TCRC : Tribal Culture Research Center
The tribal highlands of Orissa had, no doubt, been under the political control of semi-independent chiefs who had only very loose connections with the provincial administration of the Central government. These chiefs, many of whom were of tribal origin, might have been impressed by the efficiency of the new centralised administration and by the high social status and political power of the central and provincial authorities.
During the following centuries, after the downfall of the Gupta empire, and after the eastern marches ended, the process of state formation shifted from the provincial centres to the hinterland (Kulke, 1979:223). Former chiefs declared their independence and tried to establish the new governance they had come to know from their masters. State formation in the post-Gupta period, at least in eastern India, to a large extent had its roots in the outer areas which previously had been under the loose control of the central authorities.J
At this early stage of state formation, an important problem must have been legitimising the Hindu Raja heading a hierarchical government that ruled over relatively, egalitarian tribal communities. The consolidation of Hindu kingship faced two sets of problems. First, the political problem of institutionalising power over the people and translating it into authority. The new rajas, the nouveau riche among the former tribal chiefs, usually followed a long-drawn strategy. They sought the tribals' loyalty and, in exchange, patronised their powerful deities as the state deities (Rastra devata), which helped to legitimise their Hindu rule over tribal or Hindu-tribal frontiers. The generous patronage of these deities and their priests helped to politically bridge the gap between the new rulers and the ruled. Secondly, the economic and administrative problems relating to the newly established kingdoms were resolved by the rajas by systematically inviting new settlers, who were often enough drawn from the brahmin and upper castes, as ritual and administrative specialists. (Bikrama Nanda : 1994)
Although particularly the early copperplates often mention that the lands were donated to the Brahmins for the sake of the royal donor and his parents, the main function of these Brahmins was certainly the propagation of the new ideal of a Hindu kingship and the hierarchically structured caste society with the new Hindu rulers and priests at its top. In a modern sense they were also responsible for the erection of the whole infrastructure of the new kingdom, particularly its administration (Kulke, 1979: 24).
Although a generally peaceful relationship prevailed between the Hindu rajas and their tribal neighbours, it was never without tension. In Orissa, it was more a continuous process of assimilation and partial integration than a process of sustained displacement (Kulke, 1978: 32).
Thus, in Orissa, regional medieval state formation and consequent political development is characterised by a gradual integration of an ever-increasing number of scattered 'nuclear' areas which came under dynastic rule. The subsequent political development under the Sailodbhavas (seventh-eighth century A.D.), Bhauma-Karas (eighth-tenth century A.D.), Somavamsis (tenth-twelfth century A.D.), and the Suryavamsis (twelfth-sixteenth century A.D.), who had successfully ruled over an ever-increasing area in Orissa, and later even beyond the border of Orissa proper for one thousand years, brought about a steady intermingling of the tribal and non-tribal cultures. This intermingling is epitomised in the Jagan-natha cult, which is today the centre of Brahminic ritual and culture, and the regional tradition of Orissa, yet tribal in origin. This complex intertwining of tribal and caste cultures must be understood in the broader context of state formation and the legitimation of royal authority in medieval India. A prominent expression of this historical process of the legitimation of royalty is the relationship of the ideology of Gajapati kingship in Orissa with the Jagannatha cult. (Nanda : 1994) 3
The broad sociopolitical configuration of the kingdom states, and the tribal hinterland around them, remained qualitatively unchanged until the beginning of the nineteenth century. By the year 1802, an increasing number of highland kingdoms had entered into treaties with the British colonial administration. Under Regulation XXV of 1802, which introduced Permanent Settlement throughout the then Vizagpattam district, the Jeypore estate was conferred upon Ramachandra Deo-II. The annual tribute (pesh-kush) of the Jeypore kingdom was fixed at sixteen thousand rupees. As a part of its broader political strategy, the colonial administration had enlarged its sphere of control. This caused a slow and steady decline of political and economic autonomy initially granted to the nuclear areas under the erstwhile kingdoms. A visible aspect of the change of the political atmosphere was the opening up of police stations and revenue officers, which were set up to facilitate the smooth functioning of the new administration. In many remote areas, judicial courts (known as agency courts) were also set up. The highland was divided into three administrative agencies-the Sabar agency, the Oriya agency and the Rampa agency. The headquarters of the highlands were located at Vishakhapatnam. Soon the British administration began to exert political influence on local rajas and the internal affairs of their states.
In the colonial ethnography of the period, the word 'tribe' referred to a collection of families, or groups of families, bearing a common name which, as a rule, does not denote any specific occupation: generally claiming common descent from a mythical or historical ancestor and occasionally from an animal, but in some parts of the country held together rather by the tradition of kinship; usually speaking the same language and occupying, professing or claiming to occupy a definite tract of the country (Risley, 1915: 62).
