Verrier Elwin, a missionary who had worked extensively with the tribes of India, in one of his treatises had said he was not against assimilating tribals into the mainstream but he wanted it to occur at a pace, and on terms, that suited the tribals.
However, the assimilation over the years has not happened “on terms suited to the tribals” and in the process, several tribal communities in India are either on the verge of losing their identity or have already been forgotten. While tireless efforts have been made by the State to bring the tribal populace on the trajectory of modernisation, little has been done to give them the deserved space in India’s history, thus undermining the contributions of the numerous tribes which inhabit the hills and forests of the country.
Of the 600-odd tribes living in India, Krishnopriyo Bhattacharya puts his lens on 41 indigenous groups in Bengal and presents a pictorial documentation in his book Tribal Bengal: Life in the Sub-Himalayan Terai Duars. One of the tribes that features in the book has not been recognised as a scheduled tribe.
The eastern state is home to 5.3 million tribals, consisting of 5.80 per cent of the total population in Bengal, according to the 2011 census. Bhattacharya, a former state government employee and journalist, had the opportunity to closely observe the life and struggles of these lesser known communities and document them. “My home and workplace are situated in North Bengal and I have been officially engaged in a job among the tribals for quite some time now. Hence, my quest for documenting the tribal communities of the area from the vantage point of an intimate witness to their day-to-day life, amid joys and sorrows,” the author writes.
His book, which is a collection of stories and photographs, talks about the origin of each tribe and their dwindling population over time.
The book is divided into two parts — Indo-Mongoloids and Proto-Australoids and others. The first part consists of 13 tribes, all of whom live in the northern part of Bengal. As he writes about these tribal people, he also focuses on how, over the years, they have intermingled with the non-tribal population in the region. In doing so, many tribal languages, especially those without a script, are vanishing.
Be it the ‘diminishing Dhimals’, ‘the Dukpas of the Buxa Hills’, ‘the faschinating Maghs’ or the ‘colourful Limbus’, Bhattacharya gives crucial anecdotes, political and social, about every tribe making them historically relevant.
For example, the Dhimals, the “living antecedents of the great Himalayan Mongoloids”, are a handful of people dwelling in Bengal’s one of the most politically and socio-economically sensitive region, Naxalbari. These people, though miniscule in number, had played an important role in the Naxalite movement in North Bengal. Bhattacharya narrates the story of Khudan Mallik, the first and the only tribal in India to meet Mao Zedong in China. Mallik was a close associate of senior Naxal leader Kanu Sanyal.
The author documents the lesser known Yolmo tribe whose traditional occupation was paper-making. He gives an insight into the unique heritage of the “vanishing” Totos who are found in a tiny hill village in North Bengal, the Garos whose population in Bengal has sharply decreased between 1991 and 2011, and the Lepchas who are the “children of Kanchenjunga”, among others.
Bhattacharya gives an elaborate account of the Santhals and Oraons, the two major tribes in Bengal in terms of population and political and socio-religious history.
The vast collection of photographs in the book gives the real picture of struggle, for identity as well as survival. The appendices at the end of the chapters have valuable statistical information about the ST communities in different districts of Bengal.
Tribal Bengal is an ardent attempt to not only document tribal culture and history but also to reflect on their present condition and the uncertain future that awaits them.
~ NM
Book: Tribal Bengal: Life in the Sub-Himalayan Terai Duars; Author: Krishnopriyo Bhattacharya; Publisher: Niyogi Books; Pages: 256; Price: Rs 1,495