Chuni Kotal was an Adivasi social worker and the first woman graduate from the Lodha community, a Particularly vulnerable tribal group (PVTG) in India. Her death in 1992 drew national attention to allegations of systemic discrimination faced by tribal communities in educational institutions.

Personal life

Born in 1965, in village Gohaldihi, in Paschim Medinipur district, West Bengal, into a poor Lodha family with 3 brothers and 3 sisters.

Kotal married Manmatha Savar in 1990 through a court marriage. They had known each other since 1981. Savar, a high school graduate, was employed at the railway workshop in Kharagpur. Two years after graduation, she was appointed as a Hostel superintendent at 'Rani Shiromoni SC and ST Girls' Hostel' at Medinipur, here again she had to face the social stigma attached with her tribe. In 1991, after losing two years at the course, she complained, and a high level enquiry commission was set up by the state Education minister to no avail, once the fact that she belonged to a former criminal tribe came to light.

Her death became the focal point of immense political, human rights and social controversy in the media in West Bengal, and eastern India, where the discourse is traditionally Brahmin-Baniya dominated.

Upon her death, Bangla Dalit Sahitya Sanstha, Kolkata, organized a mass movement through different seminars and street corners, street play protesting against university teachers, on the street of Kolkata.

Legacy

Since 1993, it organizes the Annual Chuni Kotal Memorial Lecture in Kolkata every year. Later a motivational video film has been produced on her life story by Department of Education, Govt. of India

Her story was highlighted by noted writer-activist Mahasweta Devi in her book in Bengali, Byadhkhanda in (1994), ( The Book of the Hunter (2002))

Har Na Mana Har (2021) is a Bengali novel has been written by Subhabrata Basu based on her tragic life

References

  • Review of Mahasweta Devi's The Book of the Hunter by Uma Mahadevan-Dasgupta in The Hindu. Retrieved 23 March 2007.