EDITORIAL

In the 250th anniversary year of the Declaration of Independence,  curated by the  founding fathers of American democracy and adopted by the Continental Congress at Philadelphia on 4th July 1776, it may be worthwhile to remember how the Declaration set free the thirteen English Colonies from the British rule under King George III and set in motion the genesis of a nation that is recognised today as the most powerful democracy in the world. 

However, when we reflect on “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness” enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we cannot stop wondering at the irony of these democratic ideals being at variance with ground reality of American society and polity. Besides the tragic narrative of the “Trail of Tears” related to the fate of the native Indian tribes who were driven away from their own land, it is significant to note that slavery was a part and parcel of the thirteen Colonies when the said document was signed. It is believed that a whole paragraph condemning slavery that had been included in the initial draft of the Declaration by Thomas Jefferson was cleverly omitted from the document before it was finalized to avoid causing displeasure to influential slave owners, especially in the Southern British Colonies. In this context it is relevant to recall the “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?” speech delivered by the self-educated former slave Frederick Douglass on 5 July, 1852 wherein Douglass candidly jolted the conscience of predominantly White America: “The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me…. I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting.”

The Black Power Movement, Affirmative Action, Bills and Legislations outlawing segregation may have reduced the extent of the Black/White divide in the U.S. but the recent Black Lives Matter movement has again brought to the fore that discrimination on the basis of colour and race remains a reality. In his American Book Award winning book, Between the World and Me (2015), Ta-Nehisi Coates writes emphatically: “America believes itself exceptional, the greatest and noblest nation ever to exist, a lone champion standing before the white sky of democracy and the terrorists, despots, barbarians, and other examples of civi-lization.”

Interestingly, the “pursuit of happiness” by the U.S. as a nation is nowhere so visible as in the arena of war. The Spanish-American war in 1898, dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, indiscriminate involvement in the Vietnam war, the “Operation Enduring Freedom” in Afghanistan, the invasion of Iraq, the ongoing operations code-named Epic Fury and Roaring Lion against Iran, offer glaring instances of the unabated longing of America to satisfy its urge for expansionism and conquest.

Notwithstanding the above inconsistencies, it cannot be denied that the U.S. holds a position of its own in numerous spheres making it the first choice of all concerned across the globe who yearn for value-based education, lucrative careers or quality of life. A country that can boast of 430-plus Nobel Laureates and where even school and university dropouts like August Wilson, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey, Stephen Spielberg among others have displayed their potential to transform the world with their innovative contributions to life, art and technology, certainly deserves to be congratulated for the 250-years milestone. The dictatorial antics of the present President in making a mockery of democratic principles may be overlooked as comic relief with the Buddhist stance: ‘this too shall pass.’

Intensive analytical discourses on democracies and their dilemmas have always figured among the top priorities of Re-Markings along with issues and concerns related to nation, culture, religion, gender, race, caste, colour, class, technology, displacement, migration, environmental crisis and human rights on global scale. It is not surprising that the plight and predicament of women worldwide figure prominently in this issue as in most previous volumes. It is doubtlessly one of the most complex issues confronting mankind since the dawn of human civili-zation.

Be it democracy or dictatorship, the hope lies in the belief that telling, sharing and writing stories of struggle and resilience do awaken our conscience and make us look within and without rather than turn our eyes away from facing reality. Four years ago, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in police custody in Iran for not wearing her hijab ‘appropriately.’ Her sacrifice did not go in vain because out of her martyrdom arose the “Jin, Jîyan, Azadî” (“Woman, Life, Freedom”) movement that took the world by storm. In mid-June this year the Iranian singer Parastoo Ahmadi was sentenced to 74 lashes for singing without a hijab in a concert. Her loaded response to the punishment is inspirational indeed: “I am Parastoo, a girl who cannot stay silent and refuses to stop singing for the people she loves. This is my right, one I will never surrender… listen to my voice in this imagined concert, and dream of a free and beautiful nation.” May Parastoo’s tribe increase to carry forward the resistance and defiance by women against patriarchal and tyrannous societies and regimes.

