#Adivasi Day

[vibe2825]

9th August "Adivasi Divas"

[townpostin]

Jamshedpur Celebrates World Tribal Day with Colorful Events

Diverse tribal communities showcase rich cultural heritage at Gopal Maidan Jamshedpur marks World Tribal Day with vibrant celebrations, empowering indigenous youth as agents of change. JAMSHEDPUR – Jamshedpur observed World Tribal Day on Friday with a series of colorful and diverse events celebrating the rich cultural heritage of the region’s indigenous communities. The Adivasi Chhatra Ekta…

[sandeepjamuda]

[shehzadi]

so far, nearly 3 weeks on from the inauguration of ram mandir, indian authorities have demolished as many masjids and/or madrasas.

30.01.24 - akhoonji masjid & madrasa in delhi, also destroying a cemetery, shrine and all the students’ belongings in the process.

01.02.24 - a madrasa in maharashtra despite facing opposition from local muslims and one day before its scheduled court appeal.

08.02.24 - a masjid & madrasa in uttarakhand. this comes one day after uttarakhand became the first state to pass the uniform civil code (x, x) which aims to apply a ‘hindu code’ to all indians, infringing on the rights of dalits, adivasis, sikhs, christians, buddhists and muslims (i.e. anybody non-hindu) to practice their religion/lifestyle. muslim women protesting the demolition were lathi-charged (beaten with sticks) by police, a shoot-on-sight order was given resulting in 6 muslims killed and 300+ injured in the riots that followed, a curfew was put in place during which hindutva mobs burned down muslim homes and businesses while shouting abuse at muslims.

as always, no prior notice was given and bjp used it’s gold-standard excuse for each demolition, citing ‘illegal encroachment’.

in addition to these masjid demolitions, indian authorities bulldozed 2 neighbourhoods (ghettos, really) in the same timeframe and also without prior notice:

01.02.24 - jasola slum, which, having been around for at least 16 years, should not have been demolished without providing alternative housing, as the delhi slum policy states for slums which came up before 2015. obviously, housing hasn’t been provided.

06.02.24 - panchsheel nagar in mumbai which, having been around since 2011, entitled residents to paid rehabilitation, which has also not been given. this has left over 110 families homeless.

the demographic of both neighbourhoods, surprise surprise, is overwhelmingly muslim, buddhist and dalit.

bjp is enjoying the cover it is receiving from israel’s genocide in palestine to do whatever it wants and is getting bolder by the day. this ‘bulldozer justice’ has been happening for years, but not at such a rapid rate as it is now.

[artcinemas]

"caste based politics" and its just dalits and adivasis trying to survive in a patriarchal casteist society that bootlicks a genocide enabler where every progressing day resembles more to a fucking hunger games dystopia ☠️

[tiredguyswag]

the thing is, most people in this country aren’t idiots. a lot of people i know think BJP can do better, are aware that the ram mandir was a vote tactic, etc etc. hell i had a conversation with my (sanghi) dad the other day where he said that modi isn’t even that good, he was just a really good speaker and knew how to make the public fall for him. but one thing everyone unanimously agrees on is that he’s better than all the other options.

and so it stays that way. BJP keeps winning because “they’re better than Congress”. the status quo is maintained by people who either benefit from it or are not very affected by it.

BJP has a few flaws which can be easily overlooked by them. and as per usual, indian queer people, dalits, adivasis, and anyone who isn’t a savarna hindu are just collateral damage. it’s easy to forget about them if you turn your head the other way.

[fatehbaz]

The “khoai” is the name colloquially given to [...] landmasses in and around the Chotanagpur Plateau in eastern India. Rich in iron oxide, these [...] soils are marked by a rugged and often undulating topography, resulting from millennia of erosion from monsoon rains, the many winding rivers that populate the region and action of winds from summer thunderstorms, popularly termed in Bengali as “Kalboishakhi.” The winds and the rains of the kalboishakhi dance across the lands adjoining the Bay of Bengal, often arriving at the horizon with ominous dark clouds right before sunset. [...]

