India, Sept. 12 -- Umar Khalid's Fractured Communities: Adivasi Histories and the Politics of Power traces the political history, from the colonial to the post-colonial period, of tribal people in the area that now constitutes Singbhum district in Jharkhand. Those who know of Umar Khalid from Indian news television that paints him as a desh drohi and agitator will be surprised to see that he comes across as an astute writer and serious scholar in this book adapted from his PhD thesis submitted to JNU's Centre for Historical Studies. Indeed, his research on the tribal experience in that part of "mainland India" adds significantly to the existing knowledge of tribal history in general.

There is a tendency in the northeast, where I am from,...