‘Tea Tribe’ or ‘Scheduled Tribe’?: Vexed Adivasi Identity in Assam

The Adivasi communities in Assam—Oraons, Mundas, Khariyas, Santals and Gonds—originally 19th century-migrant tea plantation workers from middle India, are locally called ‘tea-tribes’, or chah jonogoshti in Assamese. While their counterparts in the original place have been listed as Scheduled Tribes since 1950, they are categorised as Other Backward Classes. Like other Adivasis, the Assam Adivasis claim that they are the indigenous people of India and should be recognised so in the adopted home of Assam. The local tribal groups and others, while conceding that the Adivasis are tribe originally, resist the claim on the plea that they alone are the sons of the soil of the region. Adivasi settlers’ contribution to the making of modern Assam is disregarded and they are construed as migrant intruders. This article discusses the political overtone of claim and counterclaim since the beginning of the ‘scheduling’ of the Indian tribe in 1950. It outlines how the ‘scheduling’ method successively disqualified the Assam Adivasis’ claim. The politics of denial by the local groups in Assam has assumed militant arrogance, resulting in violence against the Adivasis.