SangshaptakA Bengal Saga
Shahidulla Kaiser
Translation Shahruk Rahman
Bangla Academy
Sangshaptak is a challenging and illuminating work by Shahidullah Kaiser, a writer of deep social and political commitment. A Communist Party worker from his student days and an activist in the 1952 language movement as well as the 1971 war of liberation, Kaiser was born on 16 February 1927.
The title of the book is a hint of brevity over accuracy. It could well have been 'Search for Social Justice'. But that, then, would be lacking in the panache embedded in Sangshaptak, an Uncompromising Warrior; a classic in the Bangla literary arena.
Shahruk Rahman's English sub-title, A Bengal Saga, adorns this great work of art even more, for Sangshaptak is a long story with many tales of heroic achievement that leave the reader spellbound.
Sangshaptak is a time-based story, like a flowing river with waves of thoughts rushing in, a living story about the darbesh, Felu Mia, Zahed, Sekandar Master, Asokh and Ramzan. There is Leku, Kashir and Hurmoti who take a stand against life's hardships. Rabu, Arifa, Ranu, Rihana, Syed Ginni and Malu live all entangled in their time.
'In the original …Bangla…the narration is uninterrupted'. In the translated version, chapters with headings have been introduced to make the novel reader friendly.
Sangshaptak is a period novel set against the backdrop of the years immediately before and after World War II. More than a decade after the publication of this novel, another stunning publication in the same genre was Shei Shomoy by Sunil Gangopadhyay. The work was translated by Aruna Chakravarti, who called it Those Days.
Kaiser concentrates on social change in Bengal, the narrative being framed in a picture of two villages. It is particularly the idea of social justice within society at large, fraught as it is by the exploitation of the poor and the weak by the rich and the powerful, that Kaiser focuses on. The unlettered village inhabitants are trapped within the rural power structure.
This dilemma is portrayed in the day-to-day life of the two villages, divided by religion, Muslim Bakulia and Hindu Taltoli, and not by the body of water. Justice is a commodity exclusively for the elite; … 'O Allah…where is your justice? You allow such beasts to torture your own creatures.' And social class interferes with all relationships and strikes deep even into the content of marriage, erupting into situations where partners are revealed to be misfits for each other. Further, the plot questions the maternal motive.
The writer depicts patriarchy as the pinnacle of power. Beginning with the trial, 'the whole village combined against a lone woman, they had made a demonstration of their…males… own strength banished her to isolation and loneliness.' And …. 'Could anyone in that village absolve themselves of the crime committed against her?'
Kaiser shows that crime and criminals are of no matter, indeed inconsequential, as authority rests with the headman of the village and his faithful self-appointed right-hand man who once 'had to flee… as he was charged with double murder'.
And offences or sins have category and gender; and judgment of imbalance allows 'one of the sinners getting off Scot free'… although he may be 'very much present,' and 'who didn't know him?' Much later the child he had fathered was declared 'unclean' and denied a janaza before burial.
The headman himself in wanting to extend his control over land and peasants sells his wife's jewellery by forcing 'them off her body.' The wife 'screamed like a low cast woman.' The tenants paid salamis and brought nazrana. He has also stolen her other jewellery, used it as security with the bank for more money. In his opinion, 'Women … had no thought about land, zamidari, talukdari power glory.'
The lamentation heard during the burial of an old woman is 'Poor woman, they treated her so badly all her life. In her death, her sons, daughters, grand children --- none of them came to see her face. Such a sad lonely death.'
There are all the disturbing images here: the marriage of a fourteen-year-old to a man 'old enough to be her father' with a denmohar amounting to 'one rupee five paisa' under the instruction of a man whose violent fits when opposed results in the birth of a still-born son owing to physical assault on the mother; and shortly afterwards the death of the girl-wife.
Calcutta is a city divided between or shared by Muslims and Hindus in the riots preceding partition. The big social change is the 'mushrooming of hostels', particularly girls' hostels, for a new type of clientele. 'I work, I eat. I enjoy my independence. I get a kind of fulfillment. No relatives to bother me'. And then the cheer that is heard, 'Sabash for the new emancipated woman!'
Conspiracy and intolerance are identified as the main enemies in the city community.
'We are Muslims! ...We are the majority in this land…Bengal.'
'They have installed some stooges and puppets over our heads, and they watch the game while we play Hindu-Muslim against each other!'
A thinker pledged to social reform, Kaiser makes the announcement, 'To be with people, to be at their side in their anxieties and sufferings is also a great reward. That is happiness too.' And 'marriage would have pulled me back. Prevented me from doing my duty to them.' Kaiser establishes the axiom that life is its own reward. 'I want nothing from life. What I got from life is far more than I ever expected.' And 'Only after you have crossed through the path of fire your soul can survive.'
The penal code system is ridden with loopholes, and what count are power, influence and money. Justice is a game of wits and witnesses, juxtaposition of words, and most important of all money. Justice has nothing to do whatsoever with being in the right or in the wrong.
Shahidullah Kaiser's Bengal Saga is a great novel and compares in magnanimity with the work of the great Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz. Their works cross the dimensions of space and time; the tales emerge from the soil of which they themselves are a part. Their works remain immortal.
Farida Shaikh is a sociologist and freelance writer.
