First Citizens

Description

The concept of ‘tribe’ in India is a beleaguered one, and shares overlapping definitions with a number of nomenclatures—‘adivasis’, ‘indigenous people’, and even ‘Scheduled Tribes’. For centuries, over widely dispersed territories, groups of communities were subjected to very similar inimical processes that led to their destitution. First Citizens engages with the political and historical processes which go into the making of differential identities and adoption of specific labels by communities, and explores a number of critical issues confronting this extremely vulnerable section of Indian society. The essays document the diverse causes for migrations of India’s ‘tribal’ populations, notably women, and their absorption into both rural and urban informal economies; the multi-layered aggression of ‘development’ policies impinging on the lives of those inhabiting mineral-rich habitats; the violent interface between politicized forest dwellers and the Indian state; the theory and practice behind the Forest Rights Act and the environmentalists’ dilemma; and state legislation which may be enabling or otherwise for forest-based communities. Highlighting these communities’ attempts to organize a broad-based social movement to challenge ecologically destructive and non-inclusive economic policies, this volume chronicles their struggle to claim a common identity as Indian citizens.

Table of contents

List of Abbreviations Acknowledgements Introduction Meena Radhakrishna I CATEGORIES AND IDENTITIES AS HISTORICAL PROCESS 1. Formation of Adivasi/Indigenous Peoples’ Identity in India Virginius Xaxa 2. Primitive Accumulation, Labour, and the Making of ‘Scheduled Tribe’, ‘Indigenous’, and Adivasi Sensibility Savyasaachi 3. ‘Hindus Have to Be Born as Hindus’: The Magic Wand of Brahminical Hinduism and Conversions Biswamoy Pati 4. Peoples, Power, and Belief in North-East India David Vumlallian Zou 5. The Adivasi Other: Ethnicity and Minority Status Rudolf C. Heredia 6. Denotification of the Rathvas as Adivasis in Gujarat Arjun Rathva, Dhananjay Rai, and N. Rajaram II DESTRUCTION, LOSS, DISLOCATION 7. In the Name of Sustainable Development: Genocide Masked as ‘Tribal Development’ Felix Padel 8. Unfree Mobility: Adivasi Women’s Migration Indrani Mazumdar 9. Tribal Labour in the Tea Plantations of West Bengal: Problems of Migration and Settlement Sharit K. Bhowmik 10. Urban Housekeepers from Tribal Homelands: Adivasi Women Migrants and Domestic Work in Delhi Neetha N. III NEGOTIATIONS AND REDRESSALS 11. Shifting the Terrain of Struggle: Critically Evaluating the Forest Rights Act Sudha Vasan 12. Retrieving Ancestral Rights: The Making of the Forest Rights Act Madhu Sarin 13. Adivasis’ and the Trajectories of Political Mobilization in Contemporary India Archana Prasad 14. Conservation and Rights in India: Are We Moving towards Any Kind of Harmony? Ashish Kothari and Neema Pathak Broome Epilogue: Violence of ‘Development’ and Adivasi Resistance—An Overview Meena Radhakrishna Appendix: A Brief Review of Laws Impacting Adivasis Meena Radhakrishna Index About the Editor and Contributors