Reclaiming Development: Tribal Co-Authorship in a Decolonial Indian Framework

Abstract

India’s tribal policy landscape is defined by a stark contradiction: an unprecedented proliferation of targeted missions (PM JANMAN, Dharti Aaba Janjatiya Gram Utkarsh Abhiyan, PVTG Development Mission) coexists with enduring realities of land dispossession, cultural erasure, and eroded autonomy. This study moves beyond the isolation–assimilation–integration trilogy and advances a fourth, decolonial paradigm—tribal communities as co-authors and knowledge-holders, not beneficiaries, of India’s developmental and ecological futures.

Using a mixed-method, four-zone (Central, Western, Southern, North-East) design and two original analytical tools—the Cultural Continuity Index and Autonomy Perception Scale—the study finds that tribal conceptions of “development” centre on secure land relations, linguistic and ritual continuity, and meaningful self-rule, rather than infrastructure and welfare provisioning. Persistent PESA (1996) and FRA (2006) implementation failures, the cultural illiteracy of major missions, and the rapid erosion of indigenous epistemologies expose a deeper epistemic rupture between state developmentalism and community worldviews.

The paper proposes a transformative blueprint: restoration of Gram Sabha sovereignty; integration of indigenous pedagogy, ecological knowledge, and traditional medicine into public systems; tribal-led digital and data ecosystems; and statutory recognition of community intellectual property. A development model that places tribal worldviews at its epistemic core—rather than at its administrative margins—is essential for achieving a future that is culturally just, ecologically grounded, and genuinely decolonial.