Locating Subalternity in Tribal Politics in India with Special Reference to Uttar Pradesh

Abstract

The study of tribal politics in India has broadly followed two patterns. The first is the preoccupation of scholars with the question of integration of tribals into the 'mainstream' or the 'real political process' which is almost coterminous with the imaginary of what can commonly be referred to as the 'learning process' of 'nationalist politics'. (1) The second approach is an offshoot of the first and scholars have been preoccupied with the question of the impossibility of resolving the issues faced by tribals within the first framework. Accordingly, this framework tries to take out the discourse of tribal politics from what is perceived as a 'narrow and partial' approach to study the contribution made by the 'people on their own' as Ranajit Guha puts it. The subaltern Studies Collective started by Guha in the 1980s provided a trenchant critique of nationalist politics. With tribal communities getting increasingly embroiled in political action with development induced displacement in post Independent India, such an approach has gained further traction. (2) The paper makes a limited attempt to study the interaction of tribal politics in one of India's largest states, Uttar Pradesh, vis a vis, attempts to incorporate them into the 'mainstream' through various practices that lie at the intersection of the 'public' and 'private' by placing religion at the centre of identity formation. Historically tribal zones in India have remained under the influence of Christian missionaries and Naxalites. Hindu organisations started work among tribals from the 1990s and their activities can be seen as a countervailing influence against the Christian missionary activities. One of the most popular tropes used by Hindu organisations was that of a creation of a ‘national identity’ among the tribals which was quintessentially a political process. Although anthropologists have long studied the process of Hinduisation' among tribal communities. The paper will show the changing nature of state practices in India vis a vis the tribals who are identified as 'subalterns' and thus be useful for comparative studies across states.