Guest Column Biswamoy Pati

The 1930s saw a phase of militant anti-feudal/imperialist struggles in Orissa. A group of young people assembled in Cuttack (November 29 to December 6, 1935) for a conference that led to the formation of ‘Nabajuga Sahitya Sansad’. When the All India Progressive Writers’ Conference had its first conference in Lucknow (April, 1936), the ‘Sansad’ got linked with it. Some of the leading figures of the ‘Nabajuga Sahitya Sansad’ like Bhagabati Charan Pannigrahi and Gurucharan Patnaik established the Communist Party in Orissa (1937). The development of militant anti-feudal struggles in the princely states brought the Progressive Writers Movement in Orissa to a virtual halt because of the direct involvement of the communists in the state peoples’ struggle.

We examine here some of the creative productions of Ramprasad Singh, Bhagabati Charan and Sachidananda. Ramprasad’s Homasikha (Ordeal, l937) focuses on Dharani – a dispossessed peasant. We are told about Dharani’s poor social background, the refusal of the school teacher to teach him, the fate of his wife and child (who are mowed down and killed by a car driven by the drunken zamindar) and the treatment meted out to him by the police (who implicate him in false cases for which he sent to prison when he goes to them to complain against the zamindar). On being released from jail he gets associated with a form of protest that had traditionally attracted the uprooted rural poor – dacoity. In an attempt to set things right he kills the zamindar and surrenders to the police. During his trial at the Puri court, Dharani raises a basic question – ‘Are there no laws for the poor?’

The next writer is Bhagabati Charan, who had a very short literary career since he died at 35. He brought in the peasant and the tribal into Oriya literature in the most sensitive way. We have taken two of his short stories Hatudi O Da (Hammer and Sickle, 1936) and Shikar (The Hunt, 1936) for discussion. These two short stories incorporate themes related to the peasants and tribals. Their problems, consciousness and world-views are all neatly woven in the author’s creations to mirror the ‘real’ in society. The theme most prominent in them is that of exploitation, whether it is Sudama in Hatudi O Da or Ghinua in Shikar. These stories articulate the different levels of exploitation ranging from that of the landlords and the moneylenders to urban capitalists, as well as the integral links between them. Sudama, a poor peasant, is shown as a victim of all these three levels of exploitation. One thing that can be observed is a clear preference to focus on the internal exploiters – viz. the landlord who has everything on his side. In Shikar, Ghinua is caught between the exploitative landlord and the alien colonial authorities whose laws in effect defend the propertied, but about which, perhaps realistically, he is shown to have illusions.

Bhagabati Charan also projects changes in Orissa’s peasant society. He captures the interaction of a pre-capitalist society based on customary laws with imperialism, and the new system it created in Shikar. Similarly, the process of landlessness and proletarianisation of the peasantry is also a dominant theme. Sudama is forced to leave his village for the city. From a peasant he becomes a dock-worker in Calcutta. However, the implications of this process — painful separation from their families, alienation and toil in the city — come out sharply in the character of Sudama. Alongside one cannot miss the question of sexual exploitation involving the poor in the colonial urban world (Calcutta).

Next we take up three of Sachi Routroy’s stories. Anguthi (Finger, 1937) points to the pulls and pressures of the opposites – the status-quo dominated peasant consciousness and the forward-looking peasant movement which the Kisan Sabha attempted to create. The realistic end of Anguthi depicts the victory of the village goddess and the zamindar. The peasants not only accept the zamindar with a cheer, but also his proposal for an implicit enhancement of rent to build a temple for their village goddess. Routroy’s depiction of the gathering at the meeting is fascinating.

An anti-zamindari meeting which has been organised by the Kisan Sabha ends up reinforcing the hold of the zamindar over the people. At the same time the way in which the emaciated man slashes off his finger demonstrates the crucial role of mediators from among the rural poor in this process. Nevertheless the victory of the status-quo is not complete. For there is a slight ray of hope in Maguni Khan seeing through the game of the zamindar and walking out in protest.

The next two stories of Routroy focus on themes related to gender. The setting in Bisarjan (Immersion, 1933) is a procession to immerse the idol of Durga in Chowdhury Bazar (Cuttack). Ainthama appears with the stinking corpse of her dead infant son and some people in the crowd try to chase away this ‘mad woman’. Mishra babu, a locally respected man, asks them to kick her out. Ainthama suddenly recognises Mishra babu’s voice. She dumps the infant’s dead body at his feet and asks him to take care of ‘his son’ who had been troubling her considerably. The corpse is taken along with the procession and is cremated as the idol of Durga is immersed in the river.

Masani Phula (The flower of the cremation ground, 1940) focuses on a widow who dies after giving birth to a child. Everyone showers curses on this ‘fallen’ woman and no one is prepared to perform her last rites. Finally, Jagu Tihadi (who used to burn dead bodies in the cremation ground), along with some friends take the widow’s body to perform the last rites.

The villagers ask Jagu to keep the gold nose ring worn by the dead widow (as payment). Jagu refuses to take this and throws it into the flames. He expresses his disgust with the villagers, who could not understand a fellow human being.

As can be seen, these two stories show a serious concern for women and the problems faced by them in their everyday life. At the same time the writer appeals to patriarchy to change its ways of locating women from a purely bourgeois humanistic angle.

Although not a part of any major literary movement this literature is extremely valuable for its insights on the tribals, peasants, workers and women and the problems faced by them in their everyday life. The literary figures incorporated realism, which was a product of interactions with colonialism. Thus, they appropriated it and with its help critiqued that very same colonialism and class and gender exploitation. However, the theme of caste oppression and exploitation eluded them.