the development of, what historian Ranajit Guha calls
the nexus between the ‘zamindar, sahukar and sarkar’,8 which led to the
exploitation of the tribals, paving way for various forms of economic
exploitation and marginalization9 of the tribal societies in India. The
intervention of colonialism in the tribal societies in the form of enacting
policies related to the land settlement, forest and agrarian structure not
only stratified the tribal societies, but also accentuated the process of
dispossession and migration in the face of colonial capitalism and
globalization.10 Consequently, the tribals were persistently seen as
inferiors within the Indian society and stereotyped as ‘barbaric’, ‘brutal’
and ‘wild’.11 Nevertheless, the tribal societies have used the concept of

7
F.A. Grignard, ‘The Oraons and Mundas: From the Time of their Settlement in India’,
Anthropos, Vol. IV, 1909, p.7.
8
Ranajit Guha, Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India, Delhi,
1983.
9
Javeed Alam conceptualized the term marginalization in a lecture in the following
manner: ‘Many communities in India like the Adivasis or Dalits or sections of Muslims,
and women among them, live a life of extreme deprivation and are often victims of
deprivation. Further, they are subjected to violence at times. Because of this, these people
are often referred to as “marginalized”...Being discriminated and living with deprivations
does not necessarily make a people or communities marginalized. Struggles of the
oppressed and exploited in a democracy give a voice, which takes centre stage in popular
contestation, and thus becomes a guarantee against marginalization, however
economically backward and deprived one may be...Marginalization is essentially, in
addition to what we have noted above, a condition of voicelessness, of being forced into
perpetual silence by the forces of domination.’ Quoted from Javeed Alam, ‘On
Marginalisation: Oppression And Democracy’, Sixth [Link] Memorial Lecture, 2010,
Educational Records Research Unit, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi, 2010, pp.1-2.
10
Felix Padel, Samarendra Das, Out of This Earth: East India Adivasis and the
Aluminium Cartel, Orient BlackSwan, New Delhi, 2010, pp. xv-xxv.
11
Gladson Dungdung talks about the ‘truth of how the Adivasis (Indigenous Peoples) of
India have been and are being discriminated against, exploited, alienated, and displaced
and denied justice in their own country. On one hand, they face state-sponsored crimes
against them, and on the other, the so-called educated, civilised people of the mainstream
society also treat them like sub-humans, beasts and what not. Are we different from

20
 Introduction: Issues and Concerns.

indigeneity and ‘indigenous peoples’ in the era of neo-liberalism, which

has been characterized and strengthened by the feudal remnants, to
accentuate and to heap on the struggle for democratic rights and liberation
from repression.12 In this context, marginalization emerges as an important
dimension of tribal indigeneity and identity.

The Relevance of the Subject and Scope:

This exposition seeks to map state responses vis-a-vis tribal or adivasi13
resistances in Central India with special reference to Chhotanagpur and
Central Provinces. The long span of one hundred and twenty years covers
policy discourse of the British colonial state and the Indian nationalist
state. The starting year, roughly 1830, marks the beginning of more

others? The very core of human rights of the Indigenous Peoples is being denied,
injustice and atrocities are inflicted upon them almost every day of their lives.’ Gladson
Dungdung, Whose Country is it Anyway?: Untold Stories of the Indigenous Peoples of
India, Adivaani Publication, Kolkata, 2013. p. IX.
12
The accelerated and all-around penetration of capital, including in agriculture takes
place not so much by eradicating as by utilizing the stubborn remnants of feudalism in
production relations, thereby reproducing them in new forms. Such survivals not only
ensure the availability of cheap labour power and raw materials for both Indian big
capital and imperialism. But also provide a structural foundation for the persistence of
various obscurantist and parochial ideas as well as systemic casteist and feudal–
patriarchal oppression, often in most barbaric forms. In short, feudal survivals in league
with growing corporate control over the country’s economic lifelines and institutions of
parliamentary democracy retard and distort the development of productive forces and act
as the biggest stumbling block to a thorough democratization of the Indian society and
polity. Despite its growing economic muscle, politically the ruling bureaucrat-monopoly
bourgeoisie retains its original comprador character. It operates within a framework of
essential dependence on imperialism that expresses itself as various technological,
financial and marketing tie-ups at the micro-level and more importantly at the macro
level as wholesale adoption of the economic philosophy of neo-liberalism and a state
policy of subservience to the imperialist designs. See David Harvey, A Brief History of
Neoliberalism, Chicago, 2005.
13
The term is derived from the Hindi word ‘adi’ which means ‘of earliest times’ or ‘from
the beginning’ and ‘vasi’ means inhabitant or resident, and it was coined in the 1930s.
The term, as noted by S. Bosu Mullick in his 2003 endeavour The Jharkhand Movement:
Indigenous Peoples’ Struggle for Autonomy in India was first used in a political context
in the Jharkhand region of Eastern India, with the formation of the Adivasi Mahasabha
(the great council of Adivasis) in 1938. See ‘Memorandum Submitted by the
Chhotanagpur Improvement Society’, Report of the Indian Statutory Commission -
Selections from Memoranda and Oral Evidence by Non-Officials, Part I, Government
Printing, Calcutta, 1930, pp. 435-438.

