Tribal Administration and Applied Anthropology — UPSC Anthropology Optional Notes

1. History of Tribal Administration

Pre-colonial: tribes were largely autonomous, with tributary or exchange ties to kingdoms, such as the Gond kingdoms of central India and the posa payments the Ahom rulers made to hill tribes.

Early colonial control: after the Kol rebellion, Regulation XIII of 1833 created the South-West Frontier Agency for Chotanagpur; after the Santal Hul, the Santal Parganas district (1855) was placed under special administration.

Inner Line and Scheduled Districts: the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation (1873) created the Inner Line Permit system in the north-east, and the Scheduled Districts Act (1874) allowed special, simpler administration of tribal tracts.

Government of India Acts: the 1919 Act set apart 'backward tracts', and the 1935 Act created 'excluded areas' (under the Governor's discretion) and 'partially excluded areas'.

Constituent Assembly: the North-East Frontier (Assam) Tribal and Excluded Areas sub-committee under Gopinath Bordoloi shaped the Sixth Schedule, and the Excluded and Partially Excluded Areas (other than Assam) sub-committee under A.V. Thakkar shaped the Fifth Schedule; Jaipal Singh Munda spoke powerfully for Adivasi rights.

2. The Constitutional Framework

Fifth Schedule (Article 244(1)): Scheduled Areas in ten states (Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and Rajasthan), covering 97 districts (33 fully and 64 partly) according to a March 2025 Lok Sabha reply.

Criteria for Scheduled Areas: preponderance of tribal population, compactness and reasonable size, under-developed nature, and marked economic disparity with neighbouring areas.

Governor's powers: to direct that any law shall not apply or shall apply with modifications, and to make regulations for peace and good government, especially on land transfer, land allotment and moneylending; the Governor reports annually to the President.

Tribes Advisory Council: up to 20 members, three-fourths of them ST members of the state assembly, advising on tribal welfare.

Sixth Schedule (Articles 244(2) and 275(1)): ten Autonomous District Councils in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram, each with up to 30 members (four nominated), with legislative, judicial (village courts), executive and financial powers; the 125th Constitution Amendment Bill (2019) to strengthen them is pending.

Commissions under Article 339: the Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes Commission chaired by U.N. Dhebar (1960 to 1961) and the second commission chaired by Dilip Singh Bhuria (2002 to 2004).

3. Tribal Policies

Isolation: the colonial excluded-areas policy and Elwin's early proposal of protected 'national parks' for tribes such as the Baiga.

Assimilation: Ghurye's view that tribes were backward Hindus to be absorbed into the mainstream.

Integration: Nehru's Panchsheel, set out in his foreword to the second edition of Elwin's A Philosophy for NEFA (1959).

The five principles: people should develop along the lines of their own genius; tribal rights in land and forests should be respected; their own people should be trained for administration and development; tribal areas should not be over-administered and should work through their own institutions; results should be judged by the quality of human character evolved, not by statistics or money spent.

Later policy: a Draft National Tribal Policy (2006) was never finalised; rights-based laws (PESA 1996, FRA 2006) and the Xaxa Committee (2014) now frame policy debate.

4. Plans and Programmes of Tribal Development

First and Second Plans: Community Development (1952) and 43 Special Multipurpose Tribal Blocks (1954); the Elwin Committee (1960) reviewed the blocks.

Third Plan: Tribal Development Blocks on the Dhebar Commission's recommendation.

Fifth Plan (1974 to 1975): the Tribal Sub-Plan, building on the Shilu Ao Study Team (1969), earmarked funds in proportion to ST population and set up Integrated Tribal Development Projects; Primitive Tribal Groups were identified from 1975 to 1976.

Sixth and Seventh Plans: the Modified Area Development Approach (pockets of 10,000 people with at least 50% STs) and clusters (5,000 people with at least 50% STs); TRIFED was set up in 1987.

Institutional milestones: Ministry of Tribal Affairs (1999), National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (2004), and the Tribal Sub-Plan renamed the Development Action Plan for STs (2017 to 2018).

Current flagship programmes: Eklavya Model Residential Schools, Van Dhan (2018), Pradhan Mantri Adi Adarsh Gram Yojana (2021 to 2022), PM-JANMAN (2023) and the Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan (2024, 79,156 crore rupees for about 63,800 villages).

Implementation problems: diversion and under-use of sub-plan funds, poor convergence between departments, staff shortages in remote areas, top-down planning and weak gram sabha participation, as noted by the Xaxa Committee.

5. Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs)

Origin: the Dhebar Commission noted wide inequality among tribes; from 1975 the government identified Primitive Tribal Groups, reaching 75 by 1993, and renamed them Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups in 2006.

Criteria: pre-agricultural level of technology, low literacy, economic backwardness (subsistence economy) and a stagnant or declining population.

Distribution: 75 PVTGs in 18 states and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands; Odisha has the largest number (13).

Examples: Jarawa, Onge, Great Andamanese, Sentinelese and Shompen (Andaman and Nicobar); Toda, Kota, Kurumba, Irula, Paniyan and Kattunayakan (Tamil Nadu); Baiga, Bharia and Sahariya (Madhya Pradesh); Abujh Maria, Kamar, Hill Korwa and Birhor (Chhattisgarh); Bondo, Dongria Kondh, Juang, Lanjia Saura and Chuktia Bhunjia (Odisha); Asur, Birjia, Mal Paharia and Sauria Paharia (Jharkhand); Chenchu and Kolam (Andhra Pradesh and Telangana); Katkari (Maharashtra); Koraga (Karnataka); Cholanaikan (Kerala); Raji and Buksa (Uttarakhand); Toto and Lodha (West Bengal); Reang (Tripura).

Population: the PM-JANMAN habitation survey was reported in 2026 to have counted about 48.5 lakh PVTG members in about 12.4 lakh households.

Special programmes: the Development of PVTGs scheme with Conservation-cum-Development plans (from 2007 to 2008), and PM-JANMAN (launched 15 November 2023, 24,104 crore rupees) with 11 critical interventions through nine ministries, including housing, roads, piped water, mobile medical units, hostels and Van Dhan centres.

Island policies: the Andaman and Nicobar Protection of Aboriginal Tribes Regulation (1956), the Jarawa policy (2004) and the Shompen policy (2015) protect reserves; contact with the Sentinelese is prohibited.

Critique: the label 'primitive' was stigmatising; PVTGs vary widely in size (the Sahariya are large while the Great Andamanese are tiny); habitation-level data and culturally sensitive delivery remain weak.

6. Role of NGOs in Tribal Development

Functions: service delivery in education and health, livelihood promotion, advocacy for land and forest rights, research and documentation, disaster relief, and building the capacity of gram sabhas.

Early bodies: the Bharatiya Adimjati Sevak Sangh (1948), founded under A.V. Thakkar ('Thakkar Bapa'), and the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (1952).

Education: the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (Bhubaneswar, 1993), a large free residential institution for tribal children, and the Ramakrishna Mission's work at Narainpur in the Abujhmarh area.

Health: SEARCH (Abhay and Rani Bang, Gadchiroli, 1986), whose home-based newborn care sharply reduced neonatal deaths (published in The Lancet, 1999); Ekjut in Jharkhand, whose women's group trial cut neonatal mortality (The Lancet, 2010).

Livelihoods and rights: PRADAN (1983), BAIF, Seva Mandir (Udaipur), Keystone Foundation (Nilgiris) and Vasundhara (Odisha) on forest rights and forest produce.

Problems: dependence on external funds and tighter FCRA rules (amended 2020), allegations of religious agendas on several sides, urban-led leadership, uneven accountability and duplication with government schemes.

Way forward: partnership with gram sabhas and tribal community organisations, transparent funding, and evaluation by independent anthropologists.

7. Diagrams to Draw

Administration timeline: 1833 Regulation XIII, 1873 Inner Line, 1874 Scheduled Districts Act, 1919 backward tracts, 1935 excluded areas, 1950 Fifth and Sixth Schedules, 1954 SMPT, 1974 TSP, 1975 PTGs, 1996 PESA, 1999 Ministry, 2006 FRA and PVTG renaming, 2023 PM-JANMAN, 2024 DAJGUA.

PVTG map: outline of India marking states with PVTGs and naming one in each, with Odisha highlighted as having the most.

Comparison table: Fifth versus Sixth Schedule on area, authority, institutions, powers and examples.

8. Using It in the Exam

10 marks (150 words): a note on PVTGs (criteria, number, distribution, PM-JANMAN) or on the Panchsheel.

15 marks (200 words): Fifth versus Sixth Schedule, or the role of NGOs with named examples and limits.

20 marks (250 words): history of tribal administration, policies, plans and their implementation, with an evaluation and suggestions.

Keywords: excluded areas, Fifth Schedule, Panchsheel, Tribal Sub-Plan, ITDP, PVTG.

Quotable: Panchsheel (1959): we should not over-administer these areas or overwhelm them with a multiplicity of schemes, but work through their own social and cultural institutions.

1. Concepts and Definitions

Applied anthropology: the use of anthropological knowledge, methods and theory to understand and solve practical problems in health, education, development, administration and conflict.

Action anthropology (Sol Tax): from the Fox Project among the Meskwaki of Iowa (from 1948), the anthropologist works with a community to help it achieve goals it chooses, learning and helping at the same time.

Development anthropology: anthropologists working inside development agencies to design, implement and evaluate projects (for example Michael Cernea at the World Bank on resettlement).

Anthropology of development: a critical study of development as a discourse and practice; James Ferguson (The Anti-Politics Machine, 1990, on Lesotho) and Arturo Escobar (Encountering Development, 1995) argued that development often depoliticises poverty and expands state control.

History: Malinowski wrote on 'practical anthropology' (1929) for colonial Africa; the Society for Applied Anthropology was founded in 1941; L.P. Vidyarthi edited Applied Anthropology in India (1968).

2. Role in Tribal Development: Policy and Administration

Policy shaping: Verrier Elwin's work led to the Panchsheel and NEFA administration; C. von Fürer-Haimendorf advised the Hyderabad government after the Gond rising led by Kumram Bheem (1940), recommending land protection and Gond-language schools.

Identification: ethnographic reports by the Anthropological Survey of India and Tribal Research Institutes support decisions on inclusion in the ST list (Lokur criteria) and on PVTG status.

Tribal Research Institutes: the first was set up at Ranchi in 1953; TRIs conduct research, evaluate schemes, train officials, run museums and document languages and customary law.

Knowledge base: the People of India project (from 1985) and state ethnographic atlases give planners baseline data on communities.

Administration: anthropologists train officers posted in tribal areas in local languages, customs and sensitivity, a need Panchsheel itself stressed.

3. Role in Tribal Development: Sectors

Land, forests and displacement: social impact assessment under the 2013 land acquisition Act, mapping of customary boundaries and community forest resources under the FRA, and resettlement plans based on Cernea's impoverishment risks.

Shifting cultivation: anthropologists showed that jhum is a rational adaptation to hill ecology rather than a 'primitive' practice; Nagaland's NEPED project (1990s) improved jhum with agroforestry instead of banning it.

Health: SEARCH's home-based newborn care in Gadchiroli (published 1999) used trained village women and local beliefs to cut neonatal deaths; Ekjut's participatory women's groups in Jharkhand and Odisha did the same (2010); sickle-cell counselling must account for kinship and marriage rules in endogamous groups.

Education: mother-tongue based multilingual education, tribal teachers, school calendars matched to agricultural seasons and curricula that include local knowledge reduce dropout.

Livelihoods: value addition to minor forest produce through community institutions (Van Dhan), recognition of women's roles, and respect for collective ownership.

Language and culture: documentation of endangered tribal languages, scripts and oral literature supports mother-tongue education and identity, as with Santali in the Ol Chiki script.

Conflict and governance: understanding customary law and traditional councils helps PESA implementation, peace accords and the working of Sixth Schedule councils.

4. Role in Rural Development

Etawah pilot project (1948, Albert Mayer): the forerunner of the Community Development Programme, which began in 1952.

S.C. Dube (India's Changing Villages, 1958): evaluated Community Development and found a communication gap between officials and villagers, benefits captured by richer farmers and upper castes, and neglect of villagers' felt needs.

George Foster (Traditional Cultures and the Impact of Technological Change, 1962): analysed cultural, social and psychological barriers and stimulants to the acceptance of innovations, a basic guide for change agents.

