Navigating transformations: Adivasi identity, agency and the law in South Gujarat, India

Thesis

This thesis explores how legal transformations shape Adivasi life, and how Adivasi communities respond by transforming and experimenting with their own social forms, customs, and institutions. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in South Gujarat, India, the thesis follows two neighbouring Adivasi communities: the Dangis of the forested Dangs district and the Chaudharis of the agrarian plains of Surat and Tapi districts. In both cases, as with many other Adivasi communities in India, their historic social organisation and identity have been deeply shaped by their relationship with their land and forests. Colonial forest and land revenue laws disrupted customary livelihoods, dispossessing Chaudharis and Dangis from their means of production. After independence, their Constitutional recognition as Scheduled Tribes provided them with legal protection, possibilities for affirmative action, and safeguards for their lands, but it also required them to present their identities in legally legible ways. Foregrounding aspects of everyday life, comprising marriage, death, rituals, and dispute resolution, this thesis demonstrates how the Dangis and Chaudharis assert agency while being subjects of the law.

Though both communities self-identify as Adivasi and are recognised as Scheduled Tribes, their diverging histories of colonial rule, land tenure, and social reform reveal the heterogeneity of Adivasi experiences. For the Dangis, identity remains anchored in supra-tribal solidarities amongst Bhils, Kunbis, and Warlis, and in memories of autonomy under the Bhil Rajas, even as forest laws and land settlements have produced dispossession and labour migration. The Chaudharis, in contrast, responded to colonialera indebtedness and alienation of their agricultural lands through community-led social reforms. From the early twentieth century, Chaudhari leaders codified customs through written rules and bandharan (constitutions), and pursued tenancy reforms. This thesis explores how, despite legal and economic pressures, both continue to live as Chaudhari, Dangi and Adivasi, connecting who they were with who they are becoming, and, most importantly, who they wish to remain. It captures the internal tensions, dynamics, and debates within societies that are continually rethinking what it means to be Adivasi in a changing world.

Authors: Prasad, A

• DOI: 10.5287/ora-vmxoxp7od
• Type of award: DPhil
• Level of award: Doctoral
• Awarding institution: University of Oxford
• Language: English
• Subjects: Law and anthropology; Forestry law and legislation, Colonial; India--Scheduled tribes; Land tenure (Customary law)