"Before independence, the term adivasi was already useful as an ideological tool for relatively justifying the foreign occupation of a country, as it implied that the country had been ruled by âforeignersâ since thousands of years. But it was after independence, when colonization had become a dirty word even in its source countries, that the term adivasi would get its full impact... Nearly all Indians are sons of the soil, and no one in India has any more right to call himself a true native than the next man. The pure race is a myth, a myth that has become frowned upon thanks to Hitler's terrible use of this myth. But in India, interested quarters continue to use this myth of âracial integrityâ. Father Hermanns calls it an âaboriginal claimâ, though it is in fact a Western notion attributed and taught to the tribals by the missionaries, because this myth has been serving them so well for over a century now."
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Elst K. Indigenous Indians: Agastya to Ambedkar (1993)
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Adivasi
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