Paper short abstract:

An engagement with adivasi resistance over land acquisition in Jharkhand.

Paper long abstract:

Over the past few decades, post colonial India had unravelled itself in the most dramatic way against adivasi settled in the remote areas of the country. There are often forced, rendered to liminal spaces that not only reduce their political subjectivities but also engender them as development subject. Such interventions are often anchored through policies that are eulogised in the name of 'national interest' and feed into middle and upper class gentry of the country. Against this background, I want to propose that Land Acquisition which seems to simmer on the floor of Indian Parliament is highly pernicious in nature and fraught with innovations like 'public purpose' which rationalises dispossession. This paper is built on my field study of Nagri village in the terrain of Jharkhand where Land acquisition has been used against adivasi to acquire land for 'development'. The paper also engages with recent developments within the act and how it reflect of a clear intersection between post colonial power elites and global capital.