From the introduction:

Since India’s independence public efforts have been made to improve the quality of life of its inhabitants and to redistribute the wealth of the nation in a more equal way among its rapidly growing population. For this purpose, development plans with a varying time perspective have been drawn up for the nation as a whole, for its constituting states and its special regions, as well as for specific categories of its population. A politically powerful Planning Commission at national level and corresponding institutions at the level of the states did not only coordinate these planned efforts, but formulated the political goals and strategies of the development of the nation and its constituting states as well. One aspect of planned development will come to the fore in this paper, an aspect that is related to one of the specific categories of the population: the so-called adivasis, tribal, aboriginal or indigenous people of India3. The improvement of the living conditions of the tribal communities frames this contribution. However, the many environmental and societal constraints that these communities have to face, are predominantly stressed in the following sections. A very brief introduction to the tribal population will be given first.