It seemed we were trying to mend what historians missed over thousands of years. The out-phase of the Neanderthals by assimilation into homo sapiens draws a parallel line with our attempt to integrate the tribal classes with mainstream society.
By the term “tribal”, we used to mean Adivasis. That means aboriginals. In a sense, the term can be rationally interpreted as “predecessor” or the first occupant. The derivation of the mainstream class could be traced to them. Doesn’t that mean the non-tribal segment is only their successors? Is it to the first occupants that we, the successors calling ourselves the mainstream, teach lessons of a good life for integrating with the mainstream? Somewhere there is something wrong!
The term tribe is derived from Latin “tribus” which meant “a group of persons forming a community and claiming descent from a common ancestor”. So long as we maintain the gap between tribal segment and mainstream segment, we negate the fact of common ancestry and continue to attempt to change their life!
Let’s think it over for a moment. Do we want to change their life? What right do we have or who has given us the right to change their life without their willingness? The modern world wants, according to its whims and fancies, to change everyone into modern! Incidentally, the changes we have forced on others never could comply with the code set by nature.
We divided the human beings into various classes negating the fundamental term of the Latin phrase known as, homo sapiens. In the show of our skills in dividing human beings, we have made the term homo-sapiens meaningless and made ourselves hetero-sapiens because we considered the tribal classes less wise than their urban counterparts. Nothing of the homo-sapiens remains with us. So long as we see the tribal class as backward, according to me, homo sapiens is no more a meaningful word. We choose to live in a society of divided classes and divided prudence. By nature, a human being always explores a new way of life. Never mind the rationality of the change. That also disapproves of the meaning of human beings.
But have we ever looked at the outcome of our tactics of dividing the homo-sapiens? As we progressed in the process of evolution from the aboriginals we discovered systems and tools to divide human beings. The division means everyone is not equal, right? Some changed drastically and some did not move ahead much. That led to the creation of caste, colour, creed, religion, nativity, ethnicity and many more, unavoidably besides the division by sex. The story of the behaviour of division among human beings could run into several thousand pages of epic size. But we buried all the filths under our own feet.
While we have been keen to change the life of tribal groups, we never tried to see them as one among us in equal terms. It may be mainly because of the indelible mark of our fouled schooling that is still injecting in us wrong blood. That seems to have blinded us from treating the tribal groups as equals. The infusion of the wrong blood through generations gradually made our character unalterable. We are on the verge of irreversible change, but to live by the wicked character endowed on us by the fouled schooling. Incidentally, we call it a part of modernising ourselves. The trouble that modernisation has brought to us is immeasurable. Yet we stick to it and live proudly with it.
Most of the tribes, who even now refuse to relinquish their adherence to the forest, are seemingly happy to compare themselves with their urban counterparts. Still many tribes don’t want to stay in modern houses, in which they find a breach of nature’s kindness. They choose to live by their tradition and live at the heart of the forest that supports them with more than sufficient foods. They are not greedy, nor do they ever want to be one. They don’t keep things for tomorrow to finish, which they are supposed to do today. They are happy until they are not disturbed by the intervention of the greedy urbanites. Indeed, they are deeply unhappy if they are forcefully put under the dictates of changes. We wanted to make good schools for them, we wanted to make house hospitals for them. But they feel being heavily shattered for being the first level victims of every infringement of nature in the name of modernisation and insatiable greed of the polished “non-tribes”. They are not keen to find their place in the so-called “mainstream society” that now keeps a false superiority over the tribal classes. However, mainstream society needs to be accommodative and must recognise their natural right of bringing along with them their science of life for sustaining a good life.
Indeed, as I mentioned earlier, they may be reluctant to buy the facilities, which we urbanites call modern. For this, they have good reasons which may be holding them back from accepting the altogether modern ecosystem in absolute terms. They live by their undiluted principles, well-balanced with the tune of nature. This is one of the reasons, perhaps they are shy of the mainstream, despite being keen to make themselves acceptable by the so-called mainstream. We must accept this very truth and make a change in our approach to them accordingly.
Human history had several turning points. Historians demarcated them on certain reckonings or certain arguments. More than 70,000 years ago, human beings were classified as homo sapiens, a single class of “wise” animal. Historians dealt with subjects that had only human interests. Why? The question may remain unanswered ever!
Most of the history books make us read the shift of phase abruptly from the extinct primates called Neanderthals to homo sapiens. There is a huge chasm between the transformation from Neanderthals to homo sapiens. Here I suspect aggressive provincialism among historians. Rather than calling it extinct, the Neanderthals were phased out by historians to open a new line to call human beings commonly “homo”, having a division undefined to live within. The strange way of Neanderthals’ assimilation with homo sapiens is not different from the attempt of integrating the tribal section with the society of better progress or say more modernised. I see, for blurring the division and completing the historical process of the fated assimilation, a delicate line of that conspiracy in our attempt of integrating the reluctant tribal segment with the mainstream.
Even in the modern world, a segment is keen to steal the pilot place of changes. That’s why everything emerges from Eurasia and far. Everything comes from the farther land, be it business, culture, religion, lifestyle and what more, even make-ups. The Afro-Asian continents carried the burden.
The truth of the two sides of human beings, the progress and the regress, is inalienable in history. While one section has changed aggressively to come to the role of masters, the other side naturally becomes subordinates. In the process, aboriginals miss their places. Still, the regressed segment is not fascinated by modern life for their reasons despite having chances for changes. At the same time, if we forcibly change them, how are they going to survive is a question we avoid.
We tried for 75 years using our self-determination. Maybe, our efforts are older. Tribal classes prefer their life to be in communion with nature, while we continue to embark on our illogical mission of inviting them to convert into modern society that they never preferred rationally. In this process, we are again negating the concept of common ancestry. The truth often tastes sour but has a hidden agent of sweetness. For many reasons, I differ on the definition of truth, which is either notional or illusionary belief, physically non-existent.
Let the tribal classes live the way they prefer without outside interference and infringements. There is so much for modern society to learn from the tribes, whom we consider inferior for our insensitivity.