Murals of Survival: Indigenous Resilience and Environmental Sustainability in West Bengal

Event details

Join us for this YESI International Fellows seminar with Professor Debashree Dattaray, Department of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University, India and Nibedita Mukherjee, Professor in English at Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University, Purulia, India.

This seminar will focus on the wall paintings by Indigenous communities in Purulia which serves as a freight corridor between West Bengal and the industrially rich states of Jharkhand, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.  Villages such as Hatimara in Hura block, Dhagora in Para block, Amaidih in Neturia block and some others in the Bagmundi and Jhalda block are known for their mud huts externally adorned with monochromatic or coloured wall paintings.  These huts are a lesson in ecological sustainability and they provide a valuable study in today’s world of global warming.  The huts are made of locally procurable and cheap construction materials that is eco-friendly.  The painting and maintenance of the walls is usually done during the Santal festival of Sohrai or the Harvest/cattle festival.  Indigenous groups such as Santals, Birhors, Kurmis and Oraos take part in this wall painting, which is done in preparation for the festival.

With close reference to the art of wall paintings of Purulia, this seminar will explore ways in which Indigenous communities influence the natural environment and facilitate newer ways of understanding community ownership and indigenous systems.

About the speakers

Professor Debashree Dattaray and Professor Nibedita Mukherjee

Debashree Dattaray is Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University, India and is also coordinator of the Centre for Canadian Studies, Jadavpur University.  She has been awarded a Fulbright Alumni Award 2019, the Shastri Mobility Programme (McGill University), CICOPS Fellowship (University of Pavia), a Fulbright-Nehru Visiting Lecturer Fellowship (UC Berkeley), the Erasmus Mundus Europe Asia Fellowship (University of Amsterdam) and Fulbright Doctoral Fellowship (SUNY, Stony Brook).  Her areas of research are Environmental Studies, Indigenous Studies, Comparative Literature and Digital Humanities.

She is author of Oral Traditions of the North East: A Case Study of Karbi Oral Traditions (JU 2015) and has co-edited At the Crossroads of Literature and Culture (Primus 2016), Following Forkhead Paths: Discussions on the Narrative (Setu 2017), Ecocriticism and Environment: Rethinking Literature and Culture (Primus 2017), Literature and the Other Arts (JU Press 2023), Finding Philosophers in Global Fiction (Bloomsbury 2024).  She is on the Editorial Board of Littcrit: An Indian Response to Literature, Lagoonscapes: The Venice Journal of Environmental Studies, and Environment, Senses and Emotions (University of Exeter Press) and is Series Editor for Environmental Humanities and Indigeneity (Peter Lang).  She is Principal Investigator of an ICSSR Major Research Project on “Digital Empowerment and Traditional Knowledge Systems: A Case Study from Bankura and Purulia, West Bengal”.  She is nominated member for Jadavpur University for the India Member’s Council, Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute and is External Associate at the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies, York University.  She is the Zonal Representative (East) for the Indian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies (IACLALS).

Nibedita Mukherjee is Professor in English at Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University, Purulia, India, a university catering largely to the indigenous people.  She specializes in Feminist Studies, Digital Humanities and Ecocritical Studies with special reference to Indigenous folk literature and sustainability practices.  Mukherjee has five books to her credit.  She was the recipient of the USA State Fellowship Award (SUSI) funded by Dept of State, USA and gathered teaching/learning experience for a brief span in Seattle University, USA.  She has served as the editor of the Wesleyan Journal of Research: An International Research Journal. 

She is on the editorial board of a number of national and international journals.  She worked with the Teaching Learning Center, IIT Kharagpur as Research Collaborator and Subject Expert in a project titled “Graphic-Novel based Pedagogy in Teaching Grammar in Schools” funded by MHRD.  She has also worked on an ICSSR funded projecttitled “Folklores and Folkvoices: Preserving the Environmental Ethnospace”.  She is presently working in an ICSSR funded major research project titled “Digital Empowerment and Traditional Knowledge Systems: A Case Study from Bankura and Purulia, West Bengal”.