Editors’ Introduction

Tribal Integration: History and Debate

The situation of tribes in contemporary India cannot be understood without a discerning analysis and reflection on the tribal integration framework. The agenda of tribal integration was first proposed for northeast India and later extended to other tribal-dominated areas across India. It was explicated and defended in the influential work Tribal Situation in India (1972). The book was an outcome of a seminar held for 10 days, from 7th to 17th July 1969, at the Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, in collaboration with the Centre for Advanced Study in Sociology, Delhi University. The immediate context was to understand the ‘disturbances’ in tribal areas in central India and especially in the northeast region, given its geopolitical significance at the India–China border. Many tribal areas did not identify with independent India and were apprehensive to be a part of it (Singh, 1972). Demands for a separate Jharkhand and Gondwana in central India had already surfaced, and the Nagas in the northeast were resisting joining India. The unrest among tribal communities over their status and future in modern India, their rise as a political citizenry and their ambivalence towards tribal integration were the focus of the seminar. A statement was put out at the end of the seminar explicating, in principle, the meaning and goal of integration. Integration was described as a ‘dynamic purposive social action’, a shift from the colonial legacy of ‘isolation and protection’, which perpetuated a ‘legacy of friction’ between tribal and non-tribal groups and ‘backwardness’ among tribes, and a move towards ‘the mainstream of national life, economic development and social progress’ (Singh, 1972, p. xiv). It was emphasised that integration into the mainstream did not suggest integrating tribes through the ‘Hindu method of tribal absorption, ¹ but into the ‘composite life and society of contemporary India’ characterised by ‘parliamentary democracy’, ‘secularism’ and the ‘modern production system’ (Singh, 1972, pp. 529–530). The concerns raised over its formulation notwithstanding, the message in the statement was clear that tribes would have to accept and adapt to the demands of modern industrial life and be ready to sacrifice their socio-economic system and give access to the forest and mineral resources in their areas for national development.

Given that it is over 50 years since the public avowal and adoption of the agenda of ‘integration’ in state policies, it would be instructive to comprehend the contemporary situation of tribes in the backdrop of this history. However, the intention is not to present tribal integration as a linear process but as a contested and disputed project of transformation. From its very inception, the agenda of tribal integration was considered imperative for India’s economic development. The single-minded focus on industrialising resource-rich tribal areas by establishing large national development (mineral and hydroelectric) projects and drawing the local tribal population into the modern workforce in the initial years of India’s independence substantiated this underlying thrust of tribal integration (Koenigsberger, 1952). These projects led to large-scale land acquisition without adequate compensation and opportunities for the displaced local tribal communities in the new economic system. Tensions between tribal communities and non-tribal outsiders were peaking in central India and parts of the Deccan, giving rise to discontentment and disaffection (Singh, 1972). The ground reports presented in the seminar, incongruous with its final statement, highlighted the demoralising effects of integration already unfolding in tribal areas. They suggested an overall collapse of traditional livelihoods in tribal areas with changes in the land use patterns and forest regulations, the sealing of national borders affecting transhumance migration for trade and grazing in the northeastern and Himalayan regions, and the pervasiveness of land alienation, bonded labour, and indebtedness, specifically in central, western and south India. The restrictions on shifting cultivation and government schemes, known as ‘colonization schemes’, to draw tribes into settled agriculture had obfuscated their relationship with the land, especially forests, which was at the core of their community life (Moorthy, 1972; Roy Burman, 1972). Landlessness, bonded labour (locally known as Vetty, Jheeta, Gothi), and indebtedness were a pervasive feature, and indicated the carryover of feudal relations, despite the abolition of the colonial land revenue systems. It was also the main cause of tribal exploitation.

The tribal-educated elite or the middle class, who were to serve as critical co-travellers in this transition and expected to persuade the rest of their population to adopt the values and mission of a composite modern India were themselves unconvinced of its promise (Singh, 1972). The alleged ‘separatist and divisive forces’ among them were associated with a ‘rising political and cultural consciousness’ and their realisation that ‘they are less educated, less economically advanced, and also less regarded’ than the other sections of the Indian population (Vidyarthi, 1972, p. 422). The ‘religious and cultural vacuum’ created thereof was also a driving force behind their search for a distinct identity in the modern world (Roy Burman, 1972). Moreover, the tribal movements in central India were associated with numerically bigger tribes led by charismatic leaders who, while facilitating a sense of community among their followers, also pushed for their acculturation into the dominant Hindu and Christian fold (Dubey, 1972, pp. 591–603). Scheduling of tribes, which was reiterated as a significant means of integration, by extending the constitutional provisions to provide welfare, especially to the weaker sections, and mitigating the effects of economic and social dislocation was fraught with problems. It was exacerbating social divisions and consolidated vested interests among locally dominant tribes. In the process, many tribes were being denied scheduled tribe (ST) status. The administrative paraphrasing of the scheduling process had created confusion, with the same community being categorised as a tribe in one region and as a caste in another, and resentment among the vulnerable sections of the tribal population. ²

