Was India’s Tribal Demographic Behaviour Superior In The Past?

Amidst massive ethnographical and anthropological literature on India’s tribes, patterns of their demographic behaviour (e.g. fertility and mortality) have received relatively little attention. However studies on tribal demographic behaviour are not only possible in the past historical context, but they can provide useful insights into the role of sociocultural differences in explaining differential demographic outcomes even in contemporary periods. The present historical analysis suggests that relatively low fertility and mortality (particularly in infancy and childhood) regime had characterised tribal communities vis-à-vis Hindus, and this was in large measure due to tribals’ traditional sociocultural and lifestyle patterns and relatedly greater intimacy with the natural environment. Email: arupmaha@yahoo.com