Vol 9 No 4

Volume 9, Number 4, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n4.00

With the publication Volume 9, number 4, the journal enters 10 years of scholarly Open Access publishing. The year 2018 will celebrated in various ways; there will be Special Issues, awards for authors and more. At the same time, we feel, it is time to introspect the context of the making of the journal and its future. In the year 2008 when the founding editors thought of promoting researches in Interdisciplinary Studies in Humanities and Open Access utilizing the new web technology, we entered a vast area of emerging technology. So primarily it was our tryst with technology that led us to explore and organize the necessary tools for creating a journal. Now when we look back at what went to the making of the journal, we understand that we were truly inspired by the promise of the web facilitating communications in wholly new way. Of course, we were amateurs in the field of scholarly publishing, but at the same time we were seeking to implement certain international standards and norms at a time when research publication rarely followed those criteria in India.

Along with the promise of instant global communication, the new web technology also brought a curse, the curse of predatory publishing. In an editorial in 2013 we spoke of the controlling measures to be taken in India—the formulation of quality factors and creation of new citation index, in order to save the Indian publication industry from great infamy it was accumulating. After few years the Indian government agencies took up some corrective measures, especially the creation of a dynamic journal list for promotion and appointment of teachers. But confusion and ambiguities still remain as certain deciding key terms like ‘refereed’, ‘national’, ‘international’ ‘impact factor’ etc have not been addressed in any way. So, the use of fake or counterfeit Impact Factors (which is a trademark property of Thompson Reuters) continues to confuse researchers and make the publications more questionable. In order to address this also, India needs a neutral citation index that would provide some quality factors at least in the Indian context.

Much of the confusion and exploitation of the new technology by the predatory publishers can be attributed to the lack of discussion about the principles of Open Access publishing in India. Because of the lack of professionalism and bureaucratic approach to education, the author-pays model quickly became a condemned one, whereas on the other hand, the demands of the API forced many true researchers to go with the predatory publishers. At present, Indian stake holders are in urgent need of formulations of Open Access policies and creation of viable business and academic models in publishing in India. Otherwise, the phenomenon of, what P. K. Nayar has recently called “arranged academia” will continue to plague us evermore.

 Volume 9, Number 4, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n4.r02

Postcolonial formations lead to the spaces of cultural consumption where it is open to scrutiny way beyond the polemical and political correctness of an individual or a State. Several instances in the literary tradition of India clearly indicate that whenever the feeble voice of the margins have grown loud and strong enough to be heard at the centre, the centre is left with no other option but to ‘listen’. One such text that represents this phenomenon in the contemporary times is Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar recipient Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar’s The Adivasi Will Not Dance (2015). A collection of ten short stories dealing with Adivasis from Jharkhand, referred as Santhals, the book is an insightful representation of Santhali life and culture.

The title story, “Adivasi will not Dance” is a moving tale of Mangal Murmu, an old man who has trained dance troupes for years but refuses to sing and dance for a high profile function. Shekhar writes that a major inspiration for this short story came to the writer in 2013 when President Pranab Mukherjee was visiting Jharkhand to inaugurate an ambitious thermal plant project which also implied that Adivasis will be displaced from their lands making them ‘homeless’. This had led to minor agitation amongst the Adivasis as it did not correspond with the egalitarian view of the State and responded well to the fears of Karl Marx, propounded in his theory, the ‘Law of Increasing Poverty’ in which ‘the rich get richer and the poor get poorer’. In his narrative, he renders voice and words to the unspoken sentiments of the Santhals. Breaking the stereotype where the margins remain tacit under the tyrannous utterance of the centre, Mangal Murmu announces,

‘We Adivasis will not dance anymore’ – what is wrong with that? We are like toys – someone presses our ‘ON’ button, or turns a key in our backsides, and we Santhals start beating rhythms on our tamak and tumdak, or start blowing tunes on our tiriyo while someone snatches away our very dancing grounds. Tell me, am I wrong? (p. 170)

The last lines of the short story raise some deep-seated questions validating the growing industrialisation at the cost of the tribals, making the reader ponder over the booming economy and rethink of Victor Hugo’s quote that states, “…there is always more misery among the lower classes than there is humanity in the higher…” (p. 7). He writes,

