Situating Tribals in Indian History

Contents: 1. Situating tribals in modern Indian history/Surendra Jha. 2. The Khasis and the English 1783-90/Nikhiles Guha. 3. Rani Gaidiliu/S.K. Hira. 4. Preserving forests : encroachment on the forest rights of the tribals of Santhal parganas/Samar Kumar Mallick. 5. The socio-economic transition of Santhals in the South West Bengal/Arati Khan. 6. Santhals and healthcare/Chittabrata Palit. 7. Tribal way of curing diseases/Sutapa Sengupta. 8. Santhal response to health co-operatives in Sriniketan/Keya Banerjee. 9. Indigenous education and the tribals of Midnapore/Subrata Kumar Mal. 10. Disintegration of Traditional Santhal elites and the rise of Santhal Bhadralok/Pradip Chattopadhyay. 11. Understanding Santhal creativity/Dipankar Bagchi.

“There is a lot of controversy over situating the tribals in modern Indian history. According to the Latin root, the word tribal meant only a section of people with a distinct and autonomous culture of its own. In the Roman Empire, they were never regarded segregated from the mainstream. But in colonial India the tribals who held fast to their autonomous culture and would not conform to colonial requirements were considered wild and outside the pale of civilization and therefore liable to be subjugated. To the imperialist anthropologist, it was a virgin field of enquiry to discover the tribals as exclusivist people with unique features. They were to be treated as vanishing community. It was again a play of divide and rule against the mainstream society. The present volume is a bouquet of 11 essays on various aspects of tribal society and culture under British Rule.” (jacket)