Postcolonial Text, Vol 12, No 1 (2017)

Examining Subalterneity in Hansda Sowvendra Sekhar’s

“The Adivasi Will Not Dance”

Abin Chakraborty
Chandernagore College, India

In his discussion of Adivasi1 assertions in India, Daniel J. Rycroft

remarks:
In states such as Jharkhand (Koel-Karo dams), Madhya Pradesh (Forest rights),
Orissa (Kashipur aluminium mining), Andhra Pradesh (Birla Periclase project) and
Kerala (Wayanad wildlife sanctuary) etc., the coercion of the federal governments
against those Adivasis protesting against the injustices of development exemplifies
how Adivasis are frequently brutalised, criminalised and marginalised in the
political, legal and economic discourses of the postcolonial nation... In India today,
the routine abuse of land rights and cultural rights conferred to Adivasis leads to
heightened claims for various forms of decentralised governance, as well as to the
emergence of new forms of resistance, new dynamics of power between state and
civil society, and new interpretations of subaltern pasts. (Rycroft 3-4)

In this paper I read Hansda Sowvendra Sekhar’s short story set in the
Pakur district of Jharkhand, “The Adivasi Will Not Dance,” in light of
these evolving contexts of victimisation and resistance, while being
mindful of the intersections of subaltern politics and the politics of the
nation-state, the general absence of Adivasis from the domain of Indian
English Literature, and the vexed question of representing subalterns.

Adivasis and the History of Subjugation

Considered to be the original inhabitants of India, who even preceded

the Aryans, the Adivasis, a vast heterogeneous population dispersed
across various regions of India, have been subjected to continuous
exploitation since the establishment of British colonial rule. Since many
of the Adivasi settlements are scattered across regions rich in natural
resources, the British, through their various revenue systems and
administrative measures, exposed the regions to external dominance and
control, mostly at the expense of the land rights of the Adivasis who
were subjected to further immiseration owing to the extensive coercion
which the colonial administration regularly unleashed against them with
impunity. It is the combination of their socio-economic exploitation and
unchecked atrocities against them that led to the continuous resistance of
the Adivasis to the British administration, beginning with the Mal
Paharia uprising of 1772. Since then, the Adivasis have been involved in
several uprisings against British and colonial rule, such as the Santhal
Rebellion of 1855 led by Sidho and Kanho Murmu, the Koli uprising of
1873, the Munda rebellion led by Birsa Munda in 1899 and many others
which proliferated well into the twentieth century. Unfortunately, the
situation did not improve after India’s independence and while the
regions populated by the Adivasis continue to suffer from extensive
poverty, minimal access to education, electricity and healthcare, the
precious mineral resources of such areas are regularly utilized by public
and private sector companies at the expense of the land rights of
Adivasis. The Adivasis are thus subjected to a sustained process of
postcolonial subalternization which leads to massive displacement,
erosion of traditional structures of autonomy and debilitating poverty. In
fact, in the first four decades after independence, more than 76 lakh
Adivasis had been displaced owing to the construction of dams, mining
projects and other industrial enterprises (Bhengra 8). In the province of
Jharkhand, such displacements were mostly caused by coal mining
projects run by Bharat Cooking Coal Ltd, Eastern Coalfields Ltd and
Central Coalfields Ltd. These mining companies displaced more than 26
thousand people, and only one-third of them were provided with jobs
(Bhengra 19). This is an ample indicator of the extent of subjugation
experienced by the Adivasis and those deprived of income opportunities
have no other option but to undertake seasonal migration to work as
agricultural labourers which only aggravates their intense poverty.
Such processes have been further exacerbated in recent years: since
the turn of the new millennium, more mining projects have been
launched in the areas by private companies like Panem Coal Mines Pvt.
Ltd and Arrow Energy India Ltd. Despite the fact that such mining
projects encroach upon Fifth Schedule Land which cannot be bought
and sold by outsiders, the companies, in alliance with local authorities,
using the colonial Land Acquisition Act, have usurped acres of land all
across both Jharkhand and other parts of Central and Eastern India, often
depriving local Adivasis of their lands in the face of intense protests and
brutal confrontations with police and local administration. Not only does
this inevitably lead to the abject deprivation of the Adivasis, who are
transformed from farmers with steady incomes into agricultural
labourers with uncertain incomes, but the coal mining projects often
destroy local agricultural fields and crops on account of the dispersal of
coal particles across the region from the trucks that are used to ply coal.
In the process, the Adivasis are plunged into a life of black rice,
blackened streams, a spate of respiratory diseases without cure and near-
complete destruction of profitable local produce such as mangoes and
mahua flowers (Iqbal 2012). Since the coal mines supply fuel to local
thermal power stations, the administration often turns a blind eye to
many of these problems and instead indirectly fosters the unofficial but
deadly regime of coal mafias. Furthermore, spaces of democratic dissent
against such injustices are regularly endangered, as is evident from the
murder of Sister Valsa John (allegedly at the behest of the local coal
mafia), who was instrumental in securing a compensation package from
Panem Coal Mines Pvt. Ltd. for the Adivasis through organised
struggle. Six of the seven accused for her murder were local inhabitants
who held contracts for housing or transportation with Panem Company.
Alongside Sister John, the last few years have also witnessed the death
of local Adivasi leaders like Joseph Soren or Janus Hembrom, who died

