Page:Relocating Bakhtin.pdf/13



For a very long time indeed Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (1895-1975) has remained exclusive intellectual property of the West. His works have been analysed, appropriated and debated zealously in the last two decades of twentieth century. Interpretations have been absorbing but sometimes at variance with each other. One who had unflinching faith in the dynamics of openness and unfinalizability can never be completely grasped without everrenewable engagement with his never-ending dialogue. But any close and careful reading would reveal that the Bakhtinian postulates can never be confined within any particular geographical domain. On the contrary his developments as a thinker can be easily addressed to our own world of culture. In fact, Bakhtin's famous concept of positionality as determinant of truth proves that we, in Indian sub-continent, can also address and respond to Bakhtin's conceptual world from our historically different perspective and enhance our understanding of the hermeneutics and aesthetics of existence and cultural worldview. Bakhtin been a philosophical activist who sought to enhance the potentiality and efficiency of life by harping on the essential interrelatedness of various ingredients of existence. Thus he provides us an interesting opportunity to compare his concepts as well as the resultant discourses with that of several prominent philosophers and thinkers. Through the prism of comparison, the uniqueness of Bakhtin may become more explicit and one can be convinced about his singular position in the history of human thoughts. His undeniable influence on the contemporary literary and philosophical world of not only Europe, but also Bengali intellectual firmament in the Indian