Social Institutions: Continuity and Change — Sociology STD 12 Humanities — Question

Tribes can be assimilated into the Hindu caste fold in the following ways:

• Sanskritisation
• Acculturation
• Acceptance into the shudra fold

Tribes had to be assimilated into the Hindu society at various levels of the hierarchy because their lands were colonised and the forests cut down.
This process of assimilation can be seen in two ways:

1. Natural parallel to the process of assimilation of various groups into Hinduism as sects.
2. Exploitative.

Some scholars believe that there is no coherent basis for treating tribes as pure and uncontaminated by civilisation. They propose instead that tribes should really be seen as "secondary" phenomena arising out of the exploitative and colonialist contact between pre-existing state and non-state groups like the tribals. This contact itself gives rise to the ideology of tribalism to differentiate themselves from the newly encountered others.