21
 Introduction: Issues and Concerns.

organized tribal resistance to British colonial advances.14 In 1831-32, the

well-known Kol Revolt took place in Chhotanagpur.15 Following the
Revolt, the British introduced the ‘non-regulation’ rule of the tribals which
meant many general British rules were not applicable in the tribal region.
The closing year 1949 is known for the Indian nation's special
dispensation on the tribal people under the Constituent Assembly.16 This
should afford us to estimate the qualitative differences and similarities of
the post-independence nationalist policies with those of the colonial
regime.

To clarify at the outset, the word ‘scheduling’ in the title denotes special
dispensation of the state to the tribal people of India, as the terms
‘Scheduled Areas’ and ‘Scheduled Tribes’ in the Constitution of India
signify. The sense is more than mere listing or classification of tribal
people or tribal areas that a layman would superciliously read. The word
‘Scheduled’ was first employed by the British colonial state in respect to
the tribes in the Scheduled Districts Act, 1874.

The study will concentrate on the belt of Central India, Chhotanagpur and
Central Provinces to be precise, oscillating between present-day Odisha,
Jharkhand, Chhatisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal in the east and
Maharashtra and Gujarat in the west. This is where about 80 per cent of
India’s tribal population lives. Most of the major tribes of India – Santhals,
Oraons, Mundas, Gonds, Paharias and Bhils – are covered. More

14
The only exception of British colonial encounter with tribes before this date was with
the Paharias of Rajmahal
Hills in Bhagalpur region. C.E. Buckland, Dictionary of Indian Biography, Indological
Book House, Varanasi, 1971 pp. 84-85.
15
J.C. Jha, for instance, in his, The Tribal Revolt of Chotanagpur (1831-32), Patna, 1987,
extensively describes the tribal society ‘being destroyed from within by the Hinduization
of the chiefs, and from without by pressures from the British Raj.’ But, he shirks from
surveying the tribal mind of the revolting tribals from the rich data of the latter's
witnesses he is aware of.
16
Pooja Parmar, Indigeneity and Legal Pluralism in India: Claims, Histories, Meanings,
Cambridge University Press, 2015, pp. 1-4.

22
 Introduction: Issues and Concerns.

importantly, the region has been politically most contentious to both the
British colonial state and the Indian nation state because of its central
location and has been the chief repository of natural resources, especially
minerals, the cornerstone to the capitalist economy.17
Both the regions, Chhotanagpur and Central Provinces also formed a
crucial buffer zone between eastern and western India and northern and
southern India. The significance of these regions was increasingly realized
by various colonial military campaigners and geological surveyors since
the early nineteenth century. The British colonial authorities were
convinced that if India had to ‘develop’ as a proper colony, the region had
to be ‘controlled’ and ‘opened up’, and communication infrastructure had
to be ‘developed’. Accordingly, the colonial state initiated measures for
the ‘development’ of these regions in different phases.

The politico-economic factors determined the importance of central tribal

India to the Indian nation-state as well. When the Indian nation embarked
upon industrial development, some of these considerations remained
relevant to the nationalist planners. Moreover, the region was the first to
attract nationalist attention to the tribal society when, in 1918, Thakkar
Bapa moved to Panchmahal among the Bhils for famine-related social
work and, a decade later in 1927, Verrier Elwin, opened an ashram among
the Gonds under the influence of the nationalist movement. The actions of
the colonial state and the nationalists in the pre-independence years
prepared the ground for provisions akin to the Fifth Schedule for the
Adivasis in the Constitution of India.

