Veteran Adivasi Rights Activist Pradip Prabhu Passes Away at 78

Pradip Prabhu, who was known to generations of Adivasis, activists and friends simply as Pradipbhau, passed away in Pune on August 25, 2026 at the age of 78, after a prolonged illness.

He was born and raised in Mumbai. Before he became the voice of the Kashtakari Sanghatana (organisation of toilers), he studied theology and philosophy, and later management at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences. He later became a lawyer, and defended the rights of Adivasis to their Jal, Jungle, Jameen (water, land and forests). But it was in the slums and villages of Maharashtra, where he chose to live and learn, that his real education began.

In 1978 he founded the Kashtakari Sanghatana in Dahanu (in erstwhile Thane and now Palghar district of Maharashtra) as a mass movement of Adivasi landless labourers and marginal farmers who were exploited by landlords, the police, the forest department and the jungle mafia. He believed, and taught the oppressed people that rights are never given — they must be taken, fought for, won and preserved.

For close to five decades, Pradip stood shoulder to shoulder with Adivasis and marginal farmers, across India, guiding and supporting them in their struggles for land, forest, wages, health and dignity. He was sought to be silenced through false and fabricated prosecutions and was jailed numerous times. Along the way, he confronted threats of externment, arrest under TADA and also narrowly avoided being killed in staged ‘encounters’.  Through all this, he never flinched or backed down.

Pradip's mind ranged effortlessly across pedagogy, law, political ideology, cultural history and tribal tradition, public policy and political economy. And yet his unique gift was making all of it understood by a villager in a remote Adivasi hamlet or a worker in a city slum. Few could match him as a teacher. He ignited amongst all he taught the urge to critically question power and authority, be committed to walk the talk and remain humble and humane through all this.

Few teachers and trainers can match the emotional charge he carried in a single word: his deep-throated 'Zindabad' pulled young and old alike out of complacence and into the struggle for a more just and equal India.

Pradip will be remembered above all for his role in shaping two of independent India's most far-reaching laws for tribal India, Provision of the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA), 1996, and the Forest Rights Act (2005), which together secured Adivasis’ rights over the land they till and the forests they depend on, and gave Gram Sabhas in Fifth Schedule areas the power of self-governance.

Also read: Are Young Adivasis in Odisha Losing Life-Skills Through Schooling?

Pradip was one of the founders of the Campaign for Survival and Dignity (CSD) and convenor of the National Front for Tribal Self-Rule, which spearheaded the campaign leading to the enactment of the Forest Rights Act and the PESA, respectively. Pradip was also a leading activist of Shoshit Jan Andolan and Bharat Jan Andolan, which were movements of tribal communities and other oppressed classes.

Alongside Dr B.D. Sharma, he is rightly remembered as one of the principal architects of what many have called a constitution for tribal India.

Pradip trained several generations of political activists through his very uniquely designed experiential workshops. He also took several training programmes for government officers and judges, from IAS probationers at the Lal Bahadur Shastri Academy and judges at the National Judicial Academy. In recent years, he co-founded the Barefoot Academy of Governance to create a cadre of change agents through governance reform.

He was a Senior Fellow of the National Institute of Rural Development, Hyderabad. Later he served as Dean of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences rural campus in Tuljapur. He was a member  of several government committees on tribal rights, land and panchayati raj and sub-committees of the Planning Commission.

Pradip practised what he preached. He lived simply, spoke plainly and remained, to his last days, available to the poorest person who needed him. For decades he was the muft vakil (free advocate) of Dahanu's Adivasis, and was even sarcastically referred to as Mr Mufatlal by other lawyers in court.

He is survived by his wife, Shiraz Bulsara, his partner in life and in struggle since 1985, and by the countless comrades across India whom he shaped, taught and inspired. He leaves behind his siblings, Mabel, Melwyn, Merle, Malcolm and Melanie and their families. Very importantly, he leaves behind his colleagues and comrades of the Kashtakari Sanghatana of Dahanu, in the Jawahar, Mokhada, Vikramgad talukas and in Dadra Nagar Haveli. And a large number of students and youngsters inspired by his teachings.

Brian Lobo is an activist of the Kashatakari Sanghatana.  He is a former expert member of the Rest of Maharashtra Development Board.

The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.