The British Colonial Tribe and the Politics of Scheduling: The Case of Migrant Adivasis in Assam

Paper Abstract:
The Assam Adivasis, arguably have been the worst victims of Bodo militancy of 1996-97 ethnic conflicts, rose up to confront the Bodo militants and retaliate. Even before taking up arms, the suppressed Adivasis recognized the key question of being denied the Scheduled Tribe(ST) status in Assam, India. The denial, the Adivasis felt, was the rubric which made them a second-class citizen in their adopted land wherein they faced the brunt of forced migration by the British as indentured labourers to Assam. The case of Assam Adivasis can be attributed to colonial exercise of treating tribal people of India as a separate administrative category and having a special political and administrative programme. This was based on the perception that  tribal people were culturally distinct social groups, had different historical experiences, were cultural isolates in forest and hilly fastness, and economically very backward. Cognizant of the hold of colonial concept of tribe in nationalist India, the paper attempts to survey how British colonial state perceived tribal people, and how it formed the notion of tribe through colonial ethnographical writings and consolidated the category of tribe in India. The paper recognizes the core issue of contestation of the ST status of the Adivasi settlers of Assam by the Bodos in the conflict. It therefore traces the idea of tribe under British colonialism to Constituent Assembly debates, post-independence committees and commissions charted for the tribal people. This is done keeping in mind the distinct legacy of colonialism to the Indian nation-state on the subject.