Adivasis of the crushers of Birbhum: A dismal state of state-led development initiatives

A survey was conducted in the stone quarries and crushers of Panchami of Birbhum (West Bengal, India) have unveiled some unknown truths before us, truths that were always denied and ignored. The adivasis are languishing in a tremendously poisonous environmental condition. Several years passed and nothing happened to the promises made by the government to them. The promises are forgotten as usual. But the brewing discontents of the adivasis can anytime burst into movement, a movement led by their ‘faceless saviours’ – the sons of the soil. This is a dismal story of a small district where the indigenous people are doomed to survive in a sorrow state of utter negligence and are preparing for taking up arms to protest against all sorts of injustice and oppression perpetrated by the state government. The present article is based on personal interview and field work method and hardly contains secondary source material.