An Indian Bengali by birth, Amitav Ghosh has established himself as a major voice in what is ofte... more An Indian Bengali by birth, Amitav Ghosh has established himself as a major voice in what is often called world literature, addressing issues such as the post-colonial and neo-colonial predicaments, the plight of the subalterns, the origin of globalisation and capitalism, and lately ecology and migration. The volume is therefore divided according to the four domains that lie at the heart of Ghosh's writing practice: anthropology, epistemology, ethics and space. In this volume, a number of scholars from all over the world have come together to shed new light on the works and poetics of Amitav Ghosh according to the epistemic frameworks that form the bedrock of his fıction.
ABOUT THE BOOK
This book is our academic endeavour in contributing to the ever-growing corpus of ... more ABOUT THE BOOK This book is our academic endeavour in contributing to the ever-growing corpus of diaspora criticism. Scholars from India and abroad have profusely contributed to this academic anthology and their exegeses and explications are worthy to be appreciated for multiple reasons. They have critically evaluated the texts against the backdrop of literary theories as applied to the typology of literary taxonomy of many diasporic authors who overtly and covertly belong to the South Asian nations. This anthology deals with multiple theses on the issues of diasporic overtones, inter-ethnic relations, re/dislocations and merger of mental/ physical boundaries represented in the literary texts authored by the young and veteran writers of the South Asian origin. The volume offers explorations and unravellings that inscribe multifarious themes, issues and agenda concomitant with the South Asian diaspora critiqued by young, vibrant and enthusiastic authors who have earned their reputation in academic field at the global fronts. There is a need for more holistic understanding of the entire phenomenon to facilitate researchers and participants engaged in innumerable homilies related to diaspora and trans-nationalism. Hence, we hope that this volume will be a trustworthy tool to comprehend the dynamics of emerging trends in the area though the continuous progress and flow in the ontological apparatus cannot be denied.
Refugees exist throughout human history, though it is after the British imperial collapse that th... more Refugees exist throughout human history, though it is after the British imperial collapse that the term ‘refugee’ finds currency in South Asia. This paper shows how refugee solidarity finds different expressions in the face of resistance and securitization in two of Amitav Ghosh’s novels ˗ from the state-sponsored genocide of refugees in the regime of a left-wing government in The Hungry Tide, to the right-wing resistance denying the entry of immigrants stranded on the Italian coastline of the Mediterranean in Gun Island. This paper also unfolds how politicization of issues like sheltering and socializing the refugees affects the idea of solidarity: the indifference of civic society to state-sponsored atrocities against the refugees in The Hungry Tide stands in contrast with the support extended to illegal immigrants by the human rights activists despite the opposition of “right-wing, anti-immigrant groups” in Gun Island. Finally, the paper reflects how, in this age of economic glob...
The Outlook: Journal of English Studies, Tribhuvan University, Pokhara, Nepal, Jul 2023
Refugees exist throughout human history, though it is after the British imperial collapse that th... more Refugees exist throughout human history, though it is after the British imperial collapse that the term 'refugee' finds currency in South Asia. This paper shows how refugee solidarity finds different expressions in the face of resistance and securitization in two of Amitav Ghosh's novels ˗ from the state-sponsored genocide of refugees in the regime of a left-wing government in The Hungry Tide, to the right-wing resistance denying the entry of immigrants stranded on the Italian coastline of the Mediterranean in Gun Island. This paper also unfolds how politicization of issues like sheltering and socializing the refugees affects the idea of solidarity: the indifference of civic society to state-sponsored atrocities against the refugees in The Hungry Tide stands in contrast with the support extended to illegal immigrants by the human rights activists despite the opposition of "right-wing, anti-immigrant groups" in Gun Island. Finally, the paper reflects how, in this age of economic globalization, digital media appears more powerful than any doctrinaire ideology of the 'dispossessed' in managing refugees' solidarity.
This book chapter explores the meanders of island ecopoetics when applied to a contrastive cultur... more This book chapter explores the meanders of island ecopoetics when applied to a contrastive cultural context: the Andaman Islands in India, such as depicted by Pankaj Sekhsaria's The Last Wave. Staging the struggle of two conservationists for the preservation of an endemic ecosphere, this Indian Anglophone novel nevertheless questions the naive assumptions of both characters regarding the assigned place of an Indian tribe confronted with encroaching modernity. De aptly argues that an ecological consciousness infusing fiction not only re-enchants the environment but also re-enchants the reader as the access to interpolated narratives gives way to an array of meaningful connections to the world. Tapping into material ecocriticism, De raises Sekhsaria's novel to the rank of a living text where natural and cultural stories engage in a conversation aiming at decentering the locus of enunciation, meanwhile casting a new light on the moral responsibility as well as the necessity to sustain distinctive habitats.
This book chapter portrays a less-known tribal community from India. The chapter profiles the tri... more This book chapter portrays a less-known tribal community from India. The chapter profiles the tribal community of Asurs from the Chhotanagpur plateau in India. The author examines the kinship between the habitat and its tribal inhabitants of the Asur community, which is an ancient iron-smelting community in India. The chapter displays how the encroachment of globalization and capitalism proves to be a menace for both the community and the environment,
Revista Interdisciplinar de Literatura e Ecocrítica, 2021
Postcolonial fiction depicting transnational human mobility across landscapes and cultural spaces... more Postcolonial fiction depicting transnational human mobility across landscapes and cultural spaces often represents the variable "structure of feeling" in a human being with continuous 'de-' and 're-territorialization' (Grossberg 313) from the familiar space to the unfamiliar. Experiences of lived realities and relationships alter with time and space, simultaneously affecting human understanding of logic and thereby leaving a scope to interpret newer experiences on multiple levels such as the mysterious, uncanny, or the exotic. It is not just the fictional character/s in literary narratives but also the reader/s who feel affected by the relationality between the rational and the mysterious as emotional affect "arises in the midst of in-between-ness" (Seigworth and Gregg 1). The epistemic lens of affect theory has been used in this essay to explore the human/non-human relationships in Amitav Ghosh's novel Gun Island (2019). I would show how, in Ghosh's narrative, the human/non-human interface has been perceived by inventories of belonging and migration, and often represented with an interplay of the corporeal and the uncanny, mainly aiming at emotional affect sandwiched between anxiety and hope-both conditions of postcoloniality and ecological engagement. The representation of the human/non-human relationships in literary narratives depends heavily on imaginative correspondence, where the affective exceptional may find its easy place. Examining several episodes in the novel, I would discuss how the corporeality of a snake, spider, shipworm, or even a wildfire affects the incorporeal cognitive dimensions like trauma or anxiety in Dinanath-the central character, and reshapes his "structure of feeling."
Diasporic movements across the border of the country and its impact on life and literature have b... more Diasporic movements across the border of the country and its impact on life and literature have been researched well enough mostly as a twentieth century ‘postcolonial’ phenomenon. But how British colonial economy inspired diasporic transnational movements in the nineteenth century after the abolition of slave trade, and accelerated the formation of the Indo-Caribbean diasporic communities in the West Indies has remained a less attended area by scholars of literary studies. The call of the sugarcane estates, the system of indenture and the subsequent arrival of the poor, low-born Indian people as coolies in islands like Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago had made a different history, and the stories springing out of their history are unique tales of assimilation and even failure in a land far and foreign.
In this proposed paper I would take the Indo-Caribbean Guyanese novelist David Dabydeen’s The Counting House (1996) as my case study and attempt to show how the colonial economy contributed in forming serfdom in the Caribbean cane-fields and those plantations stood for the Empire in miniature, where exploiting the dislocated was the only principle. I would point out how Dabydeen’s reflections of the grim reality of indenture add to the poignant notes of the narrative: “Boat-loads of new coolies arrived to clear new fields or to replace those who succumbed to diseases” (65). On the issue of cultural assimilation, how this flow of dislocated impoverished Indians found themselves fit, and ultimately formed a multicultural society by constant negotiation and reconciliation of identities generated by cross-cultural encounter, is another point of my investigation.
