In this article we will discuss about:- 1. Introduction to Forest Tribes 2. Concept and Definition of Forest Tribes 3. History 4. Characteristics 5. Classification 6. Tribal Economy.
Introduction to Forest Tribes:
“Indigenous People” is a collective term referring to the native people who have close ties with the land they inhabit but each person (or tribe) has their uniqueness. They are groups or tribes with different historical and social backgrounds, language families, racial stocks and religious moulds. Indigenous peoples constitute about five per cent of the world’s population.
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The United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) reported that about 300 to 370 million people belong to the world’s indigenous groups. There are around 4,000 languages used by indigenous people. The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) reported that there are more than 5,000 different groups of indigenous people living in more than 70 countries.
Indigenous people inhabit in every region of the world, but about 70 percent of them are concentrated in Asia. Two centuries ago, indigenous people could be found in most parts of the world. However, nowadays, they have legal rights to use only about six per cent of the planet’s land and in many cases their rights are partial or disqualified.
The term “Adivasis” (original inhabitants) refers to the Indigenous People of India who possess distinct identities and cultures often linked to certain territories. The term is derived from the Hindi word “adi” which means “of earliest times” or “from the beginning” and “vasi” means inhabitant or resident, and it was coined in the 1930s.
Officially they are termed as “Scheduled Tribes” (STs) which is a legal and constitutional term specifying the tribal groups with distinctive cultures, geographical isolation, shyness of contact with the community at large, traditional beliefs and practices such as indigenous arts of dance and music, unique way of life, nature worshipping and living in unreachable areas. STs also refer to the groups living in unreachable areas with social and economical backwardness and highly depending on forest resources.
Forest tribes in India have their own tradition, cultural heritage and folklore. They are living in this country from the time immemorial and also living in harmony with nature. In India, the life and economy of the tribal people are intimately connected with the forests. Majority of the tribal population in India actually lives inside the forests and make a living out of the forest produce collected by them, mainly edible roots and tubers and by hunting small animals.
These primitive hunting and gathering tribal communities who are numerically very small live mostly in Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and northeastern States. According to W.S Perry, tribe is a common group speaking a common language or dialect and inhabiting common territory.
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Tribes are social group with territorial affiliations, endogamous, with no specialization of functions, ruled by tribal officers, heredity or otherwise, united in language or dialect, recognizing social distance from other tribes, following tribal traditions, beliefs and costumes, illiberal of naturalization of ideas from alien sources. Normally, forest tribes in India are peace loving people. Forests have played a vital role in the socioeconomic and cultural life of the tribal people of India. The tribal community and their habitats constitute very significant parts of our country.
Tribal people constitute 8.2 per cent of the nation’s total population and it is over 84 million people according to the 2001 census (Ministry of Tribal Affairs 2012). In the northeastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Nagaland, more than 90 per cent of the population of State is tribal. However, in the remaining northeastern states of Assam, Manipur, Sikkim and Tripura, tribal people form between 20 and 30 per cent of the population.
Tribal communities have variety and complexity in the belief systems as well as religious practices. The survival of forest tribes is dependent on minor forest produce like mahua flowers, sal seeds, sal and tendu leaves, edible roots, tubers, bamboo and wild fruits, etc. Tribals in Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar and Jharkhand indicate that over 80 per cent of the forest-dwellers collect 25-50 per cent of their food from the forests. Thus for the hunting and gathering tribal communities like Birhor, Korwa, Pahariya, Asur, Birjia, Chenchu, Kadar, Paliyan etc., minor forest produce is the major support for their survival.
Many Mongoloid tribes living in the northeastern States of India e.g., the Naga-Kuki tribes make their living by practising shifting cultivation (jhum cultivation) within the forest area. The Maria of Baster and the Gonds of Odisha calls the shifting cultivation penda. Shifting cultivation degrades the forest to some extent but whether this is wasteful and totally avoidable in the present context is debatable, because the very existence of these tribals depends on shifting cultivation.
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Before the advent of the British rule in India, the forest- dwellers and other indigenous communities enjoyed freedom to use forest or exploit forest resources for their livelihood. The British colonial administration realized the commercial value of forests and began to use them to augment revenue and in the process tried to regulate the rights of the forest dwellers and other indigenous people over forests. The recent forest policies made a greater impact on the forest in India. The modern culture and changing economic situation made a different kind of scenario in the tribal life.
