The Blurring Lines between Democratisation and Hindu-isation: A Study of the Evolving Governance Structure of the Bhumij Tribes

Abstract

The Bhumijs are one of the tribes that have been absorbed into Hinduism, and their history and culture are gradually being erased. In this study, I attempt to investigate how contacts with the British and Hindu culture have gradually altered the Bhumijs' traditional governing structure and culture, and how this fits the wider narrative of Hindutva in the current day. Finally, I discuss how this issue is related to environmental democracy and why it has to be taken more seriously.

1. Introduction

The term "democracy" comes from Greek and literally means "rule of the people," or collective power popular sovereignty. The Greeks gave us the term as well as a primitive paradigm in which individuals could make political decisions by a direct vote on questions. Nonetheless, the Greeks had no sense of individual rights, which is linked to the contemporary concept of democracy. There are several types of democracy, the most important of which are representative, participatory, and deliberative. Citizen engagement is vital to democratic politics in all of its manifestations. Most democratic regimes have formal political structures in which individuals have the right to participate. The stability of such institutions is dependent on the legitimacy received through participation,1 yet it is frequently seen that participation in various circumstances is imbalanced and unequally shared. While current systems often support competing pluralist polities, few are really democratic since the pluralistic viewpoint frequently ignores the concerns of society's underrepresented sections.2 Many people believe that democratic participation is essential for resolving environmental problems and, more importantly, for creating an ecologically sustainable society,3 which introduces us to the concept of environmental democracy, defined by Worker and Ratté as "the belief that citizens affected by environmental concerns should have equal rights in participating in environmental decision-processes".4 This entails rejecting existing institutional structures and practises that systematically subject certain persons to environmental danger and deterioration without their agreement, while providing benefits to others.56 The right of a community to control its near environment through deliberative and participatory institutions is referred to as local environmental democracy. We believe that a system of local level government, based on open and democratic institutions and inalienable rights to care for and utilise the environment, would manage its immediate surroundings,7 since environmental issues are extremely specific to a location and a single method cannot tackle all growing environmental concerns in various places of the world. The acknowledgement of environmental rights and obligations is critical for the establishment of an environmental democracy and progress toward this change.8 However, there is no assurance that democracy, whether deliberative or not, can preserve environmental standards and values since political freedom, as channelled via democracy, is dependent on economic and social conditions, as well as the structure of political institutions. For example, in any discussion about cooperative forest management, the institutions dealing with nature conservation, local government, and rural development are particularly relevant. These bureaucratic agencies, panchayats, and forest protection committees are not only arenas for contending social forces; they are also representations of distinct governmental disciplines and can be observed as precisely defined collections of operating procedures that both define and destabilise interests and identities,9 as we will explore further in the context of the Bhumij Tribes.

2. Bhumij People and Tribal Self-Governance

Bhumij means "born of the soil".10 In the past, the Bhumij people belonged to the Mundari tribe, and they spoke the Munda language. Manbhum's Bhumijs thought their first employment was military duty. Gradually, agriculture became the sole occupation of all tribes. A few dabbled in tiny trade, and others emigrated to Assam's tea areas.11 Even now, the Bhumij of Jharkhand and Bihar rely on agriculture, fishing, hunting, and forest products. Thus, the Bhumij, who are mostly farmers, also hunt and capture birds and animals in the forests, and the landless among them serve as labourers. They supplement their income with a variety of seasonally accessible forest goods. The main source of livelihood for the rural Bhumij12 is marginal income from wage labour, minor non-forest products, and animal husbandry, but it should be noted that most Bhumij people were not into agriculture earlier, and it only happened in the late-middle centuries during the early British Raj and simultaneous Hindu-isation, as most of their words for agriculture are borrowed from Sanskrit.13 Their pre-Hindu way of subsistence consisted of shifting agriculture, hunting and gathering, and some fishing.14

Tribal groups have a rich cultural legacy and traditional ecological knowledge, as well as unique traditional social control mechanisms. Traditional institutions have tremendous social, moral, religious, economic, and political power over many communities. The majority of these groups maintained their different cultural identities through an unwritten code of behaviour and separate customary systems for enforcing the norms. Before the establishment of the formal Panchayati Raj system in tribal regions, tribal customary rules covered all aspects of their activity, and the jurisdiction of the traditional council was all-encompassing. Customary rules are founded on their mythologies, beliefs, values, traditions, universe views, and transmitted social and cultural legacy.15 It may be said that tribal culture is one of the most democratic features in this nation since everyone is equal, rich or poor, but with interaction with the British and higher caste Hindus, the Bhumij society and governance structure has evolved through the years. We shall investigate the fundamental causes and their ramifications in this paper.

