Rethinking Local History and Identity Politics: Locating Kurmi Community in Odisha

The Second Orissa Research Project of the German Research Council complemented the first one on the great tradition of Jagannatha of Puri with comprehensive studies on various sub-regional and local traditions and identities in the hinterland of dominant coastal Orissa. The present volume introduces (auto) biographies as a fascinating new source for the study of local history and contemporary politics. The narrative brings out the under explored history and identity politics and cultural assertion of a marginal community like Kurmi Mahantas of Orissa in the quest of their Adivasi identity. The work contains, along with its original version, an abridged English translation of the Biography of Niranjan Mahanta, a little known but vital socio-religious reformer of the Kurmi community. The biography focuses on Niranjan’s life and time and his engagements as a community activist. It offers insights into the popular culture and the social history of the former Feudatory State of Mayurbhanj in Northern Orissa and its neighbouring districts in present-day Jharkhand and West Bengal. The study exemplifies how a marginal community was engaged in re-defining and locating itself within the hegemonic social order as dominated by the Hindu Brahmanical tradition while battling against the very order. (jacket).…