Tribe Caste Continuum

Framework :
- Introduction
- Background
- Basic premises and examples
- Causes of tribe caste continuum
- Relevance
- Conclusion

Concept of tribe case continuum was given by F.G Bailey in his paper ‘Tribe and Caste in India’. He took inspiration
from Robert Redfield’s concept of ‘Folk Urban Continuum’ in framing this concept.

Background :
- Ethnographers and Census officials faced problem of defining tribe and categorisation of populations in tribe
and caste due to overlapping features of two social entities.
- Several academicians like J.H Hutton took interest in creating distinction between tribe and caste. It was F.G
Bailey who developed comprehensive conceptual framework to understand similarities and distinction
between these two entities

Basic premises :
- Bailey suggested that Tribe and caste are not discrete and segregated entities rather they should be viewed as
continuum where tribe and caste represent two extreme poles and communities can be placed between
these two poles.

- Acc. to Bailey Tribal societies are segmentary and egalitarian and caste societies are organic and hierarchical.
- Examples -
1. Surajit Sinha based on fieldwork among baster tribes opined that there exist cultural continuum
between lower castes and tribes in cultural freedom for women and supernaturalism.
2. N.K Bose in his work ‘Hindu methods of tribal absorption’ showed influence of jati on primitive tribes of
Odisha.
3. Khasa of Juansar region in Himalayas have caste hierarchy and notion of purity and pollution due to
influence from Hindu caste society.

Causes :
- Interplay between little and great traditions as propagated by R.Redfield and resultant universalisation and
parochialisation of cultural traits as propagated by Mackim Marriot.
- Process of Sanskritisation as viewed by M.N Srinivas
- Process of Tribalisation and Detribalisation
- Diffusion and acculturation.
- Ecological reasons : Acc. To Mandelbum due to decreasing carrying capacity of ecological niche tribes
migrated to nearby villages and acquired caste characteristics.
- Economy reasons : Economic security in caste system attracted tribals towards it.
Relevance :
- It helps in Understanding social change and transformation of tribal societies in contemporary times.
- Knowledge about place of various communities in tribe caste continuum can help in devising suitable
programmes and policies for their socio-economic development and cultural preservation according to policy
of tribal panchsheel

Conclusion :
Thus tribe caste continuum serves as important framework for understanding social change and formulating policies
for rapidly changing tribal societies.