Concept and Definition of Forest Tribes:
The word tribe has several meanings in different languages, in Greek it means fraternities and in English it is referred as communities having common surname. The word tribal or adivasi brings to our mind a picture of men and women in half-cloth, with arrows and spears in their hands, feathers in their heads, and speaking an unintelligible language, their lives often combined with myths of savagery and cannibalism.
However, any person having visited a tribal village will be surprised and thrilled to see a community living close to nature, peace- loving, equitable and with advanced cultural/social forms. Regarding origin of tribes, various theories have been found from Vedic literature to the modern works. Different scholars have attempted to provide definitions of a tribe.
Some of the definitions provided by eminent scholars are as follows:
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1. The Imperial Gazetteer of India (1911):
A tribe is a collection of families bearing a common name, speaking a common dialect, occupying or professing to occupy a common territory and is not usually endogamous though originally it might have been so.
2. D.N. Majumdar:
A tribe is a collection of families or group of families bearing a common name, members of which occupy the same territory, speak the same language and observe certain taboos regarding marriage, profession or occupation and have developed a well-assessed system of reciprocity and mutuality of obligations.
3. Gillin and Gillin:
Any pre-literate local group may be termed as tribe, whose members reside in a common area, speak a common language and have common culture.
4. Dr. W.H.R. Rivers:
Tribe is a simple type of social group whose members speak a common dialect and work together at the time of war.
5. R.N. Mukherjee:
A tribe is that human group, whose members have common interest, territory, language, social law and economic occupation.
Our knowledge about the tribal is very limited, leading us to believe many myths at the cost of their dignity. Even when majority of the communities in the world keep changing their life-styles, compete with each other and developed materialistic instincts to keep pace with the progress of the world, there are communities still living in line with their traditional values, customs and beliefs.
The exploitative mindsets of the mainstream society have made these communities recede often into forests and high-altitude mountains, where they could continue to live in peace with nature and their unpolluted surroundings. As the so-called civilized communities of the mainstream society neither could comprehend the values and ideals of these communities nor have the patience to understand their lifestyles and the mainstream world have branded them variously as natives, uncivilized people, aboriginals, adivasis, tribals, indigenous people etc.
In India, we mostly refer them as adivasis. In spite of the merciless treatment by the civilized men and the socio-economic perils faced by these communities all over the world, the tribals continue to live in the continents of Africa, Asia, North and South America and Australia.
Races of Indian Tribes:
Tribes in India have got both Pre-Aryan and Aryan racial affinities and origin and these people have been living since time immemorial and they are distributed throughout India. According to A.W. Green, a race is defined as a large, biological human grouping with a number of distinctive and inherited characteristics which vary within a certain range.
In general, a race is a group of intermarrying people who are born of a common ancestor and possess similar physical traits and similar feelings. Most of them lay stress on certain physical characteristics or traits as determinants of a race.
Some of these physical traits can be listed as follows:
i. The form, colour or distribution of hairs on head, face or body.
ii. The body concentration, size of chest and shoulders.
iii. Form of skull, its height and width.
iv. Facial characteristics such as nasal form, lip form, eyelid, cheek bones, ear, jaws, etc.
v. Complexion of skin and eye.
vi. Length of arms and legs.
vii. Blood type.
The most common races are:
(1) The Negritor or Dravidian strains
(2) The proto-Australoid or Austric strain
(3) The Mangoloid strain (further divided into two-sub types)-
(i) Palaeo-Mangoloids.
(a) Long-headed.
(b) Broad-headed.
(ii) Tibeto-Mangoloids.
The Negrito strain is regarded as the earliest strain found in India and elements of this strain are found among the tribes of southern India like the todas, kodra, irula, soligas, jenukurbas, paniyana and bettakurubas.
History of Forest Tribes in India:
The Indian tribes may be said to be the earliest of the present inhabitants of the country. In the ancient literatures there have been references of ‘Janas’ or communities like Savaras, Kallutas, Bhils, Kinnouris, Soligas, Todas, etc. Many tribal communities of today still bear similar names and the communities cited above may be the ancestors of such tribes.
An analysis of the long list of ‘Janas’ in the religious and secular literatures of the early times makes it evident that there was hardly any distinction made, until very late in history, between the then tribal communities cited above the other communities like Gandhara, Kambojas, Kasis, Kosalas, Kurus, Panchals etc.
The sources suggest that these communities belonged to a different ethnic category with their own social-religious and economic organizations different from the traditional Hindu one. They fell outside the four-fold ‘Jati’ system of the society. The tribals may thus be said to be the indigenous people in the sense that they had long settled in different parts of the Indian subcontinents before the Aryans invaded India from the northwest.
