ABSTRACT
This chapter is an examination of how indigenous people politics is embedded within the politics and imagination of the nation. In India, it is members of the tribal communities who have become to be referred to as indigenous people. From the time of colonial rule, tribes were more or less put under administrative isolation from the dominant mainstream society, and there has been no serious effort to involve them in the anti-colonial movements. Colonial rule to the tribes marked the loss of their autonomy that was further accentuated by the increasing penetration of non-tribals in their areas. Although India has emerged as a nation, it was faced with many challenges. In fact, the division of the country into India and Pakistan on the eve of independence was a result of such challenges and contradictions. Those challenges continue to plague India even today and pose questions about its identity as a nation. This chapter takes the idea of the nation and engages with it in the context of the indigenous people in India. The chapter demonstrates that tribes were persistent in their demand for self-rule against colonial and post-colonial state. The struggle for self-rule is the underlying unity that informs tribal struggles across different regions in India. What tribals seek through such demand was the recognition of their rights over their land and identity and the right to self-govern. Autonomy movements for the tribes in a sense represent an expression of the larger question of national identity articulation of tribes.
