Ethinicity, identity and development: the fourth Verrier Elwin memorial lecture, 1985 the North-Eastern hill university, Shillong 12-14 Sep.1985

This series of lectures to begin with
stresses the importance of the North
East as an emerging area of intensive
research and evaluates the role of
Verrier Elwin in the development of
tribal people.
Then it proceeds to address questions
like, why and how the ethnic siudies
here suddenly become important, how
the concept of assimilation of all
communities has given way to those
of pluralism and integration, and how
societies in the 'Third' and 'Fourth'
worlds have faced up to the problems
of ethnicity in the process of nation
building
The last set of questions relates to the
application of the theories of ethnicity
to the Indian situation and recognition
of tribal people as an ethnic category
and of ethnicity as a factor in tribal
planning and development. The last
dimension needs to be explored further
in order to make development process
meaningful for people. Ethnicity is
important as a tool of understanding a
community and its aspirations but it
has its limits too.