H U M A N S of J H A R K H A N D 

Nilotpal Mrinal (Sahitya Akademi-Yuva Purushkar 2016, 

the Main face of CSAT movement- An author, an activist)

Born and brought up in a remote village of Dumka (a district in Santhal Pargana of Jharkhand) Nonihat and completed his matriculation from Rani Sonavati Kumari School. Nilotpal Mrinal spent his early life like a boy next door. His childhood has passed playing lots of cricket and he says since his early days, there was a curiosity in his mind related to tribals boys of his locality who rarely played cricket and were more interested in playing football. Nilotpal tried to bring some Adivasi boys in his team as he believed since his early days that, their participation is neglected in this area even though they have got potential.  During that time only he learned the art of activism and says that cricket taught him to socialize with all kinds of people which in turn made him see things with a wider perspective.

After completing matriculation from Dumka, Nilotpal moved to Ranchi and completed his intermediate from St.Xavier’s College and further pursued his graduation from St.Xavier’s College in History. There is an interesting incident when he was pursuing his intermediate. Nilotpal was very fond of folk singing and has tried to present the political satire through his songs. He released his first audio cassette of folks songs in 2001, just after Jharkhand became a new state in November, 15,2000.  The title of the song released by him was “Jharkhand Dhasal Daldal Mein”. And he wrote many folk songs during his college days too. Though his folk songs did not go well in the market and it was not very popular at that time. Some of the lines of the songs are “Marandi Chodle ba missile, jekar naam Domicile”. 

Nilotpal says, he has seen women tribal women carrying their baby on their shoulders hung tightly with clothes and doing household works to earn their livelihood. He says, “those scenes really drenched me from inside and I have written songs depicting their condition”.

So, after completing his graduation in 2005 Nilotpal was confused with his life, how to move ahead. Many things were going in his mind, whether to go into the Bhojpuri film industry and become an actor or continue his cricket professionally. He spent two to three years in assessing all the future possibilities about his life. 

Finally, he went to New Delhi in 2008 and started preparing for Civil Services and stayed at Laxmi Nagar. He spent important years of his life preparing for civil services and wrote Mains of UPSC a couple of times, appeared in the interview of JPSC and Bihar civil services too.

His life took a drastic turn in 2014 when the civil Services examination came up with a new pattern of CSAT. An outrage took place among the students all across the country related to CSAT, especially students who opt to write in Hindi and other local languages. The CSAT movement started in Mukherjee Nagar and the Nilotpal Mrinal took the lead in this movement which involved the students from all walks of life. During that movement, Nilotpal along with his friends sat on ‘’BHook Hadtal’ in Mukherjee Nagar and the Bhook Hadtal continued for 8 days. During this movement police also showed their brutality towards students to curb the movement and arrested 7 to 8 students along with Nilotpal Mrinal. So, from this point his activism towards various causes began, he kept on raising issues at the various platforms.He became a popular figure with this movement.  Students from JNU, DU, BHU, and other central universities started knowing about him and his activism and he has been invited at students forum too. After that movement, Nilotpal left the hopes of getting into UPSC as he has confronted with Chairman of UPSC many times during movement and started thinking of leaving preparations for UPSC. There was also a fear in his mind that he will never get selected even if he reaches the interview. He also says, as he developed the activism mode during that period, he decided to serve the country through other means and ways and by coming into active politics and raising issues which matter. 

From that very point, he decided that he has to develop his skills of writing to reach as many people as he wants. He also laments about the generation that it is not writing quality work.  After giving much thought about writing a novel in Hindi, Nilotpal Mrinal wrote ‘’Dark Horse” in nine days and said to his friends, that one-day whole Mukerjee Nagar will read my novel about the movement which I led.

So, after writing his book in 9 days, he roamed around various book fare and showed to some publishers.  So around 22 publishers rejected his book by giving some reasons. Some used to say that book is in Hindi and title is in English, some used to say that the name Nilotpal Mrinal is an awkward name. So, when no publishers came forward, he posted some part of his story on Facebook and said, that I am going to publish my own book. And after seeing it on Facebook, one person contacted him and the conversation goes like this.

Publisher:-‘’Aap apni kitab Padhwa Do”

Nilotpal –“tum Kaun ?”’

Publisher:- “Aap Lekhak Banna Chahte ho”

Nilotpal:- Haan

Publisher:- “Main Publisher Banna Chahta Hun” “Main Patrakar Hun”

Nilotpal:- “Theek Hai”

After that conversation, they both met at Cannaught Place in New Delhi. The publisher opened his publishing from Nilotpal’s book and they published it together in April 2015 and it got a good response. In 2016, his Nilotpal Mrinal got ‘Sahitya Akademi-Yuva Purushkar” for his book “Dark Horse ”. Dark House talks about the details of the CSAT movement which Nilotpal led.

After getting the award in 2016, Nilotpal never looked back and continued his career in writing and established himself as one of the most promising Hindi writers of this era. After getting Sahitya Akademi-Yuva Purushkar, he has been called at various literary meets all across the country and became more popular. 

He has published his second novel in 2019, “Aughad”. More than 1 lakh of copies have already been sold. Very soon story of Dark Horse will be featured in a Bollywood film and Nilotpal Mrinal will surely enter into Bollywood with his wonderful work.

Nilotpal Mrinal

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