Odisha State Board CHSE Odisha Class 12 Sociology Solutions Unit 1 Introducing Indian Society Long Answer Questions.
CHSE Odisha 12th Class Sociology Unit 1 Introducing Indian Society Long Answer Questions
Long Questions With Answers
Question 1.
What do you mean by Unity in diversity? Discuss the various factors promoting unity in India?
Answer:
In spite of diversity, there is unity in India. There are bonds of unity may be located in certain mechanisms of integration Herbert Rosley census commissioner in 1911, was right when he observed “Beneath the manifold diversity of physical and social type, language, custom and religion which strikes the observer and in India.
there can still be discovered a certain underlying uniformity of life from the Himalayas to cape Cambrian. The concept of one united India has always been the fascinating idea of many great thinkers of this land. Since time immemorial India has been regarded as. one district society, unity in India. In the production of certain factors. We will now describe each of them.
Geographical Unity:
From a very early time. India has been visualised as one nation covering the whole landmass from the Himalayas to the ocean on the other sides. The Aryan thinkers and other philosophers named this landmass as Bharat Varsha. The term Bharat Varsha i.e., India has always referred to thus the vast expense of the land expanding from the Himalayas in North to the cap commotion on the South and from the Brahmputra in the East to the Indus in the west. These natural boundaries give the land geographical unity.
Religious Unity:
Although India in a land of many religions, religion has been one of the bases of national unity. As Srinivas says. The concept of the unity of India is essentially a religious one Hinduism being the religion of the majority of the people of India provides a basis for unity. Religious unity of the country in expressed through the existence of pilgrimage centres of great spiritual merits in the four parts of the country. Badrinaryan in the North. Rameswaram in the South, Dwarika in the West and Puri in the East eloquently speak the religious unity in India.
Cultural Unity :
India has cultural unity. The fundamental approaches to art, philosophy and literature are typically Indian in the character. Social institutions like the caste system and the joint family are found all over India which are once again topically Indian. Caste in such a widespread social institution in India that every Indian whether a Hindu, a Muslim or a Christian finds himself a universe of caste. These common social institutions and cultural traditions faster unity among the Indians.
Political Unity :
India has also political unity in India in the product of cultural and religious unity. The idea of bringing the whole country under one central authority is not new to Indians. Unification of vast areas and populations under one rule has been the highest goal of the kings statements. The ancient Indian political concept of Chakravarti clearly refers to the idea of political unification of the whole land. Many great kings right from Dilip, Yayati, Mandhata and Yudhisthira to Chandragupta Maurya.
Ashoka and Samudra Gupta of the later period had established there in sovereignty almost all over India the country and achieved the distinction of being a Chartkravai or universal ever lord. In the past kings often waged wars on one another with another purpose than to achieve thus indicating that religious support extended to the idea of political unification of the country.
Emotional Unity:
Last but not least there is an emotional bond that binds all the inhabitants of this vast land. The very name Bharat Mata emotionally brings all Indians together. Although linguistic diversity poses a threat to emotional integration, Sanskrit being the mother of all Indian languages serves as a significant untying bond in the emotional integration of the people.
A tradition of Independence:
We have had a remarkable tradition to independence which has held us together throughout countries. One manifestation is found in the form of the jamjar system. It is a system of independence of castes. The term Jajamani refers generally to a relationship between food-producing formally and the families that supported them with goods and services. These came to be called the Jajamani relations Jajamani system as the backbone of rural economy and social order under this system each caste group within a village is expected to give certain stand and used services to the families of other castes.
The tradition of Accommodation:
We have heard of the syncretic quality of Indian culture and its remarkable quality of accommodation and tolerance. Hinduism, which is the majority religion of India has an elastic character. We know that Hinduism as not a homogeneous religion. It is not a religion having one God, one book and one temple. It is described as a federation of faiths. goes to the extent of accommodating village-level deities of the tribal faiths. Hinduism has been open religion an encompassing religion.
Question 2.
Write a brief essay on the “Unity in Diversity” in Indian society. Or, Indian Society essentially presents a “Unity in Diversity”.Discuss?
Answer:
India is not only the world’s largest but also probably the most complex federal democracy. While its democratic structure protects its political unity, its federal form guarantees the harmonious co-existence of socio-cultural diversities. That is why political unity is super imposed by the constitution and cherished by the major national parties.
