Thadous in Chandel a Sociological study

Abstract

The concept of tribe is very difficult to define but many scholars of Sociology and Social Anthropology tried to conceptualize and provide a universal definition of the tribe as a common sharing of distinctive ecological, geographical, socio-historical and cultural features give a unique identity to each and every tribe. Malinowski (1922) on Trobriand Island, Radcliffe-Brown (1952) on Andaman Island and Evans-Pritchard (1937) on Nuer and Dinka of Southern Sudan along with other classical social anthropologists and ethnographers had contributed significantly to the understanding of tribal society. Evans-Pritchard (1969) said a tribe is a group of people having a common name, common sentiment, common territory and moral obligation to unite in war, moral obligation to settle feuds and other disputes by arbitration. Each tribe is comprised of a dominant clan and the relation between the lineage structure of this clan and the territory system of the tribe is of great structural importance. newlineIn Indian context, a tribe is a collection of families having a common name, speaking a common dialect, occupying or professing to occupy a common territory and is not endogamous, though originally it might have been so. As per the 2011 census, the tribal population of India is 10.41 crore, constituting 8.6% of the total population, 89.97% of them live in rural areas and 10.03% in urban areas. The decadal population growth of the tribal population from census 2001 to 2011 has been 23.66% against 17.69% of the entire population. The sex ratio for the overall population is 940 females per 1000 males, and that of the scheduled tribes is 990 females per thousand males. Broadly, the scheduled tribes inhabit two geographical regions: Central India and North-Eastern Area. More than half of the tribal population in India is concentrated in Central India. newlineManipur comprises four main ethnic communities - Meiteis, Meitei Pangals, Naga and Kuki. The Meitei and Meitei Pangals are non-tribal inhabiting the valley districts. The tribal people