The Daily Fix: Mass sedition cases in Jharkhand highlight India's betrayal of Adivasi citizens

The Indian Constitution is widely acknowledged as a remarkable document, awarding a vast array of rights on a people who had just emerged from colonial rule. Thus it is more than a little ironic that in the state of Jharkhand, Adivasis are being penalised for engraving portions of the document on monoliths.

Called the Pathalgadi (“stone laying”) movement, Adivasis in the Jharkhand district of Khunti have, since 2017, used this strategy to highlight the special autonomy granted to tribal areas under the Fifth Schedule of the Indian Constitution.

The response to this was stunning. As Scroll.in has reported, the Jharkhand police responded to this by accusing at least 10,000 people of sedition – possibly the single largest crackdown of its kind in the history of independent India. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi cited Scroll.in’s report to say the mass bookings for sedition “should have shocked the conscience of our nation”.

Commenting on the surreal act of sedition for putting up portions of the Constitution, Dayamani Barla, in an interview to Scroll.in

, said that Adivasis always had struggle to demand their rights, but now the space for dissent was shrinking even further. This, she warned, could lead to a loss of faith in democracy.

In a 2011 judgment, the Supreme Court called Adivasis the “original inhabitants of India”....

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