The world has seldom known a country like India with an age-old socio-cultural diversity which gives a unique impression of pluralism. None of the federal politics, old or new, the bourgeoisie or socialist, Imperial Prussia, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Switzerland, United States, Canada, Nigeria, Malaysia, Yugoslavia or the Soviet Union are known to encompass such a wide range of distinct sub-national identities and that too with a long historical past as is the case with India.
Viewing the unity and its rich cultural heritage intellectuals say that India presents diversity in unity while others say that “India presents unity in diversity.” It is a fact that India is the second-largest state in the world in terms of population. It is the sixth-largest state in terms of territory. All the eight major religious communities of the world have a place in this benevolent motherland.
The problems of Indian society are very in number. Conflict takes place between states for sharing of river water. Still, there is a border dispute between different states. The terrorist and secessionist activities in different parts of India poses threat to Are very unity of India. The crossing of borders from alien countries creates very many problems in Indian society. There are several diversifying factors, among Communication, Casteism, Linguism and Regionalism are notable.
Communalism in Indian society refers to feelings of rivalry based on religious differences. We all know communalism was responsible for the division of the country into India and Pakistan in 1947. Even partition could not solve this problem in India because it still left a large Muslim minority in the country. The world’s major religious groups are found in India.
They are Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Jews. Apart from the tribes who also constitute about 7% of the total Indian population, Hindus constitute an overwhelming majority which in percentages is about four times more than the total of all the other religious communities put together. Adherence to religion and the religious system is not communalism.
The exploitation of religion is communalism. Using a religious community against other communities and against nations is communalism. So, due to religious differences, sometimes conflicts and tensions are created among people of different communities. The political parties at the centre create a vote bank in favour of them depending upon religious groups. This appeasement policy of govt creates hatred feeling among other communities.
Now, there is not uniform civil code for all the nationals of India. Though there is a provision in the constitution in favour of a common civil code. Such a critical period is dawned that the national song for every people comes into question. Some of religious groups are getting assistance from outside to disturb national development and also to disintegrate Indian society.
Casteism is another serious problem in the way of national Integration. Though democracy and caste system both oppose each other in their principle yet it is seen that casteism is gradually strengthening in modem democratic India. Casteism is a feeling that creates a favourable attitude towards one’s own caste and hatred towards other castes. Thus, casteism is blind loyalty towards one’s own caste.
In other words, when the consideration of superiority between the castes and the tendency to consider the interest of one’s own caste as opposed to other castes is called casteism. Among other causes social inequality, social distance, illiteracy conservatism, development in the means of transportation and communication etc. are responsible for casteism.
It is also seen that many political parties are formed on the basis of caste in India encouraging caste loyalties to win the elections, which creates ill- feeling among different castes and hence hampers national unity. India is not only a multi-ethnic and multi-religious but also a multi-linguistic society. India, therefore, has rightly been called a “veritable tower of babel”.
Eighteen languages are recognized as the major languages of India, linguisticians are not unanimous about the total Languages spoken in India. All the eighteen languages listed in the eighth schedule of the constitution with the exception of Sanskrit. Indian states are reorganized on the basis of language. The real problem in India is that no link language has yet evolved. Though Hindi has been constitutionally recognized as the national language to replace English, its enforcement as of India appears to be problematic.
Being motivated by a group blindly one who raises his voice against the other language is called linguism. It is an anti-linguistic attitude or feeling of people towards other languages and a positive feeling towards their own language. Regionalism is another problem which poses a problem to the federal infrastructure of Indian society. Owing to its vastness, India is divided in to a number of regions and the territory of each region is determined on the basis of language.
Regionalism as we mean is the love and loyalty towards own region. Even people of one region try to develop their own region even at the cost of other regions. At other times it is seen that this feeling does not allow people from other regions to work and settle in their region. Thus regionalism militates against nationalism and thereby impedes the process of national integration. Regionalism refers to the sub-nationalism demanding preference of the region as against the country as a whole.
In spite of these diversities, there are other diversifying factors which pose a problem for national unity. But behind all in Indian society, the idea of unity is not something new to India. The concept of one unified India has always been the fascinating idea of many great thinkers of this land.
