Six Acres and a Third by Fakir Mohan Senapati, translated by Rabi Shankar Mishra, Satya P. Mohanty, Jatindra K. Nayak, and Paul St-Pierre, Berkeley: University of California Press, Paperback, Published: 1 March 2005, 240 Pages, 216 x 140 mm, ISBN: 9780520242716, £27.00
Fakir Mohan Senapati’s Six Acres and a Third (translated as chha mana atha guntha in Odia) is a remarkable piece of Indian literature that exposes and dismantles the ideological structures of colonial law, caste oppression, gender subjugation, religious hypocrisy, and economic exploitation. This is achieved through a narrator who is irreverent, self-aware, and gleefully intrusive, and makes the reader complicit in, and simultaneously critical of, the world being narrated. His wit and deliberate exaggeration becomes the moral conscience and voice that makes readers question and rethink everything that was the norm, said or unsaid. At once comic and critical, this Odia narrative keeps the subaltern at the centre and paints a world under colonial rule where everyday becomes the arena of resistance. The novel’s protagonist, or rather its anti-hero, Ramachandra Mangaraj, is a local zamindar whose story isn’t told to glorify but to expose, not to celebrate but to satirise. Set in a small village in Odisha, the novel follows his morally hollow rise and slow, ironic undoing, as he usurps the land of the poor and manipulates religious, legal, and social structures to sustain his power.
A Satire on Power, Property, and the Illusion of Virtue
At the heart of the novel lies a profound satire on landed power. Mangaraj is introduced as a paragon of virtue, a pious zamindar who fasts regularly, donates to temples, and appears morally upright. But the narrator cuts through the surface when he mockingly and satirically uses laws, both legal and scientific, to dispute the evidence that contradicts Mangaraj’s piety. He shows how these can be circumvented to protect the powerful.
The novel’s core critique is that morality is a privilege the powerful can conveniently use when required and throw away when not, and virtue, like everything else, can be performed or purchased. This privilege that the powerful have is also seen in how religion is instrumentalised by Mangaraj and his ilk . Scriptures are not sources of ethical conduct or the embodiment of dharma, but mere rhetorical devices designed to serve and maintain the hierarchy of the elite.
Senapati does not, however, stop at this indirect critique. Gods themselves are pulled into the theatre of satire when the narrator exposes how even religious piety is opportunistic and transactional in nature. Gods were worshipped only when the fear of a mishap overwhelmed them and not out of genuine devotion.
On property, the novel critiques the control of circulation and satirises the delusions of feudal narcissism. Mangaraj ensures that no one else’s goods are sold before his, effectively monopolising not just trade but the social narrative of success, where social mobility and opportunity actively conflicts with the narcissism and greed of zamindars.
The Gendered Critique
Senapati’s narrator also recognises that women are consistently reduced to their physical features in both literature and life. The description of Champa, Mangaraj’s trusted household companion and an artist who is rumoured to be his mistress, is drawn on classical Sanskrit imagery. The narrator critiques the exaggerated way women are described in classical literature, often reduced to just physical attributes. His tone is sarcastic when he states that it takes a “broad-minded” person to describe women this way;when in fact, it takes a narrow and sexist mindset to do it. This is not flattery, it is mockery of a literary tradition that idealises women only to erase them.
The restraint in not discussing Champa’s story following her sudden disappearance at a time when Mngaraj’s reputation was questioned because of her, is rhetorical. Senapati is self-reflexive in describing a world where crimes against women go unpunished, not because there’s no guilt, but because there’s no system to recognise guilt. The lack of evidence to prove that Mangaraj is the likely culprit, despite circumstantial evidence, is part of the satire—a society obsessed with property will never see the truth if it doesn’t threaten the legitimacy of those holding them.
Caste and Narrative Reversals
Senapati extends his critique to caste hierarchies by questioning Brahmins and ritual purity. In the book, the vulture and the Brahmin both go for corpses, but one is sacred, the other is foul. The imagery is provocative, but its intent is ethical. The sacred is not inherently noble, it is just historically constructed to be so. This is reinforced by how Mangaraj dismisses Pandit Sibu, a Brahmin who bows before him. In that moment, wealth displaces birth. Brahminical ritual, once considered the highest cultural capital, now grovels before landed power.
Meanwhile, characters like Shyam, who is lower-caste, loyal and laborious, are granted narrative attention but no justice. Their suffering is absorbed into the economic machine, and only noted in passing. This, too, is deliberate. The novel reflects not only the injustice of the system, but also the selective memory of society. How opportunism of the wealthy is manifested under the veil of concern and advice.
Bhagia and Saria
The story of Bhagia and Saria in the book hits hard because it’s simple, quiet, and brutally real. They are a poor peasant couple who are the rightful owners of the six acres and the third. They don’t show up until halfway through the novel. This is an intentional choice on the part of Senapati, which says a lot about how society and storytelling treats the poor, by sidelining them. They’re tricked into giving up their land through legal paperwork they can’t read, showing how the law, instead of protecting the marginalised , helps the powerful. Saria dies silently from hunger and despair, and Bhagia fades into the background, eventually forgotten. Senapati doesn’t make their suffering dramatic; he lets the silence speak, making it a powerful statement. He’s showing us that people like Bhagia and Saria don’t just lose land, they lose voice, memory, and dignity. Through them, the novel quietly exposes the zamindars, colonial law, and the social systems that keep injustice running.
Colonial Modernity and Its Absurdities
Senapati ridicules the newly emerging English-educated elite with similar sharpness. In a particularly astute observation, the narrator remarks how modern babus prefer women who “gallop like horses” rather than “walk like elephants” (p. 57). Traditionally, the graceful walk of an elephant was a poetic metaphor in Indian literature to describe feminine elegance and dignity. But under colonial influence, the same was too slow, even old-fashioned, and instead agility, energy, and speed, like one of a galloping horse, came to be admired. Senapati uses this shift in standard to make a sharp point of how colonial modernity imposes irrational and often harmful standards.
This is also reflective of the broader trend that prevailed then: appeasing and adopting colonial tastes.
When the narrator quotes ‘Pandit’ Benjamin Franklin (p. 40), or when he critiques how ingrained the English language and culture was as a symbol of power and status by mentioning how the ‘new babus’ might not know the names of their ancestors but would readily recall who the ancestors of Charles The Third were, Senapati intends to question and expose the colonial superiority that the educated babus (especially the middle class) show, often at their own identity’s expense. The disdain is echoed when he describes the mythological figures in Mangaraj’s house wearing skirts with polka dots.
Irony as an Ethical Weapon
Senapati’s narrator is not a neutral third-person voice. He is a philosophical jester, a village chronicler, and a ruthless ethicist, all rolled into one. He tells the story with mock humility, not as a detached observer but as a part of the same village’s subaltern, as Chakradhar who finally inherits Manganraj’s land. He asks readers for the permission to speak, and pretends to be unsure of facts all while delivering the most biting truths.
Six Acres and a Third is a novel where satire becomes ethics, silence becomes critique, and storytelling becomes a form of justice. The narrator speaks directly to readers, mocking the rich by standing with the oppressed, offering them dignity and recognition. In doing so, the novel becomes a space where truth is told from below, making it a kind of moral and social justice through fiction. This piece is not just a tale of one zamindar and one plot of land. It is a story of how power speaks, and how the powerless are spoken over. And it is a call to listen differently.
Sanchita Dash is an undergraduate Political Science student with academic interests in foreign relations, public policy, and socio-political issues.
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