CONCEPT OF TRIBE

CONCEPT OF TRIBE Conventionally, anthropologists considered all people as tribes who were backward in some sense or other, inhabited remote, inaccessible areas and were not familiar with the art of writing. They were considered racially different and lived in isolation. Such a concept, however, does not quite describe the tribes of India: these groups always had links with other people (who were not tribals) and shared with them a largely common cultural heritage.

On an official level in India, the term 'scheduled tribes' is used as a generalisation which does not quite reflect the underlying heterogeneity of the tribes of India. For one thing, there is much confusion about the names-the same names occur in many regions, though they do not exactly denote the same tribe; sub-tribes are equated with tribes, thus multiplying the number of tribes unnecessarily; the same tribe has been given more than one name, thus creating a difference where none exists. Confusion also arises from variations in language: names are pronounced differently in different regions and in tribal dialects. It is thus difficult to arrive at a clear picture of the tribes and their distribution.
The term 'scheduled tribes' in India is generally deter­mined by the political and administrative consideration of uplifting a section of the Indian people which has been relatively remotely situated in the hills and forests and which is backward in terms of the indices of development. The scheduled tribes have been identified in terms of the two parameters of relative isolation and backwardness.

In a recent survey conducted by the Anthropological Survey of India under the 'People of India Project', 461 tribal communities have been identified all over the coun­try, out of which 174 are sub-groups.

As Aijazuddin Ahmad points out in his Social Geography, "Tribal communities have been scheduled under varied contexts. This has resulted in serious anomalies. Many a time the states have treated scheduled tribes and scheduled castes as mutually interchangeable categories." Thus, Gujjars are a Muslim scheduled tribe (ST) in Himachal Pradesh and

. Jammu and Kashmir but a non-ST in Punjab; Kamars are an ST in Maharashtra but a Hindu caste in West Bengal; and Manne Dora as ST in Andhra Pradesh but non-ST Hindu in Orissa.