Participatory methods: Robert Chambers's Participatory Rural Appraisal (Whose Reality Counts?, 1997) drew on anthropological fieldwork to let villagers map, rank and plan.

Present programmes: anthropological insights are used in MGNREGA social audits, self-help groups, Panchayati Raj training, sanitation behaviour change and evaluation of rural housing and drinking-water schemes.

Rural health: studies of local ideas of illness, such as the hot-cold classification of foods, help design nutrition and maternal-health messages that villagers accept.

Green Revolution and agrarian change: village restudies showed how new technology widened inequality and changed caste and gender relations, informing later policy.

5. Methods that Anthropology Brings

Participant observation, key informants, genealogies, case studies, focus groups, participatory mapping and the holistic, emic (insider) view of a community's needs.

Cultural relativism helps planners avoid ethnocentric assumptions, while comparative knowledge suggests what has worked elsewhere.

6. Limits, Critiques and Ethics

Anthropologists are often consulted late or ignored, and their reports rarely shape budgets; TRIs are understaffed.

Risk of co-option: anthropologists may lend legitimacy to projects that displace people; Ferguson's critique warns against treating development as purely technical.

Ethical duties: informed consent, do no harm, protection of identities, and accountability to the community studied first (professional codes such as that of the American Anthropological Association).

The way forward is rights-based, participatory development where tribal people set goals and anthropologists act as facilitators and brokers between community and state.

7. Diagrams to Draw

Applied anthropology cycle: baseline ethnography, diagnosis of felt needs, joint planning with the community, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, feedback into policy, drawn as a circle of arrows.

Comparison table: applied, action and development anthropology and the anthropology of development by aim, role of the anthropologist, example and limitation.

8. Using It in the Exam

10 marks (150 words): a note on action anthropology or on Tribal Research Institutes.

15 marks (200 words): the role of anthropology in rural development with Dube, Foster and PRA.

20 marks (250 words): the role of anthropology in tribal and rural development: concepts, policy role, sector examples (health, education, forests, displacement), critiques and the way forward.

Keywords: applied anthropology, action anthropology, felt needs, social impact assessment, participatory appraisal, cultural fit.

Quotable: Sol Tax's idea of action anthropology, paraphrased: the anthropologist helps a community reach its own goals and learns in the process.

1. Concepts and Definitions

Regionalism: loyalty to a region and the political assertion of its linguistic, cultural or economic interests, ranging from demands for development to statehood or autonomy.

Communalism: Bipan Chandra (Communalism in Modern India, 1984) defined it as the belief that people who follow the same religion share common secular interests that differ from, and conflict with, those of other religious groups.

Ethnic movement: collective mobilisation of an ethnic group for recognition, autonomy, resources or cultural protection.

Social movement: M.S.A. Rao (Social Movements in India, 1978 to 1979) saw it as sustained collective mobilisation guided by an ideology, classified as reformist, transformative or revolutionary; T.K. Oommen stressed charisma, ideology and organisation as its elements.

2. Theoretical Contributions

Fredrik Barth (Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, 1969): ethnic identity is maintained at boundaries through interaction, which explains why groups that share much culture can still mobilise against each other.

Clifford Geertz (Old Societies and New States, 1963): primordial attachments of language, religion, race and region challenge civil loyalty to new states, a framework widely applied to India.

Instrumentalism (Abner Cohen, Paul Brass): elites select and politicise cultural markers to compete for power, so identity movements must be read through interests and organisations.

Constructivism (Benedict Anderson, Bernard Cohn): census categories, print and politics construct communities that then appear ancient and natural.

Relative deprivation and internal colonialism: movements arise when groups feel deprived relative to others or exploited by a core region (Michael Hechter, 1975).

3. Grassroots Ethnography of Politics

F.G. Bailey (Politics and Social Change: Orissa in 1959, 1963): showed brokers linking village, caste and party, and how regional politics works through local networks.

M.N. Srinivas: introduced 'vote bank' and showed dominant castes shaping electoral politics.

Lloyd and Susanne Rudolph (1967) and Rajni Kothari (Caste in Indian Politics, 1970): caste associations and the politicisation of caste turned primordial ties into democratic interest groups.

Partha Chatterjee (The Politics of the Governed, 2004): 'political society' of the poor negotiates with the state outside formal civil society, explaining many identity-based demands.

4. Anthropology of Communalism and Violence

Veena Das (ed., Mirrors of Violence, 1990; Critical Events, 1995): studied the 1984 anti-Sikh violence in Delhi and Partition, showing how survivors, especially women, live with violence and how the state is implicated.

Paul Brass (The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in Contemporary India, 2003): argued from Aligarh that 'institutionalised riot systems' of politicians, local leaders and specialists produce riots, so riots are organised rather than spontaneous.

Ashutosh Varshney (Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life, 2002): compared peaceful and riot-prone city pairs (for example Calicut and Aligarh) and found that inter-communal civic associations prevent violence.

Sudhir Kakar (The Colors of Violence, 1996): psychoanalytic and ethnographic study of Hindu-Muslim conflict in Hyderabad.

Stanley Tambiah (Leveling Crowds, 1996): analysed ethnonationalist crowd violence across South Asia, including the role of rumour and ritualised action.

Common findings: riots cluster in particular towns and neighbourhoods, follow electoral cycles and rumours, and are less likely where everyday economic ties between communities are strong.

5. Regional, Ethnic and Tribal Movements in India

Tribal movements: K.S. Singh's classification (political autonomy, agrarian and forest-based, socio-religious reform, cultural revival) and his study of Birsa Munda; Surajit Sinha and Sachchidananda on tribal solidarity movements.

Jharkhand: from the Adivasi Mahasabha and Jaipal Singh's Jharkhand Party to the JMM and statehood in 2000; studies show the movement combined tribal identity with regional deprivation and a multi-ethnic coalition.

Backward-class movements: M.S.A. Rao's Social Movements and Social Transformation (1979) compared the SNDP movement among the Iravas of Kerala with the Yadav movement, showing how caste groups mobilise for status and power.

Assam and the north-east: Myron Weiner (Sons of the Soil, 1978) and Sanjib Baruah (India Against Itself, 1999) analysed nativism, migration and sub-nationalism; Naga, Mizo, Bodo and Manipur movements show identity, territory and history at work.

Regional and linguistic movements: the Dravidian movement, Telangana statehood (achieved 2 June 2014) and Gorkhaland show language, culture and uneven development behind regionalism.

Policy uses: anthropological knowledge informs Sixth Schedule design, peace accords (Mizo 1986, Bodo 2020), delimitation of Scheduled Areas, commissions (Bhuria, Xaxa) and early warning of conflict through attention to rumours, land disputes and youth unemployment.

6. Methods and Debates

Methods: fieldwork in conflict zones, life histories, oral memory, analysis of rumour and ritual, network analysis of leaders and brokers.

Primordial versus instrumental: most anthropologists now combine the two, seeing deep attachments that elites activate in particular circumstances.

Neutrality and ethics: researching violence raises questions of safety, trauma and whether the anthropologist should advocate for victims; this is debated.

Nation-building versus pluralism: anthropology shows that recognition of diversity (autonomy, language rights) often reduces conflict, while denial of identity fuels it.

Gender lens: feminist anthropologists show that women's bodies are made symbols of community honour in communal and ethnic conflict, and that women also lead peace efforts, as with the Naga Mothers' Association and the Meira Paibis of Manipur.

7. Diagrams to Draw

Typology tree: social movements branching into reformist, transformative and revolutionary (Rao), with tribal, regional, communal and ethnic examples under each.

Causal chain: identity plus grievance (land, jobs, culture) plus elite mobilisation plus trigger (rumour, policy) leads to movement or conflict, with state response (accord, autonomy, repression) as feedback.

8. Using It in the Exam

10 marks (150 words): a note on the anthropological approach to ethnicity (Barth) or on communalism (Brass, Varshney).

15 marks (200 words): the contribution of anthropology to understanding tribal or regional movements, with K.S. Singh and one case study.

20 marks (250 words): the contributions of anthropology to understanding regionalism, communalism and ethnic and political movements: concepts, ethnographies, Indian cases, policy uses and debates.

Keywords: ethnic boundary, primordial attachment, institutionalised riot system, civic engagement, vote bank, sons of the soil.

Quotable: Brass's argument, paraphrased: Hindu-Muslim riots in India are produced by institutionalised riot systems rather than arising spontaneously from ancient hatreds.

1. Tribal Administration, Policies and PVTGs

Example 1 (UPSC 2026, 10 marks): Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG) of the islands.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(d)

Approach: A short note on the five PVTGs of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands: location, approximate population, economy, threats and protective policies.

Of India's 75 PVTGs, five live in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, each numbering from a few dozen to a few hundred in Census 2011.

The groups: the Great Andamanese, resettled on Strait Island and reduced to a few dozen; the Onge of Dugong Creek, Little Andaman, about a hundred; the Jarawa of the western forests of South and Middle Andaman, a few hundred hunter-gatherers; the Sentinelese of North Sentinel Island, who reject all contact; and the Shompen of Great Nicobar, forest foragers and horticulturists.

Threats: epidemics after contact (measles among the Jarawa in 1999), dependence on rations among the Great Andamanese and Onge, tourism along the Andaman Trunk Road and concerns over the Great Nicobar development project for the Shompen.

Protection: the Andaman and Nicobar Protection of Aboriginal Tribes Regulation (1956) creates tribal reserves; the Jarawa policy (2004) and Shompen policy (2015) favour minimal, community-led contact; visiting North Sentinel is prohibited.

Their case shows that for isolated PVTGs, protection and the right to choose isolation matter more than development schemes.

Example 2 (UPSC 2026, 15 marks): 'Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan aims to meet some of the Sustainable Development Goals'. Discuss.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q2(b)

Approach: Describe the Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan (scale, coverage, interventions), map its interventions to specific SDGs, and discuss limitations and conditions for success.

The Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan (DAJGUA), approved in September 2024 and launched on 2 October 2024, commits 79,156 crore rupees over five years to about 63,800 tribal-majority villages in 549 districts, bringing 17 ministries together for 25 interventions. It is named after Birsa Munda.

SDG 1 and 11 (no poverty, housing): pucca houses under PMAY-Gramin and livelihood support for Forest Rights Act title holders.

SDG 2 and 3 (nutrition and health): Anganwadi centres, mobile medical units and sickle-cell screening, addressing high tribal malnutrition and anaemia.

SDG 4 (education): hostels and upgraded schools, complementing Eklavya Model Residential Schools.

SDG 6, 7 and 9 (water, energy, infrastructure): tap water under the Jal Jeevan Mission, electrification including off-grid solar, all-weather roads and mobile connectivity.

SDG 8 and 10 (work and inequality): tribal marketing centres, homestays and skill training, aimed at closing the development gap between tribal and other villages.

Limits: success depends on convergence across ministries, gram sabha participation under PESA, culturally appropriate design and honest monitoring; earlier convergence schemes failed on these counts.

DAJGUA can advance the SDG promise to 'leave no one behind' if villages plan and own it.

Example 3 (UPSC 2026, 20 marks): Write an account on the contribution of Verrier Elwin in developing policies for the tribal populations in post-independent India.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q4(a)

Approach: Write an account of Verrier Elwin: his background and ethnographic work, his changing views (from protection to integration), his role in NEFA and in Nehru's Panchsheel, his committee work, and a critical assessment of his legacy.

Verrier Elwin (1902 to 1964), an Oxford-educated Englishman who came to India as a missionary in 1927, left the church, lived among the Gond and Baiga of the Mandla hills and became an Indian citizen in 1954. He shaped tribal policy more than any other anthropologist.

Ethnographic base: The Baiga (1939), The Muria and their Ghotul (1947) and studies of the Saora and Bondo documented tribal life with sympathy and showed the harm done by forest laws, moneylenders and missionaries.

Early protectionism: in The Aboriginals (1943) and earlier proposals he suggested protected 'national parks' for tribes such as the Baiga, which G.S. Ghurye attacked as isolationism; Elwin later moved towards integration without imposition.

NEFA and Panchsheel: as Adviser for Tribal Affairs in the North-East Frontier Agency from 1954, he argued for administration through tribal councils, slow change, protection of land and forests, and Indianisation without Hinduisation; his A Philosophy for NEFA carried Nehru's foreword (1959) setting out the five principles of tribal Panchsheel.

