Adivasi Lives Matter is a platform that amplifies the voices of Adivasis and tribals in India. It carries exclusive content on culture, environment, food, languages, history, and traditional medicine by young Adivasis who are asserting their presence through digital storytelling. On 6 December 1959, the image of Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru inaugurating the Damodar Valley Corporation dam project in Bihar with a 15-year-old Adivasi girl called Budhini Manjhiyan was flashed across the national newspapers. This was an iconic moment in the national debate around development and change which was to dominate modern India on whether lands, predominately rural and tribal, were to be flooded to benefit the nation. 1 Years later, in 2016, when the newspapers caught ... Using the label ‘ Adivasi ’ (and not ‘tribe’ or ‘ST’), meaning ‘original inhabitant’, for themselves was the Adivasis’ proclamation of their right to ownership of the land in which they lived for centuries as well as a signal, to all those who passed by, to back off! Adivasis are the original inhabitants of India, with a rich cultural and spiritual connection to nature. Learn about their history, identity, rights, and struggles in the face of colonialism, marginalization, and exploitation.
