Tribes Of India Research Articles

Genetics of Castes and Tribes of India: Serum Protein Polymorphisms–KM and GM Systems

ABSRACT The discipline of Biological Anthropology (or Human Biology) incorporates study of biology and environmental factors, as well as the forces of microevolution leading to macro-evolution, which ultimately influences the structure of human populations. In the present paper and attempt has been made to study the distribution of serum proteins–KM and GM frequencies among the people of India, which are analysed in relation to ecological, socio-economic and linguistic factors.

Gene Flow from the Indian Subcontinent to Australia: Evidence from the Y Chromosome

Phenotypic similarities between Australian Aboriginal People and some tribes of India were noted by T.H. Huxley during the voyage of the Rattlesnake (1846-1850). Anthropometric studies by Birdsell led to his suggestion that a migratory wave into Australia included populations with affinities to tribal Indians. Genetic evidence for an Indian contribution to the Australian gene pool is contradictory; most studies of autosomal markers have not supported this hypothesis (; and references therein). On the other hand, affinities between Australian Aboriginal People and southern Indians were suggested based on maternally inherited mitochondrial DNA. Here, we show additional DNA evidence in support of Huxley's hypothesis of an Indian-Australian connection using single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and short tandem repeats (STRs) on the nonrecombining portion of the Y chromosome (NRY). Phylogenetic analyses of STR variation associated with a major Australian SNP lineage indicated tight clustering with southern Indian/Sri Lankan Y chromosomes. Estimates of the divergence time for these Indian and Australian chromosomes overlap with important changes in the archaeological and linguistic records in Australia. These results provide strong evidence for an influx of Y chromosomes from the Indian subcontinent to Australia that may have occurred during the Holocene.

State of Life of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in India

This paper presents the levels of household income and material well-being among Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribe and landless wage earners in rural India. Income differentials have been estimated from the NCAER's Human Development Indicator 1994 data set, for landowners, the landless and landless wage earners among Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and other category (not including Scheduled Caste and Tribes). Among Scheduled Caste and Tribes, landholding households have a much lower level of household income than the national average. This implies that a large proportion of households among Scheduled Castes and Tribes own a very little amount of land. The household income of landless others is much higher than the household income of landless among Scheduled Castes and Tribes. However, the income differentials are least among landless wage earners irrespective of caste. Among landless others only 42 per cent are wage earners, compared to 63 per cent among Scheduled Castes and Tribes. Agricultural and allied activities contribute 56 per cent of ousehold income among Scheduled Tribes. However, the landless wage earners derive only 2.8 per cent of income from this very important source of income. Landless wage earners receive a total of 92 per cent of their income from wages out of agricultural as well as on agricultural wage work. Work participation rate (an indication of employment stress in the Indian Context) is much higher among landless wage earners or compared to that among Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, and all of rural India. It must be reiterated that land is the main asset for a decent living in rural India. But the number of landless households is increasing over time more so among Scheduled Caste. As much as 63 per cent of Scheduled Castes own land less than one hectare, compared to all-India rural average of 46 per cent and 43 per cent among Scheduled Tribes.

M. Ishtiaq, Language shifts among the scheduled tribes in India: A geographical study. (MLBD Series in Linguistics.) Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, Pp. xii, 183. Rs 450. $32.00.

This book, by a geographer, is a rather complete study of the linguistic behavior of an important population group, the so-called Scheduled Tribes of India, numbering 68 million people in 1991, and more than 90 million today, i.e. as much as the population of Germany – but a population split into distinct units, spread in various patches of territory all over India, where they speak more than 60 indigenous languages. Spatially and culturally divided, they have also long been socially marginalized, and despite many official schemes of development, they are still undergoing a very important process of deculturation. The most noticeable manifestation of this process – the language shift that is the subject of this book – had, at the period of the author's fieldwork, already affected nearly 60% of this population and is leading to the gradual disappearance of local languages in many places.

Competing Inequalities: The Scheduled Tribes and the Reservations System in India's Jharkhand

This paper reports on the economic and political consequences of reserving government and public-sector jobs for members of the Scheduled Tribes in the Indian State of Bihar. It also contributes to a more general debate on the system of compensatory discrimination that has existed in India since the 1940s, and which was made tangible for middle class Indians by the decision of the government of V. P. Singh (1989–90) to adopt some of the recommendations of the Second Backward Classes Commission (1979–80: chairman B. P. Mandal). The Mandal Commission report advised that a system of reserved jobs in central government could usefully be extended from the Scheduled Castes and Tribes of India (roughly 15 and 7.5 percent of the population, respectively) to embrace a broader collection of Socially and Economically Backward Classes.1 In August 1990 V. P. Singh found it expedient to act upon Mandal's suggestion that up to 49.5 percent of all jobs in central government services and public undertakings should be reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SCs), Scheduled Tribes (STs), and Other Backward Classes (OBCs).

Three Perspectives on Music and the Idea of Tribe in India

Critical theory has taught us that to name and delineate a socialcultural category is also in some sense to construct or objectify it. The papers in this volume focus on the music associated with one such category in India, the tribe. In talking about tribal music we are tacitly accepting the concept of tribe, and yet perhaps this concept itself deserves a closer look first. Clearly, the way in which people (including ourselves) define what is tribal -their idea(s) of tribe -will affect the ways one might discuss tribal music.