The khoai is a charismatic frontier in an ongoing conversation within South Asian developmentalist imaginaries that call for optimal land use for the purposes of economic growth. [...] As the lateritic soil of the region is not suited for intensive agriculture, efforts have been made to make vast sections of the region arable [...]. And so, slowly, the red soils get taken over the green [...]. This is often done by breaking gullies and hoodoo-like structures [...] to flatten the lands [...]. The ongoing project to turn such “deserts” green has a long history. Yet alongside these projects, is the place that the khoai have in the literary, cultural, and spiritual imagination of many [...] that inhabit the Chotanagpur Plateau. The vastly open and hilly topography, dotted with sal forests [...] has often been the fodder for songs of longing [...]. The horizon of the sky meeting the red gullies of the badlands also form many a narrative that appear in local folk songs and stories. [...] They have also been sites of community-based agroforestry.

---

Recently, such badlands have been termed unproductive in and around my hometown of Santiniketan, India.

As South Asian developmental imaginaries wholly absorb the understanding of terra nullius from modern Euro-American conceptions of land, the idea that “badlands” are necessarily “wastelands” become cemented. Once beloved [...], the dark brown-red hoodoos and gullies today are seen as wasted potential that are depriving the public of much-needed resources, and the possibility of the coming of civilization in accordance with upper-caste aspirations. Khoai today have become sites for proposed plantations facilitated by local forestry authorities, holiday homes and cafes [...], luxury resorts [...].

The ethos of invoking terra nullius has travelled into discourses surrounding “practicality” and the absolute necessity for villagers and small town folks in the area to be saved by their urban-dwelling upper caste counterparts [...] who are interested in their cultural practices, seemingly idyllic agricultural lifeways and the simplicity away from the stresses of cities such as Kolkata. But in this framework, the imaginaries of development are necessarily embedded in compulsory extraction, whether that be of cultural economies, minerals, timber, or land for development. [...]

[B]adlands get turned into places that need saving from being “wasted” by the carelessness and unimaginative shortsightedness of villagers and Adivasis, who are simply seen as ill-equipped to deal with the progression of the global economy.

These days, it is hard to find a piece of the “khoai” that has not been subjected to projects of agriculture, forestry, or have been subjugated to [...] property ownership [...]. As the figures of the plantation and its attendant cultures of enclosure and theft of commons creep into places previously overlooked by the tentacles of global extractive forces, many, if not most khoai areas are mobilized to be “redeemed” into productive little plots legible to capital.

I have to wonder about the processes of consent and negotiation that have informed such projects. [...] These areas were in the past predominantly inhabited by Adivasis or Indigenous peoples of India, who had resisted the [...] hierarchies [...].

Badlands such as the “khoai” present a challenge to capitalist imaginaries because they defy its temporalities and its compulsion to make all aspects of being productive and legible to exchanges that foster logics of uninhibited growth. [...]

What, then, does it mean to care for wastelands? [...]

What histories are paved over by concrete? What does development mean in places where inequality is still rife, but there are shiny new roads? What does a future look like, where we can let badlands and “wastelands” just be, as part of ecological and cultural commons?

---

Text by: Aadita Chaudhury. "Caring for Badlands". The Otter, Network in Canadian History and Environment (NiCHE). Emotional Ecologies series. Ed. Jessica M. DeWitt and Sarah E. York-Bertram. 14 July 2023. [Photography by Aadita Chaudhury, included in the original article. Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me.]

[metamatar]

have you read the incarcerations by alpa shah?

Its about Bhima Koregaon and its aftermath! I will read it, thank you. Blurb from Harper Collins –

The Incarcerations pulls back the curtain on Indian democracy to tell the remarkable and chilling story of the Bhima Koregaon case, in which 16 human rights defenders (the BK-16) – professors, lawyers, journalists, poets – have been imprisoned, without credible evidence and without trial, as Maoist terrorists.

Alpa Shah unravels how these alleged terrorists were charged with inciting violence at a year’s day commemoration in 2018, accused of waging a war against the Indian state, and plotting to kill the Indian Prime Minister, Narendra Modi. Expertly leading us through the case, Shah exposes some of the world’s most shocking revelations of cyber warfare research, which show not only hacking of emails and mobile phones of the BK-16, but also implantation of the electronic evidence that was used to incarcerate them. Through the life histories of the BK-16, Shah dives deep into the issues they fought for and tells the story of India’s three main minorities – Adivasi, Dalits and Muslims – and what the search for democracy entails for them.

