Breaking down the question
The question asks you to examine — to analyse critically, weighing merits and defects — the colonial policy of segregating tribes, as it was crystallised in the Government of India Act, 1935. The Act formalised earlier practices of administrative separation by creating two categories of tribal territory: excluded areas and partially excluded areas, kept outside the normal operation of provincial legislatures and administered directly by the Governor.
The core concept is segregation as a policy of isolation — insulating tribal communities from the mainstream population, market forces and reformist legislation. You must situate this within the larger isolation-versus-assimilation debate, identify the colonial motives behind exclusion, and assess its consequences for tribal society.
How to approach it
Begin with the administrative background. Earlier instruments — the Scheduled Districts Act of 1874 and the notion of backward tracts under the 1919 reforms — had already marked off tribal regions. The 1935 Act consolidated this into the excluded and partially excluded areas, where provincial ministries had no writ and the Governor exercised discretionary authority.
Then interpret the motive. Colonial segregation was defended paternalistically as protection of vulnerable, simple communities from exploitation by moneylenders, landlords and outsiders. But it also served imperial interests: it quarantined restive frontier peoples, forestalled their absorption into nationalist politics, and preserved administrative control over strategically and economically valuable regions.
Frame the intellectual debate. Verrier Elwin's early advocacy of protected isolation — caricatured by critics as a national park approach — clashed with Ghurye's assimilationist thesis that tribes were backward Hindus who should be integrated. Thakkar occupied a middle, welfarist ground. Conclude with an assessment of both the protective gains and the isolating costs.
Model answer
The segregation of tribes under the Government of India Act, 1935 was the culmination of a long colonial practice of setting tribal territory apart from ordinary administration. The Act designated certain regions as excluded areas and others as partially excluded areas. In excluded areas the provincial legislature had no jurisdiction and the Governor administered directly at his discretion; in partially excluded areas provincial ministries functioned but subject to the Governor's overriding authority. Acts of the legislature did not automatically extend to these regions. The effect was to fence tribal populations off from the political and legal life of the wider province.
The policy was justified in protective and paternalistic terms. Tribal communities were portrayed as simple, isolated and defenceless against the encroachments of moneylenders, contractors, land-grabbers and revenue officials. Segregation, on this reading, shielded their land, customs and social organisation from disruptive outside contact and from reformist laws ill-suited to their way of life. There is genuine substance to this defence: tribal alienation from land and the depredations of the dikus were real dangers, and unregulated exposure to the market had already produced immiseration and revolt.
Yet the colonial motive was not purely benevolent. Exclusion also served the imperial state. It insulated frontier and forest peoples, many of them recently rebellious, from the currents of the nationalist movement, denying Congress a foothold in these regions. It preserved direct executive control over territories rich in forest, mineral and strategic value. And it entrenched a static, museum-like image of the tribe, freezing communities in supposed pristine isolation while the surrounding society modernised.
The policy fed directly into the isolation-versus-assimilation debate that dominated tribal studies. Verrier Elwin, in his early phase, argued for protected isolation, urging that tribes be given time and space to develop at their own pace, sheltered from exploitative contact. Critics such as Ghurye dismissed this as a national park approach that would keep tribes as living specimens; Ghurye contended instead that tribes were essentially backward Hindus already in advanced stages of assimilation, and that integration, not quarantine, was the humane course. A. V. Thakkar and the welfare tradition sought a middle path of protective development. Elwin himself later moderated his position, endorsing controlled, sympathetic integration rather than total isolation, a stance reflected in the post-independence philosophy of the tribal panchsheel.
Assessed on balance, colonial segregation was a double-edged instrument. Its protective dimension did check some forms of exploitation and preserve a measure of tribal autonomy and culture. But its isolating dimension arrested tribal participation in wider political and economic life, retarded the spread of education and infrastructure, reinforced administrative neglect, and served the coloniser's strategic convenience more than the tribes' welfare. The framework of the 1935 Act nonetheless shaped independent India's approach, surviving in transmuted form as the Fifth and Sixth Schedules of the Constitution, which retain special administration for tribal areas while orienting it towards development rather than exclusion.
Examiner's perspective
The examiner expects accurate knowledge of the Act's mechanics — the distinction between excluded and partially excluded areas and the Governor's special powers — combined with critical interpretation of motive. Merely narrating provisions earns a modest score. High marks reward the dual reading: protection genuinely offered versus imperial interest genuinely served. Locating the policy within the isolation-versus-assimilation debate, with Elwin, Ghurye and Thakkar correctly positioned, demonstrates conceptual command, as does noting the continuity with the Fifth and Sixth Schedules. Close with a balanced verdict rather than blanket praise or condemnation. For the fuller account, see the note on colonial policies and tribes.