Creating Identities: British Rule and the Hos of Singhbhum, 1820-1932

This paper shows, with reference to the Ho tribe of Singhbhum, the changes in the perceptions of the colonial rulers and the gradual evolving of a colonial policy concerning the Hos. It argues that under colonial rule, there existed a multiplicity of opinions regarding tribes, generated either by the colonial power itself or arising out of a process of interaction and adaptation. Thus, several, often contradictory policies towards the indigenous people emerged in course of the 19th and 20th centuries.9 The second section of the paper attempts to locate the agency of the colonized subjects in the making of their own history and discusses how the Hos accommodated themselves to such changes under colonial rule and, in the process, carved out for themselves a new identity. This is studied with reference to four social-religious movements among the Hos which greatly influenced the contours of the identity that Hos were attempting to create for themselves.