A two-day national seminar was organised on “Contesting Tribal Identity: Social and Economic Challenges in India” from 29th July to 30th July 2013, by the Center for Comparative Literature (CCL), School of Humanities, University of Hyderabad (UoH).
The inaugural session was at the Humanities Auditorium in the presence of distinguished personalities from India. Prof. M. T. Ansari (Director, CCL) welcomed the guests and the concept note of the seminar was given by Dr. J. Bheemaiah on various issues related to tribal marginality and subalternity. The special guest was Mr. Hari Ram Meena IPS (Writer and Retired Inspector General of Police). While speaking, he focused on various aspects of tribal life and policies in India. He also discussed the tribal subjectivity and subalternity. Inaugural address was given by distinguished Marathi writer Mr. Laxman Gaikwad (Member of Sahitya and Sanskrit Mandal, Govt. of Maharashtra). He shared his personal experiences. Both lectures of Mr. Meena and Mr. Gaikwad enlightened the gathering of inaugural programme. The Dean, School of Humanities, Prof. Amitabha Dasgupta chaired the session and shared his views too.
This seminar had a good response from all over India. Faculty members, research scholars and students from different universities and institutes came to participate and present their ideas, views and opinions on ‘Tribal Subalternity’. The seminar had many sessions on diverse sub themes. The first day of seminar comprised of six sessions and twelve papers on Tribal Folklore (Chaired by Prof. Sudhakar Reddy), Education and Tribal Politics (Chaired by Prof. Siva Prasad), Tribal Subalternity (Chaired by Dr. Nagaraju), Tribal Subjectivity (Chaired by Dr. B. Nagarjuna) and so on. The second day included three sessions on the Idea of Tribe (Chaired by Dr. Murlidhar), Cinema and Media (Chaired by Dr. Sowmya Dechamma) and Tribal life in Literature (Chaired by Prof. Sarraju).
All the papers presented were fruitful and real effort was made to know more about the problems, subjectivity, subalternity, education, tradition, politics and other aspects of various tribes in India. The seminar concluded with the valedictory session chaired by Dr. P. H. Mohammad (Head, Center for Social Exclusion and Inclusive Policy, MANUU, Hyderabad), Mr. Ashwini Kumar Pankaj as Chief Guest, Mr. Bhartesh as a special guest.
Dr. J. Bheemaiah, assistant professor in the CCL was the convener for this seminar.