Literature & bibliographies
“The whole body of writings on the tribes has been marked by i) Orientalist stereotyping ii) nationalism, because of which they were largely misrepresentations.” – Joseph Bara, on the need to critique the existing narratives and knowledge systems about the tribals in India, Report on the National Conference “Tribes In Transition-II: Reaffirming Indigenous Identity Through Narrative” (2017)
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=23050
India’s tribal cultural heritage – Tamil Nadu
The tribal population in India is 84.51 million, which constitutes 8.14% of tribal population. There are about 449 tribes and sub tribes in different parts of India. Half of India’s tribal people live in the forests and forest fringes and their economy is linked with the forests. Tamil Nadu has 7.21 lakh tribal populations as … Read more
Schooling of Scheduled Tribes in India: Lessons from the indigenous people of Brazil – Odisha
Amarendra Das and I have visited a set of schools in the tribal villages of the Gajapati district of Odisha state (in India) early this year. Since these tribal communities speak a different language (namely Soura) (and they don’t speak the main language of the state – Oriya), schools here practice bilingual education in 1-4 … Read more
Bharata’s story as told in the Mahabharata – Romila Thapar
Source: Romila Thapar in “The Narrative from the Mahabharata”, Sakuntala: Texts, Readings, Histories (New Delhi 1999), pp. 41-42 “Tribal men and women mix freely, but with respect for each other [but] caste Hindu society in India is so convinced of its own superiority that it never stops to consider the nature of social organisation among tribal people. … Read more
Tip | Search articles on tribal history, politics and literature on Ramachandra Guha’s website
We met adivasis who had been persecuted by the Naxalites, and other adivasis who had been tormented by the Salwa Judum vigilantes [i.e. “a strange, not to say bizarre, example of bipartisan co-operation“]. The situation of the community was poignantly captured by one tribal, who said […] “placed between the Maoists and the vigilantes, we … Read more