Ethnographic study of the Gond tribe of Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, India.

This book contains 26 papers presented at the National Seminar on Tribal People of Central India: Problems and Prospects organized by the Department of Anthropology, Mahatma Gandhi Antarrashtriya Hindi Vishwavidyalaya in collaboration with Anthropologic Survey of India under the convenorship of Dr. FarhadMollick. The papers are arranged into four sections in such a way that they bring out a clear picture of the status of tribal communities in Central India. The tribes in India constitute the weaker section of the population from ecological, economic and educational angles. Illiteracy, poverty, ill-health and malnutrition continue to be higher among the scheduled tribes than any other section of the population. Despite the constitutional provision and various legal protections, the problem of land alienation has multiplied. There are other problems such as indebtedness, exploitation, loss of natural resources and indigenous knowledge system. The provision of law under different Acts for safeguarding their interest and maintaining their identity remains largely unimplemented. The issues related to tribal policy, socio-cultural context, tribal health and tribal economy have been discussed in the book from the viewpoints of anthropologists and other specialists working on tribal communities.

Is primitivism a consequence of the natural evolution of some human societies? Or is it a conscious choice by such societies to evade state power? In The Roots of the Periphery, Bhangya Bhukya sets out to answer these questions by taking as his focal point the case of the Gond dynasty of the erstwhile Chanda region of Deccan India. He examines the evolution of Gond society over an extensive period, demonstrating how the British colonial government created anadministrative divide between the plains and the hills, thus stereotyping hill and forest communities as isolated, primitive, barbaric, and uncivilized in order to deny them self-rule.