S. K. Agrawal

Indian Tribal: From Poetics of Co-existence to Politics of Development

It has almost become gospel amongst the scholars world over to discuss the historiography of India in terms of binaries such as centre and margin vis-à-vis centrality and marginality, placed and displaced, elites and dalits, tribal and non-tribal, and thereby to establish that Indian cultural traditions and mega narratives could never assess and integrate the mass articulation comprising the voice of the ethnic minorities, especially the dislocated indigenous Indian communities (as they are termed by these scholars). The contention of the paper is that Great Indian Traditions accorded a dignified societal status to the tribal peoples and the relationship between the mainstream Hindu society and the tribal was never that of dominance and subservience; the existent relationship of suppressed and dominant is comparatively of recent origin and therefore may be considered the fall out of the forces of modernization and globalization.

An exploration of Indian cultural traditions and the ethos enshrined in the great mega narratives make it evident that many elements in tribal and non-tribal cultures are common, partly by distant roots, partly by the integration of tribal elements in the expanding literate Sanskritic civilization, and partly by the adoption of elements from the Vedic-Puranic Great Traditions in the tribal Little Traditions (as they are termed now). The paper argues that tribal always formed part of mainstream culture (Sanskritic- Hindu or in some places Buddhist, equally Aryan, except perhaps in Nagaland) and influence of tribal culture is evident throughout India, though in varying degree. The tribal and non-tribal peoples co-existed and enjoyed equal dominance. The process/ politics of development, however, has given rise to aggression among the tribal as they feel that this so called process of development has divided the tribal society and has given rise to a feudal section amongst themselves who maintains distance from them and considers other fellow-beings as under-developed and uncivilized.
The historiography of India has been a narrative of rural-urban continuum, tribal-non-tribal continuum, marginal-central continuum as opposed to the narrative of binaries such as dominance and subservience, tribal and non-tribal, rural and urban, privileged and under-privileged. Hinting at it M.S. Thirumalai in his article ‘Sociolinguistic Perspectives of Cultures in Transitional Indian Tribal Situation’ says that “ In India tribal and non-tribal are not in opposition to one-another but are a cultural continuum, i.e. either a pure tribal or a pure Jati in absolute terms is not possible…. a tribe under pressure from sanskritic tradition takes on Jati characteristics and vice-versa.”  Based on areal factors, he argues, “for example, tribes living in hilly isolated areas are non-jatis. The Badagas, however, who were a Jati people when they came to the Nilgiris in the 15th century and then adopted tribal characteristics are non-jatis or tribes.” The typological similarity of tribal and mainstream socio-cultural traditions verifies the fact.
The point, therefore, is that the mainstream Hindu society continues several beliefs and practices from hoary tribal antiquity. Despite different names and mythical personae of the Hindu and the tribal gods, both religions are equally pagan. The underlying principle of the cosmic spirituality of Paganism can be located in the Gita. In the Bhagvad Gita, Lord Krishna, while denoting the forms in which the spirit is more manifest than in others closes the series of manifestations with the declaration  “Every such element is endowed with glory, brilliance and power, know that to be a manifestation of a Spark of My Divine Effulgence.” (Golwalker 10.41) This text unites polytheism and monotheism, and instructs the neophyte how to select objects of worship for a polytheistic pantheon under the aegis of the One All- Pervader.1 For the distinctive trait of Paganism as opposed to prophetic monotheism is not that Pagans fail to acknowledge a unique and unifying principle, but that they fail to see a conflict between this principle of unity and a principle of multiplicity. In this respect, mainstream Hinduism and tribal animism are one.
Apart from recent influences and formal similarity, there exists an ancient kinship, which would make tribal and Hindu traditions branches of a single tree in a historical sense. Pre- Harappan cave-dwellings contain cultic elements, which still form part of mainstream Hindu society today. For example, in a Paleolithic site in the Siddhi district of Madhya Pradesh (10000 to 8000BC), a mother goddess shrine was found which contains the same symbols which Shaktic Cults use till today—squares, circles, swastikas and especially triangles which are the part of the iconography of Durga even in urban Hinduism. (Jayaker 20-21) A Flemish expert on tribal culture told me of a similar finding in the Bastar area; when the painted triangular stone was dug up, the tribal guide at once started to do Puja before it.2 But the point is that the very same cultic object would fit in a Hindu temple in Varanasi as well.
Even scholars assuming the tribal-separatist viewpoint admit to the peaceful interaction and intrinsic closeness of mainstream Hindu society and the tribal society. The Hindus never made any effort to convert the tribal peoples into Hindus. Rather the tribal peoples always stood by Hindu Royalty to safeguard the interest of the composite society against foreign invasion, one such glaring example is Bhilu Rana. This may be accounted for the proximal similarity between the two cultures. Nonetheless as Dick Kooiman says, common belief is that the culture of the Adivasi differs strongly from that of most Indians: they are neither Hindus nor Muslims. Their gods and ancestral spirits live in the mountains, the rivers and the trees. Sacrificial places lie hidden in the forest, not in a stone temple built for the purpose.”