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after being hit by dumper trucks carrying coal; no action has been taken
against anyone in this regard (Coallateral 34-38). Such events represent
in brief the matrix of dispossession, oppression and administrative
collusion which subjects the Adivasis, whether in Jharkhand or
elsewhere, to a process of postcolonial subalternization that threatens
their very survival. As the report of the Independent People’s Tribunal
makes clear:
The story of Pachwara serves to discern the newer models employed by the
industry to persuade and compel communities to give up their land for mega
projects. The state, apparently in pursuit of electricity and development, is
deliberately overlooking the grievous crimes committed by the industry. Such
models, as we understand from the case of Pachwara, pose challenges to
democracy, judiciary, the Indian Constitution and the role of the welfare state. It
also raises questions on the state’s acceptance of undemocratic models of business
and growth...with its share of large displacement of people, exacerbated
landlessness, increased monetisation of economies, fragmentation of sustainable
local economies and large-scale migration of marginalised communities to the
fringes of urban spaces. (Coallateral, 42)

Adivasis and Indian English Literature

None of these aforementioned concerns, however, is generally explored

within the domain of Indian English literature, which has its own
discursive blinkers and representational hierarchies despite its claim to
be a truly representative national literature. Tabish Khair laments “the
almost complete absence of those unacknowledged Indians, the non-
Sanskritized tribes” in Indian English fiction and goes on to add that
it can actually be shown that the tribal in general has been even more obscured in
Indian English fiction than in Anglo-Indian (colonial) fiction. In the latter, the tribal
sometimes appeared (most complicatedly in Kipling’s fiction and poems) as a
combination of the “noble savage” and the true Indian and was often used to
denigrate the “cowardly” and “untrue” (in both senses) colonial Babu. (Khair 159-
60)

Even when the tribal has been represented, as demonstrated by Rashmi

Varma’s analysis of a particular episode in Upamanyu Chatterjee’s
novel English, August, such representation is rendered through “the
idiom of an urban Indian English that is made to fabricate a distinctive
Indian modernity in ways that are fraught with contradiction and
paradox” (Varma 123). Similarly, in Neel Mukherjee’s recent, widely
acclaimed novel, The Lives of Others, Adivasis either operate as Maoists
involved in removing fishplates from railway tracks or objects of urban
elite male lust. In either case, the readers do not get any glimpse into
their consciousness from the magisterial third-person narratives through
which the episodes are presented to us. Furthermore, the narrative also
informs us how urban intellectuals often see Adivasis only as an
antithesis to their own troubled modernity and consider them to be
“really innocent and pure...closer to the pure state of mankind than
[they] are, less corrupted, more noble” (Mukherjee 407). In other words,
contemporary representation of Adivasis still follows the colonial

