48 SOCIAL SCIENTIST lending classes, especially so amongst the Varlis, did not escape the attention of officials busy calculating the enhancement of revenue rates.28 The differential 'positions' occupied by the tribals in the two areas were however realised through a common agency—indebtedness ;29 and reproduced themselves through the singular use or threat of, force or extra-economic coercion. In Thana if the the predominance of violence,30 in Khandesh, the labour force was reproduced through mortgage in labour that in effect amounted to slavery.31 In effect the subsumption of the tribals in Thana and Khandesh was operationalised through a singular agency—usury capital aided and abetted by colonial laws of contract. But the positions of the tribals differed. In Thana the Varlis and Katakaris—the former accounting for nearly 50 per cent of the total tribal population were by and large transformed into tenants; whereas the Bhils of Khandesh were to a large extent reduced to slave labour. While some discerning British officials were perceptive enough to recognise the fact that the basis for this subsumption lay in the nature of their laws and the markets created by commercialisation,32 it is significant that the reasons for the readily accepted fact of tribal exploitation were located in the tribals themselves. In Thana, the Varlis plight was explained in terms of their laziness, slothfulness, propensity to drink and incapacity for hard work.33 Such "characteristics" first listed as 'observations'34 gradually acquired a heuristic value as officials were hard put to explain the apparent contradiction of increasing prosperity (measured in terms of resale value of land as multiples of revenue assessment) and the increasing pauperisation of the tribals.85 Not surprisingly such legitimisations of tribals5 exploitation passed off as the generally accepted perspective with which the tribals were viewed.36 It would finally take the organised movements of the Varlis under Godavari Parulekar from 1946 onwards and the struggles of the Bhils in Khandesh from the 1970s onwards to overthrow this epistemological albatross.37 1. Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency, Vol. XII (Hereafter referred to as GBP-XII), p. 248, Gazetteer ofthe territories under the Government of East India Company, Vol. 1, Thornfon, E., London, 1854 (Hereafter referred to as EICG-1) pp. 258-59. 2. EICG'l, op. cit., pp. 525-59. 3. GBP-XH, op. cit., p. 82. 4. GBP-XH, ibid., p. 248. 5. ibid., pp. 214 ; 250. 6. ibid., pp. 268-272. 7. A. KydNairhe. The Konkan : *A Historical Sketch', Bombay. 1875. p. 98 ; GBP' XIII (Thana District), p. 3 ; 550. Bishop R. Heber: "Narrative of a Journey through the Upper Provinces of India from Calcutta to Bombay. 1824-25" Vol. Ill, 4th Edition. 1844. pp. 88-9, 86. 8. Reveune Department (Volume) 1890. Vol. No. 102. (Hereafter referred to as RD Year/Vol. No.) p. 312. 9. GBP-XIII, op. cit., pp. 47,283.