3 Review(s)

Matua Mahasangha was a religious reformation movement that originated in what is today Bangladesh. Matua was a reformist sect of Vaishnavite Hinduism. The movement was launched by the followers of Harichand Thakur, who was born into a peasant family belonging to the Namasudra Dalit community. Thakur became spiritual at an early age, and his teachings provided education to bring to an end social conflict in what was then East Pakistan, where both the upper-caste Hindus and Muslims, who were in majority, were oppressing those considered lowborn. Matua Mahasangha believed in self-realisation. After Partition in 1947 and during the time of the liberation war, many people of the Matua faith migrated to West Bengal.Byaparis epic novel recounts the history of the Matua faith. He describes its followers as an army that fought for liberation from social inequality and religious hegemony. In the light of the upcoming elections in Bengal, when the role of the Matua faith and who they will favour has turned into a subject of much speculation, Matua Ek Mukti Senar Naam comes as a timely novel that gives us rare insights into post-Partition India as seen through the eyes of a disenfranchised Dalit man.