3 Ghurye On Tribe
3 Ghurye On Tribe
--------------------Aditya Mongra @ Professors Classes-------------------the economic and legal changes ushered in by British colonial rule. He argued that
tribals faced the same problems as caste Hindu cultivators: rapacious
moneylenders, ignorance, short-sighted government policies and inefficient legal
machinery together produced the typical pattern found in tribal areas of
exploitation, land alienation, and bonded labour. The solution to this problem lay
in ... strengthening the ties of the tribals with the other backward classes through
their integration, not in separatism or isolation. Against Elwins plea for
preservation of tribal culture, Ghurye maintained that the interests and welfare of
the tribals would be better served by adaptation to the wider society, for example
by giving up wasteful shifting cultivation in favour of settled agriculture. Ghurye
suggests that the economic motivation behind the adoption of Hinduism was very
strong among the tribes. They could come out of the narrow confines of their tribal
crafts of a rudimentary nature and adopt specialized types of occupation, which
were in demand in society. Ghurye also argued that the administrative separation
of tribal areas was motivated by imperial economic interests rather than any
concern for the welfare of the people. He refers here to the exploitation of forests,
opening of coal fields in tribal areas, and recruitment of tribal labour for tea
plantations and mines.
Ghurye also argued against Elwins proposal to codify tribal customs in civil
matters on the ground that this would simply fossilize them. Ghurye pointed out
that customs ... are plastic, and thus have an advantage over law which is rigid.
Once we codify them we make them more rigid than law ... After the customs are
codified, whatever little authority the tribal elders may have in their interpretation
today will cease.
Ghurye also criticized Elwins opposition to social reform movements
among tribals. He believed that there were certain customs such as drinking and
sexual permissiveness that needed to be eradicated. Under Hindu influence, the
tribes gave up liquor drinking, received education and improved their agriculture.
In this context, Hindu voluntary organizations, such as Ramakrishna Mission and
Arya Samraj, played a constructive role for the development of the tribes. Ghurye
presents a huge data on the thoughts, practices and habits of the tribes inhabiting
the Central Indian region. He quotes extensively from various writings and reports
to show that Katauris, Bhuiyas, Oraons, Khonds, Gonds, Korkus etc. have
substantially adopted Hinduism as their religion. Ghurye considers the
incorporation of Hindu values and norms into tribal life was a positive step in the
process of development. The tribes in India had slowly absorbed certain Hindu
values and style of life through contact with the Hindu social groups. Today, it is
being considered a part of Hindu society.
--------------------Aditya Mongra @ Professors Classes-------------------While Ghurye was in favour of a certain kind of uplift, mainly economic,
he believed that the promotion of cultural pluralism by certain anthropologists and
through official policies would lead to social disintegration. He cited as proof of
this danger the emergence of cultural revival movements among some tribal
groups, and he opposed tribal and regional autonomy movements as divisive. Thus
Ghurye in many ways had a more realistic and progressive understanding of the
history and problems of tribals than many of his contemporaries, and his critique
of Elwins paternalism is refreshing. It appears that his nationalism, despite its
inherent conservatism, led him to be quite perceptive on some issues: he
recognized the economic and political roots of the adivasi situation and was quite
prescient to recognize the colonial origin of the caste-tribe distinction. But in the
end, Ghuryes own position was hardly more progressive than Elwins, for his
understanding of the tribal problem was based on his view of Indian history as an
ongoing process of ...assimilation of smaller groups of different cultures into
larger ones. He regarded this as a natural process that was upset by colonialism:
groups that had not been properly assimilated appeared to the British to be
different from the rest and were therefore designated as tribals. Here was the origin
of the tribal problem, whose solution lay in assimilation rather than in the
preservation of cultural diversity.
Driven by his nationalist concerns, Ghurye argued that civilisation is what
gives Indian history its structure and logic, and the spread of Hindu civilisation
necessitates the absorption of diverse groups. The underlying cause of the
backward condition of the tribes, then, is not contact with Hindu culture but
insufficient assimilation to it.