At 84.3 million, as per 2001 census, tribals account for 8.2 per cent of the total population of India. This concentration of tribal population ranks second in the world after Africa. The terms, `Scheduled Tribes` (STs) and `Adivasis`, are usually used interchangeably in India. The two, however, are not necessarily coterminous. Whereas the former is an administrative term to denote the population of the communities scheduled in the Constitution of India under Article 342 and provided with `protective` constitutional privileges, the latter is a political term, literally meaning original inhabitants or indigenous people, used by the communities for self-identity and for mobilisational purposes.

Besides providing Constitutional privileges, the Indian tribal development policy since independence, the government claims has been governed by the Nehruvian Panchsheel principles, which instructs that tribals should be allowed to develop according to their own genius and that the tribals` rights on land and forest should be respected.

Despite these claims, the government of India has followed an `integrationist` policy towards Adivasis, over the last five decades. This is founded on the idea that the Adivasis, who belong to a backward, pre-industrial and traditional sector and culture, should be modernised and `mainstreamed`, and made capable of participating in nation building. In a modernisation and development paradigm, Adivasis suffered the most, particularly when land and forest  the two aspects around which the convivial, communitarian life of Adivasis are centred  were taken away from them. To the Adivasis, the land and forest are `the abode of the spirits and their dead and the source of their science, technology, way of life, their religion and culture`.

Notwithstanding new provisions under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, historical experiences convincingly show that the symbiotic relationship between the forest and the Adivasis was never recongised in the state`s policies and programmes. Arbitrary takeovers of forest resources, establishment of state monopoly over forest resources, and the conversion of the traditional occupants of forests into encroachers, to be victimized, marked the approach of the colonial rulers and the independent Indian state to the forest and the inhabitants of forests.

Reinforcing this policy on forests was the state`s approach to the land  rich in forest and natural resources  traditionally occupied by the Adivasis.

The colonial British government introduced the alien concept of private property into tribal areas. The expropriation of land occupied by tribals with the Permanent Settlement of the East India Company in 1793 gave zamindars and jagirdars ownership rights over tribal lands. Moreover, the establishment of railways, roads, government offices, officers` residences, stations, schools, hospitals, colleges, administrative towns, the residence of administrators, etc., needed not only forest resources but also paved the way for the influx of non-tribals into tribal areas. The non-tribals eventually purchased the lands of tribals and became residents of the tribal areas, converting Adivasis into servants and aliens, in the land traditionally occupied by them. All these irrevocably changed the power relations in the Adivasi-occupied areas.

After Independence, in its quest for building modern India, the government of India followed a similar approach to tribal land. Industrialisation, urbanisation and exploitation of mineral resources and the construction of mega dams and power stations have been used as justification for incursions into traditional Adivasi lands by the state as well as the industrialists. Thousands and thousands of hectares of tribal land have been acquired for these purposes, and millions have been displaced.

This gives rise to two contradictory identities; one of tribals, an identity ascribed to them by the Indian state  a combination of liberal benevolence, exploitative intent and anthropological curiosity, and second, of Adivasis  a self-perception that they are the beholders of a community-based social and economic system, symbiotic with nature, and with a people-oriented knowledge system, art and literature. The self-identity that unfolds from the latter has contributed to the emergence of sporadic and organized resistances and movements by the Adivasis against colonial encroachments and appropriations. The integrationist policies of the state have not made a dent in this organic consciousness of the community as Adivasis.

At the same time, the Adivasis are compelled to negotiate with another emerging identity, that of `worker`. The new power relations and ownership patterns have brought with it a new status for the Adivasis  as servants and workers in agricultural fields, and industrial and office establshments. Tribals have to earn wages by performing agricultural work on the same lands, which their forefathers used to possess. The Report of the Expert Group on Prevention of Alienation of Tribal Land and its Restoration of the Union Ministry of Rural Development (2004) estimated that between 1951 and 1989, in the tribal regions, around 11,750,000 people were displaced due to the construction of mines, dams, industries, sanctuaries and other projects. Of these, around 8,500,000 are estimated to be Adivasis; and less than one-fourth of the displaced received any kind of rehabilitation support. The forceful displacement has been the single, most crucial factor for the seasonal and long-term migration for work. Infertility and barrenness of agricultural land, alienation of common land and the decreasing access to minor forest produce are forcing Adivasis to opt for work outside the land of their forefathers.

The national tribal policy document admits that according to available statistics, the number of STs, who were cultivators, declined from over 68 per cent in 1991 to 45 per cent in 2001. Agricultural labourers, on the other hand, increased from about 20 per cent to 37 per cent, an indication that the STs are steadily losing their lands and becoming agricultural workers.

