Eco-Local and Eco-Global: Some Literary Interventions in Adivasi Hindi Short Stories

The present article investigates how three Adivasi writers from Jharkhand engage with issues relating to environmental exploitation and ethnic/class subordination. Starting from a rough overview of ecological writing and ecocriticism in Hindi literature, the article shows how these authors relate social injustice to ecological issues, demonstrating that eco-writing is a regular presence in Adivasi literature. Further, it suggests that notwithstanding the specifically local identity of the authors as Adivasis in the Indian state of Jharkhand, the ecological concerns expressed in their short stories must be placed in the broader frameworks of environmental global crisis and discourses on indigeneity. Finally, the article discusses how the authors’ social advancement is reflected in their representation of Adivasi characters, and the implications this bears for the ‘we/they’ dichotomy present in the Adivasi literary discourse.