From: "Frank F Conlon" <conlon@U.WASHINGTON.EDU>
To: <H-ASIA@H-NET.MSU.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, October 02, 2011 12:42 PM
Subject: H-ASIA: Ram Dayal Munda, 1939-2011
> H-ASIA
> October 2, 2011
>
> Professor Ram Dayal Munda, 1939-2011
> ************************************************************************
> From: Frank Conlon <conlon@u.washington.edu>
>
> As posted yesterday, we have heard from David Faust of the Ames
> Library of South Asia of the passing of Professor Ram Dayal Munda
> Munda's career spanned continents and cultures. Born in an Adivasi
> village, Diuri, then in the province of Bihar (now the state of
> Jharkhand) India, he learned much of the traditions of Munda culture
> and music from his musician grandfather, and others who had been
> living during the time of the tribal revolutionary Birsa Munda. Ram
> Dayal Munda's future was transformed when, at the age of 17 he was
> employed by visiting anthropologists as a guide. This exposure led
> him to study at Ranchi University, where he completed a degree in
> 1957 and later an MA in anthropology. While a student at Ranchi, he
> recruited and promoted a troupe of musicians and dancers giving wider
> exposure to the culture of the region through participation in
> festivals and radio broadcasts during the late 1950s. He then gained
> an opportunity for graduate study in the United States at the
> University of Chicago.
>
> Munda was in Chicago during the exciting early years of the Chicago
> South Asian program, working with Professor Norman Zide in the study
> of Santali, Mundari and related Austro-Asiatic languages as well as
> work in Indo-Aryan languages including Sanskrit and Bengali. He
> completed his MA thesis "Proto-Kherwarian phonology"--an attempt to
> reconstruct the sound system of the parent language of a group of
> North Munda languages. (University of Chicago, 1969).
>
> Before completing his doctoral dissertation, he joined the faculty of
> the University of Minnesota, where he taught until 1982. His PhD
> dissertation "Structural features of the Vaisnava songs of the
> Pacpargana Bengali: a study in the language of poetry" was done by
> 1975. Ram Dayal was recipient of fellowships from the American
> Institute of Indian Studies, The U S Education Foundation in India
> and the Japan Foundation. He published books on language, literature
> and religion--a partial list follows below, and took a continuing
> interest in the social, economic and cultural fate of the Adivasi
> peoples of India in general, and in particular, if his natal region.
> This latter interest was advanced considerably when he was invited to
> return to the University of Ranchi to found a Department of Tribal
> and Regional Languages. Three years later, in 1985 he was appointed
> Vice Chancellor of the Ranchi University. In the same period, he
> again lead programs of music and dance that toured both India and
> other parts of the world, including the U.S.S.R, China and Japan. Ram
> Dayal also served as a visiting professor in Tokyo, Syracuse
> University and the Australian National University.
>
> Academic life at Ranchi was not of the cloistered variety. A
> gradually growing number of Adivasi students passed through the
> institution, gaining broader and more comparative knowledge of their
> own cultures and their region's relationship to a broader world,
> which, frankly, appeared to them to be one of 'internal colonialism'
> in which the historical exploitation by the British had been but a
> prelude to further exploitation by outside Indian individuals and
> corporations. Munda's home department was an incubator of an activist
> student group, the All Jharkhand Students' Union which became part of
> the ongoing political movement demanding a separate state for the
> region. Ram Dayal, as vice chancellor, submitted a report to the
> Indian government Home Ministry in 1988 advising an autonomous area
> of Greater Jharkhand including tribal dominated districts of Bihar,
> West Bengal, Orissa and Chattisgarh. Ultimately in 2000, after
> extensive agitation and negotiation, a state, consisting only of
> districts in southern Bihar, was established as Jharkhand.
>
> By this time, Ram Dayal had retired from the university, but he
> remained a prominent and influential spokesman on Adivasi issues. He
> continued his work in literature, and also promoted a broader
> awareness of the musical traditions of his community. Indeed, when he
> was nominated to the Rajya Sabha (the upper house of India's
> parliament), it was as an interpreter and protagonist of music and
> dance. His political career began in the Jharkhand movement; he was
> president of the Jharkhand Vikas Dal and later a member of the
> Jharkhand Mukti Morcha. In his later years he formally affiliated with
> the Indian National Congress party and was named to its Working
> Committee. He was recipient of the Padma Shri honor and an award
> from the Sangeet Natak Akademi in light of his cultural and musical
> contributions.
>
> Ram Dayal was an articulate spokesman for Advivasis and their culture.
> At a Mangalore conference in 2010 on "Spirituality of Primal
> Religions", he decried the marginal accomodation of Adivasis within
> the umbrella of Hinduism as a cynical move to add numbers to "Hindus"
> as a political grouping with the ulterior motive of promoting cultural
> nationalism. He was equally critical of both Christianity and Islam
> which admitted Adivasis but kept them marginalized, diluting their
> ethnic identity. His book on _Adi Dharam_ sought a systematic study of
> spiritual beliefs and practices of the Adivasis, including careful
> research on oral traditions of the myriad local cultures. He argued
> that Adi Dharam ran like a common thread throughout the subcontinent:
> "Worship of forces of nature, ancestors and deification of local
> heroes is central to all Adivasi practices," he said. He argued that
> academic study of all Adivasi communities would help too in restoring
> self-respect: "Such studies will help Adivasis notice that they are
> the same people. This will have powerful political ramifications that
> can lead to the emancipation of the community." (report in The Hindu
> 27 Feb. 2010).
