Subaltern Culture and Happiness in Tribal Communities of West Bengal

This project attempts to find out how different aspects of traditional cultural practices vis a vis modern outlook of three major tribal communities of South West Bengal Shabar, Bhumij, and Santhal—impacts the self-reported indicators of happiness. Happiness indicator in this paper comprises of personal happiness, worth of life, safety for future, personal relationships with spouse and other family members, loneliness, and anger. The survey was carried out between November 2019 and February 2020 among Shabar, Bhumij, and Santhal people of West Midnapore (Jhargram) and Purulia and Districts of West Bengal. We adopted convenience sampling. Our overall sample size is 237. We constructed happiness index, cultural index, and living condition index of the respondents. To estimate happiness equation, we used Ordered Probit model (when we considered categorical form of happiness variable) and Probit model (when we considered binary form of happiness variable). In almost all the regressions, facing discrimination from upper caste people is found to have negative significant effect. Possessing modern outlook in contrast to traditional cultural view enters with significant negative coefficient in all regressions. Hence, being attached to own culture is important for the happiness of tribal people. Food sufficiency and drinking alcohol are found to have positive significant effect on happiness of tribal community. Based on our results, policies for enhancing the happiness of tribal communities of West Bengal are prescribed.