Palk Strait Crossed Again

Palk Strait Crossed Again THIS year's Jnanpeeth Award has gone to Tarashankar Banerjee for His Bengali novel, "Ganadevata". No literary assessment of the choice can, or need, be made here. For one thing, this reporter, like some of the judges, has not read the book. For another, the economic and political aspects of the decision and its fully deserving beneficiary, may be of greater interest to readers of "Economic and Political Weekly". The contradictions in the Bengali reaction to the award are fully representative of the Bengali predicament today; these need to be spelled out in some detail, with tentative attempts at analysis.