Policy influence: he chaired the committee on Special Multipurpose Tribal Blocks (report 1960), which criticised over-rapid, uniform development, and advised on the Inner Line and local language education.

Legacy in policy: the Panchsheel principles shaped the integrationist consensus of Indian tribal policy, PESA's respect for customary institutions (1996) and the Forest Rights Act's recognition of customary rights (2006).

Critique: critics called his approach paternalistic and 'museumising', his account of tribal sexuality romantic, and his NEFA model slow to build education and infrastructure; Ramachandra Guha's biography Savaging the Civilized (1999) gives a balanced view.

Elwin's enduring contribution was the idea that tribes should develop 'along the lines of their own genius', with respect for land, institutions and dignity.

Example 4 (UPSC 2026, 10 marks): Article 371A of the Indian Constitution.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(c)

Approach: A short note on Article 371A: origin, the protections it gives Nagaland, the Governor's special responsibility and Tuensang provisions, and current issues.

Article 371A was inserted by the 13th Amendment (1962) following the 16-point agreement between the Union and the Naga People's Convention (1960), and Nagaland became a state on 1 December 1963.

Core protection: no Act of Parliament applies to Nagaland on religious or social practices of the Nagas, Naga customary law and procedure, administration of civil and criminal justice involving decisions according to Naga customary law, or ownership and transfer of land and its resources, unless the Legislative Assembly so decides by resolution.

Other provisions: the Governor has special responsibility for law and order while internal disturbances continue, and special arrangements, including a regional council, were made for Tuensang district.

Issues: the land clause is invoked against central control of oil and minerals; customary bodies cited it to resist women's reservation in urban local bodies, until elections were held with it in 2024; the final Naga settlement may expand it.

Article 371A shows how India accommodates ethno-nationalism through asymmetric federalism.

Example 5 (UPSC 2026, 15 marks): Write an account on Development Action Plan for Scheduled Tribes (DAPST).

Paper and question: Paper II, Q7(c)

Approach: Explain the origin of DAPST from the Tribal Sub-Plan, its mechanism (NITI Aayog guidelines, earmarking by ministries, monitoring), its scale, and a critical assessment with suggestions.

The Development Action Plan for Scheduled Tribes (DAPST) is the present form of the Tribal Sub-Plan, introduced in the Fifth Five-Year Plan (1974 to 1975) to earmark development funds for STs at least in proportion to their population. After the Plan and non-Plan distinction ended, the TSP was renamed DAPST from 2017 to 2018.

Mechanism: under NITI Aayog's 2017 guidelines, 41 central ministries and departments (42 in recent counts) are obliged to earmark between about 4.3% and 17.5% of their scheme budgets for STs, through a separate Scheduled Tribe Component; the Ministry of Tribal Affairs monitors spending through an online portal.

Scale: DAPST allocations rose from about 24,600 crore rupees in 2014 to 2015 to about 1.23 lakh crore rupees in 2024 to 2025, according to the government.

Strengths: it makes every ministry responsible for tribal development, funds roads, schools, health and housing in tribal areas.

Weaknesses: allocations below the norm and often 'notional', counting general schemes whose benefits do not reach tribal areas; under-spending and diversion; no statutory backing; and weak gram sabha role and outcome data, as the Xaxa Committee (2014) noted.

Suggestions: a law on the model of Telangana's SC and ST special development fund law, non-lapsable funds, village-level planning under PESA, and outcome audits.

DAPST can deliver real equity only if its numbers translate into benefits in tribal habitations.

Example 6 (UPSC 2025, 10 marks): Verrier Elwin's philosophy with respect to Arunachal Pradesh

Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(d)

Approach: A short note on Elwin's philosophy for NEFA (Arunachal Pradesh): its principles, how it was applied in administration, and its assessment.

As Adviser for Tribal Affairs in the North-East Frontier Agency (now Arunachal Pradesh) from 1954, Verrier Elwin set out his approach in A Philosophy for NEFA, whose 1959 edition carried Nehru's foreword stating the tribal Panchsheel.

Principles: tribes should develop along the lines of their own genius; their land and forest rights must be respected; local people should be trained to run administration; areas should not be over-administered; and progress should be judged by human character, not money spent.

Application: the Inner Line was retained to keep out land-grabbers and traders; administration worked through village councils such as the Adi kebang; local arts, dress and architecture were encouraged; officers of the Indian Frontier Administrative Service were trained in local languages and customs; change was to be gradual, 'Indianisation without Hinduisation'.

Assessment: Arunachal largely avoided the land alienation and insurgency seen elsewhere, and its tribes kept their institutions; critics argue the approach slowed education and infrastructure, which the 1962 war exposed.

Elwin's NEFA philosophy remains the model of development with dignity.

Example 7 (UPSC 2025, 15 marks): What are the identifying criteria for PVTGs in India? Examine their current status, nomenclature and distribution.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q8(c)

Approach: State the four identifying criteria for PVTGs, then examine their current status (population, problems, programmes), the change in nomenclature from PTG to PVTG, and their distribution across states.

Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups are the most marginalised among Scheduled Tribes. The Dhebar Commission (1960 to 1961) first noted the wide inequality between tribes, and from 1975 to 1976 the government began identifying such groups.

Criteria: a pre-agricultural level of technology (hunting, gathering or simple shifting cultivation), a low level of literacy, economic backwardness (a subsistence economy), and a stagnant or declining population.

Nomenclature: they were called Primitive Tribal Groups; the number reached 75 by 1993, and in 2006 the government renamed them Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups because 'primitive' was evolutionist and stigmatising.

Distribution: 75 PVTGs live in 18 states and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands; Odisha has the most (13), including the Bondo, Dongria Kondh, Juang and Lanjia Saura; others include the Toda and Kurumba (Tamil Nadu), Baiga and Sahariya (Madhya Pradesh), Birhor and Asur (Jharkhand), Chenchu (Andhra Pradesh and Telangana), Katkari (Maharashtra) and the Jarawa and Onge (Andaman Islands).

Current status: the PM-JANMAN habitation survey was reported in 2026 to have counted about 48.5 lakh PVTG members; groups range from the large Sahariya to tiny island populations; malnutrition, anaemia, low schooling and land insecurity persist. PM-JANMAN (2023, 24,104 crore rupees) and Conservation-cum-Development plans address these gaps.

A uniform list hides great diversity, so habitation-level planning and periodic review of the list are needed.

Example 8 (UPSC 2024, 20 marks): Critically discuss the recent welfare measures initiated by the Government for the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs). Comment why PVTGs were erroneously called Primitive Tribal Groups (PTGs).

Paper and question: Paper II, Q2(a)

Approach: Critically discuss recent PVTG welfare measures (PM-JANMAN, the PVTG development scheme, habitat rights, sickle-cell mission, state programmes) with achievements and limitations, then explain why the label 'Primitive Tribal Group' was erroneous.

India recognises 75 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups in 18 states and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, identified by pre-agricultural technology, low literacy, subsistence economy and stagnant or declining population.

PM-JANMAN (15 November 2023): 24,104 crore rupees over 2023 to 2026 for 11 critical interventions through nine ministries: pucca houses, roads, piped water, electricity, mobile medical units, hostels, Anganwadis, multipurpose centres, mobile towers and Van Dhan centres; reports in mid-2026 counted about 4.8 lakh houses sanctioned and about 3 lakh completed.

Other measures: the Development of PVTGs scheme with Conservation-cum-Development plans (from 2007 to 2008); habitat rights under Section 3(1)(e) of the Forest Rights Act, granted to groups such as the Baiga of Dindori; the National Sickle Cell Anaemia Elimination Mission (2023); and state efforts such as Odisha's micro-projects and the IFAD-supported OPELIP.

Critical view: the schemes bring overdue infrastructure, but they are top-down and uniform; houses and roads may not suit nomadic or forest-dwelling groups; data on habitations was weak until recently; convergence and last-mile delivery remain poor; isolated groups such as the Shompen need protection rather than development, and development projects can themselves threaten them.

Why 'Primitive' was erroneous: the term came from nineteenth-century evolutionism (Morgan, Tylor), implying that these groups were stuck at an early stage of human progress; it confused simple technology with simple culture, ignoring complex ecological knowledge, kinship and ritual; it was stigmatising and denied dignity; and it hid the real cause of vulnerability: dispossession, isolation and neglect.

Hence the 2006 renaming to 'Particularly Vulnerable' shifted the focus from cultural ranking to measurable vulnerability, consistent with cultural relativism.

Welfare for PVTGs must therefore combine rights, culturally sensitive services and the right to choose their pace of change.

Example 9 (UPSC 2024, 15 marks): How is PESA Act empowering local self-governance and impacting women's political participation ?

Paper and question: Paper II, Q2(b)

Approach: Explain how PESA strengthens local self-governance (gram sabha powers, customary law, resource control) with examples, and then assess its effect on women's political participation, ending with limitations and suggestions.

The Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996, based on the Bhuria Committee (1995), extends panchayats to Fifth Schedule areas in ten states while placing the gram sabha at the centre of self-rule.

Empowering self-governance: the gram sabha safeguards traditions, community resources and customary dispute resolution; it approves plans and beneficiaries; it must be consulted before land acquisition; it owns minor forest produce and controls village markets, moneylending, liquor and land alienation. In Niyamgiri (2013) Dongria Kondh gram sabhas rejected bauxite mining.

Implementation: eight of ten states had PESA rules by 2024, Jharkhand notified rules in January 2026, and Odisha was still finalising them, so actual devolution varies widely.

Women's participation: PESA applies the 73rd Amendment's reservation of at least one-third of panchayat seats and chair posts for women (50% in many states), bringing tribal women into elected office; gram sabhas, open to all adult voters, give women a direct voice on forests, liquor and water, and women have often led anti-liquor resolutions.

Limits on women's gains: many traditional councils, such as Santal and Munda bodies, exclude women; proxy representation by husbands persists; customary law can reinforce male control of land.

Self-rule under PESA will be complete only when states devolve funds and functions and when women's voices shape both elected and customary institutions.

Example 10 (UPSC 2024, 10 marks): Describe ILO's Convention No. 169 (1989) on Indigenous and Tribal people. Is India a signatory to it ?

Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(b)

Approach: A short note describing ILO Convention 169 (date, principles, rights, ratifications), contrasting it with Convention 107, and answering clearly whether India is a party.

The ILO's Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (No. 169) was adopted on 27 June 1989 and came into force in 1991; it is the only binding international treaty specifically on indigenous and tribal peoples, ratified by about two dozen states, mostly in Latin America, along with Norway, Denmark, Spain, Nepal and others.

Principles: self-identification as the basic criterion; consultation in good faith through peoples' own institutions, with the aim of reaching agreement; participation in development decisions; and respect for customary law and institutions.

Rights: ownership and possession of traditionally occupied lands, rights to natural resources, protection against forced removal, employment and social security, and education in their own languages.

Contrast: it replaced the integrationist Convention 107 (1957), which aimed to absorb tribal populations into national society.

India: India ratified Convention 107 in 1958, which remains in force for it, but has not ratified Convention 169, arguing that all Indians are indigenous; its PESA and Forest Rights Act nevertheless reflect several of its principles.

Example 11 (UPSC 2024, 10 marks): Status of Sixth Schedule Areas

Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(d)

Approach: A short note on the present status of Sixth Schedule areas: coverage, councils and powers, achievements, current problems and reform proposals.

The Sixth Schedule (Articles 244(2) and 275(1)), shaped by the Bordoloi sub-committee, now covers tribal areas of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram through ten Autonomous District Councils: three in Assam (Bodoland Territorial Council, Karbi Anglong, Dima Hasao), three in Meghalaya (Khasi, Jaintia and Garo Hills), one in Tripura and three in Mizoram (Chakma, Lai and Mara).

Powers: councils legislate on land, non-reserved forests, jhum, inheritance, marriage and custom, run village courts, and levy certain taxes.

Achievements: they have protected tribal land and customary institutions, as in Meghalaya, where the Khasi dorbar system continues.

Problems: dependence on state grants, overlapping powers with state governments, delayed elections, little representation of women, and domination by elites; the 125th Amendment Bill (2019) to give more funds and elected village councils is pending.

New demands: Ladakh has sought Sixth Schedule status since 2019, and groups in Manipur and Assam seek inclusion, showing that the model remains attractive.

