Tapodhir Bhattacharjee

“ Globalization can only undo all existential obligations and can never attain the co-participative uniqueness in socio-cultural and aesthetic domains because its hegemonic intentions become apparent in no time. When Bakhtin speaks of the event of the birth of a new human being as socio-aesthetic act that culminates in uniqueness, we understand immediately that with our historically differentiated positions, we are expected to live socially and aesthetically to author a new world order. ”

“ Ideology is mere rhetoric for those who submit themselves willfully to the guiles of the hegemonic official positions. They employ all their skill in building up counterrhetoric against any semblance of ideology in the social or intellectual arena. For them ideology is a grand narrative and should be obliterated with cleverly designed rhetoric. That is why they have zealously misinterpreted Bakhtin because that was in the interest of the domineering west. ”

“ The onslaught of globalization is an undeniable fact. But even then the recognition of the process of unfinalizable authoring of simultaneous presence of the other and relocation of an alternative existence un-enamored by fantasies of power are undeniable. Bakhtin teaches us the unsubvertable paths of alterities by dint of which we would be able to recollect 'the world scattered in meaning'. This automatically elevates us to completely new thought process positing a renovated human world. ”

“ Though globalization is threatening our old convictions including Bakhtinian faith in the dialogic sharing of existence and the unrepeatable simultaneity of being, we can profitably call back upon the cardinal concept of polyphony which has the ability to effectively counter the false claims of globalization to release being from the chains of habits. ”

“ Our situatedness prompts us to develop the central notion of addressivity not only as aesthetic and cultural paradigm, but as the key concept for understanding the multiple phenomena of existence. When the onslaught of the consumer society is at its worst, the task of situating Bakhtin in our historically different perspective has indeed become challenging. ”

“ Bakhtin's constant struggle with himself and also the non appreciative world around for achieving the true dialogics of meaning kindles and rekindles our desire to be the integral part of the constant struggle for meaning. The key idea, that existence is unfinalizable and it is imperative to continue the act of being as ever-renewable addressivity, particularly fascinates us. We tend to understand not only the textual microcosms, but also the dramatics of life in the theoretical context of the architectonics of answerability. ”

“ In fact, notwithstanding our firm belief in the discovery of the multiple voices from the margin, the perennial distance from the hegemonic centre and the process of inversion initiated through carnival, subtle presence of interrelatedness in historically conditioned existence of late tends to deconstruct the efficacy of given marginal spaces. Sometimes a counterquestion is articulated: marginal to whom or in respect of which space? In the contemporary world, the givenness of marginality is being interrogated and it is argued that even the hitherto accepted margins are at the edge. ”

“ Yes, one readily agrees with the famous introductory statement by Clark and Holquist in their widely read book, 'there is always a gap between what someone does and what the world perceives that person to have done.' The perceiver world is never homogeneous and hence the perception and the meaning accrued therefrom cannot be identical. The gap is not only between the import of Bakhtin's life-as-event and life-as-text ”

“ If we venture to situate him in a dehumanized world, we have to reaffirm that inspite of blatant hegemonic aggressions, our world remains essentially human and it is participative to the extent that the aesthetic, social and philosophical activities required in comprehending it is indeed an acknowledgement of continuing dialogics of self and other. ”

“ Bakhtin been a philosophical activist who sought to enhance the potentiality and efficiency of life by harping on the essential interrelatedness of various ingredients of existence. Thus he provides us an interesting opportunity to compare his concepts as well as the resultant discourses with that of several prominent philosophers and thinkers. Through the prism of comparison, the uniqueness of Bakhtin may become more explicit and one can be convinced about his singular position in the history of human thoughts. ”

“ As situatedness is constantly historicized, the task of the commentators and interpreters in the Indian subcontinent automatically calls for a reorientation of the thought process and re-contextualization of disjunctive and differentiated experiences. During the heyday of colonialism, western model of hegemonic modernism made inroads into the psyche of Indian people but could not wholely unsettle the feudal remnants of the civil society. ”

“ Particularly in the latest phase of total domination of cyber technology, all the socio-cultural spaces belonging to the margin of margins are under threat of extinction. The other has to make its presence felt through reaffirmation of its identity, independence and relative sovereignty. It can be achieved by discovering and re-chiselling the alterities inspite of the implosion and domination of the western modes of thought in all spheres of contemporary life. ”

“ Time and space is in a flux and the Bakhtinian notion of interpenetrating unity seems to be out of place. In the horribly individualist contemporary world, how can we posit our otherness and claim us to be co-beings to the non-obliging partner? ”

“ In the Indian sub-continent, the experience of the multiplicity of different languages, ethnic behaviours, discourses, priorities and symbolizing practices on the one hand and the disruptive, isolationist and non-conformist tendencies on the other, has made dialogical understanding both inviting and perplexing. ”

“ As our readings are entirely dependent on English translations of the original discourses, we have to accept the possibility of inadequacies and complications due to occasional slippages and loss of nuances. Inspite of such exigencies, our positional readings can nevertheless explore and decipher the conceptual richness of Bakhtin's thoughts. Throughout his life, the great thinker sought to situate Man through continuing dialogical relationship with various formations. ”

“ It automatically transgresses the standardized frontiers between various disciplines and provokes us to extend our faculties of cognition and imagination further while we author ourselves and our world. If we can realize the inherent strength and potentialities of such a process of dialogism that always renews our capacities for addressivity and answerability. We can propose an effective encounter with the hegemonistic approaches of globalization. ”

“ They pretend that those who do not subscribe to the official discourse, they only reduce the apparent scope of his works and fail to see through the authorial disguises in different stages of his career. The various representations of Bakhtin only reveal the eagerness of critics to think on behalf of Bakhtin and thus, in spite of their proclaimed preferences, they ultimately turn out to be covert ideologues of the hegemonic west. ”

“ With the advent of post-modernism mainly among the metropolitan elites, complications and confusions percolated to some extent even to the otherwise sensitive cultural activists. More particularly the Bengali intellectuals afflicted with displacement, diasporas, migration and intense form of localization in various regions of the subcontinent had to grapple in the space between the aesthetic and the political. ”

“ As meaning is always contextual, the inhabitants of the Indian sub-continent in general and the Bengali people and also those who belong to the marginalized nationalities in particular must recognize the central fact that the acknowledgement of situationally unique otherness is indeed unrepeatable. ”