The socioeconomic conditions in the highlands during the early part of the nineteenth century were particularly favourable to the persistence of a cooperative subsistence economy. Each narrow valley, with terrace cultivation on the adjoining slopes, supported a small number of families, which depended on their own labour for all the necessities and most of the 'luxuries' of life. There was a certain sense of ter-ritoriality among Bondas who occupied distinct tracts exclusively. Their agricultural produce was limited to certain types of pulses and millets, of which Ragi was the staple food. rice was grown in the beds of small streams which were terraced. This suggests that the highlanders knew the art of growing rice in wetlands. This is a complex process of production which involves the transplantation of rice seedlings from nursery beds to wetlands. This is an advanced technique in agriculture. Thus it is misleading to regard the Hill Tribes of Koraput as a 'primitive' tribe.
In the 'thinly populated' highlands, game was 'plentiful' (May, 1873: 236) 5, and hunting was an important activity. Agricultural production was supplemented by hunting and other activities related to a forest economy. The major occupation was shifting cultivation, which was practised on the hill slopes. Harvesting millet and pulses on the hill slopes, grown by shifting cultivation, continued throughout the year. For most of the nineteenth century, the populace of the highlanders, like the other tribes of peninsular India, lived in conditions that were indeed 'ideal' for an 'affluent' existence. 'Few people in India enjoy a happier life than the residents /' of some of these valleys' (Crooke, 1857: 37)6."From the Survey of India surveyor's report, it is evident that such an economy produced 'surplus' products and 'time'. Elaborate 'fiestas' frequently organised during the course of the agricultural calendar and various religious ceremonies that consisted of 'offerings to nameless deities' and to the 'memory of deceased relations' (May, 1873: 237) 5 implied an abundance of material wealth, far outstripping their needs and desires.^The organisation of such 'fiestas' suggests that the community, as a whole, produced enough 'leisure' and 'surplus'. Throughout the active days of hunting, gathering and farming, the festivals were eagerly awaited. These were days of abundant food and, drink, 'till its intoxicating effects thoroughly roused their pugnacity'. The surveyor, J.A. May, referred to the grand yearly festival where 'the process of cudgelling one another with the branches of the sallop tree' (p. 236), without the slightest regard for individual feelings, was common, and it resembled 'a host of maniacs suddenly set at liberty'. Interestingly, he notes that 'this amusement is continued till bruises, contusions and bleeding heads and backs reduce them to a comparatively sober state and, I imagine, old scores are paid off (p. 237). Thus, it is not surprising that May's Anglo-Saxon sensibilities considered the highlanders to be 'peculiar'.
The presence of the surveyor in the hills was, in itself, indicative of the breakdown of the insularity of the highlands of Koraput which followed the process of colonisation, and the opening up of channels of communication. This further increased interaction between the tribals and non-tribals. The volume of trade increased and the traders profited from their contact with the highlanders. In other parts of Koraput, non-tribal immigration into the interior increased. During the early stage of immigration, the new settlers were traders, who later bought land and consequently gained the stamp of citizenship in the highlands. In the district of Koraput traders, whose means of livelihood was solely dependent on peddling goods, were locally known as Bepari or Brinjari. The Brinjari brought from the plains various goods that were exchanged with forest products and other highland produce. Coastal products (like salt, dried fish, coconuts and spices) were bartered for large quantities of millet, pulses, oil-seeds and other valuable forest produce. Poor roads made necessary a multitude of local haats (market), at which primary producers of the highlands exchanged products with middlemen. At such hauts, the Bepari made bargains and profitably bartered with the tribals. Town-based crafts penetrated the highlands through these haats. (Nanda : 1994)3
'British colonialism initiated the inroad of commerce into a relatively simple, self-sustaining tribal economy. The steady decline in the self-sufficiency of tribal producers increased their dependence on the non-tribals. These non-tribals, who were peddlers in the highlands, considered themselves 'higher' in social status than the highland dwellers. This group of 'higher' status people found an intermediary place between production and consumption in the highlands. In years of bad harvest and during months of scarcity, the price of grain was extraordinarily high and the tribals faced hardships in meeting their subsistence requirements. This resulted in widespread indebtedness among the tribals in the highlands. Thus, moneylending at exorbitant rates of interest and the extension of consumption loans in grain by traders and moneylenders flourished. Table 1.1 shows the pattern of price rise in Koraput district during 1863-65. It is evident from the table that the price of food products from the plains (such as wheat, rice and grain) increased manifold compared to that of highland products (such as turmeric, tobacco, wax and castor oil).
Table 1.1 Bazar Prices in 1863-65
Source: Carmichael (1869, Appendix A). 7Note: 1 seer = 1 ½ kg approximately.
