Adivasi / Adibasi

“Adivasi [Adibasi] – which is derived from Sanskrit – is applied to the dark-skinned or Austro-Asiatic indigenous groups of India (usually those from Eastern India). It is a commonly-used term in Jharkhand, Bihar, West Bengal and Odisha. It is also used by the local Mongoloid tribes of North Eastern India for the migrant workers who were brought in as indentured labourers to work in tea plantations during the colonial period. ‘Tribal’ is a very broad term in the English language, as we all know, and includes all the different indigenous groups of India.” – Santali poet, scholar and translator Ivy Imogene Hansdak (email dated 27 March 2020)
https://indiantribalheritage.org/?p=23032

“Adivasi”, “Tribals” and “Denotified tribes”: Usage in legal and historical records, in textbooks, scholarly papers and the media –  Classifications in different states

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Government documents apply various labels besides “Scheduled Tribes” and “tribals”: Hill Tribes, Nomadic and Semi-Nomadic Tribes, Forest Dwellers, Indigenous Communities, Aborigines, Backward Tribes, Backward Classes, Tribal Settlers, Original Settlers, Primitive Tribes, and Denotified Tribes. Many ‘Denotified Tribes’ continued to suffer displacement/dispossession/enslavement of Nomadic, Semi-Nomadic and Denotified Tribes after Independence. The exploitation and encroachment on tribal/forest … Read more

Tip | Voices from the Periphery: A multidisciplinary book “reversing the gaze”: Questioning the fringes of India’s mainstream society

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“It is wrong and does not help the tribal cause either to reduce the image of the Indian tribal society to that of destitute remnants, on the verge of dying out.” – Georg Pfeffer in Voices from the Periphery: Subalternity and Empowerment in India (Routledge India 2012) A rare collection of essays and different from most … Read more

Tribal culture and society characterised by comparatively high levels of autonomy, equality, and social position of tribal women

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There can be little dispute that the socio-cultural norms, practices, and rituals in the mainstream Hindu tradition subsume a deep ideological repugnance towards gender equality. But this contrasts with the country’s overall tribal culture and society. Indeed, the latter, which has for long been exterior to the patently patriarchal and caste-hierarchical Hindu socio-cultural orbit, is … Read more

India’s tribal cultural heritage – West Bengal

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“The smart boy or clever girl who is deprived of the opportunity of schooling, or who goes to a school with dismal facilities (not to mention the high incidence of absentee teachers), not only loses the opportunities he or she could have had, but also adds to the massive waste of talent that is a … Read more

Adivasis’ profound influence on modern Indian art: “The Triumph of Modernism” by Partha Mitter

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Primitivism in modern Indian art drew on adibasis. […] At Santiniketan, art was to be an integral part of an all-rounded education; Tagore had long considered Abanindranath’s pupil Nandalal [Bose] the best person to give this shape. The triumph of modernism: India’s artists and the avant-garde, 1922-1947 by Partha Mitter (New Delhi, Oxford Unitversity Press, 2007), p. 79 … Read more