Geographical unity:
India, though very large in size possesses geographical unity with natural boundaries. It is surrounded on one side by the great Himalayas and on the other side by the high seas. Religious thinkers political philosophers, poets, statements and kings have always conceived Bharat Varsha as expanding from the Himalayas in the north to Cape Cameron in the south and from the Brahmaputra in the east to the Indus in the west.
Religious unity:
Though India is a land of many religions, some say that the concept of the unity of India is essentially a religious one. Hinduism is the religion of the majority of people of India and provides a basis for unity. The same myths, legends and deities are shared by all the Hindus in spite of their sectarian differences. Epics like Ramayan, Mahabharat and Bhagabat Gita are read by every people.
pilgrimage centres like Badrinarayan, Rameswaram, Dwarika and Puri four comers speak the religious unity of this vast land. The rivers like Ganga, Jamuna, Godavari etc. are regarded as sacred for every Hindu. Each Indian regard each inch of this Bharat Varsha as sacred.
Cultural unity :
India possesses cultural unity which runs through every aspect of Indian social life. The art, literature, philosophy, customs, traditions etc, are typically Indian in character. Social institutions like the caste system and joint family system are found all over the country. Every Indian, whether he is a Hindu, a Muslim, a Sikh, or a Buddhist finds himself in a universe of caste. Similarly, festivals are observed all over the country with a very similar fashion.
Political unity :
Political unity is not new to India. The idea of bringing the whole country under one central authority has always been a preoccupation with great kings and statesmen in India. The concept of “Chakravarti” clearly refers to this idea of the political unification of India under one authority. The prevalence of religious practices like the Aswamedha Yajna only indicates the religious support extended to the idea of political unification of India under one central authority.
Emotional unity:
There is an emotional bond in India that binds all the inhabitants of the land. The very Name ‘Bharatmata’ brings all Indians emotionally closer to one another. From the above discussion, it is very clear that in India there is an undercurrent of unity running through the apparent diversity of race, religion, language, customs etc. India is thus a fine example of unity in diversity.
Question 3.
Discuss the Religious Composition of Indian Society?
Answer:
India is a country, where the world’s almost all major religions are found. Here are Hindus, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism and Animism. Again each of these main religions has a number of sects of its own. A real man of God i. e. a. true believer in religion is also expected to be a good human being, and indeed most of the time.
In Indian people seem to be more loyal to their respective religions than to their nation. This religious diversity has been a factor and a source of dis- unity and disharmony in the country. It is also a fact that religious difference was responsible for the development of the two-nation theory and the consequent partition of the country into India and Pakistan.
The partition of India neither solved the Muslim minority problem nor it has created a homogeneous population in India from a religious point of view. The religious differences in Indian society sometimes create communalism which results in loss of life and property and poses problems in the way of national integration. Let us look at the composition of Indian society from a religious point of view.
Hinduism:
Hinduism is the religion of the majority of the people of India. Some also say that Hinduism is not a religion but a way of life. Anyone can adopt the way of life provided by Hinduism, for a better life. Hinduism is the amalgamation of Indo- Aryan, Dravidian and Pre- Dravidian religious, elements. Nearly about 83% of the Indian population are Hindus.
Hindus (the Caste Hindus and scheduled caste) constitute an overwhelming majority which in percentages is about four times more than the total of all the other religious communities put together. In fact, even the aggregate and the percentage of the caste Hindus alone is singly bigger than that of all the rest. Hinduism is not a monolithic religion, it allows a number of possible conceptions of God and also a variety of alternative ways of attaining union with God.
This does not mean that there is nothing common among the Hindus. There are certain beliefs which are shared by all Hindus irrespective of the sects they belong to. For example, every Hindu believes in the immortality of the soul, transmigration of the soul, law of Karma, Dharma, Moksha, Maya etc. Hinduism as a religion of the majority of people provides a basis for national unity.
Hinduism unites more than two-thirds of the Indian population by means of common Gods, common beliefs, common festivals etc. Lingayat, Kabirpanthi, Sakta, Radhaswamy, Satnami, Brahmasamaj and a host of other sects are a number of sects of Hinduism.
Islam:
Islam is the religion of Muslims. Muslims constitute about 13% of India’s total population. In undivided, India Muslims constituted nearly 24% of the total population. Muslims living in India are more in number than in Pakistan. Today, India has the second-largest Muslim population in the world. Muslims entered India towards the end of the twelfth century A.D.
