Special Lecture Series

Bhasha organizes conferences, seminars, workshops and cultural festivals to raise awareness of issues related to adivasis.

Shortly after the Bhasha Trust was established, it was decided to institute an annual lecture series named after Dr. Verrier Elwin in memory of his significant contribution to documenting adivasi cultural heritage and to defining India’s official policy of adivasi development. Since 1997 nine lectures have been given.

1997: Prof K. G. Subramanian, Discovering Each Other

1998: Smt. Mahasweta Devi, Denotified & Nomadic Tribes

1999: Dr. Ramachandra Guha, The Nine Lives of Verrier Elwin

2000: Smt. Jaya Jaitly, Tribal Identity Through Craft

2001: Justice M. N. Venkatachaliah, Tribals : The Present and The Future

2002: Shri Rajmohan Gandhi, Beyond Religion

2003: Dr. Gail Omvedt, Notes Toward A History of Bhills

2004: Prof. Ram Dayal Nunda, Challenges To Tribal Development

2005: Prof. Shiv Visvanathan, The imagination of the future

Adivasi Academy has commenced the Academy Foundation Lecture series. The inaugural lecture of which was delivered by

Dr K. K. Chakravarty, (IAS) Former Director General of the National Museum at Delhi on “The Legitimacy of Diversity in a Cultural Mapping” in 2005

The second lecture was delivered by Dr. B. D. Sharma on ‘Development with Equity’ in November 2006.

The third Lecture was delivered by Shri Narayanbhai Desai on ‘'Gandhi and Non-Violence' in 2007

The fourth lecture was delivered by Dr Sudha Gopalkrishna on ‘'Oral literary traditions' in 2008

In addition a number of other conferences and seminars have been hosted by Bhasha related to adivasis and nomadic communities in India.