Adivasi rights groups have urged the United Nations to address India’s refusal to formally recognise Adivasis as Indigenous Peoples under international law, despite identifying more than 125 million citizens as Scheduled Tribes domestically.

According to Kashmir Media Service, the Adivasi Mahasabha Foundation, India Indigenous Peoples, Adivasi Samanvay Manch and other organisations raised the issue at the 19th Session of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples held from 13 to 17 July at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

The groups said India cannot operate one of the world’s largest systems of tribal recognition at home while refusing to recognise the same communities as Indigenous Peoples internationally. They described the 2011 Indian Supreme Court observation that “all Indians are indigenous” as a legal fiction that erases the distinction between first peoples and later settlers.

They highlighted repeated violations of Free, Prior and Informed Consent in Scheduled Areas, citing coal mining in Pelma, Chhattisgarh, and bauxite mining in Sijimali, Odisha, where community refusals were allegedly overridden. Ecological destruction in Hasdeo Arand Forest, Singrauli, Balaghat and the Great Nicobar Project was also raised.

The organisations further flagged the pending Municipalities Extension to Scheduled Areas Bill since 2001, exclusion of Adivasi languages like Gondi, Kurukh and Mundari from the Eighth Schedule, and lack of ownership for Indigenous knowledge in AI projects.

They submitted three proposals to the UN Human Rights Council, including formal recognition of Adivasis under UNDRIP, binding Gram Sabha consent, and immediate enactment of the MESA Bill. “None of these are aspirational requests,” the groups said, adding that each relates to mechanisms India has already established domestically but refused to complete.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan (INP)