Paper short abstract:

This paper looks at the political-economic context of the rise of adivasi identity politics in Wayanad (Kerala), demonstrating it as the filpside of the demise of modern class formation.

Paper long abstract:

The late 90s and early 2000s in Wayanad (Kerala) saw an increasing number of land occupations led by landless agricultural workers framed in terms of the restoration of adivasi land rights. This paper looks at the political-economic context of this rise of "identity politics" to draw attention to the processes of dispossession - particularly of meaningful social entitlements as well as of stable employment relations - that accompanied it, demonstrating some of the ways in which neoliberal reform has affected class relations in Kerala. It focuses on the complex process of how after only relatively recently - in the late 60s - having become "free" laborers, many Paniya agricultural workers in Wayanad found themselves facing the threat of being reduced to a constantly migrating, locally expedient population. I argue that the rise of a social movement centered on "adivasi" belonging is hence not the spontaneous eruption of primordial grievances or desires but, in this context, the flipside of the demise of modern class formation.