Discordant Crossroads to Indian Scheduled Tribes’ Identities

Abstract

‘Tribe’ of the constitutional term ‘Scheduled Tribes (STs)’ is used to denote a shared identities to the heterogeneous groups of Janas in India. The term has been brought into Indian usage imprecisely by British anthropologists through their studies, who they observed bearing primitive, savage and barbaric traits and thus, subjects to their anthropological inquiries. This equivocal categorization could bring out a scheduled list to be used further by independent India government, leading them to design directive policies and safeguards. However, this identification has led to a social exclusion rather than an autonomous recognition of each Janas being independent and distinctive, thus chip into the diverse cultural identity of the nation. This misnomer has stigmatized the diverse ethnic groups yoked together as schedule tribes, as barbaric, naïve, poor, of no religion, no culture, primitive and less human, often leading to a pejorative conceptualization of their socio-cultural distinctiveness and indigenous epistemologies. The collective identity as tribals, fails to become a consolidated recognition, rather it opens at a discordant conflicting juncture of crossroads, pushing them travel incognito towards denied identity and recognition when included with all as STs, at the sacrifice of distinct self-identification. 

The present study would relocate the Indian Janas’ identity travelling through the discordant crossroads, sprang forth through the colonial identifications of the tribes in India.