[timetravellingkitty]

Tbh anon, about the indigenous thing- it’s not about who’s more indigenous and such- it’s about the rights these people have. It’s just important to understand the history behind Brahmins, the fact that they’re outsiders who placed themselves in the position of superiority. And in present day, a lot of people who are minorities/indigenous - Adivasis - are oppressed by the government. So, while I don’t think it’s right to try and evaluate who gets more rights by when their ancestors inhabited India- it’s important to understand how these people historically came to be in the situation that they are now in. (If that makes sense! Sorry if I worded it wrong 😭)

no no you're right and you should say it

[vyyom]

Let's talk about what happened in the week of fucking Indian Independence Day.

I will share the extreme details only if you want me to because they are too gruesome.

"A case was registered on 11th of August when the accused allegedly posted the video of the actual on an online platform." - the 11-yo girl was raped in Ballia, UP.

On the 12th of August, a 3.5-yo nursery student was raped by the school bus driver in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand.

Priyanka Hansda, a 25-yo Adivasi girl, from Bardhaman, WB, was raped (speculated) and murdered between 12th-14th August. She went missing on 12th and her body was found on 14th.

Ankita Barui, a student of Bardhaman University, was returning home after taking part in the 'Claim the Night' March for the late Dr. Moumita. Ankita was raped and brutally murdered on her way home.

In Bihar's Muzaffarpur, a 9th grade student was gang-raped and murdered. The details, too horrendous.

Yesterday, a 7-yo little girl was raped at Nabinchandra Das Road. She used to read in class 1. Her rapist is 'Gourango Bose'. He is now scott-free, even though he was accused and guilty.

Yesterday, two female students from Heritage Law College were molested by an employee of the Geological Survey of India at Allen Park. Police has nabbed the man and he is currently in jail.

Yesterday, a nurse was brutally murdered and raped in Uttarakhand. She was missing from 30th July and after a week, her body was found in an empty plot.

Apart from all these horrific cases in just one week, there are ongoing mob attacks on NRS, Jadavpur, RG Kar and various other student groups.

The men saying 'Not All Men', kindly shut the fuck up. This is not about you. You all will always benefit from the patriarchal society. Unless you know the fear of women, shut the fuck up.

Also this woman. Does she think paying 10L will be a solution. Fuck off CM.

All the other celebs defending this situation, crawl back to the hole u came from.

[sivavakkiyar]

Mayurkola has been in the news since July 28. Speaking to reporters that day, Asha Lakra, a Bharatiya Janata Party politician and member of the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes, listed it as one of the nine panchayats in Sahibganj where a total of ten Adivasi women elected representatives were married to “Bangladeshi infiltrators, Rohingya Muslims”.

While Lakra did not name any of the women, she did mention the posts they held – eight mukhiyas, including of Mayurkola, one panchayat samiti member and a zilla parishad chairperson.

Lakra was echoing what her party colleague and member of parliament, Nishikant Dubey, had said on the floor of the Lok Sabha. In his speech on July 25, Dubey had alleged that “Bangladeshi infiltrators” were marrying Adivasi women to grab their land and property, and to use them as proxies to gain power in the Santhal Pargana, the northeastern region of Jharkhand, traditionally home to the Santal Adivasi community. Dubey had claimed, without evidence, that 100 Adivasi women mukhiyas were married to Muslims.

His claims, meanwhile, echoed what Union Home Minister Amit Shah had said at a meeting of the BJP’s Jharkhand unit on July 20. Shah alleged that “thousands of infiltrators” were marrying Adivasi women to “obtain certificates and buy land”. Labelling this as “love jihad and land jihad”, the home minister claimed this was leading to changes in the demographic of the state.

Scroll travelled to Sahibganj to investigate the claims emanating from the highest rungs of India’s ruling party. Since Lakra was the only BJP leader who had cited specific evidence in support of her contentions, we used her list of nine panchayats as a starting point.

Scroll found that in four of the 10 cases, Lakra’s claims of Adivasi women being married to Muslim men were outright false. Three of the women had Adivasi husbands. The fourth, Kapra Tudu, had married outside the Adivasi community, but her husband, Nitin Saha, is Hindu, not Muslim.

In six cases, where Adivasi women panchayat leaders were indeed married to Muslims, all of them told us they had married out of choice. “The Indian constitution gives us the freedom to marry whom we please,” one of them said.

