Adivasi struggles

The boundaries between tribes and castes are porous: over time, many tribal groups were absorbed into caste society. Only in the North-East are there areas that are wholly tribal.

Colonial forest policy: the British declared large forests 'reserved' for the state, to get timber. Adivasis, who had lived from the forests for centuries, were cut off from them. They became 'encroachers' on their own land, or had to migrate for work.

After 1947, the situation often got worse. Mines and dams were built in tribal areas in the name of national development, displacing millions of adivasis, usually without fair compensation or rehabilitation. Some scholars call this internal colonialism: one part of the country exploiting another, as colonial rulers once did.

Examples: the Sardar Sarovar dam on the Narmada and the Polavaram dam on the Godavari displaced hundreds of thousands of adivasis. Liberalisation made it easier for companies to acquire tribal land for industry.

Adivasis also resent the outsiders who came into their areas, the traders, moneylenders and officials, whom they call dikus.

The word 'Adivasi', coined in the 1930s, means 'original inhabitants': it asserts that tribal people were there first, and have a rightful claim to their land.

Achievements: long struggles led to separate states: Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh (2000).

Why could adivasis demand states of their own, but Dalits could not? Adivasis are often concentrated in particular regions, where they form large shares of the population. Dalits are spread thinly across almost every village in India, so no region is 'theirs'.