The Aryans with their superior socio-economic structures occupied the fertile plains of Indus and Ganga central India. Some of the nomadic pastoral tribes adapted to the Aryans ways of life and gradually evolved a superior organization and a superior techno- economy matching with the Aryans.
Aryans were not the only people to invade India. Dravidians came from west, Mongoloids from northeast, of course, at different times. This process continued inexorably for centuries and millennia. Thus the tribals in India are found mostly in the sub-montane regions of the north and northeast India, on the continuous hilly tracts of central India with lateral extensions in Aravalli, Kaimur and Chhattisgarh hills and Eastern Ghats.
Down South isolated concentrations are met within the Nilgiris, Annamalon and Cardomon hills. Thus topography can be said to have played a determining role in the history and settlements of tribes in India. Their movements only speak of their history which was full of retreats. The movements of Santhalas, Mundas and Oraons of Chhotanagpur, Saoras of central and eastern India, Bhils of central and western India, Kurumbas of central Himalayas may be cited as some examples.
The Indian tribes, thus for centuries, persisted in isolation with little or no contact with the population of open plains and centers of civilization. According to archeological department of Karnataka state, megalathical burial sites are excavated at BRhills and it has been revealed that in and around Biligiriranagan hills sanctuary, even during 800 BC (Pre-historical times) Soliga tribes were living. These burial sites are locally called Morea Kalli.
According to one such oral tradition, Garos tribes of Meghalaya, first immigrated to Garo hills from Tibet (referred to as Tibotgre) around 400 BC under the leadership of Jappa Jalimpa, crossing the Brahmaputra river and tentatively settling in the river valley. It is said that they were later driven up into the hills by other ethnic groups in and around the Brahmaputra river till they finally settled the erstwhile uninhabited Garo Hills.
The Garo had the reputation of being fierce headhunters, the social status of a man being decided by the number of heads he owned. In December 1872, the British sent out battalions to Garo Hills to establish their control in the region. Most of the earlier literatures indicate that adivasis known as Janas, Savaras, Kollas, Kallutas, Bhils, Soligas, Kinnories, Kurumbas and Mundas are the tribal community from South East Asia.
There are evidences that they also were in the Pre-British times. Munda tribe mainly inhabits the region of Jharkhand and the various corners of the states like West Bengal, Chhatisgarh, Odisha and Bihar.
Characteristics of the Forest Tribe:
The general characteristic features of forest tribes of India are as follows:
i. Tribe is a group of families with specific name and members speak common language or dialect.
ii. Members of the tribe reside in a common territory and observe taboos related to marriage.
iii. Members of a tribe have a common occupation and have well developed system of reciprocal exchange.
iv. A tribe has a common culture and members work together at the time of war.
v. Tribes are usually endogamous groups, though certain tribes have become exogamous after coming into contact with external world. Within the tribes, there are sibs or clans which may be exogamous. The reason for endogamy could be to keep the territory intact.
vi. Tribes are generally homogenous, cultural, social and political organizations which have their own laws and justice, customs, rituals, rites etc.
vii. Each tribe is headed by a tribal chief or headman who commands the tribe and whose decisions are final. The selection to this office is either hereditary or tribal of strength. This kind of organization is required for purposes of protection from external forces and also to inculcate discipline among members.
viii. Most of the tribal languages do not have scripts.
ix. Each tribe claims descent from a common ancestor which may be real or mythical. This common ancestry serves to unite them in strong bonds.
x. Tribes have territorial identity, i.e. each tribe occupies a common and well defined territory which serves as their homeland.
xi. Because of the nature of their life, tribes do not adopt easily to changing situations. It is generally difficult to bring changes in their life style, cultural and social customs, etc.
xii. Tribes believe in taboos which are certain forbidden things or restrictions, generally communicated through verbal do’s and don’ts.
xiii. Tribes believe in totems which are certain objects having mystic relationship with members of tribe.
xiv. Tribes believe in certain myths, a rudimentary type of religion and magic.
The Constitution of India, Article 366 (25) defines Scheduled Tribes as “such tribes or tribal communities or part of or groups within such tribes or tribal communities as are deemed under Article 342 to the Scheduled Tribes (STs) for the purposes of this Constitution.”
According to Article 342 of the Constitution, the Scheduled Tribes are the tribes or tribal communities or part of or groups within these tribes and tribal communities which have been declared as such by the President through a public notification. In Article 342, the procedure to be followed for specification of a scheduled tribe is prescribed. However, it does not contain the criterion for the specification of any community as scheduled tribe.
