Western and Indian perspectives on culture and identity of tribes and the indigenous ones

Dividing India in terms of separate race, ethnicity, language, community and religion has been a part of British policy of ‘divide and rule’. It helped them to reinforce themselves in power for a long period of time. Another advantage to them of this policy was to prevent them from being united under the flag of nationalism as a formidable force against the external powers. So, India was viewed as a divided society in terms of tribes and non-tribes, indigenous and outsiders. The modern, advanced and literate people are called as outsiders- Aryas according to the western and British historians. The tribal people were called as original and indigenous and non-Aryas. This categorization helped the missionaries to convert the tribal ones into Christianism. A separate identity of tribes were created in terms of non-Hindu religion. The massive religious conversion of tribal people led to what is said as culturocide (suicide of a culture). The indigenous culture and religion were destroyed and replaced by a foreign culture- new indices of identity were created and fissures within Indian society between tribal people and the Indians were created to destroy the web of unity and harmony that was between them. On this issue there were Indian and western perspectives on identity between the two groups of people.