RECOVERING THE LOST TONGUE
RAHUL BANERJEE · Books
Price: Rs. 225. Rahul Banerjee after graduating from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur in 1983 arrived by a happy chance among the Bhil adivasis in Central India. Over the last quarter of a century, Rahul Banerjee has worked as an activist along with the Bhils in the struggle against their various local, national and global exploiters to establish themselves as equal citizens of this country. These struggles are essentially environmental because they posit a challenge to modern development which has ravaged the environment which has been the traditional habitat of the Bhils. The book gives a delightful account of activist and adivasi life in Central India "from below" interspersed with the broader ideas and events that are shaping contemporary India. The Bhil woman on the front cover is pounding an indigenous variety of rice grown on her farm to dehusk it. She has her face covered with a veil as that is the custom strictly enforced by Bhil men as part of an elaborate system of patriarchal oppression of their women. This deeprooted patriarchy may well have arisen as a result of the long history of armed struggles of the Bhils against non-tribals to maintain their habitats and cultural identity. This militancy is reflected in the reliefs of armed and mounted men in the memorials raised by the Bhils to their ancestors visible in the picture alongside. Today in their struggle against displacement and devastation arising from modern development the Bhils have transformed their traditional militancy and made their society more egalitarian with respect to women while fighting to revive their vanishing environment friendly lifestyle.