Revision summary
ITDPs and reservations create a tribal salaried layer. Roads and mines displace forest custom even as clinics arrive. Elwin and Vidyarthi named the cultural cost of that bargain. Change is incorporation plus internal class. FRA tries to tie programmes to remaining resource rights.
Model answer
Introduction
Developmental programmes pull tribal India toward schools, clinics, roads, and markets. Social change is real, uneven, and often bought with land.
Body
Intended change
- ITDPs, hostels, and reservations raise a small salaried layer. That is Srinivas-like mobility, sometimes with Sanskritisation or church education.
- Health and PDS cut some mortality. Panchayati raj and PESA create new offices.
Unintended change
- Dams, mines, and plantations under the same “development” displace the nature–man–spirit world Vidyarthi described.
- Cash and liquor, already feared by Elwin, follow the road. Clan land becomes a plot.
- Youth out-migrate; elders lose ritual authority. Change is not only uplift.
Nature of the shift
- The nature is dual: incorporation into the Indian state and market, plus internal stratification.
- Ghurye would call it Hindu-national joining. Fieldwork shows ST lists, churches, and mines as rival joiners.
- FRA tries to make development rest on recognised forest rights rather than on erasure.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD D[Development programmes] --> M[Salaried minority] D --> L[Land forest loss] D --> S[Internal class split]
Conclusion
Programmes change tribal society by adding a small middle class and by breaking forest custom. The nature of change is incorporation with stratification, not simple progress.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Is all change due to government schemes?
Missions, markets, and Maoist conflict also drive change. Schemes are one engine.
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Has development ended tribe?
ST identity and many customs persist. The forest base is what programmes most often cut.
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