(23) If the tribes - men and women worship in the open air, this constitutes a practical though not a fundamental difference with modern mainstream Hinduism, which is largely based in temples, but ancient Hindus also worshipped in the open air. Today also certain Pujas are performed in the open by the followers of the mainstream Hindu society. Guru Golwalkar rightly says, “Now this is something which only an ignoramus who does not know the ABC of Hinduism will say. He asks, “Do not the Hindus all over the country worship the tree? Tulsi, Bilva, ashwatta are all-sacred to the Hindu. The worship of Nag, the cobra is prevalent throughout our country. Then should we term all these devotees and worshippers as animists and declare them as non-Hindus?” (471-472) Snake worship is also a major common denominator of Hindu and tribal culture. Animal deities have been closely associated with major Hindu gods. The Naga or serpent is an important powerful symbol in the iconography of both Shiva and Vishnu. On the other hand, the ancient use of the term ‘Naga’ (snake, but also for naked one) for tribal (as in the names of the forest area of Chhotanagpur and the tribal state Nagaland) indicates that Hindus since times immemorial did see the tribes as a distinctive cultural entity. As a matter of fact, almost all the Hindus worship or circumambulate trees, rivers, mountains, etc. In the Vedas are also mentioned the Dawn-goddess, storm-god, sky-god, wind-god, and such deities which are equally a part of tribal religious belief. It seems that Vedic and Puranic Hinduism started as a form of tribal animism, and have never repudiated these roots altogether.
To traditional Hinduism, tribes are simply forest-based castes or communities (with both caste and tribe rendering the same Sanskrit term ‘Jati’) in closer or more tenuous contact with the Great Tradition. There never was a clear cleavage between Hindu castes and animist tribes; these only were communities geographically and culturally closer or less close to the Vedic backbone of Hindu civilization. Not one of the Indian tribes was entirely untouched by the influence of the Vedic-Puranic great tradition. This is one of the reasons why the relationship between Hinduism and any Indian tribe is different from the relationship between Hinduism  and tribal cultures in other continents.
Tribes from the Kafirs of Afghanistan to the Gonds of South-Central India have taken starring roles in the resistance of the native society against the Muslim onslaught. If the Bhil boy Eklavya of Mahabharata (1.31-54) fame could seek out the princely marital arts trainer Drona as his archery teacher, even the terrible treatment he received from Drona (for reasons unrelated to Eklavya’s social origins but because that was considered essential in the interest of the state for security reasons) cannot nullify the implication that the Bhil tribe habitually interacted with the Vedic Bharata clan. Those who use the Eklavya story against mainstream Hinduism do not know or ignore the fact that Eklavya is mentioned twice (11.37.47; 11.44.21) as one of the great kings who was invited and given great hospitality in Yudhisthara’s Rajsuya Yajna at Indraprastha. Kautilya mentions tribal (atvi) battalions in Hindu royal armies. Even Maharana Pratap of Mewar depended on Bhilu Rana, a great tribal general. The tribals, thus, were within the horizon of Hindu society. Prof. Andre Beteille says, “In fact, most such tribal groups show in varying degree elements of continuity with the larger society of India. …ethnically speaking most of the tribes in present day India share their origins with the neighboring non-tribal population”3
To maximize the difference between the mainstream Hindu society and tribal, it is routinely argued that the tribal societies have equality and no caste system. The facts, however, show, as says Dick Kooiman, that most tribes are endogamous. Manoj Prasad (Indian Express) writes that the notion that the tribal people have no caste distinction is mistaken. The Hindu society is antagonistic to tribal society, on the contrary, it is nothing but tribal society at a more advanced and integrated stage, where tribes are no longer self-contained societies but building blocks of a much larger and more complex society.
There exists a profound continuity between tribal and non-tribal mainstream Hindu culture. The editorial of Indian Express (‘Killing with Kindness’ in Indian Express, 29th June, 1998) asserts about the Hindu festivals of Holi and Diwali. These festivals, in fact, are not really defined as Hindu. They are ancient events of the solar calendar that predate Hinduism. The practice of cremation, too, has come down from times immemorial and includes both tribal and pre-Vedic strands.
A careful reading of Hindu Mega narratives also show the co-existence of the mainstream Hindu and marginal tribal cultures. Therefore, the question of dominance or subservience never came up. In Rigveda is mentioned the origin of the tribes from the eighty disciples of Vishwamitra who were banished for defying his order. These eighty tribes included Bhil, Pulindhar, Nishad, Shabar, Kewat, etc. When Lord Rama was banished for 14 years and was compelled to live in Chitrakoot and Panchwati to fulfill the vachnas of his father Lord Dasrath, it was Nishadraj, the King of Nishads who warmly welcomed him at the bank of the river Ganges and offered him to stay with him which was very politely denied by Lord Rama.
In the Valmiki Ramayana, Sita strongly advocates peaceful co-existence with tribal populations and ancient cultures while entering the dense Dandaka forest. Sita’s importance is generally understated. However, the Ramayana in the Bala kanda describes itself as a biography of Sita. Valmiki preserves her original connection with nature all through the Ramayana. Violence as such was not part of her nature; at least, not till she was provoked. In her infuriate form she turns into Shakti but still it is not her function as goddess of fertility.