3. Encounters with the British

Forests have been recognised as a resource within a larger system of production, a zone of trade, at the All-India level since the 1860s.16 In the 1840s Tickell wrote in his Memoir on the Tribes: "They are bad buinessmen, and no agricultural works on a large scale, such as tanks and bunds to meet the exigency of a dry season, are met with in the country".17 Half of Dhalbhum was still covered in bush till 1910. The Bhumij were the first to clear ground for farming.18 Prior to the colonial period, woods in India were maintained as common resources by local people and, to a lesser degree, regional governments.19 A system of laws that distributed forest resources to users governed the utilisation of forest products. This system was sustainable in the sense that it could sustain a considerable forest cover over centuries. The colonial overlords grabbed control of the woodlands, disregarding previous management systems. They denied the indigenous populace access to a large portion of them and overexploited the sections set aside for them.20 Even after independence, the government of independent India maintained this policy with slight alterations.21 An incentive system that favoured the conversion of forests into agricultural land aided the deforestation process. Because the British taxation system required land taxes to be paid in cash, there was an incentive to enhance market-oriented agricultural production by converting woods.22

The destruction of forests as a result of colonial interference in the nineteenth century and afterwards was to disrupt the connection between people and their environment, as well as their governing system and occupation. During the British colonial period, a huge number of Bhumijs and other tribals were forcibly relocated from their country to Assam and North Bengal tea estates to serve as labourers. Another group of these tribes were introduced to the mangrove forest region of Sundarban in south Bengal by local zamindars. These aboriginal people cleared the trees and erected embankments before settling as agriculturists on the many Sundarban23 islands. Coal mining began in the region about the same period. It should be highlighted that there is a link between coal, industry, and the democratisation that resulted from it.24 Another factor for clearing forests and forcing the Bhumijs away from their country was coal mining. Coal is inextricably linked to colonialism, and it has also played a significant role in the current environmental catastrophe, thus it is vital to bring it up while addressing environmental democracy.

4. Acculturation and Integration into Hinduism

The impact of the loss of the local forest habitat was aggravated by rising landlordism in rural Chotanagpur, which increased under the British Raj.25 Because the wealthier and upper castes may put more pressure on the state to modify local norms than the impoverished tribals while also dominating decision-making within the community, tribal property rights should be predicted to be rather weak. The presence of upper caste Hindu landowners in tribal communities obscured the relevance of tribals in the area and began to integrate tribals into Hinduism. The Bhumijs are a Hinduised Adivasi community that have acquired the surname 'Singh'. There is little documented data on Bhumijs prior to the British takeover of the province in the 1760s. Yet, as early as the 1800s, we find the Bhumijs speaking Bengali and developing a feudal-like socio-political framework that incorporates many elements of Bengali-Hindu cultural symbols.26 As a result, we may conclude that the acculturation process began at least a few decades before the British invasion. The integration of aboriginal non-Hindu societies within the social framework of Hindus' intricately stratified caste system as a result of acculturation is a common phenomenon that occurred not only with the Bhumij but with a variety of tribal communities ranging from the Gond of Madhya Pradesh to the Bhuiyas of Orissa.27 The Bhumij are a perfect example of how a tribe evolved in the process of transforming into a Hindu caste, abandoning the indigenous language in favour of Bengali and Hindu Gods. They've forgotten about their totems. Acculturation occurred as a consequence of, at least partially as a result of, first-hand interaction with Bengali Hindu migrants to Manbhum from neighbouring districts. They now use Brahmins, Hindu barbers, and washermen in their important social ceremonies, as do other Hindu castes.

