Extracts:

“In and with Adivasidom

His Excellency Sir Maurice Hallet invited me to tea. He knew my strong points and also my weaknesses but our association had been intimate […]: “Don’t waste your time with Congressmen. Go to Ranchi, there is an Adivasi agitation just started. You have wondered around the world in all sorts of good jobs. Do something for your people in memory of the Canon”. […] 

The next day I went to Takra by car. The river was almost dry and I was able to drive right up the house. No car had ever been there before. My mother burst into tears. My father died while I was at Oxford. I asked my mother, to whom I owe everything, next to Canon Cosgrave, what she thought about my taking to politics. “Do what you would like but expect no thanks.” An illiterate woman but what right warning. I returned the same evening to Ranchi. […]

I agreed to presided over the conference on January 20th, 1939. […] I arrived from Calcutta on January 19th. I was met by the leaders and volunteers in Jharkhand green. The green was chosen so that in the villages caps or hats of leaves cost nothing. […] The 20th January meeting was a revelation. It was held in the Adivasi Bhavan just below the Ranchi lake. There was a procession through the main road. I was mounted on an elephant of the Thakur Saheb of Jaria.  About one lakh people attended the conference. […] The Adivasa Sabha was rooted. I made a change and called it Adivasi Mahasabha.”