Claiming rights, negotiating relationships. Changes in Ho society Under colonial rule

In this essay I analyse the transitions experienced by the Hos of Kolhan (in Singhbhum district of Chotanagpur) under colonial rule. Despite similarities, Ho village organization was distinct in many ways from that of the other adivasi groups, including the Mundas whom they resembled most closely. Under colonial rule these specificities, particularly those related to tenancy status of the Hos, tended to become more distinct, leading to shifts and repositionings within the internal community organization on the one hand, together with the reassessment of the Ho community’s relationship with ‘alien’ outsiders on the other. Such changes, moreover, occurred in a context when new British legislations attempted simultaneously to weave together the contradictory principles of exceptionalism and homogenization. This essay seeks to investigate into the Ho social organization and trace the changes that it experienced under colonial rule. It focuses on three specific aspects of this transition, namely the co-opting of thevillage leadership, the mankis and the mundas within the new governance and its impact on the village society, the negotiations of the Hos with the new tenancy legislations, and the redefinition of their relationships with various non-tribal ‘outsider’ groups.