India’s tribal cultural heritage – West Bengal

“The smart boy or clever girl who is deprived of the opportunity of schooling, or who goes to a school with dismal facilities (not to mention the high incidence of absentee teachers), not only loses the opportunities he or she could have had, but also adds to the massive waste of talent that is a … Read more

Adivasis’ profound influence on modern Indian art: “The Triumph of Modernism” by Partha Mitter

Primitivism in modern Indian art drew on adibasis. […] At Santiniketan, art was to be an integral part of an all-rounded education; Tagore had long considered Abanindranath’s pupil Nandalal [Bose] the best person to give this shape. The triumph of modernism: India’s artists and the avant-garde, 1922-1947 by Partha Mitter (New Delhi, Oxford Unitversity Press, 2007), p. 79 … Read more

Video | The representation of tribal women in Indian cinema: A comparison between Assamese cinema and Satyajit Ray’s classic “Days And Nights In The Forest” – Assam & West Bengal

The immediate impression of Indian movies is that all are depicting an established formula, where the good woman is usually vulnerable and innocent, mostly good looking and also helpless or lacking in intelligence. The bad woman is either sensuous or scary and wicked even in appearance. But Assamese cinema, especially as seen through most of … Read more

Books that provide insight into tribal literature: Glimpses of a different world that “dissolve the borders that divide us”

Source: “Voices Unheard: Tribal Literature from India to Read Now” by Pooja Shankar, Words Without Borders, 29 March 2017URL: https://www.wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/article/voices-unheard-tribal-literature-from-india-to-read-nowDate visited: 12 April 2018

Selected writings by anthropologist Verrier Elwin (1902-64)

The Oxford India Elwinby G.N. Devy (ed.) 440 Pages | 80 line illus. & photographsISBN: 9780195697919, Rs. 795From presenting Elwin’s work among the tribal peoples of central India, to affording glimpses of his seminal work on the unique institution of the ghotul among the Murias of Bastar, or relating Elwin’s attempts at understanding the high incidence of murder … Read more