They spread and settled in India under the political patronage of Muslim rulers. The number of Muslims gradually swelled mainly due to conversions from Buddhism and Hinduism, Majority of the Indian Muslims are the descendants of converts. Therefore, they are not very different from their Hindu neighbours Muslims are mainly of two sects. They are the Sunni and the Shia.
Christianity:
Christians constitute more than 2% of the population in India. In Kerala, their population is about 25% of the state’s population. Christians are widely scattered all over the country. In northern India, Christianity is mainly confined to certain sections of the tribal population and depressed castes. There are mainly three sects in Christianity. They are
- Romo- Syrians,
- Roman Catholics,
- Protestants.
Sikhism:
The Sikh population in India is around 2% which is mainly concentrated in Punjab. Sikhism was founded by Guru Nanak in the 16th century A.D. The Sikhs are ideologically nearer to the Hindus than to Muslims. The Sikhs can easily be identified by anyone, because of the five ‘K’s they always wear. The five ‘K’s are – Kesh, Kanga, Kaccha, Kera and Kripan.
Buddhism:
The founder of Buddhism is Gautam. Buddhism originated in India during the 6th century B.C. Buddhism enjoyed royal patronage for a long period beginning from the great emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century B.C. As a result, Buddhism spread not only in India but also in countries outside India. Practically Buddhism lost its influence, by the 1 Oth century A.D.
The Buddhists represent only less than 1 % of the total population. Its main creed is Ahimsa. The Buddhists are found in Maharashtra as a result of the recent conversions under the leadership of Dr Ambedkar. Buddhism has two sects, namely- Hinayana and the Mahayana.
Jainism:
Jainism was established by Lord Mahavir, in India during 6th century B.C. It represents only a small portion of the Indian population i.e. 0.45% of our population. Jainism is very close to Hinduism. Many of the Hindu doctrines are retained in it. They worship cows and enter into Hindu temples. Jains are mainly urban people and are found in the towns and cities of Punjab, U.P., Rajasthan, Gujarat and Maharashtra. Jains are divided in to three sects namely.
- Digambaras,
- Svetambaras,
- Dhundias.
Zoroastrianism or Parsi:
The Parsis or the followers of Zoroaster of Zarathushtra came to India in the 7th century A.D. from Persia in order to escape the forcible conversions to Islam. They worship fire. They expose their dead on the so-called ‘towers of silence to be eaten up by vultures so that the elements- earth, fire and water are not defiled by the contact of the dead matter. They are about 0.3% in number and half of which live in the city of Bombay alone. They are mainly urban and are on the top of the economic ladder of India.
Animism :
Animism is a tribal faith. It is a very primitive religion, according to which man is believed to be surrounded by a number of impersonal ghostly powers. These powers are said to reside in rocks, rivers, trees stones etc. In India, there are about 2 5 million people who believe in Animism.
Question 4.
Discuss the Racial composition of Indian Society?
Answer:
Indian society is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, multi-linguistic and multi-racial society. Its people worship differently. Its people have different faiths and different ideologies. The Indian society, the vast population is composed of people having diverse creeds, customs and colours. Let us see the racial composition of Indian society. A.W. Green says that “A race is a large biological human grouping with a number of distinctive inherited characteristics which vary within a certain range.
Similarly, A.L. Krober says that “A race is a valid biological concept. It is a group united by heredity, a breed or genetic strain or a sub-species. The Indian sub-continent received a large number of migratory races mostly from the western and eastern directions. Observing C.B. Memoria remarks that the “Indian population contains many primitive strains of mankind not found elsewhere to the same extent.
Different scholars have described the racial composition of Indian society. The first racial classification of the Indian population on scientific lines is probably of Sir Herbert Risely. He classified the Indian population into seven types. They are
- Turko – Iranian
- Indo-Aryan
- Scytho-Dravidian
- Arya-Dravidian
- Mongolo-Dravidian
- Mongoloid
- Dravidian
Turko- Iranian:
People having this strain in their blood are mainly found in Beluchisthan and Afghanistan, which are now outside the political borders of India.
Indo- Aryan:
Indo- Aryan strain is mainly found in east Punjab, Raj as than and Kashmir, especially among the people belonging to the castes of Rajput, Khatri and Jat.