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paradigm of the “noble savage,” and in accordance with urban Indian
stereotypes this romanticising view finds its crystallisation through a
representation of Santhal dance, an emblem of “collective harmony,”
with a “hypnotic” effect which resembled “a bud blooming into a day-
long flower, then collapsing into a shrivelled prepuce at the beginning of
nightfall. Expanding and contracting, expanding and contracting”
(Mukherjee 408). Such representations reveal the pervasive nature of a
dominant savarna2 and elitist ideology which either objectifies or
romanticises Adivasis and thereby ensures the “erasure of the tribal”
(Spivak 126) as a conscious and agential being in constant negotiation
with evolving material circumstances. Incidentally, this trope of tribal
dance, whether in fiction or in acclaimed films such as Satyajit Roy’s
Agontuk (The Stranger), remains ever present as a signifier of urban
India’s quest for a metaphor of lost purity which ultimately robs the
Adivasis of their autonomy by transforming them into objects of
affective solace for alienated urban middle classes.3
It is in this context that Hansda Sowvendra Sekhar’s short story
“The Adivasi Will Not Dance” becomes such a crucial intervention. The
title deliberately flies at the face of conventional expectations of elite
India, whose concerns Indian Writing in English generally caters to, and
through its first-person narrative offers a defamiliarised representation
of the nation-space. This becomes possible because of the author’s
attempt to ventriloquise the consciousness of subalternized Adivasis
through the voice of the narrator Mangal Murmu, a musician and former
farmer from the village of Matiajore in the Amrapara Block of Pakur
district in Jharkhand. While the specific location of the characters is
crucial in understanding the material context of deprivation on which the
narrative focuses, such focus is aptly supplemented by the authorial
refusal to reproduce the kind of urban Indian English idiom which we
encounter in the novels of Upamanyu Chatterjee or Neel Mukherjee.
Instead, the reader is struck by the nonchalant references to “Bharat-
disom” and “Rabin-haram” which are frequently sprinkled across the
monologue of Mangal Murmu. Such references to India and
Rabindranath Tagore not only serve as defamiliarising instances that
force us to acknowledge our encounter with a consciousness and culture
that cannot be accommodated into any essentialised Indian cultural
identity, but also as examples of “code-switching and vernacular
transcription” which are common enough in “postcolonial englishes”
(Ashcroft, Griffiths and Tiffin 73-76, 38), with the major difference that
what Shekhar’s narrative challenges is not Queen’s English, but the
acceptable English or Hindi idiom of urban India. This is further
enhanced through the use of expressions like “Jolha,” “Safa-hor,”
“Diku,” “Kiristan,” or “Johar” (171, 173, 175, 187), which constantly
remind us of the radical alterity of the narratorial consciousness. In the
words of Ashcroft and his colleagues, “Variance … is a signifier of
radical Otherness, not just as a construct which continually re-inserts the
gap of silence but as a process which relentlessly foregrounds variance
and marginality as the norm” (74).

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Representing Subalterns

However, linguistic alterity is only one component of the

representational matrix through which the radical Otherness of the
Adivasis as subalterns is foregrounded in the text. The term “subaltern”
gained provenance in postcolonial studies owing to the use of the term
by Ranajit Guha and other members of the Subaltern Studies Collective.
Guha defined subalterneity as “the general attribute of subordination in
South Asian society, whether this is expressed in terms of class, caste,
age, gender and office or any other way” (Guha, “Preface” vii). While
Guha’s intervention opened the avenues for understanding Indian
history by taking into account the agency and consciousness of the
subaltern, this entire issue of representing the subaltern and the Adivasi
as a subaltern is the source of a vexed debate within postcolonial
studies, inaugurated and sustained by Spivak’s assertion that “The
subaltern cannot speak” (“Can the Subaltern Speak?” 104). Although
she later concluded that the remark was “inadvisable” (Critique of Post-
Colonial Reason 308), elsewhere she has claimed that “there is
something of a not-speakingness in the very notion of subalternity”
(Landry and Maclean 289), in the sense that “even when the subaltern
makes an effort to the death to speak, she is not able to be heard”
(Landry and Maclean 292). Spivak’s insistence, however, on such
constitutive “not-speakingness” (Landry and Maclean 289) is consistent
with her attempt to represent the subaltern as an absolute “other,” which
again leads to conclusions that are entirely incommensurate with
Marxist or Gramscian analysis, generally associated with subalterneity.
For example, in “Supplementing Marxism” Spivak writes:
Subalternity is the name I borrow for the space out of any serious touch with the
logic of capitalism or socialism…Please do not confuse it with unorganized labour,
women as such, the proletarian, the colonized, the object of ethnography, migrant
labour, political refugees etc. Nothing useful comes out of this confusion. (qtd. in
Moore-Gilbert 101)

Such assertions attempt to detach the subaltern from precisely those

material conditions which enforce his/her subalterneity in the first place.
In the process, much like her definition of the proletariat, the subaltern
also becomes nothing other than “a theoretical fiction” (Spivak,
Postcolonial Critic 148) or a “subject-effect” (Spivak, “Subaltern
Studies” 341). This creates a crucial problem for both representation and
committed engagement because, as Bart Moore-Gilbert explains,
Spivak leaves the would-be non-subaltern ally of the subaltern in a
seemingly impossible predicament, simultaneously unable to represent
the subaltern in an “uninterested” fashion insofar as this necessarily, at
least initially, at least to begin with, entails assigning the subaltern
subjectivity and a (subordinate) subject-position and yet—as ethical and
political agent—unable not to represent the subaltern. (102)
It is therefore imperative to return to Gramsci in order to arrive at
an understanding of subalterneity and representation that is neither so
limited nor so paralysing. In this context, it is important to note

