An Intimate History of Bengal
BOOK V
“What
Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow..”
In some happier and less busy age, people used to
write history of the past and one of the finest examples of such a work is Jane
Austen’s A Short History of England. I could
only imagine with jealousy of a man, nicely settled at home, surrounded by
simple pleasures like one’s own wooden chair and desk, some volumes consulted
more than seen, tea of coffee at the opportune moment and writing about the
past, consulting this one and that and writing for one’s own pleasure. Sitting
in a small room at North Calcutta, I was always getting a warm feeling that
what I am writing is no professional historian’s work, no deadline to be met, I
am writing just for my pleasure and that too sitting at this nerve-centre of
geographical Bengal. My job and other pre-occupations of an urban citizen keep
me roaming around Calcutta and outskirts and I always have an urge to write
about this Bengal landscape, of its customs and manners, its
peculiarities and uniqueness. Bengali Literature, after its first sign of
promise with Mr. Bankim Chandra Chatterjee did something very unique and very
futuristic – it tried to permeate a soul in this cityscape of Calcutta. Its success and failure to achieve this in itself is
a cultural barometer of the Bengali race. That bhadralok class is a
thing of the past now in Bengal. True, this species emulated the British image of
gentlemen, true that they were most benefited by the Permanent Settlement, true
that this class has been most successful in sucking the most of the public
revenue of post-independence Bengal and it is also pitiably true that they are
not part of any living tradition in Contemporary Bengal, if anything of living
actually stirring here.
But we need to know this class
intimately to understand them better. To understand them in a wholesome and
soulsome fashion, we need to understand their most cherished habitat in the
planet – city of Calcutta. Because a part of this city’s mindscape is not only
created by them in collaboration but a part nurtured and maintained by them
singularly and so singular a fashion. They were educated, employed and quite
well-off, restless, having either pro or anti position to English as language,
skeptical about religious philosophy but quite practical in terms of practicing
religion. They ought to be busy. They were heavily engaged in the Indo-English
theatre and finding challenges of ever increasing complexity in reconciling
European supremacy and Indian high moral stand, another hand - they were
forging a new language and in terms of cultural narrative this as equivalent of
telling a man who wants to know matter as physics studies it – All matter is
made up of atoms. Another section of this class but not mutually exclusive
entered into the labyrinth that is India’s spiritual tradition and there, in that remotest
corner of India’s history they found something extremely relevant
for their present situation. Not only that, they could also come to this
logical conclusion and for the first time after some thousand years that all
religions at their pure ethical preaching is one and indivisible. I am talking
of Raja Rammohan, Sree Ramakrishna and Keshab Chandra Sen. The cultural
xenophobia was broken by Rammohan, although his Persian-English bent was
distant and nebulous for Bengal, Keshab Sen gave a signal service to Hinduism
and Christianity by being the test tube on which both the tradition performed
their interaction over one another and finally as a culmination - Sree Ramakrishna gave the world a truly global
god whose name in his lips was Kali the Goddess but about its true nature, he
certified every other sects’ realization as equally true, as equally authentic
and as intimate as that of his own. English Imperialists, the resident and
non-resident employers of this bhadralok class were looking at their
achievement as Indian Dominion has come to a completion and those young men who
fought at Afghan War of 1841-42 had reason to be complacent at their old age.
The bhadralok class, by 1920’s were so engaged in Indian Struggle for Freedom
and in one of the most ironic nature of Bengal and of that class, they had
insufficient idea about both component of their project, namely India the
nation and the Rulers of it, of now and after. The reason for this strategic
short-sightedness could be explained only if we could enter into the relative
comparison of the psyche of this class and its counterparts in other parts of
the country.
Fix yourself up some hundred years
ago in some area of Calcutta, say in the area where I am writing these lines now.
These areas were the favourite place for the new class who were Soandso-Babu in
Bengali and Mr. Babu Soandso in English. They used to wear English clothes at
workplace and used to wear dhoti at home or in other social functions. They
designed their homes in imitation of the offices, colleges, schools where they
worked or taught. They read English Literature with no less passion than an
Englishmen of any age. They imitated English tradition of attaching an aristocratic
sense in doing public good, an ethics completely forgotten by Indians for ages.
