Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya on Friday organised a lecture to commemorate150th birth anniversary of Mahatama Gandhi. Director, Anthropological survey of India, Kolkata Prof Vinay Kumar Shrivastava, was speaking on ‘The Mahatma and Tribes of India’. The lecture was delivered through the Facebook, YouTube online mediums. Vinay Kumar Shrivastava said that about an aspect which has not been written by the untouchable people, nor has it been the subject of discussion.
In today's topic would be discussed the Mahatma and tribes of India which is also called Aadivashi. And then the thoughts of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru will be discussed.
It is believed that Gandhiji did not say anything important about the tribal problems before the 1940.
In today's, Shrivastava said that this is not true, Gandhiji worked with the Zulu society which is in South Africa and during the battle of South Africa, he also served the people of this society. A depiction of tribal societies can be obtained from the thoughts of Gandhiji.
The work of Gandhiji gives inspiration for the anthropologists. Gandhiji was very much influenced by the self-reliance of the tribal’s, he took the concept of village Swaraj and Khadi inspired by the self-dependent tribal’s.
In his lifetime, Gandhiji greatly influenced two people who gave their lives to tribal societies, his name is Amritlal Thakahar, who was born in tribal society and was truly synonymous with freedom, service, sacrifice, compassion, and Verrier Elwin, who became an important anthropologist under the inspiration of Gandhi and Worked for a lifetime with tribal’s.
The ideas and methodology of both of these were also included in his statement and also stated that the visit of Gandhiji had a profound impact on the tribal societies and due to this, this society did not remain separate from the freedom struggle.
Prof Vinay Kumar Srivastava is Director of Anthropological Survey of India since August 2017. He was in the additional charge of Malulana Abdul Kalam Azad Institute of Asian Studies Kolkata.