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Gramsci’s full explanation regarding the methodological criteria for the
history of subaltern classes that the “integral historian” must consider:
1. the objective formation of the subaltern class through the developments and
changes that took place in the economic sphere; the extent of their diffusion; and
their descent from other classes that preceded them;
2. their passive or active adherence to the dominant political formations; that is,
their efforts to influence the programs of these formations with demands of their
own;
3. the birth of new parties of the ruling class to maintain control of the subaltern
classes;
4. the formations of the subaltern classes themselves, formations of a limited and
partial character;
5. the political formations that assert the autonomy of the subaltern classes, but
within the old framework;
6. the political formations that assert complete autonomy, etc. (Gramsci, Selections
52)

As Marcus Green cogently explains, this does not simply refer to

methodological criteria but also to the phased development of subaltern
groups. Citing one of Gramsci’s own statements, Green states:
This is not a complete, ahistorical, or essentialist methodology since Gramsci
contends that these phases of study could be more detailed with intermediate phases
and combinations of phases, and he states: “The historian must record, and discover
the causes of, the line of development towards integral autonomy, starting from the
most primitive phases” (Notebook 25, §5; 1971, 52). From this statement one can
deduce that these six phases do not just represent the methodology of the subaltern
or integral historian, but also represent the phases in which a subaltern group
develops, from a “primitive” position of subordination to a position of autonomy.
That is, the phases represent the sequential process in which a subaltern group
develops and grows into a dominant social group or, in other instances, is stopped
in its ascent to power by dominant social groups or political forces. (Green 9-10)

What such evidences suggest is that not only was Spivak’s use of the
term subaltern entirely in contradiction to Gramscian principles, but also
that her use of it was extremely limited and parochial. This is precisely
why her simplistic response, “If the subaltern can speak, then thank
God, the subaltern is not a subaltern anymore” (Post-Colonial Critic
158), is entirely untenable in the context of the nuanced exploration
Gramsci had already offered, which stressed the presence of various
intervening stages between subalterneity and hegemony.
Furthermore, returning to the Gramscian roots of the term, while
avoiding the Spivakian detour, also helps us to understand the role to be
played by intellectuals, artists and critics in engaging with the question
of subalterneity. In his discussion of the formation of intellectuals,
Gramsci argues that the revolutionary party, which acts as a
representative of subaltern groups, is “responsible for welding together
the organic intellectuals of a given group—the dominant one—and the
traditional intellectuals” and even states that “[an] intellectual who joins
the political party of a particular social group is merged with the organic
intellectuals of the group itself and is linked tightly with the group”
(Selections 15-16). What this basically emphasizes is the possibility of
the non-subaltern intellectual, who is not “organic,” to become one,

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provided he or she is committed enough and is willing to learn from
subaltern allies.
Therefore, we can conclude that like the historian, the artist too can
explore—whether in poetry, novel or drama—various aspects of the
development of subaltern consciousness, and it is the task of the critic to
explain and evaluate the significance of such endeavours. Spivak herself
later admits this, and articulates the need for what she calls the “moral
love” of the activist (Critique 310) in order to ensure the success of such
endeavours. Collectively, all such attempts can contribute to the growth
of that counter-hegemonic thought which is essential for the subalterns’
ascent to hegemony through a radical refashioning of socio-political
structures. The task of all artists and critics, as conscious explorers of
subalterneity, is therefore akin to that of the “organic intellectual” who
must provide educational leadership by examining the material and
ideological conditions that go into the making of subalterneity so that
both the subaltern and the would-be non-subaltern ally may work
together to resist the many facets of subalternization. As Gramsci
explicitly states, “If it [philosophy of praxis, i.e. Marxism] affirms the
need for contact between intellectuals and simples it is not in order to
restrict scientific activity and preserve unity at the low level of the
masses, but precisely in order to construct an intellectual moral bloc
which can make politically possible the intellectual progress of the mass
and not only of small intellectual groups” (Gramsci, Selections 332-33).
It is from this perspective that I seek to analyse the significance of
Hansda Sowvendra Sekhar’s representation of subalternized Adivasi
consciousness through the monologue of his protagonist, Mangal
Murmu, in “The Adivasi Will Not Dance.”

