In Their Own Voice

A resurgent Adivasi media is setting its own terms

- AKASH POYAM

On 9 August, commemorated as World Indigenous Day, members of the Koya community in Telangana’s Chinturu stood in areas submerged under water, shouting slogans. They were protesting against the Polavaram dam project, operations of which had submerged their village and displaced them. The irrigation project is going to affect over three hundred thousand people in 276 villages. Large numbers of affected people from the project have still not received any government compensation or rehabilitation. Yet, this protest was barely covered in the national media. It was outlets such as Koya TV, a YouTube channel covering news in Koya languages, that documented the protest. “Adivasi divas is not a day of cultural celebration but is a day to highlight human-rights issues of Adivasi communities,” Koya TV’s founder, Nehru Madavi, who was present at the protest, told me. “On one hand, the government is celebrating Adivasi divas. On the other hand, they are drowning Adivasi communities in water.”

In mainstream national media, there are predominantly two modes of representing Adivasis. They are either represented through a racist lens—in which Adivasi dance, dress and culture are exoticised—or their stories are presented through narratives of pity and victimhood. However, stories of marginalisation are always accompanied by stories of resistance, and these two approaches to Adivasi representation obscure this. In recent years, a resurgence in Adivasi media has pushed the envelope on how we receive stories about Adivasi lives.