Department of Linguistics and Philology Master Thesis 30 credits, spring 2019 Armin Chiocchetti Ek duniyā alag sī Narrative strategies and Adivasi representation in the short stories of Vinod Kumar Supervisor: Heinz Werner Wessler Uppsala University Armin Chiocchetti Spring semester, 2018 Abstract This paper investigates the narrative strategies of representation used by the Indian author Vinod Kumar in his literary writing about the life and spaces of the Adivasi. The focal point of this study consists in the fact that the author is a non-Adivasi, thus placing him and his writing in the center of a very much debated issue of Hindi literature i.e. the polarity between the writing through sympathy (Hindi sahā nubhū ti) and the writing through personal experience (anubhū ti). This study-case looks at how the author, being a dikū , an outsider describes the ‘other’ (i.e. the Adivasi). The results show that the author’s representation of the Adivasi, based on a solid empirical knowledge of his ‘other’, contains some elements of romanticism revealing both his outsideness and a strong empathy for the ‘other’. Keywords: Adivasi, narrative strategies, representation, romanticism, empathy, the other. ii Uppsala University Armin Chiocchetti Spring semester, 2018 Acknowledgements I would like to thank Vinod Kumar for having been so kind to answer to all my questions about his life and about the Adivasi. I would also like to thank my supervisor Professor Heinz Werner Wessler for all the meaningful discussions and suggestions during the writing of this paper. iii Uppsala University Armin Chiocchetti Spring semester, 2018 Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................ iii Contents ............................................................................................................................................. iv Notes on transliteration and quotations from Hindi ......................................................................... vi 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 1 1.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 Material and aim of the research ................................................................................................. 2 1.3 Method ......................................................................................................................................... 3 2. ISSUES ON ADIVASI REPRESENTATION ............................................................................................... 4 2.1 Terminology .................................................................................................................................. 4 2.2 The historical and political representation of the Adivasi ............................................................ 7 2.2.1 Issues on writing a history of the Adivasi............................................................................... 7 2.2.2 The Adivasi in precolonial times ............................................................................................ 9 2.2.3 From the colonial period to our days ................................................................................... 12 2.3 Adivasi literature: issues and approaches................................................................................... 16 2.3.1 Introduction: the emergence of a new literary identity ...................................................... 16 2.3.2 Problematizing the authenticity of literary representation ................................................. 19 2.3.3 Adivasi literature in the post-colonial discourse ................................................................. 24 2.3.4 The representation of the other in the post-colonial discourse and beyond ...................... 26 3. THE AUTHOR AND THE SHORT STORIES ........................................................................................... 27 3.1 The author ................................................................................................................................... 27 3.1.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 27 3.1.2 The author’s biography ........................................................................................................ 28 3.2 The short stories ......................................................................................................................... 29 3.2.1 Ek duniyā alag si ̄................................................................................................................... 29 3.2.2 Kāṭh cāhie ............................................................................................................................. 34 3.2.3 Bhagini................................̄ .................................................................................................. 37 3.2.4 Ham bhi ̄hindū ...................................................................................................................... 42 3.2.5 Cāṁ dni ̄rāteṁ ...................................................................................................................... 44 3.2.6 Bhūri ̄āṁ kheṁ ...................................................................................................................... 47 3.2.7 Karki ̄..................................................................................................................................... 50 3.2.8 Ek thi ̄Eni ................................̄ ............................................................................................... 55 3.2.9 Niyomgiri rājā ....................................................................................................................... 58 iv Uppsala University Armin Chiocchetti Spring semester, 2018 3.2.10 Ṭis̄ ....................................................................................................................................... 62 3.2.11 Mor ..................................................................................................................................... 65 3.2.12. Hūl ..................................................................................................................................... 68 3.2.13 Budhni ̄................................................................................................................................ 71 4. REPRESENTATIONAL STRATEGIES ..................................................................................................... 75 4.1 The narrator ................................................................................................................................ 75 4.1.1 The narrator as a visitor in the world of the ‘other’ ............................................................ 75 4.1.2 The sympathy of the narrator .............................................................................................. 77 4.2 The characters ............................................................................................................................. 79 4.2.1 The exploited and the exploiters ......................................................................................... 79 4.2.2 Accessible vs. inaccessible Adivasi ....................................................................................... 80 4.2.3 The female characters .......................................................................................................... 82 4.3 The settings ................................................................................................................................. 83 4.4 The language ............................................................................................................................... 85 5. CONCLUSIONS ................................................................................................................................... 89 References ........................................................................................................................................ 91 Online articles and websites ............................................................................................................. 95 Appendix 1: Glossary of Hindi terms................................................................................................. 96 Appendix 2: Interview with Vinod Kumar (English translation) ........................................................ 97 Appendix 3: Interview with Vinod Kumar (Hindi) ........................................................................... 101 v Uppsala University Armin Chiocchetti Spring semester, 2018 Notes on transliteration and quotations from Hindi The transliteration of Hindi words is given in italics and follows the convention of McGregor’s Oxford Hindi-English Dictionary with few exceptions. The short -a of some Sanskrit loanwords, still audible in Hindi, signaled with -ă in McGregor, has been transliterated as -a, thus lā vaṇya instead of lā vaṇyă . When short -a is not audible in Hindi, this has been omitted