Representing Adivasi Consciousness

“The Adivasi Will Not Dance” is the anguished monologue of Santhal

farmer and musician, Mangal Murmu, as he explains to his unidentified
interlocutor (perhaps a journalist) the multidimensional exploitation and
suffering faced by Santhals across the state of Jharkhand, which
culminated in his desperate act of defiance. The entire narrative thus
becomes an account of pervasive immiseration brought about by
material deprivation, on the one hand, and eroding cultural identity, on
the other. This is evident from the very beginning as his attempt to
introduce himself as a musician and a farmer soon gives way to a bitter
acknowledgment:
Was a farmer. Was a farmer is right. Because I don’t farm anymore. In my village
of Matiajore in Amrapara block of the Pakur district, not many Santhals farm
anymore. Only a few of us still have farmland; most of it has been acquired by a
mining company. (170-71)

Such remarks are entirely in accordance with the kind of deprivation

that has been recorded by the Independent People’s Tribunal, which
states: “Depositions and testimonies provided by people indicate that the
process of awarding compensation was arbitrary, leaving several

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families without being compensated for the land already acquired.
People reported a variety of reasons for not having received
compensation including internal disputes, improper and/or unrecognized
land records, technical errors and affiliation with RPBA [Rajmahal
Pahar Bachao Andolan—a group resisting forced land acquisition]”
(Coallateral 25). In one such testimony, an old man from Chilgo
remarks,
I have been to the Land Acquisition Office, which is quite a distance away, thrice
already. They neither tell me that I won’t receive my compensation, nor do they
give me my compensation; they merely tell me that I will receive it. I do not know
when that will be. The truth is that unless we pledge ourselves like slaves to
PANEM, nothing will happen. (Coallateral 26)

Such testimonies, however, only offer a partial glimpse of the

problem, and the problem is certainly not limited to villages that come
under the ambit of the PANEM project. Up to 2007, 3,789 cases have
been filed with the Special Area Regulation Court for recovery of tribal
lands (Coallateral 17), which again illustrates the pervasive trend of
displacing Adivasis from their lands. Furthermore, not only have the
Santhals been forced to give up land which, in accordance with the
Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act, the government or private companies
should not be able to acquire, they have also been cut off from alternate
rural employment avenues which have sustained them so far. Much of
this is due to the burgeoning coal mining industry which has an
extremely debilitating effect on the entire environment of adjacent
villages. As Mangal Murmu says,
It is this coal, sir, which is gobbling us up, bit by bit. There is a blackness—deep,
indelible—all along the Koyla road. The trees and shrubs in our village bear black
leaves. Our ochre earth has become black. The stones, the rocks, the sand, all black
... Our children—dark-skinned as they are—are forever covered with fine black
dust. When they cry, and tears stream down their faces, it seems as if a river is
cutting across a drought-stricken land. (174-75)

Javed Iqbal’s report in The Guardian on 15th January, 2012,

corroborates the same phenomenon by narrating experiences of two
brothers, Badan and Darbo Soren, who have no other option but to steal
coal: “‘We eat the black rice ourselves. No one will buy it,’ said Badan.
‘Earlier we used to make some Rs 15,000 or Rs 20,000 per year. And
there is no more mahua seeds, no more mango in the trees,’ continued
his brother” (Iqbal). Various diseases have also escalated in the area
owing to the rapid increase in pollution levels brought about by the
airborne dispersal of coal dust. As the IPTR report states, “People
testified that cases of jaundice, malaria and typhoid and black fever have
doubled in the same period. Illnesses that are unusual and unknown in
the area are also being reported” (Coallateral 31). In the process,
“development” only ensures further deprivation for Santhals and other
Adivasis who already inhabit some of the most economically backward
regions of India as the state refuses to address their concerns.
The callous unconcern of the administration in this regard also
becomes evident from the frequent accidents caused by coal-carrying

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trucks which have already led to the death of many Adivasis. As Mangal
Murmu says,
When the monstrous Hyvas ferry coal on the Kyla Road, there is no space for any
other vehicle. They are so rough, these truck drivers, they can run down any vehicle
that comes in their way... And what if they kill? The coal company can’t afford to
have its business slowed down by a few deaths. They give money to the family of
the dead, the matter remains unreported, and the driver goes scot-free, ferrying
another load for the company. (173-74)

