The given slide is a lecture on Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar's The Adivasi Will Not Dance and Nirmala Putul's Mountain Woman and also on Translatability

1. Marginality & Tribal Literature: Translatability &
Beyond with reference to Shekhar’s The Adivasi Will
Not Dance & Putul’s “Mountain Woman”
Dr. Soukarja Ghosal
Assistant Professor
Department of English
Government Khawzawl College
Khawzawl-796310, Mizoram
Email-valdez212016@gmail.com
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2. Outline of the presentation
Objectives of the Paper
Relevance of Present Study
Research Methodology Applied
Literature Review
Why Shekhar?
Other Texts consulted
Protest, Resistance and Postcolonialism: Defined
Tribal Literature: Defined
Marginality interrogated
Textual Analysis of Shekhar’s work
Conclusion
Further Analysis
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3. Objectives of Paper as per Bloom’s Taxonomy
To understand the nature of marginalization in
Shekhar’s work
To theorize the double ostracization of tribal
women as depicted by Shekhar
To explain the ideas of protest and resistance
To make the readers/audience understand the
comparative aspects of male and female
narratives: Shekhar and Nirmala Putul compared
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4. Why is Tribal Study necessary? Relevance of Research 1
Crude Cultural Appropriation of Dongria Kondh Tribes
of Odisha by Amoh by Jade, a fashion designing
industry
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5. Relevance of Research 2
Construction of mining industry by Vedanta Resources
in Niyamgiri hill ranges, Odisha resulting in
destruction of livelihood for Dongria Kondh tribes
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6. Relevance of Research: 3
Misrepresentation of tribal women in popular culture: Satyajit Roy’s Aranyer Din Ratri:
Duli’s complexion is dark as opposed to Aparna and Jaya’s skin colors (binary &
inferiority), on-screen representation of Duli’s sex act is treated as realistic, hence
praised, but Shekhar’s narrative drew criticism and his book was banned and his
depiction of women was termed as “denigrating and pornographic”: Hypocrisy? Notion
of Urban Male Gaze
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7. 7

8. Political Representation of Tribal Women in Popular Culture:
Theoretical Enquiries
John Berger’s Ways of Seeing: “looking is a political act, perhaps even a historically
constructed process – such that where and when we see something will affect what we see…”
Laura Mulvey’s idea of ‘male gaze’ from “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”: “the gender
power asymmetry is a controlling force in cinema and constructed for the pleasure of the male
viewer, which is deeply rooted in patriarchal ideologies and discourses.”
Roland Barthes’ Camera Lucida: studium and punctum: ”studium denoting the cultural,
linguistic, and political interpretation of a photograph, punctum denoting the wounding,
personally touching detail which establishes a direct relationship with the object or person
within it”
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9. 9

10. Tribal Rebellion due to Exploitation: Pre-Colonial Era
Hul Rebellion (1855-56) & Amco Simco Movement
(1939)
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11. Primary Text 1
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12. Primary text 2
“Mountain Woman” (Trans. From Santhali by Aruna Sitesh and Arlene Zide in consultation with Putul)
A bundle of dried wood on her head,
she comes down the hill
Mountain woman will go straight to the bazaar
and selling all her wood,
will quench the fire of the entire family’s hunger.
Hanging on her back, a child wrapped in a sheet
Mountain woman, planting paddy
planting her mountain of grief for a blossoming crop of happiness
Breaking apart the stones of the mountain,
she’s breaking mountainous rituals and taboos.
Weaving mats on the mountains passing her mountainously long day
She makes brooms
weapons to fight filth
Piercing the knot of her hair
with a flower
She is piercing someone’s heart
She runs after the cows and goats, her feet inscribe in the earth 12

