My take on Bankimchandra - the Nationalist Author
Bankimchandra’s name is widely known as a nationalist author of 19th century Bengal. Question is whether defining a 19th century author, who had written 16 novels, several short stories, articles and satires being the pioneer of Bengali prose literature, so simple?
Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay was born in 1838, June 27th. India was being ruled by East India Company at that time. The educated Hindu Bengalis, who were hoping for the end of the rule of anarchy dominating pre-British Bengal, started supporting East India Company in managing the administration. At the same time, they started facing dominance of not so well-educated, yet proud foreigners, who arrived with an objective of establishing own rule of law in this country denying Indian cultural heritage. This brought the educated Bengali professionals, who were conversant in several languages, under dilemma. They had to support foreign rule to liberate own country from anarchist landlords, burglars and thieves; on the other hand, they were feeling the necessity of re-establishing own cultural identity against the foreigner’s. This dilemma is very much evident in Bankimchandra’s literary works.
Bankimchandra’s father Jadavchandra Chattopadhyay was a Deputy Collector by profession. His ancestors, Kanthalpada Chatterjees acquired respect and reputation as an erudite family long before. The Biography of Bankimchandra written by Sachishchandra Chattopadhyay tells that this family of Kanauji Brahmins was probably brought to Bengal by 882 AD by King Aadishur along with some others to perform a Yagna. Easily understandable that Bankimchandra was brought up in an environment nurturing him well to become first Indian graduate of Calcutta University, take up the role of Deputy Magistrate and pursue his dream of working for the development of Bengali literature.
He started writing from an early age. At fifteen, his poems were being published in Sambad Prabhakar, an esteemed Bengali daily edited by Ishwarchandra Gupta. Ishwarchandra advised him to start writing prose as well, which could have been an encouraging factor behind Bankimchandra’s experiment with prose at a later period of time. Bengali prose writing was started mainly by Srirampur Missionaries sixty years before Bankimchandra’s first novel was published. But it did take almost fifty years to liberate Bengali from the influence of Sanskrit, English and Farsi and establish it as literary language. Amazingly, being one of the 19th century Bengali intellectuals, Bankimchandra had not only taken part in constructing Bengali as an acceptable medium of prose-literature, he became the first Bengali author who remained popular even after 200 years of his death.
He was the brightest student of Hooghly College. There was no option for Bachelor of Arts examination at that time. He was studying law by the time 1857 mutiny broke out. Educated Bengalis became silent observer of the riot and anarchy, not taking part in the war of revenge like Moguls or Maharashtrians, though not hopeful for high standard of English rule as well. Bankimchandra believed to have told his Barrister-teacher Mr. Montriou – “If I had a little doubt that you would not become the ruling power here, I would throw your law books in the River Ganges and return home.” Anyway in April 1858, the first BA examination under Calcutta University was arranged – after an initial setback, two of the eleven examinees passed in second division, and Bankimchandra stood first among those two. For the British administrators, the meritorious student from an already educated family was obvious choice for the role of a Deputy Magistrate. And Bankimchandra became a Deputy Magistrate at the age of twenty.
The life of an author, who worked successfully as an administrator and had written unbeaten Bengali novels at the same time and also became publisher-editor of a Bengali monthly, must be colourful. Unfortunately Bankimchandra did not write anything about his work-life as some other high govt officials like Nabinchandra Sen did. He tried to maintain privacy about family affairs too. As a result – we have to depend on the research done by his biographers in order to analyse his works.
Couple of years after joining the administrative service and being promoted along with a descent pay-hike, he was transferred to Khulna district; and here he faced the first conflict of his professional life with Indigo-planters. Sachishchandra’s Bankim-biography gives an excellent account of the battle between the dutiful administrator and the ruffian planters, who were supported by a section of British Administration. Bankimchandra succeeded – not only he neutralised them but also made British police arrest Denis Hilly, the captain of the armed force under the most dreaded planter in his district, one Mr. Morel, while Morel and Hilly was on the run. He also took a lead role in eliminating the pirates in southern Bengal. His achievement made the superior Mr. Beadon happy and Bankim was promoted to a higher role as a result.
But his experience of fighting against corrupt and adamant British officers provided him materials for many of his Bangadarshan (A View of Bengal) articles. Same kind of stories from his life is found during his posting in Baharampur (1869-1874) also. The seriousness of the conflict between him and section of his superiors is proved by his taking BL. (Bachelors of Law) examination in 1869, during his tenure as Deputy Magistrate. The idea behind this was to be ready for an alternative profession in case leaving the job became unavoidable due to conflicts. His bitter experience of working under stupid foreign rulers is probably best depicted in the satire, ‘Bransonism’.
The author was probably inclined to atheism in the first phase of his life. In the later period, he turned into a believer. In the absence of an autobiography, we do not come to know how this transition happened; Sachishchandra’s account speaks of Bankim’s devotion to Gods though Bankimchandra’s own words quoted by Akshaykumar Dattagupta illustrate his inclination to atheism. In fact, the articles published in Bangadarshan shows his logical stance. He did not turn into blind believer, but tried to discover logic behind prevalent beliefs. He did not clarify his idea of God in any of his writings. He established Krishna as an ideal human (manly) character in Krishnacharitra – which points to his analytical view while discussing theology. He took strong ideological stance for Hinduism and Hindu societal morals, almost all of his novels show that – but he never appears to be a devotee. His ideology was far different from pure belief; thirst for knowledge and Karma was the force guiding his spiritualism. Hence in the satiric verse, ‘Ode to the Donkey’, he did not hesitate making sarcastic comment on Yudhisthir, the honourable eldest brother of Pandavas in the great Indian epic Mahabharat, for his unethical act.
