Adivasis/Indigenous Peoples & British Colonialism in India

Catalog description

Modern Western colonialism impacted the world in many ways. However, each country and community has had a different encounter and experience with colonialism. For the Adivasis (indigenous peoples) of India, it was catastrophic and marked a new phase in their history. The pre-colonial symbolizes a period of freedom in the hills and forest, whereas the colonial era symbolizes state coercion, eviction from land and the end of free movement in the forest. The proposed course discusses Adivasis' encounters with the British colonial state. The course examines Indian history from the perspectives of Adivasis and contrasts these with dominant paradigms of Indian history. In this way, the course allows students to understand India from a different perspective. Under British colonialism, the diverse ethnic self-governing communities were imagined as primitive, uncivilized, barbaric, violent, backward and childlike people. The course discusses how such constructions impacted Adivasi social life and development. It traces how the expansion of the colonial state in forests and hills put an end to self-rule and induced massive migration from the plains of India and asks how Adivasi areas were integrated into the colonial economy. How did the colonial state use revenue and forest policies and regulations to bring these areas under its control? How did commercialization of agriculture and forest conservation work to further marginalize Adivasis? The course also examines how Adivasi knowledge of cultivation and forest conservation were viewed by the colonial state and asks why the colonial state encouraged caste-Hindu peasant migration into Adivasi areas. Finally, it traces the ways that colonial intervention has resulted in a series of contestations, acts of resistance, and insurgencies by Adivasi groups? Tracing forms of Adivasi resistance, the course puts these into conversation…