Rights Deferred, Sustainable Futures Denied: Indigenous/Adivasi Lessons for Interrogating Tensions in Rights Education

Human rights have been framed as integral to development. Yet, despite decades of development programming, human rights violations prevail. This article examines Adivasi/Indigenous Peoples’ encounters with development in Attappady, India, especially in relation to their identity and expertise as casteist-colonial India’s Indigenous Peoples. Comparing Adivasi interlocutors’ counter-colonial narratives with a thematic analysis of UNESCO’s recent recommendations on human rights education reveal how interlocutors are noting the disconnect between policy promises of the right to dignity and everyday assaults on Adivasi personhood. Meanwhile, development programs that prioritize profits over ecological balance continue to jeopardize their right to sustainable futures. These findings emphasize the relevance of redirecting gaze in rights education, from the perceived deficits of Global South actors towards those who benefit from sustaining unjust global hierarchies, while legitimizing the rights violations that arise from them. As the often-overlooked experts of relational living in a world rendered precarious by an inherently unsustainable development paradigm, this article’s interlocutors emphasize the significance of centering Indigenous/Adivasi expertise in imagining systemic shifts in rights education.