Quaderni di Recognizioni XI _Universita di Torino, 2020
Amitav Ghosh’s second novel The Shadow Lines (1988), published a little more than three decades b... more Amitav Ghosh’s second novel The Shadow Lines (1988), published a little more than three decades back, aims at a philosophical understanding of the significance of borderlines between nations and their people on politico-cultural levels. The political and ethno-religious contexts of the post-Partition Bengal in the eastern part of India serve as the canvas to bring home the cultural significance of the ‘Partition’ between the Bengali-speaking people of two different religions across the border of two nations. In this proposed article we wish to establish the point that, as the notion of the ‘national’ border (which Ghosh likes to find as ‘shadow’ line) in post-Partition Bengal has its role in bifurcating the religio-cultural life of the Bengali people by creating a sense of the ‘Other’, a similar kind of ‘border’ could be perceived in the human response to the non-human within the organic reality of existence. Taking Ghosh’s idea of the borderline from The Shadow Lines, this article explores the author’s employment of the concept of border between the human and the non-human, the human exploitation and the violence exerted on the non-human and the environmental anxiety which find eco-literary expression in his fiction The Hungry Tide (2004) and the non-fiction—The Great Derangement (2016). How the human beings consider the non-human as the potential ‘other’ for exploitation, how the anthropocentric aggressions regardless of environmental balance create apocalyptic crises as represented by Ghosh in The Hungry Tide, would be the points of our academic exploration in this article. We would also show how the “‘partitioning’ or deepening the imaginary gulf between Nature and Culture” (GD 92) has contributed to the age-old indifference towards eco-literary expressions as simple nature writings and how climate literature is not just a literary ‘other’ but an urgent demand of time with references to The Great Derangement.
When he was a schoolboy, long before Somalia gained its political independence from Britain and I... more When he was a schoolboy, long before Somalia gained its political independence from Britain and Italy, Nuruddin Farah Hasan (1945-) dreamt of becoming a writer. He is now about to celebrate the golden jubilee of his career as a writer. To date, Farah has published fourteen novels, a non-fiction book and several plays. He was named after a prince in One Thousand and One Nights. When he was being interviewed by Ahmed I. Samatar in 2001, he revealed that he used to delight in cutting out the name "Nuruddin" from pages in One Thousand and One Nights and gluing the small pieces of paper onto the cover pages of his exercise books (Samatar 87). He also enjoyed giving the animal characters in his English language textbooks human names and attributes. His linguistic talent was evident from an early age. As is well known, Farah assisted his mother to compose buraanbur or Somali oral poetry that is sung during social celebrations and community rituals. By the time he was a teenager, he was able to converse equally well in five languages: Somali, Arabic, Amharic, Italian and English. However, Farah found the local education system disappointingly alien. He comments sadly that "the textbooks we were taught from, belonged in the mind and culture of other people" ("Why I Write" 3). Though the mind and culture of "other people" initially shaped the vision of Somalia's first Anglophone writer, Farah has written about Somalia and Somali characters for most of his career. Several decades of diasporic separation have not weakened Farah's bond with Somalia and its people, just as almost fifty years of being away from Indian soil has not dimmed his memory of the people there. His time as a graduate student at the Government College of Panjab University might have gone unnoticed had he not written his debut novel during his stay on this campus and later become one of the leading African writers of his generation. Those who knew him at the time would probably not have guessed that he would return to the campus at the age of seventy-two to receive an honorary doctorate from Panjab University in 2017. His success as a writer is often ascribed to two 'immature' decisions that he made. The first decision concerns his choice to enroll at Panjab University in India rather than take up a scholarship to study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Lost years of a nomad: Exploring Indian experience in Nuruddin Farah's oeuvre To honor Nuruddin Farah's fifty-year-long writing journey, this article explores his time in India (1966-69) and the influence it had on making him a leading postcolonial writer. My approach is largely biographical. I begin with his decision to turn down a scholarship at an American University, which some critics view as immature or even eccentric. I challenge this view of his choice instead to enroll for a degree in philosophy, literature and sociology at the Government College of Panjab University at Chandigarh in 1966 and to make what was then a country of poverty and even famine his first diasporic destination. I argue that this was a well-thought-out, politically correct and wise decision in the global context of international relationships in the 1960s. I also explore Farah's brief association with Indian culture and the knowledge he acquired of Indian philosophy and literature to explain his decision to adopt a feminist perspective to write on injustice against women and the powerless and religious intolerance rather than focus on issues such as independence realpolitik like leading African writers at the time. His first manuscript, published in 1970 as From a Crooked Rib, was a Penguin modern classic by 2004. I argue that this novel was importantly shaped by his Indian experience. I also explore the influence of two novels on the young Farah, on his personal life, ideology and writing even before he went to India: W. Somerset Maugham's novel The Razor's Edge (1944) and Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai's classic Chemmeen (1956). This is the first substantial investigation of the effect of Farah's Indian experience.
An Indian Bengali by birth, Amitav Ghosh has established himself as a major voice in what is ofte... more An Indian Bengali by birth, Amitav Ghosh has established himself as a major voice in what is often called world literature, addressing issues such as the post-colonial and neo-colonial predicaments, the plight of the subalterns, the origin of globalisation and capitalism, and lately ecology and migration. The volume is therefore divided according to the four domains that lie at the heart of Ghosh's writing practice: anthropology, epistemology, ethics and space. In this volume, a number of scholars from all over the world have come together to shed new light on the works and poetics of Amitav Ghosh according to the epistemic frameworks that form the bedrock of his fıction.
ABOUT THE BOOK
This book is our academic endeavour in contributing to the ever-growing corpus of ... more ABOUT THE BOOK This book is our academic endeavour in contributing to the ever-growing corpus of diaspora criticism. Scholars from India and abroad have profusely contributed to this academic anthology and their exegeses and explications are worthy to be appreciated for multiple reasons. They have critically evaluated the texts against the backdrop of literary theories as applied to the typology of literary taxonomy of many diasporic authors who overtly and covertly belong to the South Asian nations. This anthology deals with multiple theses on the issues of diasporic overtones, inter-ethnic relations, re/dislocations and merger of mental/ physical boundaries represented in the literary texts authored by the young and veteran writers of the South Asian origin. The volume offers explorations and unravellings that inscribe multifarious themes, issues and agenda concomitant with the South Asian diaspora critiqued by young, vibrant and enthusiastic authors who have earned their reputation in academic field at the global fronts. There is a need for more holistic understanding of the entire phenomenon to facilitate researchers and participants engaged in innumerable homilies related to diaspora and trans-nationalism. Hence, we hope that this volume will be a trustworthy tool to comprehend the dynamics of emerging trends in the area though the continuous progress and flow in the ontological apparatus cannot be denied.
Refugees exist throughout human history, though it is after the British imperial collapse that th... more Refugees exist throughout human history, though it is after the British imperial collapse that the term ‘refugee’ finds currency in South Asia. This paper shows how refugee solidarity finds different expressions in the face of resistance and securitization in two of Amitav Ghosh’s novels ˗ from the state-sponsored genocide of refugees in the regime of a left-wing government in The Hungry Tide, to the right-wing resistance denying the entry of immigrants stranded on the Italian coastline of the Mediterranean in Gun Island. This paper also unfolds how politicization of issues like sheltering and socializing the refugees affects the idea of solidarity: the indifference of civic society to state-sponsored atrocities against the refugees in The Hungry Tide stands in contrast with the support extended to illegal immigrants by the human rights activists despite the opposition of “right-wing, anti-immigrant groups” in Gun Island. Finally, the paper reflects how, in this age of economic glob...
The Outlook: Journal of English Studies, Tribhuvan University, Pokhara, Nepal, Jul 2023
Refugees exist throughout human history, though it is after the British imperial collapse that th... more Refugees exist throughout human history, though it is after the British imperial collapse that the term 'refugee' finds currency in South Asia. This paper shows how refugee solidarity finds different expressions in the face of resistance and securitization in two of Amitav Ghosh's novels ˗ from the state-sponsored genocide of refugees in the regime of a left-wing government in The Hungry Tide, to the right-wing resistance denying the entry of immigrants stranded on the Italian coastline of the Mediterranean in Gun Island. This paper also unfolds how politicization of issues like sheltering and socializing the refugees affects the idea of solidarity: the indifference of civic society to state-sponsored atrocities against the refugees in The Hungry Tide stands in contrast with the support extended to illegal immigrants by the human rights activists despite the opposition of "right-wing, anti-immigrant groups" in Gun Island. Finally, the paper reflects how, in this age of economic globalization, digital media appears more powerful than any doctrinaire ideology of the 'dispossessed' in managing refugees' solidarity.
