Abstract
This book by Dezil Saldanha under review is the magnificent account of political economy, ethnicity, culture, class and identity of adivasis (if not tribes) as subalterns who have experienced hegemonic domination over time. Though the book exposes Warli adivasi of Talsari in Palghar district in Maharashtra, a broader picture is available to epistemologically relate the tribal culture with the political economy, class and identity within the processes of a structural change in India in general. On the face of it, this is a book on tribal studies and the subaltern studies. But a deeper engagement with the intrinsic character of the book reveals its multidisciplinary nature covering subjects like anthropology, history, philosophy, political economy, religion and nonetheless sociology, hence, turns out to be an interesting reading.
The six chaptered book has been organised under two broad heads: the perspectives and the practices with the equal distribution of the chapters in each. Academics subscribing to the subaltern scholarship prefer the term adivasi as against other contentious terms like ‘tribe’, ‘scheduled tribe’, ‘Vanavasi’, ‘Janjati’ and ‘indigenous people’. The author has preferred adivasi against especially tribe saying that ‘no such tribe existed at the time to designate early social formations’ (p. 57) and ‘it is important to establish this broad trend and to uncover the semblance of a pattern that links the tribal past with Adivasi present’ (p. 56). The terms tribes and indigenous people are critiqued to have a colonial connotation and the terms like Vanavasi and Janjati are contrived as fiddly Indic neologisms, but the term adivasi as original settlers relates to neither of the extremes and arguably nestles between the colonial and post-colonial pitfalls.
The adivasis claim their identity as typically original for the conceit over their tradition, beliefs, rituals, community sentiment and the cultural resources. Identity formation in the subaltern quarters seek answers to the ways in which communitarian identities and class politics tend to interact with each other to build resistance against neo-liberalism and hegemonic domination. Nonetheless, in a due course, tribal identity took twists and turns when alienation of these resource-dependent-people from their own conditions of production and considerable displacement of livelihood went unabated.
The author takes up the challenge to establish the relations between ethnic identity as traditional and class identity in the ‘synchronic present and within a process of dichromic transformations’ (p. 41) from pastoral and agricultural economies to industry and service professions including ‘the industrial serfdom in the informal sector for the vast majority of Adivasis’. To him, the concept of identity mediates between self-consciousness based on the ethnic background on the one hand and culture and economic interest on the other, which on embracing ‘ideological and organisational characteristics of collective solidarity makes the beginning of identity as a political force’ (p. 51). Again, he says that the reality of multiple, co-existing and overlapping identities generally creates no problem to adivasi individuals and collective.
The concept of hegemony, to the author, constitutes an important indicator of the tribal-non-tribal cultural interface of ‘exploitation with consent’. The author records constellation of concepts revolving around the Gramscian notion of hegemony such as common sense and contradictory nature of consciousness of the masses of the subaltern class, the subordinate worldview against dominant seeking on questionable consent and the role of organic intellectuals of the subaltern to articulate subaltern potential hegemony and transform it into an ideology for action (p. 46).
While studying the adivasi perception of time in chapter two, the author notes that ‘social scientific notion of chronology might not always correspond with the adivasi understanding of temporality (p. 13). However, the author’s explanation of adivasi’s inability to explain the experience of time (p. 23) and comparing the same with the scientific notion of time are over exaggeration and undue. Moreover, the field materials presented and the elaborate interpretations made by substantiating through abundant literature do not show except stray examples that the adivasis were unable to meet authors’ queries or the style in which the author desired them to respond.
He suggests in chapter three that there is a movement from the predominant ethnic identity with an underlying covert class identity (class in itself) to an assertive class identity (class for itself) (p. 100). It is a moot question that whether these identities, being hegemonic in character, are social issues or those of class oppression. Is there any inroad between the ethnic identity located through ancestry and class defined through economic status in the context of adivasis? When ‘livelihood’ veers on the class domain, and ‘ethnic’ is on the culture domain, there is a need to theoretically reconstruct the author’s idea of later domain encompassing the former. The story of hegemony and the idea of majoritarian politics of the Indian state flourishes on the consent and power, derived from the so-called subject populations and citizens alike.
Section two of the book on ‘Practices’ has been broad-based and substantive. Chapter four relates to the exhaustive details of the elaborate life cycle and agricultural rituals and incantations indicative of community solidarity, ethnic identity, collective action and explanation of the experience of everyday life (p. 112). The ritualistic incantations do have their proud, original, historical, devoted emotional and livelihood-oriented materialist significance towards the increased agricultural fertility and hassle-free human nature relationships. However, a careful look at the body text of the book reveals that the theoretical statements are strewn throughout the book rather than being stitched up in the analysis of perspectives to locate author’s theoretical position as a subaltern theorist. The book relies on substantiation more through available literature rather than own field empiricism as most sections have introductory theoretical generalisations. Again, longer quotations and avoidable repetitions terminate in dismal reading.
The co-option of the adivasi festivals and ritual practices around the Mahalaxmi temple in Dahanu Taluka, ‘their original temple and animistic priesthood (the bhagats) through a hegemonic process of Brahminical dominance has been contemplated in chapter five. The festivals at the Mahalaxmi temple bear meaning to do with the agricultural and the astronomical cycles and not to the ‘Brahminical influence’ (p. 215). The structural change with the formation of temple Trust in which there was a predominance of the non-Adivasis, and the construction of a new temple complex replacing the old wooden structure led to growing following and flow of non-adivasis urban devotees, which is argued to have been culminated in the ‘hegemonic process of assimilatory subordination’ (p. 216). The author argues that the ‘Warlis resisted several attempts by Brahmins and religious mendicants to draw them into the Hindu fold as a caste during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries’ (p. 211). But the subalterns resisting the status quo may not sometimes be fully aware of the very implications and fate of their resistance.
His last chapter with enough field components has been quite interesting which uncovers the detailed roots and contemporary aesthetic expressions of the Warli Adivasis presented in the form of paintings, songs, dances and stories that are indicative of their community solidarity, class identity and the struggle for livelihood. The readers would expect a summary chapter at the end consolidating the objectives accomplished. However, the book contains exhaustive details on the adivasi culture and the huge quantum of literature listed and used including several of his own shall make future researcher’s job easy.