by Abir Chattopadhyay
Introduction: Our rights and lives
Be it not with the grand narrative of deaths caused by the dominant authority or even be it not with a research toward the statistical figuration of the lynching deaths caused by the authority or the state power, a painful death of a young man had set a massive uproar in West Bengal three years back, toward ‘against’ an undifferentiable outcome of a power structure that was reported to have gained its momentum in the contemporary time-frame than from its immediate past [history]. The whole narrative of the death tells us a single dimensional story of a young boy Rizwanur Rehman has been put to death after being forcibly interrogated by the Police officials for marrying a Hindu affluent girl Priyanka Todi. His body was found at a railway track, on 21st September, 2007, at 10-30AM(1) that prima facie puts up the issue as a case of suicide and at this moment a subjudice matter though the hue and cry certainly is not. In accordance with the culturation trade off process of postmodernity the narrative was gradually taken care of and sprung up by the media. As soon after the painful death as possible, Rizwan was first identified as the victim of state power by some individualists, like human-rights activists and journalists and of course the political opposition. As the days moved on, a phenomenal and very sensitive cultural segmentation of urban Bengal society came up visible. This segmentation was visible into distinct five categories; the government and its officials [specially Police], press & media, individualists [a ‘handful’ portion of intelligentsia], mercantile people [includes some prospective investors coming in this region and some already gone investors, like Tata etc.], and finally the inevitable common mass [an eternal absorbent of all possible signifieds of mediated message, who lit candles of protest, can pray for justice and do organize movements]. Though the above categories can also be put into two main structures of signification; i.e. mediator and the mass, but like undifferentiated conceptualization of power, a simple massification of people may lead to generate a false consciousness toward getting a radical signification of the text. So the whole narrative, as we the common mass is getting, needs to be analyzed in profound detail. This paper would en-route the ‘death’ toward a definite cultural loss incurred that has resurfaced the underlying cultural fragmentation terminating the spontaneous conception and manifestation of heterogeneity or individuality in a social format where individual human being might act as a social being if that is not an utopian ideation.
The death of Rizwanur has put forward many questions targeting multifaceted authoritarianism in the society. Most pertinent among them are, the question of both ethnic & religious regimentations and the question of exerting armed power [allegedly done by the police officials while threatening Rizwan and Priyanka](2). At this moment in the whole country [India] number of cases are coming up that assure a massive acculturation toward concentration of administrative power that protects some, may be somewhere, upper caste, or upper class, or aberrant political decoding etc. Moreover against the national agenda of industrialization process in states rather amid competing state governments the common feature of opposition becomes very prone to life-taking exercises where ethnic, religious decodings are predominantly used to oppose the authoritarian narrative that “India needs to be industrially grown to generate employment opportunities!!”. But in every case of movement against the state power the most subversive outcome is the rallying of deaths of common innocent people. Though this paper is nowhere directed to depoliticize every social outcome [both developmental and subversive] but determined also to identify the axiomatic presence of shallow provincial political outlook which is steadily coming up regulate the future of this country.
Be it not with the grand narrative of deaths caused by the dominant authority or even be it not with a research toward the statistical figuration of the lynching deaths caused by the authority or the state power, a painful death of a young man had set a massive uproar in West Bengal three years back, toward ‘against’ an undifferentiable outcome of a power structure that was reported to have gained its momentum in the contemporary time-frame than from its immediate past [history]. The whole narrative of the death tells us a single dimensional story of a young boy Rizwanur Rehman has been put to death after being forcibly interrogated by the Police officials for marrying a Hindu affluent girl Priyanka Todi. His body was found at a railway track, on 21st September, 2007, at 10-30AM(1) that prima facie puts up the issue as a case of suicide and at this moment a subjudice matter though the hue and cry certainly is not. In accordance with the culturation trade off process of postmodernity the narrative was gradually taken care of and sprung up by the media. As soon after the painful death as possible, Rizwan was first identified as the victim of state power by some individualists, like human-rights activists and journalists and of course the political opposition. As the days moved on, a phenomenal and very sensitive cultural segmentation of urban Bengal society came up visible. This segmentation was visible into distinct five categories; the government and its officials [specially Police], press & media, individualists [a ‘handful’ portion of intelligentsia], mercantile people [includes some prospective investors coming in this region and some already gone investors, like Tata etc.], and finally the inevitable common mass [an eternal absorbent of all possible signifieds of mediated message, who lit candles of protest, can pray for justice and do organize movements]. Though the above categories can also be put into two main structures of signification; i.e. mediator and the mass, but like undifferentiated conceptualization of power, a simple massification of people may lead to generate a false consciousness toward getting a radical signification of the text. So the whole narrative, as we the common mass is getting, needs to be analyzed in profound detail. This paper would en-route the ‘death’ toward a definite cultural loss incurred that has resurfaced the underlying cultural fragmentation terminating the spontaneous conception and manifestation of heterogeneity or individuality in a social format where individual human being might act as a social being if that is not an utopian ideation.
The death of Rizwanur has put forward many questions targeting multifaceted authoritarianism in the society. Most pertinent among them are, the question of both ethnic & religious regimentations and the question of exerting armed power [allegedly done by the police officials while threatening Rizwan and Priyanka](2). At this moment in the whole country [India] number of cases are coming up that assure a massive acculturation toward concentration of administrative power that protects some, may be somewhere, upper caste, or upper class, or aberrant political decoding etc. Moreover against the national agenda of industrialization process in states rather amid competing state governments the common feature of opposition becomes very prone to life-taking exercises where ethnic, religious decodings are predominantly used to oppose the authoritarian narrative that “India needs to be industrially grown to generate employment opportunities!!”. But in every case of movement against the state power the most subversive outcome is the rallying of deaths of common innocent people. Though this paper is nowhere directed to depoliticize every social outcome [both developmental and subversive] but determined also to identify the axiomatic presence of shallow provincial political outlook which is steadily coming up regulate the future of this country.
For the entire write up follow the link : http://www.thescape.in/newsdetail.asp?newsid=1260
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