This book chapter explores the meanders of island ecopoetics when applied to a contrastive cultur... more This book chapter explores the meanders of island ecopoetics when applied to a contrastive cultural context: the Andaman Islands in India, such as depicted by Pankaj Sekhsaria's The Last Wave. Staging the struggle of two conservationists for the preservation of an endemic ecosphere, this Indian Anglophone novel nevertheless questions the naive assumptions of both characters regarding the assigned place of an Indian tribe confronted with encroaching modernity. De aptly argues that an ecological consciousness infusing fiction not only re-enchants the environment but also re-enchants the reader as the access to interpolated narratives gives way to an array of meaningful connections to the world. Tapping into material ecocriticism, De raises Sekhsaria's novel to the rank of a living text where natural and cultural stories engage in a conversation aiming at decentering the locus of enunciation, meanwhile casting a new light on the moral responsibility as well as the necessity to sustain distinctive habitats.
This book chapter portrays a less-known tribal community from India. The chapter profiles the tri... more This book chapter portrays a less-known tribal community from India. The chapter profiles the tribal community of Asurs from the Chhotanagpur plateau in India. The author examines the kinship between the habitat and its tribal inhabitants of the Asur community, which is an ancient iron-smelting community in India. The chapter displays how the encroachment of globalization and capitalism proves to be a menace for both the community and the environment,
Revista Interdisciplinar de Literatura e Ecocrítica, 2021
Postcolonial fiction depicting transnational human mobility across landscapes and cultural spaces... more Postcolonial fiction depicting transnational human mobility across landscapes and cultural spaces often represents the variable "structure of feeling" in a human being with continuous 'de-' and 're-territorialization' (Grossberg 313) from the familiar space to the unfamiliar. Experiences of lived realities and relationships alter with time and space, simultaneously affecting human understanding of logic and thereby leaving a scope to interpret newer experiences on multiple levels such as the mysterious, uncanny, or the exotic. It is not just the fictional character/s in literary narratives but also the reader/s who feel affected by the relationality between the rational and the mysterious as emotional affect "arises in the midst of in-between-ness" (Seigworth and Gregg 1). The epistemic lens of affect theory has been used in this essay to explore the human/non-human relationships in Amitav Ghosh's novel Gun Island (2019). I would show how, in Ghosh's narrative, the human/non-human interface has been perceived by inventories of belonging and migration, and often represented with an interplay of the corporeal and the uncanny, mainly aiming at emotional affect sandwiched between anxiety and hope-both conditions of postcoloniality and ecological engagement. The representation of the human/non-human relationships in literary narratives depends heavily on imaginative correspondence, where the affective exceptional may find its easy place. Examining several episodes in the novel, I would discuss how the corporeality of a snake, spider, shipworm, or even a wildfire affects the incorporeal cognitive dimensions like trauma or anxiety in Dinanath-the central character, and reshapes his "structure of feeling."
Diasporic movements across the border of the country and its impact on life and literature have b... more Diasporic movements across the border of the country and its impact on life and literature have been researched well enough mostly as a twentieth century ‘postcolonial’ phenomenon. But how British colonial economy inspired diasporic transnational movements in the nineteenth century after the abolition of slave trade, and accelerated the formation of the Indo-Caribbean diasporic communities in the West Indies has remained a less attended area by scholars of literary studies. The call of the sugarcane estates, the system of indenture and the subsequent arrival of the poor, low-born Indian people as coolies in islands like Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago had made a different history, and the stories springing out of their history are unique tales of assimilation and even failure in a land far and foreign.
In this proposed paper I would take the Indo-Caribbean Guyanese novelist David Dabydeen’s The Counting House (1996) as my case study and attempt to show how the colonial economy contributed in forming serfdom in the Caribbean cane-fields and those plantations stood for the Empire in miniature, where exploiting the dislocated was the only principle. I would point out how Dabydeen’s reflections of the grim reality of indenture add to the poignant notes of the narrative: “Boat-loads of new coolies arrived to clear new fields or to replace those who succumbed to diseases” (65). On the issue of cultural assimilation, how this flow of dislocated impoverished Indians found themselves fit, and ultimately formed a multicultural society by constant negotiation and reconciliation of identities generated by cross-cultural encounter, is another point of my investigation.
Quaderni di Recognizioni XI _Universita di Torino, 2020
Amitav Ghosh’s second novel The Shadow Lines (1988), published a little more than three decades b... more Amitav Ghosh’s second novel The Shadow Lines (1988), published a little more than three decades back, aims at a philosophical understanding of the significance of borderlines between nations and their people on politico-cultural levels. The political and ethno-religious contexts of the post-Partition Bengal in the eastern part of India serve as the canvas to bring home the cultural significance of the ‘Partition’ between the Bengali-speaking people of two different religions across the border of two nations. In this proposed article we wish to establish the point that, as the notion of the ‘national’ border (which Ghosh likes to find as ‘shadow’ line) in post-Partition Bengal has its role in bifurcating the religio-cultural life of the Bengali people by creating a sense of the ‘Other’, a similar kind of ‘border’ could be perceived in the human response to the non-human within the organic reality of existence. Taking Ghosh’s idea of the borderline from The Shadow Lines, this article explores the author’s employment of the concept of border between the human and the non-human, the human exploitation and the violence exerted on the non-human and the environmental anxiety which find eco-literary expression in his fiction The Hungry Tide (2004) and the non-fiction—The Great Derangement (2016). How the human beings consider the non-human as the potential ‘other’ for exploitation, how the anthropocentric aggressions regardless of environmental balance create apocalyptic crises as represented by Ghosh in The Hungry Tide, would be the points of our academic exploration in this article. We would also show how the “‘partitioning’ or deepening the imaginary gulf between Nature and Culture” (GD 92) has contributed to the age-old indifference towards eco-literary expressions as simple nature writings and how climate literature is not just a literary ‘other’ but an urgent demand of time with references to The Great Derangement.
When he was a schoolboy, long before Somalia gained its political independence from Britain and I... more When he was a schoolboy, long before Somalia gained its political independence from Britain and Italy, Nuruddin Farah Hasan (1945-) dreamt of becoming a writer. He is now about to celebrate the golden jubilee of his career as a writer. To date, Farah has published fourteen novels, a non-fiction book and several plays. He was named after a prince in One Thousand and One Nights. When he was being interviewed by Ahmed I. Samatar in 2001, he revealed that he used to delight in cutting out the name "Nuruddin" from pages in One Thousand and One Nights and gluing the small pieces of paper onto the cover pages of his exercise books (Samatar 87). He also enjoyed giving the animal characters in his English language textbooks human names and attributes. His linguistic talent was evident from an early age. As is well known, Farah assisted his mother to compose buraanbur or Somali oral poetry that is sung during social celebrations and community rituals. By the time he was a teenager, he was able to converse equally well in five languages: Somali, Arabic, Amharic, Italian and English. However, Farah found the local education system disappointingly alien. He comments sadly that "the textbooks we were taught from, belonged in the mind and culture of other people" ("Why I Write" 3). Though the mind and culture of "other people" initially shaped the vision of Somalia's first Anglophone writer, Farah has written about Somalia and Somali characters for most of his career. Several decades of diasporic separation have not weakened Farah's bond with Somalia and its people, just as almost fifty years of being away from Indian soil has not dimmed his memory of the people there. His time as a graduate student at the Government College of Panjab University might have gone unnoticed had he not written his debut novel during his stay on this campus and later become one of the leading African writers of his generation. Those who knew him at the time would probably not have guessed that he would return to the campus at the age of seventy-two to receive an honorary doctorate from Panjab University in 2017. His success as a writer is often ascribed to two 'immature' decisions that he made. The first decision concerns his choice to enroll at Panjab University in India rather than take up a scholarship to study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Lost years of a nomad: Exploring Indian experience in Nuruddin Farah's oeuvre To honor Nuruddin Farah's fifty-year-long writing journey, this article explores his time in India (1966-69) and the influence it had on making him a leading postcolonial writer. My approach is largely biographical. I begin with his decision to turn down a scholarship at an American University, which some critics view as immature or even eccentric. I challenge this view of his choice instead to enroll for a degree in philosophy, literature and sociology at the Government College of Panjab University at Chandigarh in 1966 and to make what was then a country of poverty and even famine his first diasporic destination. I argue that this was a well-thought-out, politically correct and wise decision in the global context of international relationships in the 1960s. I also explore Farah's brief association with Indian culture and the knowledge he acquired of Indian philosophy and literature to explain his decision to adopt a feminist perspective to write on injustice against women and the powerless and religious intolerance rather than focus on issues such as independence realpolitik like leading African writers at the time. His first manuscript, published in 1970 as From a Crooked Rib, was a Penguin modern classic by 2004. I argue that this novel was importantly shaped by his Indian experience. I also explore the influence of two novels on the young Farah, on his personal life, ideology and writing even before he went to India: W. Somerset Maugham's novel The Razor's Edge (1944) and Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai's classic Chemmeen (1956). This is the first substantial investigation of the effect of Farah's Indian experience.
