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It may not be just a matter of coincidence that in 1953, three and five years ahead, respectively, of the publication of two seminal Indian English novels, Train to Pakistan (1956) and The Guide ( 1958) the Indian Railways completed the first century of its existence. Since that fateful day in 1853 when the first passenger train trundled out of Buribundur station in Bombay, Indian Railways became increasingly associated in the Indian mind with the idea of progress. The fact that in 1951 the railway systems, hitherto controlled by private companies, were nationalized as one unit consolidated the symbolic significance that the railways had been gaining over the years. Any reader of R.K.

Commenting on the not too fortuitous link between the growth of the novel as a genre in the Indian English literature and that of nationalism in the sub-continent, M.K. Nayak remarks, "…the nationalist upsurge had stirred the entire Indian society to the roots to a degree and on a scale unprecedented earlier, making it acutely conscious of the pressures

This paper tries to review and reassess the tribal situation with special reference to the tribal women in India and Australia. It is an attempt to locate the 'Aboriginal woman'question in the context of women's movement in both countries. In Australia the ...

Rupkatha Journal is an international journal recognized by a number of organizations and institutions. It is archived permanently by www.archive-it.org and indexed by EBSCO, Elsevier, MLA International Directory, Ulrichs Web, DOAJ, Google Scholar and other organizations and included in many university libraries.

The study of border is a seminal area of critical discussion in today’s globalized and cosmopolitan world. By ‘border’ we usually mean a boundary to impose an order. The salience of the border emerges from a confrontation between the anthropological idea of confined cultures with a recent focus on the flow of people and ideas across national borders. The border of a nation usually orients the convergence of people with a geopolitical territory and notions of a common history, nationality, identity, language and culture. Border both includes and excludes and thus differentiates the self from the ‘other’. In this article I’d attempt a critical examination of the concept of border essentially as ideological, generating and reinforcing a sense of difference and thus its impact on individual identity.

                  As this is the twenty fifth year of the publication of Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines (1988), I decide to take this novel as my case study here. The very title of the novel is metaphoric: borders between the nations and also between the people. Along with the theme of travel and the historical event of the Partition of India, the novel critically examines the issue of border both in the spatial and temporal frames.  How the questions of citizenship and belonging are connected and to which extent do they collectively contribute to the issue of identity—both national and cultural, is an important dimension of the narrative. Moreover, the dissolution of the border between history and fiction is another charm of the novel. Transgressing the border is phenomenal of twenty first century life and how far Ghosh’s novel remains relevant to its readers still after twenty five years is the focus of my paper. 
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The rise of Dalit voices in West Bengal in Eastern India has drawn the attention of academicians in recent past. Though Bangla Dalit literature has a long history (starting from the first decade of the twentieth century), leading contemporary Bengali Dalit writers like Manoranjan Byapari, Anil Gharai, Mahitosh Biswas, Kalyani Thakur Chanral, Jatin Bala, Sunil Das, Manohar Mouli Biswas are hardly known by the academic ‘elites’ even in India. The ‘guardians’ of Bengali academia have shown a strange indifference to Dalit literatures probably for the reason that they considered the caste-based literatures as something less dignified, lacking aesthetics and therefore, less deserving.
Probably due to a long period of communist rule, the abolition of the system of landed aristocracy and the implementation of local democratic governance in the rural level earlier than other states in India, the scenario of the caste-based oppression, deprivation and social humiliation of the Dalits in West Bengal seems to be tuned in a rather low level. But the spirit of hypocritical victimization on the basis of class (‘bhadralok’/ ‘chhotolok’ binary*) burns into flame as it includes the question of caste.
In this paper I would focus on the first Bangla Dalit autobiography by Manoranjan Byapari—Itibritte Chandal Jeevan (2012), which could be considered as a representation of rage gathering impetus from an interplay between caste and class. Dalit autobiographical literature is basically a poetics of pain based on the politics of socio-cultural exclusion. In his personal narrative Byapari wages a war against the impotent political system which does not voice for the emancipation of the powerless, poor and the illiterate Dalit. I would also show how Byapari’s quest for an identity—both of a human being and a writer—has been expressed in his autobiography and how his exemplar odyssey opens up a new avenue in the world of Bangla Dalit literature.

*These are two Bangla words meaning educated, middle/upper-middle class and upper caste people (‘bhadralok’) and illiterate, poor, working class and low-caste people (‘chhotolok’).

Glocal Colloquies is a non-profit, international, double-blind, peer reviewed, refereed, open access E-journal. The journal is an initiative to create a shared space for scholars to engage in trans-cultural global literary conversations. The journal publishes critical and scholarly writings, interviews, book reviews on literatures and cultures from across the globe.