While one report says that more than 150 individuals have been killed
since 2005, there is no official record and most of the accidents have not
even been registered. And while PANEM has regularly paid monetary
compensations, there have been no police investigations and no one has
been arrested for lack of evidence and witnesses (Coallateral 35). All
such elements cumulatively build a scenario of administrative
indifference and multifaceted deprivation. An anguished Mangal
Murmu therefore exclaims, “What do we Santhals get in return? Tatters
to wear. Barely enough food. Such diseases that we can’t breathe
properly, we cough blood and forever remain bare bones” (172).
However, Mangal Murmu’s monologue does not only highlight
material deprivation; it also links it to insidious socio-cultural processes.
The Adivasis have historically been antagonistic to extrinsic forces that
have repeatedly sought to exploit them and their natural resources. Their
quests for self-assertion, during Hul or Ulgulan, have always been built
upon not just autonomy but also a refusal to allow others to exploit and
utilise their ancestral lands for profiteering mechanisms that not only run
counter to Adivasi lifestyle but also the Adivasi perception of man-
nature relationships. Quite naturally, Mangal’s ire is directed towards,
“all Diku—Marwari, Sindhi, Mandal, Bhagat, Muslim. They turn our
land upside down, inside out …” (172). He is also keenly aware that the
minerals excavated from Santhal lands are sold in places like “Dilli,
Noida, Panjab” which bring in prosperity for the merchants who secure
best medical treatments for themselves in places like “Ranchi, Patna,
Bhhagalpur, Malda, Bardhaman, Kolkata” (172). Such statements not
only reveal a subaltern’s antagonistic attitude towards other regions of
the nation-state but also that for such subalternized sections, the nation-
state itself appears to be an exploitative framework that refuses to
endow them with freedom, dignity and welfare. It is such experiences
that force us to recognise the liminal nature of the “internally marked”
nation-space where, as Bhabha points out, “the discourse of minorities,
the heterogeneous histories of contending peoples, antagonistic
authorities and tense locations of cultural difference” jostle for space
(Location of Culture 148). This becomes all the more evident from
Mangal Murmu’s representation of local Muslims, whom he identifies
as Jolhas.4 His account of Muslim settlement in his Matiajore village is
particularly interesting:
A decade earlier when the Santhals of Matiajore were beginning their annual
journey to share crop in the farms of Namal, four Jolha families turned up from
nowhere and asked us for shelter. A poor lot, they looked as impoverished as us.
Perhaps worse...Today, that small cluster of four huts has grown into a tola of more
than a hundred houses. Houses, not huts. While we Santhals, in our own village,
still live in our mud houses, each Jolha house has at least one brick wall and a

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 cemented yard...Sometimes I wonder who the olposonkhyok [minority] is here.
(175-76)

Such comments not only signal a certain degree of jealousy but also a
certain degree of hostility against the increased population and
prosperity of another community, which only highlights by contrast
their own deprivation. However, there are other reasons for hostility as
well. At one point, Mangal even asserts how, “… Muslims barge into
[their] homes, sleep with [their] women, and [they] Santhal men cannot
do a thing” (172). According to Mangal, such helplessness is also a
product of the hike in Muslim population which renders Santhals
outnumbered in their own lands: “Village after village in our Santhal
Pargana—which should have been a home for Santhals—are turning
into Muslim villages” (173). Such statements highlight how the group
“which was dominant in one area … could be among the dominated in
another” (Guha “Some Aspects” 8) and thus add new dimensions to
Hansda’s representation of subalterneity.
However, this does not mean that in Hansda’s representation
Adivasis’ antagonism is directed only against the Muslim community.
The same sense of hostility is also directed towards Christian
missionaries and caste-Hindus, who are both seen as agents of cultural
erasure. While on the one hand he feels dismayed by the Christian
missionaries’ attempt to convert the Santhal children or to rename them
as “David and Mikail and Kiristofer and whatnot” (172) as opposed to
Hopna, Som or Singrai, he is equally repelled by the caste-Hindus who
also want them to give up their Sarna faith: “They too want to make us
forget our Sarna-religion, convert us into Safa-Hor, and swell their
numbers to become more valuable vote banks. Safa-Hor, the pure
people, the clean people, but certainly not as clean and pure as
themselves, that’s for sure” (173). Caught in this vortex of political
manoeuvring, religious conversion and numerical one-upmanship, the
Santhals find themselves both materially and culturally endangered. As
Mangal Murmu ruefully remarks, “We are losing our Sarna-faith, our
identities, and our roots. We are becoming people from nowhere” (173).
This looming sense of cultural erasure becomes even stronger in
relation to the dance and music traditionally performed by Santhals,
including Mangal Murmu’s own troupe. While on the one hand the
nature and functioning of the troupe itself is challenged by worsening
material circumstances which force Adivasis to migrate seasonally in
search of agricultural jobs, on the other hand their performances are
neither materially rewarding nor accorded the dignity and appreciation
they deserve. It is out of this sense of disillusionment and despair that
Mangal exclaims: “All our certificates and shields, what did they give
us? Diku children go to schools and colleges, get education, jobs. What
do we Santhals get? We Santhals can sing and dance, and we are good at
our art. Yet, what has our art given us?” (178). Such interrogations
reveal a sense of bitter betrayal experienced by the Adivasis of
Jharkhand who have come to realise that, despite all the campaigns for
an Adivasi province, the establishment of Jharkhand has only been an
exercise in tokenism (“Tribal: Victims of Development”). It is this sense
of betrayal and hypocrisy and the attendant commodification of Adivasi

