State Categories and Their Afterlives: The Politics of “Tribalisation” in Eastern India

Abstract

This article examines the afterlives of state classificatory categories in everyday engagements between state and society. It examines how a community of cultivators in eastern and central India, the Kudmi-Mahatos, have reshaped their group identity through categories of the state. They have oscillated between not wanting to be labelled as “tribal” by the colonial state to seeking to be recognised as “Scheduled Tribes” by the post-colonial state. Using ethnographic and historical methods, this article investigates the shifting claims of the Kudmi-Mahatos with respect to “tribal” status. It argues: (i) that communities use state categories of classification to remake their identities vis-à-vis both the state and other communities they live with; and (ii) tribalisation as a strategy of claiming recognition reworks the tribe-caste continuum in India. The article builds on historical and anthropological scholarship that looks at political contestations over classification in modern states.