On August 9, the government in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal did not host events marking the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples. Last year, the day was celebrated with events across the state over four days. The new Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government that came to power in May issued a notice on August 5, stating that this year’s celebration was cancelled. No reason was given for the decision.

West Bengal’s indigenous people’s organizations protested the move, as did the opposition parties. “This is an assault on the indigenous people’s identity and pride,” Mayukh Biswas, a leader of the West Bengal unit of the Communist Party of India-Marxists, said, alleging that the decision stemmed from the BJP’s ideological project of denying the adivasi (indigenous/aboriginal) identity of the tribal population.

Peeved by the government’s neglect, several indigenous peoples’ organizations in West Bengal took out processions to celebrate the day on August 9.

In Bangladesh on the same day, tribal groups pressed for their long-standing demand that they be called adivasi/indigenous people. As the Bangladesh government does not officially celebrate the International Day for the World’s Indigenous Peoples, tribal groups celebrated on their own.

West Bengal’s BJP government’s decision does not come as a surprise. In 2021, it formally institutionalized November 15 as “Janjatiya Gaurav Divas” (Tribal Pride Day). Since 2022, neither President Droupadi Murmu, who comes from a tribal community, nor Prime Minister Narendra Modi has shared any celebratory message on August 9. In contrast, November 15 receives extensive state patronage.

In fact, in 2024, one of the BJP’s crucial ideological partners alleged that “external forces and Christian missionaries” were seeking to divide society using Indigenous People’s Day.

The August 9 event has “indigenous people” in the name of the day. In the Indo-Aryan group of languages like Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali, Nepali, and Sinhalese, this is best expressed by the word adivasi. The name of the November 15 event includes janajati, which translates to “tribal” in English.

The argument over what to call the tribal peoples — adivasi, janajati or upajati — may look like a dispute over vocabulary. But it is not. It is actually an argument over history, nationhood, and political rights, especially in India and Bangladesh.

The term “adivasi” literally means original inhabitants and stands closer to globally popular terms like indigenous people and aboriginal. It carries a claim of original or prior inhabitation. When linked to land, historical continuity, and collective rights, this can acquire political significance. Terms such as janajati (tribe), upajati (sub-tribe) or vanvasi (forest dwellers) do not make that claim in the same way.

This is why the term “adivasi” is also popular in Nepal and Sri Lanka. Nepali society has gone through phases of intense debate over using adivasi or janajati. However, the debate faded somewhat as Nepal legally termed them Indigenous Nationalities or Adivasi Janajati — combining adivasi and janajati, calling the two terms complementary. In Sri Lanka, the usage of adivasi is rather new, gaining popularity since the 1990s, without much of a conflict over the term.

While organizations of the tribal people prefer the term adivasi/Mulbasi/mulnibasi (indigenous/aboriginal), Hindu religious nationalists in India and different nationalist groups in Bangladesh oppose this.

In India, the Hindu nationalists, which include Modi’s BJP and its ideological-organizational parent, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), argue that “original inhabitants” would imply that other Indians are outsiders. The Sangh therefore prefers terms such as vanvasi and janajati to describe the adivasis.

In contrast, Rahul Gandhi, India’s main opposition leader, issues celebratory messages and calls adivasis the “original owners” of the land.

In Bangladesh, successive governments and sections of the political establishment have resisted recognizing the country’s tribal peoples through the term “adivasi” or Indigenous Peoples. The arguments and political positions have varied, but the stance has not changed. Officials have been formally instructed not to use adivasi in communications. The government uses upajati or Khudra Nrigoshthi (minor ethnic races). Even this year, tribal groups demanded to be called adivasi.

In contemporary international usage, Indigenous Peoples are associated with collective rights, cultural continuity, self-identification, and relationships with ancestral territories. The U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), adopted in 2007, establishes a framework for such rights, including rights relating to cultural identity, lands, and resources.

India’s Congress-led government voted for the Declaration; Bangladesh abstained, pointing to ambiguities in the Declaration, particularly the absence of an explicit definition of “indigenous people.”

The U.N. does not provide a single universal legal definition of who constitutes an Indigenous People, as it believes identifying them is more important than defining.

In Bangladesh, the arguments against calling them adivasi include: a) the Bengali-speaking people are the original inhabitants of the deltaic plains, which form the overwhelming majority of the country’s territory; b) the tribals of the hills had originally migrated from other neighboring hills that now fall in India or Myanmar; and c) granting indigenous status could create legal avenues for claims regarding autonomy, self-determination, or specialized territorial rights, which could endanger national security at the trijunction of India, Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Another intriguing argument is that as there has been a large influx of Bengali people on these lands, demands for relocating these non-tribal settlers will create further complexities and social tension. The irony is that the settler influx happened with state backing in the first place.

The Indian scenario is different. Here, the legal/constitutional term is Scheduled Tribe (ST) (anusuchit janjati). Adivasi has long been used in Indian public discourse and by official institutions alongside the constitutionally specified category of ST. People falling under the ST category enjoy certain protections, including reservations in education and jobs. There are tribal autonomous districts where non-tribals cannot purchase or own land or business.

The BJP and the wider Sangh Parivar, however, have explicitly objected to the term on ideological grounds. Since the launch of the RSS-backed Vanvasi Kalyan Ashram (VKA) in 1952, the Hindu nationalist camp has used and promoted the term vanvasi. RSS leader Ram Madhav stated that the Sangh believes that “we all are original inhabitants of this continent.”

Later, they also incorporated the term janajati and helped launch an outfit named Janjati Suraksha Manch (tribal protection committee). The VKA’s Nepal chapter calls itself Janajati Kalyan Ashram, perhaps because tribal people in Nepal live more in the hills than the forests.

Opposition parties often argue that terms like vanvasi and janajati reduce indigenous peoples to a subset of a larger Hindu civilization. In Nepal, tribal people oppose the use of janajati, arguing that jati comes from the Hindu varna (caste) system.

Therefore, in India, it is mostly the Hindu nationalist force that opposes the adivasi term. And that, too, primarily from an ideological perspective: They claim the Aryans are as much the original inhabitants of India as different tribes are — a claim scientifically unproven but essential for the Hindu nationalist pride in Vedic Aryan supremacy over world cultures.

Gandhi, however, warned that what now appears to be a war on identity can also transform into one on their traditional and historical ownership of natural resources.