When writing becomes inspired by an ecological imagination, it enlivens the bond between man and ... more When writing becomes inspired by an ecological imagination, it enlivens the bond between man and nature and through it re-enchants the earth. ‘Literature of place’ is, in a way, a literature of consciousness that concentrates on the relationship between the human and its habitat. In the post-Tsunami years, this relationship between humans and the land they dwell in has garnered sufficient attention of the academia. New literary genres like island novel, climate fiction or anthropocene fiction have enriched not only the literary scene, but also our consciousness with its single agenda to re-enchant the planet. In the Anglophone Indian literary scenario, a recently published ‘island novel’ has given the wake-up call towards the change of ecological balance and the plight of a prehistoric tribal community in the Andaman Islands. The researcher, activist and conservationist Pankaj Sekhsaria weaves his debut novel The Last Wave (2014) with a wealth of knowledge about the tribal Jarawa people and the wild denizens of the Andaman Islands alongside describing the story of Harish and Seema, who are also associated with the conservationist activities in the Islands. In this paper, I would mainly insist on Sekhsaria’s depiction of two recent changes noticed in the Andaman Islands: the gradual change of ecology and the change of behavioural pattern of the Jarawas. The loss of the population of the leatherback turtle, the crocodiles in the creeks of the mangrove forests, the hornbills or the vegetation of the wild flower known as Papilionanthe teres mark the imbalance in the natural biodiversity of the Islands. I would simultaneously investigate how Sekhsaria has depicted the negative impact of aggressive consumerism on life in the island. I would also insist on the point that despite the depiction of the destructive Tsunami at the end of the novel, Sekhsaria clings to an amazing hopefulness — where Harish hopes to stay together with nature and nature’s people in that island.
Writers and social activists perform a substantial role in shaping nearly every social awakening ... more Writers and social activists perform a substantial role in shaping nearly every social awakening in any society under the sun. In the scenario of Indian Dalit literature, which is itself a product of social awakening in the postcolonial India, the role of writers and social activists naturally becomes a crucial one. But when the issues of publication and dissemination of Dalit writings are concerned, things seem to be different than the case of publication of non-Dalit literary productions. Till today, savarna (non-Dalit) publishers and editors are more or less reluctant in publishing Dalit literature on the excuse of limited readership. Only when Indian Dalit writers had started their own publishing houses (like ‘Fourth World’ publications in Kolkata), brought their own magazines and books, they found a gateway to extricate their experiences of caste atrocities. Although Dalit writers may not find a substitute for the mainstream media like newspaper, radio or television channel to ventilate their lived experiences, they can have the internet as an important medium to disseminate their ideas to a wide spectrum of readers and intellectuals. To create adequate space for the Dalit issues and perspectives in the society, the writers, academics and intellectuals from both the Dalit and the civil society may initiate research forums, resource centers and team websites through the world wide web (like the PMARC, or the Dalits Media Watch Team). For the Indian Dalit writers, the ‘pixilated pane’ could be a proper medium of expression which has virtually no business with the Hindu caste-based politics of publication. This paper attempts a justification in favour of such web initiatives which could serve as a substantial platform to share, publish and disseminate ideas and ideologies of Dalit movements in modern India. In this paper, we would also investigate how the advantages of the cyber-world can transform the scope and range of publication Dalit literature as something ‘Digitally Advanced Literature’ of the Indian Dalits.
Usually, the representation of women in Indian Dalit literature is weighed with double subjugatio... more Usually, the representation of women in Indian Dalit literature is weighed with double subjugation: caste and gender. But in the writings of one of the leading Indian Dalit novelist-poet-activist from Tamilnadu — Palanimuthu Sivakami, the issue of gender is even more prominent than that of the caste. To Sivakami, “the problems of Dalit women are considered separatist. They face the worst expressions of male chauvinistic society - atrocities like raping, profiling, physical assault and murder”. This paper proposes to focus on her much acclaimed novel The Taming of Women (2012), [translated from the Tamil original by Pritam K. Chakravarty] and to concentrate on the representation of Dalit women in a semi-urban domestic space. The Taming of Women also portrays the strange type of misdirected hatred women reserve for each other in the domestic space, a socio- cultural interpellation where the worst discrimination and judgment comes from ‘other’ women around. Instead of focusing the violent hatred towards her womanizer husband Periyannan, the protagonist Anandhayi finds the source of her hatred in the women her husband sleeps with. Her tribulations in bringing up her daughters Dhanam, Arul, and Kala is perhaps best captured in the lines, “Having a girl in the house is like having a fire in the belly (…) I will have peace only when I hand her over to a husband.” Herself being a victim of domestic violence, Anandhayi still relies upon the role of the husband as protector of women. This paper would also investigate how the women in Periyannan’s household just become mere ‘female’ bodies subject to patriarchal torment by the ‘protector’.
Even in the first decade of the present century, the scholars of Tribal literatures had to rely m... more Even in the first decade of the present century, the scholars of Tribal literatures had to rely mostly upon translations of tribal texts. But the situation is changing gradually as the world of Fourth literature is garnering the attention of academia. Quite recently, two successive publications of the promising tribal writer Hansda Sowvendra Sekhar have earned sufficient critical attention of the scholars and reviewers of modern Anglophone Indian literature, as Hansda has written both these texts originally in English. In his debut fictional narrative entitled The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey (2014), the issue of ethnic cultural inheritance is central along with the very changes and transformations which a tribal society witnesses through four generations. The issue of tribal identity comes as the central point along with a perfect depiction of the Santhal cultural space. His latest story collection published just in the last September, The Adivasi Will Not Dance (2015) is a refusal to acknowledge the tribal identity as stereotypical as someone only dancing and singing after someone’s instruction. All the ten stories in the collection, in a way or other, depict the pains and passions of tribal men, women and children. This paper proposes to investigate both the inclusiveness and exclusivity of tribal identity in present-day India and also attempts to examine the Indigeneity of the tribal cultural space.
With the end of the First World War, its worries, pity and the horror did not end. The ‘Armistice... more With the end of the First World War, its worries, pity and the horror did not end. The ‘Armistice of Compiegne’ (11th November, 1918) could not sooth the millions of grieving families all over Europe. Along with large scale political crises and economic depression the English society suffered a heavy trauma as the solidity of the British Empire got exhausted. In place of art galleries and exhibitions, people went on visiting cemeteries even across the country to find out the graves of their near and dear ones. Along with literary reminiscences and reflections, poems and novels, also the short story proved itself as an ideal tool for interrogating the socio-psychic dimensions of the experiences of the Great War.
For the proposed paper I would like to take the short story entitled ‘The Gardener’ written by Rudyard Kipling as case study. First published in McCall’s Magazine in April, 1925 and then in a collection called Debits and Credits (1926), the story unfolds Kipling’s deepest sympathy for those killed and affected in the Great War and ultimately ends on pity without any active solution. In the entire literary oeuvre of Kipling, this story has a special place, as the author composed it during his visit to the war cemetery at Rouen (France) to look for his own son’s grave. The story is worked on the warring worries of some women who have lost their dear ones in the war. I would attempt to show here how Kipling, himself a bereaved father after the loss of his only son in the Battle of Loos, depicts the interplay of sorrow and silence in the characters of the story. I would also focus on the crucial use of the ‘lie’ in the story and in its connection the greater ‘lie’ behind the Great War, which Kipling had regretted after the death of his son in a two-line epitaph known as ‘Common Form’ (1919): “If any questions why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied.”
Abstract:
Tribal cultural space in India is probably the richest, but mostly untapped resource o... more Abstract:
Tribal cultural space in India is probably the richest, but mostly untapped resource of creative imagination. Even in the twenty-first century, it is quite strange that tribal narratives exist mostly in oral form and find expression through performances during festivals. Tribal narratives in written form are not yet readily available for critical academic exploration and the problem of language is undoubtedly a serious concern. Though deeply rooted in regional/ local experiences, tribal narratives often uphold an insightful attitude to life. As tribal societies are very much community conscious so in their narratives one would certainly notice a landmark legacy of community-identity. By nature, community-identity is often impersonal. In contrast, personal identity is an individual attribute and therefore, unique. The point of my argument here, is, in many tribal narratives the borderline of personal identity and community-identity hardly exists and these are more complementary than antagonistic.
