Nationalism as poetic discourse in nineteenth century Bengal 9788181750129, 8181750128

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Nationalism As Poetic Discourse « In Nineteenth Century Bengal

Nationalism As Poetic Discourse In Nineteenth Century Bengal

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A nuradha R o y

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© Author Published : November 2003 Cover Design : Debasis Roy

Rs. 200.00

ISBN-81-8175-012-8 Published by Arijit Kumar for Papyrus, 2 Gancndra Mitra Lane, Calcutta 700 004 and Printed by Sanjoy Shau for A stragraphia, 40B Prem Chand Boral Street, Calcutta 700 012.

For

Babu

*

one of the greatest Indian nationalists

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The present work has grown out of a project assigned to me by the Sahitya Akademi, to bring together a collection of Bengali songs and poems related to the freedom movement. My thanks go to Mr. Nirmalkanti Bhattacharya, then Regional Director of the Akademi for the eastern zone and Mr Ramkumar Mukherjee, his successor, for their trust and cooperation. The Akademi also sponsored my visit to Dhaka for collection of materials. A visiting fellowship at the Maison des Sciences de 1*Homme, Paris, provided a spurt to my study, for which I am grateful to the authorities of this institute. I am grateful to the staff of the Central Library and the RabindraBhavan Library of Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, the Central Library of the University of Burdwan, the National Library, the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad, the Bagbazar Reading Room and Library, the Rammohun Library and the library of the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata, and also of several libraries of Dhaka and Paris for their help and cooperation. Professor Binay Bhusan Chaudhuri, who gave me my first training in historical research, has taken keen interest in the present work too. Some of his comments on earlier drafts of a couple of chapters have proved very helpful. Among others who have taken gratifying interest in my work are two other teachers — Rajat K Ray and the late Parthasarathi Gupta — also Sabyasachi Bhattacharya, Ramakanta Chakrabary, Tripti Chaudhuri, Sumita Chakrabarty, Tapas K Raychaudhuri, Pradyumna Bhattacharya, Alok Ray and two very young friends Bipasha Raha and Sanjukta Dasgupta. I am particularly indebted to Himadri Banerjee for his unfailing encouragement (and sometimes strong criticism). Bratindranath Mukherjee and the late Sisir Kumar Das have been of great help in the clarification of some of my vital ideas. Swapan Basu has generously shared with me his vast knowledge of the nineteenth century Bengali periodicals. Of course, I would not implicate any of these people in my inadequacies and confusions. My chief intellectual debts are to scholars whom I do not know personally and who probably do not know me at all. These are people vii

who have written cultural histories of Indian nationalism before me Sudhir Chandra, Tapan Raychaudhuri, Partha Chatterjee and Sudipta Kaviraj in particular. While I refuse to be tied down to their particular positions, I have derived useful insights from all of them. Quite eclectically I have also drawn upon many other scholars and thinkers across different disciplines and schools of thought and my gratitude goes to them all. Special thanks are due to Samik Bandyopadhyay, who went through the whole manuscript, corrected many mistakes, brought uniformity to the spelling of Indian words and made the book more readable on the whole. Finally I must thank my parents, Dr Srikumar Roy and Smt Sukla Roy, for their life-long care and concern for my studies. My sister Anushree has always been a source of encouragement. And of course, Sri Arijit Kumar of Papyrus deserves thanks for undertaking the publication of this work.

*** I am also grateful to the publishers and editors of the following journals and books where parts of the present book appeared in an early form —

The Calcutta Historical Journal, VoL XVIII, No. I, 1995 for ‘Foreign Tyrants or Foster Brothers? Muslims in the eyes of the Hindu Nationalists in Nineteenth Century Bengal’; Bengal Past and Present, VoL 116, Nos. 222-223, 1998 for ‘Allegiance or Antagonism? The Attitude of Nineteenth Century Bengali Nationalists to British Rule’; Bengal Past and Present, Vol. 118, 1999 for the ‘Bengali or Indian? The Nationality of the Intelligentsia of Nineteenth Century Bengal’; Bdngalir Samskritik Diganta (an anthology of essays, ed. by Ujjwal Majumdar, Sonar Tan, Kolkata, 2001) for ‘Unish Shataker Bangiya Buddhijibider Bangla o Bharat’; Akademi Patrika >13, Paschim Banga Bangla Akademi, Kolkata, for ‘Jatisnjaner Jatilata: Unish Shataker Bangali Hindu Buddhijibider Musalman-bhabna’; Shaili: Chinta Charcha. (an anthology of essays, ed. by Biplab Chakrabarty, Ratna Prakashani, Kolkata, 2003) for ‘Muktir Shaili: Unish Shataker Jatiyatabadi Sahityey Hasya-Koutuk’. viii

CONTENTS P reface

xi

C h a pter O ne :

Imagining the Nation

1-16

C hapter T wo :

Bengali or Indian? A Choice of Nationalities

17-34

C ha pter T hree :

Foreign Tyrants or Foster Brothers? Muslims in the Eyes of Hindu Nationalists

35-66

C h a pter F our :

