Rewriting Adivasi Experience: Contemporary Tribal Concerns in Jacinta Kerketta’s Poetry in Post-Jharkhand Formation Context

Abstract

Jacinta Kerketta, an influential Adivasi poet from Jharkhand, represents one of the clearest and most politically engaged voices in contemporary indigenous Indian literature. Through her poetry, she redefines the contours of Adivasi expression by documenting the ecological destruction, cultural dislocation, gendered suffering and political marginalization that continue to shape the lives of tribal communities, particularly in the decades following the creation of the Jharkhand state in 2000. This research examines her poetry through the frameworks of eco-criticism, subaltern studies, tribal feminism and indigenous epistemologies. It argues that her work rewrites Adivasi experience by confronting state violence, capitalist mining enterprises and cultural erasures while simultaneously invoking a legacy of historical resistance led by iconic Adivasi leaders and freedom fighters. Drawing from her poems, and historical documentation, this article demonstrates that Kerketta’s writing not only bears witness to ongoing injustices but also serves as a political and cultural manifesto through which she asserts constitutional, cultural, ecological and human rights for indigenous communities. Her poetry becomes a vibrant archive of resistance and an affirmation of the dignity, identity and survival of Adivasis in the contemporary Indian nation-state.