Anthropologie
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The Hinduization of Tribals of Jharkhand: An Outline since Beginning

Ambrish Gautam

None of the pre-Aryan races, the Negritos, the pre-Australoids, the Mongolians, the Dravidian had any contribution to make towards the formation of caste1 (Compare Rai Bhadur S.C.Roy’s Presidential address to the Anthropological Section of the Indian Congress in 1931). Unless it is inferred to mean primitive aboriginal taboos on food and marriage. Strictly speaking, restrictions as to inter-marriage and inter dining cannot be said to be the only two tests of the caste system; they are really the tests of tribal divisions among the primitive races. It may be argued that this non-Aryan spirit of tribalism and separatism ultimately developed into the present caste-system of the Indo Aryans as a compromise between the ideals, institutions and beliefs, which the Aryans found rampant among the peoples in the land of their adoption, and that by the natural process of adjustment three thousand or more castes were formed among the Hindus, on various bases, namely race-mixture, vocation of occupation, social usages, out casting or ostracism, special religious doctrines and so forth. The clash between the two racial and cultural traditions and ideals seems to have affected the Aryan Society almost as much as it affected the non-Aryan communities who entered the Hindu fold. In the present stage of imperfect materials, it is difficult to determine how much of the one was taken up by the difficult to determine how much of the one was taken up by the other. But this much seems apparent that each had to adapt itself to the new conditions of social life and that usages and practices which are not to be found in the sacred books of the Hindus must have been borrowed from the aborigines; and the customs and habits of the non-Aryans which are not in accordance with their traditional practices must have been taken from the Aryans.