Sushila Samad (1906-1960), the first Adivasi Poet to write in Hindi. Picture source- Internet

(Translated from the Hindi by Saba Syed)
 

The history of Adivasi poetry in Hindi goes back almost a century. The first Adivasi poet to write in Hindi, Sushila Samad (1906-1960), was a journalist, editor, and freedom fighter, as well as an important poet of the Chhayavad movement, which is characterised by mystic-romanticism in Hindi literature. Following Samad, another notable figure was Ramdayal Munda (1939-2011), whose first Hindi poetry collection “The River and Its Relatives and Other Related Songs” (Nadi Aur Uske Sambandhi Tatha Anya Nagit) recalls memories of Adivasi ancestors who were forced to migrate to Assam and Bengal in search of employment in the tea gardens:

After the harvest,
There is no water in the house,
Leaving the river, it goes
To the foothills of the Himalayas,
To the tea gardens of Assam.

The poetry of Ramdayal Munda depicts modern development as nothing short of disastrous for Adivasi society: his poem “Agony of Growth” (“Vikas Ka Dard”) condemns a range of developmental schemes in pungent terms. In contrast, Munda’s poetic works reflect Adivasi values in placing importance on nature, love, labour, collectivism, and harmonious co-existence.

Some poets regard the intrusion of outsiders into Adivasi areas as the greatest concern, setting off the contamination of the Adivasi way of life and leading to an existential crisis for Adivasi culture and identity. Adivasi poet Grace Kujur writes:

...Hey friend, why do you roam around
Swinging an empty slingshot
Can't you hear the burglary in your land...?

All this takes place with the open collusion between the government and multinational corporations to enable the plundering of Adivasi lands for their resource treasures.

The entire civilisation of the world
Is rolling towards us like a giant road roller
And we are running in a horror
Towards caves and caverns…’
                                  (Hari Ram Meena)

Nirmala Putul, originally writing in Santali and now also renowned as a poet in Hindi, writes:

…. know these dangerous urban animals, Chudka Soren
…under the cover of your innocence
living in this complicated world
Why are you so simple, Chudka Soren?

… these are the people
Who rape our colony in our beds
And stand on our own land
And ask us about our status!

While Nirmala Putul is concerned with the infiltration of “Dikku” (outside exploiters), in Maharashtra, Bhujang Meshram highlights issues related to water, forest and land, for which he invokes Birsa Munda:

… Rise up against your darkness, rise up
Rise up against the ongoing conspiracies behind you
Now they have come to know
… today there are neither dense ravines
Nor are you there / Only discontent is spreading in the valleys
… should I tell you the truth / Now we are in an urgency
Now we don’t want the covered-up civilisation
… Birsa, you will have to come determinedly.

Concepts such as labour and struggle have been significant in the Adivasi society. In this context, Bhuvanlal Sori writes:

Every morning they come out with new expectations
Searching for light in their disinclination
We will plough the hard land again and again…

For nearly two centuries, and in every region across the country, the Adivasis fought bravely against the British, coming under fire in every region across the country. While the stories and songs of this long struggle enrich Adivasi literature, their contribution has not received due recognition in the nation’s history. The poetry of Mahadev Toppo notes the irony of this historical amnesia:

… trees, rivers, rocks are the witnesses of your victory stories and struggles, there are the souls of your ancestors / there are the leaders / there are the places / there are your folk songs…

Anuj Lugun, a famous young voice, reflects the reality of the contemporary tragedy of Adivasi as the poet has seen, experienced and lived. Unlike Adivasi society, humanity at large seems to have forgotten that the continuing, widespread plunder of natural wealth will make life on earth impossible. Lugun writes:

‘This is the time for us who are grounded
And those who are not grounded
Are trapped in the clutches of the enemy
And in hope waiting for an angel…’
                                                                 (“Fisherman”)

