Revitalizing Adivasi Ecology

In the title story of the short story collection The Adivasi Will Not Dance*, noted Santhal writer Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar sketched the character of Mangal Murmu who had accepted the opportunity to dance at a programme where the President of India would inaugurate a thermal power plant. However, upon learning that the whole project was constructed at the expense of the eleven villages whose inhabitants were evicted by an official diktat, the dance troupe-master decided to protest in front of the President, ultimately leading to his arrest. What the story, and others in the volume have brought out is the present-day plight of the Adivasis who were deprived of their livelihood and forced out of their own land because of coal mining and other developmental projects. The debates around land, environment and enforced human displacement continue to be much heated topics that attract attention.