Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak to join Lalon festival as keynote speaker

The government will mark the 135th death anniversary of mystic bard Lalon Shah with a three-day "Lalon Utshab" in Kushtia and a parallel programme in Dhaka, and world-renowned scholar Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak is scheduled to take part in the festivities.

Organised by the Ministry of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy and the Kushtia district administration, the festival runs from October 17 to 19. The announcement, posted this week on the official Facebook page of Chief Adviser Professor Muhammad Yunus, said the event will bring together devotees, bauls and musicians for performances, talks and philosophical discussion centred on Lalon's life and songs.

Professor Spivak, a Columbia University literary theorist, writer and translator, arrived in Dhaka to join the observance. She will be the festival's chief speaker and deliver a Lalon lecture in Kushtia on October 17. Mostofa Sarwar Farooki, adviser to the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, will be the guest of honour at the festival's inauguration, organisers said in a social-media post announcing Spivak's participation.

Spivak, whose five-decade academic career spans comparative literature, subaltern studies, feminism and political theory, received this year's Holberg Prize in recognition of her scholarship. Beyond academia, she is noted for long-standing work on rural education in West Bengal, where she has supported learning initiatives for underprivileged children.

The Kushtia programme Lalon's shrine at Kushtia's Cheuria will feature daylong bhaav-geeti, philosophical exchanges and performances by baul and fakir groups from across Bangladesh, including TunTun Baul, Sunil Karmakar, Rowshan Fakir and Latif Shah. A Dhaka event at Suhrawardy Udyan on October 18 will present a lineup that includes Emon Chowdhury and the Bengal Symphony, Lalon Band, Nirab & Bauls, Pothik Nabi, Suchona Shely, Baula Band, Arup Rahi and Samogit among other artists.

The festival aims to highlight Lalon's message of humanism and communal harmony — themes organisers say resonate beyond Bengali communities and across generations. 

Those wishing to attend can join the gatherings at Cheuria's Lalon Dham or the Suhrawardy Udyan programme in Dhaka to hear the songs and philosophies that continue to animate South Asian cultural life.

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