Fight for Existence, the title of Marshal Hembram’s poetry collection, is a pertinent credo of the Santal and Adivasi people, and translated by Alok Bandyopadhya, it serves as a chronicle of the lives of the Santal people in the context of their precarious existence in the current setting by bearing testimony to the different setbacks, socioeconomic and political, but most importantly, cultural transformations that have occurred over the past fifty years. The poetry of Hembram illuminates the history of injustice towards the Santals and Adivasi people. Hembram, however, used his pen to proclaim war as well as record the history of exploitation.
Continue reading this review