The colonial land tax system, designed to stimulate the extension of commercial agriculture and commoditification of agricultural production, has severe impacts on the adivasis of India. Particularly, the notion of colonial rule of property evicted millions of adivasis out of their land by force and for mollified debts. This process has been witnessed more widely in the post-colonial India. Using their own method of struggle, the educated adivasi youths began to reassert their lands that their forefathers lost to non-adivasis. The interventions of civil society (NGO) diverted the adivasis toward a so called legal fight which did not take the issue to a logical end. The legal process helped the non-adivasis to legalize their illegal holdings in the Agency tracts of Andhra region of Andhra Pradesh.

Panduvari Kannaiah, an adivasi of West Godavari district, points to a field and says, "This whole land is ours, it was our forefathers who cleared the forest and brought it under cultivation. Today, the villagers are claiming that it is their land. We believe that those who clear the land have the right to cultivate it". He continued to say, "We are completely ignorant of paper mayas (the magic of paper and document) but help us to restore our land from the villagers".Kannaiah's statement must be seen in the context of adivasi (indigenous people) outlook on the land question being different from that of general society. In adivasi perception, land is not a commodity to be exchanged. Right over land is symbolic and a purely natural one. Right over land is intrinsically linked to their territorial sense and organic relationship with their habitat. They are strongly rooted to land as the children of the soil. They maintain a spiritual relationship with land which resonates in their cultural celebrations.

The advent of British rule in India curbed the adivasis' natural right over land. The introduction of the rule of property in land by the British colonial state had substantially opened the doors of the adivasi world and facilitated the entry of outsiders into the autonomous life of the adivasis. This influx of outsiders had produced a conflicting and contentious relation in the forest world which ultimately reduced adivasis to landless labors. Ironically, because of the failure of the post-colonial Indian state to dislodge the colonial legacy this conflict is increasingly getting intensified in the adivasi tracts of India. West Godavari district of AP is one region which has experienced such encroachment and is now confronting tribal rebellion. Since the colonial rule, land has been the central point in almost all adivasi movements.

History and Culture Journal, Land Assertion, Andhra Agency, Agricultural Production, Cultural Celebrations, Post-Colonial Period, Adivasi Mobilization, Commercial Crops, Communication System, Adivasi Development, Democratic Politics, Colonial Land Tax System, Commercial Agriculture.