Indigenous Selfhood and Spiritual Identity: Rethinking Ātman in Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar's The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey

Abstract

This paper investigates the conceptual and philosophical resonances between the Vedantic notion of Ātman the eternal, inviolable self and the construction of indigenous selfhood and spiritual identity in Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar's novel The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey (2014). Drawing on Advaita Vedanta, postcolonial theory, and indigenous studies, the paper argues that Shekhar's text performs a cultural and ontological negotiation, reinterpreting classical Hindu metaphysics through a distinctly Santali cosmological lens. The novel's protagonist, Rupi Baskey, embodies a form of selfhood that is simultaneously communal, ecological, and transcendent qualities that both align with and critically deviate from Brahmanical articulations of the Ātman. By situating the text within the broader discourse of Adivasi literature and decolonial epistemology, this study demonstrates how Shekhar recovers indigenous spiritual frameworks as sites of resistance and identity formation. The paper contributes to the growing field of Adivasi literary studies and to interdisciplinary conversations between Indian philosophy and postcolonial literary criticism.