Transformation of Tribes in India

Sociologists and anthropologists tend to see as the end result of social change in tribal India the transformation of any given tribe into a caste or just another socially stratified group, or the merger of the tribe in the peasantry. Questioning the assumption of loss of tribal identity, this article attributes it to the study of tribes not as communities in their own right but in terms of affinity or non-affinity with mainstream communities.