ILN Journal: Indian Literary Narratives

Articles

Vol. 3 No. 3 (2026): ILN Journal: Indian Literary Narratives

Rivers, Memory, and Subaltern Ecologies: Reimagining Rajbanshi Identity in Debesh Roy’s Tistaparer Britantta

Submitted
9 September 2026
Published
2026-09-30

Abstract

There are literatures that emerge in regions which have been marginal to dominant literary histories. While their works are lesser known, they create highly complex representations of memory, ecology, and power. One such example is the writings of Rajbanshi from North Bengal. This study analyzes Debesh Roy's Tistaparer Britantta (1990) to understand the complex interrelations of Rajbanshi life-worlds as they are situated with respect to the ecology of rivers, the agrarian way of life, displacements, and collective memories. The present paper does not consider this novel to be Roy's attempt to craft a rural regional literary representation. Rather, it argues that Roy is forging what I call an ecological-subaltern archives. Roy constructs this through the experiences of rural marginalized groups who challenge the dominant constructions of history and modernity.

The study combines subaltern studies, ecocriticism, cultural memory studies and regional identity studies, to analyze the tellings of the Teesta River as landscape, as historian and as a memory of a community. It can be argued that the river should not be viewed as an external setting; rather, it has an active and important role in developing social relationships and in developing strategies of living and belonging. Roy's representation of land-based groups and struggles of daily oral traditions and practices shows how groups survive and how they engage with the dynamics of the changing ecology and politics.

The paper argues that Ramabanshi literature broadens Indian regional literature. It not only documents the lived experiences of historical exclusion and ecological trauma but also addresses the cultural absence. Roy's Tistaparer Britantta situates Rajbanshi memory within land and ecology in the context of contemporary Indian literary studies and the subaltern.

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