AI and Tech in Tribal Development: Whose Knowledge Systems Are Being Digitised? (Janjatiya Garima Utsav 2026)
Original framing: “Ministry of Tribal Affairs and IIT Delhi Organise Seminar on “Role of AI and Technology in Strengthening Sustainable Tribal Development” under Janjatiya Garima Utsav 2026” — bing news
Adivasi women’s groups, such as the Adivasi Mahila Sangathan in Maharashtra, have condemned tech-led 'development' as a tool of patriarchal control, citing cases where digital land records disenfranchised female farmers. Dalit and tribal activists point out that AI systems in India’s welfare schemes (e.g., PM-KISAN) often exclude landless labourers, who are majority tribal. The seminar’s organisers exclude critical voices like those of the Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti, which has fought against bauxite mining disguised as 'tribal welfare.'
The seminar’s framing of AI as a tool for 'sustainable tribal development' is a continuation of India’s long history of technocratic governance that instrumentalises marginalised communities for state and corporate ends.
By centring Indigenous data sovereignty, co-design, and sovereign technology zones, the solution pathways invert this dynamic: they treat tribal communities as sovereign actors rather than beneficiaries. The trickster’s irony lies in how the festival’s name ('Janjatiya Garima Utsav') masks the indignities of techno-colonialism, much like Hermes’ theft of Apollo’s cattle. Cross-cultural parallels—from the Sami Parliament’s reindeer AI to the Munduruku’s drone resistance—reveal that the path forward requires dismantling extractive digital infrastructures and replacing them with models rooted in Indigenous epistemologies. The stakes are high: without these changes, AI will become another tool of displacement, but with them, it could model a decolonial future where technology serves life rather than capital.