The Historical Milieu:

17
Iron-ore, coal, bauxite and manganese are the important minerals found in the regions.
For the large deposit of some of these, Chhotanagpur is known as the ‘Ruhr of India’.

23
 Introduction: Issues and Concerns.

Central India, Chhotanagpur and Central Provinces, in particular, was long

an abode to the Mundas, Oraons, Hos, Santhals, Gonds, Baigas, Paharias
and Kharias. For centuries, the Adivasis lived as distinct cultural entities
with autonomous status.18 These tribal people invariably lived in the
mountains and forests, away from the more familiar population of the
plains. It must be pointed out that, the Adivasis did not invent any system
of writing, nor did they adopt one from the others until the introduction of
Western education in the mid-nineteenth century. Their tribal-self can,
therefore, be gleaned only from their folklore, other oral traditions and the
vestiges of their traditional social institutions. Moreover, such self-
perception is clearly evident in John Baptist Hoffman's (a Christian
Missionary, ) outstanding account – the Encyclopaedia Mundarica – that
states the assertion, in context of their land rights, ‘we have snatched the
field from the jaw of the tiger and the fang of the snake’, 19 which speaks
volumes about why they fought for their agrarian rights. Oversight of this
aspect smacks of prejudice consequently manifesting in the successive
policies of the British colonial state.20

Chhotanagpur and Central Provinces were obscure regions, hitherto

languishing as a colonial liability changed into an asset with the onset of
the British colonialism in India. Traditionally known for rich natural
resources, these regions came to be a special attraction to the free-trade
imperialists.21 In the early nineteenth century when free-trade imperialism
was not on the horizon, an official account observed indifferently: ‘The

18
S.C. Roy, Mundas and their Country, Charles Grant ed. The Gazetteers of the Central
Provinces of India, second edition, Nagpur, 1870, Chapter 1, pp – 109-115.
19
John B. Hoffman and A. Van Emleen, Encyclopaedia Mundarica, Vol.2, pp. 515.
Altogether 13 volumes were published by the Government of Bihar and Orissa (Bihar
since 1956). Of these volumes, I-XI were published between 1930 and 1937 and volumes
XII-XIII in 1950. The series was completed by the publication of the last volume by P.
Ponette.
20
It also reflected in the enumeration process in the census operations.
21
The land was not very fertile but was believed to be the repository of rich natural
resources ever since a geological survey was conducted in the region in 1823.

24
 Introduction: Issues and Concerns.

soil is in many parts highly impregnated with iron, which might be

procured in considerable quantities, but can be imported from Europe at
so moderate an expense, that its production here is no object.’22 When
free-trade imperialism in India was at its zenith, this attitude changed.
Exposure to mines and forests led the British to take interest in the internal
affairs of the tribal societies in this tribal heartland since the early
nineteenth century. This new system was alien to most inhabitants of
India. Against this, the colonial state embarked upon the control of the
tribal regions by developing administrative and communication
infrastructure.

Initially, the colonial state dealt with the tribal people from outlying
camps.23 Such inevitability and the necessity of data collection on the
tribals and their culture paved way for census enumeration as a source of
information. In pursuit of colonial interest, the British conducted first
political and geological surveys of the tribal region. Historian Vinita
Damodaran remarks that the ‘narratives of [the] travelers, surveyors and
officials of the company raj were not merely a “representation of place”
that could be used to root colonial claims to possession, but a far more
ambiguous relationship with the place and its native inhabitants.’24 This
became quite apparent in the third decade of the nineteenth century with
the Kol Insurrection of 1831-32.

Review of Existing Literature:

The study visualizes three broad components: first, the cultural mould of
the tribals and the salient features of their cultural traditions in history;

22
Quoted from Hamilton’s Gazetteer of Hindustaan (1815) in [Link], Final Report on the
Survey and Settlement Operations in the District of Ranchi, Calcutta, 1910, p.1.
23
The first camp was at Sherghati near Gaya in central Bihar. Later it was shifted to,
Chatra, an equally insignificant site on the outskirt.
24
Vinita Damodaran, ‘Colonial Constructions of the ‘tribe’ in India: The Case of
Chotanagpur’ in Biswamoy Pati ed. Adivasis in Colonial India: Survival, Resistance and
Negotiation, Orient BlackSwan, New Delhi, 2010, pp. 55-56.

