January 19, 2021
Through the looking glass: By modern indices of development, the adivasis of Abujhmad are backward - V SUDERSHAN
Through the looking glass: By modern indices of development, the adivasis of Abujhmad are backward - V SUDERSHAN×
Writer Narendra’s latest book, rich with vignettes from Bastar and his native village in Uttar Pradesh, questions the State’s mission of corralling people into the so-called mainstream
A
Sense of Home, read along with
Bastar Dispatches (published in July 2018), is a unique account of adivasi and rural life alike, based on the lived experience of Narendra, the writer. It is written in essay form — not anthropological, not political, but as an utterly self-effacing participant-observer who submits himself to a milieu; in this case Abujhmad in Bastar, a hilly forest area in Chhattisgarh, and his native village in Western Uttar Pradesh, Ramala. So, it’s a work whose genre is removed from the self-conscious baggage of academia and journalism. Nor is it the account of a ‘sensitive’ intellectual who paratroops into exotic Bastar and takes in all in a whistle-stop tour. It also calls into question categories such as ‘adivasi India’ and ‘rural India’ by observing that their sensibilities have a lot in common.