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art that Mangal Murmu challenges: “For every benefit, in job, in
education, in whatever, the Diku are quick to call Jharkhand their own—
let the Adivasi go to hell. But when it comes to displaying Jharkhandi
culture, the onus of singing and dancing is upon the Adivasi alone”
(179). What is even more ironic is that the cultural misappropriation of
Adivasis coexists with their forced displacements, illegal incarceration
and state-sponsored violence, often for forcible acquisition of lands.
This is precisely the kind of irony which Sekhar’s narrative seeks to
explore. Mangal Murmu’s climactic moment of defiance arrives when
he and his troupe are supposed to perform in front of the President of
India and various central and state-level ministers, in a ceremony
celebrating the laying of the foundation stone for a large thermal power
plant. However, it is for this power plant that inhabitants of eleven
villages, mostly Adivasis, are being forcibly evicted and subjected to
incarceration and violence. The fictional event possibly alludes to the
actual setting up of a power plant in Godda by Jindal Steel and Power
Limited, whose foundation-stone was indeed laid by the President of
India, amidst protest from Adivasi inhabitants from various villages who
were detained at the Sundarpahari police station, less than a kilometre
away from the venue of the ceremony (Yadav 2013). For Mangal,
within the context of Sekhar’s representational framework, such an
event lays bare the foundational inequality at the heart of the Indian
nation-state, where the Adivasis continue to be subalternized through
developmental models that alienate the indigenous without either
acknowledging their agency or providing them with democratically
acceptable rehabilitation and compensation packages. Quite naturally,
the conventional political slogan “Bharat Mahaan” (India is Great)
seems rather ridiculous to Mangal who asks,
What mahaan?...Which great nation displaces thousands of its people from homes
and livelihoods to produce electricity for cities and factories? And jobs? What jobs?
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? (185)

Such questions not only interrogate the self-congratulatory and entirely

misleading rhetoric of “Shining India” or “Emerged India,” but also
problematize the techno-capitalist logic of development itself, which has
devoured indigenous communities across the world. In the process,
Mangal Murmu comes to represent the subalternized Adivasi
consciousness not only in India but also the world over.
It is Mangal Murmu’s holistic awareness of these manifold
processes of dispossession confronting Adivasi existence that finally
finds expression in the violently interrupted speech which he addresses
to the President of India:
Johar Rashtrapati-babu...You will now start building the power plant, but this plant
will be the end of us all, the end of all the Adivasi. These men sitting beside you
have told you that this power plant will change our fortunes, but these same men
have forced us out of our homes and villages. We have nowhere to go, nowhere to
grow our crops. How can this power plant be good for us? And how can we
Adivasis dance and be happy? Unless we are given back our homes and land, we
will not sing and dance? We Adivasis will not dance. (187)

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Such a defiant declaration operates as a twofold negation that not only
rejects the discourse of neo-liberal development, but also the illusion of
inclusion that Adivasi performances in official programmes of the
nation-state often serve to create. What makes such negation so
remarkable is that as an incipient organic intellectual it is through such
negation that Mangal Murmu becomes a representative of a resistant
subaltern Adivasi consciousness which refuses both interpellation and
primitive regression. Instead, his coherent, though sometimes
prejudiced, articulation of the manifold processes of subjugation
confronting Adivasi existence may be seen as the kind of “critical
elaboration,” generally offered by intellectuals, which might become
“the foundation of a new and integral conception of the world” (Gramsci
9).
As Gramsci also points out, the task of an “organic intellectual” is
to endow his/her corresponding social group with “homogeneity and an
awareness of its own function not only in the economic but also in the
social and political fields” (Gramsci 5). Mangal Murmu’s repeated
invocation of Adivasi identity, as opposed to exclusive identification
with Santhal, Lodha, Paharia or any such groups, obviously gestures
towards such a homogeneity which is reinforced by his affective
solidarity with the displaced villagers of Godda and eventually triggers
his defiant outburst. Similarly, his representation of the material and
cultural crisis faced by the Adivasis, the changing socio-political
circumstances, his distrust of political parties and their “chor-chuhad
leaders” (thieving, robbing leaders; 176)—all suggest his holistic
awareness regarding his social group’s position which becomes the
platform for his stern refusal.
However, one must not forget that mere articulation is not enough
for an “organic intellectual” in Gramsci’s sense of the term. Gramsci’s
use of the term also focuses on “directive” attributes through “active
participation in practical life, as organiser, constructor, ‘permanent
persuader’” (Gramsci 10). This is precisely what Mangal Murmu lacks,
as is evident from his own admission: “But I did not share my plan with
anyone. I went ahead alone, like a fool” (169). But even such failure is
filled with potentiality. Mangal also admits:
Had I only spoken to them about my plan, I am sure they would have stood by me.
For they too suffer, the same as I. They would have stood by me, they would have
spoken with me and together, our voices would have rung out loud. They would
have travelled out of our Santhal Pargana, out of our Jharkhand, all the way to Dilli
and all of Bharot-disom; the world itself would have come to know of our
suffering. (169)