During the colonial period, the movement of the great Adivasi revolutionary Birsa Munda was named “Ulgulan”. This word is indicative of Adivasi resistance as they were being driven from their lands. Lugun’s well-known poem “Undeclared Rebellion” (Aghoshit Ulgulan) memorialises this struggle:

.... Hunters are roaming in the city like prey
Jungles are fighting in the undeclared rebellion…
…People speak only for the sake of speaking
Adivasi are fighting in undeclared Ulgulan
Trees are being cut down by the axe of the mafia
And the concrete jungles are growing…

Prabhat, a poet from Rajasthan whose oeuvre is considered very mature for his age, centres his work on the oppressed and exploited working class. His poems express sympathy for the deep values of an earlier era, offering regard both to the non-human living world of earth and nature, as well as the affective dignity of seasonality, labour and love. In 'Upon Whom Deadly Tortures Have Begun', he writes:

Premature death is forming a web all around them
They are unable to save themselves from being surrounded
Their lives have become so dry and helpless
That they are unable to love the seasons, the weather, the flowers
And the sky’s colours
Yet they want to live
Like dry bushes struggling against the barren land
What advice do we have to give them

The poetry of Jacinta Kerkatta, perhaps the most popular Adivasi poet writing today, is astonishing. In “Time for Civilizations to Die” (Sabyathaon ke marne ki baari), she writes:

‘…one day when all the rivers will die due to lack of oxygen
then dead bodies of civilisations will be found floating in the dead rivers…’

In another poem titled “River, Mountain and Market” (Nadi, Pahad aur Bazar), Kerketta’s persona reaches the market from the jungle:

… what do you want to buy?’ the shopkeeper asked
Brother! A little rain, a little wet soil,
A bottle of river, those canned mountains
Give me some nature hanging on the wall over there, too,
And why is this rain so expensive?
The shopkeeper said— this moisture is not from here!
It has come from another planet
In this recession, asked only for a pinch
Searched the edge of the sari to take out the money
I was shocked! I saw in the knot of the fold
Instead of money
My entire existence was folded…

For the Adivasis, the market and currency are enigmas, since their way of life holds different lessons about value. In ‘The Forest Is Our School’ (‘Jungle Hai Hamari Pathshaala’), Poonam Vasam, who belongs to the Gond community, writes:

A few blood stains on the tip of the arrow
Tell the painful tales of ‘Tad-Jhokni’
The mountains of Bailadila are holding
A bundle of primitive rituals
On their palms
We learn from these high hills of Bastar
To console, preserve, handle and stand erect
in the name of heritage.

Likewise, in poems such as ‘Mountain’ (Pahad), ‘Hope to Survive’ (Bache Rahne Ki Umeed), ‘Connection of Soil’ (Naata Mitti Ka) and ‘Two Sides of River’ (Nadi Ke Do Paat), the poet Jamuna Bini from Arunachal resists the consumerist values of the dominant mainstream while reiterating the importance of the ‘mountain-forest’.

Instead of getting entangled in questions of sympathy, personal experience or authenticity, I believe that the only qualifier for Adivasi poetry is that its creation should be based on a deep and authoritative experience of Adivasi life. In this light, it is worth considering the work of non-Adivasi poets on Adivasi subjects.

For instance, Liladhar Mandloi has been an intimate witness to Adivasi life in the Satpura region. Most of the workers in the region’s coal mines are Adivasi; the poet has seen the pain of displacement in the name of development and migration in search of employment:

The displaced people built their own settlements and learned the practice of living to avoid the humiliation of returning.

A hallmark of Mandloi’s work is the invocation of nature in the name of the mother:

Mother says I can't walk even a little now
As you go on, son, take some moonlight
My share of air, clouds, laughter and patience
Could something return to my mountain
The green time of fallen leaves
The bamboo thickets suitable for the flute.
                                                                 (but a voice)

Tejaram Sharma, a resident of Shimla, depicts the Adivasi’s satisfaction in desiring very little by way of material possessions:

In the midst of the rugged jungle / that Adivasi woman picked / a few fields / a few animals / in a small veranda inside the hut / chose only her own self / against the seasons.

