Tribal Movements in India

Numerous uprisings of tribals have taken place beginning with one in Bihar in
1772, followed by many revolts in Andhra Pradesh, Andaman and Nicobar
Islands, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Mizoram and Nagaland.

The important tribes involved in revolt in the nineteenth century were Mizos
(1810), Kols (1795 and 1831), Mundas (1889), Daflas (1875), Khasi and Garo
(1829), Kacharis (1839), Santhals (1853), Muria Gonds (1886), Nagas (1844
and 1879), Bhuiyas (1868) and Kondhas (1817)

Some scholars like Desai (1979), Gough (1974) and Guha (1983) have treated
tribal movements after independence as peasant movements, but K.S. Singh
(1985) has criticised such approach because of the nature of tribals’ social and
political organisation, their relative social isolation from the mainstream, their
leadership pattern and the modus operandi of their political mobilisation.

Tribals’ community consciousness is strong. Tribal movements were not only

agrarian but also forest-based. Some revolts were ethnic in nature as these were
directed against zamindars, moneylenders and petty government officials who
were not only their exploiters but aliens too.

When tribals were unable to pay their loan or the interest thereon, money-
lenders and landlords usurped their lands. The tribals thus became tenants on
their own land and sometimes even bonded labourers. The police and the
revenue officers never helped them. On the contrary, they also used the tribals
for personal and government work without any payment.

The courts were not only ignorant of the tribal agrarian system and customs but
also were unaware of the plight of the tribals. All these factors of land
alienation, usurpation, forced labour, minimum wages, and land grabbing
compelled many tribes like Munda, Santhals, Kol, Bhils, Warli, etc., in many
regions like Assam, Orissa, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh,
Bihar, and Maharashtra to revolt.

The management of forests also led some tribes to revolt, as forests in some
regions are the main sources of their livelihood. The British government had
introduced certain legislations permitting merchants and contractors to cut the
forests. These rules not only deprived the tribals of several forest products but
also made them victims of harassment by the forest officials. This led tribes in
Andhra Pradesh and some other areas to launch movements.

Raghavaiah in his analysis in 1971 of tribal revolts from 1778 to 1970 listed 70
revolts and gave their chronology. The Anthropological Survey of India in their
survey in 1976 of tribal movements identified 36 on-going tribal movements in
India.

It was said that though these revolts were neither numerous nor gravely
frequent, yet there was scarcely any major tribe in middle or eastern India which
at some time in the last 150 years had not resorted to launching movements to
register their protest and despair.

Some studies on tribal movements have been conducted and reported in North-
East and Central India. However, there were an insignificant number of
movements or none at all among the tribals of the southern states. This is so
because the tribes down south are too primitive, too small in numbers, and too
isolated in their habitat to organise movements, in spite of their exploitation and
the resultant discontent . L.K. Mahapatra also has observed that we do not find
any significant social, religious, status-mobility, or political movement among
the numerically small and migratory tribes.

After independence, the tribal movements may be classified into three

groups:
(1) movements due to exploitation by outsiders (like those of the Santhals and
Mundas),

(2) movements due to economic deprivation (like those of the Gonds in Madhya
Pradesh and the Mahars in Andhra Pradesh), and

(3) movements due to separatist tendencies (like those of the Nagas and Mizos).

The tribal movements may also be classified on the basis of their ori-
entation into four types:
(1) movements seeking political autonomy and formation of a state (Nagas,
Mizos, Jharkhand),

(2) agrarian movements,

(3) forest-based movements, and

(4) socio-religious or socio-cultural movements (the Bhagat movement among
Bhils of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, movement among tribals of south
Gujarat or Raghunath Murmu’s movement among the Santhals).

Mahapatra (1972) has classified tribal movements in three groups: reactionary,

conservative and revolutionary. The reactionary movement tries to bring back
‘the good old days’, whereas the conservative movement tries to maintain the
status quo. The revolutionary or the revisionary movements are those which are
organised for ‘improvement’ or ‘purification’ of the cultural or social order by
eliminating evil customs, beliefs or institutions.

Surajit Sinha (1968) has classified movements into five groups:

(i) Ethnic rebellion,

(ii) Reform movements,

(iii) Political autonomy movements within the Indian Union,

(iv) Secessionist movements, and

(v) Agrarian unrest. K.S. Singh (1983) has also classified them in more or less
the same way, except that he has used the word ‘sanskritisation’ instead of
reform movement and ‘cultural’ instead of ‘ethnic’.

S.M. Dubey (1982) has classified them in four categories:

(a) Religious and social reform movements

(b) Movements for separate statehood

(c) Insurgent movements and

(d) Cultural rights movements.

Ghanshyam Shah has classified them in three groups:

(1) Ethnic

(2) Agrarian, and

(3) Political.
If we take into consideration all the tribal movements, including the Naga
revolution (which started in 1948 and continued up to 1972 when the new
elected government came to power and the Naga insurgency was controlled),
the Mizo movement (gurerrilla warfare which ended with the formation of
Meghalaya state in April 1970, created out of Assam and Mizoram in 1972), the
Gond Raj movement (of Gonds of Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, started in
1941 for a separate state and reaching its peak in 1962-63), the Naxalite
movements (of the tribals in Bihar, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Assam),
the agrarian movements (of the Gonds and the Bhils in Madhya Pradesh), and
the forest-based movements (of the Gonds for getting customary rights in the
forests), it could be said that the tribal unrest and the resultant movements were
mainly movements launched for liberation from (i) oppression and
discrimination, (ii) neglect and backwardness, and (iii) a government which was
callous to the tribals’ plight of poverty, hunger, unemployment and exploitation.
K.S. Singh (1985) analysing tribal movements before independence have
divided them into three phases: the first phase between 1795 and 1860, the
second between 1861 and 1920, and the third between 1921 and 1947.

