The historical approach followed to understand issues around critical resources like land and forest enables the student to adopt a more informed approach to analyze developmental issues. The course also focuses on the key state policies for the community pertaining to issues of governance of land and forest as well as health and education as two development areas. The course also discusses the discourse of conflict and violence in the Adivasi areas thus offering the students with a clear perspective on democracy and politics.

The term ​‘Adivasi’ instead of ​‘Scheduled Tribes’ is used in the course title to retain the broad politico-cultural connotation of the term and Scheduled Tribe, wherever used, is to avoid any confusion while using the official data and administrative provisions. The course focuses on Scheduled Tribes in central and eastern India because Scheduled V of the constitution provides a uniform framework to analyze the issues of development as well as forest and land governance.