This novel is an unsparing indictment of the people of Sadnahati, a fictional Muslim-majority village in West Bengal. One wonders whether it is ill-timed, given the persecution faced by Muslims all over India. However, the point of Ismail Darbesh’s novel is precisely this: to resist the harassment of Muslims by reclaiming the space snatched away from them, the space where they stand as they are, complete with their failures and idiosyncrasies.
Darbesh, who belongs to a family of traditional garment-makers in West Bengal’s Howrah, writes as an insider. He takes back Muslim people’s right to nuance, to a complex critique of their own community. “Sadnahati was a predominantly Muslim village,” he writes.
“And so, the problems of this village were basically the problems of Muslims.” What is now a nearly 600-page English novel began as a series of Facebook posts written in Bengali. Apart from its theological preoccupation, the story has all the elements known to capture the public imagination (perhaps this is the reason behind its success among social media users): a love triangle of sorts, heroes and their faux pas, sparring factions among Muslims, disputes over mosque land, a minor skirmish leading to a riot on an eidgah (an open space reserved for Eid prayers), another narrowly averted riot following an interfaith marriage and elopement, familial conflicts, violence, and betrayal.
The central drama of the novel is spun around Riziya and Maruf, who are progressive M.