Revision summary
The 1935 Act created excluded and partially excluded tribal areas. Governors ruled with special powers; ordinary politics was thinned. Protection from plains exploitation was the official reason. Isolation also othered tribes and delayed political voice. Schedules after 1950 reuse the spatial exception as autonomy, unevenly.
Model answer
Introduction
The Government of India Act, 1935, wrote tribal segregation into late colonial constitutional law through excluded and partially excluded areas. The policy claimed protection. It also prepared a people as administratively other.
Body
What 1935 did
- It classified certain hill and forest tracts as excluded or partially excluded, limiting ordinary provincial law and legislatures.
- Governors held special responsibility. The tribal subject was a ward more than a voter.
- The lineage runs from earlier Inner Line and scheduled district practices to this Act.
Official rationale
- Isolation would shield custom from plains landlords and moneylenders, a protective note Elwin could recognise.
- It also cheapened administration and kept labour and timber frontiers manageable.
Sociological effects
- Segregation defined ‘tribe’ as a spatial-legal type, feeding later definitional problems of ST lists.
- Ghurye attacked isolation as a bar to Hindu integration; nationalists saw a divide-and-rule map.
- Mission, market, and forest contractor still entered; segregation was never a sealed museum.
- Political voice was delayed, which later autonomy movements had to invent against both colonial and postcolonial centres.
Afterlife
- Fifth and Sixth Schedules inherit the spatial idea of exception, now as self-rule rather than Crown wardship.
- Discontent continues when exception is protection on paper and a mining corridor in fact.
Flow diagram
flowchart TD A[1935 excluded areas] --> W[Wardship not full franchise] A --> P[Claimed protection] A --> ST[Later ST spatial exception] M[Markets mines] --> A
Conclusion
The 1935 segregation policy mixed protection with political quarantine. It shaped who counts as tribal and how the republic later scheduled areas. Examination must hold both the shield against plains landlords and the denial of equal political membership.
Quick related
Students also ask
-
Discuss the dynamics of 'migrant workers' in India in the context of Corona pandemic.
Next question in the 2020 paper (Q3). View answer →
-
Did 1935 invent tribes?
It legally thickened a spatial tribe. Communities pre-existed the clause.
-
Was segregation only divide and rule?
It served imperial control. Some protective effects against landlord entry were real.
PYQ trend
When UPSC asked this
Related PYQs from other years, newest first. Open a question to read it.
-
2021 · Q8(c) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Does "economic empowerment" automatically bring about "substantive empowerment" for women ? Briefly describe the main issues in women empowerment in India -
2020 · Q1(b) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
"Banning practice of 'Sati' is attributed to annihilation of a major social evil in colonial India." Comment. -
2020 · Q1(d) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Explain the definitional problems concerning the tribal communities in India. -
2020 · Q5(b) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Analyze the issues related to the citizenship in contemporary India. Give suitable illustrations. -
2019 · Q1(e) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Comment on the growing assertion of tribal community for autonomy in India -
2019 · Q3(a) · Sociology GS 2 · 20 marks
What is ethno-nationalism? Examine the critical factors responsible for tribal discontent in India -
2019 · Q5(a) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Comment on the critical issues of commercialization of higher education in India -
2019 · Q8(c) · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
What is 'social security'? Examine recent security measures adopted by the Government in India
More from this paper
Q1(a) · UPSC Mains 2020 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
Elaborate A. R. Desai's perspective to the study of Indian society.
Perspectives on the study of Indian society
Desai reads Indian society through class and colonial capitalism. Nationalism is bourgeois-led and incomplete for labour. Land reform strengthened rich peasants more than mazdoors. Caste is real as it organises exploitation, not as India’s essence. Subaltern and gender critiques say consciousness is more than class party.
Q1(b) · UPSC Mains 2020 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
"Banning practice of 'Sati' is attributed to annihilation of a major social evil in colonial India." Comment.
Tribal communities in India
The 1829 ban criminalised widow burning after reformist pressure. It was a major legal strike at a sacralised evil. Widowhood as social death continued in property and honour. Colonial law also staged India as backward tradition. Annihilation needs kinship change, not only a prohibition.
Q1(c) · UPSC Mains 2020 · Sociology GS 2 · 10 marks
How do you justify Dumont's deliberate stress on ideology that produce intellectualized account of Indian society?
Perspectives on the study of Indian society
Dumont made hierarchy an ideology of purity, not a heap of customs. The binary explains caste as a coherent value system. The cost is a Brahmanical, intellectualised India. Srinivas, Beteille and Desai show land, class and disharmonic equality. Use Dumont for values; do not let texts replace interaction.
Toppers' copies
Toppers' copies for this question will be uploaded soon.