(a) Scheduled areas (10 marks) (b) Ramapithecus-Sivapithecus debate (10 marks) (c) Village as little republic (10 marks) (d)…

(a) Scheduled areas

Scheduled Areas are tribal-dominated areas declared by the President under Paragraph 6 of the Fifth Schedule (Article 244(1)), in states other than Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram, whose tribal areas fall under the Sixth Schedule. They are found in states such as Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Himachal Pradesh and Kerala. The Governor may direct that central or state laws do not apply or apply with changes, and makes regulations to prohibit or restrict transfer of tribal land and to regulate money-lending. A Tribes Advisory Council advises on welfare, and the Governor reports to the President on administration. The PESA Act, 1996 extends Panchayats to these areas and empowers Gram Sabhas over resources and disputes. Implementation of land protection and PESA remains uneven.

(b) Ramapithecus–Sivapithecus debate

Fossil teeth and jaws from the Miocene Siwalik deposits of India and Pakistan (about 12–8 million years old) were named Ramapithecus by G.E. Lewis in 1934. From the 1960s, Elwyn Simons and David Pilbeam argued that it was a hominid (human ancestor) on the basis of small canines, thick enamel, and a parabolic dental arch, placing the human origin in Asia. The view was criticised from the 1970s (Greenfield, 1979, who argued that Ramapithecus was the female of Sivapithecus, with thick-enamelled ape features), and molecular clocks dated the human–ape split to about 5–8 million years, too recent for a 12-million-year-old hominid. In 1980–82, the discovery of Sivapithecus face and jaws from the Potwar Plateau, Pakistan, showed orangutan-like features, so both are now regarded as one ape genus, Sivapithecus, related to the orangutan, and not a hominid ancestor.

(c) Village as little republic

The phrase comes from Sir Charles Metcalfe (1830), who described the Indian village as a little republic, self-sufficient and almost independent of outside relations, which survives while dynasties fall. Henry Maine (Village Communities, 1871) and Marx (the "Asiatic mode of production") carried the image into social theory. It portrays the village as a corporate unit with its own economy, caste-based division of labour, council and stability.

Modern sociologists have criticised it. Srinivas (Rampura) and Dube showed that villages are linked to other villages by caste, marriage and trade, and to the state and market. Béteille and others showed internal inequality, dominant castes, faction and conflict, not harmony, and colonial records show the village paid revenue and was part of wider political systems. Thus the village was never a closed republic, though it has a strong local identity and institutions such as the panchayat.

(d) Dravidian languages and their subgroups

The Dravidian family has about 70–85 languages spoken mainly in South India, with outliers in central and eastern India (Gondi, Kurukh) and Brahui in Pakistan. Krishnamurti divides it into four groups:

• South Dravidian: Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada, Tulu, Kodagu, Toda, Kota and Irula.
• South-Central Dravidian: Telugu, Gondi, Konda and Kui.
• Central Dravidian: Kolami, Parji, Naiki and Gadaba.
• North Dravidian: Kurukh (Oraon), Malto and Brahui.

Tamil has the oldest literature (Sangam). Features are agglutinative structure, retroflex consonants, a clusivity distinction in "we" and gender based on human versus non-human or masculine versus non-masculine. Dravidian has influenced Indo-Aryan in sounds and vocabulary.

(e) Karma and rebirth

Karma is the doctrine that actions have moral consequences, determining future births (samsara), and rebirth is the cycle continuing until liberation. Its forms differ: in Hinduism the soul (atman) is reborn according to karma and dharma, in Buddhism there is rebirth without a permanent soul (anatta), and in Jainism karma is subtle matter that clings to the soul (jiva).

Anthropologically, it is a moral theory that explains suffering and inequality, and so may legitimise caste hierarchy (Dumont, Weber's theodicy), while also giving hope of mobility through right conduct. Marriott and Inden saw Indian persons as "dividual", exchanging substance and moral qualities, in which karma has a place. Tribal groups have local versions, combining their own beliefs of ancestors and spirits with Hindu ideas.