Jacina Kerketta’s Angor: Embers of
Adivasi Resistance, Ecological Grief and Feminist Resilience
in Contemporary Indian Tribal Poetry
Dr. Sunil Ramteke
ABSTRACT
Jacinta Kerketta, born in 1983,
is an Oraon Adivasi poet and journalist from Khudpos village in
Jharkhand’s Saranda Forest region. She published her debut
collection of poetry Angor (meaning “ember” in the local Sadri
dialect), in bilingual mode in 2016 through Adivaani (Kolkata), with
a simultaneous Hindi-German edition Glut. The collection comprises
41 poems in Hindi with English translations. Angor functions as a
searing testimonial to the lived realities of India’s indigenous
communities amid neoliberal development, mining-driven displacement,
environmental degradation and gendered violence. Drawing on
ecocritical, postcolonial and feminist frameworks, this paper
examines how Kerketta deploys the central metaphor of the
ember—smouldering rage beneath ash, ready to ignite—as a symbol of
suppressed Adivasi memory, hope and resistance. Through close
readings of key poems such as “O, City!” , “The River”, The Mountain
and the bazaar”, “Th (Kerridge) (Bhushan and Kumar) (Karma;
Kerketta; Kerketta; J. Kerketta, Angor; J. Kerketta, Angor/ Poetry
in Hindi/ English; Kerridge; Kuiry; Kumar; Prajapati; Saxena)e
blossoms of Saranda”, “ A madua sprout on the grave” and “Ears of
Paddy Tied Bound by the Dam”, the analysis reveals Kerketta’s
critique of capitalist exploitation of land and bodies, her
reclamation of tribal women’s agency and her documentation of
cultural erosion. Situating Angor within the broader tradition of
Adivasi literature and Jharkhand’s history of resource
conflicts(including the 1855 Hul rebellion), the paper argues that
Kerketta’s work transforms personal and collective trauma into a
poetics of witness and renewal. Secondary scholarship on tribal
women’s representation and nature imagery in her oeuvre further
illuminates her intervention in mainstream Indian literary
discourse. Ultimately, Angor emerges not merely as poetry but as an
act of decolonial assertion, demanding recognition of Adivasi
epistemologies that view humans, forests, rivers and mountains as
interdependent kin..
Keywords: Jacinta Kertta, Angor, Oraon
Adivasi, ecocritical, postcolonial, feminist, mining, displacement,
environmental degradation, tribal women’s agency, decolonial
assertion
