Video | Tribal culture and natural resources: The Chota Nagpur (Chotanagpur) plateau of eastern India – Jharkhand

Chota Nagpur [Chotanagpur] plateau is in eastern India, in Jharkhand state. The plateau is composed of Precambrian rocks (more than 540,000,000 years old). Chota Nagpur is the collective name for the Ranchi, Hazaribagh, and Kodarma plateaus, which have an area of 25,293 sq m (65,509 sq km). Its largest division is the Ranchi Plateau, which … Read more

“A mine of information” that questions earlier writings on tribals, colonial history and the effects of globalization: Book review – Jharkhand and Bihar

A plateau accounting for half of the country’s mineral wealth comprising coal, iron-ore, copper, bauxite, chromite, dolomite, limestone, manganese and mica in erstwhile Chotanagpur area deserves to be studied in depth not only for the minerals but for its human endeavour to liberate itself from exploitation by greedy industrialists and insensitive rulers, be it colonialists … Read more

Globalization and other challenges to customary, civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights of tribal communities: Government report – Kerala

INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background The Scheduled Tribes (STs) in the country are the groupings of historically disadvantaged people that are given express recognition in the Constitution of India. The Scheduled Tribes in the state of Kerala is largely heterogeneous and each community has different traditions, social custom, beliefs, rules, and practices. Census (2011) identifies 35 tribal … Read more

Vibrant contemporary writing from the north-eastern region: Overcoming marginalisation of culture and literature

The poets from the north-eastern region have to meet the double challenge of truth and liberty, of identity and unity, of cultural loss and recovery, of ethnic specificity and aesthetic universality. ONLY in the last one decade or so has the vibrant contemporary writing from the north-eastern region written in many languages, including English—Assamese perhaps … Read more

Tip | Brill’s Encyclopedia of the Religions of the Indigenous People of South Asia

This encyclopedia addresses the religions of a category of South Asians known as tribals, Ādivāsīs (“First Inhabitants”; or Janajātis, lit. “Class of People”; see also below), and, more recently, indigenous peoples. The three terms, “tribal,” “Ādivāsī,” and “indigenous peoples” are related, but have their own trajectories; they have come into use at different times and … Read more