Papers by Sib Sankar Majumder
Scholars, Feb 15, 2023
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Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, Jun 7, 2022
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Tripura Theatre Journal, 2021
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SCHOLARS: Journal of Arts & Humanities
As an imitation of actions, theatre is representational. Different aspects of performative arts l... more As an imitation of actions, theatre is representational. Different aspects of performative arts like theatre are a reflection of the contemporary age in which they are written and performed. Theatre in Calcutta, India, in the nineteenth century started being influenced by the colonial and European models. The changes brought in by colonial modernity are major tropes in many of the plays of that time. Colonial modernity brought English education, western liberal ideas and new lifestyle, which attracted the youth and made them criticize the old and traditional ways. Krishnamohan Bandyopadhyay’s (also spelt as Krishna Mohana Banerjea) The Persecuted and Michael Madhusudan Dutt’s Ekei Ki Bole Sabbhyata? [Is This Called Civilization?] are two plays that represent the so-called colonial modernity and show how changes were taking place in the society in the colonial period in Bengal. The characters from two generations, the older following the traditional ways and the younger ones followin...
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The IIS University Journal of Arts, 2022
Although the Partition fiasco turned out to be a tussle for power primarily between the Hindus an... more Although the Partition fiasco turned out to be a tussle for power primarily between the Hindus and the Muslims, the Parsee community also got entangled in the chaotic situations. The Parsees were not directly involved in the torture and the trauma still it had a calamitous impact on the collective psyche of the Parsi community in the subcontinent. By and large the Parsis maintained an indifferent attitude towards the political fallout Partition since it had very little say on the issue of transfer of power. Patrick H. Hutton summarizes the situation for the Parsis by saying that "one might say, there are two moments of history: one that universalizes and homogenizes the past within a single interpretative pattern; the other that diversifies the past into a myriad of particular traditions" (Hutton 101). Through a reading of Keki Daruwalla's Ancestral Affairs based on the binary tropes proposed by Hutton I would offer certain observations on the interplay of memory and history in Partition experience viv-a-vis the the Parsi community.
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The IIS University Journal of Arts, 2014
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Theatre as Social Critique, 2023
As an imitation of actions, theatre is representational. Different aspects of performative arts l... more As an imitation of actions, theatre is representational. Different aspects of performative arts like theatre are a reflection of the contemporary age in which they are written and performed. Theatre in Calcutta, India, in the nineteenth century started being influenced by the colonial and European models. The changes brought in by colonial modernity are major tropes in many of the plays of that time. Colonial modernity brought English education, western liberal ideas and new lifestyle, which attracted the youth and made them criticize the old and traditional ways. Krishnamohan Bandyopadhyay's (also spelt as Krishna Mohana Banerjea) The Persecuted and Michael Madhusudan Dutt's Ekei Ki Bole Sabbhyata? [Is This Called Civilization?] are two plays that represent the so-called colonial modernity and show how changes were taking place in the society in the colonial period in Bengal. The characters from two generations, the older following the traditional ways and the younger ones following Englishness, depict a confrontation of two civilizations. Ideologies, worldviews and new habits are formed among the youths, which are despised by the elders. The plays, thus, question the modern ways, that, if they really mean a civilization. This article attempts to show how the plays can be read as social critique at par with comedy of humours and comedy of manners.
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Rupkatha Journal on Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities, 2022
Prison system in Assam owes its origin and structure to the British colonizers. Colonial administ... more Prison system in Assam owes its origin and structure to the British colonizers. Colonial administrator John M’Cosh mentions in Topography of Assam (1837) that by the year 1833 the East India Company had already established jails in prominent administrative sites like Guwahati and Goalpara. From the mid-twentieth century, one can witness an increasing concern in academic disciplines like psychiatry, psychology, sociology, criminology and philosophy with the notion and the praxis of incarceration in the colonies. This paper will attempt to foreground the unexplored dimensions of incarceration in colonial jails with a special focus on the frontier province of Assam through an analysis of Sangrami Jibonor Atmakatha (2011), the autobiography of Robin Kakati, an eminent freedom fighter, Gandhian who courted multiple arrests as a satyagrahi. His autobiography unravels some of the most intricate details of prison life in colonial Assam, especially in Jorhat Central Prison where he was confi...