Allegiance or Antagonism? The Nationalists’ Attitude to British Rule

67-88

C ha pter F ive :

Laughing their Way out of the Prison of Colonialism

89-122

C ha pter S ix :

Working out a Programme for the Nation

123-140

C ha pter S even :

Racism Carrying over Nationalism to an Anti-colonial Attitude

141-176

Notes

177-212

Bibliography

213-224

Index

225-

PREFACE This book could have been named ‘The Nationalist Movement and Bengali Poetry in the Nineteenth Century’ or ‘The Nationalist Poetry in Nineteenth Century Bengal’. But such titles could have given the impression that the nationalist movement, a happening of unquestionable historical importance in nineteenth century Bengal, had prompted a body of poems; that alongside politicians and other active participants the poets had also participated a little in that movement; and that the importance of the nationalist movement lends the nationalist poetry some importance too. The reader would think that it is because of its secondary importance that I find this nationalist poetry worth studying. But actually I have written this book from an entirely different point of view. To my mind, our nineteenth century nationalist movement was not merely a medley of some activities, organizations and events, but a process related to a sensibility - thoughts and emotions, attitudes and ideologies. It was a long process of ideological operation that slowly and gradually made a nation, gave it self-esteem and self-confidence. Its importance and effectuality lies in the mental development of a people. Of course there was no smooth linearity in this development, nor was it uniform for all. Yet, in my reckoning, the history of die nationalist movement is a history of mentality in the main. In other words, it is a cultural history rather than a political one. And from the perspective of cultural history the nationalist movement would appear as necessarily and primarily a movement carried on by poets. If the nationalist movement involved founding associations, organizing meetings and delivering lectures, more importantly did it involve writing poetry. Verses were not incidental to the movement; they were essential ingredients of it. Hundreds of people wrote thousands of poems as their contribution to the nationalist movement. If we treat songs as poems, the size of the nationalist poetry would appear all the more formidable. Moreover, in some cases this poetry reached an amazing aesthetic height. And some of the songs and poems had a wide and profound impact. In fact, in a nationalist movement the political leaders take up the tune sung by the poets and then the song of nationalism rings far and wide. xi

Alternatively it may be said that nationalism makes a poet of each and every nationalist. A nationalist movement means so much of poetry, because it involves a lot of idealist romanticism and is basically a process of imagination, as even realist sociological studies are prone to view it nowadays *. Hence I propose to study the nineteenth century nationalism of Bengal as a poetic discourse. Does this mean an exercise in ‘discursive history’? Perhaps partly. But I would like to clarify my stand in this respect. Proponents of ‘discursive history’ often tell us that reality is not something to be studied and that instead we must study discourse or language. According to them, discourse does not reflect the reality; it constitutes the reality. I, however, do not intend to fetishize discourse, though I would like to glean insights from it. Mine is not the textuality of the literary theory that refuses to ‘appropriate anything —worldly, circumstantial, or socially contaminated’. I would say with Edward Said, ‘My position is that texts are worldly, to some degree they are events and even when they appear to deny it, they are nevertheless a part of the social world, human life and of course the historical moments in which they are located and interpreted’. 2 Furthermore, discourse itself is a field of many complexities and contentions, with many subjects and many consciousnesses. Bearing all this in mind, I would try to reconstruct the reality of the nationalist movement of nineteenth century Bengal on the basis of the discourse or texts of nationalist poetry. When one becomes sensitive to the importance of discourse as embodying the culture of nationalism, one must pay attention not only to poetry, but to other branches of literature as well. Alongside songs and poems, I shall indeed use several plays, novels and other prosewri tings (including newspaper reports) in my study. But I must confess that I am not so well versed in the rich treasury of nineteenth century nationalist literature in its entirety. Moreover, between poetry and prose, idealism and imagination are generally taken to be the functions of poetry, while prose is supposed to grapple with the real world and its prosaic concerns. This is of course an oversimplification. Role-reversal is quite common. Also, as we shall see in the course of our discussion, the nationalist discourse often experienced moods that did not nurture poesy and rather found in prose a more suitable medium of expression. But on the whole, poetry, by virtue of both quantity and quality, proves most helpful for reconstructing the history of a nationalist movement. xii