The idea of the periphery emphasizes on a kind of positionality that is away from the powerful and the privileged. Besides, the peripheral is an alternative cultural space which is ever supposed to be inferior than the centre, and under the vigilant gaze of the authoritative and the powerful. The peripheral is usually expected to follow the hegemonic instructions of the powerful centre, and any resentment is seen as offensive and hostile. In a sense the peripheral is very much a "pro-Other", who may be acknowledged as a subject but certainly is not welcome as an equal. In this paper I would attempt an analysis of the historical rebellion (known as the Morichjhanpi massacre of 1979in India) organized by the subaltern, lowcaste people in the topographically marginal islands of the Sundarbans against the state, as depicted by the writer Amitav Ghosh in his internationally acclaimed novel The Hungry Tide: "…it was as if war had broken out in the quiet recesses of the tide country" (HT, 252). The brutal evacuation of the settlers from the island of Morichjhanpi may be seen as a perfect case of the revolting potential of the peripheral people of the Sundarbans. The subsequent suppression of their voice by the state power and the genocide that follows the revolt show that the interest of establishing a tiger-reserve project dictated by the centre is more valuable than the lives of peripheral human beings who are poor and live a meagre existence from hand to mouth. This paper basically aims to analyse the issues like the right of belonging, ecology, statesubject interaction, revolt and state-sponsored violence and politics of peripheral identity in the context of a postcolonial Anglophone narrative.

When writing becomes inspired by an ecological imagination, it enlivens the bond between man and nature and through it re-enchants the earth. ‘Literature of place’ is, in a way, a literature of consciousness that concentrates on the relationship between the human and its habitat. In the post-Tsunami years, this relationship between humans and the land they dwell in has garnered sufficient attention of the academia. New literary genres like island novel, climate fiction or anthropocene fiction have enriched not only the literary scene, but also our consciousness with its single agenda to re-enchant the planet. In the Anglophone Indian literary scenario, a recently published ‘island novel’ has given the wake-up call towards the change of ecological balance and the plight of a prehistoric tribal community in the Andaman Islands.   
        The researcher, activist and conservationist Pankaj Sekhsaria weaves his debut novel The Last Wave (2014) with a wealth of knowledge about the tribal Jarawa people and the wild denizens of the Andaman Islands alongside describing the story of Harish and Seema, who are also associated with the conservationist activities in the Islands. In this paper, I would mainly insist on Sekhsaria’s depiction of two recent changes noticed in the Andaman Islands: the gradual change of ecology and the change of behavioural pattern of the Jarawas. The loss of the population of the leatherback turtle, the crocodiles in the creeks of the mangrove forests, the hornbills or the vegetation of the wild flower known as Papilionanthe teres mark the imbalance in the natural biodiversity of the Islands. I would simultaneously investigate how Sekhsaria has depicted the negative impact of aggressive consumerism on life in the island. I would also insist on the point that despite the depiction of the destructive Tsunami at the end of the novel, Sekhsaria clings to an amazing hopefulness — where Harish hopes to stay together with nature and nature’s people in that island.

Just like me, just like me"-are the words of Rupi Baskey, the central character, with which ends Hansda Sowvendra Shekhar's debut novel The Mysterious Ailment of Rupi Baskey (2014), the first Anglophone fiction written by an Indian tribal writer. In this fictional narrative, the issue of ethnic cultural inheritance is central along with the very changes and transformations which a tribal society witnesses through four generations. The 'Janiform' nature of the Indian tribal cultural space -one face looking forward and welcoming the changes brought about by the residual effects of colonization and then globalization, and the other face ruminating over their traditional and ethnic cultural traits, is an interesting point of investigation. In the Indian scenario, there is always a mute mutual distrust active between the tribal people and the 'mainstream' Indians. The non-tribal 'mainstream' Indian often looks down upon the tribal people as low-caste 'adivasi', whereas the tribal people find the non-tribal as 'diku', a rather derogatory term meaning 'exploiter'. Therefore, the issues of 'conflict' and 'border' are ever present in any study of the tribal life and their socio-cultural presentation in literary texts. Again, issues like witchcraft, the role of the 'herbalist' and even the issue of freedom of tribal women, make it clear that the tribal people still live within a clearly bordered space. But with globalization, this scenario is undergoing a 'transition' and changing quite fast and the porosity of the border is becoming more visible as never before. In such a context, the text of Hansda becomes so relevant. How the epistemological shifts in education and health consciousness enrich a tribal Santhal society and transform their tribal cultural space, is the focus of this paper. I would also discuss the major issue of witchcraft and some other socio-religious practices in the indigenous cultural space, which lie behind the 'mysterious ailment' of the central character: female characters stay at the centre of the narrative -as victim of ailment, as well as the cause of ailment.

ABOUT THE BOOK
This book is our academic endeavour in contributing to the ever-growing corpus of diaspora criticism. Scholars from India and abroad have profusely contributed to this academic anthology and their exegeses and explications are worthy to be appreciated for multiple reasons. They have critically evaluated the texts against the backdrop of literary theories as applied to the typology of literary taxonomy of many diasporic authors who overtly and covertly belong to the South Asian nations. This anthology deals with multiple theses on the issues of diasporic overtones, inter-ethnic relations, re/dislocations and merger of mental/ physical boundaries represented in the literary texts authored by the young and veteran writers of the South Asian origin. 
The volume offers explorations and unravellings that inscribe multifarious themes, issues and agenda concomitant with the South Asian diaspora critiqued by young, vibrant and enthusiastic authors who have earned their reputation in academic field at the global fronts. There is a need for more holistic understanding of the entire phenomenon to facilitate researchers and participants engaged in innumerable homilies related to diaspora and trans-nationalism. Hence, we hope that this volume will be a trustworthy tool to comprehend the dynamics of emerging trends in the area though the continuous progress and flow in the ontological apparatus cannot be denied.