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q.1. a. The village in India
Village is the soul of India, without which it can’t survive. Simsey writes: “The word
village is used generally for the inhabitants of agriculturals
 Peake defines a village in detail: The village community consists of a group of
related or unrelated persons larger than a single family, occupying a large house or a
number of dwellings placed close together, sometimes irregularly, sometimes in a
street and cultivating originally in common a number of arable lands dividing in the
available meadowland between them and pasturing their cattle on the surrounding
wasteland over which the community claims rights as far as the boundaries of
adjacent communities.
 Ogburn and Nimkoff believe that the villages grew in three stages. The first stage was
the stage of hunting and collecting fruits and roots. The second stage of society was
pastoral stage. In this stage man began to tame animals rather than hunt them. The
third stage of society was agricultural life. The real existence of villages came in the
agricultural stage. This formation of villages is not a stagnant process but the result of
a continuous process.
McKim Marriots edited volume, Village India(1955), indicated that India's villages were
not little republics. A select group of distinguished anthropologist commented on the fact
that great culture of Hinduism interacts with the little cultures of the village and in that
process both are transformed
Indian villages have some special features which make them different from other villages of
the world
 A dominant agrarian economy, with a dominant as caste as said by MN srinvas an
Dumont, that members of dominant caste are the chief patrons of the village.
 open spaces,
 separate household units with some cattle or goats around them,
 a place of harmony and belonging, a sense of protection towards the vulnerable, an
emotional bonding,
 various blood relation breathe and live together,
 a shared community life etc. are some features that describe the true Indian village.
 Although the caste division, the economic exploitation, lack of education, the gender
segregation etc. are also reflected in rural India.
 Apart from these things, the Indian village is still a very livable world, meaningful
and vibrant where the villagers have a strong sense of belonging and represent a
rootedness.
In the present as per Dipankar Gupta
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The village in India, where life was once portrayed as 'unchanging' and 'idyllic', has in
recent decades seen profound changes.
 The twin shackles that once decided natters for India's villagers, caste and
agriculture, no longer exercise their vigorous hold.
 While a break in caste rigidities has fostered greater fluidity in occupational
choices, agricultural stagnation has ensured the constant march, in increasing
numbers, of employable people in the villages towards urban areas.
 At the same time, vote bank politics means that parties and politicians continue
to pay lip-service to the cause of villages, chiefly the poor farmer.
 It is in the light of these changes that the 'culture' surrounding agriculture and
the village needs to be understood.
 While this culture is not altogether a stable one, its state of pronounced flux does
hold out certain portents, whether these are understood by policy-makers and
the vast majority of Indians, remains open to question
Q.6 C. imapct of contact and conflict
Andaman Islands are home to four Negrito groups namely the Great Andamanese, the Onges, the
Jarawa and the Sentenelese whose mode of economy is hunting and gathering
Contacts during the colonial period can be divided into two distinct phases i.e., first penal
settlement and second penal settlement, each representing its own period, nature of contacts and
different happenings.
The First Penal Settlement was established by the British in September 1789 in Andaman
Islands. A documented account of contact with Negrito populations of Andaman Islands is
available only since first penal settlement (Majumdar, 1975)
The Second Penal Settlement in Andaman Islands was established in March 1858 after the
acceptance of ‘the Report of a Committee’. By establishing a penal settlement in the Andaman
Islands, the British government were faced with two urgent problems that required immediate
attention. The first was the general policy to be adopted towards the aborigines, and second was
the creation of a suitable machinery of administration for the Islands. Considering the aborigines
as primitive and cruel, the Court of Directors directed British officials to take all possible
precautions to protect the aboriginal inhabitants of the Andaman Islands from the collision with
convicts (Mathur, 1968)
The Great Andamanese, one of the four Negrito tribes of the Islands, originally had ten
subgroups and were distributed from south to north in the Andaman Islands. The present day
Great Andamanese include members of three groups namely the Aka-Chari, Aka-Jeru and the
Aka-Bea-da.
According to Portman, the Great Andamanese told him that they objected to the clearing of the
forests. Important among them was conflict of 17th May 1859, also known as the ‘Battle of
Aberdeen’. In this skirmish, many Great Andamanese were killed (Majumdar, 1975: 82-83).
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The Onges are another Negrito tribe who inhabit the Little Andaman. Like other Negritoes, they
also resented any intrusion in their territory. They put up resistance within the limitation of their
weaponry based on simple tools, technology and their physical strength, which lasted for several
years. The goodwill efforts of the M.V. Portman, Officer-in-Charge of relations with the
aborigines from 1879 to 1900, bore fruits in 1886 when he succeeded in establishing friendly
contacts with the Onges. Within a span of twenty years since their friendly contact with outsiders
in 1886, the Onges had completely been befriended (Sarkar, 1993).
The British did not colonise the island of Little Andaman as they had done in South, Middle and
North Andaman Islands, nor were the Onges put in any kind of “Homes” for civilising them. In
the post-Independence period, Little Andaman was opened for the rehabilitation of the refugees
in 1967
It dealt a major blow to the Onges as it not only reduced the size of their territory but also
curtailed their resource base. To compensate the loss of space (niche) and resources, they were
settled in 1974 at two places in the Little Andaman- namely South Bay and Dugong Creek
Like the Great Andamanese group, the Onge population has also declined from 700 in 1858 to
150 in 1951 and 97 in 2002. As per 2011 census, the total population of the Onges was only 101
The tribe-wise population of Scheduled Tribes in Andaman and Nicobar Islands as per Census
2011 is given below: -
Tribes Population
Andamanese, Chariar, Chari, Kora, Tabo, Bo, Yere, 44
Kede, Bea, Balawa, Bojigiyab, Juwai, Kol
Jarawas 380
Nicobarese 27168
Onges 101
Sentinelese 15
Shom Pens 229
The Sentinelese
The Negrito hunter-gatherers of the North Sentinel Island are known as the Sentinelese. They
have been described as the world’s most isolated population and hence the least known.
Presently, the Andaman and Nicobar Administration is following the policy of non-interference
with respect to the Sentinelese
The Jarawa suffered violence because of the punitive expeditions sent by the British
Administration against them for their disinclination to be friendly with the new settlers and their
unwillingness to submit to new arrangements. The Jarawa continued with their defensive posture
until the latter half of 1997, and then they became friendly with the Non-Jarawa
(Anthropological Survey of India, 2002)
The history of the contacts of the Jarawa with Non-Jarawa has been discussed in three broad
time-periods:
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(i) contacts during1858 to 1900,
(ii) (ii) contacts 1901 to 1939 and,
(iii) (iii) contacts during the Japanese occupation between 1942 and 1945.
(iv) The Post-Independence Period
After the Independence, under the new policy of the Indian Government, the legacy of large
scale and organised state violence and policy of punitive expedition towards the Jarawa was
entirely given up. The Jarawas were declared a ‘Scheduled Tribe’ along with other five tribes of
the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Their territory was declared a Reserved Territory under the
Government of India Forest Act and the Tribal Regulation of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
Further, in order to befriend the Jarawa, intermittent gift giving operations were started.
A. Impact During the British Period (1858-1947)

