Filing into UNSW on a Wednesday evening were a group of authors, academics, and book lovers raring to hear award winning Santal writer Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar speak about his approach to writing, his perspectives on being an Indigenous writer and why he rejects the notion of being a spokesperson for his community.
Mediated by writer and academic Sunil Badami, The First Peoples Stories from India event was part of a bigger artistic initiative held at both the Varuna National Writers House in the Blue Mountains and Sangam House in Bangalore, in which Indigenous writers from Australia and India visit each other’s homelands to learn about each other’s literary heritage to forge deep, artistic connections.
When writer Hansda Shekhar first speaks, he does so quietly, yet his words are held together with a strong sense of conviction. Reading from an extract of his article ‘Reading Santal and Nishnaabeg Creation Stories,’ he concludes that “all Indigenous peoples on the Earth think alike.” Just like his community prefer to refer to themselves as “Hod,” meaning “people” rather than Santal, other Indigenous groups such as the Nishnaabeg or the Gonds also refer to themselves as people in their native tongue, rejecting the exonyms placed on them.
“In a way, perhaps subconsciously, we assert that we were the first people on this Earth,” he writes.
The revelation was a fitting prelude to a conversation which delved into the power of language and labels to erase, divide and unite. In such a way, whilst writer Beni Sumer Yanthan, who also participated in the cultural exchange initiative was unable to attend the conversation, she was there in spirit. Hailing from Nagaland, her works are concerned with the erasure of traditional languages, a reality for many cultures which practice oral traditions in the face of a world which gives more credence to the written word.
Similarly, the Santali language, despite having a written script, is one which is endangered. Yet, it is continually practiced by non-Santal scholars who dedicate their life’s work to sustaining it.
“There are so many people who are both inside and outside our community working towards the progress of our language…we are getting our stories told,” Shekhar says.
Acknowledging this, Shekhar rejects the notion of a “right to write,” or the notion that only Indigenous communities can write stories about Indigenous people, when posed to him by Badami.
“No one asks questions when a high caste Bengali author chooses to write about England or Spain. [No one asks] whether they as an outsider have the “right to write” about a country that is not theirs,” he says.
This notion of simply using whatever means to tell Indigenous stories is the core motivation behind his decision to write in the language of his colonisers, English. Whilst his relationship with the language growing up might have been strained – “I went to an English medium school run by Catholic nuns where students would be punished for not speaking English,” Shekhar remembered – it’s become, whether he likes it or not, the language that allows him to tell the stories he wants.
And that’s what matters to Shekhar – telling a good story. It’s a refreshing take amidst a culture which seems to prioritise representation and tokenistic attempts at multiculturalism over genuinely good storytelling.
This no nonsense approach to social issues and craft is perhaps shaped by the demands of his daily life. Continuing his day job as a doctor, he’s constantly grounded by reality through the stories his patients share with him and the rigorous routine imposed on him by India’s work culture.
Looking incredulously at the crowd he says, “My first impression of Australia was how quiet it is…there was no honking, the drivers stopped to let you pass…this shocked me because back home, we are used to working in chaos, under pressure.”
Whilst his daily observations somehow find its way into his work, he’s sceptical of the idea that his short stories – including the award-winning short story collection The Adivasi Will Not Dance: Stories – render him a spokesperson for his culture, arguing that his own people would label his work as inauthentic.
“The first person to criticise me will not be outsiders, but my own people… Maybe it’s because we all individually feel that we are entitled to tell our stories,” Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar says.
The conversation itself was a display of the contradictions which exist within stories. Shekhar often hesitated to give definitive answers, acknowledging the complexity of the topics discussed and rejecting any suggestion of being able to truthfully represent his community to those unfamiliar. After all, one community can come under many names: Santal, Indigenous, Hod. Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar
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