Academic literature on the topic 'Bengali Political satire'

In the Post-Independence era, the prolific playwrights of India started using the aesthetic form of theater to contest authoritarian structures, and to voice their anti-establishment dissent. Utpal Dutt, a pioneering figure in Modern Indian Theater, used the medium of drama for propaganda and political conscientization of the oppressed. The indefatigable thespian contributed significantly towards the formation of modern Bengali theater, as his plays voiced his intransigent protest against the authoritarian government and concurrently, showed his impressive experimentation with different dramatic techniques, theatrical devices and theatrical genres. Dutt’s anti-establishment play, Nightmare City presents a fastidious account of the turbulent years of late-1960s and early-1970s Bengal gripped by Naxalite violence and police brutalism. Set against the backdrop of Naxalite insurgency, the play savagely exposes the ideological hypocrisy of the autocratic government leaders of the time and their violent hooliganism. However, the playwright, in sync with his earlier plays, has not only portrayed the tumultuous socio-political ambiance of the 70s Calcutta, but has also constructed a soul-shattering voice of resistance to the political oppressions perpetuated by the state apparatuses. The objective of this paper is to study the revolutionary propaganda of Dutt and redefine his concept of “political theater” with special reference to his intricately structured political satire, Nightmare City.

This article analyses Bhooter Bhabisyat, a Bengali political horror satire, as a counter-narrative to Bengali cinema’s monocultural bhodrolok branding. The article argues that Bhooter Bhabisyat is radical in its refusal to follow hegemonic homogenizing musical styles classified into genres such as folk, popular, traditional and modern, which tend to be ethnocentric and class based with serious value judgments about the superiority of certain musical forms over others. Instead, Bhooter Bhabisyat uses a variety of distinct Bengali musical traditions to problematize the historic role of capitalist media that work to homogenize and popularize the dominant culture of the ruling classes. The hybrid songs of the film disrupt a sense of homogeneous bhodrolok class position that Bengali cinema has historically sustained. Through the strategies of musical pastiche, Bhooter Bhabisyat offers a meta-historic narrative about Bengali cinema, which makes possible a critical investigation of the cultural discourses and historical narratives that are discursively embedded within the history of filmic production, circulation and consumption. If film histories are produced by repressing differences between social groups and constructing universal identification, then foregrounding film songs as decolonial storytelling methods that reemphasize local voices and subject matters can lead to an effort to read history from below. The vulgar representation of time as a precise and homogeneous continuum has […] diluted the Marxist concept of history. (Giorgio Agamben) The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. (Karl Marx)

The 19th century Bengal was promenading under the influences of various factors like the Bengal Renaissance of various literates and the Babu culture of the nouveau rich. It was also the time when the countryfolks came to Calcutta seeking jobs, imbibing elements of folk art with popular culture. Soon with the transition of time, there arrived a stage when the artisans were more engrossed with the cash economy of urban life. Thus, Calcutta became a hub for different art forms and musical cultures, amongst them was Kobigaan. A musical duel among the poets, it became an enlightening form of entertainment amongst the Bengali literates and they would frequently hold Kobilorai sessions in temples. Kobigaan rose in prominence around the period of colonial Bengal of 18th and early 19th centuries. Kobigaan was seen as a concoction of Vaishnavite poetry with religious and ritualistic themes combined with satire. It was also the time when Bengal Province was witnessing the influx of many cultural, political and sociological episodes. This research is a descriptive study of Kobilorai and Kobiyal Anthony Fhiringee from the nationalist lenses. Using qualitative and descriptive methodologies, the research performs a holistic study on the rise of the popularity of the Kobigaan performances during the nationalist hour, and analyses through the lenses of Cultural Nationalism the treatment of the 19th century kaviyals towards the Portuguese poet Hensman Anthony.