ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the leadership, ideology and organization of Shramik Sanghatana and Bhoomi Sena. The organizational emphasis in the movements is on collective, democratic decision-making and an avoidance of hierarchy. In 1969 a local, high-school educated adivasi who worked with the Sarvodaya organization, Ambarsingh Suratvanti, tried to interest a variety of local officials in the exploitation and beatings the adivasis experienced at the hands of the landowners. Several facts about the organization of Shramik Sanghatana are striking, Although primarily active among tribal landless labor and tribal poor peasants, efforts were also made from the outset to organize the local non-tribal poor as well. Shramik Sanghatana raised a variety of issues that were keenly felt on the local level, but which often had statewide importance. The activities of Shramik Sanghatana received press coverage from a number of journals and newspapers and this clearly added power to their efforts.