An often used criterion is based on attributes such as:
i. Geographical Isolation:
They live in cloistered, exclusive, remote and inhospitable areas such as hills and forests.
ii. Backwardness:
Their livelihood is based on primitive agriculture, a low-value closed economy with a low level of technology that leads to their poverty. They have low levels of literacy and health.
iii. Distinctive Culture, Language and Religion:
Communities have developed their own distinctive culture, language and religion.
iv. Shyness of Contact:
They have a marginal degree of contact with other cultures and people.
v. Indications:
Indications of Primitive Traits
Classification of Indian Forest Tribes:
There are 663 tribal communities living in India as per the notified Schedule under Article 342 of the Constitution of India.
The Indian forest tribes are classified into three categories:
i. Primitive tribes.
ii. Nomadic tribes.
iii. Semi-nomadic tribes.
i. Primitive Tribal Groups (PTGs) or Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs):
Among the Scheduled Tribes, there are some tribes who are more backward than others. They have been classified as Primitive Tribes or PVTGs. They are characterized by low level of literacy, declining or stagnant population, pre-agricultural level of technology and economic backwardness. PVTGs are spread over 17 States / UTs and are 75 communities in number.
Their total population is 24,12,664 as per 1991 census. In order to develop them to the level of other scheduled tribe communities, a central sector scheme was introduced in 1998-99. The scheme is very flexible and provides for integrated development of these communities through convergence of education, health and income generating schemes. PVTG women are extremely fond of ornaments and decorate themselves with tattoo marks on their body.
The women wear metal collars, necklaces made of coins, todas etc., made of German silver. Simplicity, beauty and earthliness are the dominant factors of the arts. To acquaint this famous art to the public, Government of India, Ministry of Tribal Affairs for the first time made efforts to publish the Calendars highlighting the rich cultural heritage of PVTGs of India. Major primitive tribes are extremely poor and their population is also stagnant.
Some of the major primitive forest tribes (75) living in various States are presented below:
ii. Nomadic Tribes:
The word nomad has been derived from the Greek word ‘nemo’ which means to pasture. The dictionary of anthropology defines nomad as a person who lives completely of his flock and does not domicile. Nomadism is said to be seasonal or cyclic movements of groups of people for sustenance. They are the persons who rely largely on the livestock as a source of livelihood. They do not settle at any location for prolonged periods. This type is most frequently among the forest tribes of India. The major nomadic forest tribes are Gujjars, Kanjars, Birhors, Bhoi and Lambanii.
iii. Semi-Nomadic Tribes:
Common semi-nomadick tribes are Akkipikki, Soligas and Bettakurubas and several other tribes of western and northern parts of India.
Tribal Economy:
The primitive societies have passed through several stages of economic development everywhere in the world. Thus one finds the stages of food gathering, hunting and fishing, farming, etc. Among the Indian tribes, the tribes living in the forests and hills usually earn their livelihood by means of food gathering, hunting and fishing. This type of the life is noticed in case of Kadar of Kerala, Birhor and Kharia of Bihar and other tribes. The tribes living in dense forests, full of wild beasts, live by hunting.
This is observed in the tribes of Naga, Kuki, Bhil, Santhal and Gond. The hunters leave the females to carry out household activities in the morning and return in the evening after hunting. In some tribes, there is a custom of hunting collectively. The Nagas use spears, arrows and bows. The Bhils are very much specialized in shooting by arrows. The tribes living near rivers and seas usually earn their livelihood by catching fish.
The hilly tribes rear the cattle e.g. Goojars and tribes of Chamba. The Todas of Nilgiri rear buffaloes. Some tribes also carry out cultivation, but they are generally shifting cultivation. Important cultivating tribes are the Santhals and Gonds. Cottage industries, such as weaving cloths, preparing ropes, skins and utensils of different metals are prevalent in many tribes. The Kharia people are very much specialized to cottage industries.
On record, India has nearly 5,30,000 cooperatives with almost 230 million members. These cooperatives are spread across the country and at least one fourth of these are rural agricultural cooperatives, which include those in pockets with a high tribal population.
Almost every village is covered by at least one cooperative, usually an agricultural credit cooperative. Large-scale Adivasi Multi-Purpose Cooperative Societies (LAMPS) in tribal areas are based on the co-operative values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and solidarity.
These societies were set up with the following seven cooperative principles:
i. Voluntary and open membership.
ii. Democratic member control.
iii. Economic participation by members.
iv. Autonomy and independence.
v. Education, training and information.
vi. Cooperation among cooperatives.
vii. Concern for community.
