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Tribal Movements in India
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.
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.
(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),
(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’.
(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.
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.
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.
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.
(3) Primitive and small tribes directly took to large-scale conversion and
separatist tendencies are marked amongst them.
(5) Democratic politics among tribes is fragmentary which in turn blocks the
emergence of civil collectivism.
(3) Isolated and scattered tribes with a primitive economic base would rarely be
involved in solidarity movements.
(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.