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In an effort to locate nearly 1.5 million tribal people in six districts of North Bengal in development map of the state the paper disentangles the mechanisms of further marginalization of the marginalized, the "poorest of the poor". The tribes of North Bengal are overwhelmingly dependent on agriculture-based economy in four districts and on tea industry in two districts and the mechanisms of marginalization in the economic, social and political fields in the agricultural setup and in tea gardens are significantly different. The state, through its various development agencies, draws out development plans and programmes, which leave only skin-deep effect on the life of the tribals. Because of minimal or no control over material and human resources the tribals cannot take the advantage of the state-facilitated infrastructure and development schemes; a local neo-elite consisting mostly of the non-tribal neighbours corner the fruits of the development initiatives of the state and its various agencies. Asked to compete with relatively powerful economic and social forces in the market the tribals, who are still struggling to find a stable route to development, get further marginalized; the integrationist mechanisms of liberal democracy fail to reverse the trend. Keeping the constraints of liberal-democratic order the paper works out some development strategies based on the existentialist insights of the tribal people living in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]