Pradip Prabhu passed away at the age of 78 after a long illness on August 25th 2026. Even though I came to know of this sad loss immediately, I was unable due to various other commitments to write then about this phenomenal person who has influenced significantly the history of Adivasi India in the Fifth Schedule Areas in the ten states of Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Telengana, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan. There were two very good obituaries written then https://lnkd.in/dj-cVC22 and https://lnkd.in/dFKsNmWV which describe in detail his life as an activist, policy maker and teacher. I would like to remember him here as an elder and colleague from whom I have learnt a lot.
Born Peter D'Mello in Mumbai he first became a priest. While serving as a priest in Mumbai he came in close contact with the people living in the slums and was attracted to Liberation Theology and Marxism. Finding that his vocation as a priest prevented him from fighting whole heartedly for the rights of the oppressed, he left the church, assumed the name Pradip Prabhu and began working with the Adivasis of Dahanu Taluka of the then Thane district of Maharashtra which is now in the new Palghar district. He set up the Kashtkari Sangathana, organisation of the toiling people, in 1978. This was in line with the earlier setting up of independent Adivasi organisations like the Bhumi Sena also in Palghar and the Shramik Sangathana in Nandurbar district. These organisations relied on both Marxist socio-political analysis and the inherent rebelliousness and simplicity of the Adivasis to forge a new Adivasi politics that broke away from the orthodox Marxist mold.
It became clear by the 1990s that working in isolated niches as small organisations would not be able to fight the larger structural injustices that Adivasis have faced from the British colonial times and which have been replicated by the independent India State. Pradip along with the late Dr B. D. Sharma began a campaign for the setting up of a truly independent Adivasi Self Rule framework which led eventually to the enactment of the Panchayat Extension to Scheduled Areas Act 1996 which has come to be referred to as a Constitution within the Constitution for Fifth Schedule Adivasi Areas. Later he led another campaign for the grant of rights to forests for Adivasis which resulted in the Forest Rights Act in 2005. Together, these two legislations have gone a long way in establishing the rights to natural resources and self governance of the Adivasis.
Despite his immense activism and scholarship for which he had been invited to teach in prestigious institutions, he remained a very simple person accessible to all, especially the Adivasis for whom he dedicated his life. Rest in peace comrade you will be sorely missed.
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