Revision summary
Missions cut some brew, hunt, and ancestor rites. Schools and scripture created a literate tribal public. Naga and Chotanagpur cases show church fused with clan politics. Converts and non-converts may split the same tribe. Legal ST status and Christian census religion can sit together.
Model answer
Introduction
Christianity entered many Indian tribal regions through mission schools, medicine, and a new congregation. It remade culture and identity without simply erasing tribe.
Body
Culture: loss and recasting
- Mission attacked brew, some hunt rites, and clan sacrifice as pagan. Sacred grove and ancestor cult often shrank.
- Roman script, hymn, and church calendar replaced or sat beside the old festival year, as among Oraons, Mundas, and many Naga groups.
- S. C. Roy already saw a legal and ritual split in Chotanagpur. Later churches became a parallel public.
Identity: new and old
- Literacy and a printed Bible created a named people who could petition the state. Naga and Mizo public identity is unthinkable without the church.
- Christianity can fuse with tribe: clan exogamy continues, and the pastor sits near the village council.
- It can also split tribe: convert versus non-convert factions, and a new elite of teachers against grove priests.
Political afterlife
- Churches supplied hostels and a middle class that later staffed movements and parties.
- Hindu reform and reconversion politics treat the same change as cultural theft. Anthropology treats it as conversion plus indigenisation, as in Naga Baptist life.
- Identity is therefore dual: Scheduled Tribe in law, Christian in census religion, tribal in kinship.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD M[Mission church] --> L[Literacy new calendar] M --> S[Shrink grove sacrifice] M --> I[Tribal Christian public] I --> F[Faction elite split]
Conclusion
Christianity thinned some spirit rites and built a literate tribal public. Culture was recast, not simply deleted. Identity became tribe plus church, with new splits inside the group.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Discuss the impact of Hinduism on the status of tribal women in Central India
Next question on this syllabus topic (2015 · Q3(b)). View answer →
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Does conversion abolish tribe?
Not in kinship or ST law. It changes ritual affiliation and often the elite path.
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Is the impact only cultural loss?
Loss of some rites is real. Gain of literacy and a political public is also real.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
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2025 · Q2(c) · Anthropology GS 2 · 15 marks
Evaluate the impact of Christianity on Scheduled Tribe societies of North-East India -
2015 · Q3(b) · Anthropology GS 2 · 15 marks
Discuss the impact of Hinduism on the status of tribal women in Central India
More from this topic
Q2(c) · UPSC Mains 2025 · Anthropology GS 2 · 15 marks
Evaluate the impact of Christianity on Scheduled Tribe societies of North-East India
Impact of Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and other religions on tribal societies.
Baptist, Presbyterian and Catholic missions, then local revivals, planted Christianity in many NE ST hills. Gains include Roman-script literacy, women’s education, peace brokering and a middle class using 371 and Inner Line. Strains include pressure on morung and grove, denominational factions, and distance between church elite and jhum households. The church is now indigenous social structure, not a foreign camp. Land rights still run through custom, Inner Line, FRA and councils, not through the pulpit.
Q3(b) · UPSC Mains 2015 · Anthropology GS 2 · 15 marks
Discuss the impact of Hinduism on the status of tribal women in Central India
Impact of Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and other religions on tribal societies.
Hindu contact in Central India often means Sanskritisation of Gond and Bhil groups. Srinivas’s model predicts purity, dowry, and curbs on widow remarriage. Elwin warned that tribal women’s customary freedoms would shrink. Ghurye treated the same process as Hindu absorption. Forest work and FRA still keep women economically central.
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