ABSTRACT
The Adivasi, a nomenclature now adopted by the approximately 20-lakh-strong tea garden and ex-tea garden labour community, is not the only community in Assam seeking classification as a scheduled tribe. Contrary to the general impression, the clashes do not bespeak any deeply ingrained hostility between ‘tribal people and non-tribal people,’ or between the tribal people and caste Hindus, in Assam — a convenient distinction between supposedly irreconcilable categories made in much of the analysis of the so-called ethnic clashes in Assam and the NE region. Indeed such absurd anomalies govern even the movement of tribal communities within Assam, and in the states that were carved out of colonial Assam after independence. The Adivasis, though aspiring for recognition as a tribal community and indeed historically belonging to authentic tribal stock, are at present not recognized as a tribal community.