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Nationalism in India: Texts and Contexts Ed. by Debajyoti Biswas, John Charles Ryan, 2020
Dinabandhu Mitra’s Nil Darpan (1860) swept the fledgling public theatre apparatus of Bengal with ... more Dinabandhu Mitra’s Nil Darpan (1860) swept the fledgling public theatre apparatus of Bengal with a radical fervour. Historian Ramesh Chandra Majumder mentions that during a certain production of the play a section of the spectators were so overpowered by the spectacle of torture unleashed on Bengali peasants by European Planters that they threw shoes at the poor actor on the stage. Five hundred copies of the play in English translation were sent to British Parliamentarians requesting an intervention. Nil Darpan led to the surge of a series of ‘darpan’ or mirror plays (viz. Cha-kar Darpan, Jel Darpan, Jamidar Darpan) which exposed the corruption and exploitation of the subaltern classes by the ruling elites. Within a quick succession appeared Babu Dakshinaranjan Chattopadhyay’s Cha-kar Darpan (1857) based on the exploitation of tea-garden labourers and Jel-Darpan based on the pathetic condition of jail inmates under the colonial administration. However, Dakshinaranjan’s Jel Darpan also exposes the sense of dilemma and insecurity amongst the ‘native’ comprador class which was adversely trapped between a commitment for ‘nationalist’ concern and consequences of transgressing the Empire in a political climate vitiated by The Mutiny of 1857. So, the playwright tried to appease his countrymen as well as the colonial masters simultaneously by espousing rebellious ideas in the prologue of Jel Darpan while concluding it with the following words –
England with all thy faults I love thee still
Subaltern Historian Pratha Chatterjee suggests that the idea of a nationalist reconstruction based on past events, acquired immense significance in colonial Bengal in which proscenium theatre contributed richly. To a significant extent, Bengali middle-class’s resistance to the British Empire, at least in its literary/cultural output, was structured on the idea of a chaste, semi-divine woman, who could be equated with the nation (like deshamata, Bharatmata). The violation and defilement to whose ‘person’ would tantamount to ‘outraging’ the nation. In this paper my objective would be to highlight the proto-nationalist concerns of the Bengali proscenium theatre during the last hundred years of colonial rule in Bengal.
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Social Work Journal, Dept. of Social Work, AUS, ISSN 0976-5484, 2016
Women in India's Northeast have had a long history of spearheading movements of protest against s... more Women in India's Northeast have had a long history of spearheading movements of protest against social and cultural oppression. In Nagaland, which has witnessed the longest struggle against the Indian state till date, women have been very visible components of the struggle, albeit at an informal, grassroots level. Their exclusion from formal spaces of power and decision-making reflect certain social and political realities regarding the status of women in Naga society (Triveni Goswami 68).
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Political Theatre in Calcutta: Bertolt Brecht in Context, 2016
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Books by Sib Sankar Majumder
Reimagining Life in/through Literature: Essays and Reviews on Arun Sarma's Works , 2019
From Pona Mahanta's Natak Aru Natyakar (1986) to Natyalochana (2016) ed. by Moniram Kalita, over ... more From Pona Mahanta's Natak Aru Natyakar (1986) to Natyalochana (2016) ed. by Moniram Kalita, over a period of more than thirty years, theatre critics and historians have categorized Arun Sarma as an Absurd playwright and his Aahaar as the first absurd play in Assamese language. In an article titled Trends in PostWar Assamese Drama (1978), a prominent Assamese theatre critic opines that in Arun Sharma's plays "familiar themes have been presented in an unconventional dramatic form" (Bharali 52). He further argues that "Shri Nibaran Bhattacharya and Aharmark the influence of the theatre of the absurd, a dramatic movement that developed in the Western world after the Second World War. The characteristic features of the absurd drama, namely unmotivated actions, illogical and meaningless dialogue, etc., are more prominently seen in Ahar" (ibid).
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Papers by Sib Sankar Majumder
England with all thy faults I love thee still
Subaltern Historian Pratha Chatterjee suggests that the idea of a nationalist reconstruction based on past events, acquired immense significance in colonial Bengal in which proscenium theatre contributed richly. To a significant extent, Bengali middle-class’s resistance to the British Empire, at least in its literary/cultural output, was structured on the idea of a chaste, semi-divine woman, who could be equated with the nation (like deshamata, Bharatmata). The violation and defilement to whose ‘person’ would tantamount to ‘outraging’ the nation. In this paper my objective would be to highlight the proto-nationalist concerns of the Bengali proscenium theatre during the last hundred years of colonial rule in Bengal.
Books by Sib Sankar Majumder
England with all thy faults I love thee still
Subaltern Historian Pratha Chatterjee suggests that the idea of a nationalist reconstruction based on past events, acquired immense significance in colonial Bengal in which proscenium theatre contributed richly. To a significant extent, Bengali middle-class’s resistance to the British Empire, at least in its literary/cultural output, was structured on the idea of a chaste, semi-divine woman, who could be equated with the nation (like deshamata, Bharatmata). The violation and defilement to whose ‘person’ would tantamount to ‘outraging’ the nation. In this paper my objective would be to highlight the proto-nationalist concerns of the Bengali proscenium theatre during the last hundred years of colonial rule in Bengal.