Serious questions were raised over the ambivalence or, rather, the tacit intention behind the terms, integration and mainstream. Even though the twin objective of integration was to establish political stability and ensure economic development, how this would be achieved remained problematic. It was widely felt that the glorified ‘composite life and society of India’, projected to be mainstream, was still highly stratified and indifferent, if not disrespectful, to tribes and their way of life. This machination concealed the disparities in the wider Indian society and consequently reinstated the traditional evolutionary tribe–caste–class continuum framework of tribal transition into the mainstream. The term ‘mainstream’ was also considered dangerous in a country as diverse as India. For many of the participants, it carried forward the residue of the controversial isolation versus assimilation debate ³ that had dominated the discussion on tribes and laid the foundation for ‘othering’ tribes as a people on the eve of India’s independence (GOI, 1955). Although tribes were now associated with Jana [people] as against Jati or caste in the seminar, ‘tribe’ was interchanged from being an evolutionary category into an antagonistic one—a tribal minority against the caste Hindu majority. This polarisation of tribes from the rest of the Indian society cut into the main tenet of secularism inspired by ‘ecumenicalism as opposed to denominationalism’. ⁴ The sociological complexity of India was surrendered at the altar of integration. It was argued that given the tremendous social and cultural diversity across regions, it was difficult to uniformly decide on the mainstream in India. To quote from what seemed like an intense argument among participants, ‘Even the ruling class is culturally on the fringe’… ‘Hinduism too is a ‘confederation of communities and faiths’ in India’. ⁵ The concern was that by bringing the term ‘mainstream’ into parlance, integration would take on an officious role in defining and homogenising both the core and the fringe, thereby undermining the secular and plural edifice of India’s democracy. For the participants from the northeast, specifically Nagaland and Manipur, this was precisely their objection to the agenda of integration, that it forfeited their distinctiveness and heterogeneity to a ‘minority complex’ and set an antagonistic narrative to their relationship, and widened their emotional disconnect, with the rest of India (Ao, 1972; Roy Burman, 1972). ⁶

These unresolved contradictions and apprehensions continue to afflict tribal communities and are regularly reflected in their politics even today. A section of the emerging tribal middle class is part of the state machinery, and others, along with a large section of the masses, sympathise with the demands for the protection of tribal rights raised by them. The Indian state’s development agenda has remained consistent with the policy of integration and has been able to create a sizeable local stakeholder group among tribes. Since the late 1980s and 1990s, resource extraction and infrastructure projects have increased multifold, fructifying the capitalist transformation of tribal regions, and their physical integration with the rest of India and the global market. These processes have had damaging consequences on the social fabric of tribal areas, which are now characterised by schisms, old and new, and are corroding the capacity of local tribal and non-tribal communities to withstand them.

Tribes in Contemporary India: A Critical Interface

Tribal integration has surfaced as a ruse for dialogue amidst conditions of crises. For this issue, however, tribal integration is also a critical methodological site to comprehend the tribal situation in contemporary India. It serves as an interface, to understand the past and present tribal situation, and the promise and practice of tribal integration. It is a critical site, an encounter, between ‘multiple actors’, such as the state, other intervening agencies, interests and local tribal communities, and ‘multiple realities’ of different social and political contexts, local cultures and knowledge systems among tribes (Long, 2001, pp. 19–20). The focus here is not on what is tribal integration but on how multiple actors, including the authors of the articles in this issue, understand and interpret it, and how multiple realities reflect its heterogeneity. Tribal integration is no longer an agenda to be achieved or challenged but an interface to comprehend how tribes continually engage with questions relating to their identities, ecologies and futures. This methodological shift is also a conceptual one, in its rejection of the evolutionary perspective on tribes, the raison d’être of tribal integration, as well as its prototype that serves to chart tribal development.