Scythe- Dravidian :
Scythe – Dravidian is a mixed racial type of Scythians and Dravidians. People having this racial ancestry are said to be found in Saurashtra, Coorg, and the hilly tracts of Madhya Pradesh. It is said that the upper strata people are of Scythians while the lower strata people are dominated by Dravidians.
Arya- Dravidian :
Arya- Dravidian racial type is an admixture of Indo- Aryan and Dravidian elements. The Aryan elements is more pronounced among the upper castes, especially Brahmins. The Dravidian element is more prominent among the Harijans and other lower-caste people.
Mongol – Dravidian:
Mongols- Dravidian racial type is the intermixture of the Dravidian and Mongolian races. The Brahmins and Kayasthas of Bengal and Odisha are believed to belong to this race.
Mongoloid:
Mongoloid racial element is mainly found among the tribal people of North-East Frontier and Assam.
Dravidian:
The people of south India and Madhya Pradesh are claimed to be of this stock. Most of anthropologists are not ready to accept the racial classification of Risley. D. N. Mazumdar says that the ‘Dravidian’ like the term ‘Aryan’ is a linguistic classification and not a racial classification. A.C. Haddon gives his own classification dis- regarding the classification of Risley.
According to him the principal races are
- The Pre- Dravidian
- The Dravidian
- The Indo-Aryan
- The Indo-Alpine
- The Mongolian
J.N. Hutton also describes about the composition of the Indian population. But it is Dr B.S. Guha, after having revised the earlier classification has presented his own list of races that are believed to have composed the Indian population. His classifications are
The Negrito:
The presence of Negrito race in India is a controversial issue among anthropologists who say the presence of Negrito race say that they are relatively in pure form are still found in Andaman Island and also among some South Indian tribal people. Keeping these facts in view the protagonists of this view believe that the earliest occupants of India were Negritos, who were later displaced by Proto- Australoid.
But the antagonists of this view say that there is no weighty evidence to prove conclusively the existence ofNegrito element in the Indian population. So it may be safely said that Negrito race though existed in past, has left little trace in India today.
The Proto- Austroloid:
Indian tribal population is by and large dominated by this racial element. The Santals, the Juangs, the Koreas, the Soares, the Parjas, the Khonds, the Chenchus are a few of the many tribes of this race.
The Mongoloid:
The Mongoloid race came to India from Northwestern China, via- Tibet. People of this racial element are mainly found in North-Eastern India. This race consists of two fundamental types. They are
Palaeo- Mongoloid:
The Palaeo- Mongoloid consists of a long-headed type and of broad-headed type.
Tibeto- Monogoloid :
The people of Sikkim and Bhutan are said to belong to the Tibeto-Mongoloid race.
The Mediterranian:
The Mediterranian race is divided into three types. They are
Palaeo – Mediterranian:
This racial type is represented by the Tamil and Telugu Brahmins of the South.
The Mediterranian:
People of this racial type are believed to be the builders of the Indus valley civilization.
Oriental:
This race is very much similar to the Mediterranean type. The Mediterranean race as a whole, once a predominant race all over India, is now mainly concentrated in the south.
Western Brachycephals:
Western- Brachycephal race entered India from the west. The Alpinoid, the Dinaric and the Armenoid are the three main types of this race.
Alpinoid:
The people of Saurashtra, Gujarat and also Bengal are said to have of this race.
Dinaric:
This strain is claimed to be found among the people of Odisha, Bengal and Coorg.
Armenoid:
The Parsis of Bombay are believed to be the true representatives of this racial type.
Nordic Race :
People belonging to the Nordic race came to India from the North and spread all over Northern India during the 2nd millennium B.C. The people of this stock are believed to have enriched Indian culture by contributing new ideas to its philosophy and literature. From the above-discussed races, the first three races namely the Proto-Austroloid and the Mongoloid and Negrito constitute the Indian tribal population, while the other three races namely the Mediterranian, the Alpo- Dinaric and the Nordic, constitute the general population of India.
From the above discussion, it is very clear that the Indian population is composed of almost all the important races of the world. Today, there is no such race in India which is completely pure. All the races have got inter- mixed with one another. The intermixture of race is thorough that even in the same family we find one brother is quite fair while the other is quite dark. So India is rightly called a “Museum of races” or a “Melting pot of races”.