Major impact of contact during the British period was in the form of territorial displacement and
redefining of boundaries. Both the social and geographical boundaries amongst the Andaman
Islanders have evolved through many factors such as language, customary law, spatial
organisation and access to resources. Such variables are applicable to most societies in the world.
B. Impact During the Post-Independence Period
The independence of India ushered in a new era for all the tribal groups of the country including
the Negrito groups of the Andaman Islands. Initiation of a number of developmental activities,
the rehabilitation of the refugees from the erstwhile East Bengal after the formation of
Bangladesh, redefining of the territory, etc. were crucial events that had telling impact on the
Jarawa and the Onges.
C. Refugee Rehabilitation
In post independence period the Middle, South and Little Andaman were opened up for
rehabilitation of the refugees from Bangladesh. Rehabilitation of refugees in Little Andaman had
its beginning in 1969 and it continued till 1979. As a part of the colonization scheme of different
islands, Tamil repatriates from Sri Lanka and Burma and the Nicobarese from Car Nicobar were
settled between 1973 and 1979. Some families of the Mopalah community from the South
Andaman Islands were settled in the Little Andaman
D. Reduction of territory
The historical events in the Indian subcontinent following the termination of colonisation led to
the opening up of the Andaman Islands for the rehabilitation and resettlement of refugee
population. It has the far-reaching consequences for the surviving Negrito populations of the
Andaman Islands, particularly the Jarawa and the Onges, as their territories were chosen by the
Government for the rehabilitation
E. Competition for resources
Prior to settlement of the refugee population, the Onge and the Jarawa were the sole inhabitants
and extractors of the natural resources both terrestrial and aquatic. After the rehabilitation of the
refugees, the scenario changed and situation increasingly aggravated in the successive decades:
a) There is absolute reduction in the total quantity of resources available in the forest
due to formal and functional reduction in territory.
b) Now more people are competing for the same resources.
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c) The Onges and the Jarawa are competing with outsiders (mainly refugee population),
who have better technology for exploiting resources and that too in less time.
d) The clandestine accumulative pursuit of the economic man (outsider) as against the
non-accumulative pursuit of the satisfier the Onge and the Jarawa has heavily told on
the resource regeneration capacity.
Owing to the aforementioned factors, the resource density of the region has thinned to the extent
where it is proving detrimental to the foraging lifestyle of the Onges and the Jarawa. (Kumar,
2015)
F. Illegal extraction of resources from the tribal territory
With increase in population over decades, the tendency to exploit both forests and aquatic
resources increased. The population of the non-tribal population in these islands increased many
folds. It has its impact on the forest and sea resource of these islands.
 ‘The Jarawa Report’ of Anthropological Survey of India (An.S.I., 2012) also
mentions of illegal fishing, hunting and extraction of timber and non-timber forest
products from the Jarawa area.
The colonisation of the Indian continent proved fatal for the autochthones of Andaman
Islands.
 Of the ten sub-groups of Great Andamanese only three were surviving at the end of
the colonial rule namely Aka-Chari, Aka-Jeru and the Aka-Bea-da.
 They have not only been reduced in number but have also lost their territory.
 The Onges and the Jarawa too witnessed the brunt of punitive action carried out by
colonial regime.
 While the population of the Onges had plummeted from 600 to 93 at the end of the
colonial regime, the Jarawa population remained some what stable.
Thus the colonial rule had debilitating impact on both the number and territory of the
foraging population of the islands particularly the Great Andamanese and the Onges .The
situation did not improve much in the post independent period. The biggest impact was on
their territory. In Little Andaman, which happened to be the home of the Onges, only
about one-third of the total territory was kept as tribal reserve. Similarly in South and
Middle Andaman too, about half of the total territory was de-notified. To make the matter
worse, the islands were opened for the refugee rehabilitation. The unfortunate part of the
whole rehabilitation plan was that the villages were established at the outskirt of their
truncated territory. In the following decades, the settlers were competing with the tribal
groups for both aquatic and terrestrial resources found in the areas of the latter.,
 For example, As said by Prof. Ajit K. Dandathe, Tasmanian aborigines, who

