00:00 Outlook brings to you excerpts from its latest issue titled 'Adivasi' or 'The Earliest Inhabitants'.
00:07 This issue of Outlook looks at the politics of appropriation and resistance in the wake of recent
00:13 developments in the states like Jharkhand and the Union Territory of Ladakh. With the general
00:19 elections due this year, it remains to be seen how the Adivasis, who form more than 8% of the total
00:27 population, participate and how the identity politics shape up in the future. In the introduction,
00:35 editor Chinky Sinha writes, "Jal Jangal Jameen. To separate the Adivasi from his land is to stop
00:42 his breathing. If you want to see an Adivasi's extinction, take him away from his land, as it is
00:49 happening at present." Author and tribal activist Ram Dayal Munda. "The tribal people should be
00:55 helped to grow according to their genius and tradition." Late Prime Minister Jawaharlal
01:01 Nehru. "We are the disciples and worshippers of tribals who made Lord Ram Purushottam Ram."
01:08 Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "Adivasis were never Hindus and they will never be." Former
01:14 Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren. Alongside the Jai Shri Ram slogan that has mobilised many
01:21 Hindus and means victory of Lord Ram, asserting the Hindu nation's identity since the 1980s,
01:28 yet another slogan, "Jal Jangal Jameen", coined by Gond Adivasi leader Komaram Bheem,
01:35 much earlier, has been gaining prominence. The politics of indigeneity has become stronger in
01:41 recent times with the passing of the resolution in 2020 in Jharkhand to include Sarna, a separate
01:49 religion of the indigenous people, in the census. Former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren was
01:56 recently arrested over a land scam case by the Directorate of Enforcement. Soon after he became
02:02 the Chief Minister in 2019, the first decision taken by his party was to drop the cases against
02:09 the accused in the 2017-18 Pathalgadi movement, a practice where Adivasis erect stone plaques
02:18 to honour their dead was used to raise awareness about the provisions of the Panchayat Extension
02:24 to Schedule Areas Act (PESA) by inscribing the provisions of the Act on these plaques.
02:30 It was an effort to empower people in the FIP schedule areas about their legal and constitutional
02:36 rights. More than 75 FIRs were registered in Khunti against those who led the movement. Almost
02:43 10,000 unknowns under the BJP government were opposing the proposed amendments to the Chota
02:49 Nagpur Tenancy Act and the Santhal Parganas Tenancy Act. Soren has since become the face of
02:56 the Adivasi rights movement and identity politics. With protests happening across the country by the
03:03 indigenous people demanding recognition of their economic, political and cultural rights,
03:09 the old debate over appropriation of Adivasi community by the Hindu nationalists and Christian
03:16 missionaries has once again come to the forefront and now with more rigour and force than before.
03:22 It was in the 1940s that the political right raised the issue of conversions by Christian
03:28 missionaries that led to the Neogi Committee report which banned the work of Christian missionaries
03:34 in the FIP schedule areas like Jharkhand. They also paved the way for the RSS to form Vanvasi
03:40 Kalyan Parishad in the early 1950s to mainstream the indigenous people and to the eventual
03:47 acceptance of the RSS by the Adivasi community. Then came the Ghar Wapsi campaign in the 1970s
03:55 and 1980s to project an inclusive political Hindu nationalism, alongside the movement by the
04:02 Adivasi community against the hegemonic identity has gained prominence and the resistance movements
04:08 have mobilized many across India. For instance, after the abrogation of Article 317 Jammu and
04:15 Kashmir that led to the reorganizing of the state into Jammu and Kashmir, a union territory with
04:21 legislature and Ladakh as union territory. There has been a growing demand in Ladakh by the people
04:28 that the center must ensure that their culture, identity and land rights are secured in the face
04:35 of an increasing thrust on development. Ladakhis are now demanding that Ladakh be declared a tribal
04:42 area under the sixth schedule of the constitution. The schedule tribes were first notified in 1950.
04:49 Since then, they have been projected and seen as those who have low literacy rates and are backward,
04:55 a term that is often contested by the indigenous groups saying the so-called development has made
05:02 them poorer and marginalized. They are also considered primitive, which is also being
05:07 questioned by the community saying that confers on them a savage like identity, a colonial construct
05:14 and not much has changed after independence for them. The industrial development proposed,
05:20 promoted and implemented by the BJP led government now faces resistance from the indigenous people
05:26 who are fighting for the right to self-determination of their cultural,
05:30 social and religious systems that are not being recognized. This issue of outlook looks at the
05:36 politics of appropriation and resistance in the wake of recent developments in the states like
05:42 Jharkhand and in the union territory of Ladakh. With the general elections due this year,
05:48 it remains to be seen how the adivasis who form more than 8% of the total population
05:54 participate and how the identity politics shapes up in the future.
05:59 For this and more, read the latest issue of Outlook.
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