The silent surge of tribal writers

Literature has been the handmaiden of their politics

To borrow a bit from a famous British author, three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon is when one is least likely to mistake the gentle environment at New Delhi’s Sahitya Akademi for the fields of tribal India. The unfamiliar terrain of the tribal writers, who gathered in a session at the Akademi, is as big as it is small. One is at once confronted with many questions, the first of which is how to situate such a delightful rendezvous in the overall theme of Indian literature. If truth be told, so far we have not been accustomed to thinking of