Decolonizing Citizenship: Language, Ethnicity, and Tribes in India

Citizenship in postcolonial states is often tied to nation building. Local histories and intricacies of social context inform the same. But it is loosely defined around birth and borders. Likewise in India, de jure, citizenship has broadly been formulated around birth, territory, and residence. However, the complexities of caste, class, gender, race, and ethnicity create inequalities in practice of citizenship by the state. A case in point being tribes or the indigenous peoples in the country. Scheduled tribes, as they are constitutionally categorised, comprise some of the most marginalised and vulnerable communities in the country existing on the peripheries of state policy and development. Since the British period they were seen as mute subjects of ethnographic studies and doctrines of evolutionism, diffusionism, romanticism influenced ideas about them. However, the post-independence period has witnessed several movements and unrests among the different tribal ethnic communities who are seeking rights to citizenship through decolonial articulations of political identities. This paper aims to understand the questions of tribes, ethnicity and citizenship in contemporary India through the lens of language. Language is an integral aspect of everyday practice of citizenship. It is a means of communication between the state and its citizens. It also carries with itself symbolic power and it has the potential to integrate and mobilise people. Ethnic identities especially of Indian tribes/indigenous peoples are built around language. It is also a cornerstone of their knowledge transmission. However, decades after independence only two out of the hundreds of tribal languages are part of ‘constitutional languages’ in India, leading to exclusions from the development processes and nation building. By analysing laws around citizenship and other legislations, and studying primary and secondary data around language, this paper will outline forms of exclusion, and argue for more decolonial understandings, discourse and epistemologies of citizenship.