ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the fuzziness of the term ‘adivasi’, and provides the reader to compare and contrast different instances of adivasi politics in contemporary India. Adivasi communities in contemporary India are fissured along the lines of class, gender, and generation, and their claims on the state differ accordingly. Adivasi–state relations in contemporary India follow pre-existing patterns of negotiation and accommodation. Sarna activism has been, however, upstaged by the proselytizing work done by right-wing Hindu organizations in the heart of contemporary India. Adivasi youth, like their counterparts elsewhere in contemporary India, are steadily moving away from farm labour to take up non-farm livelihoods and work in cities. When, for example, adivasi women migrate to Delhi or Mumbai as maids, they find themselves as breadwinners for the first time with all the risks attendant upon this role as they seek to supplement their rural household incomes.
