ABSTRACT
In a state such as Odisha in which Dalit and tribal groups constitute about 40 per cent of the total population, the issue of ‘access’ to land and resources has apparently been central to all conflicts. For traditional communities, ‘access’ is directly linked to civilisational paradigms and cultural ethos, which rather decide their ‘economics’, and not the other way around that may be true for modern, techno-centric civilisations. Subrat and Mamata emphasised cultural genocide and economic colonisation of Adivasis as the first stage of appropriating their resources. Most mainstream discourses of history have, however, tried to locate the crisis in the ‘absence of appropriate state interventions’. But, a dig into the social history points to deeper roots of the crisis - cultural appropriation leading to dispossession and deprivation - which rather intensified after the entry of the ‘welfare’ state. The chapter attempts to establish linkages between marginalisation of traditional communities and the growing political articulation of the same groups in myriad ways and methods, keeping in the heart of the argument the less-talked-about processes of ‘cultural appropriation’.
