Tribes, caste and religion in India

A good deal of the valuable material on tribe, caste and religion published in the pages of Seminar, the monthly symposium, is no longer readily available. This selection is an attempt to meet the demand.

The tribal section is of considerable significance. In the pre-independence period, one notes the development of two divergent approaches to tribal policy, related to two different ways of looking at the position of the tribals in Indian society. One set of people stressed the separate place of the tribals in traditional society, arguing that they were Animists and not (or as opposed to) Hindus. They had a separate past, and this/ separateness must be emphasised in a policy for their future. This may be described as the imperialist position, except that it would be unfair to describe as an imperialist, its main proponent, Verrier Elwin. At any rate, Elwin and Fürer-Haimendorf (who both figure in this issue) stressed the separateness of the tribal people from the Hindus, in terms of religion and other aspects of culture. By contrast, the nationalist point of view as represen ted by Indians like N.K. Bose (who figures in this issue) and G.S. Ghurye (who does not), argued that no clear line could be drawn between tribal and non-tribal people in either the present or the past. From the anthropological point of view, Bose and Ghurye were right in maintaining that the distinction between 'Hinduism' and 'Animism' was false and misleading. Elwin's name became unfortunately associated with the plea for tribal separation. His article in Seminar was important because he used the occasion to dissociate himself from a policy of tribal separatism.

Before independence, three alternative policies were thought of: (i) isolation, (ii) assimilation, and (iii) integration. To Jawaharlal Nehru the policies of isolation and assimilation became unfeasible after independence. He wanted the tribal people y to retain their distinctive identity while becoming more fully integrated into the larger society. The tribal problem is, in this sense, the problem of nation-building in a plural society. But here, unlike as in the case of certain religious minorities, it is not just that they have a distinctive identity which they wish to maintian, but also that their economic position is very weak and insecure.

There are really two sides to the question of caste as a social problem-the problem of community or the 'communal' problem (in the south, 'communal politics generally meant caste politics) and the problem of inequality. The two problems were inter-linked in the past. They tend to become dissociated from each other today. In the public sphere, particularly in politics, the 'community' aspect of caste tends to be stressed, and alliances are not uncommonly made between castes, or between sections of castes occupying quite different positions in the hierarchy. In the private sphere. in the context of connubium and com mensality, traditional considerations of hierarchy are not all that unimportant.

There has been such a preoccupation in recent years with the role of caste in politics. One gets example of caste politics from many parts of the country. There is a kind of theory which tends to suggest that caste politics which is 'traditional' will be replaced by class politics which is 'modern'. This is a little facile. The example of Kerala shows very well the interpenetration of the two kinds of politics.

Caste and religion are sections which overlap. There are two major aspects of religious phenomena which are covered: religious ideas and values on the one hand, and the interests of religious groups on the other. Several of the essays deal with issues. revolving around the protection and promotion of religious interests.