Claiming Land and (Re) Claiming Identity: Adivasi Gothra Maha Sabha and Indigenous Modernity in Kerala

T Abhilash

Artha Vijnana, 2013, vol. 55, issue 2, 210-227

Abstract: The year 2013 marks the tenth anniversary of the Muthanga Struggle led by Adivasi Gothra Maha Sabha (AGMS) in Kerala. Crystallization of the landrights movement under AGMS puts forth a fundamental critique, not only of the known equations of the national modernization in the post-colonial context, but also challenges the wisdom of modernity in South Asia. This paper focuses on the organisational form and ideological contents of AGMS. It argues that the land-rights movement represented a process of collective identity assertion along with a systematised effort for democratic bargaining. At the same time, it was a physical enactment of their autonomy by the citizens under a liberal democratic set-up. By invoking memories of a collective past, and welding them with a concrete social action, AGMS laid out crucial knots— though ephemeral—of an indigenous modernity.

Date: 2013
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