Land Vulnerability among Adivasis in India

Land distribution is characterised by the caste hierarchy in India wherein the upper castes have disproportionate share of land as against those at the bottom of the caste hierarchy. In contemporary India, the problem of landlessness has been exacerbated which affects the already most disadvantaged communities with respect to land. Within this premise, this paper confines the discussion to the land problems among adivasi population, the relatively more disadvantaged and land-dependent community in India. The study uses the Employment and Unemployment survey data of National Sample Survey Office and descriptive statistics as a method to review the current state of knowledge of the extent and nature of land vulnerability among adivasis. The study delineates that disadvantage with respect to land among them has been aggravated during the period 1987 to 2011. That is, the proportion of adivasi households with zero landholdings has increased substantially during this period. However, the intensity of land vulnerability among them is more pronounced in the urban regions. Furthermore, the scheduled states despite having special Constitutional provisions and parliamentary laws resemble the same trend of landlessness among the adivasi population as a whole. This trend of landlessness reckons that the adivasi community may lose land entitlements further in near future if their land rights are not preserved that may eventually wipe out their identity, culture and livelihood and turn their society into anomie and indigence. Therefore, the state needs to identify the loopholes in the policy implementation and also recognise the place of adivasi specific policy within the national policy.