Before concluding I would like to put on record my grateful thanks to the contributors for their offerings to enrich our celebratory volume and to the devoted and dedicated members of Re-Markings’ fraternity for their consistent motivation and encouragement. I also take this opportunity to welcome and congratulate Dr. Satvir Singh on his induction into the Editorial board.

 
Nibir K. Ghosh
Chief Editor


CONTENTS
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Views from California - Jonah Raskin

The Toxicity of War: Mr. Nobody Against Putin - A Movie Review Plus Commentary / 7, “Delhi Crime”: A Three-Part Netflix Series Set in India Today / 8, Autobiography of a Romantic Revolutionary/ 12, Mahasweta Devi:

The Mother Teresa of Indigeneity / 13

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An Entire Star Has Left Us: Chinua Achebe, In Memoriam

Tijan M. Sallah / 18

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The Poet Upendra Bhanja - Biswanath Kar (Tr. Manoranjan Behura) / 26

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The Literary Genius of Satyajit Ray, The Last Renaissance

Man of India - Rakesh Bhatia / 31

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Not All That Strange: An Examination of Eugene O’Neill’s

Strange Interlude - Shernavaz Buhariwala / 35

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Bhupen Hazarika: The ‘Bard of the Brahmaputra’

Sukalpa Bhattacharjee / 43

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Consciousness of Women in the Writings of Rabindranath Tagore

Sunita Rani Ghosh / 51 

The Poetics of Peace: A Dialectical Study of Wilfred Owen and Rabindranath Tagore - Shrikant Singh / 54

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Symbiotic Ambience in the Folktales of Bihar

Bhavesh Chandra Pandey / 60

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Feminism or Femischism? - Deepa Chaturvedi / 66

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Exploring the Life of a Forgotten Pioneer: A Postcolonial

Reading of Deepta Roy Chakraverti’s Daktarin Jamini Sen 

Lalita Sharma / 77

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Killing Intelligence Digitally through Affection and Approval:

A Personal View of the AI-saturated Future - R. P. Singh / 87

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Afropolitanism and Identity in Selsai’s Ghana Must Go and

Teju Cole’s Open City - Navleen Multani / 91

“I must say what I feel and think in some way”: Revolting the Rest Cure and Disenchantment in Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper”

Shivika Mathur / 101

 

God as Nature: A Comparative Study of Avatar and the Bhagavadgita through Deep Ecology

Padm Nabh Trivedi & Smita Jha / 110

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Flavours of Home: Food, Memory and Cultural Identity in Selected Diasporic Writings - Shweta Awasthi / 120

 

Technology and Human Beings in Kazuo Ishiguro’s

Never Let Me Go - Harneet Brar / 126

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Space, Place and City: A Conceptual Analysis

Harpreet Kaur / 134

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Dramatizing Nothingness/Chaos: Absurdist

Aesthetics in Contemporary Feminist Theatre

Anshul Malik & Tanya Mander / 141

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Intersectionality in Trans Autobiographies:

A Study of A. Revathi and Living Smile Vidya

Monika & Sunita Siroha / 152

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Fragile Thread: Trauma, Redemption and

Aesthetic Representation in The Kite Runner

Nidhi Mishra & Manjusha Kaushik / 160

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Netaji, the Indian National Army and the

Search for an Indian Identity - Monib Ahmad / 164

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Entangled Margins: Intersectionality and Narratives of

Oppression in Indian Literature - Zahra Ahmad / 171

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Attentiveness and the River: Siddartha’s Journey

Princepal Singh / 181

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Trauma and Healing in Anuradha Roy’s Sleeping on Jupiter

Saloni / 188

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Review Essay

Shaping Minds and Changing Lives: Review of Global

Luminous Lives by Nibir K. Ghosh - Pallavi Sharma Goyal / 195