Makers of Modern India

by Ramachandra Guha

  In 1936 Elwin was delicensed by the Church of England for his refusal to take the Gospel to the tribes. Four years later he married a Gond girl, deepening his identification with her people. (The marriage broke up after a decade, whereupon Elwin married another tribal.) Meanwhile, he had begun publishing essays and books on different aspects of tribal life and culture. Some of his works were descriptive and ethnographic—others, analytical and polemical. He had gone to the Gond country as a social worker, but now, as he told a friend, ‘the pen is the chief weapon with which I fight for my poor.’

  As we have seen, Gandhi paid close attention to the problems of women, Muslims and Untouchables. However, despite being some 8 per cent of India’s population, the tribals had been ignored by the national movement. Nor had other political thinkers and activists focused on them. Once, when charged with the question of why he didn’t take up tribal questions, B.R. Ambedkar answered: ‘I have never claimed to be a universal leader of suffering humanity. The problem of Untouchables is quite enough for my suffering strength.’ This was reasonable, but it still left a large and vulnerable section unrepresented in public discourse. This was the gap that Verrier Elwin sought to fill.

  Through the 1940s, Elwin published a series of major books on individual tribes. He also wrote many articles in newspapers and magazines on policy matters. The range and sheer bulk of his work was matched by a manifest sympathy with his subject, with the findings of his research communicated with a grace uncharacteristic of academic writing.

  After Independence, Elwin became a citizen of the Indian republic. In 1954 Jawaharlal Nehru appointed him adviser on tribal affairs to the administration of the North East Frontier Agency (NEFA). This was a large territory at the tri-junction of India with China and Burma, inhabited by very many different tribes who were largely unknown to the administration. Elwin was charged with designing policies to facilitate and smoothen their cultural integration with the rest of India.

  Elwin spent ten years in the north-east, travelling to all parts of NEFA and also spending extended periods of time in Assam and Nagaland. As before, he wrote about tribal art and folklore, but also about land and forest policies. He died in 1964, an esteemed if also somewhat controversial public figure in his adopted homeland.

  Verrier Elwin is represented in this book because of the quality of his thought (and prose), and because he focused attention on the problems of the two large concentrations of tribals in the country. These reside in the forested hills of central India and the north-east respectively. The former is now the epicentre of a Maoist rebellion; the latter, home to apparently intractable insurgencies. Intrinsic worth, as well as contemporary relevance, thus justify the choice of Elwin as a maker of modern India.

  Freedom for the Tribals

  In the early 1940s the word ‘freedom’ was being ubiquitously used. Gandhi talked of freedom for Indians; Jinnah of freedom for the Muslims. The British prime minister, Winston Churchill, argued that the war then under way was a battle for freedom versus tyranny. The American president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, spoke of fighting for four freedoms—the freedom of expression, the freedom of worship, the freedom from want and the freedom from fear. In the following excerpt, Verrier Elwin invokes the politicians’ rhetoric to ask for freedom for India’s long-neglected tribal people.1

  Let us make a brief summary of the things that have broken the nerve and depressed the spirit of the once happy and free tribesmen. First and foremost is the loss of land. The indolent and pleasure-loving temperament of the tribesmen has always rendered them an easy prey to the educated cunning and intelligence of the men of the plains. It is a deplorable fact that it has been actually proposed as a measure of social uplift to bring the hillmen down to the plains and thus expose them to these adventurers. Those more or less nomadic tribes who had lived by shifting cultivation lost all rights over the forests where they once freely roamed, and many of them today are landless coolies.

  The establishment of Forest Departments to protect the forest, in many respects inevitable, proved another serious blow to tribesmen who lived by axe-cultivation, digging for roots and hunting …

  The disappearance of the ritual hunt, which in many tribes preceded their major festivals, the cancellation of fishing rights and the suppression of the home distillery suggested to the aboriginals that civilization was hostile to their most cherished traditions. Liquor, for example, is a necessary ingredient in all forms of aboriginal worship and social ceremonies. The Congress has here shown a liberal spirit and has declared that it will not apply the prohibition laws to the tribesmen. But, as usual, puritan reformers are trying to force their hand. Everyone will wish to see habits of temperance extended, but to prohibit liquor-drinking altogether will be to deprive the hillmen of a valuable tonic and stimulant and will drive them to the far more injurious use of opium and other drugs.

