The unnamed narrator of Manoj Rupda’s novel, an Adivasi, is fascinated by large things but it is his destiny to helplessly witness their disintegration: an elephant, a ship, his community and their village
“It hurts differently to watch something immense and majestic fall lifelessly to its knees and to be taken apart by powers beyond its control. Like a ship being dismantled by cutting machines and cranes. Like an elephant being eaten alive by wild dogs. Like a forest being mined and ravaged by corporates. It hurts much the same way to be left alone. By a mentor. By a co-traveller. By one’s own sister.”
The opening lines of Manoj Rupda’s I Named My Sister Silence (Eka), translated from his Hindi novel, Kaale Adhyaay by Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar, are as haunting as they are beautiful in their composition. The unnamed narrator of this story belongs to the Adivasi community in central India. He is fascinated by large things but it is his destiny to helplessly witness the disintegration of those large things — an elephant, a ship, and his Adivasi community and their village.
The human cost of internal security wars
Fascinated by its majestic largeness, the narrator followed an elephant into the forest when he was a child. He watched from atop a tree as the elephant was eaten alive by a pack of wild dogs. The narrator survived that night but was forever altered by the traumatic incident. Similar cruel acts of violence reverberate all through the book as an Adivasi community is destroyed by paramilitary forces who act in retaliation to Maoist activity in the region.
The narrator’s sister, Kako, was a nourishing sister who stood up against injustice at her own house before she decided to fight against the tyrannical forces that are trying to destroy the forest. A resilient character, she took care of the narrator and fought against a vile stepmother when she threw cockroaches in her food. Kako put all her efforts into educating the narrator and sending him far away from their village. She then leaves home to join Maoists and disappears into the forest. The narrator struggles to understand the motives behind his sister’s actions. He decides to go into the depths of the forest seeking answers.
In the forest, he encounters terrified people fleeing their villages, death of innocent villagers in fake encounters, and relief camps that imprison villagers under the garb of protecting them. The Adivasi people are being starved in these camps. Underaged Adivasi girls are being raped. Once again, the narrator is reminded of the elephant that had surrendered to its fate as it was torn apart by wild dogs.
“The place I came from is still a long way from civilisation. In the place I came from, a person was yet to be considered human,” the narrator tells us. The author brings attention to the human cost of internal security wars of the country. The people in power have managed to divide the Adivasi community so that half of them have donned guerilla outfits and joined the Maoist movements while the other half have joined forces with the police to fight against their own people.
The narrator aptly adds, “both halves have given up traditional weapons and picked up guns to stand against each other”. When the narrator encounters mass graves inside the forests, he understands that his people have become pawns in a war that will benefit people in power, people who are outsiders to his community and his forest and village.
The hidden lives of Adivasi in Chhattisgarh
The setting of Rupda’s novel is rural Chhattisgarh — areas that are portrayed as breeding grounds for Naxalites in the mainstream. Rupda’s fiction fights stereotyping of populations as it delves deeper into individual lives of the characters — the dangerous paths they choose, what compels them to join the Maoist movement, and the relationship the people have with the forest and with each other. He tells these stories in excellent prose and the translation by Shekhar keeps the lyricism intact.
Rupda, a Nagpur-based writer, writes in Hindi. His other works include Pratisansaar, a novel; the collections of stories, Dafan tatha Anya Kahaniyan, Saaz Naasaaz, Aamaazgaah, Tower of Silence, Dahan and Dus Kahaniyan; and a book of essays, Kalaa ka Aaswaad. His fiction often explores what it is to be human in circumstances that challenge humanity. What do you do when the world doesn’t see you as a human, as a civilized being entitled to rights? Rupda’s writing also makes the reader reconsider the binaries of right and wrong.
He writes about people that the mainstream often considers too naive and backwards to understand their own interests. Stories of relief camps and Maoist conflicts reach the world through newspapers that carry manipulated facts and numbers but Rupda takes us into the heart of such conflicts. The real story of the narrator and his sister will never make it to history textbooks. Their villages and forests are not of interest to the common man. They will be mined for resources and their social history will be completely wiped out.
Rupda gives us a view of the hidden lives of Adivasi communities as he paints a poignant picture of those who live in the margins of the society. Soul-shattering and brave, this novel will linger long after you have turned the last pages. It reflects back our own evil complicity in the destruction of communities and habitats.
