In August 2001 there was widespread protest in Kerala, a state otherwise known for its remarkable achievements in ‘human’ development, at the starvation deaths that had occurred in a number of adivasi colonies. This prompted a continuing debate on the meaning of the Kerala ‘model’ of development for adivasis, in which a consensus seems to have risen that adivasis are the victims of Kerala’s development experience and in which their current mobilisation is seen as the first time in history that their interests are being politically articulated. This article argues that such an interpretation is unwarranted and dangerous in that it ignores the present limitations of neo-liberalism on initiatives for the emancipation of subaltern groups and prevents them from using their historical political experience to dynamise their present political initiatives.