The combination of the Bhumijs' basically democratic, relatively unstratified social system with an organically stratified social system resulted in internal stratification in the ancient Bhumij social system.28 Most Bhumij communities now worship Hindu deities such as Kali and Mansha, with Hindu Brahmins acting as priests. They still practise parts of their ancient religion's practises. Deota, Daram Deota, Singbonga, and Jahubora are some of their primal deities. In this hamlet, their traditional religious site is known as Kadamtala, where people worship their primaeval by offering various animals such as goats, hens, and so on to their deities. Salui Hula, Bandana, Tushu, and Karam are some of their traditional celebrations. Among these celebrations, Salui Hula — a Bhumij festival commemorating the development of a new leaf on a Sal tree — is celebrated extremely beautifully by some Bhumij communities.29

5. Governance Structures in the Postcolonial Period

In most African and Asian countries during the postcolonial era, national leaders were motivated by the imperatives of national development to centralise control over hinterlands. Over time, national governments classified a large portion of this centrally controlled territory as forests and wildlife reserves in order to gain assistance from international conservation organisations and multilateral agencies.3031 Many postcolonial administrations used internationally backed environmental conservation initiatives as "development" projects, bringing new possibilities and resources to isolated wooded regions.32 While these additional resources occasionally benefitted forest-dependent populations, they mostly served to strengthen the authority, capabilities, and resources available to national forestry and wildlife authorities. The concept and philosophies of "scientific forestry", which were created in Europe to optimise timber harvests, were unsuitable for communities in Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, where forests supplied homes and subsistence for a huge number of forest-dependent people.33 However, as described previously in the study, European colonial administrations established scientific forestry regimes in Asia and Africa through a territorially based and legally enforced authority of state forests committed to commercial forestry.34

The Constitution (73rd Amendment) Act of 1992 seeks to delegate to Panchayats the authorities and authority required for them to function as self-governing organisations. The Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA) of 1996 is the most important legislation adopted by the Indian Parliament for the political empowerment of tribals in the country. The Act extends the Panchayati Raj system to all Schedule V regions administered by the states of undivided Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and Rajasthan. The fundamental goal of PESA is to instil the democratic spirit in tribal communities by decentralising authority at the grass roots level, allowing tribals to participate in decision-making at the Village, Block, and District levels. Tribes have been regulating their politico-social legal affairs based on principles, procedures, practises, norms, conventions, traditions, precedents, and so on, as a result of indigenous growth over decades, and as a result, they find modern formal systems difficult to understand and operate.35 For example, the informal agreement or selection of leadership among them has been based on the people of the village or region. Consensus has also been used to make decisions rather than a vote count. These suggest that tribal cultures' traditional methods, techniques, and procedures differed from those formed in the official moulds of today's institutions. It is preferable not to upset the traditional arrangements36 because they have the most traditional ecological knowledge, which contributes to sustainable activities. Forcing them to conform into these moulds interferes with the conservation process and the avoidance of environmental damage.

Administrators and legislators had forgotten that the indigenous people had a robust working system of self-governance. This was despite the fact that it was not recognised by the formal system. This omission has far-reaching and fatal effects. The group was considerably hampered in dealing with the new scenario, which had resulted in widespread turmoil throughout tribal India. The concept of 'Panchayati Raj' was revived in the 1980s in search of an alternative to the dysfunctional politico-administrative system that had been steadily deteriorating. During the subsequent argument about the structure of Panchayati Raj, it became clear that any attempt to impose a formal system of Panchayats on tribals would exacerbate the tribals' clash. Tribal Self-Control is a formidable tool for protecting their interests, life, dignity, rights, and natural right to rule themselves.37 However, it should be noted that remnants of the original system may still be found in some areas of the plateau region. Some Bhumij people in Jharkhand, for example, have traditional social structures based on a strong democratic participation approach. The system integrates political, social, religious, and economic issues, as well as resource ownership management. Tribal chiefs are classified according to their level of authority. Naina is the name of the village chief in charge of one of the villages. Munda or Sardar is the head of 5–6 villages, and the Naumahal38 is the leader of 22 villages.

