The Adivasi (also spelled Adibasi) are the heterogeneous tribal groups across the Indian subcontinent. The term Adivasi, a 20th-century construct meaning "ancient inhabitants", is now widely used as a self-designation by many of the communities who are officially recognised as "Scheduled Tribes" in India and as "Ethnic minorities" in Bangladesh. They constitute approximately 8.6% of India's population (around 104.2 million, according to the 2011 Census) and about 1.1% of Bangladesh's population (roughly 2 million, 2010 estimate).
Claiming to be among the original inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent, many present-day Adivasi communities formed during the flourishing period of the Indus Valley Civilisation or after its decline, harbouring various degrees of ancestry from Dravidians, Indo-Aryan, Austroasiatic, and Tibeto-Burman peoples.
Adivasi studies is a new scholarly field, drawing upon archaeology, anthropology, agrarian history, environmental history, subaltern studies, indigenous studies, aboriginal studies, and developmental economics. It adds debates that are specific to the Indian context.
Definition and etymology Adivasi is the collective term for the tribes of the Indian subcontinent, who are claimed to be the indigenous people of India. It refers to "any of various ethnic groups considered to be the original inhabitants of the Indian subcontinent".
In most Indo-Aryan languages, such as Hindi and Bengali, Adivasi means "Original Inhabitants," The word is derived from the Sanskrit ādi 'beginning, origin'; and vāsin 'dweller' (itself from vas 'to dwell'), thus literally meaning 'beginning inhabitant'."Adivasi, n. and adj." OED Online. Oxford University Press, June 2017. Web. 10 September 2017. Although terms such as atavika, vanavāsi ("forest dwellers"), or girijan ("mountain people")Elst, Koenraad: (2001) are also used for the tribes of India, adivāsi carries the specific meaning of being the original and autochthonous inhabitants of a given region, and the self-designation of those tribal groups. However, the use and acceptance of the term Adivasi vary across places, communities, and contexts and does not always carry its original connotation. For instance tribal people of North East India do not use the term adivasi for themselves, and prefer the words "Indigenous" or "Tribe". The term Adivāsi applies only to the immigrated Tea-tribes of Central Indian origin. In Bangladesh, the term adivasi is also used to refer tribal people of Central Indian affiliation, although not popularly as India, wherein the Adivasi have designated as "Ethnic minorities" (). Similarly the term Adivasi Janjati used in Nepal for hierarchically low-status ethnic groups in Nepal's caste system, having their own socio-cultural institutions, although the political context differed historically under the Shah and Rana dynasties. In Sri Lanka, the Vedda people are referred to as Adivasi.
The term Adivasi is a Sanskrit word specifically coined in 1930s by tribal political activists to give a distinct and collective indigenous identity to tribal people, alleging that Indo-Aryan and Dravidian ethnolinguistic groups are not indigenous to the land. The term was initially popularised by tribal activist organisations in present-day Jharkhand. Later, Thakkar Bapa used the word to advocate for a pan-Indian reference to the inhabitants of forests, a usage that was later adopted, although not popularly by Gandhi. Post-independence, Jaipal Singh Munda, president of the Jharkhand-based organisation 'Adivasi Mahasabha', was elected as an independent member representing tribal people in the Constituent Assembly. He advocated for the term 'Adivasi' in place of 'Scheduled Tribe'. However, due to the need for legal connotation, Ambedkar rejected the use of such general socio-political terms in the Constitution by adopting 'Scheduled Tribe' for tribal people and 'Scheduled Caste' for untouchables, although he advocated for Dalits. Ambedkar, responding to Munda's advocacy for 'Adivasi', clarified: "why I substituted the word "scheduled" for the word "aboriginal" the explanation is ... the word 'scheduled tribe' has a fixed meaning, because it enumerates the tribes ... the word 'Adibasi' is really a general term which has no specific legal de jure connotation, something like the Untouchables . Anybody may include anybody in the term 'untouchable' . ...by this Constitution, we are conferring certain privileges, certain rights on these Adibasis. In order that, if the matter was taken to a court of law there should be a precise definition as to who are these Adibasis, it was decided to invent, so to say, another category or another term to be called 'Scheduled tribes' and to enumerate the Adibasis under that head." However, the term Adivasi maintained its influence in public discourse as a status quo, challenging the legally designated, state-specific administrative term Scheduled Tribes.
The Constitution of India does not use the word Adivasi, and directs government officials to not use the word in official work. The notified Adivasi are designated as Scheduled Tribes (Anusuchit Janjati) in the Constitution. The constitution grouped these ethnic groups together "as targets for social and economic development". Since that time the tribes of India have been known officially as Scheduled Tribes. Article 366 (25) defined scheduled tribes as "such tribes or tribal communities or parts of or groups within such tribes or tribal communities as are deemed under Article 342 to be Scheduled Tribes for the purposes of this constitution".