  The effect of literary education on people who can never afford a book to read or a piece of paper to write on has generally been deplorable. Primary education in the tribal areas is in the hands of the District Councils, bodies composed of landlords, lawyers and businessmen who have often risen to power by exploiting the aboriginals and whose interests are directly opposed to theirs. Schools, totally divorced from the life of the people, staffed by the most inferior type of teacher, which teach the tribesmen to despise their own culture, to abandon their natural and simple dress, dancing and other recreations, are opened in the remotest areas and there is a desire on the part of some politicians—although Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress have condemned this type of education in the most emphatic terms—to introduce it on a compulsory basis wherever they can. The opening of workshops in which carpentry, agriculture and any other means of teaching the people to make useful and beautiful things would, of course, be invaluable. But the miserable little schools for introducing an unwanted literacy are worse than useless. The trouble is that the present unregulated system of education, far from preserving or developing aboriginal culture, destroys it. The schools are generally situated in centres of the non-aboriginal population and the jungle child grows up among those who regard him and his way of life with scorn. Even where this is not so, the teachers are usually urban-minded, regard themselves and their civilization as infinitely superior to the ‘savages’ among whom they have to live, and either ignore or condemn their institutions. Hindu, Muslim and Christian, but not aboriginal, festivals are marked by holidays. The children learn to chant in a nasal sing-song and pray to alien gods, but never to the old gods of the soil to whose worship their parents are deeply attached. They study in what is to them a foreign language. They read the lives of Indian Liberal leaders or English Viceroys, but hear nothing of their own cult-heroes or leaders. How many Gond schoolboys could recite the beautiful legend of Lingo, the mythical founder of their tribe, or say how many Gond Rajas there were in India? The aesthetic effect of education is disastrous. How beautiful is a Muria or Uraon boy fresh from the forest, with his long curly locks, his bright necklaces, the feathers and flowers in his hair! But the schoolmaster plucks the feathers from his hair, shaves his elfin locks, derides his ornaments; a small round cap replaces the becoming turban, and soon filthy khaki shorts and a dirty little coat cover ‘the eternally dressed nakedness of the brown skin’ …

  India is all too full of people like Mr. Pumblechook2 who, it will be remembered, could not see a small boy without trying to benefit him by setting him problems in mental arithmetic. The Pumblechooks of India try very hard to make the aboriginal good: they only succeed in making him dull. It is hard to convince the missionary and reformer of whatever religion that the romance and gaiety of tribal life is necessary for its preservation. But it is true. ‘The tribe that dances does not die.’

  But are we to regret the rapid decay of customs and superstitions that can have no place in a modern world? Certainly not, if those superstitions and customs are replaced by something better. Unfortunately the almost inevitable result of unregulated cultural
change is not real improvement, but decay. Moreover, in spite of certain admitted evils in aboriginal life (and it should be remembered that these evils are not worse than those which may be found in other parts of India and of the world) there are many elements that are well worth preservation; elements in which the tribesmen may not indeed be superior to the finest flower of Oriental or European civilization, but in which they have a great deal to teach their supposedly more civilized neighbours.

  The aboriginals have to a very high degree developed the art of recreation, an art which is lamentably absent from the ordinary Indian village. We may note the magnificent dances of the Nagas and of the Bison-horn Marias, the mimetic ballet of the Juangs, the haunting music of the Baiga Karma. Throughout tribal India there are songs of rare beauty and deep simplicity. Children’s games are highly developed among certain tribes; for example, over fifty, some of them most exciting and amusing, have been recorded among the Muria.

  The tendance of the dead, devotion to the soil, the power to stage a magnificent and colourful tribal festival, the discipline of tribal law, are things which modern village religion should not willingly let die. In the spirit of economic fellowship and the tradition of communal living, some primitive villages are a hundred years ahead of the modern world. This communal life of the wilder people, in which almost everything is shared and in which the joy or sorrow of one is the joy and sorrow of the whole community, is a beautiful thing to witness, and it too perishes immediately before the chill breath of education and advancement. Equally perishable are the aboriginal virtues of simplicity and honesty, frankness and humour.

  The unspoilt aboriginal is notable for the purity of his taste, and the beauty of such simple artistic creations as the materials available to him make possible. He is an expert in the art of personal ornamentation, in the decoration of his house (when he has a house), in the carving of masks, combs, snuff-boxes, in the use of cowries and beads. It is a tragedy that weaving is generally taboo to him; similarly pottery in which he might express himself is the monopoly of a minor Hindu caste. But still more tragic is the way in which the aboriginal’s instinct for beautiful and artistic creation disappears directly he is educated.

  Domestic fidelity is another virtue in which the real primitives might stand as an object-lesson to the whole world. When I recently conducted a survey of domestic life among the Murias of Bastar State, I found that out of 2,000 marriages examined all but 43 husbands were living with their own original wives. Adultery was almost unknown, and divorce exceptional … [I]n most tribal societies woman holds a high and honourable place. She goes proudly free about the countryside. In field and forest she labours in happy companionship with her husband. She is not subjected to early child-bearing: she is married when she is mature, and if marriage is a failure (which it seldom is) she has the right of divorce. The lamentable restrictions of widowhood do not await her: should her husband die, she is allowed, even enjoined, to remarry; and in many tribes she may inherit property. Her free and open life fills her mind with poetry and sharpens her tongue with wit. As a companion, she is humorous and interesting; as a wife, devoted; as a mother, heroic in the service of her children. Her brave, laborious, faithful life is an inspiration …

