32 Caste-Tribe Interaction

Ms. Madhusmita Mohanty

Contents:

1. Introduction
2. Definition of Tribe & Tribal Society
3. Caste Society and its Characteristics
4. Difference between Caste and Tribe
5. Empirical evidences of Interaction between Caste and Tribe
6. Caste-Tribes Continuum; An Anthropological Perspective Summary

Learning Outcomes:

After reading this module you will be able to understand:

•  meaning and concept of caste and tribe;
•  characteristics and functions of caste system and tribal society;
•  difference between tribe and caste;
•  empirical evidences of caste system and tribal society as viewed by contemporary social anthropologists;
•  tribe-caste continuum; and
•  anthropological perspective of caste-tribe interaction.

1. Introduction

Indian society is said to have three types of communities – tribals, caste and peasant. Tribal communities are those who constitute a distinct society and distinctive way of life, an individual dialect and a socio-religious system peculiarly their own. Castes communities are knit into a wider social organization of the Hindu society based upon a well-defined and understood system of stratification and status differentiation. Peasantry refers to village communities consisting of Hindu castes and other religious groups whose principal character are that they live in a common village and have developed over the ages a socio-economic solidarity i.e cultivator of land.

The British colonial administrators also viewed the Indian population in terms of two broad categories caste and tribes. That is why a number of British administrators – scholars compiled and published ‘Handbooks of Castes and Tribals’ pertaining to different regions of colonial India.

2. Definition of ‘Tribe’ and ‘Tribal Society’

Before embarking upon the interaction between caste and tribe, it would be relevant to have a precise perceptive of the meaning, concept, characteristics and functions of caste system and tribal society. According to Oxford Dictionary “A tribe is a group of people in a primitive or barbarous stage of development acknowledging the authority of a chief and usually regarding themselves as having a common ancestor”. Different social scientists have given different definitions to the concept of “tribe” and “tribal society”. In anthropological perspective, a ‘tribe’ is an endogamous and isolated social group having its own language, dialect, tradition, beliefs and customs. Ralph Linton defines ‘tribe’ “as a group of bands occupying a contagious territory or territories and having a feeling of unity deriving from numerous similarities in culture, frequent contacts, and a certain community of interest”. L.M Lewis believes that “tribal societies are small in scale are restricted in the spatial and temporal range of their social, legal and political relations and possess a morality, a religion and world view of corresponding dimensions. Characteristically too tribal languages are unwritten and hence the extent of communication both in time and space is inevitably narrow. At the same time tribal societies exhibit a remarkable economy of design and have a compactness and self-sufficiency lacking in modern society”. D.N. Majumdar rightly said that “a tribe is a social group with territorial affiliation, endogamous, with no specialization of functions, ruled by tribal officers, hereditary or otherwise, united in language or dialect, recognizing social distance with other tribes or castes, without any social obloquy attaching to them, as it does in the caste structure, followed tribal traditions, beliefs and customs, illiberal of naturalization of ideas from alien sources, above all conscious of homogeneity of ethnic and territorial integration”. The main characteristics of a tribal society are:

common territory & language, sense of unity,

endogamous,

blood relationship,

distinct political organization, common culture,

importance of kinship & religion, egalitarian values, and

common name.

A tribal society is a primitive society which lived in early period of human history but can be found in large number of groups in all countries including India. There has not been any change of tribes in their belief, life style and religion which prevent them from mixing with any outsider or educated community whom they greatly dislike. Their main economic activity is hunting and food gathering. Their chief technology, therefore, consists of hunting skills and the techniques for processing the animals into edible food, shelter, clothing and basic tools. Life in a tribal society is simple, homogeneous and integrated.

3. Caste Society and its Characteristics

“Caste” is defined as one of the classes into which the Hindu people of India were traditionally divided. It is a division of society based upon differences of wealth, rank, or occupation. The term caste is not an Indian word. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, it is derived from the Portuguese word ‘Casta’, meaning “race, lineage, breed”. The Sanskrit word for caste is ‘Varna’ which means colour. Caste is closely connected with the Hindu philosophy and religion, custom and tradition.