The current Bhumij populations are vastly different from those that existed prior to the arrival of the British. Many Bhumijs are now participating in labour under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, often known as 100 days work and out migration to other states. Others work in fishing, rice agriculture, and animal husbandry.39 Out-migration in the Sundarbans' Bhumij settlements was discovered to be one of the survival tactics that was clearly on the rise following the Aila tragedy for obvious reasons. Most contemporary tribals were reliant on agriculture, but after Aila, virtually all of the villagers' agricultural land became uncultivable and stayed so for three to four years, forcing the people to seek alternate kinds of income, and migration supplied the solution. This case confirms the reality that environmental deterioration disproportionately affects the poor.40

6. The Illusion of Moving up the Social Ladder

Another factor that contributed to the incorporation of the Bhumijs into Hinduism was disputes among various intellectuals. Colonial anthropologists described tribes as societies that practised animism. However, because of this categorisation, census takers found it impossible to distinguish the tribes' religion from that of Hindu society's lowest strata.41 These discoveries lead G. S. Ghurye to the conclusion that the so-called aboriginals, who constitute the majority of scheduled tribes and are classed as animists in censuses, are better characterised as "backward Hindus".42 The tribe-caste continuum paradigm served as the foundation for tribal assimilation into Hindu culture, and it was subsequently methodologically operationalized by M.N. Srinivas in his "sanskritization" idea.43 According to Akhup, the varied structure of tribal culture allows for a dynamic social remodelling process over time and geography. The continuity of tribe-caste happens in this process at particularly specified peripheries of the country where the Hindu social structure prevails.44 Scholars such as Mukherjee sought to explore the link between environment and the caste system by demonstrating that ecology governs the structure and function of rural habitation.45 The pattern of farming is determined by the current meteorological conditions, terrain, and so forth. To explain social relations from an ecological standpoint, we can say that the form of a settlement is the result of psychological and ecological forces that select, grade, and segregate men and their groups, occupations, and institutions in the habitat, resulting in social distance between groups. The caste groupings might be compared to tiers or niches in the ecological order, each having its own work, eating preferences, and social mannerisms that keep them apart. This level leads to village self-sufficiency, according to.46 Guha and Gadgil suggested that the caste-based village society evolved in order to address India's substantial resource scarcity between the 4th and 10th centuries of the Christian period.4748 Caste society evolved as a complex system of diverse use of living resources that significantly reduced inter-caste rivalry and frequently ensured that a single caste group held a monopoly on the use of any specific resource from a given locale. Traditionally, different caste communities rooted in the Hindu religious system controlled resource usage and conservation.49 As can be seen, agriculture is central to most reasons for the existence of the caste system in rural India. This concept is so firmly embedded that secular government in rural areas that provides equal opportunity to others is exceedingly difficult.

Localities inhabited by higher caste people are referred to as uch dik in Jharkhand and West Bengal, whereas those inhabited by lower caste people are referred to as nich dik in the village. In this context, uch means high and nich means low, and these phrases allude to social rank. The absence of water amenities like water taps, hand pumps, or wells in the nich para where the Bhumij people live exemplifies the segregation.50 When the resource in question is limited, such as water, this segregation becomes more rigid. The Bhumijs are not permitted to use the water tap in uch dik. Even after many complaints to the authorities and the panchayat, this issue has not been remedied, indicating the lack of a functional governance structure and the failure to fulfil the promises of democracy and progress. However, an obvious issue arose: why would the tribes Hinduise themselves despite the fact that they are not accorded a greater standing in the caste society? Xaxa proved that, in modern times, acculturation across tribes simply means adopting the dominant group's views and customs but not being a part of the community by taking caste position. According to him, the essence of tribal people's connection with caste society is regulated by market and economic interdependence rather than purity and contamination.51 As a result, economic symbiosis is the most efficient and long-lasting strategy for absorbing tribal communities into the folds of Hinduism. According to Sinha, the Bhumij were so consumed with caste and rank in the local feudal order that they began concealing their old traditions of communal dance, drinking, and the Sarhul festival.52 The subject is incomplete until the present background of Hindutva and the role of the current administration are addressed.