Question 5.
India is a ‘Spectacle of Museum of tongues’- Explain. Or. Discuss the linguistic composition of Indian society?
Answer:
India is not only a multi-ethnic and multi-religious but also a polyglot society. Apart from English which is one of the major languages of administration, law higher academic teaching and research, Journalism and inter-regional communication, eighteen languages are recognized as the major languages of India. Linguists are not unanimous about the total number of languages spoken in India. Various enumerations are given in support of different criteria.
Dr George Grierson in the ‘Linguistic Survey of India’ tests 179 major languages and 544 dialects. The Linguistic Survey of India conducted in the first decade of this century recorded that “Language changes every 20 miles in India.” While the 1931 census lists more than 200 languages dialects, the 1961 census registered 1652 spoken languages of which 1549 were indigenous to India. Of these, about 572 covered almost 90% of the total population.
The multiplicity of languages creates new social cleavages in the already divided population of India by caste and creed. In the words of A.R. Desai, “India presents a spectacle of the museum of tongues.” Some also say that India is a ‘Veritable tower of babe. ’ We all know that all the eighteen languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the constitution with the exception of Sanskrit. By 1966 partly by design and partly by the accident of political action, the linguistic formula acquired legitimacy as the primary criterion of state re¬organization in India.
These numerous Indian languages can however be grouped into four different speech families. They are
- Indo-Aryan
- The Dravidian
- TheAustric
- The Sino- Tibetan
Indo- Aryan Languages:
Hindi is the most important language, of all the languages belonging to the Indo- Aryan speech family. The Indian constitution recognizes Hindi as the national language which eventually is to replace English as the official link language on the lingua franca of India Hindi along with other allied languages like Hindusthani, Urdu, and Punjabi is claimed to be the mother tongue of 46.3% of India’s total population.
The people inhabiting the great Indo- Gangetic plains in Northern India speak this language in one form or the other. The other Indo-Aryan languages are Assamese, Bengali, Odia, Gujarathi, Marathi, and Kashmiri. These languages are spoken by the people of the states named after these languages. Hindi, unlike Urdu, borrowed words from Sanskrit and used Devanagari as its script. Hindi and Urdu were together known as Hindustani till 1947. These two languages are very similar in their spoken form, though they greatly differ in their written form.
At present Hindi is progressively being Sanskritized by dropping Persian words and incorporating itself more and more Sanskrit words. Punjabi is the language of mainly Sikh religious minorities. Though it resembles Hindi in its spoken form, it differs from it in its written form. Urdu freely borrowed a large number of words from the Persian language. It also adopted the Persian script as its own.
Dravidian Languages:
Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam, the four southern languages belonging to the Dravidian speech family. Tamil is the language spoken by the people of Tamil Nadu who constitute 8.2% of our population. Telugu is the language of the people of Andhra Pradesh. It represents 10.2% of the total population of India and as such form the second-largest linguistic group in India after Hindi. The people of Karnataka speak Kannada, which constitutes 4.5% of the total population. Malayalam is the language spoken by the Keralites form 4.1% of our population.
Austria – Languages:
Most of the languages and dialects are spoken by the tribes of Central India belong to the Austric speech family.
Sino- Tibetan Languages :
The languages and dialects of North- Eastern tribal population are mainly of the Sino- Tibetan speech family. Nearly 3.2% of India’s total population speak one or the other of the 23 tribal languages belonging to either the Austric or the Sino-Tibetan speech families. At present India is divided into states along linguistic lines for the simple reason that most of these major languages are localized in different parts of the country.
While each language tends to concentrate in a particular part of the country, there is much overlapping of two or more languages, especially in areas near the borders. Therefore there are linguistic minorities in each of the linguistic states as well as in big cities. Viewing such linguistic composition of Indian society an American specialist in Indian languages says that villagers in the locality may find it difficult to understand the speech of their relatives living a hundred miles away from them.
Question 6.
Discuss the Tribal composition of Indian society?
Answer:
India is claimed to have the largest total tribal population compared to any other single country in the world. The tribal population in India constitutes nearly 7% of the total population. The vast tribal population in India is not a homogeneous group. Rather it is composed of different tribes. According to the scheduled tribe’s list modification order 1956, there are 414 tribes in India. All these tribes are classified into different groups on various bases like geographical location, language, race and levels of economic and social development.
