This paper analyses the role of portacabin schools of Bastar, Central India, in historically and politically constructing the gendered subjectivities of Indigenous girls. Hailed as a prime site of development for Indigenous (Adivasi) subjectivities, the newly built residential schools are the governmental response to the decades-long conflict between the state and local Adivasi populations that have struggled against the state oppressions and encroachments. Portacabin schools emerge as a critical site of intervention where multilateral agencies contest each other to ‘empower’ Indigenous girls. In this paper, I analyse constructions of Adivasi girlhoods that are in line with the larger exclusionary framework according to which Adivasi communities have historically been marginalized. However, I also show the ways in which girls subvert and contest the very constructions in their strategic use of voice and silence.