Tribes, de-notified communities & the question of development
Scheduled Tribes, de-notified/nomadic communities and India's tribal development debate: constitutional safeguards, Forest Rights, PVTGs and displacement for UPSC GS-1.
The constitutional category of 'Scheduled Tribe'
The Constitution does not define a tribe. Article 366(25) merely says Scheduled Tribes are those communities deemed under Article 342 to be Scheduled Tribes. The President, by public notification under Article 342(1), specifies the tribes or tribal communities in each State after consulting the Governor; Parliament alone may include or exclude entries (Article 342(2)). India recognises roughly 705 Scheduled Tribes; the 2011 Census counted the ST population at 104.3 million, about 8.6% of the population. The administrative criteria for ST status — derived from the Lokur Committee (1965) — are primitive traits, distinctive culture, geographical isolation, shyness of contact with the community at large, and backwardness.
Adivasi, vana-jati and the term 'tribe'
'Adivasi' (original inhabitant) is a self-description popularised in the Chhotanagpur movements; the Constitution prefers 'Scheduled Tribe'. Anthropologists distinguish tribes by relative isolation, common dialect, segmentary lineage and subsistence economies. G.S. Ghurye in The Aboriginals — So-Called — and Their Future (1943) called tribals 'backward Hindus' undergoing assimilation; Verrier Elwin initially urged protected isolation (the 'National Park' idea) before endorsing controlled integration. Jawaharlal Nehru's Tribal Panchsheel (foreword to Elwin's A Philosophy for NEFA, 1957) set the policy compromise: develop tribes along the lines of their own genius, respect land and forest rights, avoid over-administration, judge progress by quality of human character not statistics.
Geographic and demographic spread
ST populations concentrate in a central tribal belt (Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan), the North-East, and pockets in the south and islands. The Constitution provides two distinct administrative regimes: the Fifth Schedule governs Scheduled Areas in mainland States, empowering the Governor to make regulations and requiring a Tribes Advisory Council; the Sixth Schedule (Articles 244(2), 275) creates Autonomous District Councils in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram with legislative, judicial and financial powers. Among STs, the government identifies 75 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) — formerly Primitive Tribal Groups — marked by pre-agricultural technology, stagnant or declining population, low literacy and economic backwardness; examples include the Jarawa and Great Andamanese, the Birhor, the Sahariya and the Cholanaikkan.
The development question turns on a paradox: tribal homelands hold most of India's mineral, forest and hydel wealth, yet tribals bear a disproportionate share of displacement. Walter Fernandes' estimates suggest tribals constituted around 40% of those displaced by development projects between 1951 and 1990 while being under 9% of the population — the empirical core of the 'development versus rights' debate this lesson examines.