Abstract

Nationalist and Marxist scholars have dubiously documented and interpreted adivasi political history. While on the one hand they shower accolades on adivasi leaders, on the other they consciously negate any organic political consciousness prevalent among adivasis. Ironic as it may seem, any consciousness or thinking articulated outside the Nationalist and Marxist paradigm is attributed by them as ahistorical or pre-political. Such constructions have not only ethnicised adivasi politics but also led to peripheralisation of adivasi society. Although adivasi mobilisations did contextually manifest at either regional or local levels, most of these struggles reflected a strong sense of political consciousness stemming from within their own concrete conditions. This article is an attempt to challenge the historical invisibilisation of adivasi struggles by Nationalist and Marxist historians, reassemble distorted Nationalist and Marxist constructions of adivasi realities and position rebellious adivasi uprisings within its own organic framework in time and space.

Bhangya Bhukya is Associate Professor, Department of History, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad- 500046 and can be reached at bbhangya@gmail.com

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ENDNOTES

1. Ajay Skaria, Hybrid Histories. Forest, Frontiers and Wildness in Western India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. viii-ix.

2. K. S. Singh, Tribal Movements in India, Vol. I, (New Delhi: Manohar Publication, 1982), pp. ix-xvi.

3. D. N. Dhanagare, ‘Subaltern Consciousness and Populism: Two Approaches in the Study of Social Movements in India’, Social Scientist, Vol. 16, No. 11, November, 1988, pp. 18-35.

4. David Ludden (ed.), Reading Subaltern studies. Critical History, Contested Meaning and the Globalization of South Asia ( London, 2002), introduction, pp. 1-26

5. For example, Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, ed., Rethinking 1857 ( New Delhi: Orient Longman, 2007),1857 Essays From Economic and Political Weekly ( Hyderabad: Orient Longman in association with Sameeksha Trust, 2008), Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Spectre of Violence: The 1857 Kanpur massacres ( New Delhi: Penguin Books, 2007)

6. V. R. Raghavaiah, ‘Background of Tribal Struggles in India’ in A. R. Desai, ed., Peasant Struggle in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1979), p.13.

7. L. N. Rana, ‘The 1857 Uprising and Civil Rebellion in Jharkhand’ in Bhattacharya, ed., Rethinking 1857, p. 70.

8. A.R.N. Srivastava, Tribal Freedom Fighters of India (New Delhi: Publications Division, Government of Indi, 1986), p. 34-37.

9. K. S. Singh, Birsa Munda and His Movement 1874-1901: A Study of a Millenarian Movement in Chotanagpur (Calcutta: Oxford university Press, 1983), p. 3.

10. Singh, Birsa Munda, p. 202.

11. K.S. Singh,Jawaharlal Nehru, Tribes and Tribal Policy (Calcutta: Anthropological Survey of India, 1989) , p.130

12. David Arnold, ‘Rebellious Hillmen: The Gudem-Rampa Risings 1839-1924’ in Ranajit Guha, ed. Subaltern Studies I Writings on South Asian History and Society ( New Delhi: Oxford University Press,), pp. 88-89.

13. M. Venkatarangaiya, The Freedom Struggle in Andhra Pradesh (Andhra), Vol. 4, (Hyderabad: The State Committee Appointed for the Compilation of a history of the Freedom Struggle in A.P, 1965).

14. Arnold, ‘Rebellious Hillmen’, pp. 94-95.

15. Ibid., pp. 88-142.

16. V. Raghavaiah, ‘Sreerama Raju’s Uprising 1922-24’, Desai, ed., Peasant Struggles in India, p .302

17. For a detailed debate see Murali Atluri, ‘Alluri Sitarama Raju and the Manyam Rebellion of 1922-24’ Social Scientist, Vol. 12, No. 4, April, 1984, pp. 3-33; David Arnold, ‘Sitarama Raju’s Rebellion: A Response’, Social Scientist, Vol.13, No. 4, April, 1985, pp. 44-49; Murali Atluri, ‘Manyam Rebellion: A Rejoinder’ Social Scientist, Vol. 13, No. 4, April, 1985, pp. 50-56.

18. Atluri, ‘Alluri Sitarama Raju’, pp. 3-33.

19. Arnold, ‘Sitarama Raju’s Rebellion’, p. 47.

20. Bhangya Bhukya, ‘The Eternal Colonial Legacy: Adivasis and Land Assertion in Andhra Agency’ in Dev Nathan and Virginious Xaxa (eds.), Social Exclusion, Adverse Inclusion and Beyond: From Deprivation to development of Adivasis in India (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012), pp. 66-80.

21. Arnold, ‘Sitarama Raju’s Rebellion’, p. 44.

22. Arnold, ‘Sitarama Raju’s Rebellion’, p. 45.

23. D. N. Dhanagare, Peasant Movements in India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1991), pp. 1-10

24. Dhanagare, Peasant Movements in India, pp. 13-19

25. Arnold, ‘Rebellious Hillmen, p. 141.

26. N. Y. Naidu, ‘Tribal Revolt in Parvatipuram Agency’, Economic and Political Weekly, Vol. 7, No. 25, November 25, 1972, pp. 2337-2344.

27. Bhangya Bhukya, ‘Colonisation of Forest and Emergence of Gond Nationalism in Hyderabad State’ Itihasa, Vol. XXX, No. 1 &2, January-December, 2004, pp. 59-79.

28. K. Balagopal, ‘Indravelli 1985’ Economic and Political Weekly Vol. 20, No. 21, May 25, 1985, pp. 906-907.

29. Alpa Shah, ‘Religion and the Secular Left: Subaltern Studies, Birsa Munda and Moaists,’ www.aotcpress.com/author/alpa-shah/ 13/01/2014.

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