ABSTRACT
Adivasis have seen all too clearly what happens to displaced communities. Promises they are invariably given of ‘development’ – indicating a better standard of living – are invariably broken. As many as a quarter of India’s Scheduled Tribe population have been displaced in the name of development. In many ways, this is a modern form of human sacrifice for the false gods of fake development. The motivating force is developers’ greed for money. When Adivasis say ‘We cannot eat money’, this flies in the face of mainstream understanding. ‘Educated’ people need to wake up to the simultaneous destruction of sustainable communities and the ecosystems that support life on earth. Adivasi movements against imposed industrialisation are a clarion call for a transformation in modern life and policy before it’s too late.