1. On the basis of geographical location:
On the band of geographical or territorial location tribes are divided into three main zones, namely
The North-North Eastern zone :
Eastern Kashmir, Eastern Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, North Uttar Pradesh, Nagaland, Assam etc. constitute this zone. The Aka, Mishmi, Chulikata, and Naga are some of the tribes of this zone.
Central Zone:
Bihar, Bengal, Southern, U.P., Southern Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Odishacome are under this zone. The Savara, the Khond, the Santhal, the Bhil, the Gond, the Muria and the Bangla etc. live in this zone.
Southern Zone:
The Southern zone is comprised of the four Southern states, namely Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu, Karnataka and Kerala. The Toda, the Chenchu, the Kedar etc. are some of the important tribes of this zone.
Classification on the basis of Language:
The languages of the tribes of the three zones belong to three different speech families namely
Sino- Tibetan linguistic group :
Most of the tribes of the North- North- Eastern zone speak Sino- Tibetan languages in one form or other.
Austro- Asiatic linguistic group:
The dialects and languages spoken by most of the central zone belong to the Austric speech family. But some of the important tribes of this region like the Gonds and the Khonds speak languages having an affinity with the Dravidian speech family.
Dravidian Linguistic groups:
Tribal people in the Southern Zone in one form on other the Dravidian languages. Telugu, Tamil, Kannada and Malayalam.
Classification on the Basis of Race:
Indian tribes are broadly classified into three racial groups. They are.
The Mongoloid:
The North- North – Eastern zone tribes, in habiting the Himalayan regions belong to the one on the other type of Mongoloid race.
The Proto- Austroloid :
The central Indian tribes are mainly found to be Proto- Austroloid in their physical features.
The Negrito:
A few tribes like the Kadar of the extreme South and the Andamanese are said to be of this racial origin.
On the basis of cultural development:
Dr Elvin has classified Indian tribes into four classes on the basis of their levels of cultural development and contact with the plains.
Class -I:
The members of the tribes of class 1 are more or less isolated, and primitive, lead a communal life and cultivate with axes.
Class – II:
The people belonging to class – II are more individualistic, less simple, less honest, more used to outside life and less occupied with axe cultivation than the members of class-1 tribes.
Class – III:
People of this category are most exposed to external influence and they represent the largest section of the Indian tribal population. These people are already on the way of losing their tribal culture, religion and social organization as a result of external influences.
Class -IV:
The Bills and Nagas are members of this class of tribes. Dr Elvin believes that these people are the representatives of the old aristocracy of the country. Madan and Mazumdar have clarified the tribal communities into three main groups exclusively on the basis of cultural distance maintained from the rural-urban groups. The first group of tribes are culturally far away from the rural-urban groups. It includes all those tribes which have not come in contact with rural-urban groups in any significant way.
The second group consists of tribes which are in active contact with and under the direct influence of the outside rural-urban groups. As a consequence, these tribal communities are experiencing discomfort and problems. The third group consists of those tribes that have come into contact with the rural-urban groups but have not suffered from it. That is to say, these tribes have been successfully acculturated into the rural-urban way of life.
The tribal Welfare- Committee has suggested a classification of Indian tribes into four classes.
Tribal Communities:
These communities are by and large confined to their forest habitat and still lead a primitive way of life.
Semi-Tribal Communities:
The communities have come out of their forest habitat to settle in the rural areas and have taken up agricultural and other allied occupations.
Acculturate Tribal Communities:
These are the communities which have migrated to urban and semi-urban centres and have taken up occupations in modem industries and other works. They also have adopted many of the cultural traits of modem society.
Totally Assimilated Tribal Communities:
These are the tribes which have totally got assimilated into the modem way of life. An attempt has been made by Madan and Mazumdar to make a classification of Indian tribes on the basis of economic development. The first category of tribes are mainly dependent on forests for their livelihood and their economy is food gathering.
The tribes of the second category are those whose economy falls midway between food gathering and primitive agriculture. The economy of the third category is mainly agriculture but is supplemented by forest produce whenever and wherever possible. Finally, there is a new economic category of tribal men which is coming up in India with the growth of Industry. This new economic category includes those tribes who have been driven out of their traditional occupations and habitat and are employed in modern industry.