The Universal Language of Bureaucratic Alienation in Wan Kharkrang’s “The Adventures of Bah Ta En”

Abstract ―​

Wan Kharkrang’s “The Adventures of Bah Ta En” translated by Kynpham Sing Nongkynrih, functions as a critique of bureaucratic modernity as experienced in the marginalized periphery of Northeast India. Through the journey of its protagonist, the story exposes the Kafkaesque absurdity and the banality of evil embedded within state mechanisms ostensibly designed for development. The narrative reveals bureaucracy not as a neutral system of governance but as a predatory apparatus that perpetuates alienation, exploitation, and systemic violence through mundane procedures and institutionalized corruption. Framed within theoretical discourses on state formation and literary traditions of social critique, the story illuminates the human cost of bureaucratic entanglements where hope is systematically dismantled and replaced by futility. Kharkrang’s work transcends regional specificity to offer a universal meditation on the fragile interface between individual dignity and impersonal state power, ultimately portraying the state not as a benefactor but as a self-perpetuating system that systematically grinds down human resilience through the very mechanisms claiming to empower it.