In this paper I would use Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar’s debut novel The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey (2014) as case study to explore the impersonal nature of community-identity alongside the prominence of personal identity. Hansda uses the European form of novel (which is quite individualistic in nature) to tell the story of an indigenous community. As it is the first novel originally written in English language to be set entirely among Santhals and it charts the gradual changes of a Santhal society along with time, the narrative deserves a critical evaluation in question of the cultural evolution of the community. I would also attempt to find out the uniqueness of Santhal identity in relation to the concerned cultural space and topography.
Keywords: Tribal cultural space, oral and written tribal narratives, community-identity, ethnicity, personal identity
Historically transnational migration is not a strictly twentieth century phenomenon. It dates bac... more Historically transnational migration is not a strictly twentieth century phenomenon. It dates back even before European colonization, though it has gained prominence only in the last century as a relevant aspect of modern life. With the ‘happy’ demise of colonialism at the end of 20th century, the nature of transnational migration has been changed by the advancement of communication and the ever-growing human demand for mobility. The post-1990s socio-economic phenomenon known as ‘globalization’ has brought several changes as in society so in literature. In this ‘new’ age of globalization, postcolonial Indian Anglophone fiction has undergone several kinds of experimentation: mostly interdisciplinary by nature, the newer forms of Indian Anglophone fiction have concentrated on aspects like diaspora studies, cultural hybridity, transcultural identity, national citizenship and so on. With the increasing rate of cross- border migration, the concepts of ethnicity and mono-cultural values are expected to be revised.
In this proposed paper I will attempt a close examination of some major socio-cultural transformations caused mainly by cross-border migration and issues like belongingness and transcultural identity with specific reference to two novels of Amitav Ghosh, namely The Glass Palace (2000) and The Hungry Tide (2005). In both these novels Ghosh has introduced multiple instances of cross-border migration and thus focused on issues like national and cultural belonging, ethnic identity and the relevant realities of multicultural society. The paper would also explore how the cultural reality in the Indian sub-continent could never be analyzed by any particular set of ideas for its essentially intrinsic nature of diversity.
Key words: Cross-border migration, globalization, cultural hybridity, Transcultural identity, belongingness, ethnicity, multiculturalism, cultural diversity
By ‘border’ we usually mean a boundary that intends to impose an order. Border both includes and ... more By ‘border’ we usually mean a boundary that intends to impose an order. Border both includes and excludes and thus differentiates the self from the ‘other’. The salience of the border emerges from a confrontation between the anthropological idea of confined cultures with a recent focus on the diasporic flow of people and ideas across national borders. Diaspora studies concentrate on the re-imagining of communities and the subjects’ “multi-locationality within and across territorial, cultural and psychic boundaries” (Brah, 1996: 197). Though it shows a primary connection with cartography and geographical borders, the study of diaspora is deeply conditioned by historical events like colonization, expansion of the British Empire, and enforced exiles across the ‘national’ border (the historical exile of the last Indian Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar to Rangoon and of the last Burmese King Thibaw to Ratnagiri near Mumbai). In this paper I would like to concentrate on the exile of the last Burmese King across the border as represented in a literary fiction and a historical research.
For my purpose I would like to take Amitav Ghosh’s The Glass Palace (which is more a product of aesthetic imagination than historical representation) and Sudha Shah’s The King in Exile (which is less a fictional representation than a historical documentation) as case studies and attempt a critical examination of the concept of border essentially as ideological, generating and reinforcing a sense of cultural difference. Another point of investigation is to find how cross-border exile as a strategy became politically successful during the expansion of British Empire in the Indian subcontinent. I would also attempt to show how the exilic movement of the Burmese Royal family to the Indian town of Ratnagiri (near the present-day Mumbai) is intrinsically connected with empirical issues of power and capital; the cultural memories of home and belonging and Ghosh’s tricky treatment of hybridity in representing individual sense of identity.
Keywords: Cross-border Exile, Cultural Space, Memory, Hybridity, Negotiation of Identity.
Abstract:
Indian culture does not like to see a Mother only as the biological parent. From the ... more Abstract:
Indian culture does not like to see a Mother only as the biological parent. From the days of the Puranas, the Mother is revered as someone placed even higher than the Heaven (‘Swargadopi Gariyosi’). In Indian culture, the Mother is the source of existence, power, nourishment and an icon of nature. In the epics (both Ramayana and Mahabharata), one would easily find that the role of the Mother appears as the biological parent, so as the Dhatri (the Nourisher), Shakti (Icon of Power) and Devi, (the Goddess and the Protector). Even in Indian English literature of the twenty-first century, one would find the role of the Mother as something like that of the traditional practice, because Indian culture has ever remained enough strong to resist any transnational, transcultural influence despite the history of multiple defeats of the Indians in the hands of the invaders/colonizers.
In this paper we would take Amitav Ghosh’s novel The Hungry Tide (2004) as case study, in which the Mother has been represented multi-dimensionally. Among the fictional characters, Kusum, her mother and Moyna have been presented as biological mothers who are seen caring for their children at various moments. As the symbol of Dhatri is concerned, appears Nilima, who works for the social welfare and healthcare of the local impoverished people. The omnipresence of the local deity Bonbibi in the socio-cultural space (in the folk life) of the Sundarbans could be seen as the representation of the Mother Goddess as protector.
From the feudal agrarian economic pattern of the Indian society in the pre-colonial period, throu... more From the feudal agrarian economic pattern of the Indian society in the pre-colonial period, through the semi-industrial economy of the British Raj to the politically independent nation-state of India, the tribal population have always been carefully slided behind an ‘invisible’ fence. The mainstream Indian socio-political history did not acknowledge the contribution of the Indian tribal people to the nation-state. They have a rather ‘peripheral’ cultural space, where stories of the legendary community-leaders weave the tapestry of their cultural history. Various significant events of the socio-political life of the tribal world, though unattended by the mainstream historians, exist quite naturally in their songs, dances, riddles and folktales passed over the generations. The world of a tribal society has its own ‘natural’ history rich in aesthetic imagination.
In the present paper I would take the novel Chotti Munda and His Arrow (1980; trans. 2002) as case study and like to focus on the coexistence of legends, folklores and history in the cultural space of a particular section of Indian tribal population, namely, the ‘Munda’ people, whose socio-political world has been authoritatively depicted in this narrative by Mahasweta Devi, one of the best known activist-writers of modern India. I would also concentrate on the process of making a legend in a tribal society: how an individual becomes a hero and secures a place in the folkloric history of his community. I believe that the present conference promises to make opportunity for a timely exploration in a hitherto neglected cultural space.
Keywords: History, Legend, Folklore, Cultural Space, Orality and Songs
Marginality is one of the basic theoretical aspects of postcolonial studies. It takes its impetus... more Marginality is one of the basic theoretical aspects of postcolonial studies. It takes its impetus from issues of both colonial and postcolonial subordination and oppression on the grounds of race, class, gender, religion or ethnicity. Marginality can be seen as an oppositional discursive strategy that flies in the face of hierarchical social structures and hegemonic cultural codes. It can also be seen as a representative subject position, where the oppressed, in spite of their latent energy and historical tradition of raising rebellions, often remain mute even in the face of severe exploitation. To establish my point I would like to take Mahasweta Devi’s Chotti Munda and His Arrow as a case study.
In Chotti Munda and His Arrow, Mahasweta Devi champions the rights of the exploited and oppressed bonded labourers and the dispossessed tribal people of the Munda community. She advocates for the political and economic mobilization of such severely marginalized tribal people, their plight even in independent India and she also emphasizes the need to protect and foster tribal languages and identity. My paper attempts to unravel the nature of the politics of marginalization by pointing out the levels of exploitation as depicted in the narrative. This paper also attempts to raise a voice in favour of an open, diverse but harmonious space, where every human being is free to live without anyone gazing at them.
The rise of Dalit voices in West Bengal in Eastern India has drawn the attention of academicians ... more The rise of Dalit voices in West Bengal in Eastern India has drawn the attention of academicians in recent past. Though Bangla Dalit literature has a long history (starting from the first decade of the twentieth century), leading contemporary Bengali Dalit writers like Manoranjan Byapari, Anil Gharai, Mahitosh Biswas, Kalyani Thakur Chanral, Jatin Bala, Sunil Das, Manohar Mouli Biswas are hardly known by the academic ‘elites’ even in India. The ‘guardians’ of Bengali academia have shown a strange indifference to Dalit literatures probably for the reason that they considered the caste-based literatures as something less dignified, lacking aesthetics and therefore, less deserving.
