পঞ্চায়েত ব্যবস্থার প্রেক্ষাপটে সাধন চট্টোপাধ্যায়ের ‘পক্ষ-বিপক্ষ’ উপন্যাস : ক্ষমতা, শোষণ ও গ্রামজীবন / Sadhan Chatterjee's novel 'Paksha-Vipaksha' in the context of the Panchayat system : Power, exploitation and village life

Abstract

The socio-economic changes of rural Bengal in the seventies and eighties have been reflected with great importance in Bengali literature. In particular, many fiction writers, including Tapan Banerjee and Abhijit Sen, have created plots for stories and novels in Bengali literature focusing on the deep conflict that the rise of the new panchayat-centered politics created in the social life of the people of rural Bengal. Sadhan Chatterjee has also presented the picture of the political evolution of rural Bengal in his stories and novels with rare courage. After 1977, the Left Front government came to power and gave priority to democratic decentralization to provide facilities to the rural people within the parliamentary structure. That is, the Left government tried to decentralize power in 1978 by implementing the three-tiered panchayat formation planned in 1973 and the Operation Barga program. But the dark times of this rural reform-oriented politics approached a little further ahead. The black shadow of corruption tarnished the party. And as a result, darkness descends on the lives of the rural people. As the form of politics changes, the form of people gradually changes. Greed and lust, disappointment in personal life drag people into the politics of violence. The article under discussion attempts to analyze Sadhan Chatterjee's novel 'Paksha-Vipaksha' by keeping in mind another form of exploitation from the decentralization of power.