In India the term ‘’Adivasis’’ have gained lot of popularity in the last few years . Adivasis is a contentious term because it is used to describe tribes as indigenous people . The term tribes as a social category has not only emerged after the independent post colonial state but it has also been used prior to the colonial state to describe the community which is excluded from the mainstream of the society .
In the article ‘’ Tribes as indigenous people ‘’ Virginius Xaxa talks about the status and condition of the tribal communities and how they are marginalized and misunderstood . There are more than 1000 million adivasis in India , and more than 8% of the population . Here the focus of the article is how the tribes have been put into the mainstream of the society by becoming caste , class , peasants and so on . Here they have given three aspects when we conceptualize the indigenous people . First - the indigenous people who live in a country to which they belong before the colonization . second – these people have their own social economic and cultural institution that the laws that are applicable to the society . So the question raised in this article are were the tribes are the natives of India or they are not the natives are their settlements prior to the social group i.e. Aryans . There are some Aryans like Mizo and other tribal like Nagas which have come after the Aryans . Therefore there are tribes which are indigenous and non-indigenous . Interestingly tribes are not the only Dravidians and Asiatic but also the Aryan because if we exclude Indo-Aryan the we also tend to exclude Tibeto-Burman family .
The relation between tribes and non tribes is of mutual co-existence until the British period . It is less...
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