ADIVASIS PRESS UN TO ACT ON INDIA’S REFUSAL TO RECOGNISE THEM AS INDIGENOUS PEOPLES

Tue 18 August 2026:

At the UN in Geneva, Adivasi rights groups challenged India’s refusal to recognise Adivasis as Indigenous Peoples globally, raising violations involving land, consent, language and international representation.

Organisations representing Adivasi and Indigenous communities 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 within the country.

The Adivasi Mahasabha Foundation, India Indigenous Peoples, Adivasi Samanvay Manch, Indigenae Global Confederation, Indian Confederation of Indigenous and Tribal Peoples (North East Zone), Bodo National Students Union and Indian Social Institute raised the issue at the 19th Session of the UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

The session was held from 13 to 17 July at the Palais des Nations in Geneva.

Through a series of statements, the groups raised concerns over the exclusion of Adivasis from formal participation in UN bodies, violations of community consent in mining and development projects, legislative inaction, threats to Indigenous languages and the use of Indigenous knowledge in artificial intelligence.

Their interventions covered Indigenous participation at the UN, the approaching twentieth anniversary of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the future work of the Expert Mechanism, follow-up to its previous studies, proposals to the UN Human Rights Council and the protection of Indigenous languages.

The groups said India could not continue operating one of the world’s largest systems of tribal, Indigenous and Adivasi recognition domestically while refusing to recognise the same communities as Indigenous Peoples internationally.

India identifies more than 125 million citizens as Scheduled Tribes and provides a constitutional framework for their governance under the Fifth and Sixth Schedules. However, according to the groups, the country has refused to formally recognise its Adivasi population as Indigenous Peoples under international law for nearly two decades after voting in favour of UNDRIP in 2007.

“The state cannot have it both ways,” the statements said.

The groups also referred to the 2011 Supreme Court observation by Justices Katju and Mishra in Kailash & Others vs. State of Maharashtra that “all Indians are indigenous.” They described the position as a legal fiction that erases the distinction between first peoples and later settlers.

According to the organisations, the Indian state has used this position to negate its international obligations instead of resolving the question of Indigenous recognition. “If everyone is indigenous, then no one is displaced, and no one has a claim,” they argued.

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Gram Sabha decisions overridden

The groups highlighted repeated violations of Free, Prior and Informed Consent, or FPIC, in Scheduled Areas.

In Pelma in Chhattisgarh’s Raigarh district, the Gram Sabha has voted against a proposed coal mine on four separate occasions. The groups alleged that the Coal Bearing Areas Act was invoked each time to override the community’s refusal.

They also raised the case of Sijimali in Odisha, where a bauxite mining project linked to the Vedanta group is proceeding despite documented community opposition and unresolved disputes over consent.

The statements cited ecological destruction and large-scale forest clearance in the Hasdeo Arand Forest in Chhattisgarh, Singrauli and Balaghat in Madhya Pradesh, and areas affected by the Great Nicobar Project in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands as part of a systemic pattern.

The groups said the destruction of Adivasi ecology could not be separated from the destruction of Adivasi sovereignty.

They argued that land grabbing in Odisha and Chhattisgarh was not an exception but part of a recurring mechanism through which Free, Prior and Informed Consent was disregarded whenever a community’s decision became inconvenient for capital.

MESA Bill pending since 2001

The organisations also raised the Union government’s failure to enact the Municipalities Extension to Scheduled Areas Bill, which has remained pending since 2001.

They said the delay leaves urban Adivasi communities without legal protection when their lands in Scheduled Areas are absorbed into municipal jurisdictions.

More than two decades of legislative inaction have made urban Adivasi communities invisible within existing policy frameworks, the statements said.

Adivasi languages remain excluded

The groups also highlighted the limited recognition given to Adivasi languages under the Constitution.

Since Independence, only Santali and Bodo have been included in the Constitution’s Eighth Schedule. Languages spoken by millions of people, including Gondi, Kurukh, Mundari, Ho, Kui and Bhili, remain excluded. Several of these languages have also been listed as endangered by UNESCO, the statements said.

The organisations stressed that constitutional recognition alone was insufficient without measures ensuring the survival and continued use of Indigenous languages.

Their intervention formed part of discussions around the International Decade of Indigenous Languages, being observed from 2022 to 2032, and a draft study on the rights of Indigenous Peoples in conflict and post-conflict situations.

They argued that linguistic survival was inseparable from cultural survival and the right to self-determination.

Indigenous ownership of knowledge in AI projects

The statements also addressed the impact of artificial intelligence on Indigenous communities and their knowledge systems.

The groups said the future of AI must not be built at the expense of the Indigenous Peoples of India, who should not be treated merely as subjects of technological innovation but recognised as custodians of valuable knowledge systems.

They called for project-based funding for community-led AI initiatives to document oral histories, preserve Indigenous languages, map cultural landscapes and safeguard traditional knowledge.

Such projects, they said, must be governed by Free, Prior and Informed Consent. Indigenous communities must retain ownership, control, access and stewardship over their knowledge and cultural resources.

No formal channel for participation at UN

The groups said Adivasi communities currently lack a formal channel through which they can participate in UN bodies as Indigenous Peoples, despite India’s extensive domestic framework for recognising Scheduled Tribes.

They argued that partial recognition within India could not be used to justify the exclusion or silence of Adivasi communities at international forums.

The organisations submitted three major proposals to the UN Human Rights Council.

They urged the Council to negotiate with India for the formal recognition of Adivasi communities as Indigenous Peoples under UNDRIP through either a constitutional amendment or a judicial mechanism. Such recognition, they said, would end nearly two decades of non-implementation following India’s vote in favour of the declaration in 2007.

They also demanded that Gram Sabha consent under the Panchayats Extension to Scheduled Areas Act be treated as binding and not be overridden through the Coal Bearing Areas Act or other comparable special legislation. The groups sought independent monitoring of the disputes in Pelma and Sijimali.

Their third demand was the immediate enactment of the MESA Bill to protect Adivasi communities living in urbanised Scheduled Areas.

As the international community approaches the twentieth anniversary of UNDRIP, the groups called on the Expert Mechanism to move beyond general studies and begin sustained monitoring of specific and ongoing cases.

“None of these are aspirational requests,” the statements said, arguing that each demand relates to a mechanism India has already established domestically but has refused to complete.

This article is republished from Maktoob Media. Read the original article.