(a) Digitisation of rural economy 10 (b) Origin of State Societies 10 (c) Syro-Malabar Christians 10 (d) Artisan tribes of…

(a) Digitisation of rural economy

Digitisation of the rural economy means using digital infrastructure (connectivity, digital identity, online payments and platforms) in farming, markets, credit and public services. Under Digital India, the building blocks are the JAM trinity (Jan Dhan accounts, Aadhaar, mobile), BharatNet broadband to gram panchayats, and Common Service Centres run by village-level entrepreneurs.

• Payments and transfers: Direct Benefit Transfer sends PM-KISAN's ₹6,000 a year and MGNREGA wages (now succeeded by the VB-G RAM G Act, 2025) straight into bank accounts, cutting leakages. The Aadhaar-enabled Payment System and bank correspondents bring cash-out services to villages, and UPI is now accepted at weekly haats.
• Markets and land records: e-NAM links regulated mandis for online price discovery. Digitised land records and SVAMITVA property cards make credit easier to obtain.

From an anthropological view, digitisation weakens older patron–client ties with traders and moneylenders but creates new intermediaries, such as CSC operators. Patchy connectivity, low digital literacy (especially among women and in tribal areas), Aadhaar authentication failures and cyber-fraud can exclude the poorest. Digitisation raises rural incomes only when access and literacy grow alongside it.

(b) Origin of State Societies

A state is a centralised political organisation with a defined territory, a bureaucracy, taxation and, in Weber's phrase, a monopoly of legitimate force. In African Political Systems (1940), Fortes and Evans-Pritchard contrasted such states with stateless, kinship-based societies such as the Nuer.

• Evolutionary sequences: Elman Service traced a path from band to tribe, chiefdom and state. Morton Fried traced one from egalitarian to rank to stratified society, with the state arising to protect unequal access to strategic resources.
• Surplus: V. Gordon Childe's "urban revolution" linked the state to agricultural surplus, craft specialisation and cities.
• Hydraulic theory: Karl Wittfogel argued that managing large irrigation works required central control.
• Circumscription: Robert Carneiro held that population pressure and warfare in areas hemmed in by geography or neighbours produced conquest states.

In India, the Harappan cities show planning and standardisation, but whether they formed a state is debated. Clear state formation appears with the Mahajanapadas of the Ganga valley (c. 600 BCE). Surajit Sinha (1962) showed how tribal chiefs in central India, such as the Nagvanshis of Chota Nagpur and the Gond kingdoms, became states by adopting Rajput genealogies and Brahmin priests. State formation marks the shift from rule by kinship to rule by territory and class.

(c) Syro-Malabar Christians

The Syro-Malabar Christians are the largest branch of Kerala's St Thomas (Nasrani) Christians. By tradition, the apostle Thomas reached Kodungallur in 52 CE, and a later migration of Syrian Christians under Thomas of Cana is dated to about 345 CE.

• Syriac heritage: the community used the East Syriac liturgy and received bishops from the Church of the East. The Tharisapalli copper plates (849 CE) granted it trading privileges and high status. Socially, it held a rank close to the Nairs and Nambudiris, kept purity norms, and practised endogamy, including the Northist–Southist (Knanaya) division.
• Portuguese period: the Synod of Diamper (1599) imposed Latin practices, and resentment led to the Coonan Cross Oath (1653). The community then split. The group that stayed in communion with Rome became the Syro-Malabar Church, while the others became today's Malankara Orthodox and Jacobite churches.
• Today: it is an Eastern Catholic church with its own rite, a Major Archiepiscopal Church since 1992, headquartered at Ernakulam. A recent internal issue has been the dispute over a uniform mode of celebrating the Holy Mass in the Ernakulam–Angamaly archdiocese.

The community shows how Christianity was localised within Kerala's caste society and trade networks.

(d) Artisan tribes of Jharkhand

Artisan tribes are Scheduled Tribes whose identity and livelihood rest on a hereditary craft, and who serve the agricultural tribes around them.

• Asur: a PVTG of the Netarhat plateau, traditionally iron smelters. K. K. Leuva's study (1963) described their furnaces and ritual.
• Lohra and Karmali: blacksmiths who make ploughshares, axes and sickles.
• Mahli: bamboo workers who make baskets, winnowing fans and mats.
• Chik Baraik: weavers of cotton cloth for Munda and Oraon villagers.
• Birhor: a PVTG known for making rope from forest bark.

Dhokra lost-wax brass casting in Jharkhand is done mainly by Malhar metal-caster groups, who are not Scheduled Tribes.

These groups were tied to Munda, Oraon and Santal villages through customary exchange of goods for grain, somewhat like jajmani, and usually ranked below their patrons. Factory goods, the loss of forest access for charcoal and bamboo, and middlemen have eroded these crafts, pushing many into wage labour and migration. PM Vishwakarma (2023) and state marketing through Jharcraft try to revive them. Artisan tribes show that tribal economies were never purely subsistence farming; they had specialist producers.

(e) Causes of stunting and wasting among tribal children

Stunting is low height-for-age, more than 2 SD below the WHO median, and reflects chronic undernutrition. Wasting is low weight-for-height, below −2 SD, and reflects recent, acute undernutrition. NFHS-5 (2019–21) found about 40% of Scheduled Tribe children under five stunted, against 35.5% nationally, with wasting also above the national 19.3%.

• Maternal and early-life causes: maternal anaemia and short stature, early marriage and teenage pregnancy, low birth weight, and delayed or non-exclusive breastfeeding.
• Disease: repeated diarrhoea, malaria and worm infections, caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation, which drain nutrients.
• Dietary change: land alienation and restricted forest access have reduced foods such as millets, tubers, greens, mushrooms and small game. A cereal-heavy diet from the Public Distribution System gives calories but little diversity.
• Seasonal and work pressures: lean-season hunger and distress migration interrupt feeding and Anganwadi services.
• Service gaps: remote hamlets, weak Anganwadi and health-centre coverage, and cultural distance from service providers.

Schemes such as Poshan 2.0, Anemia Mukt Bharat and PM-JANMAN (2023) for PVTGs target these gaps. Since stunting permanently lowers learning and earnings, cutting it is central to tribal development.