13. Research Methodology
 The paper uses postcolonial critical paradigm operating
under the parameters of gender and subalternity
 The study is inductive and a conclusion is drawn based on
the critical study of the selected texts
 The paper is an empirical research where an argument is
established after an empirical analysis
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14. Reviews of Literature Made to Locate Research Gap
1. Narrative From the Margins (Aspects of Adivasi
History in India)-ed. by Sanjukta Das Gupta
2. Adivasis and the Raj: Socio-Economic Tradition of the
Hos (1820-1932)-Sanjukta Das Gupta
3. Adivasis in Colonial India: Survival, Resistance and
Negotiation- ed. by Biswamoy Pati
4. Post-colonial Translation: Theory & Practice- Susan
Bassnett & Harish Trivedi
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15. Why have Shekhar & Putul been chosen?
1. Shekhar & Putul have been chosen for analysis to understand the attitudinal differences
and representational differences of marginalization (the former a male, the latter a female)
2. Shekhar not only talks about marginalization of tribal people, but lower caste people as
well, hence his representation is not limited in scope
3. Even being a male, Hansda has made women as the central characters in five of his stories,
thus focusing on both men and women
4. In spite of the difference, in an Indian society, the nature of marginalization remains the
same for both a lower caste and an Adivasi.
5. Difference: The Adivasis were not rather held as impure by the surrounding Dravidian and
Indo-Aryan populations, but the Dalits were treated as impure and untouchable.
6. It needs to be clarified that tribals are not part of the caste system, however some
anthropologists draw a distinction between “tribes who have continued to be tribal and
tribes that have been absorbed into caste society” due to breakdown of tribal boundary
7. Yet there is a difference: let me quote, “adivasis and their struggles are different from the
Dalit struggle because, unlike Dalits, adivasis were concentrated in contiguous areas and
could demand states of their own”
8. The Adivasi Will Not Dance was written after Putul’s “Mountain Woman”
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16. Other Texts Consulted and Compared for Analysis
1. Mahasweta Devi’s Choli ke Peeche(Behind the Bodice) and Draupadi: The sexual
oppression of An Adivasi woman Dopdi who is raped and dies a horrible death in
Draupadi and objectification and commodification of an Adivasi woman whose
picture of the bare breast is published and in the story camera acts as a male
gaze
2. Malsawmi Jacob’s novel Zorami: A Redemption Song deserves mention as it is
the first novel in English by a Mizo feminist writer depicting the struggle of a
Mizo girl after she was brutally raped by Assam Rifles jawan
3. Regina Marandi’s Becoming Me (2014) documents the life and the struggle of
Liya, a young Santali girl born in Assam (Regina Marandi completed her Ph.D. in
Philosophy from Pondicherry University)
4. Text/s left out from analysis: Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar’s My Father’s Garden
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17. Indian Tribal Literature
The tribal literary tradition was originally oral
As the tribals were far away from the civilization, their literature was ignored by the
mainstream civilized society.
The tribal literature or the Adivasi Sahitya is both a literary platform to protect the
tribal identity and to protest against the dominant culture to resist the economic and
other forms of subjugation of the tribal community
An attempt has been made by several scholars to define tribal literature; whether it
refers to literature written by tribal people or by non-tribal people about the tribal
community.
Non-tribal writers like Mahasweta Devi in Right to the Forest and Chotti Munda and
His Arrow, Kamala Markandaya in The Coffer Dams (1969) have portrayed the tribals
from various aspects.
Strictly speaking literature written by tribal writers should come under the category
of tribal literature because of their narratives of lived experiences
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18. Protest, Resistance and Postcolonialism
Cultural protest and resistance are intertwined: while protest precedes resistance,
resistance is what follows protest.
Resistance, generally speaking, is an act to oppose an unwelcome force.
For critics like Barbara Harlow and Edward Said, resistance is a counter action,
basically cultural, to oppose the ravages of imperialism.
Said talks about two forms of resistance in his work Culture and Imperialism: while
one is resistance against an external force that is “primary resistance”, the other is
“ideological”.
Said looks upon resistance as a part of the process of decolonization.
Within the conceptual framework of postcolonialism, ‘Resistance’ & ‘Opposition ’
are homologous and heterogeneous in nature.
Helen Tiffin argues that decolonization is a tendency necessitated to subvert the
dominant colonial ideology: “Decolonization is a process, not arrival; it invokes an
ongoing dialectic between hegemonic centrist systems and peripheral subversion of
them…”
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19. Marginality interrogated
Peter Leonard defines marginality as, ". . .being outside the mainstream of
productive activity and/or social reproductive activity”
The Encyclopedia of Public Health defines marginalization as, “To be marginalized is
to be placed in the margins, and thus excluded from the privilege and power found at
the center“
Various factors affecting marginalization in the Indian context: caste, economy, age,
disability, gender etc
Frank Herbert remarked "All men are not created equal, and that is the root of social
evil“
Discrimination and social exclusion result in marginalization and offend a particular
group and human dignity and rights
Marginalization can occur at various levels: both individual and community
A disabled child as an individual may feel ostracized in a school, whereas Dalit
and/or Adivasi community is marginalized as a whole
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20. Textual Analysis of Shekhar’s work: 1
The very first paragraph of the story “November is the Month of Migrations” shows
the never-ending poverty of the Santhal people: “Come November, Santhal men,
women and children walk down from their villages in the hills…” (Shekhar, 39)
The story revolves around a twenty-year-old girl, Talamai Kisku who only for “two
pieces of cold bread pakora and fifty-rupee note” (Shekhar, 42) sells her body to an
