Adivasis today face severe economic and social marginalisation. In areas where tribal populations are concentrated, their conditions are significantly worse than those of non-tribals. This impoverishment traces back to the pattern of accelerated resource extraction started by the colonial British government and continued by independent India.

From the late nineteenth century, the colonial government reserved most forest tracts for its own use, severing traditional rights that adivasis had for gathering produce and shifting cultivation. Forests were protected for maximising timber production, taking away the mainstay of their livelihoods and making their lives poorer and more insecure.

Denied access to forests and land, adivasis were forced to either use forests illegally—facing harassment as 'encroachers'—or migrate for wage labour. After Independence, the government's monopoly over forests continued. Capital-intensive industrialisation required mineral resources concentrated in Adivasi areas, leading to acquisition of Adivasi lands for mining and dam projects.

These policies, justified as 'national development', represent internal colonialism. Projects like the Sardar Sarovar dam and Polavaram dam displaced hundreds of thousands of adivasis without appropriate compensation. Since the 1990s, economic liberalisation has made it easier for corporate firms to acquire land by displacing adivasis.