ABSTRACT
The chapter addresses the identity question and its implications for the understanding of tribal and Ādivāsī in India and argues that it is relevant to address the development of marginalised populations on their own terms and not on the terms of the surrounding majority populations. This investigation challenges Ranajit Guha’s reduction of many different kinds of insurgencies or rebellions into ‘peasant insurgencies’ and G.S. Ghurye’s advocacy of ‘hasty assimilation’ of India’s tribal peoples into the mainstream populations, on the basis of the many Hindu elements he identified in their religions. Guha’s position is shown to be untenable from a historical point of view, and Ghurye overlooks the fact that the Hindu elements found in the religions of the tribal peoples in many instances were the result of loans from the surroundings, with the object of defending the tribal peoples against exploitation by groups who lived nearby. In this way, they sought to present their grievances literally in a language that their alleged exploiters could understand.