25
 Introduction: Issues and Concerns.

second, the progress of colonialism and of nationalism in central India

tribal contextualizing tribal voice; and third, the making of the tribal
psyche and its changing character of the tribals. A critical analysis of the
existing literature is done under these broad categories.

As for the first, taking the precaution of romanticization of tribal customs

and traditions that many authors on tribes of India indulge,25 the study
takes note of the important works of historians like Sumit Guha and
Archana Prasad that tribal cultural elements are a factor in shaping tribal
identity, attitude and behaviour.26 In their opinion, these are actually
‘resources’ to the tribals, both in the politicization of their problems and in
social mobilization for the cause.27 What these scholars overlook is that
the tribal way of life, in certain historical contexts the tribal cultural
traditions are the source and substance of tribal awareness, unrest and
voice.28 They inspire, shape and sustain assertion.

Of a specific nature, distinct from the generality of other lower class

cultures, tribal cultural features lend certain special character to tribal
awareness – revolts and movements – and the underlying voice. Historians
are aware of it. Thus, the Indian Historical Review devoted a special issue
to the tribal question.29 Yet, they remain deficient in appreciating the
nature and role of tribal culture in modern India. Firstly, the centrality of
land, which is actually the bedrock of the whole culture of the tribal

25
This is best represented by Verrier Elwin in Verrier Elwin, The Tribal World of Verrier
Elwin, Oxford University Press, 1990, pp. 21-25.
26
Sumit Guha, Environment And Ethnicity In India: 1200 – 1991, Cambridge University
Press, Cambridge, UK, 1999, p.8
27
Ibid.; John Macdougall, Land or Religion?: The Sardar and Kherwar Movements in
Bihar, 1858-95, Manohar Publication, Delhi, 1985, pp.213-15.
28
See Biswamoy Pati ed. Adivasis in Colonial India: Survival, Resistance and
Negotiation, Orient BlackSwan, New Delhi, 2010, pp. 2-3. Also see Pati’s editorial note
in The Indian Historical Review, Vol. XXXIII, Number 1, January 2006, p. vii. Among
many other works on this subject, specifically see the following treatises: Susana B.C.
Devalle, Discourses of Ethnicity: Culture and Protest in Jharkhand, Sage Publications,
New Delhi, 1992.
29
See The Indian Historical Review, Vol. XXXIII, Number 1, January 2006.

26
 Introduction: Issues and Concerns.

peasantry of central India, is not appreciated. The land is not an ordinary

property entitlement to the tribal peasants, but a special inheritance from
the ancestors and need not be dispensed with at will. This is recognized
well by K.S. Singh in the case of the Munda land system over four
decades back. Secondly, historians hardly attempt understanding the
tribals from tribals’ point of view by using tribal sources.30 The study will
make effort to fill up this gap.

As for the progress of colonialism, scholars like J.C. Jha and Suchibrata
Sen do not contextualize the advances of colonialism stage by stage and
fail to highlight changing colonial contour in tribal central India.31 For
instance, we are left in the dark as to, first, why steps like special surveys,
road links, non-regulation status and introduction of commercial crops like
tea and poppy were and so on became the British priority in the pre-1850
years; and second, why central tribal India received special administrative
attention in the post-1850 decades. The gap is to an extent filled by
Romila Thapar and M.H. Siddiqi and B.B. Choudhury in case of Santhals,
Mundas and Oraons and needs to be pursued further in connection with
other tribal pockets of central India.32

Moreover, the Laissez Faire phase of colonialism undertook a large

enterprise of colonial ethnography, well depicted by E.T. Dalton’s
Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal. In tandem with this, works of scholars
like Meena Radhakrishna, Anand Yang and Uday Chandra show how

30
Joseph Bara, ‘Alien Construct and Tribal Contestation in Colonial Chhotanagpur: The
Medium of Christianity’, Economic and Political Weekly (EPW), Vol. XLIV, No. 52,
December 26, 2009, p. 90.
31
Suchibrata Sen, Santals of Jungle Mahals (An Agrarian History), 1793-1861, Calcutta,
Ratna Prakashan, 1983.
32
Romila Thapar, Majid Hayat Siddiqi, ‘Chotanagpur: The Pre-Colonial and Colonial
Situation’, in UNESCO, Trends in Ethnic Group Relations in Asia and Oceana, Paris,
1979; B.B. Choudhury, ‘Tribal Society in Transition: Eastern India, 1757-1920’, in
India’s Colonial Encounter: Essays in the Memory of Eric Stokes, 1993, pp.65-120.

