Revision summary
Ghurye held that Indian tribes are incomplete Hindus who should be absorbed into caste civilisation. He was right that many middle-Indian groups already share festivals, rank, and landlords with peasants. Bose, Srinivas, Roy, and Bailey document that continuum. He was wrong to treat Khasi matriliny, Naga polity, Munda khuntkatti, and sarna or church as mere backwardness. Elwin, Haimendorf, and the Xaxa Committee keep tribe as a distinct historical and legal category.
Model answer
Introduction
G. S. Ghurye argued that Indian tribes are not a separate civilisation but backward Hindus, that is, groups on the edge of caste society who already share many Hindu beliefs and who should be absorbed further. The statement is a policy claim as well as a description, and it must be tested against hill and forest ethnography.
Body
Ghurye’s thesis
- In The Aborigines — So-Called — and Their Future and later The Scheduled Tribes, Govind Sadashiv Ghurye rejected the colonial isolation of “aborigines”.
- He held that many tribes already worshipped Hindu gods, used Hindu festivals, and sat on a caste-like rank ladder next to peasants.
- “Backward” meant incomplete Sanskritisation and weak access to plains resources, not a different human type.
- Policy followed description: education, Hindu social reform, and administrative integration, against Verrier Elwin’s call to protect a distinct hill genius.
What the thesis gets right
- N. K. Bose’s Hindu method of tribal absorption and M. N. Srinivas’s Sanskritisation show real traffic: Oraon, Munda, Bhil, and Gond groups take on Hindu festivals, gotras, and vegetarian elites.
- S. C. Roy already recorded Oraon and Munda contact with Hindu landlords and missionaries. Tribe and caste are a continuum in much of middle India, as F. G. Bailey later said of Bisipara.
- Census and reservation politics often treat “tribe” as a legal list, while everyday rank behaves like a jati.
What the thesis gets wrong
- Language families (Austroasiatic, Tibeto-Burman, Dravidian hill tongues), clan land such as Munda khuntkatti, Naga morung, and Khasi matriliny are not delayed varna.
- Elwin’s NEFA, Apatani, and Baiga work, and later Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf on Gonds and Nagas, show political and ritual systems that do not wait to become Hindu jatis.
- Calling tribes “backward Hindus” erases Christian Naga and Mizo publics, Buddhist Monpa monasteries, and sarna or sacred-grove religion as mere deficit.
- Xaxa Committee (2014) treated ST as a political-historical category of dispossession, not as incomplete Hindus.
Critical comment
- Ghurye correctly attacked a museum view of tribes and correctly saw Hinduisation in the plains fringe.
- He wrongly made Hindu society the only future, and he used “backward” as a civilisational rank.
- Anthropology now reads tribe–caste contact as two-way, historically specific, and legally Scheduled, not as a single ladder into Hinduism.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD G[Ghurye] --> H[Backward Hindus] H --> A[Absorption] E[Elwin Haimendorf] --> D[Distinct land language] B[Bailey Bose Roy] --> C[Tribe caste continuum] C --> G D --> X[Not only Hindu deficit]
Conclusion
Ghurye’s phrase names contact and absorption in middle India. It fails as a general law. Tribes are historically distinct in land, language, and polity even when they take Hindu rites. Integration without erasure is the better policy reading.
Quick related
Students also ask
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Elucidate the problems and challenges in educational attainment of the Scheduled Tribes
Next question on this syllabus topic (2021 · Q4(c)). View answer →
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Did Ghurye deny that tribes exist?
He denied that they were a separate civilisation sealed from Hindu society. He still used the administrative category while aiming at absorption.
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Are all tribes Hinduising?
No. Many Naga, Mizo, Khasi, and Arunachal groups are Christian or Buddhist. Others keep sarna, clan cults, or mixed practice.
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