RPF jawan.
The story criticizes the so-called cultural community where a woman has no other
option but to sell her body for food.
To make the wound deep, Shekhar has added the adjective ‘cold’ while describing
the food: double entendre (both the month & food are cold -refer to Jayanta
Mahapatra’s poem “Hunger”)
The story is even intentionally narrated with a very explicit description of sex-act
between Talamai & the RPF jawan that leaves us cold and shocked.
 In Hansda’s voice, “The sex in the book is without romance, … It’s not enjoyable, it’s
disturbing. So, I told it as it is”.
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21. Textual Analysis of Shekhar:2
The final story “The Adivasi Will Not Dance” is a moving tale of a 60-year old man
Mangal Murmu, a farmer and a trainer of a dance troupe who denies to sing and
dance for a high-profile event where the president is coming to inaugurate a thermal
power plant, constructed on lands from which the Santhals have been expelled.
Hansda’s story is inspired by a true event in 2013 when Adivasi farmers were
arrested for protesting against the construction of the building of the Jindal power
plant in Godda, Jharkhand.
Quote 1: “… four Jolha families turned up…asked us for shelter… four huts has (sic)
grown into tola… Houses, not huts. While we Santhals, … still live in our mud houses…”
(175)
Quote 2: “We Adivasis will not dance anymore… someone presses our ‘on’ button…
and we Santhals start beating rhythms… while someone snatches away our very
dancing grounds.” (170)
The title of the book indicates a cultural protest of the Adivasis
In the first story “They Eat Meat”, food has been used as an agent or rather a
metaphor to ostracize the Santal adivasis by the mainstream society
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22. Textual Analysis of Shekhar:3
Food in Tribal Literature: in Shekhar, a metaphor of exploitation, in Mizo folk song “Sem Sem
Dam Dam” by Pu B. Bawlkhuma an agent of building kinship
Hansda through his character Mangal Murmu deconstructs the notion of patriotism and
nationalism in the last story “The Adivasi Will Not Dance”: ”Bharat mahaan’, someone was
shouting from the stage…Which great nation displaces thousands of its people from their homes
and livelihoods to produce electricity for cities and factories?...An Adivasi farmer’s job is to farm.
Which other job should he be made to do? Become a servant in some billionaire’s factory built
on land that used to belong to that very Adivasi just a week earlier?’ “
According to Braj Kachru, during the post-colonial era, English language is used to “neutralize
identities one is reluctant to express by the use of native languages or dialects”
‘Abrogation’ and ‘Appropriation’: two modes of linguistic decolonization
While abrogation is a process of casting off or dislodgement, appropriation is a strategy of
adapting the imperial language so as to qualitatively alter its texture
Shekhar has used local Indian names like gamcha for towel, maa for mother which can be
viewed as modes of linguistic subversion
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23. Analysis of Putul’s “Mountain Woman”
 The poem narrates the hardship of a tribal woman
 “Mountain” in Putul’s poem is used as a trope: symbolizes hard work of
women & refers to the primitive dwelling place of the tribals
 The poem presents the double marginalization of tribal women
 The poem also glorifies motherhood as well as the daily plights of tribal
women in general
 The poet is trying to break the gender division as she narrates the ordeal of a
tribal woman breaking stones, thatching roofs, etc.
 The poem also narrates the economic exploitation of the tribal community
 The poem was translated from Santhali to Hindi and then to English
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24. Translatibility and Tribal Lit: 1
 Translation: the process of translating words or text from one language (Source
Language) to another language (Target Language)
 The focus of the study is not on translation theory as such, but on “post-colonial
translation”
 Translation of regional tribal texts is important to foreground the struggle of the tribal
people
 Foreground: not in the sense used by Russian formalists, but to highlight & focus
 With regard to marginal literature, translation gives the downtrodden the voice to speak
and claim what is rightfully their own and thus creates a discourse of acceptance and
recognition
 As most of the tribal communities do not have a script of their own and their literatures
are in oral form, translation is necessary to speak of their rights and to render justice
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25. Problems in Translating Tribal Texts: Case
Study
 Finding an English equivalence of a cultural term to capture the
essence
 Finding a proper connotation: a challenge
 A tribal song has been translated by the researcher
 Loss in translation: Morphological, Syntactical, Tense
 Gain in Translation:
1. Revitalizes language and literature
2. Helps in contributing to general economic growth
3. Provides an important tool for teaching
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26. Example of translation of a Santali song to
English by the researcher
SL: সুনুম সাসাাং অজঃ মড়ে দিন পাদিল খন
িাং বুন এড়নচ আঃ ঝামর ঝামর।
সুনুম সাসাাং পপ অজঃ পেদিঞ।
দিদির বলন পপ মানা পেদিঞ।
ড
ু লৗ পােন দরঞ ফা
াঁ দস গজুঃ
TL: It's been five days
They smeared my body with oil and turmeric paste
And danced to my heart’s content
Again, smeared with oil and turmeric
But alas! They forbade me to go inside
Holy Mother, give a length of rope
I'd better hang myself than bear this (disgrace).
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27. POST-COLONIAL TRANSLATION
 “Translation does not happen in a vacuum, but in a continuum; it is not an isolated act,
it is part of an ongoing process of intercultural transfer” (Susan Bassnett and Harish
Trivedi in Post-Colonial Translation: Theory and Practice)
 Translation in post-colonial context carries a deep political implication as it is not a
cultural exchange between two texts but about an asymmetrical power structure
 Sometimes the translator in the name of creative freedom aesthetically subjugates the
source text by omitting some portions from the SL text
 Scott Fitzgerald’s translation of Omar Khayyam’s Rubayat is one appropriate example
where the SL text has been appropriated & moulded for Western reader by the
translator and there is nothing “Eastern” about the text (Dr. Mrinmay Pramanick)
 Post-colonial translation therefore challenges this political act of translation 27

