Book Review: Making Sense of Tribal and Dalit Exclusion in Colonial Orissa

Biswamoy Pati, Tribals and Dalits in Orissa: Towards a Social History of Exclusion, c. 1800–1950,

Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2019, 221

pages, Rs 945.

This posthumously published book consists of six chapters, of which three have been published earlier in different edited volumes and journals and several of its ideas have been presented at seminars and conferences across continents helping the author to sharpen his focus and arguments. Seeing the world through the prism of ‘inclusion–exclusion’ is among more recent attempts to address the issue of unequal access to ameliorative and welfare measures of the State in the context of rate of growth and its differential implications for social and economic strata and communities.