হরিশংকর জলদাস : প্রসঙ্গ নিম্নবর্গীয় মানুষের আত্মস্বর/ Harishankar Jaladas : Prosango Nimnaborgio Manusher Atmosor

Abstract

Like everything that is ongoing, the ‘history of the lower classes’ has a pace, there are rules. It has not only created a storm within history but has also created a stir in the fields of art, literature, culture, society, science, etc. Renjit Guha, a prominent writer of ‘subaltern studies’, has used the word ‘lower classes’ as the Bengali term for the English word ‘subaltern’. In Bengali literature, the soul of the lower class people has not only blossomed in modern literature but has become a terrible document of the life and suffering of the lower class people from the very beginning of literary writing. For example, Charyapad, Mangalkavya, Shaktapadali and Geetika are its records.

              Prominent writers of modern literature such as Manik Bandyopadhyay, Advaita Malla Burman, Mahasweta Devi, Debesh Roy, Abhijit Sen and others have also beautifully highlighted the ups and downs, mental actions and reactions, political and economic crises of the lower class people. The socio-economic context of Bangladesh in the 21st century, the production structure, the hierarchy, the process of social evolution, and the protest-resistance to protect their own existence, the mysterious writer Harishankar Jaldas has taken up the pen.

“There is always a group of unknown people in human civilization, they are the ones who are in greater numbers, they are the vehicles; they do not have time to become human, they are raised on the surplus of the country's resources. They eat the least, learn the least, and serve everyone; their work is more than everyone else, their disrespect is more than everyone else.” (Rabindranath Tagore)

              The ‘pills of civilization’ is the subaltern, i.e. the lower class, in today's terminology. But the nature of these unknown people that Rabindranath talks about is the outer layer of the lower class. So who should we call the lower class? According to Ranjit Guha, no matter what we call the Bratya, Dalit, Antyaja, Marginal, they have been defined under one roof, in one term, as the subaltern or lower class.

The critical theory of 'Subaltern Studies' is basically included in post-colonial practice. 'Subaltern Studies' is one of the significant information that has been created in the 20th century. Gayatri Chakraborty Spivak believes that those who are oppressed and destroyed by any kind of subordination and power under colonial rule are the lower class. According to Gyanendra Pandey, the untouchables, domestic servants, tribals, illiterate backward people, women, children and marginalized, the other class is the lower class. After the publication of the first volume of 'Subaltern Studies', there was an opportunity to see the lower class from a new perspective, in the light of new consciousness and information. It is in this context that we have selected Harishankar Jaldas' novel for our research. Because the experience of a Bangladeshi fisherman's life in prison has repeatedly come up. Here we wanted to see how the work of a writer from the so-called lower class of society has been presented in the light of lower class consciousness.