Example 12 (UPSC 2023, 20 marks): Elucidate the problems faced by Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups and the major challenges in the formulation of special programmes for their development.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q4(a)

Approach: Elucidate the problems of PVTGs (demographic, health, economic, land, education, social) with named groups, then the major challenges in designing special programmes for them, and suggest an approach.

India's 75 PVTGs, identified by pre-agricultural technology, low literacy, subsistence economy and stagnant or declining population, are the most vulnerable among STs.

Demographic and health problems: very small or declining numbers (Great Andamanese, Onge), high infant mortality, malnutrition and anaemia, epidemics after contact (measles among the Jarawa, 1999), sickle-cell disease and tuberculosis, and very limited access to health facilities.

Economic and land problems: loss of forests and hunting grounds to protected areas, plantations and mining (the Dongria Kondh and Niyamgiri), restrictions on shifting cultivation, debt and bonded labour (Sahariya, Katkari), and dependence on rations.

Education and social problems: very low literacy (Bondo, Abujh Maria), schooling in alien languages, displacement and stigma, and the breakdown of social institutions after resettlement.

Challenges in programme design: great diversity among groups, from isolated foragers to settled cultivators, defeats uniform schemes; habitation-level data was weak until the PM-JANMAN survey; remote, scattered hamlets make delivery costly; concrete houses and roads can disrupt mobility and culture; some groups, such as the Sentinelese and Shompen, reject or need protection from contact; staff lack language and cultural training; and convergence across departments is poor.

Structural challenge: programmes are drawn up by officials, not communities, and the stigma of 'primitive' long shaped attitudes.

Approach: group-specific Conservation-cum-Development plans prepared with anthropologists, habitat rights under the FRA, community health workers from the group, mother-tongue education, and respect for the right to isolation; PM-JANMAN (2023) offers resources, but participatory design will decide its success.

Example 13 (UPSC 2023, 10 marks): Scheduled areas

Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(a)

Approach: A short note on Scheduled Areas: constitutional basis, criteria and declaration, extent, the Governor and TAC, and their significance with current issues.

Scheduled Areas are areas declared by the President under paragraph 6 of the Fifth Schedule (Article 244(1)) for special protection of tribal people; the President may alter them after consulting the state's Governor.

Criteria: preponderance of tribal population, compactness and reasonable size, under-developed nature, and marked economic disparity with neighbouring areas.

Extent: they lie in ten states (Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha and Rajasthan), covering 97 districts fully or partly according to a 2025 Lok Sabha reply.

Special regime: the Governor can modify laws and make regulations on land transfer and moneylending; a Tribes Advisory Council advises on welfare; PESA (1996) applies to them; and Samatha (1997) barred leases of tribal land to private non-tribals there.

Issues: many tribal villages remain outside Scheduled Areas, Governors seldom use their powers, and states such as Tripura or regions like Ladakh fall under other regimes; periodic revision is needed.

Example 14 (UPSC 2023, 20 marks): Elucidate the shifting terrains of India's tribal policies in colonial and post-colonial periods.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q7(a)

Approach: Elucidate the shifts in tribal policy: pre-colonial autonomy, colonial phases (control, exclusion, isolation), the independence debate (Elwin versus Ghurye), Nehruvian integration, and post-1990s rights-based and mission-mode approaches.

Tribal policy in India has moved through several 'terrains', from neglect and control to protection, integration and, more recently, rights.

Early colonial phase (control and extraction): the Permanent Settlement (1793) and the spread of landlords and moneylenders into tribal areas provoked revolts; after the Kol rebellion, Regulation XIII of 1833 created the South-West Frontier Agency, and after the Santal Hul the Santal Parganas district (1855) received special administration.

Exclusion and isolation: the Inner Line (Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation, 1873) and the Scheduled Districts Act (1874) set tribal tracts apart; the Government of India Act 1919 created 'backward tracts' and the 1935 Act 'excluded' and 'partially excluded' areas. Forest Acts (1865, 1878, 1927) meanwhile took control of forests.

Independence debate: Elwin first advocated protection, G.S. Ghurye (1943) called tribes 'backward Hindus' to be assimilated, and the Constituent Assembly, through the Thakkar and Bordoloi sub-committees, chose a middle path in the Fifth and Sixth Schedules.

Nehruvian integration: the tribal Panchsheel (1959) promised development along the lines of tribal genius; planning produced Special Multipurpose Tribal Blocks (1954) and the Tribal Sub-Plan (1974 to 1975), but large dams and industries also displaced tribals.

Rights-based turn: PESA (1996), the Forest Rights Act (2006), the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (1999) and the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (2004) recognised self-rule and historical injustice, while the Samatha (1997) and Niyamgiri (2013) judgments affirmed gram sabha consent.

Recent phase: mission-mode convergence for PVTGs and tribal villages (PM-JANMAN 2023, DAJGUA 2024) and the celebration of tribal heroes through Janjatiya Gaurav Divas, alongside continuing tension between mineral development and tribal rights.

Diagram: a timeline from 1833 to 2024 marking each policy phase: control, exclusion, integration, rights, mission-mode convergence.

The trajectory shows a shift from treating tribes as subjects to be controlled to recognising them as citizens with rights, though implementation lags behind policy.

Example 15 (UPSC 2022, 10 marks): Role of the Governor in the Fifth Schedule areas

Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(d)

Approach: A short note on the Governor's constitutional role in Fifth Schedule areas (laws, regulations, report, TAC) and how far it has been exercised.

Under the Fifth Schedule (Article 244(1)) the Governor is the special guardian of tribal interests in the Scheduled Areas of ten states.

Modifying laws: under paragraph 5(1), the Governor may direct that any Act of Parliament or the state legislature shall not apply to a Scheduled Area, or shall apply with exceptions and modifications.

Regulations: under paragraph 5(2), the Governor may make regulations for peace and good government, particularly to prohibit or restrict transfer of land by or among STs, regulate land allotment and regulate moneylending, after consulting the Tribes Advisory Council and with the President's assent.

Reporting: the Governor reports annually to the President on the administration of Scheduled Areas, and the Union can give directions to the state.

Practice: Governors have mostly acted on ministerial advice and rarely used these powers independently, a gap noted by the Bhuria Commission and the Xaxa Committee (2014); annual reports are often delayed. A proactive Governor could enforce PESA, stop illegal land transfers and review mining leases, making the Fifth Schedule a living protection.

Example 16 (UPSC 2022, 20 marks): Discuss the objectives of Integrated Tribal Development Projects (ITDPs). How far have these objectives been achieved?

Paper and question: Paper II, Q6(a)

Approach: Discuss the origin and objectives of ITDPs under the Tribal Sub-Plan, then assess objective by objective how far they were achieved, with data and committee findings, and conclude with reforms.

Integrated Tribal Development Projects were created in the Fifth Five-Year Plan (1974 to 1975) as the main delivery units of the Tribal Sub-Plan, following the Shilu Ao Study Team (1969). Each covers a contiguous area, usually a block or tehsil where STs are at least half the population; there are about 194 ITDPs or ITDAs, alongside MADA pockets and clusters for smaller concentrations.

Objectives: (1) narrowing the development gap between tribal and other areas; (2) raising family incomes through agriculture, horticulture, animal husbandry and forest-based activities; (3) building infrastructure such as roads, irrigation and electricity; (4) developing human resources through education and health; and (5) protecting tribals against exploitation by moneylenders, traders and land-grabbers.

Achievements: roads, schools, health centres and electricity reached many remote areas; ST literacy rose from 11.3% (1971) to 58.96% (2011); LAMPS and TRIFED (1987) reduced trader exploitation; a tribal middle class emerged.

Shortfalls: the development gap persists: under the Tendulkar method in 2011 to 2012 about 45% of rural STs were poor, against about 26% of all rural people; family-oriented schemes often produced unviable assets; land alienation and displacement continued; and health and nutrition indicators remain the worst of any group.

Reasons: diversion and lapse of TSP funds, top-down planning by line departments, weak ITDA staff and authority, poor convergence, and little participation of gram sabhas, as the Xaxa Committee (2014) and Planning Commission evaluations noted.

Reforms: making ITDAs genuinely single-line administrations, planning through PESA gram sabhas, statutory backing for tribal funds (DAPST), and outcome-based monitoring.

ITDPs created a framework for area-based tribal development, but their objectives were only partly achieved because tribals were treated as beneficiaries rather than decision-makers.

Example 17 (UPSC 2022, 15 marks): Compare the functioning of traditional 'Tribal Council' with that of 'Gram Sabha' under PESA.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q6(b)

Approach: Compare traditional tribal councils (with named examples) and PESA gram sabhas on composition, basis of authority, functions, procedure, gender and legitimacy, ideally as a comparison, and end with how they can work together.

Most tribes govern themselves through traditional councils: the Santal manjhi-parganait system, the Munda manki-munda and parha, the Ho manki-munda, the Gond and Bhil panch, the Adi kebang, and Khasi dorbars. PESA (1996) created statutory gram sabhas in Fifth Schedule areas.

Composition: traditional councils consist of hereditary or elder male heads and clan representatives; the gram sabha includes all adult voters of the village, men and women.

Basis of authority: customary law, ritual sanction and kinship for councils; the Constitution and state law for gram sabhas.

Functions: councils settle disputes over marriage, divorce, land and taboo violations, organise festivals and impose sanctions such as fines or outcasting; gram sabhas approve plans and beneficiaries, are consulted on land acquisition, and control minor forest produce, markets, moneylending and liquor.

Procedure: councils decide by consensus in open meetings; gram sabhas follow statutory rules on quorum, minutes and resolutions.

Gender and equity: councils usually exclude women; gram sabhas include them and are linked to panchayat reservation.

Legitimacy: councils enjoy deep cultural legitimacy but may be elitist; gram sabhas carry legal power but are often weak in practice.

PESA intends gram sabhas to build on customary institutions; recognising traditional heads as gram sabha conveners, as some state rules do, while ensuring women's participation, can join legitimacy with democracy.

Example 18 (UPSC 2022, 20 marks): Discuss the views of G. S. Ghurye and Verrier Elwin on the approach towards tribal populations. What are the policies of the Government of India towards Indian tribal populations?

Paper and question: Paper II, Q7(a)

Approach: Present Ghurye's and Elwin's views and the debate between them, then outline the Government of India's tribal policies from Panchsheel to present programmes and laws, showing how they draw on the debate.

The question of how independent India should treat its tribes produced a famous debate between Verrier Elwin and G.S. Ghurye in the 1940s, which still frames tribal policy.

Elwin's view: after living among the Gond and Baiga, Elwin (The Baiga, 1939; The Aboriginals, 1943) argued that contact with traders, moneylenders, missionaries and officials had brought exploitation and cultural decay; he proposed protecting tribal areas, even a 'national park' for the Baiga, until tribes could face the outside world on their own terms.

Ghurye's view: in The Aborigines, So-Called, and Their Future (1943) Ghurye argued that tribes were 'backward Hindus', historically part of Hindu society through gradual absorption, and that isolation would keep them backward; he favoured assimilation through education and development.

Middle path: the Constituent Assembly and Nehru chose integration, protection with development.

Government policies: Nehru's tribal Panchsheel (1959) in the foreword to Elwin's A Philosophy for NEFA; the Fifth and Sixth Schedules and reservation; Special Multipurpose Tribal Blocks (1954); the Tribal Sub-Plan with ITDPs (1974 to 1975), now DAPST; identification of PTGs (1975), renamed PVTGs (2006); the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (1999).

Rights and recent programmes: PESA (1996) and the Forest Rights Act (2006) reflect Elwin's respect for institutions and land; Eklavya schools, Van Dhan (2018), PM-JANMAN (2023) and the Dharti Aaba Abhiyan (2024) reflect the developmental emphasis associated with Ghurye.

Assessment: Elwin is criticised for romanticism and Ghurye for ignoring tribal distinctiveness; India's policy combines both, but implementation has often leaned towards assimilation through development, provoking displacement and unrest.

A policy faithful to Panchsheel, giving tribes control over the pace and direction of change, remains the synthesis both sides could accept.

Example 19 (UPSC 2020, 15 marks): Describe the provisions under 6th Schedule of Indian constitution.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q4(c)

Approach: Describe the provisions of the Sixth Schedule: coverage, constitution of district and regional councils, legislative, judicial, executive and financial powers, the Governor's role and safeguards, with a brief assessment.

