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
22 July 2026
Published
2026-09-30

Abstract

Literature emerges in regions that 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 analyses Debesh Roy's Tistaparer Britantta (1990) to understand the complex interrelations of Rajbanshi life-worlds as they sit with respect to river ecology, agrarian life, displacement, and collective memory. This paper does not treat the novel as Roy's attempt to craft a rural regional literary representation. Rather, it argues that Roy is forging what I call an ecological-subaltern archive. Roy constructs this through the experiences of rural marginalised groups who challenge the dominant constructions of history and modernity.

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