Adivasi

There have been so many migrations in and out of this region in past centuries that no particular jati [community] can have genuine grounds for making such a claim.” The term Adivasi, in fact, is a Sanskrit word specifically coined in 1930s by the tribal political activists to give a distinct and collective indigenous identity to the tribals, alleging that Indo-Aryan and Dravidian ethnolinguistic group are not indigenous to the land.

[24] However, due to the need for legal connotation, Ambedkar rejected the use of such general socio-political terms in the Constitution by adopting 'Scheduled Tribe' for tribals and 'Scheduled Caste' for untouchables, although he advocated for Dalits.

[29] Although terms such as atavika, vanavāsi ("forest dwellers"), or girijan ("mountain people")[30] are also used for the tribes of India, adivāsi carries the specific meaning of being the original and autochthonous inhabitants of a given region,[7] and the self-designation of those tribal groups.

The eastern belt, centred on the Chhota Nagpur Plateau in Jharkhand and adjacent areas of Chhattisgarh, Odisha and West Bengal, is dominated by Munda tribes like the Bhumijs, Hos and Santals.

In the Chittagong Hill tracts you can find variouse Tibeto-Burman groups such as the Marma, Chakma, Bawm, Tripuri, Mizo, Mru, Rakhine and more.

[56][57] Unlike the subjugation of the Dalits, the Adivasis often enjoyed autonomy and, depending on region, evolved mixed hunter-gatherer and farming economies, controlling their lands as a joint patrimony of the tribe.

[67] Beginning with the Permanent Settlement imposed by the British in Bengal and Bihar, which later became the template for a deepening of feudalism throughout India, the older social and economic system in the country began to alter radically.

[67][68] Deprived of the forests and resources they traditionally depended on and sometimes coerced to pay taxes, many adivasis were forced to borrow at usurious rates from moneylenders, often the zamindars themselves.

[74] Often, far from paying off the principal of their debt, they were unable even to offset the compounding interest, and this was made the justification for their children working for the zamindar after the death of the initial borrower.

[77] Although these were suppressed by the governing British authority (the East India Company prior to 1858, and the British government after 1858), partial restoration of privileges to adivasi elites (e.g. to Mankis, the leaders of Munda tribes) and some leniency in levels of taxation resulted in relative calm in the region, despite continuing and widespread dispossession from the late nineteenth century onwards.

[71][78] The economic deprivation, in some cases, triggered internal adivasi migrations within India that would continue for another century, including as labour for the emerging tea plantations in Assam.

[80] There were several Adivasis in the Indian independence movement including Birsa Munda, Dharindhar Bhyuan, Laxman Naik, Jantya Bhil, Bangaru Devi and Rehma Vasave, Mangri Oraon.

The major Scheduled Tribes (Adivasi) are; Tribal languages can be categorised into five linguistic groupings, namely Andamanese; Austro-Asiatic; Dravidian; Indo-Aryan; and Sino-Tibetan.

Prominent tribal writers include Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, Nirmala Putul, Vahru Sonawane, Temsula Ao, Mamang Dai, Narayan, Rose Kerketta, Ram Dayal Munda, Vandana Tete, Anuj Lugun etc.

[97] Tribals in the Dang district, having their own distinct religions based in nature worship, are being proselytised to Hinduism, by Hindutva ideological groups such as the BJP & the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP).

[104] Although each culture has its own different mythologies and rituals, "animism" is said to describe the most common, foundational thread of indigenous peoples' "spiritual" or "supernatural" perspectives.

[citation needed] Some Hindus do not believe that Indian tribals are close to the romantic ideal of the ancient silvan culture[123] of the Vedic people.

[129] Bhangya Bhukya notes that during the final years of the British Raj, while education introduced Westernization in the hilly areas of central India, the regions also parallelly underwent the Hinduization and Rajputization processes.

On the other hand, in those parts of the northeast where tribes have generally been spared the wholesale onslaught of outsiders, schooling has helped tribal people to secure political and economic benefits.

Members of agrarian tribes like the Gonds often are reluctant to send their children to school, An academy for teaching and preserving Adivasi languages and culture was established in 1999 by the Bhasha Research and Publication Centre.

Improved communications, roads with motorised traffic, and more frequent government intervention figured in the increased contact that tribal peoples had with outsiders.

Since shopkeepers often sell goods on credit (demanding high interest), many tribal members have been drawn deeply into debt or mortgaged their land.

Until the British colonial period, there was little effective control by any of the empires centred in peninsular India; the region was populated by autonomous feuding tribes.

The British, in efforts to protect the sensitive northeast frontier, followed a policy dubbed the "Inner Line"; non-tribal people were allowed into the areas only with special permission.

In Arunachal Pradesh (formerly part of the North-East Frontier Agency), for example, tribal members control commerce and most lower-level administrative posts.

Population complexities, and the controversies surrounding ethnicity and language in India, sometimes make the official recognition of groups as Adivasis (by way of inclusion in the Scheduled Tribes list) political and contentious.

However, regardless of their language family affiliations, Australoid and Negrito groups that have survived as distinct forest, mountain or island-dwelling tribes in India and are often classified as Adivasi.

[148] These categorisations have been diffused for thousands of years, and even ancient formulators of caste-discriminatory legal codes (which usually only applied to settled populations, and not Adivasis) were unable to come up with clean distinctions.

The differences among the figures reflect changing census criteria and the economic incentives individuals have to maintain or reject classification as a tribal member.

These hunting, food-gathering, and some agricultural communities have been identified as less acculturated tribes among the tribal population groups and in need of special programmes for their sustainable development.