The Sixth Schedule (Articles 244(2) and 275(1)), based on the recommendations of the Gopinath Bordoloi sub-committee, provides for autonomous administration of tribal areas in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram.

Councils: each autonomous district has a District Council of up to 30 members, of whom up to four are nominated by the Governor and the rest elected for five years; a district with different tribes may be divided into autonomous regions with regional councils; there are now ten such councils.

Legislative powers (paragraph 3): laws on land, non-reserved forests, jhum cultivation, village administration, inheritance, marriage and social customs, subject to the Governor's assent.

Judicial powers (paragraph 4): village councils and courts try suits and cases between STs according to customary law, with appeals within the council system.

Executive and financial powers: councils may establish and manage primary schools, dispensaries, markets and roads (paragraph 6), have a District Fund, assess land revenue and levy certain taxes (paragraph 8), and regulate moneylending and trading by non-tribals (paragraph 10).

Application of laws and safeguards: the Governor may direct that Acts of Parliament or the state shall not apply, or apply with modifications; the Governor may also dissolve a council after inquiry.

These provisions have preserved tribal land and custom in the north-east, though weak finances and conflicts with state governments call for reforms such as the pending 125th Amendment Bill (2019).

Example 20 (UPSC 2019, 15 marks): Critically assess the existing plans and programmes meant for tribal welfare.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q3(c)

Approach: Critically assess the main existing plans and programmes for tribal welfare (DAPST, education, livelihood, PVTG, rights-based laws), with their achievements and failures, and suggest improvements.

Tribal welfare in India rests on a funding framework (the Tribal Sub-Plan, now the Development Action Plan for STs), sectoral schemes run mainly by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (1999), and rights-based laws.

Education: post-matric scholarships, ashram schools and Eklavya Model Residential Schools have raised ST literacy to 58.96% (2011) and produced graduates; yet dropout is high, teaching in alien languages persists, and hostels face safety and quality problems.

Livelihoods: TRIFED, minimum support price for minor forest produce and Van Dhan Vikas Kendras (2018) add value to forest produce; but coverage is small, prices often below market, and many enterprises inactive.

Rights: the Forest Rights Act (2006) had produced about 25 lakh titles by 2025, but high rejection of claims, weak community forest rights and conflicts with conservation persist; PESA (1996) is unevenly implemented.

PVTGs and convergence: Conservation-cum-Development plans and PM-JANMAN (2023) promise infrastructure but are top-down.

Common failings: diversion and under-use of sub-plan funds, poor convergence, staff shortages, corruption, and planning without gram sabhas, as the Xaxa Committee (2014) found; displacement by development undercuts welfare gains.

Improvements require statutory, non-lapsable tribal budgets, gram sabha planning under PESA, mother-tongue education, secure forest rights and independent social audits.

Example 21 (UPSC 2019, 15 marks): Identify some special programmes for particularly vulnerable Tribal Groups (erstwhile PTGs).

Paper and question: Paper II, Q4(c)

Approach: Identify the special programmes for PVTGs (central scheme and CCD plans, micro projects, PM-JANMAN, habitat rights, island policies, health and education measures) with brief comments on each.

The 75 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups, earlier called Primitive Tribal Groups (identified from 1975 to 1976 and renamed in 2006), receive special attention because of their pre-agricultural technology, low literacy, subsistence economy and stagnant population.

Development of PVTGs scheme: a fully centrally funded scheme under which states prepare Conservation-cum-Development plans (from 2007 to 2008) covering housing, land, agriculture, health, education and culture, flexible to each group's needs.

Micro projects and agencies: special agencies for particular groups, such as Odisha's micro projects for the Bondo, Juang and Lanjia Saura, and the IFAD-supported Odisha PVTG Empowerment and Livelihoods Improvement Programme.

PM-JANMAN (2023): 24,104 crore rupees for 11 critical interventions, including housing, roads, water, electricity, mobile medical units, hostels, Anganwadis and Van Dhan centres, through nine ministries.

Rights and protection: habitat rights under the Forest Rights Act for groups such as the Baiga; the Andaman and Nicobar Protection of Aboriginal Tribes Regulation (1956), the Jarawa policy (2004) and the Shompen policy (2015).

Health and education: priority in the sickle-cell mission (2023), nutrition support and residential schools.

These programmes are valuable, but success depends on group-specific planning and community consent rather than uniform targets.

Example 22 (UPSC 2019, 15 marks): Critically discuss the role of NGOs in tribal development.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q6(b)

Approach: Critically discuss NGO roles in tribal development (service delivery, livelihoods, rights advocacy, research) with named organisations, then their limitations and controversies, ending with a way forward.

Non-governmental organisations have worked in tribal areas since independence, from the Bharatiya Adimjati Sevak Sangh (1948) founded under A.V. Thakkar to today's specialised agencies, filling gaps in state delivery.

Health: SEARCH (Gadchiroli, 1986) showed that home-based newborn care by trained village women sharply reduced neonatal deaths (The Lancet, 1999); Ekjut's women's groups in Jharkhand and Odisha did the same (2010).

Education: the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (Bhubaneswar, 1993) educates tribal children free; the Ramakrishna Mission runs schools in Abujhmarh.

Livelihoods: PRADAN (1983) built women's self-help groups; BAIF promoted orchard-based farming; Keystone Foundation works with forest produce in the Nilgiris.

Rights: Vasundhara and others helped gram sabhas claim community forest rights; legal aid groups fought displacement cases.

Limitations: dependence on foreign or corporate funds, with FCRA rules tightened in 2020; urban, non-tribal leadership; patchy coverage; duplication with government schemes; and accusations of religious agendas against both Christian and Hindu organisations, or of obstructing development.

Way forward: partnership with gram sabhas and tribal organisations, transparent funding, independent evaluation and building local tribal leadership, so that NGOs become facilitators rather than substitutes for the state or for communities.

Example 23 (UPSC 2017, 10 marks): Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (earlier known as PTG).

Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(d)

Approach: A short note on PVTGs: origin and renaming, criteria, number and distribution, examples, and main programmes.

Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups are the most marginalised Scheduled Tribes. Following the Dhebar Commission's observation (1960 to 1961) of inequality among tribes, the government identified Primitive Tribal Groups from 1975 to 1976, reaching 75 by 1993; they were renamed PVTGs in 2006 to drop the stigmatising word 'primitive'.

Criteria: pre-agricultural technology, low literacy, economic backwardness and a stagnant or declining population.

Distribution: 18 states and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, with Odisha having the most (13).

Examples: Jarawa, Onge and Sentinelese (Andaman Islands), Toda and Kurumba (Tamil Nadu), Baiga and Sahariya (Madhya Pradesh), Birhor and Asur (Jharkhand), Bondo and Dongria Kondh (Odisha), Chenchu (Andhra Pradesh and Telangana) and Katkari (Maharashtra).

Programmes: the Development of PVTGs scheme with Conservation-cum-Development plans and, since 2023, PM-JANMAN (24,104 crore rupees), along with habitat rights under the Forest Rights Act; group-specific, participatory planning remains essential.

Example 24 (UPSC 2017, 15 marks): Discuss the emergence, salient features and limitations of Tribal sub-plan.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q6(b)

Approach: Discuss the emergence of the Tribal Sub-Plan (background, committees, Fifth Plan), its salient features (earmarking, ITDPs, MADA, clusters, PTGs) and its limitations, ending with its later evolution.

Emergence: the first four Plans relied on Community Development, Special Multipurpose Tribal Blocks (1954) and Tribal Development Blocks, which spread thin resources and benefited the better-off; the Dhebar Commission (1960 to 1961) and the Shilu Ao Study Team (1969) called for a focused strategy. The Tribal Sub-Plan was introduced in the Fifth Five-Year Plan (1974 to 1975).

Salient features: funds earmarked from state and central plans at least in proportion to the ST population; an area approach through Integrated Tribal Development Projects in areas with a majority ST population; Modified Area Development Approach pockets (from the Sixth Plan) and clusters for smaller concentrations; identification of Primitive Tribal Groups (1975 to 1976); a dual focus on socio-economic development and protection against exploitation; and Special Central Assistance to fill gaps.

Limitations: states often failed to earmark the due share or diverted funds to general projects; funds lapsed; planning remained departmental rather than tribal-centred; ITDAs lacked authority and staff; beneficiaries had little voice; and the gains went disproportionately to advanced tribes and households, as the Xaxa Committee (2014) noted.

Evolution: after the Planning Commission was replaced by NITI Aayog, the TSP became the Development Action Plan for STs (from 2017 to 2018), with ministries earmarking 4.3% to 17.5% of scheme budgets.

The TSP was a sound idea that suffered from weak implementation; statutory backing and gram sabha planning are needed.

Example 25 (UPSC 2017, 15 marks): Give a critical appraisal of any one tribal development programme during XIIth Five-Year plan. Give your suggestions for any improvement in the programme.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q7(c)

Approach: Choose one programme of the XII Plan period (2012 to 2017), here the Van Bandhu Kalyan Yojana (2014), describe its aims and design, appraise it critically, and suggest improvements.

The Van Bandhu Kalyan Yojana (VKY) was launched by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs in 2014, during the Twelfth Five-Year Plan (2012 to 2017), to shift tribal development from scattered schemes to outcome-oriented convergence.

Aims and design: it was piloted in one block in each of several states with Scheduled Areas, aiming to improve quality of life through quality education, health, housing, drinking water, irrigation, electricity, livelihoods, sports and protection of tribal culture; it sought to bring together the schemes of various ministries and state departments in the same blocks and to measure outcomes rather than spending.

Strengths: its focus on convergence and outcomes anticipated later mission-mode programmes; block-level planning allowed local priorities; and it used Tribal Sub-Plan and Special Central Assistance funds more coherently.

Weaknesses: coverage was small and piloting slow; convergence depended on the goodwill of other departments; baseline and outcome data were weak; gram sabhas under PESA were rarely involved in planning; funds were modest relative to needs; and the scheme was later merged into broader umbrella programmes, so its impact is hard to isolate.

Suggestions: statutory gram sabha participation, a dedicated block-level team with anthropological and technical expertise, real-time outcome monitoring, mother-tongue education and secure forest rights as core components.

Its convergence idea survives in PM-JANMAN (2023) and the Dharti Aaba Abhiyan (2024), which must avoid VKY's weaknesses to succeed.

Example 26 (UPSC 2015, 10 marks): Relevance of tribal Panchsheel today

Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(a)

Approach: A short note stating Nehru's five Panchsheel principles (1959) and assessing their relevance today with present laws and challenges.

Nehru set out the tribal Panchsheel in his foreword to the second edition of Verrier Elwin's A Philosophy for NEFA (1959) as a middle path between isolation and assimilation.

Principles: people should develop along the lines of their own genius; tribal rights in land and forests should be respected; their own people should be trained for administration and development; tribal areas should not be over-administered but worked through their own institutions; and results should be judged by the quality of human character evolved, not by statistics or money spent.

Relevance today: PESA (1996) and the Forest Rights Act (2006) give legal form to the second and fourth principles; the Niyamgiri judgment (2013) applied gram sabha consent; reservation and tribal officers reflect the third.

Continuing gaps: displacement by mining and dams, over-administration through multiple schemes, and progress measured by spending rather than well-being show that the principles are often ignored.

Panchsheel thus remains a valid ethical charter for tribal development, especially for mission-mode schemes such as PM-JANMAN.

Example 27 (UPSC 2015, 10 marks): Elwin-Ghurye Debate on Tribes

Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(d)

Approach: A short note presenting Elwin's and Ghurye's positions, the points of disagreement, and how Indian policy resolved the debate.

The Elwin-Ghurye debate of the 1940s concerned the place of tribes in the emerging Indian nation.

Elwin: from his fieldwork among the Gond and Baiga, Verrier Elwin (The Aboriginals, 1943) argued that contact with outsiders had caused exploitation and cultural decay, and initially proposed protected areas, even a 'national park' for the Baiga, where tribes could develop at their own pace.

Ghurye: G.S. Ghurye (The Aborigines, So-Called, and Their Future, 1943) held that tribes were 'backward Hindus', long part of Hindu society, and that isolation would keep them backward; he favoured assimilation through education and economic development.

