Literature-Critique

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nationalist movement. His movement for the country’s freedom was accompanied
with his struggle against inhuman cruelties with the so-called untouchables.
Tarashankar saw the new polarization in the society that was vividly depicted
in his vast literary works. He could feel the mood of the age and wrote rather
documented life on the edge – life and struggle of marginal people like ‘Santal’,
‘Dom’, ‘Kahar’, ‘Bagdi’, ‘Bauri’ i.e. so-called untouchables. He amazingly penetrated
the hearts and minds of such people and drew their lively pictures.
Also Tarashankar was a member of the decaying land-lord aristocracy. He
has described the gradual fall of the feudal system, the continued exploitation of the
poorest of the poor, and the contemporary contradictions of the rural society. His
works remained mostly confined to the dry desolate western part of Bengal and the
characters were mostly drawn from the downtrodden and exploited people of that
region for which he is sometimes referred as Bengal’s Hardy.
He professed his political ideas through his novels. He included sociopolitical
problems of Bengal in his novels. War, famine, communal riots, economic inequality
– these are the subject-matters of his novels.
Especially Tarashankar depicted the subtle conflict between feudal
traditionalism and bourgeois modernity. Among his vast works, Jalsha-Ghar (The
Dance Room), Dhatri-Devata (Goddess Mother), Kalindi, Kavi (The Poet), Gana-
Devata (People’s God), Panchagram (Five Villages), Hashuli Banker Upakatha (The
Legend of Hashuli Bank), Arogyoniketan (The Hospital) are the principal ones.
Especially Hashuli Banker Upakatha can be regarded as a grand masterpiece
of Realist fiction. Here the writer, like a sociologist, tells us the tale of a local tribe’s
own lifestyle, primitive culture, faiths, internal conflict and tragic fall. The writer also
narrates the story of struggle of two opposing generations and the rule of eternal
victory of muscle-power.
Dhatri-Devata, Gana-Devata and Panchagram are called an epic trilogy in
total set in the region of Birbhum. Tarashankar tells us the story of Indian mass
uprising in this trilogy.
Jalsha-Ghar is a novella based on the historical fact of the defeat of feudal
aristocracy to newly emerged bourgeoisie.
Kalindi is a fiction of two political activists from an inhabitance of the Santals –
one of them is a Marxist and the other one, a follower of Gandhi. At the end, both of
them embrace imprisonment and the writer seems to be more sympathetic to the first
one.
Kavi is a tale of a proletariat folk poet who represents the all times Bengali
poetasters.
As Tolstoy was Gandhi’s role model, he was a source of inspiration for
Tarashankar too. Especially like Tolstoy, he gave almost his each novel an epic
proportion.
In some works, he made such issues as justice, ethics and humanity as his
themes. Saptapadi (Seven Circles) and Bicharak (The Judge) are such two works.
Tarashankar followed Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophies surrounding nonviolence.
In his early life, he was a political activist of the Indian National Congress
party. Sometimes he was even imprisoned and persecuted. He joined the anti-
Fascist movement and later became a member of independent India’s parliament.