Ranchi, Aug. 10: A young tribal voice has won the prestigious Bharat Bhushan Agarwal Award in 2011 for the best poem in Hindi.

Anuj Lugun (25), a Munda youth from Pahantoli in Jaldega of Simdega district, currently pursuing research in Mundari songs at Benaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi, has shaken and stirred the Hindi literary world with his poem Aghosit Ulgunan (Undeclared Uprising).

The poem, published last year in a quarterly literary magazine, Pragatisheel Vasudha, caught the eye of literary personalities Ashok Vajpayee, Arun Kamal, Uday Prakash, Anamika and Purushottam Agarwal, who handpicked Anuj for the award.

Interestingly, Anuj had been writing in Mundari. He recently started to write in Hindi. “I have no collection of poems to my credit,” he said over the phone from his hostel.

His strong sense of history and family background — Anuj is the nephew of William Lugun, a prominent leader of the Jharkhand movement — gave him an analytical insight, said Aswini Pankaj, a writer-activist in the capital.

Anuj himself, however, sounded modest. “Our (tribal) feelings and aspirations go unnoticed. So I felt the need to reach a wider audience and chose to write in Hindi as well as Mundari,” he said.

Hindi literary bigwigs however can’t stop raving over the poem that showcases the tribal caught uncomfortably in the cusp of tradition and modernity.

“It (the selection) gave me the feeling of pride,” said Uday Prakash, one of the selectors, in a blog. Terming the poem as pro-people, Ashis Tripathy, a well-known critic said it was an “extension of the ambit of Hindi poetry”.

Could it be because Aghoshit Ulgunan has a different diction and idiom, indicating a new genre? Possibly so, as not many poems portray the plight of tribals who find concrete jungles in place of trees.

“Jayein to kahan jayein, (Where does one go?)”, towards vanishing forests or bulging towns, the bemused poet wonders at the end.