We will sing and dance before you but tell us, do we have a reason to sing and dance? Do we have a reason to be happy? You will now start building the power plant, but this plant will be the end of us all, the end of all the Adivasi. These men sitting beside you have told you that this power plant will change our fortunes, but these same men have forced us out of our homes and villages. We have nowhere to go, nowhere to grow our crops. How can this power plant be good for us? And how can we Adivasis dance and be happy? Unless we are given back our homes and land, we will not sing and dance. We Adivasis will not dance. The Adivasi will not – (p. 187)

The first short story, “The Eat Meat!” is about Panmuni-jhi and her husband Biram-Soren, who get transferred to Vadodara after living for almost two decades in Bhubaneshwar. Mr Rao, their new landlord considers that ‘people believe in purity’ (6) in this city. Mr Rao also suggests them to give up their non-vegetarian food and abstain from revealing their tribal identity. The Sorens do ‘confirm’ to the assumed rules of the State as Shekhar appropriately mentions, “In Odisha, Panmuni-jhi could be Santhal, an Odia, a Bengali. In Gujarat, she had to be only a Gujarati” (p. 14). However, the conspicuous unity in the divided neighbourhood is rightly captured by the author towards the end of the short story when the Gujarat riots take place in 2002 and the neighbours come together against the rioters.

One of the most heart-rending tales of poverty and helplessness in the collection is the third story, titled, “November is a Month of Migrations”. Epitomised through a 20-year-old girl, Talamai who is going to Bardhaman district of West Bengal with her family to plant rice and other crops in farms owned by zamindars of Bardhaman depicts the extremes that poverty can lead to. At the railway platform, she is approached by a young jawan who carries out a sexual transaction with her only for “two pieces of cold bread pakora and a fifty-rupee note” (p. 42). This particular short story infuriated many readers and critics and Shekhar was accused for objectifying the Adivasi women. However, there was another reading to the short story that clearly indicated that in no way was the story meant to titillate but reflected the painful, disturbing and sad state of Adivasi for whom every day was a struggle to survive. The writer also commented that even with its very explicit descriptions of sex there was nothing romantic about it.

Other short stories in the collection like, “Sons” is about Kalpana-di, wife of a corrupt bank manager and her spoilt son, Suraj. In contrast to Kalpana-di, her cousin Vidya-di is introduced who has a humble family. Her son, Raghu becomes a doctor towards the end of the story whereas Suraj ends up in jail. The author in his most simplistic style and language indicates, “We Adivasi are very bad at stealing. Corruption isn’t in our blood” (p. 32). Shekhar, taking his cue from other aspects of Santhali life creates his other stories in the collection around Santhali characters and their experiences within and beyond themselves. “Getting Even” is a story of dreadful revenge, where a boy, perhaps of nine or ten year old is implicated on false charges of rape of a four year old girl. “Eating with the Enemy” is about Sulochana and husband’s another wife, Mohini and their bonding over needy/greedy times. “Blue Baby” is the story of love and betrayal where Gita marries Suren but carries a love-child with Dilip, her lover before marriage. “Baso-jhi” is about Basanti and her dreadfully painful experiences with superstition in the Adivasi society. First, she is thrown away by her own sons accusing her to be witch and then charged by Pushpa, her new refuge, to be a dahni – witch (p. 122) after three consecutive deaths take place in Sarjomdih. “Desire, Divination and Death” narrates the story of Subhashini and her ailing son and “Merely a Whore” traverses through the bestial terrain of prostitution through Sona, the protagonist.

On the surface, The Adivasi Will Not Dance may well appear to be a riveting tale of the face-off between the tribals and the State, but a layered interpretation of the stories may read it to be a confrontation of the hierarchies of the society –  the powerful and the powerless, the rich and the poor. Despite dealing with events like human-trafficking, prostitution, women’s abuse, witch-hunting etc. The Adivasi Will Not Dance is perhaps not a politicised writing. Contradicting the allegations that his stories are politically charged, Shekhar remarks that his book isn’t “political in the electoral sense rather it explores themes that are socio-political” (The Hindu, December 02, 2016).

