Women and Gender –A Critique on the Study of ‘tribes in india’

The ethnographic accounts on tribes in the form of monographs, handbooks or inventories have been the hallmark of the first two phases of tribal studies in India. It is from these accounts that women's position in tribal society has been mainly worked out. The concern shown towards women in tribal studies is very recent. The earliest such attempt can be traced to the publication brought out by the Indian Anthropological Society in 1978. Both Hinduization and Christianization led to a number of restrictions on the kinds of freedom women enjoyed in the traditional social settings. In case of Hinduization, such restriction was a part of the concern for respectability/status in the other, it was more to do with religious morals and values. The position of tribal women in the context of all-round socio-economic changes within tribal society has been another area of concerns in the study of women in tribal society. The case of Birhors in Jharkhand, Nathan, for example shows how the high importance of men due to their involvement in the public domain, in this case distribution of meat (prestige food) through society is neutralized by a similar kind of engagement by women through exchange and transaction activities in the market. Tribal communities in India are enormously diverse and heterogeneous. One of the ways by which non-tribals are acquiring tribal land is by marrying tribal women. Hence anything which tends to jeopardize their land and population is seen with a great deal of indignation.