How long the tribes will remain “tribe”?

Abstract

This article addresses the very question of applicability of the notion of ‘tribe’ as used in the classical theory of cultural evolution in the hands of Lewis Henry Morgan and Emile Durkheim or in the sense of an early form of political organization to groups of present-day people who are categorized so. The post-colonial discourse on tribe is basically overloaded with the derogatory expression by which such groups of people were stigmatized with the sense of ‘primitive’, ‘junglee’ or ‘uncivilized’ since the era of Euro-American colonial expansion. It is found that as a nation with colonial hangover we have accepted the notion since it is well fitted in India with the model of social hierarchy– the dominant socio-political tool to rule over the underprivileged.