28. Further Analysis based on the Cover Page
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29. Analysis of the cover page
 “Santali musical instrument madal is at the center, magnified: tribal voice
emphasized, the helicopter is at the margin: a graphic representation of resistance
The left hand of a Santal man is placed on the madal: left hand is indication of
contempt and abhorrence
Madal, not dhamsa is shown here on the cover illustration because the rhythmic
sound produced by dhamsa is not only loud and strong but aesthetically superior
enough to compete with and beat the monotonous mechanical artificial sound
produced by the engine and blade of the helicopter
Refusal to dance at the command of the government officials is a bold act of
resistance on the part of the Santal musical troupe
The use of ‘Ol Chiki’ (Santali script) immediately after the English script is an attempt
on the part of Hansda to establish his identity as a Santali writer and to decolonize the
hegemony of Queen’s English
The use of white colour in the words “will not” of the title “The Adivasi Will Not
Dance” is a peaceful resistance and refusal to perform on the part of the tribal
community as white is indicative of peace
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30. Conclusion
 Shekhar’s The Adivasi Will Not Dance & Putul’s “Mountain Woman” no doubt offer a
deep insight into the Adivasi consciousness which makes the educated look at the
cultural and material conditions of the Adivasis, especially the Santals, ostracized and
marginalized thus attaining the status of subalterns (as someone inferior)
 Shekhar & Putul through their powerful narratives, have attempted to build an
Adivasi consciousness and has attempted to resist the stereotyping of the tribal
people.
Shekhar’s work is a significant contribution in the field of tribal literature as Nolina
Minj writes, “While Dalit literature in India has had a substantial presence in the
limelight, Adivasi literature has largely been bound to regional languages. As an Adivasi
and an avid reader myself, it has been uncommon for me to come across books written
by Adivasi writers. This is why I am glad that voices like Shekhar’s are finally getting the
attention they deserve”
Minj thus categorically mentions that Adivasi literature, as argued before, should
include works authored by Adivasi writers.
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31. Scope of further research
 “Bringing Tribal Narratives under the purview of Digital Humanities
31

32. IMAGE COURTESY
1.https://feminisminindia.com/2018/02/22/amoh-
by-jade-cultural-appropriation/ (SLIDE 4)
2.https://feminisminindia.com/2020/03/27/niyam
giri-movement-questioning-narrative-
developmental-politics/ (SLIDE 5)
3.https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainme
nt/bengali/movies/news/how-bold-were-the-
women-in-satyajit-rays-
films/articleshow/69145114.cms (SLIDE 7)
4. https://bestbengal.info/2021/12/27/aranyer-
din-ratri-to-open-kiff-in-rays-100th-year/(SLIDE 9) 32

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