Tribal society
Tribal society · vulnerable tribal groups · PVTGs
Story hook
It is November 2018. John Allen Chau, a 26-year-old American missionary, attempts to land on North Sentinel Island in the Andamans to convert the Sentinelese tribe, who have lived in voluntary isolation for ~60,000 years. The Sentinelese — one of India's 75 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) — shoot Chau dead with arrows. His body cannot be recovered because the island is legally protected under the Andaman and Nicobar Islands Protection of Aboriginal Tribes Regulation 1956, which makes contact with uncontacted tribes a criminal offence.
The Sentinelese number around 50-100 individuals. They speak a language no outsider can understand, possess no immunity to common diseases (a flu could wipe them out), and have resisted every state attempt to "civilise" them. Their existence — guarded by India's Constitution + statute + the Ministry of Tribal Affairs + the Andaman administration — encapsulates a deeper question central to GS-I Indian Society: how should a modern state engage with the estimated 700+ tribal communities, ~8.6% of population (Census 2011), who have survived millennia outside the agrarian-urban order?
Article 366(25) calls them Scheduled Tribes. Article 244 + 5th Schedule + 6th Schedule give them territorial-administrative autonomy. The PESA Act 1996 + Forest Rights Act 2006 + the Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs) category + Eklavya Model Residential Schools + the Tribal Sub-Plan form the framework. Yet tribal communities remain among India's most marginalised — by literacy (59% vs 74% national), IMR (44 vs 30), poverty (45.9% MPI vs 27.5% national), and political representation.
Why this matters for UPSC
Tribal society is a standalone unit in GS-I and tested almost every year in some form. Explicit Mains GS-I questions: 2013 (tribal communities + autonomy); 2015 (Maoism + tribal issues); 2018 (caste vs tribe). Tribal land + forest rights are tested in GS-II (governance, schemes) + GS-III (environment, mining). Tribal movements (Birsa Munda 1899, Santhal Rebellion 1855) are in modern history.
Prelims tests via 5th/6th Schedule details, PESA, FRA, PVTG numbers, specific tribe locations, and tribal welfare commissions (Xaxa 2014).
Interview boards probe via "displacement vs development", "assimilation vs integration", and "Maoism + tribal grievance".
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