When a literary festival visits a little Jharkhand town

 When a literary festival visits a little Jharkhand town

Tracing the literary path of Dumka, from mobile library to 2-day national festival

A 'Bhramansheel Pustakalay' (mobile library) used to circulate books and newspapers throughout rural Santhal Pargana CLOSE TO 60 YEARS AGO. But this wasn't known until recently, when the district administration in Dumka, Jharkhand, decided to renovate the crumbling public library in 2021.

The lost van that operated as the mobile library was discovered as the administration, under the direction of Deputy Commissioner R S Shukla, started digitising and categorising the books collecting dust in the public library and enhancing resources.

Their own literary festival, the Dumka State Library Literary Festival, will be held in April 2022 as a result of this inspiration.

The second iteration of the two-day Dumka Literature Festival, which ended on Sunday, and a memorial lecture for the Norwegian missionary Paul Olaf Bodding, who travelled to India and wrote about Santhali culture, folklore, and grammar, have been the three literary events the district has hosted since then.

The library held titles including Banjara Nama by poet Nazeer Akbarabadi and A Prattler's Story by economist Ashok Mitra. I wanted to treat these resources fairly. Subsequently, Deputy Development Commissioner Karn Satyarthi [an IAS officer from the 2016 batch] assisted us in making this festival a reality," remarked Shukla, an IAS officer from the 2012 batch.

Akshaya Bahibala, an author and poet who lives in Odisha, is a well-known member of Shukla's team. Bahibala, a co-founder of Walking BookFairs, a travelling library that has visited all of India, initially discovered the Bhramansheel Pustakalay van and assisted in its restoration.

began by attending the event

Singh continued, "It is truly amazing that this event is taking place. Corporate literature festivals unintentionally end up serving as gatekeepers for the amusement of a particular class. Thus, events like this festival are crucial.

When it comes to English, there are particular difficulties regarding who will be published. Instead of concentrating on language, the emphasis should be placed on recording oral histories. The mainstream history is empty when viewed from the perspective of the Adivasi, according to renowned scholar and former Fulbright Scholar Joseph Bara.

Yaduvansh Pranay, assistant professor in the department of Hindi at Santal Pargana College, emphasised the importance of supporting local authors by saying, "We do a follow up and discuss about the literature fest sessions for students like Modi. Dumka has suffered greatly from distress migration, which may have prevented one or two generations from passing on their oral history and culture to the following generation.