Marianne Keppens, University of Ghent
The Tribes of India as the ‘Tribes of Israel'? The Christian Notion of ‘Tribe' and Colonial Understanding of India

Today nobody would accept the claim that Brahmins are a tribe. In fact, if there is one group that is very clearly not a tribe it would be this caste. Brahmins definitely do not characterize themselves as a tribe and there is a clear distinction, accepted by social scientists and politicians alike, between the classifications of Indian social groups into castes on the one hand and into tribes on the other hand. However, in the colonial writings of the beginning of the nineteenth century Brahmins were explicitly described as a tribe comparable to the Levitical tribe of the Jews. We also find that the terms ‘caste' and ‘tribe' were used interchangeably at that time. Moreover, we find that descriptions of the Brahmins and other tribes correspond to the Christian image of the tribes of Israel.

How to account for this change in the perception of ‘tribes'? In this paper I will argue that the South Asian notions of ‘tribe' of today are indeed a product of a ‘colonial classification' and that this classification was transformed accordingly as certain elements within the colonial culture changed. If we want to understand and contest the notions of ‘tribe' in contemporary India, we cannot but trace the characteristics and origins of the concept of ‘tribe' in the history of the Christian West. That is, we need to understand how and why notions of ‘tribe' changed as they did: how could the Brahmins first be regarded as a typical tribe later to become the opposite of what constitutes a tribe? Several scholars have argued that a Christian framework determined the colonial understanding of India. I will examine to what extent Christian notions of the relation between ‘tribe', language and religion structured the colonial descriptions of the Indian society, which still prevail today.