Tribal Bengal: Life in the Sub-Himalayan Terai Duars

Description

West Bengal is now home to about 5.3 million tribal people; they form five per cent of the total tribal population of India. In the state itself, they comprise 5.80 per cent of the total population. In fact, it can be said that of the people of Bengal, one in every 17 belongs to a tribal community. It is this little-known world of the tribals that this book presents. Contemporary stories and photographs, taken by the author, bring alive many incidents in the lives of these fascinating people. Tribal Bengal: Life in the Sub-Himalayan Terai Duars is divided into two parts—Indo-Mongoloids and the Proto-Australoids and Others. Each chapter offers glimpses of the tribal people, their customs and celebrations, the languages spoken and their lifestyle. These are some of the earliest people in the subcontinent who are struggling to combat with the changing socio-economic scenario of the country. This book is an intimate witness to their day-to-day life, amid joys and sorrows.

Krishnopriyo Bhattacharya

Krishnopriyo Bhattacharya has been studying the tribal affairs of North Bengal for more than three decades. He grew up in Kamakshyaguri and Alipurduar and, after getting his B.Com degree from the University of North Bengal in 1980, he joined the West Bengal Government’s Backward Classes Welfare Department in the Duars as an Inspector and later shifted to Siliguri. He is a keen photographer and has visited most of the tribal communities of Bengal. Krishnopriyo’s published works include two multilingual lexicons on scriptless tribal speeches in Bengali and the International Phonetic Alphabet; an intensive field study on the tribal predicament of the Bengal-Duars; a sociological study of the contemporary life-struggle of two indigenous communities of North Bengal; a work on tribal ethno-photography, among others. He has also worked as the Duars correspondent of the Kolkata-based dailies, Aajkaal and The Telegraph.