In Adivasis and the State, Alf Gunvald Nilsen presents a major study of how subalternity is both constituted and contested through state-society relations in the Bhil heartland of western India. The book unravels the historical processes that subordinated Bhil Adivasi communities to the everyday tyranny of the state and investigates how social movements have mobilised to reclaim citizenship. In doing so, the book also reveals how collective action from below transform the meanings of governmental categories, legal frameworks, and universalising vocabularies (...) of democracy. At the core of the book lies a concern with understanding the dialectics of power and resistance that give form and direction to the political economy of democracy and development in contemporary India. Towards this end, Adivasis and the State contributes a sustained and nuanced Gramscian analysis of hegemony in order to interrogate the possibilities and limits of subaltern political engagement with state structures. (shrink)

This review is about a book by an Indian Institute of Technology graduate, Rahul Banerjee recounting his experiences of leaving a lucrative career to work among the bhils, tribals of Madhya Pradesh, India. This book talks about the cultural and social invasion going on in the name of civilisation.

Engaging Polanyi’s embeddedness–disembeddedness framework, this study explored the work experiences of Bhil children employed in Indian Bt cottonseed GPNs. The innovative visual technique of drawings followed by interviews was used. Migrant children, working under debt bondage, underwent greater exploitation and perennial and severe depersonalized bullying, indicative of commodification of labour and disembeddedness. In contrast, children working in their home villages were not under debt bondage and underwent less exploitation and occasional and mild depersonalized bullying, indicative of how civil society organizations, (...) along with the state, attempt to re-embed economic activities in the social context. Polanyi’s double movement was evident. ‘Place’ emerged as the pivotal factor determining children’s experiences. A ‘protective alliance’ of community controls and social power, associated with in-group affiliations and cohesive ties, stemming from a common village and tribal identity, aided children working at home for Bhil farmers. ‘Asymmetric intergroup inequality’ due to pronounced social identity and class differences, coupled with locational constraints and developmental disadvantage, made migrant children vulnerable targets. Social embeddedness influences how child workers are treated because it forces employers to be ethical and not engage in bullying. However, by shifting production to children’s home villages, there is an attempt to obscure the difference between child labour and child work. Thus, the seeds of disembeddedness are sown through the very act of re-embeddeding, potentially hampering future interventions. (shrink)

Annotation Does nature worship inspire Hindus to act in an environmentally conscious way? This book explores the above question with three communities, the Swadhyaya movement, the Bishnoi, and the Bhil communities.

In this article I trace the events around a murder case in the regions inhabited by the Bhils in Southern Rajasthan. The case involves two of the most important political families in the region. The manner in which the case is addressed reveals how panchayats, or village councils that mediate “customary” practices of blood money negotiations, impact police and court practices and how disputes are addressed through interactions between tribal leaders, police officers, lawyers, and magistrates. The case also demonstrates (...) how everyday legal practices make visible political affiliations, loyalties, and associations among tribal leaders, and reveal shifts that have taken place in the local formations of power and authority. (shrink)

In this article I trace the events around a murder case in the regions inhabited by the Bhils in Southern Rajasthan. The case involves two of the most important political families in the region. The manner in which the case is addressed reveals how panchayats, or village councils that mediate “customary” practices of blood money negotiations, impact police and court practices and how disputes are addressed through interactions between tribal leaders, police officers, lawyers, and magistrates. The case also demonstrates (...) how everyday legal practices make visible political affiliations, loyalties, and associations among tribal leaders, and reveal shifts that have taken place in the local formations of power and authority. (shrink)