Role and Image of Law in India: The Tribal Experience

This important book studies the relationship between tribes and the state with reference to the Indian legal structure. It focuses on three tribes of India—the Bhils in Maharashtra, and the Santals, and Pahadiyas in Jharkhand, which was earlier a part of Bihar. The author traces the historical roots of their dispossession in the ancient and medieval periods, their engagement with and subjugation by the British, and how their ordeal of disempowerment continues even after Independence. Dr Dhagamwar looks at the historical relationship of these tribes with settled societies and also at some of their internal legal structures. She ends with a brief examination of indigenous people colonized elsewhere by Europeans.