Creating a kind of counter-narrative to the Euro-centric one, clearly reminding us of Baldwin’s more than appropriated phrase ‘bear the burden’ by Achebe where he mentions that English as a language has the ability to bring out the native experience without altering much with the language (Ashcroft, 2009, p. 109), The Adivasi Will Not Dance liberally but very appropriately uses words from Santhali language. Words common in the Santhali vocabulary like jawan (soldier), pitha (sweet dish), lungi, gamcha, saya (types of wearing cloth), mathabhangi (broken head) are used within the sentences without giving any appendix. Quite unapologetic about refashioning the English language to suit the Santhali sentiments, he comments, “Glossaries are destructive. You come across a word, then you have to turn 200 pages to see its meaning, and then turn back to the story, It’s best to go with the flow” (The Hindu, December 02, 2016).

The stories mainly depict the lives of Santhals from the Jharkhand region, constantly struggling to live their life with dignity in this mineral-rich land where corporate takeovers and development anthem is trending. The characters in the collection may/may not be real but the issues, the violence and the treatment that he depicts in his fiction is surely relevant to our times as the Ideologies of State has the potential to be major threat to the democratic and diverse fabric of the Indian society. In nutshell, these distinctive stories attempt towards sensitizing the society regarding various issues in society and especially the ones with the Santhals. What Pablo Picasso once said about great art: “Art is never being chaste…Where it is chaste, it is not art” (p. 182) holds true in this context as well. I echo the same sentiment as the writer himself, “What the point is of just liking a book…They should bring about some change” (The Hindu, December 02, 2016).

References

Ashcroft, B. 2009. Caliban’s Voice: The Transformation of English in Post-Colonial Literatures. New York: Routledge.

Hugo, V. 1994. Les Miserbles. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Classics.

Picasso as quoted in Kush Kalra and Priyanka Barupal. 2013. Law, Sex and Crime. New Delhi: Vij Books.

Radhika. S. (2016, December 2). Review: Hansda Shekhar’s The Adivasi Will Not Dance is a no-holds-barred account of life on the margins. The Hindu. Retrieved from http://www.thehindu.com/books/literary-review/Review-Hansda-Shekhar%E2%80%99s-The-Adivasi-Will-Not-Dance-is-a-no-holds-barred-account-of-life-on-the-margins/article16442867.ece

Virender Pal

Assistant Professor of English, University College Kurukshetra. ORCID ID is 0000-0003-3569-1289. Email: p2vicky@gmail.com

  Volume 9, Number 4, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n4.17

Received August 15, 2017; Revised December 07, 2017; Accepted December 15, 2017; Published December 25, 2017.

Abstract

Caste system is a reality in India and the discrimination based on caste is probably the most horrifying truth. Many studies have been conducted on the psychological impact of untouchability on the Shudras, but U.R. Anathamurthy’s writings concentrate more on the impact of practising untouchability on the Brahmins. His novels and short stories showcase the impact of practising untouchability on the Brahmins. Brahmins live lives of automatons where their every move and action from birth to death is governed by some precedent of the distant past. They live a life that is sterile and barren. The paper studies the impact of practising caste system on the Brahmins in the writings of U.R. Ananthamurthy.

Keywords: caste, Brahmin, oppression, Hinduism, rituals, customs.

Edited by Yves Gambier and Luc van Doorslaer

Amsterdam/Philadelphia, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2016, xvi+380 pp., €95 (hardback), ISBN 9789027258724.

Reviewed by

Chunmei Shao
Doctor Student, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangdong, China & Lecturer, Hubei Polytechnic University. ORCID: 0000-0001-6139-9375. Email: 38233142@qq.com

 Volume 9, Number 4, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n4.r01

Interdisciplinarity found its way in Translation Studies since its very beginning as an independent discipline, but how Translation Studies interact with other disciplines in terms of foundations, possibilities, epistemological significance, challenges and trends lacks systematic research. That constitutes the major reason that the book is a timely welcome. And this book is a unique one because it features two authors in each chapter. Co-authors include one translation researcher and one from the interacting discipline both of whom are professionals in the interdisciplinary meeting point which makes a rather loose but real interdisciplinary research community. Co-authoring makes it much clearer for researchers to see whether such interaction is a one-way story or a two-way traffic. As interdisciplinarity only takes shape where two or more disciplines form a systematic and reciprocal relationship other than mere cross-disciplinarity. Just as the title indicates, disciplinary borders are not stable like university departments, Translation Studies is crossing borders of other disciplines. Paradoxically, Translation Studies gained its independent disciplinary status via the other way around, namely, multiple disciplines dealt with translational phenomenon which made it came to the fore. So how those multiple disciplines interact with Translation Studies nowadays and whether there emerges new disciplines or fields that have close links with Translation Studies will be manifested partially in the book. Partially here is quite positive due to the fact that the editors targets this book as an open and introductory one which will be followed by series as Translation Studies experiences interdisciplinary relationship with at least dozens of other disciplines or fields. Keep Reading

