The festival aims to promote traditional tribal literature and its context in modern worldview. Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel will inaugurate the festival.

Raipur: In a bid to showcase and promote the richness of tribal literature and culture, a three-day National Tribal Literature Festival will be organised in Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaay Auditorium in Raipur from 19th April. The festival will be inaugurated by Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel. During the festival, state level tribal dance performance, state level art and painting competition will be organised. According to the reports, Bastar band performance, child artist Sahadev Netam’s perfomance and tribal dance will be the main attractions in the cultural program of the festival. Padma Shri litterateur Haldhar Nag will also address the literary conference.
Officials of the concerned departments said that the main objective of organizing the function is to introduce the traditional and contemporary literature across the country and to know the status of their development in the modern context. Along with this, festival will also benefit people associated in general by providing a platform to research scholars, litterateurs, creators working in the field of tribal literature in the state.
According to the reports, the National Literature Festival is divided into two parts- research paper reading and discussion with senior litterateurs. Under Research Paper Reading, research papers based on tribal literature from all over the country have been invited through national level newspapers, universities and institutions. Tribal and non-tribal established and eminent litterateurs, writers, university scholars, research scholars, subject experts from different states will attend the literary festival. So far 80 research papers have been received. Preparation of publication is going on to give a book shape to the summary of research papers. Invitations have been sent to the research scholars to study research in the programme.
Officials said that entries from across the state have been invited for the art and painting competition in three age categories under the Literature Festival. So far 100 entries have been received in all the three age groups. Apart from this, a live display of soil, bamboo, bell metal, wood, etc. will also be done under handicraft. Awards and certificates will also be given to the artists performing well in these arts. Various dance forms of Chhattisgarh will be performed in the festival, in which tribal dances performed in different tribal areas are Shaila, Sarhul, Karma, Sondo, Kuduk, Dunda, Dussehra Karma, Marriage dance (Hulki), Madai dance, Gavar Singh, Gedi, Dances like Karsad, Mandri, Dandar etc. will be performed on all three days in the evening hours. A book fair is also being organized in the festival. In this, 10 such publishers have been invited from reputed publishers of the country who have published specially on tribal subjects.