Probably due to a long period of communist rule, the abolition of the system of landed aristocracy and the implementation of local democratic governance in the rural level earlier than other states in India, the scenario of the caste-based oppression, deprivation and social humiliation of the Dalits in West Bengal seems to be tuned in a rather low level. But the spirit of hypocritical victimization on the basis of class (‘bhadralok’/ ‘chhotolok’ binary*) burns into flame as it includes the question of caste.
In this paper I would focus on the first Bangla Dalit autobiography by Manoranjan Byapari—Itibritte Chandal Jeevan (2012), which could be considered as a representation of rage gathering impetus from an interplay between caste and class. Dalit autobiographical literature is basically a poetics of pain based on the politics of socio-cultural exclusion. In his personal narrative Byapari wages a war against the impotent political system which does not voice for the emancipation of the powerless, poor and the illiterate Dalit. I would also show how Byapari’s quest for an identity—both of a human being and a writer—has been expressed in his autobiography and how his exemplar odyssey opens up a new avenue in the world of Bangla Dalit literature.
*These are two Bangla words meaning educated, middle/upper-middle class and upper caste people (‘bhadralok’) and illiterate, poor, working class and low-caste people (‘chhotolok’).
In the present century as large-scale migration has created massive challenges to the ideas of na... more In the present century as large-scale migration has created massive challenges to the ideas of nation-states and civil societies, the study of diaspora has evolved as a burgeoning field of research with an immediate practical relevance. Diaspora studies concentrate on the re-imagining of communities and the subjects’ “multi-locationality within and across territorial, cultural and psychic boundaries” (Brah, 1996: 197). Though it shows a primary connection with cartography and geographical borders, the study of diaspora is deeply conditioned by historical episodes like colonization, slave-trade and most recently globalization. Taking Amitav Ghosh’s The Glass Palace as case study I would attempt a survey of the manifestations of diaspora within a larger frame of cross-cultural and transnational contexts, as the novel depicts issues like indentured labour, mass migration during ethno-religious riots and inter-racial violence. I would also attempt to show how diasporic movement is intrinsically connected with power and capital; contribution of the overseas Indians to the anti-colonial movement in India; the memories of home and belonging and Ghosh’s tricky treatment of hybridity in shaping individual identity all through the narrative.
The study of border is a seminal area of critical discussion in today’s globalized and cosmo... more The study of border is a seminal area of critical discussion in today’s globalized and cosmopolitan world. By ‘border’ we usually mean a boundary to impose an order. The salience of the border emerges from a confrontation between the anthropological idea of confined cultures with a recent focus on the flow of people and ideas across national borders. The border of a nation usually orients the convergence of people with a geopolitical territory and notions of a common history, nationality, identity, language and culture. Border both includes and excludes and thus differentiates the self from the ‘other’. In this article I’d attempt a critical examination of the concept of border essentially as ideological, generating and reinforcing a sense of difference and thus its impact on individual identity.
As this is the twenty fifth year of the publication of Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines (1988), I decide to take this novel as my case study here. The very title of the novel is metaphoric: borders between the nations and also between the people. Along with the theme of travel and the historical event of the Partition of India, the novel critically examines the issue of border both in the spatial and temporal frames. How the questions of citizenship and belonging are connected and to which extent do they collectively contribute to the issue of identity—both national and cultural, is an important dimension of the narrative. Moreover, the dissolution of the border between history and fiction is another charm of the novel. Transgressing the border is phenomenal of twenty first century life and how far Ghosh’s novel remains relevant to its readers still after twenty five years is the focus of my paper.
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"Abstract:
Much contemporary Anglophone African literature responds with a mythical imag... more "Abstract:
Much contemporary Anglophone African literature responds with a mythical imagination to the historical experience of European Colonialism. Historically colonialism acted very much like a Renaissance factor in Africa’s cultural potential, as it accelerated a transformation of people’s existence and consciousness there. Christianity, along with the Western educational system, dismissed pre-colonial Africa as primitive and monolithic and embarked on creating ‘new’ Africans who used the new vectors of power and knowledge to create a ‘better’ civilization. But the politico-economic evils of colonialism left their marks on the politics of several African nation-states even after their independence. In West Africa, Nigeria seems to be affected most severely by continuous ‘coups and riots’, ‘tribal massacres and famine’. It’s quite absurd for a Nigerian or any postcolonial diasporic writer to take an absolutely Kantian ‘art-for-art’s sake’ stand, for most of them are somehow committed to the land of their origin. In the narratives of the diasporic Nigerian writers living in Europe/ America, the ‘chaotic’ home has been evoked so consistently that the myth of misrule became a topic of choice.
This paper, using Ben Okri’s ‘The Famished Road Sequence’ (1989-1998) as a case study, argues that unlike earlier diasporic West African novelists Okri offers a vision of transformation that is set not in the cultural past of Nigeria, but in a hopeful future which is expected to emanate from an apparently chaotic present. To Okri, a writer’s duty is to “transform reality, while being truthful to life”. Like the cyclic stages of life, Okri’s Nigeria in the three novels of The Famished Road sequence moves from childhood to maturity and then to death. But the crucially employed ‘Abiku’ myth reminds us that death does not close everything: it is the death of the “old ways” only. A transformed democracy is now expected to be born, a nation more humane, where people would “go on living as if history is a dream”.
"
Abstract:
Every identity has its own positionality as well as marginality (as margin... more Abstract:
Every identity has its own positionality as well as marginality (as marginality implies a centrality at the same time), and the discourse of identity being a relative one, is very much time and space specific. In the last three decades, the efflorescence of Anglophone narratives by the novelists of previously colonized countries of Asia and Africa, addressing the issues of culture, language, citizenship, gender and most importantly identity, with regard to the impact of marginalization and exclusion on the one hand and globalization on the other has garnered serious academic attention. In those narratives, the socio-political, cultural and psychic boundaries along with the discourse of power and the various forms of exclusion and oppression are being repeatedly challenged and often successfully dismantled.
In this paper, my humble contribution to scholarship lies in pointing out the identity crisis of individual/s and group, which gathers momentum from a feeling of subalternity and also the politics of exclusion sponsored by the state itself. For this purpose I’d use Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide (2004) as a case study. My endeavour also attempts to establish the view that within the discourses of power and history, culture and language, identity is not something essentialist, but ‘a matter of becoming as well as being’ (Hall: 1990). In The Hungry Tide, Ghosh’s preoccupation seems to be to make audible the marginalized or subaltern voices and their dilemmas: between the privileged and the subaltern, lies the conflict that inspires one of the basic fibres of the fictional narrative.
Keywords: Identity, Cultural Space, Boundary, Marginality and Exclusion, Subalternity, Globalization.
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Books by Asis De
This book is our academic endeavour in contributing to the ever-growing corpus of diaspora criticism. Scholars from India and abroad have profusely contributed to this academic anthology and their exegeses and explications are worthy to be appreciated for multiple reasons. They have critically evaluated the texts against the backdrop of literary theories as applied to the typology of literary taxonomy of many diasporic authors who overtly and covertly belong to the South Asian nations. This anthology deals with multiple theses on the issues of diasporic overtones, inter-ethnic relations, re/dislocations and merger of mental/ physical boundaries represented in the literary texts authored by the young and veteran writers of the South Asian origin.
The volume offers explorations and unravellings that inscribe multifarious themes, issues and agenda concomitant with the South Asian diaspora critiqued by young, vibrant and enthusiastic authors who have earned their reputation in academic field at the global fronts. There is a need for more holistic understanding of the entire phenomenon to facilitate researchers and participants engaged in innumerable homilies related to diaspora and trans-nationalism. Hence, we hope that this volume will be a trustworthy tool to comprehend the dynamics of emerging trends in the area though the continuous progress and flow in the ontological apparatus cannot be denied.
Papers by Asis De
ecosphere, this Indian Anglophone novel nevertheless questions the naive
assumptions of both characters regarding the assigned place of an Indian
tribe confronted with encroaching modernity. De aptly argues that an
ecological consciousness infusing fiction not only re-enchants the
environment but also re-enchants the reader as the access to interpolated
narratives gives way to an array of meaningful connections to the world.
