Polemic

This is Prof. Prasanta Chakravarty's analysis of the Kabir Suman-Parichay Patra debate which I am tempted to give the Foucaultian title of "The Order of Discourse" smile emoticon

This sharply insightful discussion of the nuances of modernity in the rhetoric of urban discourse is a must read for all those who followed the 'duelogue' on FB but also for those who didn't. He has put the emphasis on the important juncture where a potential crossing of the sacred and the profane is at stake.

A few raw and rough responsive thought-points on the piece:-

1. It does beg the question about the function of political correctness in discursive rhetoric and its strategic over-simplification to posit an argument.

2. The political Other's translation into a religious Other needs to be thought through.

3. A discourse can become religious without it having any bones to break with religion as such. In my Lacanian parlance, I will say a discourse which embraces dogma and installs itself exclusively on the basis of an S1 (A master signifier) and insists that this S1 cannot be and MUST (there is prohibition) not be put into a chain with other signifiers, risks becoming religious. I feel sad to say this but it is clearly a truth for everyone to see that the discourse around my favourite Bengali singer is taking (dare I say has always already taken) that shape.

4. Having said that, I do not think the secular can be posited simply as a break from the religious. It has to work through religion if not translate it into profanity without becoming what Agamben calls a signature of the sacred. That's the task beckoning the world of the future.

Thanks to Prof. Chakravarty for this absolutely stimulating discourse which has managed to revitalize this thread of arguments.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/prasanta-chakravarty/cyber-pamphleteering-scattered-thoughts-on-the-patra-suman-nasrin-case/10152507564251545?pnref=story