The battle for common sense: Reclaiming Adivasi knowledge from 'Brain Capture'

Follow TNM's WhatsApp channel for news updates and story links.The struggle over land, forests, rivers, and self-governance in India's tribal regions is often portrayed as a contest over resources or political power. Yet beneath these visible conflicts lies a deeper and more fundamental battle—a struggle over ideas. At its heart is a deceptively simple question: Who has the authority to define development?For decades, development has been presented as a universal aspiration with a universally accepted meaning. Highways, dams, mines, industrial corridors, urban expansion, and rising GDP have become synonymous with progress. Governments pursue them as public policy, universities teach them as economic necessities, financial institutions finance them as engines of growth, and the media frequently celebrate them as symbols of national advancement. Over time, these assumptions become so deeply embedded in public consciousness that they appear self-evident. Alternative ways of understanding society, nature, and human well-being gradually disappear from public imagination.This phenomenon may be described as brain capture—the internalisation of dominant economic and political ideas to such an extent that competing worldviews become invisible or even unimaginable. Unlike censorship, brain capture operates subtly. It shapes what people consider "common sense", determines which forms of knowledge receive legitimacy, and narrows the range of acceptable public debate. When this happens, development ceases to be a democratic choice and instead becomes an unquestioned doctrine.The consequences of brain capture are particularly significant for India's Adivasi communities. For them, forests are not merely timber reserves, rivers are not simply sources of hydroelectric power, and mountains are not mineral deposits waiting to be extracted. Land is not a commodity to be bought and sold. Rather, these landscapes constitute living relationships connecting ancestors, culture, spirituality, livelihoods, biodiversity, and future generations. Such understandings are neither romantic nor primitive; they represent sophisticated systems of ecological knowledge refined through centuries of lived experience.Yet mainstream development discourse often fails to recognise these knowledge systems. Forests become "natural resources", rivers become "economic assets", mountains become "mining opportunities", and communities become either "beneficiaries" of development or obstacles standing in its way. The language of development itself transforms living ecosystems into objects of economic calculation.This transformation accelerated after India's economic reforms of 1991. Liberalisation, privatisation, and globalisation introduced a development paradigm centred on markets, competition, efficiency, and investment. Economic success increasingly came to be measured through indicators such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth, industrial production, infrastructure expansion, and integration into global markets. While these reforms contributed significantly to economic growth, critics argued that they also marginalised questions of ecological sustainability, social justice, cultural diversity, and democratic participation.Adivasi regions increasingly came to be viewed as "backward" areas requiring modernisation and integration into the national mainstream. Development planning frequently assumed that tribal societies represented an earlier stage of progress that needed to be transformed rather than respected. Such assumptions overlooked the possibility that indigenous communities might possess valuable knowledge about sustainable living, democratic decision-making, and environmental stewardship.The consequences have been profound. Large dams, mining projects, industrial corridors, and infrastructure expansion have displaced millions of people across India. Sociologist Walter Fernandes aptly described these displaced populations as "development refugees"—communities that bear the costs of economic progress while receiving few of its benefits. Their displacement is not merely physical. It also entails the erosion of languages, customary institutions, social networks, cultural identities, and ecological relationships that have evolved over generations.Traditional farming practices, community-based forest management, medicinal knowledge, biodiversity conservation, and customary legal systems embody accumulated wisdom based on careful observation and adaptation to local environments. However, because much of this knowledge is transmitted orally rather than through formal academic institutions, it is often dismissed as informal or unscientific. This reflects not a lack of sophistication but a hierarchy of knowledge that privileges written, centralised, and institutional forms of expertise over lived experience.The struggle over land, therefore, is simultaneously a struggle for intellectual recognition. Indigenous communities are not merely demanding inclusion within existing development frameworks; they seek recognition that their own systems of knowledge, governance, and environmental ethics possess equal legitimacy.Environmental history provides important insights into this debate. Scholars have consistently shown that communities whose livelihoods depend directly on forests, rivers, and biodiversity often become their strongest custodians. Their relationship with nature is not governed solely by extraction or profit but by reciprocity, restraint, and collective responsibility. These principles are increasingly relevant in an era of climate change, biodiversity loss, and ecological degradation.Political scientist James C Scott demonstrated how modern states often simplify complex social realities to make them easier to administer. Standardised land records, centralised planning, and uniform development schemes frequently ignore local knowledge and customary institutions. Such simplifications may improve administrative efficiency, but they often destroy practical wisdom that has enabled communities to manage landscapes sustainably for generations.India offers a compelling illustration through the Niyamgiri