Haripada
Datta Examines
Human Mind and Society in Political Perspective
The
eighth decade of the twentieth century proved very
productive for Haripada Datta (b 1947). Later he passed
the last decade across the Atlantic. Returning from there, he published his epoch-making
novel Jonmo-Jonmantor (Birth and Rebirth, 2000),
which may be actually considered the second phase of the
novelist. In the first phase, he started his authorial
career as a short story writer with Surjer Ghrane
Phera and Joal Bangar Pala, both published in
1985. The first novel that he wrote was Eshane
Ognidaho (Conflagration in the North-East, 1986)
which took village people as its contents. The
additional significance of that novel was the use of
folk elements like proverbs, stories and rhymes in his
novel which he exercised in a more skilled way in his
second novel Ondhokupe Jonmothsob (Birth Ceremony
in the Black Hole, 1987). The third and epic novel that
he produced in that phase is Ojogor (A Boa), the
two volumes of which were published in 1989 and 1991
respectively.
Eshane Ognidaho is a novel of class struggle. The
novelist has presented the suppressed and oppressed
section of our society through it. But more than that
Haripada has shown the rise of that section in this
novel, which he has done through the protagonist Abdulla.
Abdulla is a peasant, but to maintain his livelihood he
has accepted frog gathering as his occupation which is
risky and goes beyond the practices of Islam. But he is
compelled to do it as many others of his society. Jamir
Ali and Fulbibi are two very significant characters who
are his parents. On the other hand Sabiha, the daughter
of a landlord, is his beloved lady.
But the irony lies in the fact that the landlord is the
main obstacle to all the prosperities of the peasant
section. He does not hesitate to make the land of other
poor people flood to save his own’s. though he gives
prior words, he does not supply water to their fields
from his shallow machine during dry season. Moreover he
arranges marriage of his daughter with Helal, an immoral
cousin of Sabiha. As decided previously, Abdulla comes
to the bamboo bushes in the evening of the marriage
ceremony, but Sabiha doesn’t come in fear of future
poverty. Thus Haripada Datta has set the context of his
novel in the agrarian impoverished society of our
country where being repeatedly deceived the common folk
rise up crossing all obstacles around them.
The other fellow peasant Mojid voiced highly against the
misdeed of the landlord and the representatives of the
local government like Member and Chairman of the Union
Parishad. As a result they plotted against him and he
was sentenced to jail. Returning from the jail, Mojid
becomes a flame of fire and encourages others to be
united against the oppressors. Resultantly, he is again
trapped and the people of Helal, the forthcoming
landlord, uproot his eyes, on a false charge of dacoity
in Kala Matubbar’s house. In the same time the claws of
Helal sharpen and sharpen – he begins to grab the lands
of small farmers. Abdulla and others desire to be
united, but time and again they fail till the last
incident occurs in which the people of Helal kill Kutub,
a fellow worker of Abdulla, and his wife, after
violation. Police come and directed by Helal arrest
Abdulla to take him to the Thana. The novelist has not
left the novel finish this way – one way the police take
Abdulla, the other way we see people of Abdulla’s
community swarm around the house of Helal, set fire to
his crop house and a spear pierces the chest of Helal
himself.
All the setting of the three novels of Haripada Datta is
the locality of Ghorashal, Kaligonj and Palash of
Gazipur district. Not only the characters of the novels
use the dialect but the narration also takes the touch
of that local language. Moreover the use of folk
elements also becomes prominent from the very debut
novel of Haripada which proves more successful in Ondhokupe Jonmothsob Herewith it is worthy to
mention that probably no other fictionist of Bangla
language has ever been so successful in using folk
elements in fiction.
In the second novel, the writer has used the love-story
of Hasan-Rubina as the main chain of all the episodes of
the novel. On the very outset, we meet Hasan waiting for
Rubina at the railway station. Rubina, a village girl
and fiancée of Hasan, has taken a job in a garments
factory situated at Dhaka very recently and she visits the village house on
weekends. But gradually Hasan feels that the contents of
Rubina’s talk only include cinema and other things of
the town society, they do not posses the sincerity as
they did beforehand. All her behaviours make Hasan
understand that the town culture and money are changing
the mind of Rubina. Rubina’s mother also doubts the
changes of her behaviour but they all are helpless as
Rubina is the only child of her parents and she is to
earn for the whole family. The reasons behind the
changes of Rubina spring up when an elderly colleague of
the office tells her of a magic way to earn money which
gradually drags her to the street. Does not she return
to her home and Hasan? Yes she does, when she realises
the falsity of all these activities.
Through the story of Hasan–Rubina, the novelist has
expressed the deterioration of rural mind coming in
contact of urban culture. But more than that he has
uphold the sincerity of love of village people as well.