The articles are distributed across five intersecting sub-themes that reengage with the critical points of the interface on the question of tribal integration. The first sub-theme explores how tribal communities have survived the process of integration and its bearing on their society and culture. One of the contentious issues raised in the discussion on tribal integration has been about the tribal-educated elite. How and where do we locate this expanding class and its role in contemporary India? Virginius Xaxa’s article ‘Tribal Middle Class in India’ takes up this challenge of defining the tribal middle class to argue that its origin can be traced to integrative politics initiated during colonialism. Colonial land and forest policies led to the economic and social dislocation of tribes, and consequent proletarianisation when they started working in mines and plantations. Xaxa traces the rise of the tribal middle class to these conditions of social fragmentation and disconnection that have impacted its politics and capacity to hold one’s own. Social movements have been critical in their search for social identity and in establishing their political influence. He, however, offers a caveat about the middle class in the northeast region, which did not share this historical trajectory or experience similar disruptions, even though the presence of Christian missions was critical to how it evolved. He concludes that the tribal middle class, despite regional specificities, has lost its distinct identity due to forced integration into the larger Indian society. The article, however, does pose a paradox, of whether the middle class’s role in shaping distinct tribal identities, which is inseparable from its capacity to negotiate with the state, reflects an efficacious integration. Also, what has integration engendered in its failings? Common to the tribal situation is ‘adverse integration’, the demand that tribes abandon their unique culture, language and traditions in favour of dominant identities, which contradicts the Indian constitution’s spirit of diversity and inclusivity. In this regard, the article calls for a more contemporaneous understanding of the tribal middle class in India.

Prashant Negi’s article ‘The Tribe–Caste Continuum and Kinnaur: Aspects of Acculturation, Stratification and Factorial Heterogeneity’ is an account of the most complex form of tribe, caste and religious affiliation in Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh. Kinnaur is an amalgam of the Buddhist and Hindu devi-devta [deity] traditions, linguistically diverse, and is known for its pantheistic belief system and forms of worship. The locals or the Kanauras seem to have defied the inevitability associated with the tribe–caste continuum by retaining an intricate system of caste–tribe coalescence. Although all the communities in Kinnaur are classified as ST, they are stratified into two broad caste-like groups, the Khosia and the Damang-Chamang, which are further divided into sub-castes. The Khosia, akin to the Rajputs, manage the local Hindu devi-devta system and are closely associated with Buddhism. They invite Buddhist Lamas to solemnise life-cycle events such as births, deaths and other ceremonies. The traditional practice of conferring their firstborn male as a Lama ensures the inter-generation connection with Buddhism and its belief system. Despite this complex stratified social organisation, the Kanauras refer to themselves by a common surname ‘Negi’, a practice indicative of the internal social dynamics and, perhaps, a cover to keep off outsiders (kosha/baharke) from the complex heterogeneity of their lifeworld.

The second sub-theme explores the situation of tribes living on the margins of dominant local caste and tribal communities. ‘Detribalisation’ for tribes on the margins (fringe), living alongside dominant local caste and tribal communities, identified as ‘core’ seemed to have taken an altered route. Primarily under the influence of the core or the local dominant tribe and caste groups, the backwardness of fringe communities was considered no different from the other labouring caste communities. The process of ‘detribalisation’ was presumed to be already underway and was proposed as the predictable route to tribal integration. ⁷ However, the articles in this sub-theme illustrate the specific contexts of some of the fringe communities and how they contend with systemic oppression and cultural erasure. Eva Loreng and Khaikholen Haokip’s article, ‘Contesting Identities: The Case of Sidis of Gujarat’, describes the racial profiling of the Sidis, and how their African origin has reinforced their image as ‘outsiders’ or as the Afro-diaspora by the state, contributing to their continued isolation. As a community that has no memory of their migration into India other than the common knowledge that their ancestors were African traders, merchants, soldiers and slaves who came to the region at the behest of the local Muslim rulers, have no known ties with their African roots, speak only in local Gujarati and Hindi, and are practising Muslims and devotees of the Sufi saint Baba Gor, the Sidis are still considered ‘outsiders’, and ‘ostracised’ and ‘avoided’ for their skin colour. They struggle to get a modern education and find employment in local enterprises and businesses. Barring the Sidis of Saurashtra, the Sidis in other parts of Gujarat have still not been granted the ST status. The demand for the ST status is an assertion of their rights as bona fide citizens and distinct tribal origins.

Ritambhara Hebbar and Soummya Prakash examine the social deprivation of STs in South India, specifically the Koragas in Dakshina Kannada district, Karnataka, also a particularly vulnerable tribal group, and the Paniyan in Wayanad, Kerala. Social deprivation stems not so much from poverty but from vilifying social contact that has exasperated a sense of social loneliness among these two communities. The Paniyan and the Koraga have a similar history of initially being classified as slave castes by the British and of being treated as ‘untouchables’ by their neighbouring caste and tribal communities. Hebbar and Prakash explore this history and observe how both these tribes are now asserting their ST status as an active mode to socially distance themselves from the core communities, their values and culture, and the agenda of tribal integration. While they seek to retrieve their sense of dignity and self-worth through processes of social distancing, it also reflects the social apathy towards their plight by the neighbouring dominant caste communities and the state authorities.