27
 Introduction: Issues and Concerns.

colonial project constructed the tribals as beastly sub-humans.33 The exact

colonial is not adequately dealt with. Our effort will be to elaborate details
taking the case of different tribes of our concern.

In the context of nationalist developments in tribal areas, we have the

pioneering work of K.S. Singh. This is followed by R.C. Guha’s literary
treatise in his well-known work, Savaging the Civilized. They highlight
well the making of national agenda on tribes. But what is lacking here is
the description of actual nationalistic work by organizations like the
Adimjati Seva Mandal steered by Gandhi’s associate, Thakkar Bapa.
Since Thakkar Bapa and Verrier Elwin influenced the nationalist thinking
on tribes, there is a need of more stringent review of the nationalist social
work programmes than what Singh and Guha do. This is important in view
of the signs of communal development in pre-independence years.34

In respect to the shaping and working of the tribal psyche, scholars like
K.S. Singh and Sangeeta Das Gupta have well attended to messianic or
millenarian mindedness of the tribals in the hour multiplying crisis.35
Scholars fail to recognize the presence of the Christian missionaries, the
role of Western education, and remain preoccupied with the involvement
of missionaries in the construction of the ‘tribe’. 36

The action of the tribals and particularly their stated ideas in official
petitions and other stray writings present us with excellent material for the

33
Meena Radhakrishnan, Dishonoured By History: ‘Criminal Tribes’ And British
Colonial Policy, Orient Longman, Hyderabad, 2001, pp. 1-22; Anand A. Yang ed. Crime
and Criminality in British India, University of Arizona Press, Arizona, 1995, pp. 113-
117; Uday Chandra, ‘Towards Adivasi Studies: New Perspectives on ‘Tribal’ Margins of
Modern India’, in Studies in History, Volume: 31 issue: 1, Sage, Feb. 2015, pp. 122-127.
34
Anubhuti Agnes Bara, [Link]. Dissertation, ‘Prejudiced Enumeration: Tribes and the
Politics of Census in Chhotanagpur, 1872-1951’, Centre for Historical Studies,
Jawaharlal Nehru University, 2014, pp. 89-118;
35
K.S. Singh, ‘Colonialism, Anthropology and Primitive Society: The Indian Scenario
(1928-47)’, Man in India, December, 1984; Sangeeta, PhD. Thesis, ‘Reordering of Tribal
World: Tana Bhagats, Missionaries and the Raj’, Ph.D. thesis, Centre for Historical
Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, 1998.
36
Ibid.

28
 Introduction: Issues and Concerns.

mapping of the ‘changed’ psyche of the tribals, which many scholars have
shied away to undertake.37 The coming of Christianity, which the tribals
accepted in some parts in large numbers, is commonly explained as
‘godsend' in this sense. As the nationalist movement of India intensified in
the early twenty century, K.S. Singh discerns tribals movements being
sustained by ‘external stimuli’.38 He does not take into account the
spontaneity of the tribals’ own ideas that were based on the plank of the
traditions of their culture and were a factor in the formation of their
considered opinion. The omission leads Singh to read the rise of a
‘powerful separatist movement’ in the action of the educated tribals,
though within the constitutional limits and of ‘sub-nationalist’ nature, in
the pre-independence years.39 Furthermore, Scholarship that discerns
‘external stimuli’ working in the tribal areas deny the presence of a
working tribal psyche, and jump to see tribals falling into the trap of
imperialist policy of ‘divide and rule’.

