Adivasi literally mean

Adivasis are jana or tribe people who are deprived of power, poverty and social stigma. They are the 'real inhabitants of forest' refer as people of forest who donot have any caste, sub-caste and religion . They are removed from their lands by government for industries and mining activities , for this they were not given proper compensation and rehabilitation.

The 67.7 million people belonging to Scheduled Tribes in India are generally considered to be Adivasis, literally meaning indigenous people or original inhabitants, and tribals though the term Scheduled Tribes is not coterminous with the term Adivasis. Scheduled Tribes is an administrative term used for purposes of administering certain specific constitutional privileges, protection and benefits for specific sections of peoples considered historically disadvantaged and backward.

The term Adivasi derives from the Hindi word 'adi' which means of earliest times or from the beginning and 'vasi' meaning inhabitant or resident, and it was coined in the 1930s, largely a consequence of a political movement to forge a sense of identity among the various indigenous peoples of India.