Indigenous People, Environmental Issues and a Reinterpretation of the Indian Epic Tradition in the Bengali Short Story A Bird’s Mother (Pākhir Mā) by Sunil Gangopadhyay

Abstract

 This paper deals with the Bengali short story A Bird’s Mother (Pākhir Mā) by Sunil Gangopadhyay (1934–2012). First published in 1964, the story must have been inspired by the recent mass attacks on the indigenous Lodha ethnic group in the Midnapore district of West Bengal and P. K. Bhowmick’s seminal book The Lodhas of West Bengal: A Socio-Economic Study (1963), as well as news about the degradation of Midnapore’s sal forests and the declining numbers of Siberian cranes wintering in India. Combining social and environmental concerns, the story shows how complex interactions between wildlife, indigenous people and agricultural communities can lead to conflict and aggression. The paper analyses the story in detail, focusing on the strategies used by the author to explain attitudes towards indigenous people in rural India. The paper also suggests that the story may be read as a modern reinterpretation of the krauñca-vadha episode from the Rāmāyaṇa.