An administrator went to a remote area consisting of several tribes.…

The correct answer is Option (4) → He was influenced by the idea that tribes are caste-peasant society.

Note: The given answer is as per the official NTA Answer Key. However, the question can have more than one correct answer, i.e. both Option (2) and Option (4), as explained below.

Option (1) He was focusing on the principle of hierarchy which is caste-based occupation. — Incorrect. Hierarchy means ranking groups as higher and lower, and it is a feature of caste. But the administrator did not rank anyone. He went only by what the people did for a living: they practised agriculture, so he called them castes. Nothing in the case turns on rank or status.

Option (2) He was trying to identify tribes based on tribe-caste occupational distinction which is faulty. — Correct. He took settled farming as the mark of a caste group and so treated ‘tribe’ and ‘caste’ as two kinds of people told apart by their means of livelihood. By the 1970s scholars had shown that this distinction did not hold on any of the usual criteria, means of livelihood included: the Munda, Hos and others had long since turned to settled agriculture and are still tribes. So the test he used is itself faulty, and this option also explains the problem.

Option (3) He did not see any egalitarian ideas based on occupation. — Incorrect. Egalitarian means treating members as equals. Tribes were described as more egalitarian than castes, but this rests on their kinship-based social organisation, not on occupation. In any case, the mistake in the case was reading farming as a sign of caste, not missing an idea of equality.

Option (4) He was influenced by the idea that tribes are caste-peasant society. — Correct. In the 1960s one group of scholars saw tribes as one end of a continuum with caste-based peasant society: tribes were not fundamentally different from caste peasants, only less stratified and with more community-based ownership of resources. An administrator who thinks this way sees a farming tribe as just another peasant caste. That is why he classed the groups as castes, although they saw themselves as tribes.

Tip for students: When two options both seem to fit a case, test each against the exact detail the question gives. Here the detail is that the groups practised agriculture and were therefore called castes: ask which option explains why farming led him to that label. If both still fit, as here, mark the one that states the idea behind the mistake rather than the method he used.