Indigenous political demands include the recognition of indigenous territories consisted not only of the agricultural land, but also the forests, water bodies, mountains, flora-fauna, birds and animals and most importantly the treasure troves under the earth of their region, like oil and minerals. It wants to be considered as an equally political and legal subjects and not mere objects of state policies. But non-indigenous state believes that even a limited form of autonomy may threaten the national integration as indigenous territorial rights are viewed as controversial. The recognition of the notion of a broader indigenous territory and legal jurisdiction would undoubtedly have strengthened the indigenous communities to protect themselves from displacement and create a new nuclei of power beyond the authoritative state. Moreover, the recognition of the indigenous intellectual property rights could even encourage them to redefine their relationship with the state and eradicate poverty and marginalisation. Indigenous politics in India started as a united and coordinated social movement only in the late 1960s, though there was a long legacy of indigenous struggle for autonomy which can be traced in the colonial history. It transformed the course of nationalist policy called assimilation into indigenous self-determination movement. Western culture is believed to be the cornerstone of law and order which champions the rights of innocent and disadvantaged people. Indigenous societies, on the contrary, are thought to be less developed which limits indigenous cultural practices and denies recognising their customary law and order. State intervention is seen as necessary and policing of boundaries as mandatory. Indigenous governance is neglected anyway. It is interesting to know that since the Indian government has rejected the term ‘indigenous’ at the policy level, it forbade the tribal activists from getting access of the resources available for the indigenous people through the UN and international NGOs which categorically recognised the indigenous rights. In fact, there is no comparable body in India which could bring together all tribal/indigenous communities under one umbrella. It is therefore necessary to make the indigenous communities self-reliant and independent through substantive consultation, training and educating the indigenous youths in community governance so that dependence on non-indigenous administration can be reduced and resource allocation can be fructified. But lack of indigenous participation in decision-making process and substantial funding for infrastructure and other services obstruct the process of empowerment of the indigenous communities. Indigenous self is itself a contested notion. Indigenous Jharkhandi identity has always been remained a volatile concept that was reinvented over and over during the Jharkhand movement. The movement began exclusively as an indigenous movement but later it was taken over by a non-indigenous settler community called the sadans. The leadership of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha was also divided on the class line. The Western educated tribal leaders asserted the ‘proto-Jharkhandi’ identity which underscored its past history of the tribal revolts against the colonial rule (Prakash, 1999). But that does not mean that the Jharkhand is no more a tribal state. Indigenous discourse is still very much powerful in here and the de-indigenisation process is yet to get accomplished. The election of Hemanta Soren as the Chief Minister in 2019 has proved the fact that Jharkhand still relies on indigenous leadership.