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VICTORIAN JOURNAL OF ARTS Vol. X, Issue II July 2017 VICTORIAN JOURNAL OF ARTS ISSN: 0975 – 5632 Vol. X, Issue II July 2017 UGC Enlisted Journal No.41277 BOARD OF ADVISORS Ratanlal Chakraborty, Former Professor, Dept. of History, University of Dhaka Nrisingha Prasad Bhaduri, Eminent Professor of Sanskrit and Writer Ananda Gopal Ghosh, Former Professor, Dept. of History, University of North Bengal Bimal Kumar Saha, Officer-in-Charge, A.B.N. Seal College, Cooch Behar EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Debabrata Lahiri, Associate Professor, Dept. of Economics, A.B.N. Seal College, Cooch Behar EDITORIAL BOARD Mithu Sinha Ray, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Philosophy, A.B.N. Seal College, Cooch Behar Writuparna Chakraborty, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Geography, A.B.N. Seal College, Cooch Behar Ratul Ghosh, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Bengali, A.B.N. Seal College, Cooch Behar Dibyatanu Dasgupta, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Bengali, A.B.N. Seal College, Cooch Behar Debapratim Chakraborty, Assistant Professor, Dept. of English, A.B.N. Seal College, Cooch Behar Sudeshna Mukherjee, Assistant Professor, Dept. of English, A.B.N. Seal College, Cooch Behar Durbadal Mandal, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Sanskrit, A.B.N. Seal College, Cooch Behar Bishnupriya Saha, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Philosophy, A.B.N. Seal College, Cooch Behar PUBLISHER: Office of the Principal, A. B. N. Seal College, Cooch Behar FOREWORD It is not only a matter of pleasure but also of great relief that we are able to present to the readers the July 2017 issue of Victorian Journal of Arts, just in time to coincide with the occasion of the Annual Day and Founders’ Day of the College, which is customarily the case every year. As is known to our readers, this August has witnessed a tragic flood situation over a vast area of North Bengal, and the town of Cooch Behar was not spared either.The dislocation that ensued threatened to jeopardise the timely publication of the journal. But the Editorial Board, and the Press, held up. Last but not the least, no word of gratitude is enough to appreciate the immense help that the esteemed reviewers have extended to the Editorial Board. This all-out effort will be rewarded if the readers are satisfied. Bimal Kumar Saha Officer-in-Charge A. B. N. Seal College. EDITORIAL Sometimes a strange juxtaposition of the text and the reality makes the text look uncanny. At a time when the articles for this issue were shaping up in the editorial womb, rains became incessant and rivers in spate in North Bengal. Soon a vast swathe of land was under water and thousands of people, mostly poor, were rendered homeless. When, finally, the articles lined up for the press, the voice of the homeless it was that we heard from most of them – voice of women, the poor, the ethnic – drowned or marooned by the patriarchy, the rich, and the mainstream. These voices do not always grudge and growl. Most of the times, they do not exist, like poor villagers’ in the Gram Sabhas in West Bengal or in Joint Forest Management Committees in Puruliya, as the empirical studies of Mrinal Das and Anirban Roy,in that order, sadly claim. Again, Tista Das in her article Revisiting The Partition, finds in the narratives of the Partition refugees of Bengal a strange play of memories in which the reality cuddles the myth for comfort. Sometimes the voices come out as autobiographies, like Rassundari’s, to carve out an identity, as argued by Trayee Sinha. Sometimes, as we find in the article by Keshab Mandal and Prasanya Sarkar, the margin finds peace with the centre, as Rajbanshis have done in their food habits. At other times, at a literary level, they may subvert the dominant by simply self-effacing. By foregrounding the very male ‘magic’ and denying the female her agency and yet at the same time making a very quiet, almost inaudible, assertion that the magical males owe their magic to the ravaging of some female body, Frankenstein and The Golden Key in Suparno Banerjee’s article point at the vacuous patriarchal claim to supremacy. In subversion the subject finds a non-violent way to fight the oppressive order. Thus when Jane Austen writes Northanger Abbey she subverts, as Manali Choudhury reminds us, the Gothic archetype which was the fashion of the day. Sometimes, the voice from the margin is quite frank and candid. It may be the voice of a victim of rape in Mahasweta Devi’s প্রতি চুয়ান্ন তিতিটে (Prati Chuanno Minite-e) or of a female protagonist in Suchitra Bhattacharya’s দহি (Dahan) analysed in Kaushikottam Pramanik’s article, or the sobering voice of the feminists staking a legitimate claim to decision-making in international politics (as one can read from the article by Shampa Dutta and Srijit Das); or it can also be a frightening