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<p>This article examines <i>Adivasi</i> protest in India as a constitutional practice that emerges from below, rather than as a phenomenon external to law. It argues that protests in forests, roads, village commons, and <i>Gram Sabha</i> meetings reveal a persistent contradiction between the formal promise of constitutional and statutory protection and the material reality of extraction-led governance. The article focuses on two case studies, the Niyamgiri anti-mining struggle in Odisha and the Pathalgadi movement in Jharkhand, to show how Adivasi communities use public space to assert land, livelihood, religious freedom, and self-government. Methodologically, the article combines doctrinal analysis of Articles 19 and 21, the Fifth Schedule, the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act of 1996, and the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act of 2006, with socio-legal reading of case law, policy reports, movement literature, and published accounts of <i>Gram Sabha</i> processes and protest repertoires. The theoretical argument proceeds through Gurvitch’s legal pluralism, Marx’s critique of formally universal law under conditions of unequal material power, and the idea of constitutionalism from below. On this basis, the article makes three claims. First, Adivasi protest often functions as an effort to enforce law rather than to evade it. Second, implementation failures under the FRA and PESA are not merely administrative defects but expressions of structural power in which bureaucratic discretion, extractive policy, and selective criminalisation frequently align. Third, public spaces in Scheduled Areas should be understood as constitutional fora in which statutory rights, customary authority, and democratic participation are interpreted in practice. The article concludes by proposing reforms centered on stronger <i>Gram Sabha</i> authority, tighter limits on land diversion and mining in Scheduled Areas, reasoned scrutiny of FRA claim rejections, and a jurisprudence of protest that treats <i>Adivasi</i> occupations and assemblies as part of India’s constitutional order, not as peripheral disturbances.</p>

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Adivasi Protests in Public Spaces: Constitutional Rights and Legal Pluralism in India

  • 期刊论文

  • 发表日期：

    2026年5月14日

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  • Taniya Malik

摘要

This article examines Adivasi protest in India as a constitutional practice that emerges from below, rather than as a phenomenon external to law. It argues that protests in forests, roads, village commons, and Gram Sabha meetings reveal a persistent contradiction between the formal promise of constitutional and statutory protection and the material reality of extraction-led governance. The article focuses on two case studies, the Niyamgiri anti-mining struggle in Odisha and the Pathalgadi movement in Jharkhand, to show how Adivasi communities use public space to assert land, livelihood, religious freedom, and self-government. Methodologically, the article combines doctrinal analysis of Articles 19 and 21, the Fifth Schedule, the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act of 1996, and the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act of 2006, with socio-legal reading of case law, policy reports, movement literature, and published accounts of Gram Sabha processes and protest repertoires. The theoretical argument proceeds through Gurvitch’s legal pluralism, Marx’s critique of formally universal law under conditions of unequal material power, and the idea of constitutionalism from below. On this basis, the article makes three claims. First, Adivasi protest often functions as an effort to enforce law rather than to evade it. Second, implementation failures under the FRA and PESA are not merely administrative defects but expressions of structural power in which bureaucratic discretion, extractive policy, and selective criminalisation frequently align. Third, public spaces in Scheduled Areas should be understood as constitutional fora in which statutory rights, customary authority, and democratic participation are interpreted in practice. The article concludes by proposing reforms centered on stronger Gram Sabha authority, tighter limits on land diversion and mining in Scheduled Areas, reasoned scrutiny of FRA claim rejections, and a jurisprudence of protest that treats Adivasi occupations and assemblies as part of India’s constitutional order, not as peripheral disturbances.