Understanding of Ecological Justice through Adivasi Women’s Writings

Overview

This paper explores how Adivasi women writers and scholars from Jharkhand, India, express ecological justice, gender consciousness, and decolonial knowledge through their literary and activist works. By closely analysing the writings of Adivasi women, the study reveals that their works offer an alternative epistemology that is deeply rooted in community life, land, forest, and spirituality. Their works not only preserve Indigenous traditions and ecological wisdom but also expose the socio-political injustices faced by Adivasi women amid neoliberal development and state-led displacement. The fieldwork for this paper was conducted as part of the author’s doctoral research in the Chotanagpur and Kolhan regions of Jharkhand, located in East India. The study examines a diverse range of literary forms, including poetry, short fiction, autobiographical narratives, essays, and orally transmitted folk songs and stories. These writings span from the mid-twentieth century beginning with early contributions such as those of Alice Ekka in the 1960s to contemporary works produced from the 1980s, to the present by writers such as Rose Kerketta, Vandana Tete, Vasavi Kiro, Grace Kujur, Jacinta Kerketta, and Nirmala Putul. The texts were collected through fieldwork in Jharkhand, including interviews with authors and activists, as well as from published books, regional journals, and documented oral traditions. The textual sources – including regional journals, books, poetry, short stories, and autobiographies – were surveyed and reviewed, along with fieldwork in Jharkhand involving interviews with authors, activists, and community members. The article demonstrates that these writings emerge from Adivasi women’s lived struggles for survival and their continuous efforts to protect Jal, Jungle, and Zameen (water, forest, and land). For Adivasi women, land and forests are not merely economic resources but sacred spaces embodying cultural identity, heritage, and intergenerational continuity. By linking ecofeminist principles centred on environmental protection and gender justice with Indigenous interconnectedness with ecology, Adivasi women’s literary contribution demonstrate how ecological destruction, displacement, and cultural erosion are inter-related forms of injustice. Furthermore, the paper situates Adivasi women’s ecological resistance within the broader context of global feminist environmental movements such as the Chipko and Green Belt Movements, while highlighting the distinctiveness of their local struggles in Jharkhand.