LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 24:1 January 2024
ISSN 1930-2940

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         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         T. Deivasigamani, Ph.D.
         Pammi Pavan Kumar, Ph.D.
         Soibam Rebika Devi, M.Sc., Ph.D.

Managing Editor & Publisher: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.

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The Self, the Savage and Diversity: A Study of Texts

Dr. S. Sridevi

Abstract

This paper aims at analysing the manner in which the ancient and modern world conceived the civilized and the savage. People have always felt distant from tribal communities and have constructed narratives projecting them as inferior to civilised societies, believing in their own myths that may be meaningless to other societies and building peculiar practices that may seem strange to others like the Indian caste system. The Enlightenment philosophy’s negotiation has been one-sided as the people with ‘voices’ and ‘expressions’ wrote their versions of stories vehemently denying the existence of the others. Human thought and systems of languages accepted the division of civilised as advanced from uncivilized. Still, humanity moves on including all people under the umbrella of democracy, capitalism, and globalization.

Keywords: The Self, the Savage, Diversity

In human capacity for self-deception to believe emphatically in our goodness, the marginalised societies have been exploited under various schemes. Modern academia, influenced by western universities, has investigated this human project using the newly emerged social science of anthropology, Marxism, and other Enlightenment theories, that gradually led to postmodern thinking, questioning the silence of certain sections of society in mainstream writing. India too has come under this western ideology of egalitarianism and has created policies to include tribes and the marginalised groups into the mainstream. Educational institutions in India are encouraged to practice inclusivity in admitting students from all communities.

It is said that “the first tribe in India appeared from the descendants of African migrants around 65,000 years ago” and the “645 recognized tribes” found in India live across the country: “Bodo from Assam; Khasi and Garo from North East; Santhals from West Bengal; Bhil from Madhya pradesh; Munda from Jharkhand; Andamanese from the Andamans; Warli from Maharashtra; and Gond from Andhra Pradesh.” The 2023 budget has proposed to recruit more teachers for schools in tribal areas. “Pradhan Mantri PVTG Development Mission” has been proposed to provide housing, road facilities etcetera (Karkun). All countries and all people quite naturally have classified tribals as inferiors and this history of human perception is well-recorded by western scholars.

The western countries classify other countries as lands with “high or low development of the industrial arts,” in the “manufacture of implements and vessels,” in the level of “scientific knowledge,” and the written down “moral principles,” and other methods of organizational methods of society. Ethnographers arrange the order of culture. But it is not “uncommon to find details of admirable moral and social excellence.” Human development’s principle has defined “savagery and civilization” as elements that “are connected as lower and higher stages of one formation” (Tylor).

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Dr. S. Sridevi
Professor of English and Principal
Chevalier T. Thomas Elizabeth College for Women
Chennai 600011, Tamil Nadu, India
sridevisaral@gmail.com
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