‘General Firebrand and His Red Atlas’: What is happening to my neighbour will also happen to me

The final scene in Iti Mrinalini (2010), a film by Aparna Sen, shows the protagonist walking her dog early in the morning after a night spent contemplating suicide. It is a new dawn in more ways than one. She has decided to give life another chance. However, life throws a curve ball. A gunshot. Curtains. Quite anti-climactic. Death strikes at the precise moment when you have given up on your plan to embrace it with absolute certainty and willingness.

Tathagata Bhattacharya’s blistering debut novel, General Firebrand and His Red Atlas, reminded me of the closing scene in Iti Mrinalini, and left a lump in my throat and an ache in my heart. There was a gunshot in the film. There is a landmine in this book. Shock supersedes surprise.

Guerrillas versus fascists

Two camps. One comprises the guerrilla forces of the People’s Resistance Committee (PRC), led by Colonel Firebrand, and the other is the ruling fascist Republic, at the helm of which are Madame President Nida Dodi and Mr President Adam Bum, whose mission is to transform Sands, a coal-rich province, into a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) much to the chagrin of the residents and citizens who have resolved to fight against injustice, resist the inevitable displacement of indigenous communities as a necessary...

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