Europe Reconsidered: Perceptions of the West in Nineteenth-century Bengal 0195620666, 9780195620665

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Europe Reconsidered

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EUROPE RECONSIDERED Perceptions of the West in Nineteenth Century Bengal

Tapan Raychaudhuri ~

DELHI

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS 1988

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'• .. :")\ "'"r"'I Oxford Univnsity Press, Walton Street, Oxford OX2 6DP NEW YORK TORONTO DELHI BOMBAY CALCUTTA MADRAS KARACHI PETAUNC )AYA SINGAPORE HONG KONG TOKYO NAIROBI DAR ES SALAAM MEI.BOURNE AUCKLAND

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BEIRUT BERLIN IBADAN NICOSIA

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©Oxford University Press 1988 SBN 19 562066 6

Prinled at Rekha Princen Pvt. Ltd., New Delhi 110020 and published by S.K. Mooketjec, Oxfocd Univenity Presa Y.M.C.A. Library Building,Jai Singh Ro.Al, New Delhi 110001

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In men1ory of 'Old English', who would have been amused by this account of things pleasant and at times very unpleasant which my forbears wrote about his.

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Contents .

Preface

IX

..

Abbreviations 1

The Background

2

Bhudev Mukhopadhyay (1827-1894)

3 4 5

XVll

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26

Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay (1838-1894)

103

Swami Vivekananda (186~1902)

219

Afterword

332

Bibliography

347

Index

352

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Preface This volume, though self-contained, is part of a more wide-ranging srudy on the history ofchanging perceptions and artirudes in nineteenth century Bengal. A fact not sufficiently emphasized in the literarure on the East-West encounter in modem times is-that.the Bengali intelligentsia was the first Asian social group of any size whose mental world was transformed through its interactions with the West. In 1817, Bengal's social leaders took the initiative to establish the first instirution of western higher education in Asia. By then, through trade and colonial government, Bengalis had had more than six decades ' . of close contact with a European nation. The change in their mental world has a relevance to wider themes. It is part of a process described very unsatisfactorily by the two expressions, 'modernization' and 'westernization'. Without entering into a discussion of the inadequacy of these two terms, one can note that elite groups throughout Asia experienced a revolution in their world-view and expectations from life which crucially influenced much that has happened over the last hundred years or so. Basic changes in the political, economic and social-culrural world of Asia were mediated by this transformation. Arguably, neither lndian nationalism norJapanese industrialization nor Chinese communism could have emerged in its absence. Fundamental discontinuity in perception and outlook was confined to a minority of the population. Its impact was no't so restricted. To give one example, the principles underlying the lndian Constitution represent the values of a minority. Their formal acceptance by a nation through representative instirutions introduced potentialities of vast. changes affecting hundreds of millions. The nineteenth century Bengali experience is thus a part of a global phenomenon. Chronologically, it is perhaps the earliest manifuitation of the revolution in the mental world of Asia's elite groups. The specific context of colonial rule and absorption into the international economic order were important factors in the transformation, but the basic determinant of the change, arguably again, was the close contact between two entirely different cul~es of which one was perceived to be dominant. The changes occurred, not through • any simple transmission of'influences' manifest in the straightforward

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Europe Reconsidered

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adoption of cultural artifacts like, specific elements in western lifehabits or belief systems (though such adoptions were not absent), but through processes which went much deeper. The contact was a catalyst. It induced mutations in the inherited ways of thinking and conduct, both individual and social, and initiated unprecedented departures from established patterns of responses even in the most intimate areas of life. For instance, at one level, western education was simply an equipment which helped one earn one's living under the colonial regime. A;,t another level, it destabilized established norms and rnores of intra-family relationship. The belief in one's inalienable duties to a large kinship group, especially one's parents and one's own sibllngs and their progeny and the prescribed distance between parents and children and husband and wif~e two props of Bengali family life-were shaken to their foundation. Nirad Chaudhuri has argued convincingly• that the perception of man-woman relationship was transformed through exposure to western romantic literature. Like all discontinuities in such areas of life, the changes were not uniformly distributed over the relevant social space. Large ~oint' families with nearly h1H1drcd members survived until very r~cently. Norms of deference and distance within the family circle also remain strong in many sections of the urban and rural middle class. But the new patterns of response and behaviour, though confined to a sm.all minority, created waves and echoes which reached even remote comers. For instance, militant nationalism, the most powerful and unintended product of the East-West contact, might be the centre point in the lives of only a few young men and women, but its resonances can be noted even in rural ballads. The constitutional politician of a later age also used to his advantage the emotive associations of past martyrdom. The changes in the mental world of the elite are thus not an isolated historical phenomenon, but a crucial determinant of far-reaching developments. The Bengali experience is of particular interest in the Indian context, for it mediated at least some of the new ideas and influences which shaped modem Indian life. This is true not only at the level of 'proto-nationalist' consciousness and the growth ofliberal-humanist values, but because the Bengali officials, cler~. lawyers, teachers and doctors were the first group of westemeducated Indians who ·went out to almost every part of the subcontinent to earn their livelihood. •Sec his s.n,.Jijill