  That aboriginal life is marked by crude superstitions and other evils no one will deny. For example, some of the Nagas enjoy (along with the most advanced nations of Europe) the custom of head-hunting and the practice of human sacrifice. The only difference is that the poor aboriginal sacrifices only one or two human beings in the name of his gods, while the great nations offer up millions in the name of empire and enlightenment. The belief in witchcraft also sometimes leads the aboriginals (like their educated neighbours) into excess, and they have many superstitions which like the superstitions of advanced Indian society and the capitals of Europe are to be regretted and if possible cured. But after ten years of life in closest and most realistic contact with the aboriginals, I can say that though I have found ‘evils’ I have found none that do not exist in a more virulent form in ‘civilized’ society. The idea that there is something inherently vicious in primitive life must be abandoned …

  My own plan for the aboriginals has no claim to scientific authority. It is a simple practical scheme that has been impressed upon me by the actual realities of life during twelve years in a Gond village. It is based on my division of the aboriginals into different classes. The twenty million, who are already in contact with some sort of ‘civilization’ and are likely in the next few decades to be overwhelmed by it, do not ultimately present a problem very different from that of other peasants throughout India. The aboriginal problem cannot be considered apart from the general village problem. The great majority of Indian villagers are still illiterate; they are still attached to antiquated and economically injurious social, religious and agricultural habits; they have little medical assistance, meagre educational facilities, bad communications; they are exploited and oppressed just as the aboriginals are. Wiser heads than mine will plan and great political and economic movements will determine the fate of these multitudes. The twenty million semi-civilized aboriginals will have to take their chance with the rest of the population. It is evident that there is little possibility of protecting them, although locally it may often be possible to ameliorate their lot by special treatment … The twenty million aboriginals need what all village India needs—freedom, prosperity, peace, good education, medicine, a new system of agriculture and a fair deal under industrialization.

  It is the remaining five millions who present a problem that may well tax our brains and patience. The difficulty here is that not only are there no workers available to solve the problem, but that many people in India refuse to admit that any problem exists. They are ignorant of or have forgotten the appalling consequences of a too rapid acculturation in other parts of the world. They have a pathetic faith in the ‘march of progress’ to solve every human problem. There is a great deal of glib talk in the cities about ‘uplift’ and the most ready with their opinions are those who have never seen the aboriginals and who themselves have never moved a finger to help them.

  It is little use to say that we should give the blessings of civilization to the remotest aboriginals when we cannot give it to the workers in our great cities or to the peasants in accessible areas in the plains.

  I suggest, therefore, that until the social sciences have come to more definite conclusions about the safeguards necessary for primitive people advancing into civilized life, until there are properly trained workers and teachers of integrity and enterprise, until there is sufficient money to do the job of civilizing properly, the five million wilder aboriginals should be left alone and should be given the strictest protection that our Governments can afford. This is, I admit, a desperate measure and one that is easily misunderstood and still more easily misrepresented. It is a purely practical measure. It is based on no philosophic principle. Least of all does it suggest that the aboriginals are to be kept for ever primitive. I only urge that unless we can civilize them properly it is better not to interfere with the small minority of the most primitive hillmen at all. Casual benefits only destroy and degrade; it needs a lifetime of love and toil to achieve permanent advance.

  This view is hotly contested by people who know nothing of the realities of the problem. I have heard very little criticism from those who have actually lived among and studied these aboriginals. The man in the city cannot believe that they can be happy without the radio and the cinema, that they can have a good physique without penicillin, that they can be honourable and decent without going to church, that they have a life that is good, peaceful and free. They feel that the very suggestion is a sort of criticism of their own advancement. I do not suggest that the primitive hillman is better than the finest flower of modern culture, but my experience, which is now extensive, is that these tribes in the freedom and glory of their mountains are infinitely better and better off than the semi-civilized and decadent clerks or coolies wh
ich is all that we seem able to produce by our present methods of uplift and reform.

  For the great majority of the aboriginals, however, we should press forward with the best schemes of rural reconstruction and education that our wisest brains can devise. For the small minority, who in any case can scarcely be reached, there should be a temporary scheme of protection and isolation. Even for this minority, protection does not mean that nothing is to be done. For them, as for the other aboriginals, there is much that all men and women of goodwill may do immediately.

  We may fight for the three freedoms—freedom from fear, freedom from want, freedom from interference. We may see that the aboriginals get a square deal economically. We may see that they are freed from cheats and impostors, from oppressive landlords and moneylenders, from corrupt and rapacious officials. We may see that they get medical aid from doctors with some sense of professional integrity. If there must be schools, we may see that these teach useful crafts like carpentry and agriculture, and not a useless literacy. We may work to raise the prestige and the honour of the aboriginals in the eyes of their neighbours. We may guard them against adventurers who would rob them of their songs, their dances, their festivals, their laughter.

  The essential thing is not to ‘uplift’ them into a social and economic sphere to which they cannot adapt themselves, but to restore to them the liberties of their own countryside.

  But whatever is done, and I would be the last to lay down a general programme, it must be done with caution and above all with love and reverence. The aboriginals are the real swadeshi products of India, in whose presence everyone is foreign. These are the ancient people with moral claims and rights thousands of years old. They were here first: they should come first in our regard.