7. Hindutva and Traditions

After being specially identified as primitive tribal groups by the Government of India on the basis of certain administrative criteria, tribal communities such as the Bhumijs are promised all types of assistance and cooperation for mitigating their hazards and anxieties,53 consternation and tribulation in their life situation, but most of these promises are never fulfilled, as I will discuss further in the following sections. Hindutva has embraced a selective environmentalist strategy. It concentrates on restoring historical practises,54 but the tribal past is different from Hinduism, and proponents of Hindutva choose to disregard it and rewrite history in a specific way. It is also ironic that the government provides (or promises to provide) assistance to tribal communities after a natural disaster, despite the fact that environmental degradation and the subsequent occurrence of natural disasters are caused by state intervention in traditional systems of governance, affecting tribals like the Bhumijs' traditional ecological knowledge, and the increasing influence of Hindutva, which does not acknowledge the existence of tribals. This calls into question the nature and apparent success of democracy in India. What appears to be success from one vantage point appears to be hypocrisy from another — hypocrisy that extended in this case to the forced industrialisation of a region in which 'the tribals' were meant to enjoy state protection, and to a redefinition of 'tribalness' itself when that became convenient;55 and the hypocrisy related to the revival of the past as the current nature of Indian democracy chooses to ignore the history of the tribals like the Bhumijs who were brought into the fold of Hinduism making them distant from their own culture. The promise of progress that was meant to come with a democratic style of administration is also failing since schools in most Bhumij villages are not conducive to accepting and retaining indigenous youngsters. Most pupils drop out.56 Even after so-called development, they usually stay ignorant, decreasing the breadth of opportunities and forcing them to rely on meagre jobs or out-migration for subsistence.

8. Need for Environmental Democracy

Because of their subsistence lifestyle, the Bhumij have been referred to as ecosystem people57 due to collection of seafood, honey, and firewood by them. While tribal consumption is governed by the need to meet fundamental necessities, the privileged are able to replicate metropolitan lives, which includes high levels of natural resource usage.58 Furthermore, the wealthy have the ability to take common property resources. Because of their political and economic influence, as well as quicker access to resource extraction technology, they are able to gain control of a portion of the resource system in violation of the common property management laws.59 Finally, the wealthy have more alternatives for mitigating the effects of environmental deterioration. Shifting cultivation, which colonial authorities saw as a wasteful activity, was the technique that drew the most criticism from colonial officers. However, shifting cultivation practises may be argued to be particularly adapted to the demands of a migratory population in an unforgiving jungle terrain. It is often argued that in order to meet their fundamental necessities,60 the impoverished are compelled to ruin their surroundings yet large businesses create far more damage. Shifting agriculture does not create much harm and is connected to people's subsistence. In fact, increasing rural income disparity while holding aggregate income constant might hasten environmental degradation. This potential occurs not just because tribals must consume a minimum amount of resources for sustenance, but also because upper-castes have access to a greater range of profit-generating options. The promised advantages of advancements accompanying industrialisation and democratisation did not materialise. The tribals' resources are more sensitive to ecological deterioration, as demonstrated previously in the study in the instance of the Aila storm. Environmental degradation is frequently preceded by the deprivation of a social group's natural resource base, such as the loss in forest area available to tribal people in India from the nineteenth century.61 The wealthy have occasionally taken natural resources at the expense of destitute tribals. The tribals' traditional ecological knowledge is extremely valuable since they are thoroughly aware of their natural surroundings. According to settlement records, the majority of the populations, including the established agricultural groups, and notably the women of these communities, possessed extremely profound technical knowledge of their jungles. The forest environment, and understanding of it, are vital to the local inhabitants, particularly in terms of nutrition. This importance in terms of food was matched by an equal importance in terms of belief, and the two were inextricably linked.62

9. Conclusion

The paper's discussions point to the institutionalisation of democracy in the context of India's tribals. The current style of democracy disregards tribals' traditional ecological wisdom. It is too limited in scope and does not correspond to a more democratic tribal style of administration that provides equal rights and benefits to all and is sustainable. It is not selectively democratic, as opposed to the institutionalised version of democracy. The current system does not offer the promised benefits and forces tribals to work. The tribal government system is founded on sustainable practises and is reliant on the environment, particularly the woods. The tribals' governing structure evolves progressively as a result of interactions with the British and Hindu landowners. The British Raj was responsible for widespread deforestation because it considered trees and lumber as commodities, and the loss of forests had an impact on the Bhumijs' governance system because it was the foundation of their governance system. During the same time period, the Bhumijs were heavily Hinduized, and the changes that resulted mostly served the current right-wing agenda. With this framework in mind, we moved on to talk about environmental democracy and why it is so important in the current situation. Tribal self-governance based on traditional ecological knowledge is extremely valuable, and because tribals and poor people living in remote areas are disproportionately affected by environmental degradation, they should be the ones to make decisions about their future using their traditional ecological knowledge. Without environmental democracy, the majority makes decisions for everyone, yet the same set of people leaves forests and is less affected by climate change. The developing Hindutva agenda is another impediment to environmental democracy because it is predicated on pleasing the majority, which may hopefully be avoided via proper involvement and activity.

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