Ashok Singh, working in Dumka (Jharkhand), writes:

Santhal region is saddened that / what's more / along with the jungle, the people of the jungle are also decreasing.

Similarly, in observing the Adivasi life, Sushil Kumar from Jharkhand writes:

We are the children of brave Sido-Kanhu.
Do not go abroad to earn even by mistake.
My brother.

The Adivasi community today contends with a profound existential crisis, caught between the bayonets of the government and the guns of the Naxalites.

Many noted poets have written on the Adivasi experience in Bastar. These include noted poet Vinod Kumar Shukla, who has deep experience and understanding of Adivasi life in the Chhattisgarh region, Laxminarayan 'Payodhi', who has written on Bastar in the collections titled 'Somaru' and ‘The Poem at the End’ (Ant Mein Bachi Kavita), Sudip Banerjee, and Ramanika Gupta, who has written poems on the Adivasi labourers working in Bastar’s coal mines. Leading Hindi poet Chandrakant Deotale has also written:

.... But I can see
The asthma of blind darkness in the forests of Bastar
Imprisoned in nests hanging on trees
The torn shreds of worries
The anonymous sobs surging in the waters of Indravati

................................
Listen, people of the cities
Listen, people of the clothes
People of the machine, words and thoughts, listen
The turmeric-coloured paw of our Bastar
Is now breaking and scattering like a scab
Look,
On the back of Bastar
There are numerous whip marks.'

Gyanendrapati’s composition features the breed of chicken “Kadaknath” as ??its title and central character:

His bed in Bastar
The greedy selfish industrialist wants to spread
The call of the Kadaknath scolds him
Wakes up the village
Mouth Darkness
Even if it cannot be saved
From the food-hungry gluttons
To be tied to get cooked on the same day
Kadaknath
Or else it should come
Under the anxious wheels
Bastar's long, straight to the eye
The crowned king of that Vision Road

Sudhir Saxena writes about Bastar thus:

This is the place / where it is possible to talk to trees and men / and it is possible / to hear the humming of the tree / listening to a man's body and upon a man’s smile / the giggling of the tree community.

Manglesh Dabral’s poem “Adivasi” is also written in the context of Bastar:

Indravati, Godavari, Shabari, Swarnarekha, Teesta, Barak, Koel / Not just rivers but their musical instruments / Muria, Baiga, Santhal, Munda, Oraon, Dongria, Kondh, Pahariya / Not just names / They are the ragas they have sung since ancient times / And this deep forest is not his spirituality but his home…’

To eliminate the Naxalite problem from Chhattisgarh, the state government launched the Salwa Judum counterinsurgency campaign in 2005, with the sole purpose of provoking Adivasis against one another. The brutal campaign, notorious for its violations of human rights, was eventually halted through the intervention of the Supreme Court. Renowned poet Madan Kashyap has written on the cruelty of this application of official power:

We have turned murder into a cultural ritual / No one can call it oppression of the government / Government tyranny / Now the shoulders are also yours / The chests are also yours / We are only the priests of your human sacrifice / History is witness / Those who chant mantras / in the celebration of murder / have never been called murderers ...

The poems quoted here are serious and essential interventions in modern Hindi letters; in terms of content or craft, they are no less than any other written in contemporary Hindi today. They arise from but are not limited to the distinct identities, histories and experiences of Adivasi life—they speak to universal human concerns. In the Adivasi mind, destruction in the name of development persists, but public consciousness and resistance against it are also on the rise: this condition profoundly informs Adivasi poetry today.

Following the year 2000, there has been fresh momentum in publishing Adivasi writing. Adivasi literature has been included in educational curricula, and it has been discussed in scholarly research and conferences. Adivasi poetry has gained a foothold in the world of Hindi letters and is beginning to show its influence on contemporary writing in Hindi.