(a) Discuss the distribution of tribes in different geographical regions of India. Identify the distinct institutional features…

(a) Distribution of tribes in different geographical regions of India and distinct institutional features

Tribes (about 8.6% of population, 2011) are distributed in zones:

• North-East: Naga, Khasi, Garo, Mizo, Bodo and others. Institutions: village councils and clan organisation, hereditary chiefs among the Konyak Angh and Mizo chiefs, the relatively egalitarian Angami village republic, the Khasi matrilineal clans, dormitories (morung) and head-hunting traditions, and jhum cultivation.
• Central and Eastern India: Gond, Baiga, Santhal, Munda, Oraon, Ho, Bhil. Institutions: clan (totemic) exogamy, village and territorial councils (Parha among Oraon, Manki–Munda among Ho), youth dormitories (Ghotul of Muria Gond, Dhumkuria of Oraon), bride price and sacred groves.
• Western India: Bhil, Warli, Mina, Garasia. Institutions: clan and territorial chiefs (Bhil Pal and Patel), fair-based marriage systems such as Bhagoria, forest-based and agricultural economy.
• Southern India: Toda, Kota, Irula, Kurumba (Nilgiris), Chenchu, Konda Reddi, Kadar. Institutions: Toda buffalo pastoralism and polyandry, clan hierarchy, the symbiotic exchange among Toda, Kota and Badaga, and shifting (podu) cultivation and gathering.
• Himalayan region: Gujjar, Bakarwal, Gaddi, Bhotia, Jaunsari. Institutions: transhumance with a composite economy, polyandry among the Jaunsari, and Buddhist or Hindu local religion.
• Islands: Andamanese, Jarawa, Onge, Sentinelese and Nicobarese; hunter-gatherer bands and kinship groups with minimal outside contact.

(b) Contributions of S.C. Roy to Indian anthropology

Sarat Chandra Roy (1871–1942), a lawyer of Ranchi, is regarded as the father of Indian ethnography. He worked among the Munda, Oraon and Birhor, producing The Mundas and Their Country (1912), The Oraons of Chota Nagpur (1915) and The Birhors (1925), combining fieldwork, local languages and close intimacy with communities. He founded the journal Man in India (1921) and championed the study of tribal life by Indians, and as a lawyer he defended tribal land and customary rights, acting as an adviser in tribal matters.

Critical evaluation: his work is rich descriptive ethnography that has lasting documentary value, and it addressed tribal life from within. But it lacked a strong theoretical frame, used evolutionary and diffusionist assumptions of the time, sometimes described tribes in terms of their Hindu contact, and was that of a part-time scholar.

(c) Identification of Other Backward Classes and recent changes in their social and economic life

Identification: the Kalelkar Commission (1955) and the Mandal Commission (1980) used social, educational and economic criteria, eleven indicators in the Mandal Commission, and identified 3,743 castes, about 52% of the population. Reservation of 27% in central jobs began in 1990 and was upheld in Indra Sawhney (1992) with creamy-layer exclusion. Now the National Commission for Backward Classes (constitutional since the 102nd Amendment, 2018, Article 338B) examines inclusion, and state commissions do so for state lists; the Rohini Commission examined sub-categorisation.

Features: mostly middle and artisan castes, mainly agriculturists, artisans and service castes, with ritual status above Dalits, and diverse in landholding and education.

Recent changes: education and reservation have opened government jobs and professions; land reform and the green revolution benefited dominant OBCs (Yadav, Kurmi, Vokkaliga), whereas many remain poor; political mobilisation has made OBCs central in politics; and the growing demand for sub-categorisation reflects differences among them.