‘Chaashabhushar Sontan’: A quest for many questions and answers

At a pivotal historical crossroads, the evocative novel Chaashabhushar Sontan has stirred a profound reflection within the socio-economic and cultural landscape of Bangladesh. This year, the inhabitants of the haor (wetland) regions have again lost their golden crop—their only annual harvest—to floods and breached dams, right before their eyes. It appears to be a continuity of their destiny amid a combined effect of natural calamities and ineffective rice paddy procurement management.

For generations, the consumer classes have known the link between the farmer’s tearful gaze over lost crops, the wrinkles on their foreheads, and the instability of the rice market. They also feel it in their very bones while wandering through shops with bags of rice. A reality is that the successors of farmers are turning away from their ancestral occupation and cultivable lands are shrinking.

Author Mohammad Mufazzal presents a vivid narrative of the tragic consequences one faces when he or she denies agricultural roots. Although farming is a respected profession in developed countries, in this agriculture-based economy, even the educated class—forgetting or denying their roots—often neglects others by derisively calling them `Chaashabhusha.’

Shyamal, the son of a farmer and the lead protagonist of the novel, was a victim of such a harsh reality. After arriving from a village to study at a university in the capital, he was bullied continuously by his classmates—Jennifer, Ivan, Dollar, and Prince—and eventually filed a civil lawsuit when the situation became unbearable. The learned judge handed over the four students to the office of Police Commissioner Saif Adnan for “reformation”.

After two sessions, conducted by Saif, it was revealed before the students that at the root of everything—from the clothes they wear to everyone’s food, shelter and their family origins—lies cultivation. Then it was the season of Boro cultivation and the police commissioner made an arrangement for four students from affluent families to stay with a farming household in a remote haor region. They travelled a long path, most of which was unnavigable, in the biting cold with great physical hardship to reach the household. There, they observed the farmers’ lifestyle, struggles to prepare land for planting and household activities, alongside recording them in their notebooks. Their notebooks also included many previous stories of losing golden paddy and subsequent sufferings of the families. In some cases they themselves got involved in this work, and realised how the farming community, deprived of various civic facilities including healthcare, played a tolerant role to ensure a continuous food supply for the entire nation.

In the novel, Jennifer revealed a touchy incident where the palanquin-bearing boat of the prospective groom of the village girl Farida never arrived due to crop loss from natural disasters. Such an incident created a tragic heartache not only in Jennifer but is also capable of awakening a resolve in all people to remedy such calamities.

Despite the saying “The water belongs to those who have the nets”, the ordinary haor inhabitants have no right to the delicious fish of the vast wetlands. The fish are under the control of leaseholders disguised as fishermen. Amidst such inequality, the four urban students were charmed by the hospitality of the farming family of limited means. They felt that the identity of “chaashabhusha” was actually a matter of pride. Mirroring a common issue across society, Rahela, a housewife from the haor region, conceived multiple times, exceeding her physical capacity, just to fulfill her husband’s desire for a male child. Through such an incident of her death after giving birth to a son on last attempt, novelist Mohammad Mufazzal has highlighted the helplessness of the hardworking women of this country.

In the novel, Jennifer revealed a touchy incident where the palanquin-bearing boat of the prospective groom of the village girl Farida never arrived due to crop loss from natural disasters. Such an incident created a tragic heartache not only in Jennifer but is also capable of awakening a resolve in all people to remedy such calamities.

The book also reminds us of the declining effectiveness of Arthur Lewis’s “Two-Sector Model” in the reality of Bangladesh. It challenges the premise of the Lewis model, which suggests transferring surplus labor from the agricultural sector in rural areas to urban ones to build industrial factories. Now, not only the children of the farming community but even the farmers themselves are losing interest in cultivation. Agricultural economist Professor Dr Abdus Sattar Mandal has rightly said that farming was no longer being transferred inter-generationally. Therefore, all barriers to agricultural mechanisation must be overcome. Written in simple and lucid language, Chaashabhushar Shontan can be a guiding inspiration for today’s society. Although the identities of the fathers and grandfathers of Shyamal, Jennifer, Prince, Dollar, and Ivan may seem different at first glance, in reality, all their roots are planted in agriculture. Thus, the novel clearly brings out the message that agriculture and its related activities are not a matter of shame, but rather of pride. Notably, with wonderful skill, the novelist has also been able to glorify the agricultural roots of the father of exceptional police commissioner Saif Adnan.

One major aspect of the novel is that although many young men and women may seem heartless due to financial solvency and their environment, they can reform themselves through a difficult journey if shown the path with love. They too, like university students Prince, Jennifer, Dollar, and Ivan, can be capable of writing high-quality theses by adopting rural Bengal as their subject of study. In this context, my own recommendation is that those engaged in higher education should be sent to the households of the farmers for one semester of hands-on fieldwork and learning, and not just during the winter. I hope that due to its excellent writing style, the reality-based novel will play a huge role in awakening the urge for universal recognition of pride for agricultural work.

Mohammed Farashuddin is an economist and a former governor of Bangladesh Bank.