Points of disagreement: whether tribes are distinct peoples or part of Hindu society; isolation versus assimilation; and the value of tribal culture.

Resolution: Nehru's integration policy, expressed in the Panchsheel (1959), and the Fifth and Sixth Schedules combined protection with development; Elwin himself moved towards integration. The debate still frames arguments over PESA, FRA and development projects.

Example 28 (UPSC 2015, 20 marks): Recently non-government organizations have been critiqued for interfering with developmental process in tribal heartland! Critically comment.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q7(a)

Approach: Critically comment on the charge that NGOs obstruct development in tribal areas: present the critics' case with examples, then the NGOs' defence, and reach a balanced view on what 'development' means for tribals.

Governments and commentators have accused some NGOs of 'interfering' with development in the tribal heartland of central and eastern India, especially in mining and industrial projects.

The critics' case: a 2014 Intelligence Bureau report reportedly claimed that foreign-funded NGOs campaigning against mining, dams and power projects were reducing economic growth; NGO-backed protests delayed or stopped projects such as the Vedanta bauxite mine at Niyamgiri and POSCO's steel project in Odisha (withdrawn in 2017); the FCRA was tightened in 2020; critics argue that urban activists speak for tribals without accountability.

The NGOs' defence: they claim to support tribals in exercising constitutional and legal rights: gram sabha consent under PESA, forest rights under the FRA and the Samatha (1997) and Niyamgiri (2013) judgments; in Niyamgiri it was the Dongria Kondh gram sabhas, not NGOs, that rejected mining; and NGOs such as SEARCH, PRADAN and Ekjut deliver health, livelihood and education services that the state has failed to provide.

Anthropological view: the dispute is really about the meaning of development. James Ferguson (The Anti-Politics Machine, 1990) showed how development discourse turns political questions of land and power into technical ones; tribal resistance to displacement reflects the loss suffered by the 40% or so of displaced people who are tribal, as Walter Fernandes estimated.

Balanced judgement: some NGOs do lack transparency, and some campaigns have ignored tribal aspirations for jobs and infrastructure; but labelling all advocacy as anti-development undermines democratic rights.

Way forward: transparent funding and accountability for NGOs, free, prior and informed consent through gram sabhas, fair compensation and benefit-sharing through District Mineral Foundations (2015).

Development in tribal areas should be judged, as Panchsheel says, by the well-being and choices of tribals themselves, not by projects alone.

Example 29 (UPSC 2014, 10 marks): The concept of PTG

Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(d)

Approach: A short note on the concept of Primitive Tribal Groups: origin, criteria, number, examples, programmes and the critique that led to renaming.

The concept of Primitive Tribal Groups (PTGs) arose from the recognition that tribes differ widely in development; the Dhebar Commission (1960 to 1961) noted that the least developed needed special attention.

Identification: during the Fifth Plan (from 1975 to 1976), the government identified groups using four criteria: pre-agricultural level of technology, low literacy, economic backwardness and a stagnant or declining population; their number reached 75 by 1993.

Examples: the Jarawa, Onge and Great Andamanese, the Toda and Kurumba, the Birhor, Baiga, Bondo, Juang and Chenchu.

Programmes: micro projects in states such as Odisha, a central scheme for PTGs and later Conservation-cum-Development plans.

Critique: the word 'primitive' reflected nineteenth-century evolutionism and stigmatised these communities, and in 2006 they were renamed Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups, shifting the focus from cultural ranking to vulnerability.

Example 30 (UPSC 2014, 15 marks): Critically evaluate the National Tribal Policy.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q6(c)

Approach: Critically evaluate the Draft National Tribal Policy (2006): its background, main provisions, strengths, weaknesses and the fact that it was never adopted, with suggestions.

India has no adopted national tribal policy; Nehru's Panchsheel (1959) served as the guiding philosophy. The Ministry of Tribal Affairs (1999) released a Draft National Tribal Policy in 2006, but it was never finalised.

Main provisions: a regulatory and protective framework against land alienation and for restoring alienated land; minimising displacement and ensuring rehabilitation; recognising forest rights; strengthening PESA and traditional institutions; improving education (including mother-tongue teaching), health and livelihoods; special attention to PTGs; reviewing the criteria for scheduling tribes; and promoting research and documentation of tribal culture.

Strengths: it attempted a comprehensive, rights-sensitive vision, acknowledged displacement and land alienation as central problems, and stressed participation and cultural protection, in the spirit of Panchsheel.

Weaknesses: critics found it vague, without timelines, budgets or accountability; it did not settle the conflict between mineral development and tribal rights; it said little on free, prior and informed consent; and it underplayed internal inequality among tribes.

Status: because it was never adopted, policy has instead been made through laws (PESA 1996, FRA 2006, the 2013 land acquisition Act) and schemes, with the Xaxa Committee (2014) again calling for a coherent framework.

A national tribal policy grounded in the Constitution, Panchsheel and international standards such as UNDRIP, with legal backing and gram sabha participation, remains overdue.

Example 31 (UPSC 2014, 15 marks): Critically examine the role of NGOs in promoting health and education in tribal areas.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q8(b)

Approach: Critically examine NGO contributions to tribal health and education with named examples and evidence, then their limitations, and conclude on how they should relate to the state and communities.

Tribal areas have India's worst health and education indicators, and NGOs have often pioneered models that the state later adopted.

Health: SEARCH (Abhay and Rani Bang, Gadchiroli, 1986) trained village women in home-based newborn care, sharply reducing neonatal mortality (The Lancet, 1999), a model that influenced the ASHA programme; Ekjut's participatory women's groups in Jharkhand and Odisha cut neonatal deaths (The Lancet, 2010); Jan Swasthya Sahyog (Bilaspur) provides low-cost community health care; mission hospitals have long served remote areas.

Education: the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (Bhubaneswar, 1993) provides free residential education to tribal children; the Ramakrishna Mission runs schools in Abujhmarh; the Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram runs hostels and single-teacher schools; mission schools produced north-eastern literacy; several NGOs pioneered mother-tongue multilingual education.

Strengths: innovation, community trust, use of local workers and languages, and evidence that shapes policy.

Limitations: small scale, dependence on donors, uneven quality, urban leadership, and the risk that residential schooling uproots children from their culture; religious organisations face accusations of proselytisation.

NGOs work best as innovators and partners of the public system, accountable to gram sabhas, not as substitutes for the state's duty to provide health and education.

Example 32 (UPSC 2014, 15 marks): Describe the history of tribal administration in the colonial period.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q8(c)

Approach: Describe the history of colonial tribal administration in phases: early neglect and revolts, special regulations and agencies, the Inner Line and Scheduled Districts Act, the 1919 and 1935 Acts, forest and criminal tribes laws, and its legacy.

Before British rule most tribes were autonomous, linked to kingdoms through tribute or exchange. Colonial administration evolved through revolt and response.

Penetration and revolt: the Permanent Settlement (1793) and revenue courts brought landlords, moneylenders and traders into tribal areas, provoking the Kol rebellion (1831 to 1832) and the Santal Hul (1855 to 1856).

Special regulations: Regulation XIII of 1833 created the South-West Frontier Agency in Chotanagpur under a political agent with simpler procedures; after the Hul the Santal Parganas district (1855) was placed under special, non-regulation administration.

The north-east and Scheduled Districts: the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation (1873) created the Inner Line restricting outsiders' entry into the hills; the Scheduled Districts Act (1874) allowed the executive to decide which laws applied in tribal tracts.

Forests and stigma: the Indian Forest Acts (1865, 1878, 1927) curtailed shifting cultivation and forest use, and the Criminal Tribes Act (1871) branded mobile communities as criminal.

Constitutional reforms: the Government of India Act 1919 designated 'backward tracts'; the 1935 Act created 'excluded areas' under the Governor's discretion and 'partially excluded areas', reflecting the isolation policy that critics such as Ghurye opposed. Tenancy laws such as the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act (1908), following Birsa Munda's Ulgulan, protected tribal land.

Colonial administration thus combined protection and isolation with extraction; its institutions shaped the Fifth and Sixth Schedules and the Inner Line Permit that continue today.

2. Role of Anthropology in Tribal and Rural Development

Example 33 (UPSC 2025, 15 marks): Discuss the role of NGOs in the socioeconomic and political development of weaker sections and the manner in which they facilitate other stakeholders.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q6(b)

Approach: Discuss NGO roles in the socio-economic and political development of weaker sections (SCs, STs, women, the poor) with named examples, and explain how they facilitate other stakeholders (state, communities, markets, researchers), with limitations.

Non-governmental organisations are voluntary, non-profit bodies working between the state, market and community. For weaker sections (SCs, STs, women, the landless) they act as service providers, mobilisers and advocates.

Socio-economic development: SEWA (1972) organised informal women workers; PRADAN (1983) built women's self-help groups and livelihoods among tribals in Jharkhand and Odisha; SEARCH and Ekjut reduced newborn deaths; Safai Karmachari Andolan campaigned against manual scavenging.

Political development: MKSS (Rajasthan) led the movement that produced the Right to Information Act (2005) and social audits; NGOs train SC, ST and women panchayat members and help gram sabhas claim forest rights.

Facilitating the state: NGOs pilot models later scaled up (home-based newborn care shaped ASHA; SHGs shaped the National Rural Livelihoods Mission, 2011), implement schemes and run social audits.

Facilitating communities and markets: they link producers to markets and credit (Van Dhan clusters, SHG-bank linkage), and give legal aid against atrocities and displacement.

Facilitating knowledge: they document local conditions and partner with researchers, as in randomised trials published in The Lancet.

Limitations: donor dependence and FCRA restrictions (2020), uneven accountability, elite capture and co-option by the state; their role should complement, not replace, public provision.

Example 34 (UPSC 2025, 20 marks): Identify the contemporary limitations in the process of tribal development. How can anthropological knowledge contribute in this process?

Paper and question: Paper II, Q7(a)

Approach: Identify contemporary limitations of tribal development (structural, administrative, cultural, ecological, political) with evidence, then explain specific ways anthropological knowledge and methods can address each, ending with a participatory vision.

Despite seven decades of planning, from the Tribal Sub-Plan (1974 to 1975) to PM-JANMAN (2023) and the Dharti Aaba Abhiyan (2024), tribal development faces serious limitations.

Structural limitations: displacement by mines, dams and industries; land alienation; and an extractive growth model; Walter Fernandes estimated that about 40% of people displaced since 1947 were tribals.

Administrative limitations: diversion and under-use of DAPST funds, poor convergence, staff shortages, slow PESA rules (Jharkhand only in 2026) and high rejection of Forest Rights Act claims, as the Xaxa Committee (2014) found.

Cultural limitations: uniform, top-down schemes that ignore language, kinship and ecology, such as schooling in alien languages or housing unsuited to forest life.

Inequality: benefits captured by advanced tribes and elites, while PVTGs lag.

Anthropological contributions: baseline ethnography and social impact assessment before projects, using Michael Cernea's impoverishment-risks model for resettlement; mapping customary boundaries and community forest resources for FRA claims; recognising rational systems such as jhum, as Nagaland's NEPED project did; mother-tongue multilingual education; health programmes built on local beliefs, as SEARCH and Ekjut showed; group-specific plans for PVTGs; and understanding customary councils to make PESA work.

Methods: participant observation, emic perspectives, participatory rural appraisal (Robert Chambers) and Sol Tax's action anthropology let communities define their own goals.

Institutions: strengthening Tribal Research Institutes and involving anthropologists in planning, monitoring and grievance redress.

Anthropology can turn tribal development from something done to tribals into something done with and by them, as Panchsheel envisaged.

Example 35 (UPSC 2024, 20 marks): What are the ethical concerns in biological and socio-cultural anthropology because of recent advances in AI and genetic research ?

Paper and question: Paper II, Q4(a)

Approach: Discuss ethical concerns raised by genetic research (consent, data ownership, benefit-sharing, misuse, gene editing) and by AI (bias, surveillance, data colonialism, representation) separately for biological and socio-cultural anthropology, with cases, and propose ethical safeguards.

Anthropological ethics rests on informed consent, doing no harm and accountability to the people studied, as in the American Anthropological Association's principles. Rapid advances in genomics and artificial intelligence strain these principles.