movement in Odisha. When bauxite mining was proposed in the Niyamgiri Hills, the Dongria Kondh community opposed the project, arguing that the mountains were sacred and inseparable from their cultural identity and ecological survival. Following the landmark decision of the Supreme Court, the Gram Sabhas rejected the mining proposal. Their decision demonstrated that indigenous communities possess their own sophisticated criteria for evaluating development—criteria that include cultural continuity, ecological balance, and spiritual relationships with nature alongside economic considerations.Several scholars have consistently defended such alternative visions of development. Anthropologist Verrier Elwin, despite continuing debates over aspects of his work, argued that tribal communities should be allowed to determine their own paths of social change rather than being subjected to externally imposed models of modernisation. More recently, sociologist Nandini Sundar has emphasised that customary institutions and local self-governance are not remnants of the past but essential components of democratic governance in contemporary India. Their scholarship reminds us that indigenous societies are active participants in shaping modern democratic futures, not passive recipients of state policy.Another important dimension of brain capture concerns the commercialisation of indigenous knowledge. Traditional medicinal practices, seed varieties, biodiversity conservation techniques, and ecological innovations have attracted increasing commercial interest. Yet the communities that have preserved this knowledge for generations often receive neither recognition nor equitable compensation.The well-known international patent disputes involving turmeric and neem exposed the vulnerability of orally transmitted knowledge within modern intellectual property regimes. Although India responded by creating mechanisms such as the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) and strengthening protections under the Biological Diversity Act, important challenges remain. Documentation alone cannot guarantee justice. Genuine protection requires recognition of community ownership, prior informed consent, and equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of indigenous knowledge. Knowledge, like land, cannot become another site of extraction.The larger challenge before India is therefore not whether to modernise. Modernisation is both necessary and inevitable. The real question is what kind of modernity the country seeks to build.A civilisation as diverse as India cannot flourish under a single uniform model of development imposed across every region. Diversity is not an obstacle to national integration; it is one of India's greatest strengths. Indigenous traditions of collective ownership, participatory decision-making, ecological stewardship, and social reciprocity offer valuable insights for addressing some of the most pressing global challenges, including climate change, environmental degradation, and growing inequalities.India's constitutional framework already recognises this diversity. The Fifth Schedule, the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 (PESA), and the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 (Forest Rights Act) affirm the principles of self-governance, community participation, and protection of customary rights. These constitutional safeguards represent far more than welfare provisions. They embody a democratic vision that acknowledges multiple pathways of development within the Indian Union.Yet constitutional guarantees can achieve their purpose only when implemented in both letter and spirit. Effective implementation requires strengthening Gram Sabhas, respecting community consent in decisions affecting land and natural resources, and ensuring that indigenous institutions participate meaningfully in governance rather than merely being consulted after decisions have already been made.Reclaiming intellectual sovereignty also demands significant changes within knowledge institutions. Universities should move beyond treating indigenous communities merely as subjects of research and instead recognise them as equal partners in knowledge creation. Participatory research, community-led documentation, tribal language preservation, oral histories, customary laws, ecological traditions, and community archives deserve far greater institutional support. Such initiatives not only preserve cultural memory but also challenge longstanding monopolies over expertise and knowledge production.Equally important is cultivating humility in policymaking. The future of development cannot be designed exclusively in metropolitan universities, corporate boardrooms, or government offices. It must also emerge from village assemblies, forest communities, mountain settlements, and indigenous institutions that have sustained societies through generations of environmental change. Democratic policymaking requires listening as much as planning.Ultimately, the struggle against brain capture extends far beyond tribal rights alone. It is a struggle for intellectual democracy—the recognition that no single worldview possesses a monopoly over truth, progress, or modernity. It is a struggle to preserve humanity's diversity of knowledge and to reject the assumption that there is only one path to development.The questions before India therefore remain urgent: Who defines development? Whose knowledge counts? Who benefits from progress, and who bears its costs?Inclusive development cannot emerge by excluding those most directly affected by it. Indigenous communities must be recognised not as passive beneficiaries of state policy but as thinkers, innovators, environmental custodians, and architects of alternative futures.The path toward justice lies not in thinking about indigenous peoples from a distance but in thinking with them. Only then can India move beyond brain capture and build a model of development rooted in dignity, constitutional democracy, ecological balance, cultural plurality, and genuine intellectual sovereignty.Palla Trinadha Rao is a lawyer and an activist working for tribal rights for more than three decades. Views expressed here are the author’s own.