Revision summary
Contact produces Sanskritisation and class splits inside tribes. Ghurye called the social path Hinduisation; Elwin called it loss. Religion may Hinduise, Christianise, or throw up a prophet such as Birsa. Sacred groves and brew are early casualties of plough and mission. Consequences are mixed, not a single conversion story.
Model answer
Introduction
Contact with non-tribal populations changes tribal kinship, rank, and worship as well as the market. Social and religious consequences travel together.
Body
Social consequences
- M. N. Srinivas’s Sanskritisation appears when a tribe copies neighbouring caste style, diet, and marriage closure.
- G. S. Ghurye read this as Hinduisation, the tribe entering the caste ladder. Elwin read the same contact as loss of land and of a distinct social world.
- Labour migration, boarding school, and diku marriage produce class splits inside the tribe. A salaried clan line is not the old council.
Religious consequences
- Village deities get Hindu names, or a new goddess arrives with the trader. Sacred groves shrink when the Forest Act and the plough arrive together.
- Christian missions in the North-East and among Santals created indigenous churches, a religious consequence that is not Sanskritisation.
- Reform sects, prohibition of brew, and anti-witch campaigns follow Hindu and Christian contact alike.
- Birsa Munda’s faith was a religious answer to contact, not a simple copy of either neighbour.
Limit
- Contact is old. The British state and the post-Independence mine intensified it. Not every festival change is a fall.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD C[Contact] --> S[Sanskritisation class split] C --> H[Hinduisation] C --> CH[Church] C --> B[Birsa prophetic revolt]
Conclusion
Socially, contact yields caste-like rank, class split, and sometimes council decline. Religiously, it yields Hinduisation, church, and prophetic revolt. The direction is not one-way.
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 in the 2022 paper (Q8). View answer →
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Is all religious change conversion?
No. Many groups add Hindu names to old gods without a census conversion.
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Did Elwin deny any positive contact?
He denied that loss of land and language was a fair price for the trader’s religion.
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