(a) Critically discuss the recent welfare measures initiated by the Government for the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups…

(a) Welfare measures for PVTGs, and why "Primitive Tribal Groups" was a misnomer

Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups are the most marginalised of the Scheduled Tribes. There are 75 such groups in 18 states and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, for example the Sentinelese, Jarawa, Shompen, Baiga, Birhor, Bondo, Kadar, Toda, Saharia and Paharia. The Dhebar Commission (1960–61) first noted large differences among tribes. In 1975 the government identified the least developed as "Primitive Tribal Groups" using four criteria: pre-agricultural technology, a stagnant or declining population, very low literacy, and a subsistence economy. They were renamed PVTGs in 2006.

Why "primitive" was wrong

• It came from 19th-century evolutionism, which placed societies on a ladder from "savage" to "civilised" and denied that tribal people live in the same historical present as everyone else.
• The criteria actually measure deprivation (technology, literacy, demography), not a lower stage of culture. Groups such as the Toda or the Jarawa have complex knowledge systems and ecological skills.
• The label stigmatised communities and invited paternalism. "Vulnerable" places the problem where it lies: land loss, displacement, disease after contact, market exploitation and neglect by the state.

Recent measures

• PM-JANMAN (PM Janjati Adivasi Nyaya Maha Abhiyan, November 2023): an outlay of about ₹24,104 crore over three years, with a central share of about ₹15,336 crore. It brings together 11 interventions of nine ministries: pucca houses, roads, piped water, electricity, mobile medical units, hostels, Anganwadis, multipurpose centres, Van Dhan centres and mobile connectivity for PVTG habitations. It also runs saturation camps for Aadhaar, ration cards, Ayushman Bharat and Jan Dhan.
• Development of PVTGs scheme: a central-sector scheme funding state Conservation-cum-Development plans.
• Health: the National Sickle Cell Anaemia Elimination Mission (2023) screens tribal populations, where sickle-cell disease is concentrated.
• Forest Rights Act, 2006: it allows "habitat rights" for PVTGs. The Baiga of Dindori in Madhya Pradesh were among the first to receive them.
• Livelihoods and food: Van Dhan Vikas Kendras for minor forest produce, and some states' supplementary food and nutrition packages for PVTG households.

Critical assessment

• Outdated list: it has hardly been revised since the 1970s–90s. Some listed groups have grown, while vulnerable groups elsewhere are left out, and there has been no separate census of PVTGs.
• Uniform infrastructure: standard solutions such as concrete houses, roads and cash transfers may not suit forest-based, mobile or isolated groups. Contact itself carries epidemic risk, as the Jarawa experience with the Andaman Trunk Road showed.
• Implementation gaps: habitat-rights claims move slowly, officials often lack knowledge of local languages and customs, and PVTG Gram Sabhas have little say in planning.
• Big projects: large projects in PVTG areas (mining, infrastructure, the Great Nicobar plan near the Shompen) raise concerns about consent and cultural survival.

Welfare works best when PVTGs themselves shape the plans and control their land and resources.

(b) PESA and women's political participation

The Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 extends Part IX of the Constitution (the 73rd Amendment) to Fifth Schedule areas under Article 243M(4)(b), with changes suited to tribal custom. Sixth Schedule areas of the North-East have their own district councils and are not covered.

How it empowers local self-government

• The Gram Sabha, the village assembly of all adults, is the core of the system. It can safeguard and preserve "traditions and customs, cultural identity, community resources and the customary mode of dispute resolution".
• The Gram Sabha approves village development plans and selects beneficiaries.
• The Gram Sabha or panchayat must be consulted before land is acquired and before resettlement. Its recommendation is required before leases for minor minerals are granted.
• Panchayats get ownership of minor forest produce and powers over village markets, money-lending, the sale of intoxicants, and the restoration of alienated land.
• At least half the seats at every level are reserved for Scheduled Tribes, and all chairperson posts are reserved for STs.

Impact on women

• Reservation: women's reservation comes from Article 243D (one-third, raised to 50% in many states). Together with PESA's ST reservation, this has brought many tribal women into panchayat offices and Gram Sabhas.
• Local devices: Maharashtra requires a Mahila Sabha before each Gram Sabha meeting, so that women's priorities such as water, liquor control, forest produce and health reach the agenda.
• Resource governance: women have led decisions on community forests and on banning liquor. In Mendha-Lekha (Gadchiroli), whose Gram Sabha governs its forest under community forest rights, and in the Niyamgiri Gram Sabhas of 2013, which rejected bauxite mining, women's voices were prominent.

Limits:

• Many states framed PESA rules late or weakly.
• Customary councils are often male-dominated.
• "Proxy" representation by husbands (sarpanch-pati) persists.
• Low literacy, domestic burdens and the risk of backlash limit participation.

PESA has opened political space for tribal women, but real agency depends on strong rules, training and shifts in social norms.

(c) The colonial history of Indian anthropology and the role of Indian anthropologists

Colonial origins. Anthropology in India grew out of the needs of colonial rule.

• The Asiatic Society (1784) studied Indian texts, while district gazetteers, the decennial Census from 1871 and the "castes and tribes" volumes, such as Dalton's Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal (1872) and Thurston's Castes and Tribes of Southern India (1909), classified people for revenue, recruitment and control.
• H. H. Risley used the nasal index to rank castes by "race", and the Census froze fluid identities into fixed hierarchies.
• The Criminal Tribes Act (1871) branded whole communities as criminal by birth.
• Much of this material was gathered by Indian clerks and informants, whose knowledge was used but seldom credited.
• "Tribe" itself was an administrative category that separated forest peoples from caste society.

How Indian anthropologists built an autonomous discipline

• S. C. Roy (The Mundas and Their Country, 1912; The Oraons, 1915) wrote sympathetic, detailed ethnographies, defended tribal land rights in Chota Nagpur, and founded the journal Man in India (1921).
• Early departments: L. K. Ananthakrishna Iyer helped found the anthropology department at Calcutta University (1920), and G. S. Ghurye built the Bombay school of sociology. In Caste and Race in India (1932), Ghurye challenged Risley's racial theory of caste.
• N. K. Bose described the "Hindu method of tribal absorption", showing historical interaction rather than isolation. F. G. Bailey and Surajit Sinha developed the idea of a caste–tribe continuum.
• Irawati Karve (Kinship Organisation in India, 1953) mapped regional kinship systems.
• D. N. Majumdar combined physical and social anthropology at Lucknow and studied the Ho.
• M. N. Srinivas (Religion and Society among the Coorgs, 1952) introduced Sanskritisation and the "dominant caste". He also set the "field view" against the colonial "book view" of caste.
• S. C. Dube's Indian Village (1955) and the village studies of the 1950s shifted attention from the exotic tribe to everyday Indian society. L. P. Vidyarthi developed the "nature–man–spirit complex" and studies of sacred complexes.
• Institutions: the Anthropological Survey of India (1945, first director B. S. Guha), university departments and Tribal Research Institutes gave the discipline a national base oriented to development.
• Policy debates: Ghurye called tribes "backward Hindus", Verrier Elwin argued for protection, and Nehru's Tribal Panchsheel (1958) sought a middle path. These debates showed Indian anthropology shaping policy instead of merely serving it.

Critical note. Decolonisation was partial. Guha's racial classification, the category "tribe" and the Scheduled lists all carry colonial legacies. Early Indian scholars were often upper-caste men who reproduced a Brahminical view. Dalit, Adivasi and feminist scholars have since widened the discipline and pressed for anthropology by and with communities.