Whether in rural or in urban areas, Adivasis face a highly segmented casual labour market, ensuring that they are absorbed almost entirely as the lowest-paid, unskilled labour. The structuring of the recruitment process remains largely the same as when hundreds of thousands of Adivasis were recruited in tea plantations and coal mines in the nineteenth century in which a multi-tier system of labour gang leaders, jobbing recruiter-supervisors and labour contractors constantly reproduced segmentation and discriminated job opportunities.

Besides understanding the structuring of the labour market for Adivasi workers, it is pertinent to ask how the Adivasis are negotiating the different identity of `worker` and how far they are acquiring a `labour consciousness`, extremely important to build an agency to resist the exploitation that they are subjected to.

This is a fascinating area where not much information is available; what is available in bits and pieces indicates that it is difficult to organize Adivasi workers; that the Adivasis as workers are not adequately represented in the organized sector trade unions; that even in cases where a majority of the workers are Adivasis, as in the case of tea gardens, organizational leadership is with non-Adivasis; and that Adivasi workers seldom resist exploitation at the workplace in an organised way.

The merits and de-merits of these arguments can be debated, but question still remains of how tribals mediate the `worker` identity  the class consciousness, and the `Adivasi` identity  the community consciousness. Some argue that Adivasis see themselves as members of communities first, and that this characteristic is expected to have a negative effect on labor mobilisation based on class identity, in their movement from class-in-itself to class-for-itself.

In an article `From Forest to Factory: The Santal Conception of Labour`, Marine Carrine-Bouez, the author, says that in the mythical origin, work is related to death. During the golden age, Santals did not have to work. Work and death were introduced in their world by the Hindu god, Thakur. Traditionally, the Santal term for work, kami has its origin in Hindi word kam. The second term, raska, is of Mundari origin and means pleasure. Santals work for others and receive work from others, but these are within the kinship framework of gar jawe.

This issue of Labour File is an exploration into the dichotomy  that millions of Adivasis are experiencing in India  the identity of class that the objective reality of wage labour brings to Adivasis into their everyday life and the experiential reality that community identity is incapable of addressing the exploitative relations at work place.

Usual discourses look at Adivasi identity either in abstraction or as reified alter ego of modernity, and the working class as something which necessarily will have to shed away Adivasi identity. In the cover story, `Labouring Newborn Consciousness: The Adivasis of Jharkhand`, Xavier Dias tries to break this line of argument and posit that Adivasi and working class identities are not mutually exclusive. The author examines how the duality of identity and its manipulations over culture and tradition go to form the consciousness of mainstream society; how ethnicity as a social identity can be a mode of expressing consciousness, either for having the potential for emancipation or defending the status quo; and how, from within the growth of capital and its labour markets, the Adivasis struggle to shrink the centuries-long negative categorising of their identity, thereby engaging in a struggle within, to find their own `real` ethnic identity and a new political consciousness that questions and exposes the power relations.

Pradip Prabhu and Shiaraz Bulsara address the issue of Adivasi agricultural workers and the pattern of migration that exist in Maharashtra. The article explores how the inept tribals adapt to the situation of the host land, but are denied benefits including paid weekly off, sick leave, casual leave, and are hired and fired at will by the employer. Abhay Xaxa analyses how the Adivasi communities, placed at the bottom of social ladder for political and economic reasons, become most vulnerable communities to debt bondage. He explores how Adivasis lost their livelihood rights over land and forests to the detriment of their economic institution. A.K. Roy, while exploring the growth and development of the working class of India under the colonial era looks at the atrocious nature of work in underground mines. He articulates how the degree of brutalisation and risks involved in spite of the precautions and safety measures sets apart the colliery workers from every other worker.

Vipul Pandya explains the tale of ten lakh tribal labourers, forced to migrate to cities for survival. These tribals, uprooted from villages without an identity, struggle in the cities of Gujarat to make both ends meet. Vandana Tete emphasises that the inherent collectiveness and equality in the social and economical constitution of the Adivasi society and the total absence of preferential treatment based on gender has resulted in establishing Adivasi women as a strong workforce. She explains how, compared to mainstream Indian society, the Adivasi women enjoyed equal status with men. On the contrary, while talking about the tribal women working as domestic workers, Sr. Jemma Toppo explains how the division of labour in our patriarchal structure operates in such a way that a woman`s contribution is not visible, where even the state does not acknowledge the significance of work they do in everyday life. While talking about the Adivasi leadership in tea estates, Virginious Xaxa argues that there is not one single political party that has thrown up any leadership of a national statute from within tribes. He states that the tribal participation in Parliament and the state legislature has been merely formal and symbolic. Roma, through her article emphasises that the class struggle in forest areas is intensifying and new call formations are taking place. She believes that the struggle in the forest areas is essentially a working class struggle, and the struggle for forest rights and its control are political and cultural issues.