Book review: Sangeeta Dasgupta. 2022. Reordering Adivasi Worlds: Representation,Resistance,Memory

Reordering Adivasi World is a book based on author’s patient hard work for 10 long years, from 2012 to 2022. This commitment is clearly visible in the good scholarship. The author attempts to write a narrative of how the Oraons became Tana Bhagats, with a decolonised vocabulary and a theoretical frame created by historians who care for the voices of people. Unlike most other tribes who mainstreamed with Hinduism and/or Christianity, the Oraons mainstreamed with Gandhi’s charkha.

Any attempt to create a decolonialised narrative needs to focus on changes in the ‘people’s voices’ when they change from being the ‘observed’ to becoming the ‘observers’. In this regard, Stocking Jr. writes in Observers Observed, that with the withdrawal of the ‘umbrella of European power’, a disciplinary crisis occurred in so far as people subjected to the anthropologist’s gaze were no longer the ‘other’ (Stocking Jr. 1983: 4). This crisis is visible in the discipline of history writing as well.

In Reordering Adivasi World, the ‘observers’ are the historians, the colonial administrators and the anthropologists, and the Oraons are being ‘observed’ with a gaze seasoned with the critical categories: ‘tribal’, ‘adivasi’ and ‘indigenous’. The surfaces of observation are predominantly the written words in academic journals, books and archives and less the oral words accessed by direct face-to-face seeing and listening. The Oraons of Jharkhand do not have any means of observing the historians who want to write them into the larger history project. This asymmetry is the foundation of epistemic hegemony. The historian, the anthropologist, the political activist, the human rights volunteer will have to find ways to undo this asymmetry.

Additionally, while the author draws our attention to the larger history project, she does not spell this out clearly. Indeed, there is a substantial discussion on decolonisation in other disciplines which is sceptical of the larger history project. There are several people’s movements equally sceptical of this project. Their main concern is for the epistemic inclusion of all those who are likely be the subject and object of this project. I am sure, the author is aware of these. An important aspect of epistemic inclusion is ‘epistemic vigilance’. This requires, amongst other things, a rigorous scrutiny of information sources—the colonial archive of the written word especially, because it is created for policing and governance. Thus, field work becomes necessary to know the large context.

The author’s wanting ‘to move away’ from the ‘problematic category of the tribe’ and argue for the importance of ‘adivasi’ (p. 5) needs more critical discussion. The dismissal of ‘tribe’ as an ahistorical category gets no discussion. Its problematic character is not established by pointing out that there is a continuum and fluidity between caste and tribe. There is enough literature in sociology and social anthropology that show that ‘tribe’ is far from an ahistorical category. The author may want to consider that this category was used by the colonial regime to diffuse tribal protest and resistance, contain and isolate the people in excluded and partially excluded areas and, free the forest for commercial use. Further, one wonders why there is little discussion in the book on the history of the category ‘indigenous’ and of its political importance for decolonisation.

The author argues, ‘becoming adivasi’ helps identify multiple events, sites and representations through which the concept of adivasi has been constructed and negotiated. It is this idea of ‘becoming adivasi’ and not just ‘being adivasi’…that accommodates the multiple histories around the subject of adivasi (pp. 27–28). Two important sites and events in April 1914 and August 2017 discussed in the book, give a glimpse of becoming adivasi and of the larger history project.

In April 1914, the Oraon people, following ‘a divine message from Dharmes [their god]’, began to free their religion ‘of evils such as ghost-finding and exorcism, belief in bhuts and nads, animal sacrifice, and consumption of alcohol’, gave up work ‘as coolies (labourers), broke the plough and stopped the payment of rent to the landlords’ (p. 174). On the other hand, they…‘left their homes, and cattle, and moved to the forests’ (p. 233). This was the beginning of their journey towards Gandhism and the Congress Party.

A lot remains to be discussed here. For example, is there any continuity with other Oraon divine messages? If this is novel and unprecedented then what accounts for the paradigm shift in the Oraon god’s mode of thinking and change of world view? Does Dharmes’s message have some resonance with Vaishnavism? Most importantly, there is no description or discussion on how the Oraon’s earned their livelihood. Did they practise shifting cultivation and food gathering before taking to settled agriculture?

‘In August 2017, the Jharkhand Legislative Assembly, despite opposition from regional parties…passed the Religious Freedom Bill, 2017, which forbids “forcible conversion”, particularly of the Scheduled Castes and [the] Scheduled Tribes’ (p. 1). This, the author says, gave expression to the Hindu Right’s advocacy for ‘ghar wapasi ([returning home by reconversion]) in order to bring Christian adivasis, regarded by them as erstwhile Hindu, into its fold’ (pp. 1–2). This legitimised the voices of a section of Sarna adivasis who opposed the Christian missionaries (p. 2).

‘In Kochang, a stronghold of the Maoists, […] the biggest pathalgadi [according to Munda custom, placing a large stone to mark the death of a person] installation ceremony was held in February 2018’ (p. 3). On this stone was ‘inscribed excerpts from the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA), 1996’ (p. 3). Here, a ‘plaque read[]: “Adivasis have the right over the land they live in. Adivasis are the owners of natural resources. Voter IDs and Aadhaar cards are anti-adivasi documents”’ (p. 3).

This event too requires further unpacking. For instance, has the interpretation and significance of PESA, 1996, changed with the pathalgadi plaque? Did the bill legitimise Oraon’s change to vegetarianism? Did the ‘divine message’ make it not-forced?

What stands out is also that the book arranges these events in reverse order. It begins with the passing of the 2017 bill, and mid-way turns its attention to the April 1914 event. Is the 1914 event the deep structure of the 2017 event? Maybe it is not. The argument would benefit if the author explains how this ordering is to be interpreted, as these events are 104 years apart. In these years, historians have reordered their world view in favor of decolonisation by changing their vocabulary. Is there an asymmetry between the historians (the observers) reordering their own world view and the reordering of the world view of the Oraons (the observed) suggested by these events? The historians seem to have decolonisation their own worldview. Do not the adivasi continue to be colonised by the Gandhi, the Congress and the Maoists? Lastly, the most exciting idea in the book is of an alternative archive (p. 19). The author barely elaborates on this leaving the readers curious.