Transformation of Tribes in India: Terms of Discourse

Transformation of Tribes in India: Terms of Discourse

Utilisation of Antenatal Care (ANC) Service by the Scheduled Tribes in India

Utilisation of Antenatal Care (ANC) Service by the Scheduled Tribes in India

The denotified and nomadic tribes of India

The denotified and nomadic tribes of India

Hepatoprotective activity of Boerhaavia diffusa L. roots — a popular Indian ethnomedicine

The roots of Boerhaavia diffusa L., commonly known as ‘Punarnava’, are used by a large number of tribes in India for the treatment of various hepatic disorders. In the present study the effect of seasons, thickness of roots and form of dose (either aqueous or powder) were studied for their hepatoprotective action to prove the claims made by the different tribes of India. The hepatoprotective activity of roots of different diameters collected in three seasons, rainy, summer and winter, was examined in thioacetamide intoxicated rats. The results showed that an aqueous extract (2 ml/kg) of roots of diameter 1–3 cm, collected in the month of May (Summer), exhibited marked protection of a majority of serum parameters, i.e. GOT, GPT, ACP and ALP, but not GLDH and bilirubin, thereby suggesting the proper size and time of collection of B. diffusa L. roots for the most desirable results. Further, the studies also proved that the aqueous form of drug (2 ml/kg) administration has more hepatoprotective activity than the powder form; this is probably due to the better absorbtion of the liquid form through the intestinal tract.

Imaginary maps: three stories

Imaginary Maps presents three stories from noted Bengali writer Mahasweta Devi in conjunction with readings of these tales by famed cultural and literary critic, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Weaving history, myth and current political realities, these stories explore troubling motifs in contemporary Indian life through the figures and narratives of indigenous tribes in India. At once delicate and violent, Devi's stories map the experiences of the and tribal life under decolonization. In The Hunt, Douloti the Bountiful and the deftly wrought allegory of tribal agony Pterodactyl, Pirtha, and Puran Sahay, Ms. Devi links the specific fate of tribals in India to that of marginalized peoples everywhere. Gayatri Spivak's readings of these stories connect the necessary lines within them, not only between local and international structures of power (patriarchy, nationalisms, late capitalism), but also to the university.

Affirmative Action in Employment for the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes in India

Focuses on affirmative action programmes in India for people belonging to the scheduled castes and the scheduled tribes in the sphere of employment. The constitutional safeguards and the measures initiated to give effect to them are briefly reviewed. Examines the progress achieved in realizing the goals in terms of the fulfilment of the quotas (i.e. reservation targets) and discusses the problems in implementing the affirmative programmes. The extremely complex Indian experience sheds light on various unique measures initiated to give effect to public policy concerning affirmative action programmes. It affords many lessons for other countries wishing to pursue similar objectives.

Gender inequality in education and employment in the scheduled castes and tribes of India

The complex stratification systems in India give rise to a multiplicity of social categories which often obscure the relative status of women and men within the more disadvantaged segments of the population. The focus of this study is on the situation of women in scheduled castes and tribes — groups which are referred to as ‘weaker sections of people’ and granted special safeguards and concessions under the Indian constitution. Women in these under-privileged groups are doubly disadvantaged: their minority group status interacts with India's patriarchal culture to produce deplorable living conditions. Drawing from both ethnographic and statistical sources, the paper presents a descriptive profile of scheduled caste and tribe women's status in Indian society. Using Indian Census data, the study documents extreme degrees of gender inequality among the scheduled groups. Findings indicate that relative to men, women in these groups have far more limited access to both educational and employment resources. This research also suggests that socioeconomic development serves to reduce the disadvantage of scheduled group women relative to men. Among the scheduled groups considered to be more developed according to standard indicators, findings indicate less gender inequality in education and employment.

Classification and fantasy in the photographic construction of caste and tribe

Much of the photographic record of caste and tribe in India beginning in 1840 formed part of a positivist system of classification which took external characteristics encoded in the bodies of photographic subjects as indices of cultural and political characteristics. Because of the prevalence of endogamous caste groupings India was held to be uniquely suited to this anthropometric investigation and photographic vision came to stand as a metaphor for the process through which the peoples of India became the objects of anthropological knowledge. However, alongside this ocular domination lay a parallel fabulous language which inverted positivist goals and created an unknowable secret arena beyond the power of sight.

Tribes of India: The Struggle for Survival

Tribes of India: The Struggle for Survival

Tribes of India: The Struggle for Survival.

Tribes of India: The Struggle for Survival.

A case study of a vanishing tribe of India

A case study of a vanishing tribe of India

Tribes of India: the struggle for survival

Tribes of India: the struggle for survival

Social and Economic Change in India: Profiles of Social Change: Y.C. Simhadri: Ex-Criminal Tribes of India. National Publishing House, New Delhi, 1979, xiv, 185p., Rs. 55

Social and Economic Change in India: <i>Profiles of Social Change</i>: Y.C. Simhadri: Ex-Criminal Tribes of India. National Publishing House, New Delhi, 1979, xiv, 185p., Rs. 55

The Aboriginal Tribes of India

The Aboriginal Tribes of India