The first phase coincided with the establishment of the British Empire, the
second with intensive colonialism during which merchant capital penetrated
into tribal economy, and the third with participation in the nationalist movement
and also launching of agrarian as well as some separatist movements.

Tribal movements after independence have been classified by K.S. Singh in

four categories: agrarian, sanskritisation, cultural and political. In the first two
phases before independence, K.S. Singh holds that in their effort to introduce
British administration in the tribal areas, the British came in conflict with the
tribal chiefs.

The rebellious tribal leaders revolted against the British and exhorted their
followers to drive out the outsiders. Such movements were launched by Oraon,
Mundas, Maikda, etc., in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and North-East India. After
independence, the tribal movements were launched either for maintaining
cultural identity or for demanding a separate state or for asserting their status as
caste Hindus through sanskritisation process or on economic issues.

Stephen Fuchs (1965) has dealt with a large number of first types of tribal
movements. He has called them messianic movements led by rebellious persons
gifted with abilities for assuming the role of a Messiah, or these gifted people
(Messiahs) are given this messianic role by the community when it faces
economic distress, social strain or political oppression.

Fuchs has suggested that success of such a movement would depend upon the
individual ability of charismatic leaders, thereby ignoring the relevance of
system characteristics. Fuchs’ analysis of movements is mostly descriptive
which lists host of factors for the success or failure of these movements. None
of them propose a theoretical framework.

Not many studies have been conducted on the political-separatist dimension in

Nagaland, Mizoram, Chotanagpur and Madhya Pradesh. The Jharkhand
movement in Bihar is a movement of tribal communities consisting of settled
agriculturalists which are sensitised to Vaishnavism.

Further, Chotanagpur was the most advanced of the tribal regions in terms of
literacy, political consciousness and industrial progress. Christian Missions
influenced the lives of tribes here substantially. These Missions promoted
education, planted the notion of private rights in land, and emphasised a sense
of separateness from the rest.

The Jharkhand movement after 1950 developed in phases—from ethnicity to

regionalism (Singh, 1977). Of these, the phase (1963-1975) after the fourth
general elections is characterised by fragmentation of the Jharkhand party and
factionalisation of tribal politics. The BJP-led government at the Centre
announced in 1998 the creation of two tribal states—one in Bihar and an other
in Madhya Pradesh.

B.K. Roy Burman (1971 and 1979) has distinguished between proto- national
and substantial movements among tribes. Proto-national movements emerge
when tribes experience a transformation from tribalism to nationalism. It is a
search for identity at a higher level of integration.

In contrast, sub-national movements are a product of social disorganisation

pioneered by acculturated elite engaged in the contraction of relationship and
not exclusion of it with the outside world. While proto-nationalism results from
expansion of the orbit of development, sub-nationalism is the result of
disparities of development. Sub-nationalism is based on the coercive power of
the community, while proto-nationalism is based on the moral consensus of the
community.
L.K. Mahapatra (1968) in his study of tribal movements based on a time-
sequence and the nature of stimulus in their existence noted certain general
tendencies:
(1) Most reformists’ tribal movements, although initiated by charismatic
leaders, gradually led to rationalisation and institutionalisation, affecting
structure but not always affecting basic changes.

(2) Tribal movements, irrespective of their goal orientation, invariably appeared

among the numerically strong, usually settled agriculturalists and economically
well-off tribes.

(3) Primitive and small tribes directly took to large-scale conversion and
separatist tendencies are marked amongst them.

(4) Given the geographical distribution, a pan-Indian tribal movement is

unlikely to emerge.

(5) Democratic politics among tribes is fragmentary which in turn blocks the
emergence of civil collectivism.

Surajit Sinha (1972) has proposed several propositions regarding tribal

solidarity movements:
(1) The nature and degree of involvement of tribes in solidarity movements will
depend on several factors like location, size of population, exposure to outside
communities, level of economy and the historical experience.

(2) The intensity of tribal solidarity will not be strong.

(3) Isolated and scattered tribes with a primitive economic base would rarely be
involved in solidarity movements.

An instance of tribal exploitation may be taken to explain the cause of origin of

a movement. This incident took place in June 1999 among Bettada tribals in
Nagarhole forests near Hunsur town in Kodagu district in Karanataka state.
About 29,000 Bettada tribals have been evicted from the Nagarhole forest
ranges since 1972.

These tribals were promised rehabilitation by the Government. In 1998 some

land became available in the area and the Bettada Gram Sabha authorised 70
families to take over the land. This was legal because the Centre had
empowered gram sabhas to disburse land under their control. But about 200
forest department officials and the police burnt down huts of these 70 tribal
families. The local tribal organisation first organised protest dharnas and then a
movement calling for severe action against the officials concerned and the
rehabilitation of the tribals. All this depicts that when the law does not help
tribals, when the government remains callous, and the police fails to protect
them, even harasses them, they take to arms against their exploiters.

These movements indicate that tribals adopted two paths of achieving

goals:
(a) Non-violent path of bargaining and negotiating with the government and
using a variety of pressure tactics without resorting to violence/revolts, and

(b) Militant path of revolts or mass struggles based on developing the fighting
power of the exploited/oppressed tribal strata.

The consequences of both these paths are different. One indicates struggle
oriented to reforms, while the other indicates structural transformation of the
community. The fact that tribals continue to be faced with problems and also
continue to feel discontented and deprived, brings to the fore the conclusion that
both paths have not helped them to achieve their goals.