Question

Answer the following question:
Describe the cultural classification of tribes.

Answer 1

Cultural classification of tribes in India:

Tribals were classified on the basis of their cultural distance from rural and urban groups. This comparative approach is considered to be important in evolving a plan for rehabilitation because it focuses on those problems of tribal India, which are the outcome of haphazard contact with or isolation of tribes from the rural-urban population.

Tribal Culture can be :
Assimilative
Adaptive: Adaptive further consist of

• Commensalism.
• Symbiotic
• Acculturative.

Commensalism: Those with common economic pursuits with their neighbors, and thus their growth is arrested.

Symbiotic: Their relationship with their neighbors is based on interdependence and acculturation is haphazard.

Acculturative: There is a one-way flow of cultural traits, where tribes are taking in cultural traits from the surrounding rural and urban groups. This leads to a situation of culture crisis leading to sudden cultural changes.

According to Majumdar all three of the above are in a state of cultural crisis. The main criticism of this theory lies in the fact that though this classification could help in the rehabilitation of tribals it does not include cultures that are culturally distant from rural and urban groups.