| Abstract: | This essay looks at recent historical approaches to tribal societies in India and examines their political implications. Building on this criticism, it synthesizes a range of secondary literature in history and anthropology, in an attempt to formulate an alternative approach that locates tribal societies within the wider framework of south Asian history and is capable, at the same time, of marking changing patterns for different periods of the past. Finally it examines the way the word peasant is used in historical writing in order to show that the special history of tribal societies and their conversion into peasants in the colonial period is fundamental to an understanding of contemporary Indian society. |
