The Impossible Demands of Nabarun Bhattacharya

Abstract

This article aims at understanding the character of ‘Fyataru’ that the Bengali author Nabarun Bhattacharya created. This character returns again and again in many of Nabarun’s stories and novels. It is an important signifier of Nabarun’s literary vision, since it represents the politics of dissent that the author believed in most prominently. Through the dissection of the fictional Fyataru, this article aims to understand the politics that guided Nabarun’s writings. It also tries to determine the philosophy behind this journey of fiction, the history of Nabarun’s thought, as well as its broader implications in contemporary reality. Reading Nabarun’s literature in the light of the theory of anarchism illuminates the purpose of  Fyataru, and how this fictional creature can identify its own reflection in individuals of today’s society who have tried to rebel against institutional oppression with the weapon of anarchist practices. Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, and other underground activists may well be considered as such anarchists. The article also attempts to understand why anarchy is an essential element in a society regulated by governments, capitalist institutions and corporate powers. It aims to establish that anarchy protects the freedom of expression from being thwarted by populist hegemony, and therefore protects the right of the individual to free thought and dissent. The only instrument that can prevent dominant opinions from marginalizing and throttling the formation of free ideas is subversion, and the Fyatarus of Nabarun’s literature are the harbingers of such subversion.