Such a possibility marks a move towards what Gramsci would have

called “the humanistic conception of history” which defines an organic
intellectual who provides intellectual and moral leadership towards
emancipatory collective movements. Ernst Bloch explained that “truth is
not the reflection of facts but of processes; it is ultimately the indication
of the tendency and latency of that which has not yet become and needs
its activator” (qtd. in Zipes xix). Sekhar’s exploration of subaltern
consciousness through the character of Mangal Murmu not only offers
us the figure of an incipient Adivasi “organic intellectual,” probably the

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first of his kind in Indian Writing in English, but also foregrounds,
following Bloch’s analysis, the kind of “anticipatory illumination”
which is vital for sustaining hope for future struggles. Herein perhaps
lies the significance of “The Adivasi will not Dance” as a text that
confronts the “determined negation” which Adivasi existence faces in
various contexts and yet serves to circulate anticipatory illumination
through its exploration of subaltern consciousness. It may also be noted
that, according to Jack Zipes, in Bloch’s theorisation “[l]iterature and art
contain the anticipatory illumination of that which has not yet become,
and the role of the writer and artist is similar to that of a midwife who
enables latent and potential materials to assume their own unique forms”
(Zipes xix). Hansda Sowvendra Sekhar, as an author, performs a similar
role.

Conclusion

“The Adivasi will not Dance” may therefore be seen as a pioneering text
in the realm of Indian Writing in English, not just in terms of its
engagement with the subjugation of Adivasis, but also in terms of its
representation of a subaltern Adivasi consciousness which is remarkably
different from those that have so far been fashioned by urban, middle-
class, metropolitan or diasporic authors. In the process, the text also
offers a stringent critique of the postcolonial nation-state in its neo-
liberal avatar, which echoes the experiences of indigenous communities
or members of the Fourth World in other countries and continents as
well. Moving away from stereotypes and romanticisation, the text in all
its historicised details, offers a unique insight into subaltern Adivasi
consciousness that not only forces one to take note of Hansda
Sowvendra Sekhar’s astute grasp of the material and cultural conditions
of subalternized Adivasis, but also illuminates new avenues for the
growth of Indian Writing in English, especially at an age when it has
often come under criticism for either pandering to the expectations of a
Euro-American market, or for being confined in ivory towers.

Notes
1. The term “Adivasi” is used here to designate members of
indigenous communities who are identified by the Indian Constitution
as people of “Scheduled Tribes.” In popular parlance they are often
identified as “tribals,” a term that has become freighted with various
derogatory associations and assumptions of cultural and civilisational
hierarchy. Since the history of these communities often predates that of
the Aryan civilisation, the term Adivasi, denoting their original ties to
the land (“Adi” means original and “vasi” means inhabitant), carries
greater historical truth and has been used here instead of “tribals.” For
further discussion, see Rycroft (2014).

2. The term “savarna” refers to communities who fall within the

caste-system endorsed by Orthodox Hinduism which divides the

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community into four different castes or varnas: Brhamin, Kshatriya,
Vishya, Sudra. The Adivasis stand outside caste-systems.

3. A significant exception is of course the writings of Mahasweta

Devi. Devi’s fiction, in the words of Spivak, gives us glimpses of “an
impossible, undivided world without which no literature should be
possible” (Landry and Maclean 273). However, it also needs to be
noted that Devi originally wrote in Bengali and not in English.

4. The term “Jolha” which now refers to Muslims in general,

originally referred to Muslim weavers of the Chhotonagpur area who
often shared a symbiotic relationship with local Adivasis as evident
from the popular slogan “Kolha-Jolha Bhai Bhai” (Adivasis and
Muslims are brothers). See Kathinka Sinha-Kerkoff, “Partition
Memories and Memories of Muslims in Jharkhand, India,” Critical
Asian Studies 36:1 (2004), 125, 131. The contrast between the once-
popular slogan and the attitude represented by the narrator is part of a
larger network of fissures haunting the subcontinent.

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