“While benefiting from affirmative action in some cases, Adivasis or indigenous people in India also feel the claustrophobic confines of their identity which has been imposed on them by others, be it the colonial administrator, the colonial anthropologist, the missionary or the neo-liberal, neo-imperialist forces that rule global economy today.” – Santali poet, scholar and translator Ivy Imogene Hansdak in “Is tribal identity relevant in today’s world?”, Inaugural Speech, National Conference “Tribes In Transition-II: Reaffirming Indigenous Identity Through Narrative” (2017)
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“It is wrong and does not help the tribal cause either to reduce the image of the Indian tribal society to that of destitute remnants, on the verge of dying out.” – Georg Pfeffer in Voices from the Periphery: Subalternity and Empowerment in India (Routledge India 2012) A rare collection of essays and different from most … Read more
There can be little dispute that the socio-cultural norms, practices, and rituals in the mainstream Hindu tradition subsume a deep ideological repugnance towards gender equality. But this contrasts with the country’s overall tribal culture and society. Indeed, the latter, which has for long been exterior to the patently patriarchal and caste-hierarchical Hindu socio-cultural orbit, is … Read more
Saving the forests of Garhwal by sticking to trees. Fighting a big dam by living in submerged waters. These movements redefined the greening of India. STICKING TO A CAUSE Chipko Movement, 1973 “In the wake of reckless deforestation, a unique movement has bubbled,” observed India Today in March 1982. The 1980s saw the debate on … Read more
Tagore’s alienation and the zamindari system [Rabindranath Tagore] conspicuously distanced himself from the middle class, or the bhadralok, although they constituted the head and front of his audience as an author. Tagore’s alienation from such people can be contrasted with his perception that among the rural peasantry there was a “touch of humanity”. Undeniably, Tagore was … Read more
Source: Martin Kämpchen quoted by Prabir Chatterjee in “Santals and Santiniketan” (originally published by The Statesman)Address: https://www.mail-archive.com/jharkhand@yahoogroups.co.in/msg04356.htmlDate Visited: 23 June 2021 Tagore & the GeheebsThis book is a study of the Indo-German cultural exchange in the early 20th century that was initiated by three educators and their pedagogical vision… A review. | Read the full … Read more