Study on Transformation of Tribal Ethnicity and Socio-economic Status of Toto Tribe in West Bengal

Abstract

‘Toto’ is a primitive, ethnic and isolated tribal group residing only in a small forest village, namely ‘Totopara’, under Madarihat Block in the Alipurduar District of West Bengal. Totopara is located on the western bank of the River Torsa and at the foothill of the eastern Himalayas near to the south of the border line between Bhutan and West Bengal. Totos were at the serious risk of extinction during past few decades. One upon a time, Totos were reluctant to accept any kind of social change in the question modern socio-economic transformation and relied on their primitive culture and way of livelihood. They appear to be happy in retaining the age-old customs, socio cultural practices and their life style. But, during recent past, a radical change has been observed among Toto tribal community, particularly among the younger generation, in the question of socio-cultural advancement. Impact of globalization too has intensely penetrated the hallmark of Toto tribal ethnicity. The younger generation of Toto tribal community has been transforming with their involvement towards the newer form of economic activities. Thus, Totos were caught between customs and ethnicity on one hand and science on the other. On the other hand, during recent past, it has been observed that non-toto community like Nepali, Bengali Rajbanshi, Bihari etc. with considerable population have started to reside in Totopara making Toto people numerical minority in their homeland. This has radically changed socio-economic environment in Totopara which results in huge impact on their language, dresses, food habit, culture and tribal ethnicity as a whole. Now a day, Totos have been compelled to coexist with larger number of non-toto community in Totopara. The undertaken study is an honest endeavour to explore, on one hand, the areas where conflicts exist between Toto tribal ethnicity and the impact of socio-economic changes in their surroundings on Toto tribal ethnicity; on the other hand, this study is a crack to explore and analyze the transformation of typical tribal ethnicity among the Totos to cope up with the socio-economic changes in the surroundings. The study under purview has also attempted to examine the present socio-economic status of Toto tribal community in the light of transformed socio-economic environment within their own world.