once dwelt the island with mighty strides, could not withstand the pressure let
loose by the expansion of European empires on their land.
 Several among the tribes of Australia, America and Canada failed to adjust to
the new situation grown owing to the arrival of waves of the white immigrants to
their territories and in the process were ultimately eliminated.
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The examples of the Great Andamanese and the Onge of the Andaman Islands make
almost close parallels in this respect. Though they have not been eliminated, their
population has decreased alarmingly. If the current trend continues unchecked, these
too may meet the fate of being eliminated.
Contribution of Sasanka Sekhar Sarkar 10
Sarkar worked at Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, his archeological career being terminated by the
retrenchment policy of the then Government of India. However, Sarkar fortunately continued as
a physical anthropologist. The most interesting chapters are those dealing with the disposal of the
dead and racial affinities. With regard to the former, in the Indus Valley the three principal
customs were exposure, earth burial and cremation; the first two were followed by interment in
jars. Orientation did not follow any pattern. The 1964 publication on Harappa crania and a few
long b
The aboriginal races of india, 1923
This commemorative volume is dedicated to the memory of late Dr. S.S. Sarkar- the doyen of
Indian Anthropology. Sarkar dedicated his life in making significant contributions in the field of
anthropology. His scholarly articles on diverse aspects of anthropology were published in almost
all the important journals of his time. Moreover, he popularised the discipline by writing articles
in popular magazines, newspapers and even communicating through the media o
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L2A™

An Institute for IAS Exam

q.1. a. The village in India

Q.6 C. imapct of contact and conflict

A. Impact During the British Period (1858-1947)

 For example, As said by Prof. Ajit K. Dandathe, Tasmanian aborigines, who

Contribution of Sasanka Sekhar Sarkar 10

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