Scholarship on tribe even denies the possibility of ideology in ‘pre-

literate’ tribal groups. S.P. Sinha thus says: ‘Ideological acceptance is
definitely a very advanced situation, which could not be expected from
pre-literate groups of Chota Nagpur and Santal Parganas.’40 Therefore, we
can say that the tribal rebellions in Bihar were the outcome of the agrarian
causes due to loss of their land by territorial encroachment by the new
settlers who were termed as ‘Diku’.

Furer-Haimendorf puts forth that, ‘Rebellions of aboriginal tribesmen

against the authority of the government are among the most tragic
conflicts between ruler and ruled. Whatever course the clash may take, it
is always a hopeless struggle of the weak against the strong, the illiterate

37
Ibid.
38
Singh, ‘Tribal Ethnicity in a Multi-Ethnic Society’, Op. Cit., p. 9.
39
Ibid.
40
S.P. Sinha, Conflict and Tension in Tribal Society, Concept Publishing Company, New
Delhi, 1994, p. 33.

29
 Introduction: Issues and Concerns.

and the uninformed against the organized power of a sophisticated

system.’41 He sees the conditions of the tribal populations ‘considerably
improved’ after the Rampa Rebellion by Hill Reddis in East Godavari.42
This kind of approach make scholar discern positive side of the colonial
rule at certain epochs. Quite contrarily, the ‘weak’, ‘illiterate’, half-
educated and so on are not always hapless. They have the guts and
courage to challenge the ‘sophisticated’ power of the state. The colonial
state always has its own interest in mind.

Related to these, is MacDougall’s work on Sardari Larai that reads the

working of the primordial tribal mind, while voicing for tribal agrarian
rights.43 J.C. Jha, on the other hand, observes the tribal mind sinking into
‘sullen’ silence after ruthless suppression of the Kol Revolt by the British
army before being awakened by the advent of Christian missions.44
Furthermore, he extensively describes the tribal society as ‘being
destroyed from within by the Hinduization of the chiefs, and from without
by pressures from the British Raj.’ But, he shirks from surveying the tribal
mind of the revolting tribals from the rich data of the latter's witnesses he
is aware of.

All these go against the tribal self-perception and views. But another set of
scholarly works delve into the fact that the tribals consciously opted for
Christianity at the hands of the Christian missions for self-defence.45 B.B.
Choudhury argues that the same true with Hinduism.46 The tribals were

41
Cristoph von Fürer-Haimendorf, Tribes of India: The Struggle for Survival, Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1982, p. 36.
42
Ibid., p. 38.
43
MacDougall, Land or Religion, Op. Cit.
44
The report titled “The Coles”, The Bengal Haraku and Chronicle, Calcutta, 24
February 1832, in J.C. Jha, The Tribal Revolt of Chotanagpur, 1831-32, Patna, Appendix
2, p. 269.
45
Fidelis De Sa, Crisis in Chota Nagpur, Redemptorist Publications, Bangalore, 1975.
46
B.B. Chaudhuri, ‘Society and Culture of the Tribal World in Colonial India:
Reconsidering the Notion of ‘Hinduization’ of Tribes’, in Hetukar Jha ed., Perspectives
on Indian Society and History: A Critique, Manohar, New Delhi, 2002, p. 34; Also see

30
 Introduction: Issues and Concerns.

seen internalizing the new religion in their socio-cultural system. This

underscores the need for a careful review of the changing psyche of the
tribals under different situations, how tribal psyche tuned different
responses to the exploitative system in various forms and tones of protest.

Such an image of the tribals is seen being imposed under duress an alien
culture through the agency of Hindu migrants or, more commonly said,
through the Christian missionaries and colonial civil servants. Within such
a framework tribals are descried as either succumbing to cultural shocks or
getting vertically influenced and misdirected, both at the cost of the tribal
self-perception. Scholars have discerned the danger of the imposition of
‘colonial enclaves’ by the imperialists on the eve of the independence of
India.47 Clue to this is perhaps taken from the tribals’ own desire at one
stage to be placed under the ‘paternalistic protectorate’ of the British
Government.48 What is, however, often not appreciated here is that the
tribals’ desire was primarily in the context of internal colonialism and not
seeking an insidious alliance with British imperialism. In view of
continuous protest by the tribals, the judicious way looking the tribal-
colonial interface is, as Nandini Sundar says, ‘the dialectic of
administrative intervention and popular resistance.’49

