The battle over Adivasi identity Premium

In southern Rajasthan, the Bharat Adivasi Party challenges the BJP's narrative on Adivasi identity and history.

In the tribal belt of Udaipur, Banswara, and Dungarpur in the southernmost tip of Rajasthan, small signboards dot the dusty highways which lead into settlements of the Bhil Adivasi people. The signboards, mostly painted by hand and often featuring a drawing of the 16th century tribal icon, Rana Punja Bhil, mark the people in the settlements as belonging to the “Adivasi Parivar”.

“The Adivasi Parivar is what we call the larger ideology under which we are trying to awaken the conscience of our people here,” says Amit Kharadi, 27, a worker of the Bharat Adivasi Party, which was formed by MLA Rajkumar Roat in September 2023. As he drives his white SUV across rural Udaipur, Kharadi points to home after home with the signboard. “We are not putting these up and neither do we tell them to. The people here have started doing it themselves in the last few years,” he says.

The Bharat Adivasi Party, which rose out of the demand for a separate Bhil State for the Bhil Adivasi people, is on a mission to “take control” of the narrative around Adivasi identity, explains senior party leader Bhanwarlal Parmar. Its emergence, Parmar says, was partly a response to the histories of Adivasi communities coming under attack from the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram and its federated outfits for decades.

Now, narratives on Adivasi identity created by the Sangh Parivar are increasingly merging with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Union government’s efforts to reclaim the lost stories of Adivasi resistance movements in order to build a nationalistic Adivasi identity, explain political workers and party leaders.

The Union government has let the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes take the lead in directing this project. The aim is to replace current literature on Adivasi histories, communities, and resistance movements that originated from sources within colonial establishments with literature that is created by the indigenous people about their own communities. The BAP has termed this act an appropriation of their identity.

Kharadi, 27, who had unsuccessfully fought the Assembly elections in Rajasthan in November 2023, credited the “Adivasi Parivar” thinking for the 40,000 votes he secured. It was his first contest for public office and he barely had resources. “It will take time. But people are realising what is happening with the histories of their community. No matter how much our community tries to progress, our footsteps are being wiped away behind our backs. The moment we look back, we see the very existence of our history being denied,” he says.

But these signboards that declare “Adivasi Parivars” across the Bhil belt of southern Rajasthan are coming up against the messaging of the BJP’s campaign for tribal voters. The BJP is using the iconography of leaders such as warrior-social reformers Punja Bhil and Govind Guru to play up its government’s efforts to recognise and honour “deliberately forgotten” heroes from Adivasi communities who fought “outside” forces.