The Adivasi Will Not Dance: A Saga of Unremitting Exploitation and Expatriation of the Santhals through the Microscope of Institutional Racism

Abstract

This paper is a humble approach to probe into the spiral of institutional tyranny unleashed upon the marginalized people, here, as depicted in Hansda’s short story collection, the Santhal men, women or even children working in different spheres of the society and how society conforms to perpetuate the tyranny in manifold ways. From this perspective, the paper tries to demonstrate how culture is created in terms of race, sex and class and is used as a tool to show off the all-engulfing supremacy of the money-minded, opportunistic and power-craving big guns and policy-makers. The margins, on the contrary, when fight back, fork into two approaches-individually and collectively. So, the hit of the hammer cannot produce the equal reaction which it is expected to produce. In this paper, the focus is both on the vibrancy of the action and reaction, the centre and the periphery and most importantly the medium with which the subaltern people try to fend off the cultural, ideological and economic onslaught by the power-mongers.