'Being Adivasi': 7th volume of 'Rethinking India' series released

A new book, ''Being Adivasi: Existence, Entitlements, Exclusion'', explores the views of the Adivasis and the Denotified Communities on the process of development and its clash with their rights.

Published by Penguin Random House India (PRHI), the book was released on Monday.

The seventh volume of ''Rethinking India'' series is a collection of essays addressing the persistent problems faced by Adivasis and Denotified communities ''from questions of their distinct identity, land alienation, indebtedness, and displacement from ancestral lands''.

It is co-edited by the late Adivasi rights activist Abhay Xaxa, who passed away due to a heart attack in March last year, and veteran linguist GN Devy.

''I would like to hope that it is received not just as a publication or academic exercise but as a prelude to the change that is now overdue, a change that will bring to the Denotified and Nomadic communities at least some measure of justice and human rights that they expect to get as citizens of a democratic country and to Adivasis the understanding of their distinct identity,'' writes Padma Shri awardee Devy.

Devy has also authored ''Painted Words'' (2003), a collection of literature of the Adivasis and the nomadic communities.

According to the publishers, the volume serves not as an academic exercise but, in addressing the larger readership, as a ''prelude to the change that will bring to the Adivasis some measure of their rights as citizens of a democratic country''.

''The essays in the volume address the persistent problems faced by the Adivasis and Denotified Tribes, from questions of their distinct identity to land alienation, indebtedness and displacement from ancestral lands,'' they said in a statement.

The PRHI's 'Rethinking India series', in collaboration with the Samruddha Bharat Foundation, aims ''to breathe new life and spirit into the cold and self- serving logic of political and administrative processes, linking them to and informing them by grass-roots realities, fact-based research and social experience, and actionable social-scientific knowledge''.

Its previous titles, including ''Vision for a Nation'', ''The Minority Conundrum'', ''Reviving Jobs'', ''We the People'' and ''The Shudras'', have contributions from over 140 of India's foremost academics, activists and policymakers across party lines.

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