But what poses as the final theme of the novel Ondhokupe Jonmothsob? – the revival of unity and
courage among the oppressed, as we observe in Eshane
Ognidaho. In Ondhokupe Jonmothsob, Farid Ali,
a farmer’s son, leads the whole community to the destiny
of unity, where Hasan plays a very vital role. They
raise their voice for the demand of increased labour
payment. The agents of the local administration do not
sit idly. Condemning Hasan in a dacoity case of Shibpur,
they give him inhuman punishment. This time the
co-fighters of Hasan fail to save him, but in the rains
they all unitedly succeed. When the Union Parishad
Member hires labourers from a nearby village, Hasan and
his fellow challenge them violently. When the Member
brings police who arrest and take Hasan to the Thana,
Hasan’s fellows kidnap the Member’s son and last of all
the Member get compelled to free Hasan from the Thana.
But the fight between the haves and have-nots do not end
here. The feudal agents detect Farid Ali as the root of
all revolutionary activities and to root him out they
kill Farid Ali. But the plot-makers of his death cannot
remain aloof from the eyes of Hasan. So when the Member
Mamud Ali visits the spot, he receives strike of a spade
on head from Hasan. The novel ends with the massage of
making all the people of the community to be alert
against the attack of the oppressors.
Though a reader may discover a semblance between the
themes of the first two novels of Haripada Datta, the
third and the epic novel Ojogor takes a different
and large historical time as its theme. Starting from
the second decade of the twentieth century the novelist
extends his story upto the eighth decade i.e. near about
the whole century takes place in this novel. And possibly
no other Bangla novel has taken so long a time of the
twentieth century. The other novels that have taken
the story and history of Bangla are Sangsaptak (1965) by Shahidulla
Kaiser, Padma Meghna Jamuna (1974) by Abujafar
Shamsuddin and Gayatree Sondhya (1994-5)
by Selina Hossain.
Haripada Datta has manipulated his story in such a way
that his story has intermixed with the history of Bangla
of the century. The people, their thoughts and ideas
as well as evolution of their mind have been the focal
ideas of the author.
Ojogor opens with Adom Ali, a poor peasant of this soil
and thus the novelist wants to highlight the have-nots
of our society. Through his novel Haripada actually does
not tell the history of the higher class, rather the
sorrows and sufferings of the underprivileged class come
forward. Presenting the people of the lower occupation,
Ojogor gradually presents itself as a completely
political novel. We can realise that every man of the
society is a victim of politics in his personal and
social behaviour. Gradually, political parties and the
movements of them appear prominently before us. Muslim
League, Congress, Khelaphot Movement, Swadeshi Movement,
Swaraj, Communist Party, Krishak Sabha everything
penetrate into the story line of the novel. In the
second century, parties like Muslim League and Congress
were out of reach of the commoners, they were the sole
property of the upper class people. The commoners began
to involve more and more when Swadeshi Movement began
its journey as a result of which the name of Kshudiram
became a popular word to the common folk. Later on we
observed the emergence of Krishok Sabha and Communist
Party – people who earlier worked for Swadeshi Movement
got gradually involved in the Communist Party. In Ojogor
such a character is Ananda Bagchi, a Mathematics Teacher
of a High School, who previously got imprisonment for
having connection with the Swadeshis now become an
active worker of the Communist Party. The politics of
Ananda Bagchi began to encourage the mass people of our
country for the first time. This transitory period of
Bangla has been demonstrated very successfully in
Gungmoy Manna’s Lokhindor Digar (1950) and
Sulekha Sanyal’s Nobankur (1956).
Earlier Congress was limited between Jamindarbabu, his
Nayeb, Nibaran Chakravarty, Headmaster Harish Mukherjee,
whereas Muslim League was for Syed Sher Ali, Abdul
Kuddus and Mofizuddin Chowdhury; on the other hand
Communist Party went deep of the society. ‘Kafer’ i.e.
infidel was the black mark that Communist Party had to
bear since its inception. Haripada Datta has delineated
all these socio-political elements from the very root of
their history. Meanwhile there appeared the question of
election for which we got a new party called Krishak
Praja Party led by Fazlul Huq. In the election Krishak
Praja Party candidate wins but the reality is they
become less interested to materialise the pre-election
slogans for which the common folk got so enthusiastic
regarding election. Later on those slogans become the
slogans of the Krishak Samity led by Ananda Bagchi.
Ojogor is a novel of direct political picture of
Bangla for which once upon a time the panic of bombing
and collecting money for the second world war come.
