By TwoCircles.net, Staff Reporter
Jharkhand: Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, a doctor and the author of book “The Adivasi Will Not Dance”, a collection of 10 short stories in English, was suspended by his employers, the Jharkhand government, on Friday, August 11 for allegedly portraying Santhal women in a bad light.
One of the stories in the book, ‘November Is the Month of Migrations’, is about a Santhal woman who trades her body for Rs 50 and a couple of bread pakoras. The Santhals are a tribe who mainly live in Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Bihar and parts of Assam.
Shekhar, 34, a doctor based in Pakur, 400 km from Ranchi won the Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puruskar in 2015 for his novel “The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey”. He was suspended by the government for not taking prior permission to write the book.
The book was published in 2015 and caused a stir among the Santhals. In the first week of August, Shekhar’s effigy and the copies of books were burnt by a group of tribals in Pakur, where he works as a Doctor.
Shekhar has also alleged of facing continuous online abuses and threats after the book was published in 2015. “This attack has been going on since November 2015, a month after my second book came out,” Shekhar was quoted to have said by The Wire.
“While some of the profiles abusing me are anonymous or fake profiles, some are also well-known people from the community. They have said things like I am a porn writer, that I slept with my publishers to get published, they attacked my friends and so on. When it first started, neither I nor my friends responded – we thought it would just go away,” Shekhar said.
The opposition party in Jharkhand assembly, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha called for a ban on Friday, August 1 and by evening, the BJP Chief Minister Raghubar Das had ordered all copies to be seized, and legal action taken against the writer
A group of Adivasi writers and academics who wrote a strong letter protesting the persecution of Shekhar said they passed the allegedly “pornographic” story around to several Santhal friends. “All of them, without exception, said the story was painful, disturbing and sad, which made them reflect on the difficult, complex lives our Adivasi women live. This story could be about exploitation, choices are borne of desperate conditions or free will, but all it did was evoke tears, a lump in the throat and profound grief. Not one of the readers said the story sexually aroused them,” reads the contents of the letter
Shekhar while speaking to TwoCircles.net said that he didn’t portray Santhal Women in a bad light.
“Yes, the government has suspended me, but I do not know why the government is after me,” he said.
Another government employee from Jharkhand, who wished not to be identified and is well versed with the case said that there is a condition where an employee doesn’t require permission from the government before writing a book.
“According to Point 9. (2) (kha) (i) and (ii) of the Bihar Sarkaari Sewak Achar Niyamawali, 1976 (now being used by the government of Jharkhand), a literary, artistic, or scientific work written by an employee but published not by the employee himself but by a publisher, does not require a permission from the government.”
Indian Express in its editorial on Tuesday, August 15, condemned the action taken by Jharkhand government and termed that the author is being hounded into silence.