Fractured Communities - Paperback

A powerful and deeply researched history of the Adivasi communities of Singhbhum, examining colonial rule, identity and the dangers of treating diverse communities as a single, uniform whole.

In Fractured Communities, Umar Khalid draws on his doctoral research to explore the history of the tribal societies of the Singhbhum region of present-day Jharkhand under British rule.

Completed under extraordinary personal circumstances and submitted as a PhD thesis to Jawaharlal Nehru University's Centre for Historical Studies in 2018, the research later drew significant attention from scholars and historians for its depth and originality.

Bringing together extensive archival research and clear, thoughtful analysis, Khalid examines how colonial systems of administration and historical writing often attempted to categorise complex societies into simplified groups. At the heart of the book is a crucial question: what is lost when histories written from positions of power flatten the important differences between—and within—communities?

Through the story of Singhbhum's Adivasi societies, Fractured Communities explores questions of identity, power, marginalisation and the way the past is recorded and understood.

Rigorous, insightful and highly relevant, this is both an important work of history and a compelling examination of why a more nuanced understanding of communities and their histories matters—especially in an age of increasingly simplified narratives about the past.