Lakra’s claim that the men who married these women had done so to take over their land rings hollow in light of the fact that none of the women had inherited any familial land.

[townpostin]

Jharkhand Celebrates Tribal Heritage at Adivasi Mahotsav 2024

CM Soren highlights tribal struggles for rights and cultural preservation Jharkhand’s rich tribal culture and history take center stage at the Adivasi Mahotsav 2024 in Ranchi. RANCHI – Chief Minister Hemant Soren inaugurated the ‘Adivasi Mahotsav-2024’ in Ranchi, emphasizing the tribal community’s long struggle for their rights and cultural preservation. The festival coincides with the…

[h2-so-4]

AIT or Aryan Invasion Theory (debunked): A superior "race" of white, horse-riding Aryans invaded the areas of the inferior and primitive Indus Valley population, which included the Dravidians (but actually no one said that the IVC was a pure, dark-skinned Dravidian civilization so idk where that idea came from), and civilized them.

AMT or Aryan Migration Theory: A group of usually horse and chariot-riding nomads and pastoralists usually called the Aryans migrated from the Indo-Iranian region to India and mingled PEACEFULLY with the population of the late Indus Valley population (who were already highly advanced, as we know), by which time the IVC was beginning to collapse, possibly due to change of climate and rain patterns (still not sure yet), and hence the people were abandoning these settlements spreading across the subcontinent. These Indo-Aryans on arriving mixed with this population and shared their genetics, art and culture with each other, which led to the introduction of Sanskrit and Vedic culture in India.

To any leftist who keep regurgitating the former busted myth, please stop. You look stupid. And to any rightist who keep using AMT as AIT to debunk it, they're not the same. These two theories have a sky-ground difference.

The previous one makes Aryans look evil. That they were some high-level royalty who invaded India. But, in fact, they were regular people, regular migrants, just how every migration used to happen 3000-4000 years ago. Like I said, most of them were nomadic settlers.

Sure, later on, the varna system came into existence and this was the beginning of a hierarchical structure in India for the first time (since during the IVC there wasn't any sort of social hierarchy according to current sources). But who's to say it was ONLY the Aryans? Remember. They're NOT a race. They're a particular group of people. And by the time the varna system was introduced already a hell lotta intermixing had happened. Hence it wasn't JUST the Aryans (history and especially anthropological and genetic history is not that black and white LMFAO), because it was a term for 'noble', not some kinda "righteous clan" or something. Idk why people keep thinking of it as a race lol. I thought that was already debunked with the AIT.

As for the indigeneity of the Aryans, technically no one is indigenous. Many of the adivasi and non-adivasi tribes came AFTER the Indus Valley Civilization. So the "who came first" logic doesn't really work at all. (There might've been many that came before as well, who knows. Point is, again, it's all a migration salad at the end of the day)

adjective

indigenous (adjective)

originating or occurring naturally in a particular place; native:

This is the Google definition of indigenous. If we take THIS into account, there would be SEVERAL groups of people involved, instead of just one, like the IVC people, a few of the oldest nomadic tribes, mixed Indo-Aryans, etc. But I'm not gonna call ANYONE indigenous, or not indigenous. Because guess what, none of the humans are really indigenous to any place apart from the African continent. Also the Aryan migration led to the rise of a LOT of genetic subgroups, which was a key factor in leading to the most confusing anthropological history of the Indian subcontinent. It has a fuck ton of genetic markers and groups and subgroups, it's wildly confusing and historians are still trying to figure out every kind of intermixing that has happened. So STOP fighting over who is indigenous or not LMAO. Because guess what, we can never truly assert the indigeneity of a migrant species such as humans. (Yes we do call Native Americans the indigenous people of Americas, or the aboriginals the indigenous people of Australia and the Australasian archipelago, but they were also migrants at some point of time. Now before anyone says I'm disregarding the indigeneity of these groups, I'm not. All I'm saying is that we shouldn't CARE who's indigenous and who's not, because unlike the case of Americas and the Australasian islands, Aryans didn't INVADE India. They were simply another set of migrants, JUST like the IVC people, who also came from the middle-eastern region, and JUST like the adivasi tribes, who migrated from mostly the African and Australasian regions, probably, not sure again.)

