The persistent gap between the lived experience of the Adivasis as a class of citizens and the equality provisions in the Constitution of India continues to trouble people and organizations concerned about justice for marginalized communities in India. Large disparities in living standards, displacement from traditional lands and territorial resources, exploitation in the workplace and humiliation in day-to-day transactions mark the Adivasis as a population apart. As such, they are far from realizing the country's constitutional ideals of equality, justice and freedom.

While there is a well-recognized need to address these urgent problems, solutions tend to focus on the constitutional and administrative mechanisms alone. Special laws and policies have been put in place to ‘uplift’ the Adivasis through a combination of political will and an effective bureaucracy (Béteille, 1992). Caste-based voting patterns have lent support to the formation of a political elite among some Adivasi communities and the emergence of new forms of tribal politics (Devalle 1992; Ghosh 2006; Oommen 2010; Radhakrishnan 2003; Shah 2010; Sinha 2010). Affirmative action (reservation policies) with respect to access to education and government jobs has also led to concrete improvements for some individuals, although they are mainly the upwardly mobile and dominant sections of particular groups. The vast majority of Adivasi communities have not benefited directly from these policies (Kijima 2006), despite the expenditure of considerable financial and human resources over the years.