Adivasi Writers: an Introduction to India's Indigenous Literature
Edited by Amardeep Singh and Srishti Raj, Lehigh University 2025
हिंदी संस्करण
This site aims to be a hub and educational resource for Adivasi writing, with the aspiration to share South Asia's indigenous literature with the broader world. For those who are unfamiliar, Adivasis are South Asian indigenous communities, subject to a long history of marginalization and displacement going back to the colonial era and continuing in the present. There are more than 100 million Adivasi people in India alone, located throughout the country, with a particular concentrations in central India as well as in the northeast region. For generations, Adivasis were written about rather than subjects of their own story. This site aims to help change that by centering Adivasi voices directly, and making their writings accessible to a broad readership.
What's here -- at a glance:
- Profiles for individual authors, information about their communities and cultures, topical tags to show groupings and themes, and maps to help readers situate these writers in their cultural and spatial contexts.
- Short excerpts of Adivasi writing in English or in translation from various South Asian languages with permission from the authors. Many of these have never been translated into English before.
- An inclusive list of Adivasi writers whose names and writings,drawn from lists from Hindi language and English language Wikipedia pages, but also including the names of authors that do not appear on either list.
- Profiles of anthologies of Adivasi writing, including literature anthologies as well as works of nonfiction, journalism, and advocacy.
- Adivasi writers grouped by community. Because community identity is important to many Adivasi writers we have also been organizing authors by community: Santhali writers, Munda writers, Naga writers, Kharia writers, Oraon (Kurukh) writers, Gondi writers, Bhil writers, Meena writers, Ho writers, Asur writers, and more.
- Thematic tags: Ecological issues, Gender relations and Feminism, Adivasi Identity (Adivasiyat), Displacement, Dispossession, Big Dam Activism; Development and Progress, and Adivasi religions and religious conversion
- A bibliography of writing related to Adivasis and their literature.
- We are also working on Hindi language translations of the main English materials of our site to make the project more accessible to readers in South Asia.
Follow the "Paths" below for a more in-depth introduction, an essay on Adivasis and Comparative Indigeneity, as well as other resources available on this site.