Genetic research, consent and misuse: in the Havasupai case, blood samples given by a Native American tribe for diabetes research were used for studies of inbreeding and migration without consent, leading to a settlement with Arizona State University (2010).

Ownership and benefit-sharing: who owns genomes of small endogamous groups studied in projects such as GenomeIndia, and who profits from drugs derived from them? The Nagoya Protocol (2010) and the CARE principles for indigenous data governance (2019) call for collective benefit and control.

Group harm and identity: ancient DNA findings, such as studies of the Rakhigarhi genome (2019), can be used in political debates on origins; genetic data on tribes can stigmatise or be used to challenge ST status; gene editing, as in He Jiankui's case (2018), raises questions of eugenics.

AI in socio-cultural anthropology: facial recognition and predictive policing reproduce bias against marginalised groups; digital data from tribal and Dalit users can be extracted without consent, what Couldry and Mejias called 'data colonialism' (2019); AI-generated images and texts misrepresent cultures and sacred knowledge.

Research practice: AI transcription and analysis of field data risk breaching confidentiality; online ethnography blurs public and private, complicating consent.

Safeguards: community and group consent, return of results, data sovereignty and benefit-sharing, compliance with India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act (2023) and ICMR guidelines and ethical review boards with community members.

Technological power must be matched by stronger ethics, so that research serves communities rather than exploiting them.

Example 36 (UPSC 2022, 15 marks): Briefly describe the anthropological perspective on development. How have anthropologists contributed in India's rural development?

Paper and question: Paper II, Q8(b)

Approach: Briefly describe the anthropological perspective on development (holistic, emic, participatory, critical), then show how Indian anthropologists contributed to rural development, with named studies and programmes.

Anthropological perspective on development: anthropology sees development not as a technical transfer of resources but as cultural change. It is holistic (economy, kinship, religion and power are linked), emic (people's own views and felt needs matter), relativist (local practices are judged in context) and participatory. The critical 'anthropology of development' of James Ferguson (1990) and Arturo Escobar (1995) warns that development can depoliticise poverty and extend state control.

Evaluation of Community Development: S.C. Dube's India's Changing Villages (1958) found a communication gap between officials and villagers, benefits captured by richer farmers and upper castes, and neglect of felt needs, lessons that reshaped extension work.

Village studies: M.N. Srinivas (dominant caste), Oscar Lewis, McKim Marriott and others revealed the caste, faction and kinship structures that determine who benefits from programmes.

Innovation and change: George Foster (1962) analysed cultural barriers and stimulants to accepting innovations, guiding health and agricultural programmes; studies of Green Revolution villages showed growing inequality.

Participation: Robert Chambers's participatory rural appraisal, drawing on anthropological fieldwork, is used in panchayat planning, watershed and MGNREGA social audits.

Health and sanitation: research on local ideas of illness and purity has informed nutrition and sanitation campaigns.

Anthropologists have thus made rural development more people-centred, though their advice is often sought too late.

Example 37 (UPSC 2021, 15 marks): Discuss the interventions made by the Non-Governmental Organizations for empowering tribal women.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q7(c)

Approach: Discuss specific NGO interventions for tribal women in health, livelihoods, rights, political participation and against violence, with named organisations, and assess their impact and limits.

Tribal women carry heavy workloads in farming, forest collection and the household, and face malnutrition, anaemia, witch-hunting, trafficking and exclusion from land and customary councils. NGOs have intervened in several ways.

Health: Ekjut's participatory women's groups in Jharkhand and Odisha discussed pregnancy and newborn care and cut neonatal mortality (The Lancet, 2010); SEARCH in Gadchiroli trained village women as health workers; Jan Swasthya Sahyog serves tribal women in Chhattisgarh.

Livelihoods and finance: PRADAN organised tribal women into self-help groups and federations for savings, credit, agriculture and poultry; women-led Van Dhan clusters process forest produce such as mahua and tamarind.

Land and forest rights: NGOs helped women obtain joint titles and community forest rights under the Forest Rights Act (2006).

Political participation: training of women panchayat members and support for women's voices in PESA gram sabhas, including anti-liquor campaigns.

Violence: campaigns and legal aid against witch-hunting, supporting laws such as Jharkhand's Prevention of Witch (Daain) Practices Act (2001), and against trafficking of girls from Jharkhand to cities.

Assessment: these interventions raise income, health and confidence, but coverage is limited, customary councils still exclude women, and dependence on project funding threatens sustainability; partnership with the state and tribal women's own organisations is the way forward.

Example 38 (UPSC 2020, 15 marks): Describe the functions of Tribal Research Institutes in India.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q6(b)

Approach: Describe the Tribal Research Institutes (origin, number, funding) and their functions under research, evaluation, training, identification, cultural preservation and policy advice, with examples and a note on limitations.

Tribal Research Institutes are state-level bodies, the first set up at Ranchi in 1953; today most states with significant ST populations have one, supported by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs' scheme of support to TRIs. They are the main channel through which anthropology reaches tribal administration.

Research and documentation: ethnographic monographs on tribes, studies of land alienation, indebtedness, migration and customary law, and documentation of languages, oral literature and traditional knowledge, as by Odisha's SCSTRTI.

Identification and certification support: ethnographic reports on communities seeking inclusion in or exclusion from the ST list against the Lokur criteria, and on PVTG status; inputs to scrutiny of tribe certificates.

Evaluation and monitoring: assessment of schemes such as ITDPs, the Forest Rights Act and PM-JANMAN, and baseline surveys and social impact studies for projects.

Training: orientation of officials, teachers and police posted in tribal areas in tribal languages, customs and laws such as PESA and the FRA.

Cultural preservation: tribal museums, festivals, publication of primers in tribal languages and support for mother-tongue education.

Policy advice: inputs to state Tribes Advisory Councils and plans.

Limitations: understaffing, few trained anthropologists, limited autonomy and reports that are rarely acted upon; strengthening TRIs is essential for evidence-based tribal policy.

Example 39 (UPSC 2018, 20 marks): Examine the strengths and weaknesses of anthropology in the context of its role in tribal and rural development.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q8(a)

Approach: Examine the strengths of anthropology in tribal and rural development (holistic knowledge, methods, policy record) and its weaknesses (marginal influence, co-option, ethical dilemmas, small-scale focus), with examples, and conclude on how to strengthen its role.

Applied anthropology uses anthropological knowledge to solve practical problems. In India it has shaped tribal and rural development since Verrier Elwin and S.C. Dube, but its role has both strengths and weaknesses.

Strength, holistic and emic knowledge: anthropology understands how economy, kinship, religion and ecology interlock, so it can predict unintended effects; it sees jhum, for example, as an ecological adaptation, as Nagaland's NEPED project recognised.

Strength, methods: participant observation, genealogies, case studies and participatory appraisal reveal felt needs and local power, as Dube's evaluation of Community Development (1958) did.

Strength, policy record: Elwin's influence on Panchsheel and NEFA, Haimendorf's work after the Gond rising (1940), Tribal Research Institutes (from 1953), the People of India project, and inputs into PESA, the FRA and PVTG identification; health models such as SEARCH's newborn care drew on cultural insight.

Weakness, marginal influence: anthropologists are consulted late or not at all; TRIs are understaffed; budgets and engineering decide projects.

Weakness, scale and speed: slow, small-scale ethnography sits uneasily with targets and large programmes; findings are often descriptive rather than prescriptive.

Weakness, co-option and ethics: anthropologists may legitimise displacement or serve state or corporate interests; James Ferguson (1990) warned of development's anti-political effects; the dilemma between neutrality and advocacy remains.

Weakness, romanticism: critics accuse some anthropologists of preserving 'tradition' against people's own aspirations, as in debates over Elwin's isolationism.

Anthropology's role can be strengthened by making social impact assessment mandatory and independent, by embedding anthropologists in planning and monitoring, by training officials, and by adopting action anthropology in which communities set goals.

Example 40 (UPSC 2016, 15 marks): Describe how anthropological knowledge and methods are useful in rural development.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q8(c)

Approach: Describe what anthropological knowledge (concepts of village social structure, culture and change) and methods (fieldwork, participatory tools) contribute to rural development, with Indian examples.

Rural development aims to improve livelihoods, services and participation in villages. Anthropology contributes both knowledge about village society and methods for working within it.

Knowledge of social structure: village studies by M.N. Srinivas (dominant caste), S.C. Dube (Indian Village, 1955) and others show how caste, faction, kinship and gender decide who gains from programmes; Dube's evaluation of Community Development (1958) found benefits captured by richer and upper-caste farmers.

Knowledge of culture and change: George Foster (1962) identified cultural barriers, such as beliefs and status concerns, and stimulants to innovation; studies of hot-cold food beliefs guide nutrition messages; research on purity and pollution informs sanitation campaigns under the Swachh Bharat Mission.

Methods: participant observation and key informants reveal hidden practices; genealogies trace land and kinship networks; case studies explain success and failure; participatory rural appraisal (Robert Chambers), with village mapping, seasonal calendars and wealth ranking, lets villagers plan; focus groups capture women's voices.

Applications: social audits under MGNREGA, self-help group design, watershed planning, panchayat training and evaluation of housing and drinking-water schemes.

Anthropology thus makes rural development culturally appropriate, equitable and participatory, provided planners use it from the design stage.

Example 41 (UPSC 2015, 15 marks): Examine in detail the role of anthropology in planning for tribal development.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q4(b)

Approach: Examine in detail how anthropology contributes at each stage of tribal development planning (baseline, identification, design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation), with examples, and note its limits.

Planning for tribal development requires understanding societies that differ sharply in ecology, economy and culture. Anthropology contributes at every stage of the planning cycle.

Baseline and diagnosis: ethnographic surveys by Tribal Research Institutes and the Anthropological Survey of India describe land use, kinship, customary law and felt needs; the People of India project (from 1985) provides a national baseline.

Identification and targeting: ethnographic criteria guided the Lokur Committee (1965) on ST lists and the identification of PTGs (1975) on the basis of technology, literacy, economy and demography.

Policy and design: Elwin's work shaped Panchsheel (1959) and NEFA administration; Haimendorf's advice after the Gond rising (1940) led to land protection and Gond-language schools in Hyderabad; anthropologists argue for mother-tongue education, recognition of jhum and community forest rights, and habitat rights for PVTGs.

Implementation: training officers in tribal languages and customs; working through customary councils, as PESA requires; using Cernea's impoverishment-risks model in resettlement plans.

Monitoring and evaluation: social impact assessment under the 2013 land acquisition Act, evaluation of ITDPs and PM-JANMAN, and participatory tools that capture tribal views.

Limits: anthropologists are often consulted late and their reports ignored; the solution is to make them part of planning teams and to let gram sabhas set priorities, in the spirit of Sol Tax's action anthropology.

Example 42 (UPSC 2014, 20 marks): Critically assess the role of anthropologists in rural development.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q8(a)

Approach: Critically assess the roles anthropologists have played in rural development (evaluator, adviser, change agent, critic) with named Indian and international examples, weighing achievements against limitations, and conclude.

Anthropologists have engaged with rural development in India since the Etawah pilot project (1948) led by Albert Mayer, the forerunner of the Community Development Programme (1952).

Evaluator: S.C. Dube's India's Changing Villages (1958) evaluated Community Development and exposed the gap between officials and villagers, the capture of benefits by richer farmers and upper castes, and neglect of felt needs; later village restudies showed how the Green Revolution widened inequality.

Adviser and planner: anthropologists advised on the design of extension, health and education programmes, on panchayat training and on social impact assessment; internationally, Michael Cernea at the World Bank built resettlement policy on anthropological research.

Change agent: Sol Tax's action anthropology (from 1948) and Robert Chambers's participatory rural appraisal, rooted in fieldwork, put villagers at the centre; Indian NGOs such as SEARCH applied cultural insight to cut newborn deaths, influencing the ASHA programme.

Analyst of social structure: M.N. Srinivas's dominant caste and studies of factions and patronage helped explain why programmes fail or are captured.

Critic: the anthropology of development (Ferguson, 1990; Escobar, 1995) questioned development itself as a discourse that depoliticises poverty.

Limitations: anthropologists were rarely in decision-making positions; their findings were often ignored; slow, localised research suited planners poorly; and some were co-opted into legitimising top-down projects.

Assessment: their greatest achievement has been to change how development is thought about, making participation, felt needs and cultural sensitivity standard goals, even if practice lags.