Questions posed:
While stating that cumulative actions of the colonial state and the nation-
state played a dominant role in shaping the tribal policy, it is not presumed
that the tribals lacked a voice, or, if they had one, it was too feeble to leave

his ‘Tribe-Caste Continuum? Some Perspectives from the Tribal History of Colonial
Eastern India’, Dev Nathan ed., From Tribe to Caste, Shimla, 1997.
47
Jaganath Pathy, ‘Imperialism, Anthropology and the Third World’, Economic and
Political Weekly, 4 April 1981; K.S. Singh, ‘Colonialism, Anthropology and Primitive
Society: The Indian Scenario (1928-47), Man in India, December 1984.
48
Memorandum of the Chhotnagpur Unnati Samaj, Report of the Indian Statutory
Commission, Vol. II.
49
Nandini Sundar, Subalterns and Sovereigns: An Anthropological History of Bastar
(1854-2006), OUP, 2008, ‘Prologue’, p. xii.

31
 Introduction: Issues and Concerns.

any trace on state policy. The study seeks to delve into the question of the
presence of a latent tribal voice under various tribal protests, of which
central tribal India has a chain of revolts during the period under study.50

To sum up the above propositions and elucidation, the study seeks to

move away from the general approach of policy studies as the narrative of
thinking and actions of the state or its actors, where audience subjects are
weak, meek and submissive or, in other words, voiceless. The
conventional writings generally concentrate on hegemonic state power and
its apparatuses. This theoretical approach is common in the historical
writings on colonialism. If at all voice of the subject people is discerned, it
is seen coming from and confining to the upper classes of the colonial
society. With regard to the lower classes of the colonial or post-colonial
society, the approach is to see pitiable and hapless people surrendering to
overriding and atrocious state policies and actions.

Taking the case of the central India tribal people, I infer, from a chain of
tribal resistance of the colonial initiatives and moves under various revolts
and movements, a currency of tribal voice against the colonial state. The
tribals were engaged in a continuous interrogation of the colonial steps.
They are typically dialogic in the frame of Eugene Irshchick’s cultural
‘dialogue’ in the colonial context.51 The power and prowess of the
dominant colonial state are not overlooked. But our highlight is the
neglected aspect of the vigour of the tribal voice. There is lack of

50
K.S. Singh, ‘Tribal Ethnicity in a Multi-Ethnic Society: Conflict and Integration in
Colonial and Post-Colonial Chotanagpur’, in UNESCO, Trends in Ethnic Group
Relations in Asia and Oceana, Paris, 1979, p. 101 ; V. Raghaiviah, ‘Background of
Tribal Struggles in India’, in A.R. Desai (ed.), Peasant Struggle in India, Bombay:
Oxford University Press, 1971, pp. 12–22.
51
Eugene F. Irshchick, Dialogue and History: Constructing South India, 1795-1895,
California, April 1994, p. 153.

32
 Introduction: Issues and Concerns.

scholarship in this direction. Among rare works, one is led to this line of
thinking is the recent works of Felix Padel.52

Under the above theoretical scheme, I deal with the following questions:
1. How British colonial state assumed power and devised ways, especially
by nurturing internal colonialism and depending upon local feudal
elements, to control the sprawling tribal society of central India in the
early stage of colonialism. A related question will be: how British
generally relied upon the neighbouring migrants for information on the
tribals and did not make any serious effort to understand the tribal people.

2. How and what cultural traditions or resources raised an interrogating

tribal colonial subject and what was the substance of tribal interrogation.

3. How Free Trade imperialism developed colonial policies for the

thorough and sophisticated subjugation of the tribals – one being advanced
ethnographical studies based on superficial surveys and non-tribal
informants’ data; an adjunct question is how best of the conciliating
colonial policy further infuriated the tribals and, at the same time, made
them more interrogating.

4. How British colonialism by the early twentieth century promoted strong

anti-colonial interest groups in tribal areas, and, against this backdrop,
how Indian nationalist interest surfaces in the tribal areas, and how it
contended with the former and took up the tribal cause.

5. How the tribal psyche was under constant churning and, what was
mode and tone of tribal interrogation it implied in the changing context of
the colonial situation.

52
See, for instance, Felix Padel, Samarendra Das, Out of this Earth: East India Adivasis
and the Aluminum Cartel, New Delhi, Hyderabad, Orient BlackSwan, 2010.

