When the fear of extinction is written large upon the faces of people who wear the proud tribal heritage on their sleeves, the obvious way is to strive for humanistic revival of art, architecture, literature and possibly everything with the imprint of the thousands of year-old culture that forms the very heart and soul of the culture itself.
Amid the growing clarion call to save the tribal culture of Jharkhand from total annihilation as it is being exposed to various cultures from different realms, a small place in the adivasi heartland of Ranchi-Hatma is sowing seed for the revival of the tribal culture through exposure to the legacy that defines the inhabitants of the forest land- Jharkhand. Named as ‘“Adivasi lur Adda’, the place is all about educating people about indigenous and international literary works on tribal communities of Jharkhand.
“Tribal community is losing its identity very fast because the culture has been a subject of neglect by many adivasis. So, we have decided to expose them to the literary works undertaken at State, national and international level to educate them about the river, land, language, history and everything associated with Adivasis. This is a way to make them passionate about their culture and also to widen their horizon about the culture,” said Mahadev Toppo, one of the precursors the movement.
The name, as it has been coined defines the very purpose of the place and as Mahadev along with his colleague Hari Oraon says it is an attempt to impart knowledge to make all the tribes proud about their culture.
“The word ‘lur’ in Kudukh means knowledge and ‘adda’ simply means a place where people assemble to spend time. The place has been named by joining these two words and it is for all and sundry. Even non-adivasi can come to this place if they want to satiate desire for knowledge about tribal community,” maintained Toppo.
The community lying in the penumbra around the brightness radiating from some of the world class institutions based in Jharkhand will subside gradually, as the duo say, if people are awakened by innumerable works done on the society in dialects spoken in Jharkhand and elsewhere. For the two missionaries, making them believe about their significance and relevance in the contemporary world will draw them close to the rest of the world.
“The tribal community of Jharkhand who mostly live in rural areas are away from education. They do not understand tribal culture and live in oblivion about existence of literature about them and Jharkhand. They believe that the world has become introvert and are insensitive about tribal community. But this is not true. We will try to make them understand that the world as much for them as it is for others so they must take pride in whatever they have and move forward,” said Oraon.
The ‘adda’ will be broadened in scope and will be expanded to promote intra and inter community dialogue to promote tribal culture among non-tribal and tribal community alike which has turned its back on the customs and traditions under the influence of other cultures.
The two promoters vowed to explore all sorts of tribal centric woks done and presently being undertaken at national and international level to bring them to Jharkhand and to start with they would be showing short documentary movies—Koda Raji and Going Home—to the indigenous Jharkhandi to awaken them about their roots and importance of sticking to it.