Judicially it remarked that "India is a country of old immigrants in which people have been coming in over the last ten thousand years or so... who came mainly from the North-West, and to a lesser extent from the North-East... At one time it was believed that the Dravidians were the original inhabitants. However, this view has been considerably modified subsequently, and now the generally accepted belief is that the original inhabitants of India were the pre-Dravidian aborigines, i.e. the ancestors of the present Adivasi or Adivasis (Scheduled Tribes)."S. Faizi & Priya K. Nair, 2016. "Adivasis: The World's Largest Population of Indigenous People," Development, Palgrave Macmillan; Society for International Development, vol. 59(3), pages 350–353, December.
In India, although the terms "Tribe" and "Adivasi" are often used interchangeably, they have distinct contextual meanings. "Tribe" refers to a social unit, whereas "Adivasi" means ancient inhabitants. The former is an anthropological term primarily associated with the social characteristics, while the latter is a socio-political term associated with the autochthonous identity and broadly used as analogous to the global usage of "Indigenous" and "Aboriginal". The use of the term Adivasi as a socio-political construct has been scholarly critiqued for overlooking the regional historical complexities of indigeneity, including migration, linguistics, anthropology, and archaeology. Hardiman, for instance, views this as "the idea that Adivasis are autochthonous, or original, inhabitants is by the fact that many such groups are known to have migrated in recorded history into the areas in which they are now found, often displacing existing inhabitants in the process... There have been so many migrations in and out of this region in past centuries that no particular jati can have genuine grounds for making such a claim."
India does not exclusively recognise Adivasis Tribes Scheduled Tribes as indigenous people of India, rather considers all Indians as indigenous to the land. Thus, India has disagreed or refused at various international forums, when there is uncertainty in the concepts of indigeneity. For instance, although India initially ratified the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 107 on Indigenous and Tribal Populations Convention, 1957, in 1989, India refused to sign the ILO Convention 169. In 2007, considering all Indians as indigenous, India voted for the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the United Nations General Assembly.
Demographics
A substantial number of Adivasi tribal communities are recognised as Scheduled Tribes under the Constitution of India. Those Scheduled Tribes constitute 8.6% of India's population, while in Bangladesh they are designated as "Ethnic minority" and constitute around 1.1% of Bangladesh's population.
One concentration lies in a belt along the northwest Himalayas: consisting of Jammu and Kashmir, where are found many semi-nomadic groups, to Ladakh and northern Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, where are found Tibeto-Burman groups.
In the northeastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Mizoram, and Nagaland, more than 90% of the population is tribal. However, in the remaining northeast states of Assam, Manipur, Sikkim, and Tripura, Adivasi form between 20 and 30% of the population.
The largest population of tribal people lives in a belt stretching from eastern Gujarat and Rajasthan in the west all the way to western West Bengal, a region known as the tribal belt. These tribes correspond roughly to three regions. The western region, in eastern Gujarat, southeastern Rajasthan, northwestern Maharashtra as well as western Madhya Pradesh, is dominated by Indo-Aryan speaking tribes like the Bhils. The central region, covering eastern Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, western and southern Chhattisgarh, northern and eastern Telangana, northern Andhra Pradesh and western Odisha is dominated by Dravidian tribes like the Gonds and Khonds. The eastern belt, centred on the Chhota Nagpur Plateau in Jharkhand and adjacent areas of Chhattisgarh, Odisha and West Bengal, is dominated by Munda tribes like the Bhumijs, Hos and Santals. Roughly 75% of the total tribal population live in this belt, although the tribal population there accounts for only around 10% of the region's total population.
Further south, the region near Bellary in Karnataka has a large concentration of tribal people, mostly Boyas/ Valmikis. Small pockets can be found throughout the rest of South India. By far the largest of these pockets is in found in the region containing the Nilgiris district of Tamil Nadu, Wayanad district of Kerala and nearby hill ranges of Chamarajanagar and Mysore districts of southern Karnataka. Further south, only small pockets of tribal settlement remain in the Western and Eastern Ghats.
The scheduled tribe population in Jharkhand constitutes 26.2% of the state. Adivasi in Jharkhand mainly follow Sarnaism, an animistic religion. Chhattisgarh has also over 80 lakh scheduled tribe population. Assam has over 40 lakh Adivasis primarily as tea workers. Adivasis in India mainly follow Animism, Hinduism and Christianity.
In the case of Bangladesh, most Adivasi groups are found in the Chittagong Hill Tracts along the border with Myanmar, and in the Northwestern parts of the country, with Chakma, Marma, Munda and Santal being the most populous. The Chittagong Hill Tracts are home to various Tibeto-Burman-speaking groups like the Chakma and Marma who are followers of Buddhism, and Tripuri who are Hindus. While the plains dwelling Santal and the Munda follow animism. A small percentage of adivasis in Bangladesh, like the Khasi, are Christians.
History
Origin Though claimed to be the original inhabitants of India, many present-day Adivasi communities formed after the decline of the Indus Valley Civilisation, harbouring various degrees of ancestry from ancient hunter-gatherers, Indus Valley Civilisation, Indo-Aryan, Austroasiatic and Tibeto-Burman language speakers. Only Adivasi of Andaman Islands remained isolated for more than 25,000 years.
Ancient and medieval period