ABSTRACT

When Chhattisgarh, with a 32% Adivasi population, was carved out of Madhya Pradesh in the year 2000, the issues of Adivasi identity, a way of life and rights were said to be the moving spirit behind this re-organisation. Today, 15 years down the line, Adivasi lands, livelihoods and even lives are under far greater threat than ever before. This short note explores some aspects of the same from the limited perspective of a human rights lawyer and participant in the anti-displacement movement. What needs to be appreciated is that the life and death struggle of Adivasis all over India for ‘Jal, Junglr, Zameen’ is also the struggle for an ecologically sustainable path of development and the preservation of precious natural resources for the generations to come – indeed the rest of us need to thank these communities for refusing to allow a brutal and myopic paradigm of corporate loot to lead us to destruction.