Bipasha Rosy Lakra’s article ‘Tea Tribe’ or ‘Scheduled Tribe’?: ‘Vexed Adivasi Identity in Assam’ brings up the issue of the ever-evolving nature of core and fringe community dynamics. Having begun migrating to Assam to work in the tea plantations since the mid-nineteenth century, tea tribes or Adivasis, as they are collectively known, belong to some of the core ST communities (Oraons, Mundas, Khariyas, Santals and Gonds) from central India, and yet have been struggling to get formally categorised as STs in Assam. Lakra traces the history of the de-scheduling of Adivasi tea plantation workers and the cautious stance of various commissions that, despite recognising their social and economic backwardness, fell short of recommending an ST status for them owing to the objections raised by the Assam government. A coalition of interests, of local tribes and castes and the political class, continues to shadow the aspirations of the Adivasis in Assam. In that context, the article argues that while highlighting the plight of Adivasis in Assam is crucial, meaningful change requires the state to revise its flawed policies and establish an inclusive framework to define ST.

The third sub-theme examines how tribal integration has manifested locally and fuelled newer insecurities among tribes, pushing tribes towards greater marginalisation and disaffection. In the last three decades, tribal areas have witnessed decentralisation through legislations such as the implementation of the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act (PESA 1996) and the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (also known as Forest Right Act or FRA). These legislations have been hailed as measures to strengthen tribal self-governance by giving local tribal communities control over the management of their land and forests. However, ground reports suggest otherwise (Hebbar, 2022). Based on his ethnographic research in the Netharhat valley of Gumla and Latehar districts of Jharkhand, Nikas Kindo’s article, ‘Land, Forest, Adivasis, and the Making of New Resource Frontiers’, explicates how mining has led to the loss of control over land and forests among the local tribal communities and has also divided villagers, due to clash of commercial interests and growing class differences, over the issue of mining in the region. It shows the role of state institutions and mining policies in shaping resource frontiers in Adivasi areas, exploring the loopholes in land laws. It reveals how state-led decentralisation undermines Adivasi customary laws, facilitating mining capitalism in their regions. The long-term effects of mining in Adivasi areas, as witnessed elsewhere, will lead to the loss of customary institutions, cultural practices and agrarian traditions, enabling mining capitalism to exploit their land and resources. The language of inclusiveness personifying these changes in the governance of tribal areas has ‘displaced politics of struggle’ and substituted it with a vocabulary of negotiation and partnership (Brown, 2005, 2014).

Chandan Kumar Sharma’s article, ‘Contemporary Development Discourse in Northeast India and its impact on the Tribal Communities’, examines the evolution of capitalist development in northeast India, tracing its roots to British colonialism. The colonisers transformed the region into a frontier and introduced an extractive economy around tea, oil, coal and timber, with Assam Valley as the core. They privatised and commercialised traditional tribal community lands, monopolising natural resources and disrupting the traditional economies and social structures of local communities. Colonial enterprises also triggered massive migration into the region, bringing about dramatic change in its demographic landscape, especially Assam. This put heavy pressure on its land and other resources, displacing a large section of tribal people from their traditional land and triggering land alienation among them. After independence, tribal communities in Assam, most of whom never had land ownership documents, became the victims of displacement of various state-led development projects. From the early 1960s, the hills, which remained largely excluded from the process of colonial development, were also brought under the development agenda of the Indian state as part of its state-making efforts. A top-heavy, security-centric agenda of infrastructure development was also adopted. In recent years, under the neoliberal Indian state, the development discourse in the region has witnessed an unprecedentedly aggressive character turning the natural endowment of the region into resources and its appropriation. The region has been turned into a ‘resource frontier’, making it a provider of resources disengaged from local ownership and made available to the global markets. It has brought economic gains for a small section of tribal elites but often deprived the others, seriously undermining the traditional land ownership system, livelihood, ecology and culture of the tribal communities.

