Christopher V. Hill

Discourses of ethnicity : culture and protest in Jharkhand

Introduction Ethnicity Metaphors, Realities, Discourses PART ONE: THE TERRAIN OF IDEAS The Conceptualization of Ethnicity PART TWO: REALITIES The Myth of the Tribe The Poverty of Development PART THREE: THE POLITICAL TERRAIN The Tradition of Protest The Experience of Unity Social Imagination and Practice PART FOUR: THE DYNAMICS OF CULTURAL STRUGGLE Culture of Oppression and Culture of Protest Conclusion Ethnicity, Culture and the Anthropological Quest

Tribal Guerrillas: The Santals of West Bengal and the Naxalite Movement . By Edward Duyker. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987. xviii, 201 pp.

In this ground-breaking study, based on valuable field data, Edward Duyker examines the historical roots of the Santal participation in the Naxalite movement; discusses the implications of the Naxalite use of traditional weapons and forms of tribal warfare; describes the use of oral tradition to incite revolutionary fervor; and analyzes the role of clan and kinship in determining Santal participation in the movement.

17.95.

The assumption of the passive peasant in Indian history has been existent at least since the time of Max Weber, and continues to return, phoenix-like in its appearance, every few decades. Its importance, however, lies in the responses the generality spawns. Morris D. Morris refuted Max Webers thesis, detailed in The Religions of India , in 1967, while Barrington Moore, Jr.s Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy was aptly rebutted by Kathleen Gough in 1974. Since then, the concept of the rational peasant, particularly during colonial times, has undergone a metamorphosis. Various modes of peasant dynamics have been amply demonstrated in recent works, stepping into the realms of peasant rebellion, desertion, banditry, and the like. Of particular import, in terms of peasant consciousness, has been the rise of the ‘Subaltern School’ of study. Beginning with Ranajit Guhas seminal work, Elementary Aspects of Peasant Insurgency in Colonial India , and continuing with volumes of articles by a variety of authors, the Subaltern Studies group has attempted, in their own words, to offer an alternative to historical writing ‘that fails to acknowledge, far less interpret, the contributions made by the people on their own , that is independently of the elite .…’ These scholars thus use the term subaltern for those social groups which they believe have been ignored through the course of history.