সম্পাদকীয়

The main theme selected for the current issue of the Journal is ‘The Contemporary fight against Patriarchy in Bangla (Bengal) and elsewhere.’ When we invite articles for the Journal, after selecting a main theme, we allot six to seven months to receive contributions from authors. And only after reviewing them, can we select those worth publishing. During the period between finalizing a main theme and finally receiving articles by the deadline, many things could happen that affect the lives of the people who identify themeselves as Bangali - linguistically and culturally. The ripple effects of the incidents are felt in all spheres of national-transnational-diasporic Bangali lives within and beyond the borders of their living spaces. Although these incidents cause anguish and force us to become gravely concerned, it’s not possible for us to alter our main theme right away to address the issues on hand. From the middle or about that time of this year, things have been happening in Bangladesh politically and socially, which are still in flux and having an impact on the legacy of the thousand years of historical lingua-cultural bonding and grouped thinking of the Bangali people. We refrain from referring to these events in this issue of the Journal since a clear picture of the situation has yet to emerge. Besides, it takes considerable time before a dispassionate objective analysis can take place. Coincidentally, the concerns we had raised in our past issue of the Journal regarding the blurring of the demarkation line between truth and lies (due to the use of cellphones and its impact on the innerworking of the thought process of an indvidual and the dilemma and complexity in separating fake news from authentic news), have come home to roost in Bangladesh as a bitter reality.

In tune with our main theme - The Contemporary fight against Patriarchy - Labani Jangi in her article depicts a picture of the fight led by the uneducated Muslim women labourers in Murshidabad of Pashchim Bango to claim their property rights under inheritance laws. Janam Mukherjee’s personal account of his experiences in Kolkata shows how women and housemaids of the middle and lower-middle class familes of Kolkata endure exploitation and deprivation in silence at the hands of their male partners and masters. Barnali Paul’s article exposes how male authors, due to their patriarchal mindset, ignobly dealt with the issues of female and children’s diseases in their respective Bangla Medical Science text books. Shirsankar Basu in his elaborate article paints a different kind of picture about the problems and struggles transgender groups face against the prevailing patriarchy.

We present two translation works in this issue. One is done by V. Ramaswamy. It’s an excerpt of the novel called Narai by Shawkat Ali. The other is the translation of the Judgment rendered against Surya Sen and his associates in the famed historical trial of Chittagong Armoury Raids. This hitherto unpublished document is being translated by Shawkat Mostafa, the rest of which will be periodically published in our upcoming issues.

In addition, the current issue of the Journal carries three separate articles on Rabindranath by Bijliraj Patra, Sandipon Sen and Fakrul Alam respectively; And articles by Atmajit Mukhopadhyay on translation and explanation of Ishoponishad; Auritro Majumder on the structure of Bangla language; Aveek Majumder on Ritwik Ghatak’s Titas; Ritaprava Bandyopadhyay on Satyajit Ray’s musical radical forte in Gupi Gayen Bagha Bayen; Malini Siddhanta on artistry of sitar maestro Annapura; Paramita Chakraborty on historian of Bangla Literature Asit Kumar Bandyopadhyay; Debasmita Shit on Pundit Shibnath Shastri and Farooque Chowdhury on class war during the Partition, along with poems by Ekram Ali, Sibaji Bandyopadhyay, Jyotirmoy Nandy, Sudhir Dutta and Tushar Gayen and stories by Rongili Biswas and Amar Mitra are included in this issue.