A Complete History, Growth and Development of Scheduled Tribes and Their Constitutional Safeguards

Shashikanta Mohapatra

Volume : IV, Issue : VII, July - 2015

A Complete History, Growth and Development of Scheduled Tribes and Their Constitutional Safeguards

Shashikanta Mohapatra

Abstract :

The meaning of tribe has been conceptualized and defined by different scholars but still a vague concept for anthropologists and analysts. In spite of several studies and researchers on tribes, attempts have often been made to answer the basic questions on who is the tribal. The term �tribe� generally connotes, in English, a word indicating �an endogamous social group held to be descended from the common ancestor and composed of numerous families, exogamous clans , bands or villages that occupies a specific geographic territory possesses cultural, religious and linguistic homogeneity and an commonly united politically under one head�. But, no clear-cut definition has evolved. The census report since 1901 has studied aborigines, primitive tribal etc but they have not been able to reach any definite conclusion regarding the definition and conclusion of tribes. Even the Backward Classes Commission (1956) in its report adopted certain objective criteria simply for general guidance on these questions. Anthropologists and social anthropologists have made attempts to define the term �tribe� and their patterns of cultural life. Therefore this paper attempts to examine the historical growth of Schedules Tribes in India and the constitutional safeguards initiated by the Constitution after India�s independence.