A stronger role requires institutionalising social assessment, training officials in anthropological methods and accountability to village communities.

3. Anthropology and Regionalism, Communalism and Ethnic Movements

Example 43 (UPSC 2025, 10 marks): Regionalism and Autonomy

Paper and question: Paper II, Q1(c)

Approach: A short note defining regionalism, explaining why it leads to demands for autonomy, the forms autonomy takes in India, examples and the state's response.

Regionalism is loyalty to a region and the political assertion of its linguistic, cultural or economic interests; when regional identity is strong, it often becomes a demand for autonomy, meaning self-government over land, resources and culture within the nation.

Causes: uneven development and a sense of internal colonialism (Michael Hechter, 1975), 'sons of the soil' fears of migrants (Myron Weiner, 1978), distinct language or ethnicity, and elite mobilisation (Paul Brass).

Forms of autonomy in India: new states (Nagaland 1963, Jharkhand 2000, Telangana 2014); Sixth Schedule councils (Bodoland Territorial Region, 2020); special provisions under Article 371 (371A for Nagaland); and demands such as Ladakh's for Sixth Schedule status after 2019 and Gorkhaland in West Bengal.

State response: India's federal flexibility has accommodated many demands through reorganisation and accords, which anthropologists see as reducing conflict, while refusing secession.

Regionalism expressed through autonomy can thus strengthen national integration when demands are met democratically.

Example 44 (UPSC 2024, 15 marks): Elucidate the difference between secularism, religiosity, religious fundamentalism and spiritualism from an anthropological perspective.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q6(b)

Approach: Define and distinguish secularism, religiosity, religious fundamentalism and spiritualism from an anthropological angle, with scholars and Indian and tribal examples, and show how they relate.

Anthropology studies religion as a cultural system of symbols and practices (Clifford Geertz, 1966), so these four terms describe different relationships between people, belief and the state.

Secularism: a principle governing the relation between religion and the state. The Western model separates them (France's laïcité, 1905); the Indian model, written into the Preamble in 1976, means equal respect and principled distance. T.N. Madan (1987) argued that secularism as separation sits uneasily in religious South Asian societies.

Religiosity: the degree and form of an individual's or group's religious commitment; Glock and Stark (1965) measured its ideological, ritual, experiential, intellectual and consequential dimensions. High religiosity, as in India, can coexist with tolerance and a secular state.

Religious fundamentalism: a modern movement that claims to return to a literal, 'pure' core of scripture and seeks to impose it on society and the state, often in reaction to modernity and pluralism; the term comes from The Fundamentals (1910 to 1915) of American Protestants.

Spiritualism (spirituality): a personal quest for meaning and the sacred, often outside institutions; tribal religions such as Sarna or Donyi-Polo, rooted in nature-man-spirit relations (L.P. Vidyarthi), and Bhakti and Sufi traditions show spirituality without dogma.

Relations: religiosity and spirituality concern belief, secularism concerns governance, and fundamentalism is a political use of religion that threatens secularism; anthropology shows that the boundaries vary by culture.

Example 45 (UPSC 2024, 15 marks): Elucidate the resurgence of ethno-nationalism from an anthropological lens.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q7(c)

Approach: Define ethno-nationalism, explain its recent global and Indian resurgence through anthropological theories (primordial, instrumental, constructivist, boundary), with examples, and conclude on responses.

Ethno-nationalism is the belief that an ethnic group, defined by descent, language or religion, forms a nation that should govern itself or dominate the state. Walker Connor (Ethnonationalism, 1994) stressed the emotional bond of believed common ancestry.

Global resurgence: after the Cold War, the break-up of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union; independence referendums in Scotland (2014), Catalonia and Iraqi Kurdistan (2017); and majoritarian nationalism in several democracies.

India: the Meitei-Kuki-Zo conflict in Manipur (2023), the Tipra Motha's Greater Tipraland demand, continuing Naga talks, Ladakh's autonomy demand and sons-of-the-soil job reservations for locals.

Primordial lens: Geertz showed that attachments of blood, language and religion persist and resurface when states fail to provide security.

Instrumental lens: Paul Brass and Abner Cohen show elites mobilising identity for power, land and jobs, especially in competitive elections.

Constructivist and boundary lens: Benedict Anderson's imagined communities and Barth's boundaries explain how census categories, ST lists, maps and social media sharpen 'us' and 'them'.

Drivers today: globalisation and migration creating insecurity, inequality, digital rumour networks, and competition over reservation and resources.

Anthropology suggests recognition through autonomy, cross-ethnic civic ties (Varshney) and fair resource sharing to channel ethno-nationalism into democratic politics.

Example 46 (UPSC 2022, 10 marks): Regionalism as an opportunity and threat to national integration

Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(a)

Approach: A short note presenting regionalism as an opportunity (federal deepening, development, cultural recognition) and as a threat (secession, nativism, conflict), with examples and a conclusion.

Regionalism, the assertion of a region's identity and interests, can either deepen or strain national integration.

As an opportunity: linguistic reorganisation of states (1956) gave people government in their own language and defused unrest; new states such as Jharkhand (2000) and Telangana (2014) brought administration closer to neglected regions; Sixth Schedule councils and Article 371 accommodated tribal identities, turning insurgents into legislators, as in Mizoram after 1986; regional parties widened democratic participation.

As a threat: when regionalism turns secessionist (early Naga and Mizo movements), nativist (attacks on migrant workers under 'sons of the soil' slogans), or violently exclusive (Manipur, 2023), it endangers unity and minorities within regions; interstate disputes over water and boundaries also arise.

Anthropological view: identities are not inherently divisive; denial of recognition and uneven development turn them into threats.

Regionalism is therefore best managed through cooperative federalism, balanced development and protection of minorities within regions.

Example 47 (UPSC 2020, 20 marks): Discuss the regionalism and demand for autonomy in India from Anthropological perspective with respect to Kashmir/Nagaland/Bodoland/Gorkhaland agitation.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q8(a)

Approach: Explain regionalism and autonomy anthropologically (identity, boundary, deprivation, elite mobilisation), then analyse the four cases (Kashmir, Nagaland, Bodoland, Gorkhaland) briefly on roots, demands and present status, and draw comparative conclusions.

Anthropologically, regionalism is the territorial expression of identity: Barth's ethnic boundaries, Geertz's primordial attachments and Brass's elite mobilisation combine with relative deprivation and fear of outsiders (Weiner's 'sons of the soil') to produce demands for autonomy.

Nagaland: rooted in colonial isolation and a distinct Naga history and Christian identity, the Naga National Council claimed independence in 1947; statehood (1963) and Article 371A protected customary law and land, and the NSCN's Framework Agreement (2015) still awaits a final settlement.

Bodoland: the Bodo, a plains tribe of western Assam, feared land loss to migrants and Assamese dominance; their movement led to accords in 1993 and 2003 (Bodoland Territorial Council under the Sixth Schedule) and the Bodoland Territorial Region accord (2020), showing autonomy within a state.

Gorkhaland: Nepali-speaking Gorkhas of the Darjeeling hills demand a separate state from West Bengal; the GNLF agitation (1986 to 1988) produced the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (1988) and the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha's movement produced the Gorkha Territorial Administration (2012), but a 104-day shutdown in 2017 showed continuing discontent.

Kashmir: a region with a distinct identity and special status under Article 370, and insurgency from 1989; in 2019 Article 370 was abrogated and the state reorganised into two Union Territories, upheld by the Supreme Court (December 2023); assembly elections followed in 2024, and restoration of statehood is the main demand.

Comparison: all four combine identity with grievance over land, migration or status; where autonomy was negotiated with real powers (Bodoland, Nagaland in part), violence declined; where demands were denied or autonomy was weak (Gorkhaland), agitation recurs.

Diagram: a table of the four cases with columns for identity base, core demand, state response and present status.

Anthropology suggests that flexible, negotiated autonomy, protection of internal minorities and dialogue reduce regional conflict more effectively than centralisation.

Example 48 (UPSC 2019, 10 marks): Anthropological understanding of communalism.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(c)

Approach: A short note defining communalism (Bipan Chandra) and summarising key anthropological understandings (Brass, Varshney, Veena Das, Kakar), with a conclusion.

Communalism, in Bipan Chandra's definition (Communalism in Modern India, 1984), is the belief that people who follow the same religion share common secular interests that differ from, and conflict with, those of other religious groups.

Constructed, not primordial: anthropologists and historians such as Bernard Cohn showed how colonial census and representation by religion hardened fluid identities into communities.

Production of riots: Paul Brass (2003), studying Aligarh, described 'institutionalised riot systems' of politicians, local leaders and specialists who produce violence, often around elections.

Civic ties: Ashutosh Varshney (Ethnic Conflict and Civic Life, 2002) found that cities with inter-communal associations, such as Calicut, stayed peaceful, unlike Aligarh.

Experience of violence: Veena Das (Mirrors of Violence, 1990; Critical Events, 1995) studied Partition and the 1984 anti-Sikh violence; Sudhir Kakar (The Colors of Violence, 1996) explored the psychology of communal identity in Hyderabad.

Anthropology thus treats communalism as a political process that everyday inter-community ties can resist.

Example 49 (UPSC 2016, 10 marks): Anthropological interpretation of ethnic and political movements

Paper and question: Paper II, Q5(e)

Approach: A short note on how anthropology interprets ethnic and political movements: definitions and typologies (M.S.A. Rao, K.S. Singh), the main theories, and Indian examples.

A social movement is sustained collective mobilisation guided by an ideology; M.S.A. Rao (Social Movements in India, 1978 to 1979) classified movements as reformist, transformative or revolutionary, and K.S. Singh divided tribal movements into political-autonomy, agrarian and forest-based, socio-religious and cultural types.

Primordial interpretation: Geertz saw attachments of language, religion and region driving movements such as the Dravidian or Naga movements.

Instrumental interpretation: Paul Brass showed elites selecting cultural markers to compete for power, as in the Jharkhand movement's shift from Adivasi to regional identity.

Boundary and constructivist views: Barth's boundaries and census categories explain why groups such as the Bodo mobilise against neighbours with whom they share much culture.

Deprivation and colonialism: relative deprivation and Hechter's internal colonialism explain movements in resource-rich but poor regions.

Anthropology combines these views and adds fieldwork on leaders, rituals and rumours, showing movements as both identity and interest politics.

Example 50 (UPSC 2015, 20 marks): Critically examine the concept of communalism and its relevance for multi-religious and multiethnic polity of India.

Paper and question: Paper II, Q4(a)

Approach: Critically examine the concept of communalism (definition, stages, theories of its origin and of riots), then discuss its relevance and dangers for India's multi-religious, multi-ethnic polity with examples, and conclude with remedies.

Concept: Bipan Chandra (Communalism in Modern India, 1984) defined communalism as the belief that followers of a religion share common secular interests opposed to those of other religious groups; he traced its progression from communal nationalism through liberal to extreme communalism. In India the term means something narrower than its Western sense of community solidarity.

Origins debated: colonial policies (census categories, separate electorates from 1909) hardened fluid identities, as Bernard Cohn and others argued; others stress pre-colonial memories and competition among elites for jobs and power; Partition (1947) institutionalised the divide.

Anthropological critique: communalism is not a timeless primordial hatred. Paul Brass showed riots produced by 'institutionalised riot systems' around elections; Ashutosh Varshney found that inter-communal civic associations prevent violence; Veena Das documented how the state and survivors experience violence, especially women.

Relevance for India: India has the world's largest Muslim minority within a Hindu majority, plus Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists and tribal religions, so communal mobilisation threatens secularism and citizenship; episodes such as the 1984 anti-Sikh violence, Gujarat (2002), Kandhamal (2008, involving Christian and Hindu tribals), Muzaffarnagar (2013) and Delhi (2020) show its cost.

Intersections: communalism overlaps with caste and ethnicity, as when tribal religious identity is contested through conversion and reconversion campaigns or the Sarna code demand.

Critical note: the concept can itself be misused, labelling legitimate minority or majority claims as communal; secularism must be applied consistently.

Remedies: impartial policing and justice, curbs on hate speech, inter-community civic institutions, education for pluralism and inclusive development, as the Sachar Committee (2006) recommended for Muslims.

Communalism remains highly relevant as the main threat to India's composite culture, but anthropology shows it can be prevented through everyday cooperation and fair institutions.