Tapping into material ecocriticism, De raises Sekhsaria's novel to the rank of a living text where natural and cultural stories engage in a conversation aiming at decentering the locus of enunciation, meanwhile casting a new light on the moral responsibility as well as the necessity to sustain distinctive habitats.
In this proposed paper I would take the Indo-Caribbean Guyanese novelist David Dabydeen’s The Counting House (1996) as my case study and attempt to show how the colonial economy contributed in forming serfdom in the Caribbean cane-fields and those plantations stood for the Empire in miniature, where exploiting the dislocated was the only principle. I would point out how Dabydeen’s reflections of the grim reality of indenture add to the poignant notes of the narrative: “Boat-loads of new coolies arrived to clear new fields or to replace those who succumbed to diseases” (65). On the issue of cultural assimilation, how this flow of dislocated impoverished Indians found themselves fit, and ultimately formed a multicultural society by constant negotiation and reconciliation of identities generated by cross-cultural encounter, is another point of my investigation.
This book is our academic endeavour in contributing to the ever-growing corpus of diaspora criticism. Scholars from India and abroad have profusely contributed to this academic anthology and their exegeses and explications are worthy to be appreciated for multiple reasons. They have critically evaluated the texts against the backdrop of literary theories as applied to the typology of literary taxonomy of many diasporic authors who overtly and covertly belong to the South Asian nations. This anthology deals with multiple theses on the issues of diasporic overtones, inter-ethnic relations, re/dislocations and merger of mental/ physical boundaries represented in the literary texts authored by the young and veteran writers of the South Asian origin.
The volume offers explorations and unravellings that inscribe multifarious themes, issues and agenda concomitant with the South Asian diaspora critiqued by young, vibrant and enthusiastic authors who have earned their reputation in academic field at the global fronts. There is a need for more holistic understanding of the entire phenomenon to facilitate researchers and participants engaged in innumerable homilies related to diaspora and trans-nationalism. Hence, we hope that this volume will be a trustworthy tool to comprehend the dynamics of emerging trends in the area though the continuous progress and flow in the ontological apparatus cannot be denied.
ecosphere, this Indian Anglophone novel nevertheless questions the naive
assumptions of both characters regarding the assigned place of an Indian
tribe confronted with encroaching modernity. De aptly argues that an
ecological consciousness infusing fiction not only re-enchants the
environment but also re-enchants the reader as the access to interpolated
narratives gives way to an array of meaningful connections to the world.
Tapping into material ecocriticism, De raises Sekhsaria's novel to the rank of a living text where natural and cultural stories engage in a conversation aiming at decentering the locus of enunciation, meanwhile casting a new light on the moral responsibility as well as the necessity to sustain distinctive habitats.
In this proposed paper I would take the Indo-Caribbean Guyanese novelist David Dabydeen’s The Counting House (1996) as my case study and attempt to show how the colonial economy contributed in forming serfdom in the Caribbean cane-fields and those plantations stood for the Empire in miniature, where exploiting the dislocated was the only principle. I would point out how Dabydeen’s reflections of the grim reality of indenture add to the poignant notes of the narrative: “Boat-loads of new coolies arrived to clear new fields or to replace those who succumbed to diseases” (65). On the issue of cultural assimilation, how this flow of dislocated impoverished Indians found themselves fit, and ultimately formed a multicultural society by constant negotiation and reconciliation of identities generated by cross-cultural encounter, is another point of my investigation.
The researcher, activist and conservationist Pankaj Sekhsaria weaves his debut novel The Last Wave (2014) with a wealth of knowledge about the tribal Jarawa people and the wild denizens of the Andaman Islands alongside describing the story of Harish and Seema, who are also associated with the conservationist activities in the Islands. In this paper, I would mainly insist on Sekhsaria’s depiction of two recent changes noticed in the Andaman Islands: the gradual change of ecology and the change of behavioural pattern of the Jarawas. The loss of the population of the leatherback turtle, the crocodiles in the creeks of the mangrove forests, the hornbills or the vegetation of the wild flower known as Papilionanthe teres mark the imbalance in the natural biodiversity of the Islands. I would simultaneously investigate how Sekhsaria has depicted the negative impact of aggressive consumerism on life in the island. I would also insist on the point that despite the depiction of the destructive Tsunami at the end of the novel, Sekhsaria clings to an amazing hopefulness — where Harish hopes to stay together with nature and nature’s people in that island.
Although Dalit writers may not find a substitute for the mainstream media like newspaper, radio or television channel to ventilate their lived experiences, they can have the internet as an important medium to disseminate their ideas to a wide spectrum of readers and intellectuals. To create adequate space for the Dalit issues and perspectives in the society, the writers, academics and intellectuals from both the Dalit and the civil society may initiate research forums, resource centers and team websites through the world wide web (like the PMARC, or the Dalits Media Watch Team). For the Indian Dalit writers, the ‘pixilated pane’ could be a proper medium of expression which has virtually no business with the Hindu caste-based politics of publication. This paper attempts a justification in favour of such web initiatives which could serve as a substantial platform to share, publish and disseminate ideas and ideologies of Dalit movements in modern India. In this paper, we would also investigate how the advantages of the cyber-world can transform the scope and range of publication Dalit literature as something ‘Digitally Advanced Literature’ of the Indian Dalits.
The Taming of Women also portrays the strange type of misdirected hatred women reserve for each other in the domestic space, a socio- cultural interpellation where the worst discrimination and judgment comes from ‘other’ women around. Instead of focusing the violent hatred towards her womanizer husband Periyannan, the protagonist Anandhayi finds the source of her hatred in the women her husband sleeps with. Her tribulations in bringing up her daughters Dhanam, Arul, and Kala is perhaps best captured in the lines, “Having a girl in the house is like having a fire in the belly (…) I will have peace only when I hand her over to a husband.” Herself being a victim of domestic violence, Anandhayi still relies upon the role of the husband as protector of women. This paper would also investigate how the women in Periyannan’s household just become mere ‘female’ bodies subject to patriarchal torment by the ‘protector’.
For the proposed paper I would like to take the short story entitled ‘The Gardener’ written by Rudyard Kipling as case study. First published in McCall’s Magazine in April, 1925 and then in a collection called Debits and Credits (1926), the story unfolds Kipling’s deepest sympathy for those killed and affected in the Great War and ultimately ends on pity without any active solution. In the entire literary oeuvre of Kipling, this story has a special place, as the author composed it during his visit to the war cemetery at Rouen (France) to look for his own son’s grave. The story is worked on the warring worries of some women who have lost their dear ones in the war. I would attempt to show here how Kipling, himself a bereaved father after the loss of his only son in the Battle of Loos, depicts the interplay of sorrow and silence in the characters of the story. I would also focus on the crucial use of the ‘lie’ in the story and in its connection the greater ‘lie’ behind the Great War, which Kipling had regretted after the death of his son in a two-line epitaph known as ‘Common Form’ (1919):
“If any questions why we died,
Tell them because our fathers lied.”
Tribal cultural space in India is probably the richest, but mostly untapped resource of creative imagination. Even in the twenty-first century, it is quite strange that tribal narratives exist mostly in oral form and find expression through performances during festivals. Tribal narratives in written form are not yet readily available for critical academic exploration and the problem of language is undoubtedly a serious concern. Though deeply rooted in regional/ local experiences, tribal narratives often uphold an insightful attitude to life. As tribal societies are very much community conscious so in their narratives one would certainly notice a landmark legacy of community-identity. By nature, community-identity is often impersonal. In contrast, personal identity is an individual attribute and therefore, unique. The point of my argument here, is, in many tribal narratives the borderline of personal identity and community-identity hardly exists and these are more complementary than antagonistic.
In this paper I would use Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar’s debut novel The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey (2014) as case study to explore the impersonal nature of community-identity alongside the prominence of personal identity. Hansda uses the European form of novel (which is quite individualistic in nature) to tell the story of an indigenous community. As it is the first novel originally written in English language to be set entirely among Santhals and it charts the gradual changes of a Santhal society along with time, the narrative deserves a critical evaluation in question of the cultural evolution of the community. I would also attempt to find out the uniqueness of Santhal identity in relation to the concerned cultural space and topography.
Keywords: Tribal cultural space, oral and written tribal narratives, community-identity, ethnicity, personal identity
In this proposed paper I will attempt a close examination of some major socio-cultural transformations caused mainly by cross-border migration and issues like belongingness and transcultural identity with specific reference to two novels of Amitav Ghosh, namely The Glass Palace (2000) and The Hungry Tide (2005). In both these novels Ghosh has introduced multiple instances of cross-border migration and thus focused on issues like national and cultural belonging, ethnic identity and the relevant realities of multicultural society. The paper would also explore how the cultural reality in the Indian sub-continent could never be analyzed by any particular set of ideas for its essentially intrinsic nature of diversity.
