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Technology and Social Change Among the Ho Adivasis (Tribals) of West Singhbhum, Jharkand, India

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Abstract

This chapter is divided into three broad sections. The first section reconstructs the story of Ho rooted to a backward or no technology; the second explores the technological changes that conducted the transformation of material base of Ho life; and the last embodies the moral changes that shaped attitude and mentality in their life. Set in the pre-industrial backdrop, the present chapter attempts to historically reconstruct the story of transformation of Ho adivasis (tribals) from stone-age to iron-age technology that may help us in understanding to what extent this aided or impeded its graduation to industrial-age technology that later ruled over the world.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Singhbhum was once a large district in the present-day Indian state of Jharkhand. Chaibasa was the district headquarters of the erstwhile Singhbhum district. In the nineteenth century, this area formed a part of the Chota Nagpur Division of Bengal Presidency in British India.

  2. 2.

    Employing Montesquieu’s categories of savagery, barbarism and civilization, Morgan subdivided the first two categories into three stages (lower, middle, and upper) and gave contemporary ethnographic examples of each stage. 1876. Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family.

  3. 3.

    A ‘deeply felt spiritual and emotional nexus with the earth and its fruits’ has been emphasized in the context of indigenous peoples of Africa (Wachira 2010, p. 7).

  4. 4.

    Ibid., pp. 27–30.

  5. 5.

    This observation was relevant for other Jharkhand tribals also who being primitive agriculturists ‘have not yet been weaned from their wild nomadic life’ (Singh 1969, pp. 653–654).

  6. 6.

    Sen (2004b). For a revised version, see Saikia (2008, pp. 13–20).

  7. 7.

    Tickell, ‘Memoir’, p. 695.

  8. 8.

    Singh, ‘Pattern of Agricultural Changes’, pp. 653–655. It in a way corrects the empirical notion that the Kharias and Mundas of Chotanagpur plateau had been ‘settled agriculturists probably ever since they entered Chota-Nagpur centuries ago’. Roy (1982, p. 65).

  9. 9.

    Tickell, ‘Memoir’, p. 696.

  10. 10.

    For a more detailed information, see Sen (2011).

  11. 11.

    E. Roughsedge to C. T. Metcalfe, Secretary to the Government, 9 May 1820, para.18, South West Frontier Political Despatch Register, 20 April 1820 to 7 June 1821, Vol. XXVII. (Bihar State Archives). The significant role of functional castes was a rather generic tribal phenomenon. For the role of blacksmiths in Santal life, see Man (1983, pp. 54–55).

  12. 12.

    Roughsedge to Metcalfe, 9 May 1820, paras. 17–18.

  13. 13.

    In Kolhan, out of a total population of 237,320, cultivators numbered 170, 516 i.e. 71.85 % (Craven 1898, p. 18).

  14. 14.

    More details are available in Majumdar (1937, pp. 49–51). But these details are also not as vivid as that about the Mundas by Roy (1970, pp. 226–8).

  15. 15.

    Tuckey Settlement Khuntkatti Papers (TSKP), Rengarbera, pp. 3–8, Vasta (Bag) No. 47. District Record Room, Chaibasa.

  16. 16.

    Sen, ‘Water bodies, Changing Social Ecology and Ho Adivasis of Colonial Singhbhum’, p. 63.

  17. 17.

    The other factor was identified as ‘a rhetoric of protection… against flood, poverty and especially famine’ (Morrison 2010).

  18. 18.

    Sen, ‘Water bodies, Changing Social Ecology and Ho Adivasis of Colonial Singhbhum’, pp. 63–64.

  19. 19.

    Tuckey, Final Report, p. 121.

  20. 20.

    Hunter, Statistical Account of Bengal, p. 80: Dalton, Tribal History, p. 195.

  21. 21.

    Tickell, ‘Memoir’, p. 805.

  22. 22.

    This is known from a perusal of Village Notes.

  23. 23.

    General Administration Report (GAR) 1883–1884, Singhbhum district (Top cover missing, no further information), para. 21; LRAR, 1907–1908, DCOS, GD, RB, CNXI Returns, FN16, para 21vi, (DRRC).

  24. 24.

    Craven, Final Report, p. 15.

  25. 25.

    Tuckey, Final Report, p. 4.

  26. 26.

    Tickell, ‘Memoir’ p. 806.

  27. 27.

    This section draws on Sen, ‘Peasantization and the changing socio-economy of the Ho adivasis of Singhbhum’, paper presented at the National Seminar on Environment, State and Society organised by Department of History, Jadavpur University on 1–2 March 2010; Sen, ‘Water bodies, Changing Social Ecology and Ho Adivasis of Colonial Singhbhum’, pp. 68–72; A.K. Sen, The Construction of Indigeneity: Adivasi Self-fashioning in Jharkhand (Unpublished).

  28. 28.

    The number rose from the first established at Chaibasa in 1837 to 37 in 1913–1918. Tuckey, Final Report, p. 3.

  29. 29.

    Craven Settlement Village Papers, Dhobadhobin, Bag N. 494, p. 4. See also Bhangaon a much larger remote haat which had more numerous attendance greater numbers of exchange items. Ibid., Bhangaon, Bag No. 646, pp. 3–4. (DRRC).

  30. 30.

    GAR, 1883–1884, paras 20–1; Land Revenue Administration Report,, Deputy Commissioner’s Office Singhbhum (DCOS), General Department (GD), Revenue Branch (RB), Collection No. (CN) XI Returns, File No. (FN) 12, 1906–1907, para. 47. District Record Room Chaibasa (DRRC).

  31. 31.

    Sen, ‘Peasantization and the changing socio-economy of the Ho adivasis of Singhbhum’.

  32. 32.

    Tuckey, Final Report, pp. 23, 118.

  33. 33.

    Ibid., pp. 8, 118.

  34. 34.

    Deputy Commissioner’s Report on Trade and Commerce of the District for 1910–1911, DCOS, GD, RB, CN XI, FN 26 of 1911–1912, sec. IX (DRRC); O’Malley 1910, p. 120.

  35. 35.

    Tuckey Settlement Village Note, Vol. III, pp. 176, 203. (DRRC).

  36. 36.

    See Craven Settlement Village Papers and Tuckey Settlement Tanaza, U/S 83 and 85 Papers. (DRRC).

  37. 37.

    LRAR, 1932–1933, FL, DCOS, GD, RB, CNXI, FN.2 of 1933, section 14 VII. (DRRC).

  38. 38.

    Sen, ‘The Process of Social Stratification’. pp. 27–37.

  39. 39.

    Tuckey, Final Report, p. 121. A later empirical work, which details the sex distribution of work, reveals the extent of burden further (Majumdar 1937, pp.49–51).

  40. 40.

    Inspired by Chanock (1985, pp. 39–40).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Central University of Jharkhand, Ranchi, Jharkhand, India

    Upasana Ray

  2. An Independent Researcher (Tribal History) based at Chaibasa, West Singhbhum, Jharkhand, India

    Asoka Kumar Sen

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  1. Upasana Ray
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Correspondence to Upasana Ray .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, School of Management & Labour Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

    Satyajit Majumdar

  2. Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, School of Management & Labour Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

    Samapti Guha

  3. Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, School of Management & Labour Studies, Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

    Nadiya Marakkath

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Ray, U., Sen, A.K. (2015). Technology and Social Change Among the Ho Adivasis (Tribals) of West Singhbhum, Jharkand, India. In: Majumdar, S., Guha, S., Marakkath, N. (eds) Technology and Innovation for Social Change. Springer, New Delhi. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-2071-8_12

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