Customs, Rights and Identity

Adivasi Women in Eastern India

Abstract

This article traces the trajectory of the changing lives of Adivasi women of eastern and central India, i.e., the erstwhile Chotanagpur Division and the Santal Parganas of the Bengal Presidency under colonial times, and which is today incorporated largely within the state of Jharkhand. In India today, Adivasi women figure among some of the most deprived of people living in the margins, much of their vulnerability arising from unequal access to resources, particularly their right to inherit paternal property, and rooted in their socio-economic norms. Colonial rule, on the one hand, witnessed the increasing marginalisation of tribal women with the weakening of the communal indigenous organisations which left them exposed to exploitation of the market forces. On the other hand, it also enabled the empowerment of a section of Adivasi women who asserted their right to inherit ancestral property. In contrast, the politics of indigeneity in contemporary India have imposed restrictions on Adivasi women’s bid to claim land rights.