Now, if we consider the time-frame he had written his novels and articles, he started writing novels by 1860s – First novel Durgeshnandini was published in 1865. Then Mrinalini, Kapalkundala, and the others came one after another. On the other hand, the first issue of Bangadarshan, the Bengali monthly edited and published by him, came out in 1872 (Bengali Baishakh 1279). Articles which became part of the books Lokrahasya (satire), Bijnyan rahasya (science) and Kamalakanter Daptar were all published in Bangadarshan. The monthly used to be published from an address in Kolkata, while the editor was living in Murshidabad district. A literary circle was developed in Baharampur having him in the centre; the other eminent participants were Rameshchandra Dutta, Rev. Lalbihari Dey, Bhudev Mukhopadhyay, Dr. Ramdas Sen, Dinabandhu Mitra, Ramgati Tarkaratna, Rajkrishna Mukhopadhyay, Gangacharan Sarkar, Gurudas Bandyopadhyay etc. The List of authors in the first issue of Bangadarshan includes: Dinabandhu Mitra, Hemchandra Bandyopadhyay, Jagadishnath Ray, Taraprasad Chattopadhyay, Krishnakamal Bhattacharya, Ramdas Sen and Akshaychandra Sarkar. Still, being the editor, Bankimchandra needed to write a lot for the monthly publication as there were not many authors to write in Bengali at that time.
In Lokrahasya, published as a book in November 1874, here translated as ‘Secrets of the Humankind’ – in line with the satirist tone, we have a partial view of his nationalist approach. There is no loud antagonism towards the foreign rule, but disappointment over the blind imitation of foreign lifestyle by own countrymen and displeasure with derogatory estimation of Indian civilization by foreign rulers. The author appears to be a proud Bengali, who on the one hand argues in favour of preserving own cultural tradition and on the other, whips lack of self consciousness in newly English educated Bengalis. That is why we find such a strong emotion in the ‘Ode to the English’:
“O reader of the mind! Whatever I do is intended to deceive you. I do donate so that you call me a donor; I support others so that you call me supportive; I do study so that you call me knowledgeable; therefore O English! ....
I will set up dispensaries if you wish; will found school to please you; will give donations if you direct so...
O gentle-looking! I will follow your orders. I will dress up in boots and pantaloons, wear spectacles, use fork and spoon, and have meal on the table! Do favour me, I salute you.”
Similarly, he mocks at the newly educated middle class - men and women – who have learnt the new concept of “liberty” from foreigners and trying to implement that in Indian domestic scenario. In the piece “Matrimonial Penal Code”, we find ladies trying to enact domestic law without substance in a hilarious legal language imitating foreign laws.
He sounds orthodox when he writes against the law governing widow remarriage. But there is reason to consider this a columnist’s way of presenting one side of a debate. In another Bangadarshan article named “Samya” he tells, “We would not define ‘Widow Remarriage’ good or bad. Not every widow’s getting remarried is good , but they should have right to remarry according to own will......if the secluded single life of an widow is considered to be auspicious for the society, then why don’t you dictate all widowers to stay single for the rest of their lives?”
Due to their close association to Bengali cultural life and use of country dialect, not all the pieces in Lokrahasya are translatable. But the translated few give a fair idea of how a Bengali Deputy Magistrate in British regime could laugh at the analysis of his own country presented by less-experienced foreign rulers, who probably did not spend enough time to understand their new colony and were busy in categorising the newly discovered society as per own standards.
Bankimchandra was patriotic, but his patriotism was more associated to development of the country than being an expression of mere emotion. Mohitlal Majumdar, an esteemed Bengali poet of 20th century tells that Bankim’s patriotism was the source of his genius. None did baptise him in this religion. But he was born with it; be in his conscious state or in dreams, he could never be free from this. The nationalism he followed was not determined to remove the foreign rulers from the country, not even to imitate their culture at the highest extreme, but to re-introduce the country to its own people. The purpose of his nationalism was to learn the history of the country, knowing the origin of tradition, to be aware of the inheritance, to adopt its ethical values in own life.
The current selection is translated with the purpose of showing a less highlighted section of Bankimchandra’s works. As Rabindranath Tagore describes – “Bankim’s words were not only captivating, but also razor-sharp....Bankim - the charioteer of Bengali literature proceeded fearlessly while shooting his sharp arrows both left and right. His only support was his own genius. He plainly expressed what he believed – did never deceive himself or the others by eloquence.” - the translator takes an attempt to review that brilliant sharpness which made him the leader of 19th century Bengali literature - especially for young generation, who do not have much access to Indian literary works of that period.
(introduction of The Secrets if the Humankind https://pothi.com/pothi/book/ebook-kathakali-mukherjee-secrets-humankind )
