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.