Till the middle of the nineteenth century, cash transactions were entirely unknown in the highlands of Koraput. The value of all property was estimated in the 'lives of cattle' or seashells, locally known as cowrie. Soon the District Gazetteer was to report that 'Cowrie shells are going out of use in the country now, though two years ago people would take nothing else' (Carmichael, 1869: 111) 7. In the highlands, even under these new conditions, colonial administration had introduced the need for cash through indirect revenue collection. The new administration was known to have interfered with local affairs, even when it exercised its own kind of indirect hegemony. Through the traditional rulers of Jeypore, Hindu mustajars were appointed in the interior areas. In many areas, the chiefs thus appointed were known locally as patro. A cluster of tribal villages was administratively put under a patro. Every tribal village paid the patro a couple of rupees annually and regular amounts of grain.
Officials of the colonial administration, who occasionally visited the area, stayed at the village of the patro. Absentee administrators, the mediation of Hindu chiefs and the emergence of a complex grid of revenue collection meant that the highland people rarely saw the rulers. Nor were the colonial administrators regarded as being directly responsible for the 'wretched' life of the tribals. Thus, initially, colonial administration remained aloof from the polarities of social antagonism. Through 'protective' legislation and 'concern' for the tribal people against the tyranny of the local and traditional chiefs, colonialism preserved, though not for long, its image as an arbitrator, mediator and even protector of the highland people. The report of a senior administrator at Koraput in 1865 presents a paternalist attitude:
The hill chiefs are quite competent to keep down crime in their own estates if they choose, and to deliver the criminals over to the Magistracy; but besides being open to bribery and other influences, they are very often themselves the offenders, and so great is the prestige of their authority, that they may offend with perfect impunity. Nobody in the hills could venture to lay a complaint against his feudal superior, without the actual location of the police in the neighbourhood. It is this alone, with the repeated tours of the European officers of the district, that leads to the detection of heinous crime, in these wild and distant localities (Carmichael, 1869:108).
It is not clear from the available reports what the nature, intentions and incidence of these 'crimes' in the highlands were. It is, however, important to mention that the contextual meaning of 'crime', as the colonial administration viewed it, differed from the way the popular culture of the highlands viewed criminality. At the same time, the customary corrective prerogatives were different from those of the colonial magistracy. More important, there were 'good' and 'bad' criminals in the highlands, from the point of view of the highlanders. As we shall soon see, the rebels in the highlands who openly resisted colonial administration7 and the Hindu chiefs were imprisoned as criminals. In the highlands, those tribes which were in the forefront of tribal movements were referred to. in administrative reports, as 'criminal tribes'. (Nanda : 1994) 3
The lack of a 'written' history has created an atmosphere of timelessness in the social anthropology of tribal societies. It is not surprising that a large portion of existing literature emphasises the unchanging aspects of ritual behaviour within a somewhat static frame of reference. This has given rise to the ahistorical character of tribal studies. Yet another cause of such ahistorical analysis is the lack of an interdisciplinary approach to the study of tribes. Related disciplines of social sciences must come together in order to provide a holistic study of tribal social formations. Such a study of the historical process must extend beyond that of colonialism to the pre-colonial times that account for many existing ritual practices. This requires a critical examination of not only the existing colonial ethnographic prose of counter-insurgency (Guha, 1983), but also available oral traditions. Such a historical reconstruction is significant in two ways. First, it provides for a possible dialogue with the past in that the present and the future of tribal formations can be analysed in a historical perspective. Second, the accepted concepts and stereotypes commonly used in tribal studies, such as Hinduisation, tribalisation and the tribe-caste dichotomy, can be re-examined. Such a re-examination must take into consideration the social history of not only the tribe, but also the broader society at large, in order to bring into focus the local forces at work.(Nanda : 1994) 3
Reference:
1. Kulke, Hermann Von, 1978: 'Early State Foundation and Royal Legitimation in the Hindu Tribal Border Area of Orissa', in R. Moser and M.K. Gautam (ds.)
2. Kulke, Hermann Von, 1979, Jagannath - Kult Und Tajapati - Konigtum. Weisbadeu: Franzsteniner Verlaggmbh (English translation)
3. Nanda, Bikram : contours of continuity and change : Sage : 1994.
4. Rishley, Herbert, 1915 : The people of India, Delhi, Orient Books, (Repring - 1969).
5. May, J.A. 1873 : ' Notes on Bhondas of Jayapur', The Indian Antiquary Vol. 2.
6. Crooke, W. 1857, 'The Native Races of British Empire': Northen India, Delhi : Oriental Books (Reprint 1968).
7. Carmichael, DF, 1869, 'Manual of the Vizagpattam District'; Vizagpatnam; Government Publication.
8. Guha, Ranjit, 1983. 'The Prose of Counter-Insurgency', in Ranjit Guha (ed), Subaltern Studies II, Writings on South Assian History and Society, Delhi; Oxford University Press.
Compilor :TCRC : Tribal Culture Research Center
(Sabara Sanskruti Gabeshana Kendra) :
Koraput-764020
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