ABSTRACT
for longer periods in history, tribes lived in isolation in their sylvan setting in far-off forests. They had little or no intercourse with people in the plains and were uninfluenced by the so-called civilizing influences. The relative isolation led to their backwardness as the agents of development deployed by the mainstream state could not penetrate into the deeper forest regions. The situation underwent a change with the advent of the British who saw a great opportunity of exploiting forest wealth by intruding into the private spaces hitherto inhabited by the Adivasis. With the introduction of modern means of transport and communication, the land grabbing greedy plainsmen entered the forest areas and populated them. Adivasis continued to be the easy prey to the Hindu and Mohammedan feudal and British colonial oppression down to the twentieth century. They lost much of their land and were destined to swell the ranks of the depressed classes. Colonial exploitation combined with tyrannical oppression forced the Adivasis to stage revolts over different periods of history.
