https://ir.vidyasagar.ac.in/jspui/handle/123456789/6751 2026-04-26T21:19:47Z https://ir.vidyasagar.ac.in/jspui/handle/123456789/6793 Title: Nationalism and Ethnic Consciousness in the Select Poems of Monalisa Changkija Authors: Rakshit, Anup Kumar Abstract: Though Northeast India is distinct from the mainland India as a home of diverse tribal communities and their variegated life-styles, cultures, languages, food-habits and religions, “the nuances of the regional and local histories of Northeast India are of no interest to the political formations associated with Hindu majoritarianism” (Baruah 49). Considering the lack of devotion for the Indian nation in Northeasterners and naming them as the “Mongolian fringe” (Caroe), the national mainstream becomes a force to teach them the Indian value system and to impose it over their ethnic distinctiveness. Under the threat of nationalism – “an inclusive and liberating force” that “broke down the various localisms of region, dialect, custom and clan …” (Smith 1) the Northeasterners are now facing tremendous challenges to protect their ethnic identity. In this context, this paper attempts to examine how Monalisa Changkija as an Ao-Naga poet, through her poems from Weapon of Words on Pages of Pain (1993) and Monsoon Mourning (2007), explores the crisis of the Naga communities under the assimilative compulsion with mainstream and their ethnic consciousness to voice against this statesponsored force. Changkija’s search for “strength / in the sweet assurances / of strangers” from alien lands or her experience of how their “dreams” become “the nightmare now” makes the readers conscious to realize the threat to their localism and customs. At the same time, her voice to “stop this endless nightmare”, her command to not waste time advising them “guidelines / on how to conduct” their life and “to attain total integration / into the country’s mainstream” reveal their ethnic consciousness as well as a strong question over the so called concern of the nation towards Northeasterners. Description: pp:01-12 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z https://ir.vidyasagar.ac.in/jspui/handle/123456789/6792 Title: The Necropolitical Residue: Re-versing the Metanarrative of Welfare State in Mahasweta Devi's “Pterodactyl, Puran Sahay, and Pirtha” Authors: Panda, Arnab Abstract: A nation-state, as Benedict Anderson rightly proclaimed, is an ‘imagined community’ invariably galvanized around certain culturally constructed and socio-historically disseminated metanarratives. Infact, the idea of a nation-state is itself an absurd metanarrative forged to gag thousands of dissentious little narratives gushing out of the fringes. Thus, this constant friction between coercive grand narratives and dissentious little narratives epitomizes the dialectics of any nation-state. In order to silence these destabilizing narratives and thereby safeguard their own existence, governmentality programmes often evolve into constrictive necropolitical machines inclined to eliminate selected 'bare lives' by ‘conferring upon them the status of living dead’. This violent process is again strategically camouflaged and to some extent justified by utilizing some other metanarratives (modernity and progress in our case) and thus the Mobius strip rolls on. In such a recurring loop of grand narratives, is it at all possible for the subaltern narratives to gush out of the labyrinth so as to move out of the ‘bare’ gaze? That is precisely what this paper will explore through a close reading of Mahasweta Devi’s story “Pterodactyl, Puran Sahay, and Pirtha”. By using Achille Mbembe’s idea of ‘necropolitics’, this paper will reveal how the nation-state strategically produces necrospaces through bio-sampling only to shield its constitutional metanarrative. Complementing Mbembe, this paper will also borrow Giorgio Agamben’s ideas of ‘Homo Sacer’, and ‘Bare Life’ in order to unmask the concealed agenda of the necropolitical complex. Finally, this paper will focus on the inevitable supernatural turn of these long-ignored narratives (the metaphor of pterodactyl and spirits of communal forefathers in this story) not only as a tactic to capture the attention of a powerful center but also as a strategy of symbolic resistance against the whimsical imposition of another grand narrative called modernity. Description: PP:13-23 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z https://ir.vidyasagar.ac.in/jspui/handle/123456789/6791 Title: Interrogating the Internal Gender Oppression within the Dalit Culture: A Critical Study of Malika Amar Shaikh’s I Want to Destroy Myself Authors: Mondal, Arup Kumar Abstract: Malika Amar Shaikh in her memoir I Want to Destroy Myself, translated from Marathi into English overtly criticizes the gendered discriminatory structure embedded in the apparently democratic and emancipatory Dalit ideology. It problematizes the Phule- Ambedkarite ideals of Dalit movement. Malika’s interrogation explores the double standard of the so-called crusader of freedom. She expresses her disillusionment in her relationship with her husband Namdeo Dhasal, one of the Dalit leaders and founder members of Dalit Panthers movement. The question of gender discrimination is overtly highlighted in her memoir. She refers to her personal life where the question of right and liberty of a Dalit woman poses a challenge to the Dalit patriarchal set up which compounds itself by internalizing the upper caste Brahmanical mores. She interrogates the authenticity of the male oriented Dalit struggle against caste discrimination as the Dalit revolutionaries are not free from gender discrimination. Dalit men fighting against one form of oppressive hierarchy constructs another form of internal oppressive structure. Malika’s reference to Namdeo as a “scripture-quoting Mahar” establishes her disapproval of her husband unconsciously imitating the oppressive hierarchical structure in justifying the gender discrimination. She criticizes the “foul language” and “ugly behaviour” of the ‘opportunist’ Namdeo. There’s a marked gap between propaganda and practice in Dalit culture and ideology. The loneliness and self-disgust that she felt destroyed her inner self. She has defined her real femininity as somewhere between aggressivity and sensitivity. She wishes to strike a blow to the “ugly face of patriarchal culture.” She has unburdened herself to express her loneliness. The interrogation of Dalit internal patriarchy by a Dalit woman adds a new dimension to the Dalit intersectional analysis aiming at the independence of Dalit women from the shackles of subjugation. Description: PP:24-34 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z https://ir.vidyasagar.ac.in/jspui/handle/123456789/6790 Title: Politics of Providence: Reformist Discourses in Colonial India Authors: Mohapatra, Ashok K Abstract: As a rational and ethical system of God and a grand teleology, Providence has evinced robust faith in both Pagan and Christian cultures over the centuries in the Platonist, Neo- Platonist, Stoic, Epicurean, Catholic and Protestant traditions. Serving as a template for Humanism to align human will and enterprise with the divine moral purpose, necessities of nature and chance, providentialism was eventually played into history. All the large projects of evangelism, imperialism, messianism and apocalypse etc. were variously conceptualized in history, and these justified Providence in its teleological variations. This paper focuses on the iconic colonial figures like Raja Rammohun Roy, Bankimchandra Chatterji, and Rabindranath Tagore who invoked providence as the raison de être for British rule. Raja Rammohun Roy and Bankimchandra saw the positive benefits of European culture and modernity through British colonial rule. Tagore, for his part, thought that it was providential for India to be colonized by the British within the grand allegorical scheme of the civilizational eugenics of East meeting West. Description: PP:35-46 2023-01-01T00:00:00Z