Socio-Cultural Issues of the Santals in Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar’s The Adivasi Will Not Dance (2015)

Abstract

The Santals are struggling to achieve socio-economic progress due to socio-political exploitation and economic marginalization. Their culture face challenges due to the growing influence of Christianity. This paper seeks to explore socio-cultural issues of the Santals of India. The study highlights their current issues and claims. It consists in studying Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar’s text The Adivasi Will Not Dance (2015). Though the text this paper reflects their issues of cultural erosion due to religious conversion and capitalistic development. Further, the paper aims at studying socio-cultural perspective of the Santals’ demand of Sari-Sarna religion code. It tries to underline their contemporary challenges including land disputes, migration, and marginalisation. The findings of the paper centered on explaining Santal’s problems of integration with mainstream society.

Keywords: Santal; Indigenous community; Tribal writing in English; social and cultural issues