Ananda Bagchi and his party are dead against of any sort
of support to this colonial war – resultantly he gets
imprisonment again. In the meanwhile the question of
Pakistan, an independent state for the Muslims come into
limelight. In such a tumultuous time the Communist Party
begin the Tebhaga Movement where participation of the
Muslim activists is also noteworthy. But partition
becomes inevitable which initiates Hindu – Muslim riot
and we observe that the people who took part in Tebhaga
Movement try utmost to resist riot. Regarding riot,
migration of Hindus from Pakistan and Muslim from India,
Tebhaga Movement and torture by police of Tebhaga
activist Sabitri Roy’s Swaralipi (1952) and Pakadhaner Gaan (1956-8) and Akteruzzaman Elias’ Khoabnama (1996) are the most successful instances.
Political tumult was a common phenomenon during the
pre-liberation days, as it was in post liberation period
also. But nothing of them was for the common people of
the country. For that reason immediately after the
partition of 1947, the people of East Pakistan heard
that Urdu would be the mandatory language, there shall
have no place of Bangla. Moreover they heard that the
Communist Party had been banned as it was a party of the
Hindus. Gradually the common people began to realise
everything for which the liberation war of 1971 was
accelerated. To sketch the liberation war Haripada Datta
has mentioned the necessary political events of the
decades like: India – Pakistan war of 1965, division of
Communist Party, emergence of Awami League under the
leadership of Sheikh Mujib and his Six Point Movement
etc. The first part of the novel ends with the injured
teen boy Joinal, hurt by the hooligans of Chairman
Sekandar Ali in the procession to participate the
meeting of Bhashai.
At the beginning of the second part we meet Maulana Imam
Hossain Sultanpuri who explains before a meeting that
the demand of self-governance is similar to enmity of
Islam. He also demonstrates it as a conspiracy of the
Kafers. Alongside this opposition of self-governance,
Haripada Datta has delineated the movement for it also.
In a very meticulous way, the novelist has presented the
different opinions, ideologies and parties in favour and
against the political movements till the liberation war.
Thus the novel proceeds through the pre-liberation
period to a post-liberation era. After the war, we
observe that the freedom fight has been guaranteed as a
sole possession of the Awami League for which the youth
generation demoralises and after some years through the
famine of 1974, we reach 15 August 1975, when the radio
announces: Sheikh Mujib has been killed.
This political milieu of the country takes place through
the story of Khaleq and later on his son Joinal. Though Ojogor does not proceed with any particular
individuals, the characters like Khaleq and Joinal play
tremendously. In the pre and post partition day Khaleq
is a courageous activist of Tebhaga Movement and
Communist Party. During the mass movement of 1969
Khaleq’s son Joinal comes forth. Tormented by different
ideologies he falls in a fix which one he is to support.
Joinal feels that liberation movement should be the
priority but how much liberation will fulfill the needs
of the poor is a question to him. For this reason he
tells his mother, ‘Do you know what shall I be? I’ll be
a Sheikh Mujib and a Lenin’. Everyone knows that this
dilemma was a common question to the whole nation those
days.
The social development of the whole nation – of both
Hindu and Muslim – is also a consideration of the
novelist. All the professional groups, irrespective of
high or low, take place in the novel. How the couture of
‘untouchable’ decreased is also a major phenomenon of
Haripada’s novel. And in this context we see there occur
various conflicts like between the oppressor and the
oppressed, Hindu-Muslim, communist-non communist,
supporter and opposer of liberation war etc.
In the novel the symbol of an Ojogor i.e. boa is
used in a very skilled way. From the very beginning
pages the presence of it is felt. At first the slough seen. Remembering the cry of fox at dead
night from the Gajari jungle villagers assume the
presence of a boa there. Whenever the question of
injustice takes upper hand, the existence of the boa is
felt more and more. But last of all we discover the huge
snake in the briefcase of Joinal. After the liberation
war as the partisans of Awami League grab everything,
and the common people begin to be deprived for which
Joinal protests. As a result of such rebellious activity
when the Rakshibahini come to the village he is to go
for a hide. After the assassination he again comes out
and in the regime of Ziaur Rahman is compelled to meet
Shahid Master, the Chairman. Thus he bow downs to the
business of licensee and permits. From the chairman he
receives the briefcase which takes following
description:
Joinal walks with the briefcase in his hand. The empty
briefcase suddenly seems very heavy to him as if his
right hand would tear off for the weight of the
briefcase. All on a sudden he topples down in dark and
the briefcase opens out. Darker than the darkness of the
night the huge boa comes out and bites up Joinal’s right
hand.
In his first two novels Haripada Datta has tried to
present the victory of the proletariat people. But in Ojogor he does not do so. It is possible that after
his long experience the novelist has reached the truth
that Bangladesh can never be a nation free of evils,
inhumanity and immorality. As a result we do not get
Joinal as one victor even after all his active
struggles.
