The tribal political pattern may also be viewed along with their political institutions. Besides, certain individuals, the political institutions also exercise the political central over the members of the community.
The political field of activities in the tribal societies may be broadly divided into two groups with many further sub-types:
- a) Traditional political field, and
- b) Contemporary political field.
The first type is the product of their traditional political life where political affairs are combined with social and religious affairs. The second type has emerged out of culture changes, culture-contact; the mode of electing the village chief under the existing democratic set up.
The verdict of the tribal Panchayat or the headman of the village is law to the tribal people. The sanction behind it is the great faith in the elders and the village leadership, every tribal village has some type of political machinery to look after the village affairs.
The structure of the traditional political institutions is mainly of the following kinds.
- The council of elders is a temporary body of selected villagers, generally consisted of clan-elders to look into cases brought before them.
- The village headman usually works’ on a hereditary post and or subject to villager’s opinion, if and when required.
- The Village Panchayat: a body of the village councils headed by a village headman. The members of the village council may be directly elected by the villagers or nominated by the village headman.
- The union of villagers or a regional Panchayat is headed by a regional head as prevalent among the Mundas of chotanagpur where Parha system is still prevailing and the head of the ‘Parha’ is known as the ‘Parha Chief ’.
- And , finally the tribal chief is also a hereditary post of supreme judicial authority at the tribal level , For example, the ’chharidar’ is considered to be the tribal Chief of the Ollar Gadaba tribe.
The character of the contemporary political field is growing up fast and is replacing the traditional political set up of the tribes at the global level to a great extent.