The fourth sub-theme explores how tribal communities have persevered and fostered cultural resilience. Hilal Ahmad and Zahoor Wani’s article, ‘Paradox of Tribal Integration Amidst Resilience and Resistance: A Study of Bakarwals in Jammu and Kashmir’, and Thanuja Mummidi’s article, ‘Millets, Shifting Cultivation and the Konda Reddis: Looking through Culture, Policy and Politics’, exemplify how tribal communities have sustained with their traditional livelihood practices and temporised the pressures of integration. However, can the tribal integration framework encapsulate their apprehensions, experiences of loss and importantly, the significance of preservation? Ahmad and Wani reflect on this conundrum among the Bakarwals, transhumance nomadic pastoralists, who, despite the state’s effort to induce them into settling down, continue with their traditional way of life, illustrating cultural resilience against a marginalising process. The Bakarwal face double marginalisation, as pastoralists and residents of a perilous border area. They seek education for their children and better health facilities, but the government has lacked the cultural sensitivity to ensure that these services reach them. Amidst the lack of facilities, adverse environmental changes they observe along their transhumant route, and the ever-present threat of being trapped in the crossfire at the borders, they hold on to pastoralism as the only secure option for them and their future generations. Mummidi revives the discussion on shifting cultivation, which was previously considered a wasteful and primitive tribal practice, in the context of the United Nations and the Government of India ratifying the health benefits of millets, and its significance in promoting sustainable development. She is critical of the complete silence on the part of the Indian government on the close association between shifting cultivation, millets and Adivasi culture. She illustrates how the Hill Konda Reddis have managed to sustain an entire ecosystem based on millet cultivation in the forests through the practice of Podu (shifting cultivation), despite multiple attempts to resettle them into colonies and push them into settled agriculture or wage labour. Millet, officially designated as Shree Anna or ‘food grain with divine grace’, has yet to find its spiritual moorings in the Adivasi aesthetics of shifting cultivation. What awaits Konda Reddis at the interface of this newfound interest in ‘Shree Anna’?

The fifth sub-theme pertains to how the struggle for self-determination has led to critical introspection and dialogue among tribal communities. These exchanges have been exemplary and transformative for communities, boosting a sense of purpose and politics to continue their struggle against integrative politics. Noli Nivedita Tirkey, Kanchan Thomasina Ekka, Swati Soren and Smriti Soren, in their article ‘Adivasi Women, Sacred Groves and Religious Practices: Unveiling the Epistemic Injustice in the East-Central Belt of India’, illustrate how women, who were traditionally disallowed from entering sacred groves (Sarna Sthals), are now at the forefront of the movement to save the Sarna Sthals, which are the fount of the Adivasi identity and religion (Sarna Dharm). Women’s involvement in religious and political movements has led to critical introspection and realisation within the community over women’s role in upholding Adivasi culture and identity. The article illustrates how women priests are reinterpreting and reaching out to the community to make Sarna Dharm and, by extension, the movement for tribal self-rule, more compassionate and inclusive. This critical evaluation among Adivasis, of their traditional cultural practices, is neither a rejection nor affirmation of ‘integration’, but an ongoing self-engagement with multiple concerns that burden their lives and consciousness about the heedless resource exploitation in Jharkhand (the focus of Kindo’s article in this issue) and the ever-changing demands on their life conditions.

Roderick Wijunamai’s article, ‘Reconfiguring the Tribe: Changing Ethnic Affiliations in India’s Northeast’, explores the Zeliangrong Naga community, spanning three northeast Indian states, and argues that tribal identities are dynamic and evolving. The Zeliangrong example illustrates that tribes can form anew, and their identities change over time. As the community’s ethnic identity faces growing tensions and internal conflicts, its sub-groups now hold diverse political views and compete for status, recognition and leadership. Despite this, the Zeliangrong people unite to define their interests, emphasising shared origins, traditions and practices. However, reducing these assertions to mere political tactics overlooks the depth of tribal communities and their relationships. Significantly, the Zeliangrong people are part of multiple Naga groupings, showcasing the fluidity of tribal affiliations and identities. This phenomenon of identity fission and fusion is common in the region, driven by various factors, highlighting the dynamic nature of tribal politics, where identities adapt and evolve in response to changing contexts. These shifts in ethnic affiliations capture the vicissitudes of identity and time and call for keeping an ear to the ground for cognising the heterogeneity of northeast India.

Prarthana Saikia’s article, ‘Self-determination, and Integration: A Site of Negotiation and a Village Named Panbari’, explores the contours of self-determination in a multicultural village that comes under the Statutory Autonomous Council in Assam. The announcement of the first election in 2010 of the Deori (a small tribe in Assam) Autonomous Council in Panbari shook up the otherwise undisturbed village, with no involvement in any of the autonomy movements in the region. The establishment of the council called into question age-old affinities between the different castes and tribes in the village. The article narrates how self-determination emerged as a site of disintegration and had to traverse the profundities of village life, sociality, dialogue and the consent of multiple others to gain traction among the villagers. Panbari embodies an interface, as it juggles a diversity of interests and aspirations and the predicament of the nation-state.