Policy Related Tribal Development:
In adopting the Nehruvian Panchasheel, Government of India formed a Ministry of Tribal Affairs for the first time in October 1999 to accelerate tribal development. The Ministry of Tribal Affairs has come out with National Policy on Tribals.
The National Policy recognizes that a majority of Scheduled Tribes continue to live below the poverty line, have poor literacy rates, suffer from malnutrition and disease and are vulnerable to displacement. Five principles spelt out in 1952, known as Nehruvian Panchasheel, have been guiding the administration of tribal affairs.
They are:
1. Tribals should be allowed to develop according to their own genius.
2. Tribals’ rights in land and forest should be respected.
3. Tribal teams should be trained to undertake administration and development without too many outsiders being inducted.
4. Tribal development should be undertaken without disturbing tribal social and cultural institutions.
5. The index of tribal development should be the quality of their life and not the money spent.
National Policy on Tribals (2006):
The National tribal Policy aims at addressing each of these problems in a concrete way. It also lists out measures to be taken to preserve and promote tribals’ cultural heritage. For the first time after the country became Independent, the Government of India formulated National Policy on Scheduled Tribes. The policy seeks to bring Scheduled Tribes into the mainstream of society through a multi-pronged approach for their all-round development without disturbing their distinct culture.
The policy has taken into consideration of the formal education, traditional wisdom, health, displacement and resettlement, forest villages, shifting cultivation, land alienation, intellectual property rights, tribal languages, the languages spoken by Primitive Tribal Groups (PTGs), Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Areas, administration and research. The National Policy recognizes the importance of participatory approach to development of tribals.
Non- Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and Voluntary Agencies (VAs) act as catalysts in reaching benefits of Government programmes and policies to the grass-root level and thus optimize the desired accomplishment.
To bring the tribals into country’s mainstream, the National Policy envisages the following:
i. Identification of tribal groups with ‘primitive traits’ shall be done away with on a priority basis.
ii. The ‘distinct culture’ of the tribes reflected in their folk art, folk literature, traditional crafts and ethos shall be preserved. Their oral traditions shall be documented and art to be promoted.
iii. Opportunities shall be provided for tribals to interact with outside cultures.
iv. Their geographical isolation shall be minimized through development of roads, transport and means of communication and provision of concessional travel facility.
v. National tribal policy supports the protective safe guards, political safeguards, developmental safeguards.
Acts and Regulations:
Moreover, there are several laws and amendments, enacted in the tribal areas, which are working at cross purposes or have no linkage to the Fifth Scheduled of the Constitution. But whatever rules or legislations made in these areas have to strictly fall within the ambit of the Fifth Scheduled and not allowed to dilute it.
For example, the Panchayatraj Extension to Scheduled Areas Act of 1996 (PESA) clearly supports the Fifth Scheduled and the rights of the Gram Sabhas (Village assembly) in the SAs. Also, the Land Acquisition Act, the Mines and Minerals Development Act, the Forest Management Act, the Environment Protection Act and others are to be superseded by the Land Transfer Regulation Act or the Fifth Schedule.
As per the PESA Act 1996, the Gram Sabha has the supreme authority to make decision over the natural resources, including non-timber forest produces (NTFP). Those monopoly restrictions over NTFP should be immediately removed while ensuring social protection through providing support price to tribal. Tribals are allowed to collect, process, transportation and market NTFP freely.
Forest Right Act (FRA) 2006:
The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 is a key piece of forest legislation passed in India on 18 December 2006. It has also been called in various names as The Forest Rights Act or The Tribal Rights Act or The Tribal Bill or The Tribal Land Act. The law concerns the rights of forest-dwelling communities to land and other resources, denied to them over decades as a result of the continuance of colonial forest laws in India.
Supporters of the Act claim that it will redress the “historical injustice” committed against forest dwellers, while including provisions for making conservation more effective and more transparent. A little over one year after it was passed, the Act was notified into force on 31 December 2007. On 1 January 2008, this was followed by the notification of the Rules framed by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs to supplement the procedural aspects of the Act.
This act protects the rights of the forest tribes on forest land and forest produce. After the enactment of the Act, tribals and other forest dwellers will hold the right to cultivate forest land, the right to own, collect, use and dispose of minor forest produce, rights inside forests which are traditional and customary like grazing. Tribals who have been living in and depending on forests, for their livelihood prior to 13 December 2005will have these rights.