Indigeneity and occupational change : the tribes of Punjab / Birinder Pal Singh.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Presence of the Absent: An Introduction -- Punjab and its people -- Tribal communities in the Colonial Punjab -- Tribal communities in the Post-Colonial Punjab -- Socio-economic Profile of the Tribal Communities in Punjab -- Occupations of the Tribal Communities -- Intergenerational Occupational Change -- In Lieu of Conclusion.

"This book is about the presence of the absent- the tribes of Punjab, India, many of them still nomadic, constituting the poorest of the poor in the state. Drawing on exhaustive fieldwork and ethnographic accounts of more than 750 respondents, it explores the occupational change across generations to prove their presence in the state before the Criminal Tribes Act was implemented in 1871. The archival reports reveal the atrocities unleashed by the colonial government on these people. The volume shows how the post-colonial government too has proved no different; it has done little to bring them into the mainstream society by not exploiting their traditional expertise or equip them with modern skills. This book will be of great interest to the scholars of sociology, social anthropology, social history, public policy, development studies, tribal communities and South Asian studies."--