The Adivasi Will Not Dance: Stories (New Delhi: Speaking Tiger, 2015; ISBN 9789385288647) is a collection of short stories. The second book by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, it was nominated for The Hindu Literary Prize in 2016[1] and included by Frontline (magazine) in August 2022 in a list of 25 books “that light up the path to understanding post-Independence Indian literature.”[2] As of April 2021, this book has been translated into Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, and Bengali, while the Malayalam and Austrian German translations are forthcoming.[3]
 | |
| Author | Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fiction, Short stories |
| Publisher | Speaking Tiger Books, New Delhi, India |
Publication date | 2015 |
| Publication place | India |
| Media type | Print (hardcover, paperback), E-book |
| ISBN | 9789385288647 |
| Preceded by | The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey (2014) |
| Followed by | Jwala Kumar and the Gift of Fire: Adventures in Champakbagh (2018) |
Summary
editThe characters and settings of the stories are mostly from the community of Santhal people in the Indian state of Jharkhand, particularly about Coal mining in India. Prominent themes include the condition of women in a patriarchal society, poverty, middle-class Santhal life, the situation of Adivasi people, organised crime, tensions between traditionalism and modernity, the social damage caused by mining and sex-work.
| Title | Theme | First published | pp. |
|---|---|---|---|
| They eat meat! | Prejudice among Hindu people in Gujarat, and the 2002 Gujarat riots. | La.Lit | 1-27 |
| Sons | The contrast between a spoiled child and one from a poor background. | 'Scions', Northeast Review, 3 (March–April 2013) | 28-38 |
| November is the month of migrations | A Santhal migrant worker doing sex-work. | 39-42 | |
| Getting even | Human trafficking of low-caste Hindu people. | 43-57 | |
| Eating with the enemy | The complex life of a domestic servant, Sulochona. | The Four Quarters Magazine | 58-89 |
| Blue baby | A woman's ill-conceived plan to escape an arranged marriage by getting pregnant beforehand. | The Statesman | 90-111 |
| Baso-jhi | An old widow being identified as a dahni (witch). | Indian Literature (2007) | 112-29 |
| Desire, divination, death | A woman losing her son to fever. | Indian Literature | 130-43 |
| Merely a whore | A sex-worker falls in love with one of her clients and hopes for rescue from her profession. | The Four Quarters Magazine | 144-68 |
| The Adivasi will not dance | An Adivasi dance-troupe is commissioned to celebrate the building of a power-plant, but instead protest against it. | The Dhauli Review | 169-87 |
Reviews and studies
edit- Priyanka Tripathi,“The Adivasi Will Not Dance: Stories by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar.” Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, Vol. IX, No. 4, 2017, pp. 193–196. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.21659/rupkatha.v9n4.r02
- Devapriya Roy, 'An unusual five: The reader’s guide to the Hindu Prize shortlist', Scroll.in ([no date])
- Namrata Chaturvedi, 'Combating bias', Deccan Herald (1 November 2015)
- Jean Spraker, 'Review: The Adivasi Will Not Dance by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar' (27 October 2016)
- Nilanjana S. Roy, 'Short!', Business Standard (4 January 2016)
- Sudipta Datta, 'The Adivasi Will Not Dance: Dark places', Financial Express (27 December 2015)
- Amrita Dutta, 'Book Review: The Writer as Political Being', The Indian Express (19 December 2015)
- Radhika S., 'Review: Hansda Shekhar’s The Adivasi Will Not Dance is a no-holds-barred account of life on the margins', The Hindu (12 November 2016)
The work has also attracted dedicated scholarly commentary:
- Arya, A., 'Dismantling the Hegemonic Structure through the War of Manoeuvre: Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar’s The Adivasi Will Not Dance as a Dogma of Adivasis', The Creative Launcher: An International, Open Access, Peer-Reviewed, Refereed, E-Journal in English, 2.3 (August 2017), 193–200.
- Abin Chakraborty, 'Examining Subalterneity in Hansda Sowvendra Sekhar’s “The Adivasi Will Not Dance”', Postcolonial Text 12.1 (2017), 1–15.
Controversy
editOn 11 August 2017, the government of Jharkhand banned The Adivasi Will Not Dance: Stories and summarily suspended the author from his job, on the grounds that the book portrayed Adivasi women and Santhal culture in a bad light.[4] The key complainants appear to have been the ruling party in Jharkhand, the Bharatiya Janata Party, the opposition party Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, and an academic at Jamia Millia Islamia.[5] The government's actions were widely criticised.[6][7][8][9] The ban on The Adivasi Will Not Dance: Stories was removed in December 2017[10][11] and Shekhar's suspension was removed and he was reinstated into his job in 2018.[12][13]
References
edit- ^ "Shortlist for The Hindu Prize 2016 announced". The Hindu. October 16, 2016. Retrieved September 13, 2017.
- ^ Anusua Mukherjee and Abhirami Girija Sriram (August 26, 2022). "India at 75 - Fiction". Frontline. Retrieved October 25, 2022.
- ^ "Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar on Academia". Retrieved August 14, 2018.
- ^ Sudipta Datta, 'Who is Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, fighting a ban', The Hindu (19 August 2017).
- ^ Ziya Us Salam, 'A Santhal Suppressed', Frontline (13 October 2017).
- ^ Sanjay Srivastava, 'What the ban on The Adivasi Will Not Dance tells us about India’s political life', Hindustan Times (14 August 2017).
- ^ Ruchir Joshi, 'The reader will not dance', The Hindu (13 August 2017).
- ^ 'Dubbed 'porn', book on tribals banned in Jharkhand', The Times of India (13 August 2017).
- ^ 'Writers, Activists Condemn Banning of ‘The Adivasi Will Not Dance’ in Jharkhand', The Wire (29 August 2017).
- ^ Scroll Staff (December 13, 2017). "Four months after ban, Jharkhand finds nothing objectionable in Hansda Shekhar's book on Adivasis". Scroll. Retrieved September 2, 2018.
- ^ Prashant Pandey (December 14, 2017). "Jharkhand: Govt finds nothing objectionable in Santhal writer's book, ban could be lifted". The Indian Express. Retrieved September 2, 2018.
- ^ ICF Team (August 17, 2018). "Suspension on Writer Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar Revoked". Indian Cultural Forum. Retrieved September 2, 2018.
- ^ Paromita Chakrabarti (September 2, 2018). "Playing with Fire: Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar on his first children's book". The Indian Express. Retrieved September 2, 2018.
External links
edit- "The Adivasi Will Not Dance on Goodreads". Retrieved August 13, 2018.