The great bengal famine history politics and literary representation in select fiction of bibhutibhusan Bandopadhyay Manik Bandopadhyay and Gopal Halder

Abstract

The Great Bengal Famine of 1943 has been looked at from different perspective by the newlinehistorians and economists. They focused on the causes and effects of the Famine. The possible newlinereasons behind the disaster and the documented number of casualty were the primary concern of newlinethe historiographers of the Famine. But so far as the causes of famine were concerned, the newlineofficial records and reports were questioned and reassessed by the later social theorists, newlinehistorians and economists. The official narrativeand#8223; of history of the Famine was politically newlinemanipulated and the master narrativeand#8223; had suppressed the voice of the affected but invisible newlinepeople was the focus of later theorists. Literature contributed to this process of rewriting history newlineby foregrounding the hitherto neglected voice of the wretchedand#8223;. newlineOrdinarily, the term historyand#8223; is understood as chronological documentation of the past. newlineBut historyand#8223; also involves the process of collecting these documents and their interpretation. A newlinehistorianand#8223;s act of omission and commission in collecting and shifting data may produce many newline historiesand#8223;. It is also subject to wide variation in interpreting this data, according to the newlinehistorianand#8223;s ideological biases. Therefore, the historiographyand#8223; or the art of constructing history or newlinehistory of history sometimes becomes more important than the history itself. The objective of newlinethis research is to review the grand narrativeand#8223; of the history of the Great Bengal Famine of 1943 newlinewith the help of literary texts, especially fiction and see how fiction can help in reviewing the newlineofficial historiography of the Famine. Another focus of this research is to see whether the newlinefictional texts converge into a single narrative and validate any particular school of thought newlineregarding the reason of famine and death of millions or foreground many histories . The thesis newlinealso tries to problematize the binary between factand#8223; and fictionand#8223; on the basis of the politicsand#8223; of newlinerepresentation and try to locate the more reliable version. newline