Ricerc@Sapienza

Taking a long-term view spanning the early 19th century and the 1950s, the paper explores some of the changes affecting the landscape of the plateau zone between the plains of North India and deltaic Bengal since the 19th century. In particular, it analyses the manner in which the spread of rice cultivation and the reduced forest cover, the construction of railways and multi-purpose river valley projects refashioned the natural landscape and brought about changes in the means of livelihood among the people of the region, and eventually led to the phenomenon of widespread hunger.

A study of the impact of colonial law on Adivasi communities of Chotanagpur (India).

A collection of essays related to alternative narratives of history and socio-economic development among different social categories in colonial and contemporary India.

In this essay I analyse the transitions experienced by the Hos of Kolhan (in Singhbhum district of Chotanagpur) under colonial rule. Despite similarities, Ho village organization was distinct in many ways from that of the other adivasi groups, including the Mundas whom they resembled most closely.

In the context of the changing nature of India’s relationship with her tribal or Adivasi population, this paper seeks to analyse the construction ‘tribes’ in colonial India and how these came to influence contemporary India’s understandings of the category. Arguing that state policies are actuated by myriad ways in which target populations are defined, conceptualized and represented, this paper seeks to trace the contentious categorizations and multiple identities that have been imagined for, thrust upon and assumed by such communities since colonial times.

The adivasi world figured in official perceptions as the backdrop of the counter-insurgency measures of the colonial state and the adivasi was portrayed as a savage, whether ‘criminal’ and wreaking terror in the countryside, or ‘noble’ and living a life of Arcadian simplicity in an egalitarian society. Through such models, British administrators sought to justify their presence and portray themselves as the protectors of life and security in the region.

The essays in this book discuss a range of issues affecting the socio-economic and cultural life of adivasis and explore the long-term continuities and discontinuities between different political regimes.

In the course of colonial rule, the Ho encountered crucial changes in various aspects of their lives: their former role in the power system, communal solidarity, control over territory and resources, and even, in some cases, their belief system. External influences thus naturally impacted Ho society and economy as well as their culture and religion.

This paper aims to unravel the changing forms of violence encountered by the ‘tribal’ or Adivasi communities of eastern India from the nineteenth century till the present times. The very identification of particular communities as ‘tribes’ and the imposition of attributes of tribalism, such as primitivity, and childlike innocence, by British colonial writers constituted an epistemic violence, the psychological impact of which persists to this day.

Adivasis are the indigenous people of eastern and central India who were identified as “tribes” under British colonial rule and who today have a constitutional status as “Scheduled Tribese. The notion of tribe, despite its evolutionist character, has been internalized to a large extent by the indigenous people themselves and has had a considerable role in shaping community identities. Colonial studies, moreover, were the first systematic investigations into these marginalized and subordinated communities and form an important primary source in historical research on Adivasis.