eJournal | The New Institutionalized Religion of the Tangsa Community – Assam & Arunachal Pradesh

Abstract In recent years, elites in many small ethnic communities in northeast India have made attempts to revive, reform and institutionalize their traditional religious practices in order to stem the tide of conversion to world religions and also to use their new religion as a marker for their ethnic identity. In this paper, I focus … Read more

Egalitarian culture leaves Adivasi youth unprepared for competition: On the challenge of balancing tradition and modernity

Santal worriesBy Boro Baski, D+C 13/05/2013, Print Edition no. 6 2013 The young generation of India’s tribal communities is struggling with different problems than the college-educated urban youth that is presented in the media. Our author is from a Santal village and knows the challenges. In recent years India has seen an enormous amount of … Read more

eBook | Online resource: “Tribes of India: The Struggle for Survival” by Christoph Fürer-Haimendorf

This book tells of observations among Indian tribal populations spanning the period from 1940 to 1980. Ever since 1936, when a study of the Konyak Nagas marked the beginning of my career as an anthropological field-worker, I have maintained contacts with Indian tribesmen. […] Any realistic and unbiased analysis of the present situation of the Indian tribes … Read more

Rock Art Studies (Asiatic Society Kolkata): Continuum of the art tradition “evident among pre-literate and indigenous ethnic entities” – Central India & Kerala

Rock art studies in India is not only restricted to the Palaeolithic period, it extends even beyond it. In the Indian subcontinent the caves and rock shelters were inhabited and used by people over many periods, throughout which the rock walls were used as a convenient canvas to visually express and transmit their idea, ethos, aspirations … Read more

Fashion – tradition and modernity

Indian tribal fashion has existed since the primordial existence of tribals who had first laid their footsteps in the subcontinent. […] Today, however tribal fashion in India has taken on a fresh meaning, looking towards the Western culture, with much broader and pan-Indian aspects to be proud about. People of the Indian metropolitans, with swanky … Read more