one of the terrorists that has the potential to motivate the two Asian giants China and India, not exactly on friendly terms in the geopolitics of the region, to befriend each other, as argued by Bishnupriya Roy Choudhury. Terror, unfortunately, is not the sole preserve of the violent margin. The state can own it too, and distribute it among a mass brought up on a diet of parochial, jingoistic, and totalitarian ideology. Democracy, in such a world, is marginalised. Democracy, a handmaiden of capitalism, is wont to play a second fiddle to the latter. But a direct political assault on it in various parts of the world in recent times is a phenomenon that raises the spectre of the pre-World War Germany. The article by Gaur Chandra Ghosh and Ram Krishna Biswas has turned to Swami Vivekananda’s philosophy to engage us in an Oriental dialogue with democracy. Perhaps, literature has a role too. Literary images have a way of crossing boundaries and bringing people to understand one another. It is in this way that the mainstream can talk to the margin in a language that borrows from both the worlds without any effort at hierarchising. Arpan Roy Pramanik discusses the work of one such powerful writer of Bengali literature, Amiyabhushan Majumdar, who reached out to the Rajbanshi community by creating a bridge through language that people from both sides can cross. At another level, at the level of our macro-existence, the human race has marginalised itself by destabilising the environment through the marauding march of an ironic progress. Satabdi Das in her article has furrowed in Kautilya’s Arthasastra to bring out a non-anthropocentric view of life that self-aggrandizing capitalism has been undermining for far too long. An appeal to the ancient wisdom is also evident in Mithu Sinha Ray’s article which locates Nature in the iconography of Vedic gods. Probably, when the present is threatening, it is time to turn the pages of history to imagine a future. Debabrata Lahiri Editor-in-Chief CONTENTS Page No. Sexual Reproduction and Textual Creation as Mutually Exclusive Processes in Science 1 Fiction and Fantasy : a Comparative Study of Frankenstein and The Golden Key Suparno Banerjee p¡¢qaÉ fs¡ J fs¡­e¡ : a­šÄl C¢aq¡p, C¢aq¡­pl ašÄ 11 ¢chÉae¤ c¡n…ç ¢nr¡ Hhw fË¡¢an¡­MÉ hZÑ °h¢QœÉ 15 Al©f c¡p Forlorn Corridors : an Exploration of the Functionality of ‘Northanger Abbey’ 19 Manali Choudhury ¢à•S¾cÊm¡•ml p£a¡ : AeeÉ •fËji¡he¡ 24 ¢e­h¢ca¡ Qœ²hš£Ñ (cš) NÒfl•pl på¡•e : "f¤a¥•ml ¢Q¢W' 30 L«o·¡ e¾c£ •i±¢jL A¢jui¨oZ jS¥jc¡•ll i¡o¡-¢Q¿¹¡ J j¢qoL¥s¡l EfLb¡ 34 AfÑZ l¡u fË¡j¡¢ZL Amar Jiban (My Life): an Autobiography of Rassundari as Expressing the Self 39 Trayee Sinha na¡ë£ fË¡Q£e L¡­m¡O§¢ZÑ­a e¡l£l ¢SS£¢ho¡ J œ²¾ce : jq¡­nÄa¡ ­ch£ J p¤¤¢Qœ¡ i– 45 ¡Q¡•kÑl c¤¢V EfeÉ¡•pl B•m¡•L ­L±¢n­L¡šj fË¡j¡¢ZL L«¢ø, L¡mQ¡l, pwú«¢a : AbÑ¡e¤på¡e, ¢h¢nø hÉ¢š²­cl A¢ija J a¡l fkÑ¡­m¡Qe¡ 54 n¡¿¹e¤ j™m A Study of the Food Habits of Rajbanshi People 62 Keshab Mandal Prasanya Sarkar The Sino-Indian Affliction : is Terrorism a Panacea to the Abiding Constraints? 68 Bishnupriya Roy Choudhury Revisiting the Partition : Myths, Memories, Mirrors 78 Tista Das Raising the Issue of Gender Sensitisation and Empowerment : a Look at Women’s 83 Participation in Foreign Policy Decision Making Shampa Dutta Srijit Das A Philosophical Review of the Status of Women in Indian Literature 88 Mukul Bala A History of Women’s Education in the Darjeeling Hills 93 Priti Ghatani Environmental Concerns in Arthasastra and its Contemporary Relevance 99 Satabdi Das Vāstu and Vāstukāras in the Tradition of Ancient Indian Vāstuśāstra : a Special 108 Reference to Mayamata. Ripan Ghosh G•NÄ•cl •ch-i¡he¡u fËL«¢a 113 ¢jW¥ ¢pwq l¡u i¡la£ucnÑen¡­Ù» BaÈašÄpj£r¡ J a¡l Be¾cül©fa¡¢hQ¡l 119 dˤh•SÉ¡¢a i–¡Q¡kÑ ü¡j£ ¢h•hL¡e•¾cl •hci¡he¡ 128 A¢c¢a i–¡Q¡kÑÉ The Concept of Democracy and the Relevance of Swami Vivekananda in the Indian 134 Perspective Gaur Chandra Ghosh Ram Krishna Biswas The Gram Sabha in West Bengal : Myth and Reality 141 Mrinal Das Participatory Management of Forests in Puruliya with Special Reference to the Role of 147 Government Agencies and Local People of the District Anirban Roy C¢aq¡•pl B•m¡u nql c¤NÑ¡f¤l (1950-2000) 155 l¡SnË£ cš Bp¡•jl d¤hs£ ­Sm¡l h­Vlq¡V NË¡j f’¡­u­al A¿¹NÑa °Lj¡l£ ­j±S¡l a«a£u Aw­nl ­S­m 159 °LhaÑ­cl pju¡¿¹lhaÑ£ ¢nr¡ J ­fn¡Na f¢lhaÑ­el ¢Qœ ¢hjm L¥j¡l p¡q¡ Pretence : The Other Side of Reality 171 Sutapa Chakraborty Locke’s View on the Criterion of Truth : a Critical Assessment 176 Mrinal Kanti Basak Victorian Journal of Arts Volume X, Issue II Sexual Reproduction and Textual Creation as Mutually Exclusive Processes in Science Fiction and Fantasy A Comparative Study of Frankenstein and The Golden Key Suparno Banerjee Abstract In science fiction and fantasy, the negation of the feminine and of female agency, as a literary trope, frequently works as a tool of examining the politics of power and gender.

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