It is deeply rooted social institution in India. The caste system owns its origin to the Varna system. According to this doctrine the Hindu society was divided into four main varnas – Brahmins, Kashtriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras, mainly based on division of labour and occupation. Caste is difficult to define due to the complexity of the phenomenon. Yet, in order to use it for practical purposes, some of the sociologists and anthropologists have defined caste as below. According to Risley, “caste is a collection of families bearing a common name claiming a common descent from a mythical ancestor professing to follow the same hereditary calling and regarded by those who are competent to give an opinion as forming a single homogeneous community”. According to Maclver and Page “when status is wholly predetermined so that men are born to their lot without any hope of changing it, then the class takes the extreme form of caste”. D.N.Majumdar defined caste as “Caste is a closed class”. M.N Srinivas sees caste as a segmentary system. He further stressed that every caste is divided into sub castes which are the units of endogamy whose members follow a common occupation, social and ritual life and common culture and whose members are governed by the same authoritative body i.e the panchayat. Based on these definitions ‘caste’ may be understood as a form of social stratification which involves a system of hierarchically ranked in accordance with the degree of ‘ritual purity’, closed, endogamous strata, ascribed membership, restriction of contact between castes and no mobility. The important characteristics of caste system are:

it is based on birth i.e ascribed status,

restricted on marriage Endogamy & Exogamy, social hierarchy,

occupational restriction & hereditary occupation, religious disability, and

economic disparity

Ensures continuity of the traditional social organization of India.

No economic competition. The knowledge and skills of the occupations are passed down from one generation to the next.

Through subsystems like Jajmani system the caste system promoted interdependent interaction between various castes and communities within a village.

Caste is a social and psychological resource for its members. Because of a sense of solidarity and common consciousness the members of a caste are socially attached.

The rituals and traditions promoted cooperation and unity between members of the different castes.

4. Difference between Caste and Tribe

Various anthropologists and sociologists have used different criteria for differentiating caste and tribe, but in vain. Not a single criterion is an acceptable factor for differentiating between the two societies. In simple words, caste is a social group, while the tribe is a territorial group. Max Weber writes in social structures, that when Indian tribe loses its territorial significance it assumes the form of an Indian caste. The tribe occupies a well defined area, while the members of a caste may be scattered all over the country. It is also believed that tribals live in geographically isolated regions like hills, mountains and jungles but caste communities live in the plains. But, this is not acceptable as there are also many caste communities who live in isolation and vice verse. Moreover, the caste claims a common descent from a mythical ancestor, while the tribe sometimes traces its origin from some animals which may be treated as its totem. Hutton (1961) and Bailey (1960) believe that tribals are not Hindus but are animists. But, there are many tribals who worship Hindu Gods and Goddesses, celebrate Hindu festivals and observe Hindu customs and traditions. The tribes of Madhya Pradesh which are called Hindu and Kshastriya tribes are better acquainted with their own ‘Bonga’ than with the Hindu gods. Therefore, scholars like Elwin, Risley, Ahuja, Ghurey, Bailey, etc. have contradicted and rejected this criterion.

The members of a caste society follow the definite occupation because functions are divided under the caste system. But, a tribe does not pursue a definite occupation because there is no fixed relation between them and the occupations and they can indulge in whatever profession they like. It was also believed that the caste was originated in ancient Hindu society, with a view to division of labor on the basis of profession and occupation. The tribe came about because of the evolution of community  feeling in a group inhabiting a definite geographical area. There is greater consciousness of differences in status and rank in the caste than in the tribe. The caste is never a political association whereas the tribe is a political association. Furthermore, according to Risley, endogamy is strictly followed by the caste, but it is not enforced in tribal society. Sometimes the members of a tribe may find wives from the members of another tribe. But this view of Risley does not appear to be universally true since the law of endogamy is enforced with extreme rigidity in some tribes. Many social scientists have also differentiated caste and tribe on the basis of economic backwardness saying that tribals are more backward and primitive than castes. But, some others have contradicted in the sense that many castes Hindus are also backward and poor. Hence, it is not possible to literally differentiate between caste and tribes since the criterion or point at which it can be differentiated is difficult to say. There has been a continuum of change in which now the tribes are gradually being transformed into caste. Risley stated that the tribes are transformed by changing one’s lineage, accepting the principles of any school of Hindu religion, joining Hindu religion and by entering into relations with Hindu without changing name. D.N. Majumdar is also of the same opinion that a tribe can enter Hindu society by adopting the clan and name of a caste. As a result of these changes the difference between tribe and caste is being continually reduced.

5. Empirical Evidences of Interaction between Caste and Tribe

On one hand, social anthropologists and ethnographers such as Hutton, 1955; Ghurye, 1963; Bose, 1971; Vidyarthi and Rai, 1985; Bailey, 1961 and Kosambi, 1970 believe that many cultural traditions of Hinduism have links with the tribal cultures and vice verse. According to them, the tribals have had continuous contact with their neighbouring castes which in turn has helped them to practise settled agriculture and to live by a number of specialized manual industries. This contact goes back, at least to the days of the epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata when the tribal communities were referred to as Jana. Ghurye (1963) stressed that tribals are nothing but backward caste Hindus. On the other hand, the colonial administrators, census commissioners and anthropologists such as Risley (1915), O’Malley, (1909, 1910), Elwin (1943) and Haimendorf (1977) hold the tribal and Hindu traditions to be separate. In their view, the tribals do not have more than casual contacts with the caste Hindus.

