Tribal Alienation and Conflict in India: A Perspective from Below

Abstract

The Adivasi’s movement in India was seen through the abstract glasses of a Maoist movement or a peasant revolt, thus denying and failing to explain the specificity of Adivasi’s movement for democratic rights. However, the present article is an attempt to understand the socioeconomic and political structures, which forced the tribal in India to organize themselves and fight since the 1940s for the redressal of their grievances. Among the major questions which we shall attempt to answer are: how did the tribal react to alienation from the society and land, natural resources, indebtedness, and structural and cultural oppression? What was the role of the leadership in the organization of discontented tribal? The study basically aims at understanding the nexus between politics and violence in the specific context of the Adivasi movement in India. Is it a battle for social justice and equality?