>
> He fell ill with prostate cancer which had metastasized to other
> organs and bones. After a stay at the All India Institute of Medical
> Science in New Delhi, he obtained treatment at the Mayo Clinic in
> Rochester, Minnesota. It was characteristic of his public career,
> that he did not have the resources to pay for this foreign medical
> journey, leading family and friends to issue a public appeal for
> support. He returned from America without obtaining a cure, and died
> in Ranchi on the evening of September 30, 2011 at the Curie Abdur
> Razzaque Ansari Cancer Institute. He is survived by his widow, Amita,
> a son, Gunjal and a vast number of friends and admirers from all the
> varied stages of his creative and influential life. News accounts
> report that his last public appearance was at the Ranchi University
> Karma Festival, September 8, 2010, where he sang a traditional Karma
> song, until from weakness, he had to request a friend B. P. Keshri to
> complete it. Now truly, Ram Dayal's voice will be silent, but the
> music of his heritage and the ideas and values of his work will be
> long remembered.
>
> Frank F. Conlon
> Professor Emeritus
> University of Washington
> Seattle, WA 98195
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Some publications of Ram Dayal Munda
>
> _The Jharkhand movement : indigenous people's struggle for
> autonomy in India_
> Edited by Ram Dayal Munda and S. Bosu Mullick
> (Copenhagen: International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs in
> collaboration with Bindrai Institute for Research Study and Action,
> 2003)
> (IWGIA document, 0105-4503 ; no. 108)
> ISBN: 8790730720
>
> _Adi-dharam, religious beliefs of the Adivasis of India : an
> outline of religious reconstruction with special reference to the
> Jharkhand region_ by Ram Dayal Munda.
> (Coimbatore: Sarini and Birsa, Chaibasa, [2000])
> (Sarini occasional papers ; no. 3)
> LCCN 2001361987
>
> _The Jharkhand movement: retrospect and prospect: a report
> submitted to Home Minister, Buta Singh_/ by Ram Dayal Munda.
> (Ranchi: Jharkhand Co-ordination Committee, 1990)
> Cover title. "Plea for the administration of the Jharkhand Region
> as a union territory or to restructure the Bihar Tribes Advisory
> Council."
> LCCN: 92900540
>
> __Ādivāsī astitva aura Jhārakhaṇḍī asmitā ke savāla_ [by] Rāmadayāla
> Muṇḍā.
> (Nayī Dillī: Prakāśana Saṃsthāna, 2002).
> ISBN: 817714071X
>
> "Structural features of the Vaisnava songs of the Pãcpargana (dialect
> of) Bengali: a study in the language of poetry"
> (Chicago: University of Chicago Thesis-Phd, 1975) by Ram Dayal Munda.
>
> _The language of poetry_
> by Ram Dayal Munda.
> (New Delhi: Classical Publishing Co, 1981)
> LCCN 82901527
>
> _Seled = Vividhā: Muṇḍārī, Nāgapurī, Hindī gītā evaṃ kavitāeṃ_
> [by] Rāmadayāla Muṇḍā.
> (Rāñcī, Bihāra: Sahakārī Prakāśana Samiti, 1967)
>
>
> _Hisir = Hāra_ sampādaka] Rāmadayāla Muṇḍā.
> Rāncī: Sahakārī Prakāśana Samiti, 1967.
>
> _The holy-man from Jamaniya_ by Nagarjun
> Hasyarnava = The ocean of laughter: a fourteenth century farcical
> play_ by Jagadishvara Bhattacarya
> Translated from the Sanskrit by Ram Dayal Munda & David Nelson.
> (Calcutta: Writers Workshop, [1976])
> "A Writers Workshop bluebird book."
> LCCN 77901265
>
> Translated from the Hindi "Jamaniya ka baba"
> by Ram Dayal Munda, Paul W. Staneslow & Mark E. Johnson.
> (Calcutta: Writers Workshop; Thompson, Conn.: Inter Culture
> Associates, 1977)
> "A Writers Workshop greenbird book."
> LCCN 78901023
>
> _Kucha nae Nāgapurī gīta_ [by] Rāmadayāla Muṇḍā.
> (Rāncī: Nāgapurī Sāhitya Parishad, 1978).
> LCCN 85903902
>
> _Muṇḍārī vyākaraṇa_ [by] Rāmadayāla Muṇḍā.
> (Rāñcī: Muṇḍārī Sāhitya Parishad, 1979)
> LCCN 82906483 /SA
>
> _Nadī aura usake sambandhī tathā anya nagīta_ [by} Rāmadayāla Muṇḍā.
> (Rāncī, Bihāra: Jhārakhaṇḍa Sāhitya Parishad, 1980)
> LCCN 83900085 /SA
>
> _The sun charioteer_ Translation of Raśmirathī by Ram Dhari
> Singh "Dinkar" [1908=1974]by Ram Dayal Munda, David Nelson
> and Paul Staneslow
> (Shoreview, Minn.: Nagari Press, 1981)
>
> _Muṇḍārī pāṭha: Muṇḍārī gadya-padya saṅgraha_,
> Rāmadayāla Muṇḍā ; Nalinī Nāga aura Amitā Muṇḍā ke sahayoga se.
> (Rāñcī: Muṇḍārī Sāhitya Parishad, 1981).
>
> _Phina bheṇṭa āura dusara nagīta_ [by] Rāma Dayāla Muṇḍā
> (Rāncī: Nāgapurī Pracāriṇī Sabhā, 1986)
> LCCN 87903408
>
> E&OE FFC
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