it is noticed that social scientists rather frequently use terms such as “scheduled tribes”, “tribes”, “adivasi“ and “vanyajati“ to refer to those populations/communities which are described as “indigenous people“ in other parts of the globe.
This seems strange. But could it be that social scientists do not perceive them as 'indigenous'? Or, are they historically migrants?
My sense is that 'indigenous people' is a colonial and denigrating term for people of a local area. In this sense, all people are 'indigenous'. Possibly within a geographical area, there may be various groupings of people that require some nomenclature to distinguish them from one another using categories of 'ethnicity', language or place.
Thanks Linda and Babatunde for your repy. Govt. of India feels that everyone living in the country is indigenous. Therefore, some administrative terms like Scheduled Tribes (STs), Scheduled Castes (SCs), Other Backward Castes (OBCs), etc. have been used by the government to describe the marginalized and underprivileged people. These terms are so popular that even social scientists use them in their scientific writings. In fact, this is high time to look for social categories (instead of administrative categories) to present social realities in a better way. When I say “social categories“ I mean how the marginalized and underprivileged people identify themselves. That is how social scientists will better understand the ground realities from people‘s perspective.
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