In the ninth Sarga of Aranya Kanda, disturbed by Rama’s killing spree, Sita coolly but bluntly tells him that he was committing adharma or adhering to immoral behaviour in troubling the vanachars, who were the forest dwellers. Rama had entered the forest armed with weapons. Weapon in the hand might instigate the kshatriya to use it for the heck of it, without any valid reason. Maybe he would use weapons even on spotting the innocent vanacharas and hurt them without any valid reason. Sita told him that he must not think of killing the tribal people or vanacharas without any provocation or enmity, just because he had promised the rishis of Dandaka forest to eliminate them. People would not approve of such killings committed without reason nor appreciate such acts of violence. Rama, in the forest, respects the culture of the locals and adheres to tapa form of living. Sita advised Rama that he could revert to his kshatriya nature and way of life once he returned to Ayodhya. Relinquishing the kingdom,    Rama had sought refuge in the vana or forest where he ought to live like a muni or sage, interrelating peacefully with nature. The fact is that Lord Rama equally blessed the vanachars and the urban dwellers; Shabari episode is enough to prove that both were considered equal on the social matrix.
The Hindu Mega narratives present a continuum of Hindu mainstream and minor tribal cultures. The Mahabharata speaks very high of the sacrifice made by Barbarik, the son of Hidamma and Ghatotkachha (and the grand son of Bhima); for this he is duly canonized by Lord Krishna as an eternal deity endowed with such a miraculous power so as to fulfil the desires of his devotees. A tribesman with a bow and arrow is indeed reminiscent of Rama, Drona and other heroes of the Vedic age. The prominent character Lord Shiva is also a good example of Hindu-tribal continuum. The mainstream Hindus well understood the expertise of tribals in martial art and established marital relationship with them. In Kalhan’s Rajtarangini is mentioned Rinchan, the last Hindu King who belonged to the Bhont Tribe. To enable him fight against foreign Muslim invaders, Rani Quota (the wife of a kshatriya, i.e. Udai Singh) married him and rendered all military assistance.
Thus, it is evident that tribal peoples formed a part of Indian cultural nation comprising a sense of caste, endogamy, doctrines of reincarnation, forms of polytheistic worships, etc. It, however, does not nullify the practical distance between mainstream Hindu society and tribal culture. The fact is that natural socioeconomic evolution is bringing the historically isolated tribes closer to the mainstream, losing what distinctively tribal characteristics the British census officers had ascribed to them. To the extent that there exists a tribal identity, new social realities militate against its preservation and cause its irrevocable dissolution into the mainstream society. With this is becoming distinct the languages, the vast tracts of forests, innumerable forms of arts and handicrafts, architectural styles, plant and animal species, musical forms and musical instruments. More than four decades ago Nirad C. Chaudhary, the provocative analyst of the Indian social scene had published the gloomy forecast “In an industrialized India the destruction of the aboriginal’s life is as inevitable as the submergence of the Egyptian temples caused by the dames of the Nile…As things are going, there can be no grandeur in the primitive’s end. It will not be even simple extinction, which is not the worst of human destinies. It is to be feared that the aboriginal’s last act will be squalid, instead of being tragic. What will be seen with most regret will be, not his disappearance, but his enslavement and degradation.”
During the British rule in India, there raged a passionate controversy about the policy to be adopted vis-à-vis the aboriginal tribes. While anthropologically minded administrators advocated a policy of protection, which in specific cases involved even a measure of seclusion, Indian politicians attacked the idea of segregation and seclusion on the grounds that it threatened to deepen and perpetuate divisions within the Indian nation, and delayed the aboriginals’ integration into the rest of the population. As a result no suitable policy could be implemented to ensure the degradation of the tribal peoples. After independence, the missionary influence has eroded much of the tribal’s cultural heritage, which was inseparably linked with the traditional mythology, beliefs and rituals.
Destruction or alienation of tribal land as a result of industrialization has led to a large-scale displacement of tribal population. There can be no doubt that the establishment of vast industrial enterprises in tribal zones lend urgency to the extension of protective measures to all tribal peoples whose rights and way of life have been placed in jeopardy. While many may concede that there is a need for some special protection, there is also a widespread feeling that any privileges enjoyed by tribes were required for a period of transition, and that within a span of perhaps ten or twenty years the integration of the tribes within the mainstream of the population is completed, where upon there would be no more justification for the continuation of scheduled areas and privileges for scheduled tribes.
This new trend in public opinion represents as great a threat to the future prospects of tribal men as the greed of land-grabbers does to their present well being. The manner of the integration of the tribes into the wider Indian society will ultimately be determined by political decisions, and these will be made on the basis of moral evaluations. It, thus, seems that unless the intellectually leading sections of the Indian population develop a spirit of cultural tolerance and an appreciation for tribal values, even the most elaborate schemes for the economic improvement of tribal populations are likely to prove abortive. The “unevenly distributed development” has created a rift amongst the tribals themselves and has given rise to aggression among certain tribes. This has found expression in tribal poetics, although not so vocal but an impassioned one. Besides personal interactions with the tribal population of Mewar and Vagad region, the researcher could diagnose this from the emerging new tribal poetics. One such poem is given below:

We were one
Patronisers of the same
Civilization and culture
Domination
Subordination
Never haunted us
We and Hindus
Stood together
And drove
The Bhuriya   
But all is changed,
Today some from us
Claim to be greater
And hence maintain distance
This new feudal class has
Emerged from us.
They will have to understand
If they do not
It may lead to
Situation unwanted….

Thus, it can be safely argued that Indian mega narratives and great Indian Traditions have always perceived tribal and non-tribal culture as a part of its wide spectrum. The Developmental forces in the form of industrialization and globalization, however, have eroded the tribal culture. In conclusion I can do no better than to suggest that the academia should pay due cognizance to the cultural past and the emerging scenario in formulating our educational and cultural guidelines.         

 

 

Notes

1. Aa-pervader?, i.e. Vishnu, of whom Krishna is considered an incarnation.

2. Jan Van Alphen: Personal Communication, May1992. He related that the report could not be published in India because the establishment refused to acknowledge the continuity of their own religion with the despised tribal culture.

3. Dalit Voice, 16th April 1992. Dalit Voice claims that Prof. Beteille had herewith taken the ruling class line of argument.

 

Works Cited

Golwalkar, M.S. Bunch of Thoughts.

Jayakar Pupul. The Earth Mother, Dharma, January, 1993.

Kooiman Dick. India.

Prasad Manoj. Indian Express, 23 January, 1994.