Cultural And Socio-Economic Vicissitudes Of The Bhotia Tribe Of Uttarakhand

Reeya Mishra, LL.M., Jain University, Bangalore

ABSTRACT

The herculean task of defining a tribe and main-streaming their interests to that of the society has produced a plethora of challenges for the bureaucrats and the law-makers. In the process of inclusion, various tribes have been left behind, their social and cultural strata redefined and their native place of residence has been reduced to dust. One such tribe of the hill state of Uttarakhand is the Bhotia tribe. The paper discusses the Bhotia tribe and their socio-economic transformation through the ages along with the impact of globalization and the closing of borders of Tibet in the 1960s. The paper also discusses the impact of the new policies concerning the welfare of the tribal community and how climate change has impacted their lives tremendously.

Keywords: Tribe, Tribal community, Bhotia Tribe, Globalization, Scheduled tribe, welfare