Extensive studies by scholars present varied nature of the social realities in India between tribes and castes. Though one cannot rule out the existence of isolated tribes in India and also of those tribals and caste-Hindus who have been living side by side for centuries, hence, it would be unwise to think that there has been no acculturation process between them. In a given empirical situation, there is every possibility of co-existence of the tribal as well as the caste characteristics. There have been instances of individuals and small tribal groups being absorbed within the Hindu caste system in India. From 1872 onwards, the successive British census Commissioners in India noted that throughout the country tribal people were being transformed into castes (Risley, 1915:72; Sinha, 1980:6).

Although Indian tribes have resided in their own physically-demarcated locations, they have never been in isolation. There has been a constant interdependence between them and have had long term contacts for exchange, as a result of which their social and cultural features have often been subject to external influences. Mukhopadhyay (2002) from his work among the tribes of Andaman and Nicobar Islands found that even those communities that are now isolated, were not so in the past. He was of the opinion that the isolation of tribes increased when outsiders (especially the colonial rulers) started entering into their territories in search of precious and non-renewable resources. As surveys of forest and hill territories began, tribal people moved to non-surveyed areas to escape the tyranny of exploitation and suppression. The neighbours of tribes belonged to different cultural and religious categories, varying from one location to another: they were Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim and in some pockets of Rajasthan and Gujarat.

Srivastava (2010) was of the opinion that though tribes had a degree of economic self-sufficiency, there were certain things for which they had to depend upon their neighbouring caste communities and interact with them. They even travel to multi-caste villages to seek jobs as agricultural labourers. Tribal men and women also often go to caste villages of Rajasthan selling toys, medicines, honey and charms. Hence, from time immemorial, the tribes and castes have been in constant interaction with each other in some way or the other. He stressed that the tribal people have always had relationships with other religious streams, as well as with local cults and sects, especially caste society. The first mode of interaction between tribes people and caste Hindus is a process of religious ‘borrowing’ or syncretism. Srinivas (1952) stated that most of the interactions of the tribals have been with the majority Hindu community, the structural principle of which is the caste system. It is also a matter of fact that Hinduism has, in some cases, been influenced by tribal religion and vice verse. For example, some prominent Hindu deities had their genesis in tribal gods and goddesses. One of the well-known examples is the Jagannath deity of Odisha, in Puri, have their origin in the Saora pantheon (Eschmann et al., 1978). The productive system of caste society was another factor to influence the tribes to interplay. N.K.Bose’s important analysis of productive technology to the spread of Hindu values and the caste system had attracted attention of many scholars. His perspective on tribal communities is usually called the ‘civilizational approach’ (Chaudhury, 2007). Bose thought that tribes in India had always been part of the larger civilization and whenever the tribes had difficult economic periods, they entered the gateway of caste society taking up an occupation for sustaining themselves. For example the Juangs of Odisha were a community of shifting cultivators. One of their groups in Dhenkanel district of Odisha entered a caste village as basketmakers and acquired a lower status; another group took up occupations as agriculturalists in Pal Lahara, a small town in Angul district of Odisha and acquired a higher status in the caste hierarchy. This show how separate groups from the same tribe, equally placed before they entered the caste system, became part of two differently ranked castes. Also, Chitrasen (1997) studied the interaction between tribal and caste communities in the sense of transformation of a tribal diety into a Hindu one in Sambalpur district, Odisha. Arima Mishra (2005) in her work on Kandha tribe of Kalahandi district, Odisha discussed how at one level the Kutia Kondh identity traced through their association with Mother Earth, moves beyond village boundaries and excludes the caste groups of Dhamba and Sundhi. At another level, the tribe entering into a series of religious and socio-economic transactions with the caste group was also evidenced from the study.

Thus, the tribes live in contiguity with caste Hindu communities, and have viable social and economic exchanges with them. Many tribal groups have gradually absorbed Hindu traits and ways of living, due to economic, social and cultural motives. Tribal communities have been Hinduised from time immemorial; some of them, or their sections, have also tried to move up in the Hindu caste hierarchy, claiming the status of the warrior or merchant caste. The process of upward mobility in the caste hierarchy – or what is called Sanskritisation – closely followed the process of Hinduisation of tribes people.

