Educating for Inequality: The Experiences of India’s “Indigenous” Citizens Nandini SUNDAR This report deals with the contradictions and dilemmas concerning education faced by adivasis, the preferred local term for “indigenous people,” in central India. 1 Adivasis constitute some 84 million people, making up over eight percent of India’s population. The adivasi are offi- cially known as scheduled tribes (ST), since under Article 342 of the Indian constitution, these communities are listed in government sched- ules or lists for the purpose of affirmative action. Many of them also inhabit areas of India which are meant to enjoy a degree of constitutional autonomy. 2 Literacy rates among the scheduled tribes are abysmally low compared to the national average, despite some improvement between 1991 and 2001 (see Table 1). While education has been an important avenue for mobility among some sections of the dalits or former untouchables (officially, scheduled castes or SC), adivasis, the other main disadvantaged social grouping in India for which the constitution provides affirmative action in education and government employment, have not fared as well (see Xaxa 2001; Mohanty 2006). As Xaxa argues, Nandini Sundar is Professor of Sociology, Delhi University, and co-editor of Contributions to Indian Sociology. Her publications include Subalterns and Sovereigns: An Anthropological History of Bastar (2nd ed. Oxford University Press, 2007), and Branching Out: Joint Forest Management in India (Oxford University Press, 2001). Her e-mail address is: nandinisundar@yahoo.com Asian Anthropology, Vol. 9 (2010) Published by The Chinese University Press Copyrighted Materials