Cultural Genocide : A necessary concept in Anthropology Today? Felix Padel 1 and Magdalena Krysinska-Kaluzna 2 Tribal people in 2012 are on a ‘final frontier’ of invasion and takeover of their land and territories, as resources get scarcer in a capitalist system whose growth expands beyond what the earth seems able to sustain (New Internationalist October 2011, Gaia Foundation 2012). This is the situation in India, and in most other countries where tribal peoples still survive: a multitude of very tough situations indeed, as the quest for resources by mainstream societies - especially by corporations and banks - grows relentlessly. In many ways, a paradigm of genocide was laid out during the 15lh-19th centuries in North and South America, Australia, parts of Africa (including the ‘Hottentot’ civilisation in South Africa, and many tribes exterminated through the slave trade), and other places penetrated by European traders and colonists. 1 Honorary Fellow, Durham University, No. 8. Golden Park, Vaghasi Road, Ganesh Chokdi Anand, Gujarat – 388001. 2 Anthropologist, Karlowicza-2/6, 62-510 Konin, Poland. ABSTRACT Throughout the continent of America and in many other countries, a pattern of genocide among indigenous, tribal populations was laid out by European invaders from the 16th century and before. Two levels can be distinguished: physical extermination and cultural genocide. Both are still on-going: tribes in the Amazon rainforest who managed to stay ‘invisible’ to mainstream society over centuries often face complete collapse within 20 years of first contacts. India’s tribal societies, who always existed on the edges of ‘civilisation’, escaped this extreme level of extermination. But dispossession from their land started during colonial times, and has accelerated since Independence. Displacement by dams and other ‘development’ projects, and invasion of their territories by large-scale mining projects, involve an immensely painful process of Cultural Genocide, that needs better acknowledgement by anthropologists and the wider society. Cultural Genocide often accompanies Ecocide, a destruction of ecosystems that tribal societies had maintained intact over centuries. Jr. Anth. Survey of India, 61 : 1 (87-107), 2012