Colonial Legacies and Tribal Marginalization: Economic Disruption and the Genesis of Bodo Unrest in Assam
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: The colonial period was known for administrative confusion, of extortion and oppressions and miseries of the people. During the whole period of colonial rule the indigenous tribal people had come in contact with various advanced social groups and had gone through existential experiences of conflict and change. They have gone through a number of contradictions such as inter-tribal inequality, the grabbing of land of the poor tribal peasants by the money-lenders and landlords, the differential interaction and communication with the agents of civilization, viz. administration, educational facilities had led to the creation of inequality; the new forces of modernization had developed a unique middle class, the mercantile capitalism had developed a dependent economy characterized by the surplus production of raw material and agro-industrial products like jute, tea, pulses. In Assam the tea and oil industries were in the hands of the British bourgeoisie. The trade and commerce were in the hands of migrants businessmen. Wage earning labourers class was imported. The colonial system of administration and management instead of solving the tribal’s problem of survival had made their survival at stake. They did not take this oppressive system for granted. The British colonial rule witnessed a chain of killings, uprisings, insurrections were surfaced when the tribals suffered incursions and loss of land, swindling, bankruptcy and deprivation of their livelihood. Thus, the interest of the indigenous tribal people was ignored or neglected. They were under perpetual hunger and poverty, economically dependent, and politically subservient to colonial rulers, and their middlemen.
Author: Gautam Mushahary
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W7168143715