Tribal identity and the modern world

The term tribal identity has an impassioned edge in the social sciences as also in contemporary discourse on social change and politics. The passion stems from its metaphorical connotation of subjugation and victimisation. And its edge endures because of the implicit promise of precise description and knowledge. This study begins with a statement concerning the play between this promise and the process of modern unification, and its implica tions for understanding tribal reality in India.

The first part is essentially a statement of certain basic consid erations of theoretical significance. In it, Suresh Sharma outlines the conceptual difficulties surrounding the way in which tribal identities and the texture of tribal-non-tribal interaction in India are expressed.

The second part delineates the pre-colonial pattern of interac tion in the tribal regions of India. It examines the implications of the modern onslaught for the pre-colonial equations between social cohesion and political authority. The relationship between legitimate spaces of existence and redefinition as also that between the framework of validation, modern institutions and technology are analysed. In the process, the author formulates the problematique of the survival of distinct and autonomous cul tural entities informed by possibilities suggested by what Gandhi perceived as the everyday rhythm of Indian civilisation.

The basic purpose of this study is to formulate a critique of what appears to be definitive to mod modern discourse: the instrumen tal mode of validation. The concern is to focus on the require ments and possibilities of authentic survival of distinct cultural sensibilities that have somehow managed to exist on the margins of the modern world. And that is sought not as an expression of belated remorse or generosity, but in the belief that their pres ence is an assurance of human sanity.

This unusual study draws elements from anthropology, philosophy and history and will be of considerable interest to all those interested in the problem of identity in the modern world.