ABSTRACT
The chapter seeks to bring to focus some key issues pertaining to the survival realities of the labouring poor among tribal populations residing in the eco geographies of the central Indian Adivasi region. The discussion is located in a context of the distress in the rural and the “exclusionary” urban, a differentiated urbanization that is becoming increasingly characterized by incursions into the rural and a dispossession of the rural population. The chapter looks at the conditions under which migration takes place from rural areas while also examining the fact that these conditions have got exacerbated as capitalist “development” spreads its reach to source labour from rural areas and as rural and urban inequalities deepen.