They loved tramcars, they had a sincere and very charming faith in English as
military power, they were curious of these white men and their strange social
customs. In areas of education, administration and business, the collaboration
has reached high proportion with sufficient collateral stake at both ends. In
military affairs, Bengal Regiment was a regular affair whose recruits were
mainly from present UP, Bihar, other than Bengal. By that time, a sense of maturity and mutual respect had come in
between English and Bengalis, both blissfully unaware of emergence of two
gigantic personalities – Adolf Hitler in Germany and Mahatma Gandhi in India. The former Austrian Corporal will pulverize British
interest globally and the second one, as we have the advantage of age to see more
clearly now will be instrumental in bringing in a more pervasive cultural disturbance
and confusion that will culminate in total loss of Bengali Leadership in
Indian affairs in next few eventful decades.
This new class was in turmoil since its
inception because it was born in whirlwind of time, balance of familiarity of
English and native about each other shielded the halo of its rise and growth
from the ruling class. But soon the class faced some of the cultural
singularities and their reaction and response to them is not only a matter of
concern for Indian History but history in general. Studying this interaction,
we will glimmer insight of some of the most relevant issues we are facing today
in the wake of a complex set of events, termed as globalization, incapable of
finding any other phrase. This new class phrased some of the very potent
questions, not for some academic purpose but that matters in day to day to
life. Just to bring a sense of order, the inner turmoil of this new class could
be expressed in the following set of questions that people asked and tried to
formulate answers. But a microscopic minority of that class, enjoying moderate
luxury and more extravagant leisure contributed something their descendants are
not having courage enough to speak boldly, fairly and without native complex.
The Contribution of this class of Bengalis is nothing less than that of
building a whole new Indian thinking and whole new Indian Consciousness. After
a hundred year from the most volatile period of the development of this class,
we are in a position to evaluate their contribution in a whole new perspective.
Their ambition was not matched by that serenity that comes after a long stay
with an inspired state of consciousness. Now, some of them are totally
forgotten, during some tumultuous times a few decades back, some of their
marble statues were mutilated or heads cut off by hack-saw or pick-axe,
favourite tools of those who had destroyed Civilizations down the ages.
1. Is this tradition of imitating
English Culture so thoroughly good?
2. How we can be as strong, as
prosperous, as respected as English are, on a global scale?
3. Is there anything intrinsically
great of being born a Hindu?
4. Is there anything intrinsically
different of being a Muslim?
5. How can we create literary works
in our language like we have read in English?
6. Why the English that we come
across in real life, in most of the cases are degraded version of the English
character we read in their books?
7. How to go to England? To the Continent? The Albion’s distant shore..
8. How come English ladies are so
shameless?
9. Is there something severely wrong
in our society?
10. Why we are not a free people?
Except
the 5th, 6th and 10th question and
substituting English by Americans, we find that the questions are
questions of our time. In that case, I am tempted to conclude that around 70%
of our questions can be directly copied from the question paper time had handed
them down. The achievement of the class lies not in providing the best answer
but having felt the weight of the questions and seeking genuine ways to
understand their significance in a grand perspective. Brothers and Sisters of
Bengal, our previous generations had left this heirloom for us and this is our
core competence. Understanding, harnessing and creatively and strategically
applying this cultural energy will ensure our true leadership, in India and beyond. These are extra-ordinary times and it
is becoming increasingly clear that communities of the future will be those who
will be more culturally experienced in a deep level, which will be having that
real life and real time experiencing and harmonizing complex cultural baggage.
So, in reading Intimate History of Bengal, you are not reading a local
variable’s movement but in the historical matrix, we are reloading global
variables.
None of the thinking Bengalis could
avoid these questions and their greatness as per them being an enduring
tradition is directly proportional to their treatment of these issues. It is
not in the nature of things that entire society would take these issues to the
same level of intensity. It will be always a small minority, initially a mere
crackle in the din and bustle and slowly it will gather pitch and pace and at a
certain critical level, like cricket-song, it will be echoed from all corners,
varying in intensity, rhythm and regularity but always having that singular structure.
The moment a sense of order and normalcy had been restored, the class we have
been speaking about took up the debate regarding imbibing English Culture. The
pioneer was Bankim Chandra Chatterjee who had sacrificed global fame for his
love of Bengali literature. It is not something un-natural. One of the most
versatile cultural historians of the age was destined to become the Architect
of a language, trying to break through the canyons of Sanskrit’s or negotiating
with art the muddied and muddled channels of everyday linguistic transactions.
