The idea of the Tribal

A Nomad Called Thief: Reflections on Adivasi Silence
G. N. Devy
Published by Orient Longman

The volume under review is a collection of short pieces previously published by the author in a number of dailies and periodicals—many of which have been revised and expanded for inclusion in the book. The main theme of these short and extremely perceptive narratives is the marginalization of adivasis in India, with a focus on various erroneous constructions of the idea of the tribal.

The book is a fascinating narrative of a surprisingly wide canvas of issues related to the adivasis. It does not aspire to serve a larger purpose except documenting the author’s concerns about a host of issues—from environment to livelihood, from development to cultural processes and from violence to knowledge systems. In the process, Devy successfully manages to provide a voice to some of these issues which the adivasis grapple with on a daily basis.

Amit Prakash
THE BOOK REVIEW, January 2008

Amazing grace

Peculiar People, Amazing Lives: Leprosy, Social Exclusion and Community Making in South India
James Staples
Published by Orient Longman

Peculiar People, Amazing Lives is a study of a community of leprosy sufferers in ‘colony’ in Andhra Pradesh. What unites them into a community is not just their disease, but also their social exclusion, they are outcastes from even the outcastes. But ironically as a Christian community, they exclude others too, non-Christian. The author carried out intensive field work not only in the ‘colony’ but also in Mumbai, where many of them earn their livelihood as beggars.

The book is rich in texture, a pleasure to read, with an impressive reading of the literature. It would be useful for students of anthropology in general and medical anthropology in particular.

Mohan Rao
THE BOOK REVIEW, January 2008

THE POLITICS AND POETICS OF WATER — Naturalising Scarcity in Western India

This book grew out of a doctoral thesis, but one quickly forgets that origin and loses oneself in the experience of immersion in a fascinating book. The book has several strands: the history of Kutch as a unique area with special ecological characteristics, and also as exemplifying the category of dry lands; the wound inflicted on it at the time of the Partition by the severance of its vital riparian links to the Indus Basin (which were ignored in the Indus Treaty negotiations); the changes in the attitudes to water management that came about with the transition from its erstwhile status as a small princely state to its merger with the Indian Union; caste, socio-economic power and ritual relations in Kutch; divergent perceptions of and responses to water `scarcity' at different levels and among different groups (within Kutch, at the popular level in the State as a whole, and at the State Government level); the relationship between Kutch and the Sardar Sarovar Project; and the kind of thinking that underlies water policy and planning in general. A brief review cannot do justice to the richness and complexity of the book. >>>