Fractured Communities: Adivasi Histories and the Politics of Power

Adivasi societies, 'tribal' or indigenous communities of India, are most often portrayed as timeless, isolated, and defined primarily by resistance-to the state, to modernity, or to outsiders. But in his strikingly original reconstruction of India's Singhbhum region, Umar Khalid demonstrates the centrality of Adivasi political and social history to our understanding of colonial governance and the modern Indian state.

Fractured Communities tells the story of how British colonial administrato...