This book explores tribal land alienation problems in India and tribal agitation against land encroachment and alienation. It discusses India’s tribal land problem and explains how despite legislation to protect tribal lands, the problem has not been resolved since neither the letter nor the spirit of the law has been implemented. Due to continuous land encroachment and alienation by outsiders, the negligence of the revenue administration and the apathy of the central and state government, the situation concerning tribal land in the country have became precarious. In this context, the book highlights the process of land estrangement among the tribes and the related movements, focusing on the Narayanpatna land movement in the Koraput district of Odisha. It argues that land remains a central issue that is extremely important for tribes as it directly affects their life, livelihood, freedom and development, and that the cultural attachment of tribes and their views regarding the idea of ‘place’ (land) furnishes crucial perspectives in understanding the politics of collective resistance. It also discusses the politicization of group identity and material interest against the outside authority as the basis of the unrest among the tribes, and when the grudges of the people are hardened due to insensitivity and tyranny, the extent of tribal resistance escalates, leading to conflict between the state and its own people. Given its scope, this book is a valuable resource for students and research scholars, as well as for policymakers and anyone interested in Indian democracy and development in general, and tribal problems, issues and politics in particular.

Contributed articles presented at the two-day national seminar, Social Movements in Tribal India, organized by the Rajiv Gandhi Chair in Contemporary Studies, Barkatullah University, during March 21-22, 2014.

Contributed articles presented at the National Conference organized by Department of History, Mahila College, Chaibasa on 7-8 March, 2008 sponsored by UGC Eastern Regional Office, Kolkata.

Social movements hasn't been a popular topic with researchers, making up less than 3 per cent of all studies in history, political science, sociology and anthropology sponsored by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) up to the mid-nineties. The research has had an 'institutional' or 'government' skew, in that, the study of the politics of the masses has been largely ignored. There are reasons of history behind this, but what has been consistently lost sight of is the fact that in the absence of an understanding of the politics of the masses, the functioning of the state can be understood only partially. This volume is a revised and enlarged edition of the author's review of literature on social movements in India, first commissioned by the ICSSR. After careful deliberation on the 'ideal' definition of a 'social movement', the author adopts for this volume the loose idea of 'non-institutionalised collective political action striving for social and political change'. On the basis of the socio-economic characteristics of participants and the issues involved, this volume makes a nine-fold classification of social movements: peasant movements, tribal movements, dalit movements, backward caste movements, women's movements, working class movements, students' movements, middle class movements and human rights and environmental movements (added in this edition). This book is important as much for filling a scholarly lacuna in social science studies as for proposing--and executing--an orderly classification of literature on social movements in modern India. The original, shorter, monograph received an enthusiastic response from both scholars and laypersons, and this volume is likely to be welcomed similarly.