Published Paper Details:

This article is a postcolonial critique of the foisted colonial development through re-reading Bibhutibhsan Bandyopadhyay's seminal work Aranyak: of the Forest written in 1930's. It attempts to readjust the literary frame of colonial Indian writings by relocating it in the present day postcolonial discourse over scuppering ecological symmetry, neo-colonial praxis, peasantry despondency, tribal tribulation in a 'progressive' world system and a continued assortment of discernible incongruence at various societal layers. The novel dwells into the beastly colonial agricultural expansion at the expense of the forests lands juxtaposing the thriving chasm along classes, diminishing human values and loss of nature. The alienation of aesthetic, being and the ethical ebbing as the fallout of the deliberated colonial mechanism, produces the pithily substance of learning in harmony and mutual respect in sync with the sustainability of planet earth. In the present age of ongoing environmental setbacks, Aranyak emerges as referent.