(a) Elucidate the problems faced by Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups and the major challenges in the formulation of special…

(a) Problems of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups and challenges in formulating special programmes

PVTGs (earlier Primitive Tribal Groups, identified from the Dhebar Commission's 1961 report, renamed in 2006) number 75 in 18 states and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. They are distinguished by pre-agricultural technology, stagnant or declining population, very low literacy and a subsistence economy.

Problems: dependence on shrinking forests and loss of habitat and rights, displacement by mining, dams and conservation; hunger, malnutrition and anaemia; sickle cell disease and poor access to health; very low literacy and dropout; indebtedness and exploitation by middlemen; loss of traditional livelihoods and culture; and small, dispersed populations, leaving them politically weak.

Challenges in programme formulation:

• Lack of reliable baseline demographic, health and ethnographic data for small, remote groups.
• Uniform, top-down schemes that ignore differences between groups; some, like the Birhor rehabilitated in colonies, lost their forest-based livelihoods.
• Tension between protection of identity and integration into development.
• Weak delivery, inadequate staff, language barriers and poor convergence of departments, with low utilisation of funds.
• Poor recognition of habitat rights under the Forest Rights Act, 2006, and non-participation of communities in planning.

Conservation-cum-Development plans and the PM-JANMAN mission (2023) for PVTGs attempt a holistic approach with housing, roads, health and livelihood support.

(b) Risley's and Sarkar's approaches to the classification of peoples of India

Risley: in the Census of 1901 and The People of India, he divided Indians into seven types: Turko-Iranian, Indo-Aryan, Scytho-Dravidian, Aryo-Dravidian, Mongolo-Dravidian, Mongoloid and Dravidian. He used anthropometry, chiefly the nasal index, and held that caste status varies inversely with nasal breadth, so that castes are racial. The method was criticised for arbitrary types, unrepresentative samples, and an imperial aim of portraying India as divided by race.

Sarkar: S.S. Sarkar (1954) used the cephalic index with other traits and blood groups to identify six elements: Australoid, Indo-Aryan, Irano-Scythian, Mundari-speaking, Far Eastern and Mongolian, and emphasised mixture and a dominant long-headed element, differing from Guha's stress on brachycephalisation.

Comparison: Risley's scheme linked race and caste hierarchy and had a colonial purpose; Sarkar did not make this link and used a wider set of traits. Both nevertheless kept a typological racial concept, which modern population genetics, which shows clinal variation and extensive mixture, rejects.

(c) Is caste mobility a recent phenomenon? Indological and empirical context

No. Caste mobility has a long history, but its form has changed.

Indological evidence: the texts describe fixed varnas, yet also show movement, such as the theory of varna-samkara and of lowered status (Kshatriya groups becoming vratyas or Shudras), and stories of Vishvamitra and of Satyakama Jabala. Epigraphs, copper-plate grants and chronicles show tribal and local chiefs obtaining Kshatriya or Rajput status (the Gond, Bhumij, Rajputs of Rajasthan, Kayasthas and the Maratha Bhonsles), groups migrating, and medieval bhakti movements challenging hierarchy.

Empirical evidence: Srinivas' Sanskritisation shows caste groups claiming higher status by emulation. Colonial censuses saw caste associations and sabhas petitioning for rank (Yadavs, Kurmis). After independence, Béteille's study of Sripuram shows caste, class and power separating, while education, land reform, reservation, political mobilisation and urban jobs have created new forms of mobility.

Difference: earlier mobility was mostly group, positional and ritual, while modern mobility is also individual, economic and political.