L.R. Duskaeva¹ & Yu.M. Konyaeva²

¹Doctor of Philology, Head of the Department of Speech Communication, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia. ORCID id 0000-0002-9142-1980

²Candidate of Philology, senior lecturer of the Department of Speech Communication, St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg, Russia. Email: lrd2005@yandex.ru

Volume 9, Number 4, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n4.13

Received July 17, 2017; Revised November 24, 2017; Accepted November 30, 2017; Published December 09, 2017.

Abstract

The article is intended to substantiate the allocation of genre semantic-stylistic categories and to show sequentialization of the use of language means in a speech genre as a text-type. Genre category is understood as a hierarchical relationship of a composite-text technique and multi-level linguistic resources that transmit specific of the genre model meanings – communicativeness, reference, and illocution. The categories, which means form a speech genre, are the following: dialogism, illocutionary, and referentiality, which are, on the one hand, in the hierarchical relations and, on the other hand, in the relations of interaction and intersection. The means of expression of dialogism, reference and illocution can be represented in a functional-semantic field, including the micro fields, as these meanings variably appear in speech genres. We illustrate the categorical-linguistic analysis on the example of two information portrait speech genres, differing in illocutive directionalities of the message: presentation of a previously unknown person to the audience or a reminder of the well-known personality.

Keywords: myth, binary opposition, structuralism, dyadic structure, chaos, space, good, evil, antithesis, Anima, Animus, oxymoron, antonym, protagonist, antagonist, historical consciousness, artistic knowledge, poetics.

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Sagrolikar Kapil Irwantrao

PhD Scholar, the English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad. ORCID: 0000-0002-4375-2267. Email: kaps4litt@gmail.com

Volume 9, Number 4, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n4.12

Received July 17, 2017; Revised November 24, 2017; Accepted November 30, 2017; Published December 09, 2017.

Abstract

This paper unearths the way the late nineteenth and early twentieth century social reform movements and related contestations have endeavoured to (re)assert, (re)sanction and (re)claim male supremacy, male dominance on the one hand and on the other hand ventured to prolong Hindu women’s dependence, marginalization and the perennial subdued life. Women’s life, role and social status had been what Derrida calls, “under erasure”. On the one hand, it has been accepted to exist with equal honour, respect, right and dignity on par with the men in the society and at the same time their dependence on male, marginalization and secondary position has always been practised. Subsequently this play of acceptance and denial has helped patriarchy to persist women’s lifelong subdued status and role.

Keywords: quasi-emancipation, reform from within, assenting voices of dissent, women as site, white woman’s brown burden.

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Joydeep Bhattacharyya

Assistant Professor of English, Kurseong College, Darjeeling, India. orcid.org/0000-0002-0329-3756. Email: b_joydeep31@rediffmail.com

Volume 9, Number 4, 2017 I Full Text PDF

DOI: 10.21659/rupkatha.v9n4.11

Received October 30, 2017; Revised November 20, 2017; Accepted November 30, 2017; Published December 09, 2017.

Abstract

Indian theatre, after Independence, often engages with contentious issues, though squeamishness about communal realities, particularly the Hindu-Muslim relations and politics, seems to persist. Asghar Wajahat’s Unborn in Lahore and Salman Khurshid’s Sons of Babur are two examples where Indian theatre daringly questions the Islamised and the Hinduised characters of Pakistan and India respectively, confronting the communalised Hindu-Muslim identities and relations head-on. In the present study, it remains to be seen how the two plays interrogate the narrative of arch-rivalry between the two communities and, by extension, the two countries, whose present is always haunted by the spectre of past. The study aims to see how the ‘true’ history of communal rivalry has been reread by ‘false’ history in the plays; how the rereading rehistoricises the naturalised rivalry; and how the plays empower the suppressed voices of harmony, enriching a theatrical tradition of critique and plurality.

Keywords: Hindu, Muslim, India, Pakistan, partition, Indian theatre.

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