Tribal Bengal: Life in the Sub-Himalayan Terai Duars
Photo by : Incredible India Info
Author: Krishnopriyo Bhattacharya, Publisher: Niyogi Books, Price: INR 1495-, pp 256, Non-Fiction
Tribal Bengal: Life in the
Sub-Himalayan Terai Duars
Author: Krishnopriyo Bhattacharya, Publisher: Niyogi Books, Price:
INR 1495/-, pp – 256, Non-Fiction
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 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.
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