Revision summary
Ghurye treated tribes as backward Hindus and favoured assimilation. Elwin favoured protection of land, language, and custom, with limited isolation. Nehru’s Panchsheel and the Schedules adopted integration, not either pole alone. ITDP, PESA, and FRA are the programme face of that middle path. Mining and leakage still undercut the protective half.
Model answer
Introduction
- G. S. Ghurye and Verrier Elwin named the two poles of tribal policy: assimilation into Hindu society and protection of a distinct tribal world. The Union later wrote a middle path of integration.
Body
Ghurye
- In The Aborigines – So-Called – and Their Future, G. S. Ghurye treated tribes as backward Hindus. Isolation, he said, was a missionary and anthropologist romance.
- The approach is assimilation: roads, Hindu social reform, and an end to a separate museum people.
- He feared Elwin’s protection as a freeze that served the outsider expert more than the Adivasi.
Elwin
- Verrier Elwin argued for a measure of isolation and for protecting land, language, and shifting cultivation from diku and contractor.
- National Parks of the tribal kind, and later a gentler integration, were his policy words. Baiga and NEFA notes are the cases.
- He influenced Nehru’s thinking more than Ghurye did, even after Elwin entered state service.
Government of India policies
- Constitutional: Articles 342, 244, Fifth and Sixth Schedules, reservation, and the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes.
- Nehruvian Tribal Panchsheel: no imposition, respect for land and culture, develop through their own institutions, simple administration, and judgement by quality of human life.
- Programmes: Tribal Sub-Plan, ITDPs/ITDAs, PESA, 1996, FRA, 2006, and special schemes for Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups.
- Practice mixes Ghurye’s schools and markets with Elwin’s protective law. Mining and dams often betray both.
Limit
- Policy on paper is integration. Policy on the ground is still extraction plus welfare offices.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD GH[Ghurye assimilation] --> H[Backward Hindus] EL[Elwin protection] --> P[Land culture isolate] GOI[GOI integration] --> S[Schedule PESA FRA ITDP]
Conclusion
Ghurye wanted assimilation as Hindus. Elwin wanted protection of a tribal world. Official India chose integration through Schedule, PESA, FRA, and Sub-Plan, and still leaks that choice in the mine belt.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Compare the nature of tribal movements between North-East and Central India. Briefly mention the current status of existing tribal movements in these areas
Next question on this syllabus topic (2022 · Q8(a)). View answer →
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Did the Government choose Ghurye or Elwin?
It wrote integration. Schools follow Ghurye’s modernising push. Schedule and FRA follow Elwin’s shield.
-
Is isolation official policy now?
No. Even PVTG programmes aim at careful access, not a sealed park.
PYQ trend
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More from this topic
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Highlight the significant contributions of B. S. Guha, Irawati Karve and S. R. K. Chopra to Indian Anthropology
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Q5(b) · UPSC Mains 2024 · Anthropology GS 2 · 10 marks
Describe ILO's Convention No. 169 (1989) on Indigenous and Tribal people. Is India a signatory to it?
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ILO Convention 169 (1989) covers indigenous and tribal peoples and stresses self-identification, consultation, land and custom. It replaced the integrationist Convention 107 (1957). India ratified 107 and has not ratified 169. Indian hesitation cites the ST list, sovereignty and land law; PESA and FRA already resemble 169 in parts. Never state that India is a signatory to 169.
Q2(c) · UPSC Mains 2024 · Anthropology GS 2 · 15 marks
Deconstruct the colonial history of Indian Anthropology highlighting the critical role played by the Indian Anthropologists in sustaining its autonomy.
Emergence, growth and development of Anthropology in India
Colonial anthropology served census, forest and criminal-tribe administration. S. C. Roy professionalised ethnography; ASI and university departments Indianised the job. Ghurye versus Elwin was an Indian debate on assimilation and isolation. Srinivas, Karve, Bose, Majumdar and Vidyarthi supplied Indian concepts and village-tribe fields. Autonomy means an Indian agenda and terms, not a refusal of world methods.
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