Breaking down the question
The command word comment invites a considered, evaluative response: you should explain the phenomenon of tribal assertion for autonomy, account for why it is growing, and weigh its significance. It is neither a bare description nor a one-sided argument.
The pivotal term is autonomy — the demand of tribal communities for self-governance, control over their land and resources, and recognition of a distinct cultural identity. Your answer must show what drives this assertion and how the state has responded.
How to approach it
Open by framing the old debate on the place of tribes — isolation, assimilation and integration — to set the context. Then explain the causes of rising assertion: land alienation, displacement, cultural threat and political awakening. Illustrate the forms it takes, from statehood movements to autonomous councils, and note the constitutional response. Close with a balanced comment on its meaning for the Indian polity.
Model answer
The assertion of tribal communities for autonomy has grown markedly in post-independence India, expressing a demand for self-governance, protection of land and resources, and recognition of a distinct identity. It is best understood against the long-running debate on the place of tribes: Verrier Elwin's early plea for relative isolation to shield tribal cultures, the assimilationist view associated with G. S. Ghurye, who saw tribals as backward Hindus to be absorbed, and the eventual official policy of integration that sought development without cultural erasure.
Several forces explain the deepening assertion. Land alienation — the transfer of tribal land to non-tribal moneylenders, settlers and firms — struck at the material base of tribal life. Displacement by dams, mines and industrial projects uprooted communities in the name of national development, often without adequate rehabilitation. A perceived threat to cultural identity, language and custom sharpened the sense of a distinct people. And rising education and political consciousness gave tribal groups the organisational means to voice these grievances.
The assertion has taken varied forms. Some movements have sought statehood, as in the creation of Jharkhand and, earlier, the reorganisation of the North-East. Others demand autonomous administration within existing states. The Constitution offers instruments here: the Fifth Schedule for tribal areas in most states and the Sixth Schedule providing Autonomous District Councils in the North-East, alongside the PESA Act, 1996, which extends self-governance to Scheduled Areas by empowering the gram sabha over local resources.
Sociologically the assertion signals that tribes are not passive objects of policy but active agents shaping their own future. It reflects a shift from viewing autonomy as a threat to national unity towards accepting it as a legitimate claim within a plural, federal democracy — provided it is balanced against the imperatives of development and integration. Where the state has been responsive, autonomy has channelled discontent constitutionally; where it has been neglectful, grievance has sometimes hardened into unrest.
On balance, the growing assertion is a healthy democratic development, demanding that development be participatory and identity respected rather than overridden. For a fuller discussion, see the note on tribes, integration and autonomy.
Examiner's perspective
Examiners reward candidates who explain causes — land alienation, displacement, cultural threat, political awakening — rather than merely describing movements. Anchoring the answer in the isolation-assimilation-integration debate, and citing the Fifth and Sixth Schedules and PESA, demonstrates both theoretical and factual command. The strongest scripts treat autonomy as a legitimate claim to be balanced against national integration, closing with a reasoned, two-sided verdict.