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A Rogue and Peasant Slave: Adivasi Resistance, 1800 - 2000
Why do adivasi societies defend themselves so desperately against the state? What is it that sparks so much protest and conflict in India s adivasi regions?
These are some of the questions this book seeks to answer. The first part shows how the bhils of western Madhya Pradesh were affected by colonialism, the perceptions and notions that shaped colonial policy, its effects on material life and politics, how bhil groups adapted to these developments and resisted them. A social history cast as narrative a narrative of blindness and rancour, resistance and change it charts the emergence of an unjust and oppressive social order.
The second part is a reflection on adivasi politics in the twentieth century. It begins with the (understandably suspicious) adivasi response to nationalism, and goes on to examine India s development policies and their effect upon adivasi societies. It looks at the emergence of an adivasi middle-class and the contradictions of its political role, as well as collective modes of protest and adaptation. Kela discusses the ways in which culture and politics intersect, and how political choices are shaped by cultural developments.
A Rogue and Peasant Slave challenges the current academic consensus on the relationship between adivasi societies and the caste-based agrarian order, and seeks to place them in the context of a wider agrarian and ecological history. It reveals the intimate connection between the past and the present, and shows how some of India s most pressing contemporary conflicts can only be understood with reference to a history whose consequences are still working themselves out.
These are some of the questions this book seeks to answer. The first part shows how the bhils of western Madhya Pradesh were affected by colonialism, the perceptions and notions that shaped colonial policy, its effects on material life and politics, how bhil groups adapted to these developments and resisted them. A social history cast as narrative a narrative of blindness and rancour, resistance and change it charts the emergence of an unjust and oppressive social order.
The second part is a reflection on adivasi politics in the twentieth century. It begins with the (understandably suspicious) adivasi response to nationalism, and goes on to examine India s development policies and their effect upon adivasi societies. It looks at the emergence of an adivasi middle-class and the contradictions of its political role, as well as collective modes of protest and adaptation. Kela discusses the ways in which culture and politics intersect, and how political choices are shaped by cultural developments.
A Rogue and Peasant Slave challenges the current academic consensus on the relationship between adivasi societies and the caste-based agrarian order, and seeks to place them in the context of a wider agrarian and ecological history. It reveals the intimate connection between the past and the present, and shows how some of India s most pressing contemporary conflicts can only be understood with reference to a history whose consequences are still working themselves out.
392 pages, Hardcover
First published June 21, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 23, 2025
Speaks about the history of enclosures and the impacts of the commodification of land, of how colonialism expanded the agrarian frontier and encouraged concentration of landed property by non-adivasis and demilitarized the countryside, which were the preserve of chieftains/clans collecting taxes. 'Once the importance of land, in terms of land ownership rather than revenue rights increased, those best placed to take advantage of the new conditions were the farming castes.'
In Nimar, similar to bison marias and hill marias of Bastar, explores the continuum of plains bhilala, using cattle for ploughing and the bhils-barelas of the hills, who depended more on shifting cultivation and forest commons. Bhil raiding seen as a means of supplementary subsistence, method of collecting dues, a punitive element in feuds, political assertion and primitive accumulation.
Colonialism saw shifting cultivation as wasteful, irrational against 'modern' practices leading to more hemorrhaging of adivasi land, forced sedentarization and loss of subsistence. Economic forms of coercion and the steady creep of non-adivasi Baniyas and peasants, Forest and Revenue Dept., lead to adivasi migration and proletarianization to tea estates, mills, etc. After independence, upper and middle class tenants benefit from zamindari abolition, not the landless. Post-independence, government offices served as a space for acculturation, the middle-class are recruited into structures of power and patronage. Speaks about the difference between middle class mass organisations and spontaneous resistance movements in contemporary adivasi politics.
Part I gets too much in the weeds of 19th century Nimar for a non-specialist. Somewhere along the way, asks How much should be produced? At what cost? To what end?
In Nimar, similar to bison marias and hill marias of Bastar, explores the continuum of plains bhilala, using cattle for ploughing and the bhils-barelas of the hills, who depended more on shifting cultivation and forest commons. Bhil raiding seen as a means of supplementary subsistence, method of collecting dues, a punitive element in feuds, political assertion and primitive accumulation.
Colonialism saw shifting cultivation as wasteful, irrational against 'modern' practices leading to more hemorrhaging of adivasi land, forced sedentarization and loss of subsistence. Economic forms of coercion and the steady creep of non-adivasi Baniyas and peasants, Forest and Revenue Dept., lead to adivasi migration and proletarianization to tea estates, mills, etc. After independence, upper and middle class tenants benefit from zamindari abolition, not the landless. Post-independence, government offices served as a space for acculturation, the middle-class are recruited into structures of power and patronage. Speaks about the difference between middle class mass organisations and spontaneous resistance movements in contemporary adivasi politics.
Part I gets too much in the weeds of 19th century Nimar for a non-specialist. Somewhere along the way, asks How much should be produced? At what cost? To what end?
October 21, 2015
A heartfelt and unapologetic attempt to salvage the forgotten histories of the unvictorious. Kela gathers together the scattered narratives of Adivasi organisation and rebellion across the last two centuries against a constantly changing opposition. In the final analysis the consequences are sadly predictable - as the sheer power of external and internal forces erode the agency of the Adivasi. While colonial times were certainly not kind to these peoples, Kela shows that the suppression of the Adivasi has been an uninterrupted process of direct oppression and the more insidious forces of assimilation, acculturation and disenfranchisement. What remains of these once proud, even feared communities is a sad and fractured underclass that struggles still to maintain their identity in the cultural and political morass of modern India.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews