ABSTRACT
The chapter provides the history of developmental politics in India since its independence. This important chapter sets the scene for the book. This chapter analyses the early days of India's independence when the Constitution was being framed to dissect the debates surrounding the question of land and citizenship. By focusing on the three themes of analysis – land, law, and progress – this book highlights that despite the Indian government accusing the British of subjugating the Adivasis, the newly formed government of independent-India continued the same rhetoric in post-colonial India. In the name of ‘national interest’ the government of India continued to exert its coercive hand to dispossess the Adivasis from their land, who in the government's opinion were considered to be ‘backward’, and therefore needed the government's ‘paternal’ guidance to prosper and grow.
