About the Book: Tribals and Dalits in Orissa
Historians have generally focused on the 'extraordinary forms of protest while
speaking of the lives of oppressed social groups, but the basic survival
strategies of these groups are often overlooked in research. The fact that
excluded groups have managed to survive has, hidden right beneath the surface, a
whole range of complexities, while also demonstrating their ability to resist
dominant social orders. Biswamoy Patis posthumous volume on the lives of the
tribals and dalits/outcastes in Orissa, from c. 1800 to 1950, shows how such
communities were further impoverished by both colonial government policies and
the chiefs of the despotic princely