Perceiving the 'Other': British rule and the Hos of Singhbhum

This paper looks into how the Ho, an indigenous community of India, came to be categorised as a 'tribe' and how the region Singhbhum, in Chotanagpur, came to be transformed into a 'tribal zone' under British colonial rule in the nineteenth century. The paper also discusses the processes whereby Hos came to act upon and internalise this new identity.