• ISBN13: 9780199468089
• Binding: Hardcover
• Subject: History
• Publisher: Oxford UP
• Publisher Imprint: Oxford UP
• Publication Date: September 12, 2016
• Pages: 232
• Original Price: INR 750.0
• Language: English
• Edition: N/A
• Item Weight: 400 grams

Is primitivism a consequence of the natural evolution of some human societies? Or is it a conscious choice by such societies to evade state power? In the Roots of the Periphery, Bhangya Bhukya sets out to answer these questions by taking as his focal point the case of the Gond dynasty of the erstwhile Chanda region of Deccan India. Arguing that the ‘periphery’—the adivasis (or the indigenous peoples)—have their roots in the ‘centre’, he demonstrates how the British colonial government in India created an administrative divide between the plains and the hills, thus stereotyping hill and forest communities as isolated, primitive, barbaric and uncivilized.This book examines the evolution of Gond society over a prolonged period—from Mughal rule to the colonial era—with an interdisciplinary approach that uses both oral narratives and folklore along with archival sources. In so doing, it challenges the isolationist and assimilationist perceptions about adivasi society and asserts that the ‘difference’ imagined and articulated by the Gonds was deeply rooted in self-rule and self-determinism.

Bhangya Bhukya is Associate Professor of History at the University of Hyderabad, India. Previously he has served as Associate Professor at the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad and as Assistant Professor at Osmania University, Hyderabad.

Dr Bhukya has specialized in modern Indian history from the undergraduate to the master’s level and has in the process developed a strong interest in the history of subaltern and marginalized groups whose history is largely neglected in mainstream history. He did his MA and MPhil from Hyderabad Central University, India and his PhD from the University of Warwick, UK, on a Ford Foundation International Fellowship.

He was Postdoctoral Fellow at SOAS, University of London, in 2010 on a British Council Visiting Fellowship. His research interests include community histories, the effects of power/knowledge, govern mentality and dominance on subaltern communities, particularly adivasis (indigenous people); The state and nationalism and identity movements among forest and hill peoples in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Dr Bhukya is also associated with adivasi human rights organizations in Deccan India. Among his recent publications are Subjugated Nomads: The Lambadas under the Rule of Nizams (2010) and several articles in leading international social science journals.