Anil Gharai's 'Plaban': Disaster of public life/ অনিল ঘড়াই-এর ‘প্লাবন’ : গণজীবনের বিপর্যয়

Abstract

Anil Gharai’s ‘Plaban’ is written about the Disaster of public life, The deceit of the bourgeois minded, degradation of their values, corrupt mentality, political polarization, women’s femininity, their social status and deprivation-exploitation. As we know, the Tristar Panchayat system was introduced in West Bengal in 1973 for the purpose of rural development. Gram Panchayat, Panchayat Samiti and Zilla Parishad. The responsibility of managing the Gram Panchayat rests with the Pradhan and Upa-Pradhan. They are the ones who control the fate of the people of the village. So, after achieving the goal all these heartbreakers do not sit idly by. Then a kind of aggressive attitude is born in their mind. People's happiness and peace is destroyed by the violence and brutality of these so-called people’s leaders with an aggressive attitude. Storyteller Anil Gharai has brought before us through the story of Chaitir’s family how endangered the people of Palli are in the trap of personal politics in the post-independence era⁵ where there is no ideology. In the novel, a tone of awakening of the village people who are suffering from the exploitation⁶-persecution-torture of Pradhan is also heard.