Key words: Cross-border migration, globalization, cultural hybridity, Transcultural identity, belongingness, ethnicity, multiculturalism, cultural diversity
For my purpose I would like to take Amitav Ghosh’s The Glass Palace (which is more a product of aesthetic imagination than historical representation) and Sudha Shah’s The King in Exile (which is less a fictional representation than a historical documentation) as case studies and attempt a critical examination of the concept of border essentially as ideological, generating and reinforcing a sense of cultural difference. Another point of investigation is to find how cross-border exile as a strategy became politically successful during the expansion of British Empire in the Indian subcontinent. I would also attempt to show how the exilic movement of the Burmese Royal family to the Indian town of Ratnagiri (near the present-day Mumbai) is intrinsically connected with empirical issues of power and capital; the cultural memories of home and belonging and Ghosh’s tricky treatment of hybridity in representing individual sense of identity.
Keywords: Cross-border Exile, Cultural Space, Memory, Hybridity, Negotiation of Identity.
Indian culture does not like to see a Mother only as the biological parent. From the days of the Puranas, the Mother is revered as someone placed even higher than the Heaven (‘Swargadopi Gariyosi’). In Indian culture, the Mother is the source of existence, power, nourishment and an icon of nature. In the epics (both Ramayana and Mahabharata), one would easily find that the role of the Mother appears as the biological parent, so as the Dhatri (the Nourisher), Shakti (Icon of Power) and Devi, (the Goddess and the Protector). Even in Indian English literature of the twenty-first century, one would find the role of the Mother as something like that of the traditional practice, because Indian culture has ever remained enough strong to resist any transnational, transcultural influence despite the history of multiple defeats of the Indians in the hands of the invaders/colonizers.
In this paper we would take Amitav Ghosh’s novel The Hungry Tide (2004) as case study, in which the Mother has been represented multi-dimensionally. Among the fictional characters, Kusum, her mother and Moyna have been presented as biological mothers who are seen caring for their children at various moments. As the symbol of Dhatri is concerned, appears Nilima, who works for the social welfare and healthcare of the local impoverished people. The omnipresence of the local deity Bonbibi in the socio-cultural space (in the folk life) of the Sundarbans could be seen as the representation of the Mother Goddess as protector.
In the present paper I would take the novel Chotti Munda and His Arrow (1980; trans. 2002) as case study and like to focus on the coexistence of legends, folklores and history in the cultural space of a particular section of Indian tribal population, namely, the ‘Munda’ people, whose socio-political world has been authoritatively depicted in this narrative by Mahasweta Devi, one of the best known activist-writers of modern India. I would also concentrate on the process of making a legend in a tribal society: how an individual becomes a hero and secures a place in the folkloric history of his community. I believe that the present conference promises to make opportunity for a timely exploration in a hitherto neglected cultural space.
Keywords: History, Legend, Folklore, Cultural Space, Orality and Songs
In Chotti Munda and His Arrow, Mahasweta Devi champions the rights of the exploited and oppressed bonded labourers and the dispossessed tribal people of the Munda community. She advocates for the political and economic mobilization of such severely marginalized tribal people, their plight even in independent India and she also emphasizes the need to protect and foster tribal languages and identity. My paper attempts to unravel the nature of the politics of marginalization by pointing out the levels of exploitation as depicted in the narrative. This paper also attempts to raise a voice in favour of an open, diverse but harmonious space, where every human being is free to live without anyone gazing at them.
Probably due to a long period of communist rule, the abolition of the system of landed aristocracy and the implementation of local democratic governance in the rural level earlier than other states in India, the scenario of the caste-based oppression, deprivation and social humiliation of the Dalits in West Bengal seems to be tuned in a rather low level. But the spirit of hypocritical victimization on the basis of class (‘bhadralok’/ ‘chhotolok’ binary*) burns into flame as it includes the question of caste.
In this paper I would focus on the first Bangla Dalit autobiography by Manoranjan Byapari—Itibritte Chandal Jeevan (2012), which could be considered as a representation of rage gathering impetus from an interplay between caste and class. Dalit autobiographical literature is basically a poetics of pain based on the politics of socio-cultural exclusion. In his personal narrative Byapari wages a war against the impotent political system which does not voice for the emancipation of the powerless, poor and the illiterate Dalit. I would also show how Byapari’s quest for an identity—both of a human being and a writer—has been expressed in his autobiography and how his exemplar odyssey opens up a new avenue in the world of Bangla Dalit literature.
*These are two Bangla words meaning educated, middle/upper-middle class and upper caste people (‘bhadralok’) and illiterate, poor, working class and low-caste people (‘chhotolok’).
As this is the twenty fifth year of the publication of Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines (1988), I decide to take this novel as my case study here. The very title of the novel is metaphoric: borders between the nations and also between the people. Along with the theme of travel and the historical event of the Partition of India, the novel critically examines the issue of border both in the spatial and temporal frames. How the questions of citizenship and belonging are connected and to which extent do they collectively contribute to the issue of identity—both national and cultural, is an important dimension of the narrative. Moreover, the dissolution of the border between history and fiction is another charm of the novel. Transgressing the border is phenomenal of twenty first century life and how far Ghosh’s novel remains relevant to its readers still after twenty five years is the focus of my paper.
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Much contemporary Anglophone African literature responds with a mythical imagination to the historical experience of European Colonialism. Historically colonialism acted very much like a Renaissance factor in Africa’s cultural potential, as it accelerated a transformation of people’s existence and consciousness there. Christianity, along with the Western educational system, dismissed pre-colonial Africa as primitive and monolithic and embarked on creating ‘new’ Africans who used the new vectors of power and knowledge to create a ‘better’ civilization. But the politico-economic evils of colonialism left their marks on the politics of several African nation-states even after their independence. In West Africa, Nigeria seems to be affected most severely by continuous ‘coups and riots’, ‘tribal massacres and famine’. It’s quite absurd for a Nigerian or any postcolonial diasporic writer to take an absolutely Kantian ‘art-for-art’s sake’ stand, for most of them are somehow committed to the land of their origin. In the narratives of the diasporic Nigerian writers living in Europe/ America, the ‘chaotic’ home has been evoked so consistently that the myth of misrule became a topic of choice.
This paper, using Ben Okri’s ‘The Famished Road Sequence’ (1989-1998) as a case study, argues that unlike earlier diasporic West African novelists Okri offers a vision of transformation that is set not in the cultural past of Nigeria, but in a hopeful future which is expected to emanate from an apparently chaotic present. To Okri, a writer’s duty is to “transform reality, while being truthful to life”. Like the cyclic stages of life, Okri’s Nigeria in the three novels of The Famished Road sequence moves from childhood to maturity and then to death. But the crucially employed ‘Abiku’ myth reminds us that death does not close everything: it is the death of the “old ways” only. A transformed democracy is now expected to be born, a nation more humane, where people would “go on living as if history is a dream”.
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Every identity has its own positionality as well as marginality (as marginality implies a centrality at the same time), and the discourse of identity being a relative one, is very much time and space specific. In the last three decades, the efflorescence of Anglophone narratives by the novelists of previously colonized countries of Asia and Africa, addressing the issues of culture, language, citizenship, gender and most importantly identity, with regard to the impact of marginalization and exclusion on the one hand and globalization on the other has garnered serious academic attention. In those narratives, the socio-political, cultural and psychic boundaries along with the discourse of power and the various forms of exclusion and oppression are being repeatedly challenged and often successfully dismantled.
In this paper, my humble contribution to scholarship lies in pointing out the identity crisis of individual/s and group, which gathers momentum from a feeling of subalternity and also the politics of exclusion sponsored by the state itself. For this purpose I’d use Amitav Ghosh’s The Hungry Tide (2004) as a case study. My endeavour also attempts to establish the view that within the discourses of power and history, culture and language, identity is not something essentialist, but ‘a matter of becoming as well as being’ (Hall: 1990). In The Hungry Tide, Ghosh’s preoccupation seems to be to make audible the marginalized or subaltern voices and their dilemmas: between the privileged and the subaltern, lies the conflict that inspires one of the basic fibres of the fictional narrative.
Keywords: Identity, Cultural Space, Boundary, Marginality and Exclusion, Subalternity, Globalization.