33
 Introduction: Issues and Concerns.

6. As a minuscule tribal intelligentsia emerges in the early twentieth

century, how dialogic and assertive it was with both the colonial state and
the Indian nationalism and what mode it adopted.

These are the challenging research questions of the study ahead. In the
light of historical discussion on over one hundred years of state attitude
and policy on tribes, the study will, by way of conclusion, attempt an
assessment of the post-independence operationalization of the Schedule-V
constitutional provisions and the coming of new concepts like Tribal Sub-
Plan, PESA and Acts like the Indian Forest Act, 2008. It will try to throw
light on why tribal central India remains largely indifferent to state
initiatives and is instead inclined to Maoist militancy. With such scope and
questions, this study is relevant in the context of present-day problems
faced by the tribal population comprising 8.6 per cent of India’s
population.

Chapterization:
The development of colonial policies on tribals can be divided into various
phases. Each phase will be discussed and dealt with in successive
chapters, the content of which may be modified in the light of above
discussion. The chapterization is as follows: second chapter: Tribal
Resistance and the ‘Non-Regulation’ Proposition, c. 1830-1855, which
deals with the period between c. 1830 and 1855. It describes the beginning
of British control over the region, the rise of the measure of ‘non-
regulation’ in the tribal regions, opening of the dialogue with the tribals. It
then goes on to explain how these failed and led to the massive armed
resistance of the tribals, manifesting in the Santhal Revolt.

The third chapter: ‘‘Informed’ Administration and Impassioned Tribal

Psyche, c. 1856-1874’, delves into the nuances of the progress of the free

34
 Introduction: Issues and Concerns.

trade imperialism in the tribal areas, the working of the idea of British rule
of law, various measures of ‘civilizing the tribes’, including the
introduction of western education and Christian missions. This chapter
also encapsulates the rising dissatisfaction of the tribals, which is best
depicted in the Sardari Larai since 1860. This phase closes in 1874 when
the government implements the Scheduled Districts Act. Special attention
is paid to how prejudiced racist mind of the colonialists views the tribals
as ‘criminal’ under the Criminal Tribes Act, 1871.

The next phase is dealt with in the fourth chapter: ‘Placating Resentment
and the Tenancy Acts, c. 1875-1908’, when the colonial government
ratifies the idea of ‘exclusion’ of the tribal regions in the Government of
India Act, 1919, against the rising tide of the Indian nationalist movement.
This happened in the backdrop of Birsa Ulgulan and the Tana Bhagat
Movement. This was also the time when the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act,
1908 was introduced.

The fifth chapter: ‘Paternalistic Postulations and the Tribal Pathways,

c.1909-1935’, scrutinizes the broad framework of the Government of India
Acts, which contained the provisions of ‘excluded areas’ and ‘partially
excluded areas’, which was supposedly meant for ‘protecting’ the tribal
interests and welfare. Finally, straddling between the last two phases, the
final chapter: ‘Tribal Aspiration and Nationalist Arrogation, c. 1936-
1949’, discusses the important aspect of the rise of nationalist attention to
the tribal question. How ultimately a national tribal policy shaped, will be
discussed here. To conclude, the ‘Summary and Conclusion’, will sum up
the discussion.

Primary Sources:
The primary data of the study will mainly be in the government files,
reports and proceedings of other deliberations on the subject. For the part

35
 Introduction: Issues and Concerns.

on the educational growth, the study has relied upon the government and
missionary sources. The latter sources were mostly collected from the
libraries and collections at Kolkata, Ranchi and Bhopal. It must be noted
that the Christian missionary tracts and other writings since the
missionaries were close observers of the developments in the tribal
regions. The nationalist views will be found in the papers of the Bharatiya
Adimjati Seva Mandal and of Verrier Elwin. Private papers of some of the
colonial officials, for instance, E.T Dalton, and of nationalist leaders like
Rajendra Prasad, who were closely connected with the developments in
the tribal regions have been specially looked into. As for the tribal
question of tribal identity, the official sources often do not contain
adequate data on the tribals’ own ideas and thinking. In view of this, an
attempt has been made to base the study on local and private sources
gathered in a piecemeal manner over the years.

36