But as a novelist, he mirrored the debate or his novels are actually essays on
the Cultural History of Bengal where the characters were guided by ideas that
were neither theirs own, nor of the author but of the time. Hence they are as
un-natural as a character of novel (with complete autonomy) or a pure idea (not
related to real life, imperfect and impure as it is) but a go-in-between. This
property makes them so interesting and the moment we mentally remove the veneer
of the age on which they operated, they become a class and represent a generic
type: culturally magnetized particles. He felt this cultural induction process
in operation and more important, as an essayist, he transported this type in
formulating an empirical observation of human situation in encountering new
culture. He believed that imitation in the domain of culture is only a natural
thing but desirable in cases when an advanced culture meets a relatively less
developed one and Civilization behaves like Temperature – rapidly flowing from
high to the low. So, he demonstrates that today when Bengalis are imbibing
English Culture is not only a natural thing but is a part of the chain in the
tradition. Did not Rome imitate Greeks; did not English draw their
cultural fill from the fountain head of Greek Culture? And then, he put forth a
logical argument which connected him directly with the tradition far away and
urgently needed today. He argues that if English is spreading education and
their culture among us, they are not doing any favour to us. They are only
re-transmitting the favour they once received from others. He must have read
Gibbon, who writes in a footnote while narrating Julius Caesars’ campaign
beyond the land of Gauls to English Isles where the climate had been too cold
and gloomy and some half naked barbarian might have been chasing snow-deer or
as such. But what exactly are they transmitting? How to benchmark the Culture
that is marketed to us by English as English Culture? In the whole history of Bengal, only three persons asked the authenticity of the transmitted
culture and they are Tagore and Nirad C Chaudhri other than Bankim himself. Are
the English actually giving us the same what they had themselves got? The
suspicion was well-grounded and this suspicion should always be a vital sign
for a living community.
If we are convinced that these British
are not doing any thing other than performing their regular historical duty,
then we have to formulate a system to check whether they are actually doing
their duty well. The greatest lover of Bengali Literature, one of its most
loved sons spoke without slightest ambiguity that to examine the English
Culture, English education is necessary, nanya pantha vidyateyanaya –
there is no other way. As long as we are not culturally matured enough to
understand the implications of culture, we need to continue this
cultural transfer. At this point, it is necessary to clarify a subtle point and
that is this: To have a great cultural moorings and the sense and sensibility
to appreciate the implication of culture are not same and the former
does not automatically guarantee the latter. If that were so, all ancient
cultures would have been found intact and at the same height of intensity.
Civilized human beings, in all through the recorded history demonstrate a
tendency of amnesia and due to the ever present threat of a cultural winter;
spring is never far behind for all the cultures. If insurance is a matter of
solicitation, then cultural history is a matter of interpretation. In this way
of history being an interpreted one; some of the major forces of history like
Capitalism, Imperialism, Colonialism, Marxism, and Globalization are nothing
but cultural interpretation of humanity’s march around a cyclic vector. Every
age claims to have found a directive vector but the next age chastises it for
the exactly same reason for not allowing other possibilities. In case of Bengal, the time we have focused ourselves could be imagined a cultural
downloading scenario – it was downloading into its feminine womb the dominant
cultures of the West and somewhere in the 1900’s the process aborted. But this
is directly linked with the very process of downloading to which we will return
while we discuss Bengal’s reawakening to search for its own past.
The moment intelligentsia of Bengal reached sufficient exposure and training in terms of Western styled
education, they naturally started asking the very question which their
text-books so liberally answered – the (cultural) supremacy of the Western
Civilization. An intelligent (not clever, they are plenty in Bengal) and
sensible Bengali of that time, exposed to the city-life of Calcutta with its
imposing structures and tram-lines, its waterways and ghats, the Gateway
to Indian West – Howrah, the Fort Williams could never run way from this
simple fact that these English are really more energetic than themselves. A
Contemporary Bengali novelist tells us of the wonder of wonders when a
high-born landlord was convicted for alleged misbehavior with his servant-girl
by the Court at Calcutta and this was unthinkable that such act can be
called a crime at all. Wherein lies their superiority?
