July 14, 2023 | Author: Srina Bose
In India resides a large population of tribals equalling almost 8.9% of the Indian population. The Annual Report of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (2017–18) indicates that nearly 45.3 % of tribes in rural areas and 23 % in urban areas continue to live under the poverty line.
Unlike in the Americas, Australia, New Zealand with a recent history of conquest, immigration and colonisation– in India identification of indigenous people is not easy. Tribal communities have been living in close proximity with the non- tribal people for over centuries leading to much acculturation and assimilation into the larger Hindu society.
Majority of tribals were never part of any organized religion such as Hinduism, Islam and Christianity. They evolved their own beliefs, based on folk traditions and conventions. Most importantly, they did not fall under the oppressive caste system and brahmanical order of India.
Adivasi women during a protest against the proposed mining of bauxite in Niyamgiri, Odisha. Photo: Reuters
Gandhi– Indian freedom fighter and anti-colonial nationalist, loved and respected by the masses, the embodiment of altruism, goodness and supposed non violence – had a nuanced opinion of the Adivasis of India, as opposed to the picture perfect one we are taught as children. Or rather, we assumed as children. We were never taught these things. The Adivasis don’t find a place in our textbook.
Mahatma Gandhi's introduction with aborigines occurred in South Africa, where he witnessed the people of 'Zulu' tribe and described them as ‘innocent and ignorant’ people. Gandhi either failed to pay attention to them or summarily placed them under the same category of the Dalits– another impoverished community of India, the ones who fell at the bottom of the caste system.
Mahatma Gandhi spins thread during the Salt March, a civil disobedience movement against British rule in India, in 1930. PHOTO: ALAMY
In 1919-20, there occurred a severe famine in Mahikantha, Panchmahals and Rewakantha of Bombay-Gujarat. The majority of the inhabitants of the region affected were Bhil tribals. During this time, Gandhi and A.V. Thakkar worked at the grass root levels.
When the Oraon Adivasis launched a nonviolent civil disobedience movement, known as the ‘Tana movement’, in Ranchi, Gandhi was very impressed with the Tana Bhagats’ simple life styles. Still, Dr Bina Sengar from Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad highlights that Gandhi had very little interaction with the Adivasi communities and it was mainly the Gandhians like Jugatram Dave and Thakkar Bapa who mostly interacted with them.
Ashvini Kumar Pankaj writes in her article for the Outlook: “The four principles of nonviolence, satyagraha, swadeshi and world peace that Gandhi vouched for were originally established by the Adivasis. In fact, they have been living by them for over 5000 years.”
The Adivasis have been self-sufficient in the three basic necessities of life: food, clothes and house. They even made their own salt, an interesting preface to the famous Salt March by Gandhi.
Sociologist Joseph Marianus Kujur says, “Despite Gandhi being unusually inattentive to Adivasi issues, if someone looks at Gandhian and Adivasi philosophy together, they would be surprised how similar the two traditions are in thought, action and spirit.”
Gandhians motivated the tribal people to adopt satyagraha as means of protest against their exploitation instead of armed protest. This new form of protest aimed to change the attitude of the mainstream people who generally considered tribes to be violent and aggressive.
However, here is where a discrepancy comes up.
Considered the same in the eyes of the common man, and especially the common politician (and Gandhi for all his good deeds and forward thinking, I still call a politician) was the issue Scheduled Castes (Dalits) along with the Scheduled Tribes (Adivasis)
Gandhi explicitly supported the caste system, justifying its role in providing structure to society. He believed in the abolition of untouchability but never in the abolition of caste as a whole, until much later. By tossing around noble statements claiming that a manual scavenger should be as respected as a Brahmin priest– he feigned an attempt of advocacy for the marginalized. In 1896 at a public meeting in Bombay, he said, “The Santhals of Assam will be as useless in South Africa as the natives of that country.”
All throughout his life, for whatever form of social injustice he saw around him–to the oppressed– he only suggested peaceful Satyagraha. Be it to the Adivasis and Dalits of India, raped, dispossed of land, considered social outcasts, or the Jews of Germany.
Ambedkar, the father of the Indian constitution– the most important voice of the Dalits but again, possessing an outdated outlook regarding the Adivasis–concluded that Gandhism is a paradox. It stands for freedom, justice and peace, however it discourages the attack on the status quo– that is, those who erected and maintained the oppressive systems in the first place.
Image Credit: Freedom Fighters Stories
Peaceful satyagraha alone never was enough to bring down the dominating class, at least for the Adivasis. When Gandhi was funded by affluent industrialists (another lesser known part of Indian history) who did not benefit per se with the empowerment of marginalized castes and tribes, I believe that Gandhi’s attempt of sympathy or his convoluted and often indirect statements regarding his opinion about them were strategic to say the least.
Godse, the man who killed Gandhi– called him a ‘violent pacifist’ and for all his questionable inclinations towards the extreme Hindu right– I believe that to a certain extent, he isn’t wrong.
Ania Loomba in her essay titled ‘Gandhi’s Violence Of Non Violence’ says that Gandhi's remarks on non-violence are directed always towards the dissenter; while one could argue that he is hardly concerned with preaching to the oppressor. Gandhi invoked the morality of dissent when it suited him.
To conclude, I don’t believe that Gandhi’s stance about the Adivasis was merely black or white. However, I do know that all of Indian History glorifies him. This is slowly reversing and taking an unsettling shape as the ruling government goes on to explicitly support Godse’s Hindu extremist views, but by and large– to the ordinary Indian child, Gandhi is perfect. He is often the person foreigners associate with our country. He is our face: an integral piece of our international identity.
However, our history is incomplete.
Neither the ordinary Indian child nor the ordinary foreign child who knows about Gandhi’s existence– knows the entire picture.
As for the Adivasis, seventy five years after Gandhi’s death– I presume they do not spend day and night dissecting his opinion of them. Perhaps all they want is more practicality and less philosophy. It is uncertain who will offer them that.
Jirua Parhaian and her husband Dhaneshwar Parhaiya whose ration cards have been cut off without any explanation, making it harder for them to afford all meals. | Picture credit: Anumeha Yadav
Sources:
Virginius Xaxa. “Tribes as Indigenous People of India.” Economic and Political Weekly, vol. 34, no. 51, 1999, pp. 3589–95. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4408738. Accessed 2 June 2023.
Sengar, Bina Kumari. “GANDHIAN APPROACH TO TRIBALS.” Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, vol. 62, 2001, pp. 627–36. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44155809. Accessed 2 June 2023.
"Gujarat: ‘Gandhi and Gandhians Took Inspiration from Adivasis’." Outlook India, 31 Oct. 2020, indianexpress.com/article/cities/ahmedabad/gujarat-gandhi-and-gandhians-took-inspiration-from-adivasis-6672403/.
Chakrabarty, K. (2019). Tribe and Tribal Welfare in Gandhian Thoughts. Journal of the Anthropological Survey of India, 68(2), 225–233. https://doi.org/10.1177/2277436X19881261
Stone, J. H. “M. K. Gandhi: Some Experiments with Truth.” Journal of Southern African Studies, vol. 16, no. 4, 1990, pp. 721–40. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/2637044. Accessed 3 June 2023.
LOOMBA, ANIA. “THE VIOLENCE OF GANDHI’S NON-VIOLENCE.” India International Centre Quarterly, vol. 41, no. 1, 2014, pp. 19–37. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44733571. Accessed 2 June 2023.