ASSAM ADIVASIS: IDENTITY ISSUES AND LIBERATION.

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By official count around 12% of Indian tribals live in the Northeast, but they do not include the Adivasis who are Munda, Oraon, Santhal and other tribals of Jharkhand origin but are not in the schedule in Assam. They are included among what are popularly called Tea Tribes. Their exclusion is a symbol, not the cause, of their exploitative situation and of the low self-image which makes them different both from the Jharkhand tribals and their counterparts in North Bengal whose ancestors too came from Jharkhand. Their younger leaders want their community to free itself from their state of exploitation. Their search for a new identity and liberation from their exploitative status is a pastoral challenge to the Churches that believe in Him who came to make all things new. A sense of being human is the new world that they are searching for. As a response to it in this paper we shall focus on the causes of their present situation and ways of supporting their efforts to free themselves from it. This paper is based on less than a decade of my contact with the Assam and North Bengal Adivasis and longer interaction with the Jharkhand, Orissa and Andhra Adivasis and insights got from two of our recent studies of the Assam Adivasis.

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