Where from they are drinking their cup of Life? What makes them so confident
and what makes us so weak and trembling? The opinion was divided and there
emerged two groups – the cut-copy-paste English type and the second group was a
continuous critic of the cut-copy type. The first group shone in the landscape
of Bengal like English lilies – artificial, lacking
moderation but dazzling if not seen very deeply. The second group provided the
pendulum of oscillation which moved from an ancient past and to trace that past
it has to go the same English, i.e. other extremity of its swing and at the
middle, at a very short duration while it momentarily balanced, it struck the
tune of the time heralding the Renaissance of Bengal. Or perhaps the
Renaissance that was not. The most
refined and best among this second group concluded after a generations
experiment that behind the supremacy of English lies some fundamental aspect of
character and they are in order: a sense of national mission, faith in
universal laws of Nature instead of a hodge-podge of every urban/rural sanskar
and ku-sanskar, a high sense of seriousness and holiness that radiate from
their best literature, a sense of justice and rule of law and trying to be
always culturally richer. The first one committed Bengal to the Indian Struggle
for freedom at a later age, providing it with a national mission, the second
one brought a love of science and order in the lives and thoughts, third one
inspired a train of Bengali poets and writers to think of the alik-ku-natya-range
/ maje lok rade bange and
subsequently devoting themselves to produce literature of similar standard in
Bengali. The class, in spite of its own complexes was sincere in trying to be
culturally rich and once this sentiment has crossed cosmetic level to become
deeper than the skin, another re-examination in the cultural domain was in the
wings and this is in short – reconsideration of the Hindu Way of Life. And as a natural corollary in Indian
context, valid in particular at Bengal also: the
Muslim question.
Hinduism is perhaps the only
religion (if it can be called so) in the world which does not have a wing of
converting people into its fold. With this tradition, it could never take very
seriously Islam and Christianity’s organized effort to convert in a mass scale.
This inherent character of Hinduism as religious faith is one of the greatest
proof that it is not only a religion but more of a way of life and its strength
lies not in distinctness but being assimilative. Islam and its highest converts
were not ready to break them from this assimilative power, early Christians in
India (in Kerala during as early as 70 AD) did the same and hence in matter of
religion also prevailed the same search for authenticity of what is being
imbibed. But the moment we are talking of Hinduism as a religion, we need to
shift co-ordinate from Calcutta to rural areas and in case of Bengal, its
countryside and rural area provided all ages with food and fish, fruits and
flowers and to the true wordsmiths of Bengal – a place where they had promised
to the language and the landscape – Abbar Ashiba Phire. But Calcutta’s magnetic pull was isotropic – never in Indian
History a city commanded so much prestige as Calcutta did. Talent, goods, ideas and people moved towards
the city by the Hoogly and quite absentmindedly it grew to be the Cultural
Capital of Bengal and in its finest hour, the Cultural epicenter of
Modern India.
But to enter into the onset of
modern India, we need to find the very significant issue of
Hindu-Muslim issue, which from the very beginning remained a question of Clash
of Civilizations in spite of successive age’s urge to cover it under some other
rhetoric. Political solutions to this issue will be always a situation similar
to growing a garden over a caldera. In case of modern India, with railways and telegraph growing, the cultural
environment for both the communities became pervasive. But politics
overshadowed it all. Within these years of activity, consolidation and unrest
came the fateful years of 1940’s that changed Bengal forever. The fate of Bengal no longer remained at the hand of its native inhabitants,
Hindu or Muslim alike but towards West with drops at Delhi, Karachi,
Afghanisthan and that cultural space without a fixed geography - Persia.
In BOOK VI, we will enter into the
cave of this very pointed question hanging as a sign at the entry –
Hindu-Muslim Relationship. But here again, we will find that the bhadralok is
still pursuing us and at one point we will find his traumatic exit, in the
literal sense as well in the sense of being
ejected beyond the orbit of Civilization for some time being. We are
talking of partition of 1947. A very unique Civilization of present Bangladesh
was first terrorized, then put under a severe trauma and when it gained
consciousness in the overcrowded platform of Sealdah, it was not strong
enough even to have a deep memory. But Bengal endured. A generation of men and women picked the thread of their lives
from this City of Calcutta and after fifty years they found something similar
to their experience, in the vivid images of television – of the refugee
kitchens of aid agencies in the War at Afghanistan. A very old lady of my relation, who was only ten
year old at that time, looked at the face of a Afghan
girl shown in the television, heaved a sigh and said softly – I was her age
when I left my desh.
In
BOOK VI, we will pay our tribute to Nirad C Chaudhri and ruminations on the Futuristics of Bengal.