I'll link the genetic studies done below because they explain it all way better than I can (and these research papers may also correct some of the incorrect statements I might've unnoticeably or ignorantly made in my own paragraphs so yeah):

Hence, at the end of the day, idk why we're banging our heads on the walls over ONE SIMPLE MIGRATION, which was NOTHING DIFFERENT THAN ANY OTHER MIGRATION. Migrations happen ALL THE TIME. Get over it, BOTH the sides of the political wings, and live in harmony lmao. The Aryans and Dravidians AREN'T RACES. They were just certain groups of REGULAR ass people jeez.

History is a complex subject, and the more evidence we find, the more we would know about our past. I have literally nothing against any of the political wings, but I do want to keep the current theories (which are NOT synonymous to hypotheses btw) and facts straight. I'm once again not saying these facts will never change, because that's not how history works. Maybe in the future, we might find out something completely different about India's past. But remember, whenever we talk about our country's past, we should keep it unbiased, unopinionated, and definitely factual and objective, without including our own views (both political and personal) into it. Interpretations? Sure. But they should remain at ONLY interpretations at best, and only the solid evidences should be claimed as facts.

[cryingatships]

Thank for the tag @tellmetheskyisblue!! <333

Last Song: Jeff Satur's Ghost. It's just so addicting >.>

Favorite Color: Changes all the time, but recently it's pale blue and green. The spring's getting to me XD

Last Movie/TV Show: Lotr rewatch for movies, and 23.5 for shows

Sweet/Spicy/Savory: Savory!! (I'll also sneak in an ice cream cause it's wayyy too hot here rn and i'm very much craving one)

Relationship Status: In an unrequited (??) crush situation ≧ ﹏ ≦

Last Thing Googled: Nut Supanat (I just wanted to show this pretty boi's face to a friend ok!!)

Current Obsession: Having multiple existential crises through the day. And opening my Pit Babe fic wips, writing a sentence, and deleting it immediately (come back my fic writing skills i miss youuu 😭😭😭)

Last Book: The Adivasi Will Not Dance by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar (Does readings for college count?)

Looking Forward To: some to-be-released beloved shows aka This Love Doesn't Have Long Beans, Next Prince and Pit Babe gang's other series' announcements. Hopefully these can get me out of the show-watching rut I've fallen in these days

Tagging @valentinaonthemoon, @acingthecounts, @boysslove, @doyou000me, @ohanny, @supanuts, @le-trash-prince (no pressure tho!) and everyone who wants to join in!!

[clairdespoon]

non-fiction i'd like to read in 2024

The Audacity of Pleasure: Sexuality, Literature and Cinema in India

The Scenes We Made: An Oral History of Experimental theatre in mumbai

Life At Play: a Girish Karnad Memoir

Citizen Gallery: The Gandhys Of Chemould And The Birth Of Modern Art In Bombay

Delirious City: Polity And Vanity In Urban India

Modernism/Murderism: The Modern Art Debate in Kumar

Syllabus: Notes from an Accidental Professor

Urban Kitsch

Being Mortal: Medicines And What Matters In The End

Other Minds (Collins Modern Classics)

Seeking Begumpura

My Friend, My Enemy: Essays, Reminiscences, Portraits

In the Making: Identity Formation In South Asia

A Book Of Days

Outside the Fold

The Open-Close Magazine: Issue #14

In the Kitchen

From Subjugation To Emancipation

Chillies and Porridge: Writing Food

Friendship as Social Justice Activism

Bold Ventures: Thirteen Tales Of Architectural Tragedy

Amour: How The French Talk About Love

The RTI Story: Power To The People

A Nomad Called Thief: Reflections On Adivasi Silence

The Algebra of Infinite Justice

The Kashmir Dispute 1947-2012 (Vol-1)

Marginal Zones: Development-Induced Displacement in Mumbai

No Laughing Matter: The Ambedkar Cartoons, 1932 To 1956

Conservation Kaleidoscope: People, Protected Areas And Wildlife In Contemporary India

Conversations With Ambedkar: 10 Ambedkar Memorial Lectures

[seavoice]

always going to disagree with and distrust people who praise blasphemy or "anti terrorism" or surveillance laws, it will bring nothing but misery. umar khalid has languished in jail for over 1000 days because of uapa. kashmiri journalists, dalit, adivasi and christian human rights activists, political opponents all booked under an anti terrorism law that is never used during religiously motivated hindutva violence