6. Caste-Tribe Continuum; an Anthropological Perspective

‘Tribe-caste continuum’ means “transformation of a tribal group into a caste group”. The term ‘continuum’ was used for the first time by Robert Redfield, to understand the interaction between tribal, folk, semi-urban and urban communities. Though, there is presence of several differences between tribe and caste as discussed but the dichotomy has been proved. There is trend in a gradual assimilation of the both the societies. Anthropological studies have shown that tribes enter the Hindu society by adopting the clan and name of a caste. For example, in the Toda’ tribe in Nilgiri hills, there is a certain amount of specialization of functions as in the caste system. Some tribes manage to settle down at the peripheries of villages, accept menial jobs from caste Hindus and eventually get into the Hindu fold. Members of the tribal groups may adopt the surname or gotra of a caste and also marry into the caste. Some rich tribal people manage to enroll themselves in higher caste with the help of caste priests.

Sinha (1959) examined the tribal-caste interactions and proposed several useful concepts like tribal-peasant continuum, Bhumij-Kshtriya continuum, as well as Tribal-Rajput continuum which provide the model for understanding the process of transformation in middle India. In his study, he found the processes how Bhumij tribes of West Bengal and Bihar integrated with the Hindu caste system. B.K Roy Burman has attempted a classification of Indian tribe in terms of their orientation towards Hindu social order. He stressed that some tribes like bhumji, bhil, gund, etc. have been transformed themselves into caste and can hardly be differentiated from the neighbouring Hindu peasantry. The ethnographic records ascertain that the interaction varied from semi-isolation to complete assimilation. The numerous castes among Hindus have emerged out of the tribal stratums. The recent studies of tribes of Himalayan western and middle India have left no doubt that some of the tribes are Hinduized to the extent that they have been assimilated with the different castes at different levels in the caste system.

Majumdar’s (1937) study among the ‘Khasa’ and Srivastava’s (1958) study among the ‘Tharus’, indicate that though they have a tribal matrix and continue to practise certain distinctive tribal custom but they have been accepted as Kshatriyas. With the long and continuous contacts with the regional  Hindu castes the tribals of ‘Kharwars’ has long been assimilated as Rajput castes. There are numerous other tribes which have undergone selective acculturation and have added selected traits or features of the regional Hindus to their respective traditional cultures. In this practice of acculturation most of them failed to occupy any rank in the castes hierarchy while few of them were integrated into the lower strata of the Hindu social system.

Tribe-caste interaction has also been understood on the level of great and little tradition with reference of tribes like ‘Khasa’and ‘Bhil’ in the epics and text of the great tradition such as Ramayana and Mahabharata. It should also be mentioned that the caste people had also accepted some of the beliefs, cultures and traditions of the tribals and have never been a hindrance in the path of assimilation or integration. There is considerable overlapping between the two. For instance, most of the castes and tribes are endogamous and have exogamous clans, the cross-cousin marriage is not favoured by majority of castes and tribes. Marriage ceremony and joking relationship pattern of the castes and tribes are identical. The seclusion and purificatory bath after child-birth, death, the naming of child, seclusion of the women during the menstrual cycle, etc. are common. Moreover, the disposal of the dead by cremation and burial is practised by both the tribes and the castes. This clearly shows the vast range within which the change takes place. It includes the changes in status, profession and the customs. Mandelbaum (1962)n has quoted the opinion of Hookings about the Badagas of the Nilgiri Hills that “the Badagas were a jati people and became a tribe after their migration to the present habitat some times after the twelfth century. They might have acquired some tribal characteristics during their stay in the isolated Nilgiri Hills”. Thus, it can be concluded that in recent years for various reasons, the difference between caste and tribe are getting reduced. Tribes in India are acquiring various customs, traditions and profession of the castes and appear to be gradually emerging into the caste system and vice verse. Caste and tribes can thus consider being the two ends of the same scale, the scale of continuum.

Summary

From anthropological analyses, attempts have been made to understand one of the fundamental historical transformations taken place in India and in the whole of South Asia i.e the transition from tribe to caste and vice verse. Dev Nathan (1997) rightly points out that increased cultural contact resulted in ‘Tribe-caste continuum’. Dev Nathan (ibid) laments that “in India ethnocentrism consists of all communities as being merely the striving to become Hindu, to become a caste. There is no distinction between tribe and caste. All communities are castes, only the degree of being castes is different”. Form anthropological point of view, tribes and castes are seen gradually merging with each other. During later years scholars such as Baidyanath Saraswati (1997) insists on the “cultural oneness” of tribe and caste. He asks for “tribe” to be treated as “caste” and “caste” to be understood as a cultural unit. This is simply to deny the essence of Indian civilization – ‘unity in diversity’ and ‘let the million flowers bloom’.