The book could also have been named ‘A History of the Nationalist Movement in Nineteenth Century Bengal’ with the words ‘a study based on poetry’ following in parenthesis. For in this book I attempt to understand not only the nationalist poets, but also the social class they belonged to. This was the Bengali literati or bhadralok (to call the class by the name it gave itself) or babu (another appellation of these people)3, who pioneered the process of nation-making in the nineteenth century. Through a process of extrapolation from the nationalist poets’ discourse I would try to understand the nationalist mind of this entire social collectivity, focusing on some complex patterns woven into it. This extrapolation will be possible, because, after all, the poetic discourse was rooted in the contemporary social reality. And songs and poems, because of their sheer numerousness, can claim to represent the collective mind of this class more adequately than any other literary form, providing a very broad database for my study.4 Apart from delineating the process of imagining the nation, the nationalist poetry draws our attention to some interesting complexities involved in the process of nation-making by the bhadralok, and help us to understand them in some depth. These were complexities of their own mind and hence may be called ambivalences. The first ambivalence centred on the question whether to be a Bengali nation or an Indian one. The second was rooted in yet another question, viz. whether to be a Hindu-Aryan nation or a pan-Indian one. Related to this was the simultaneous occlusion of Muslims from the nation as ‘foreign tyrants’ and their inclusion in it as ‘foster brothers’. The third was the conflict between an acute sense of subjection to the British along with an urge for freedom on the one hand and a sense of grateful loyalty to them on the other. Fourthly, while the nineteenth century nationalist literature had a tone of lamentation on the whole, sometimes it flashed laughter, which momentarily released the nationalists from the prison of colonial reality. Finally, though the nineteenth century intelligentsia stood positively on the side of British rule, a negative racist sentiment was simmering in their minds in regard to Britishers, and by association, to all white people. This was counter­ racism arising in reaction to white racism, which perhaps played an , important role in gradually transforming their jejune pro-colonial nationalism into a strident anti-colonial one. I deal with all these complexities in different chapters of the book. In another chapter we would see how the nationalist poets gradually worked out a programme xiii

for the nation, thus suffusing the passive nationalism of the early phase with a spirit of action. The book, however, will remain inconclusive. I give ample hints in it that the early twentieth century, particularly the Swadeshi Movement, brought about fundamental changes in the nationalist consciousness. The myths that had so long upheld the supremacy of British rule in the bhadralok mind were now seriously challenged and this made the nationalists take the first plunge in an anti-colonial agitation. Some other aspects of their nationalism, for example their attitude to Muslims, started changing, too. Needless to say, everything did not change at once and continuities were no less important. However, the nationalist movement of the twentieth century merits a separate study. And the history of transition from the colonial to the postcolonial period could constitute the theme of yet another book. But of course, the legacy of our nineteenth century nationalist forebears is still important to us. It is a complicated legacy, understanding which is a present-day need. It means understanding an important part of our cultural heritage, which we have neither quite lived down, nor completely outlived.

Notes 1.

2.

3.

4.

Thanks to Benedict Anderson’s seminally influential book, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread o f Nationalism, London, 1983. Edward Said has expressed this view about texts in his celebrated book Orientalism (‘Introduction’), in The World, the Text and the Critic, pp. 4-5, and also in ‘Interview with Edward Said’ in Salusinszky ed. Criticism and Society, pp. 122-149. Throughout this book I would mostly use the term bhadralok as a convenient shorthand for the Bengali literati. Bhadralok means ‘respectable folk’. Even today most of the bhadralok like using this term to describe themselves. There are some who resent its use as a plot to malign this class. But I do not find the term derogatory. Rather, it is the term babu that has been used as a pejorative since the nineteenth century, whenever someone from within or outside this class has wanted to deride i t Of course, I do not claim that I have read up all the nationalist songs and poems of nineteenth century Bengal. But I have read a major portion of them, although I have been able to cite only a small fraction of these in the present book. xiv

Nationalism As Poetic Discourse In Nineteenth Century Bengal

1

IMAGINING THE NATION T he N ation : A n Imagined C ommunity

Patriotism became nationalism in Bengal around the middle of the nineteenth century. People of Bengal and India had cherished in their hearts a love for their homeland from time immemorial. In th&ROmayana of Valmiki we find the emotive assertion: ‘Both mother and the land of one’s birth are greater than heaven’. Motherland hoe, however, stands for the city of Ayodhya and nothing more. The medieval poet Mukunda Chakrabarty’s patriotism centred round his village Daminya (in the district of Bardhaman), where be was bom. Later exiled from there he remembered it with deep nostalgia all his life—as a place full of religiously-minded people and beautiful sights.1 But such sentiments centring on a territory practically confined to one’s immediate surroundings cannot be called nationalism. There existed, however, the idea of a larger country in the minds of some people living prior to the nineteenth century. It formed the basis of a broader self-identity, but could not have aroused as intense a sentiment as evident in Mukunda. In 1432 a country named BangQl with a language called Bangali was recognized by the Chinese traveller Ma Huan. This Bangui covered a major part of today’s West Bengal and Bangladesh. And though there were about four sub-languages in this region at that time, Ma Huan noticed a unity among them and grouped them together as Bangali. The recognition of this geo-linguistic entity by a foreign traveller must have been a corroboration of the self-identity of some local people.2 But even this type of self-identity can hardly be called nationalism. 1 299 : 1

2

NATIONALISM AS POETIC DISCOURSE

An even broader self-identity based on the concept of a country as big as the subcontinent itself was existent from a very ancient time, though this too was not as emotionally powerful as Mukunda Chakrabarty’s about Daminya. This is indicated by the proper nouns Jambudwipa used in the Maurya period and Bharatavarsha since the early Christian era. Though these words acquired different connotations in different times and w oe accorded even extra-subcontinental affiliations on some occasions, they mostly stood for the whole subcontinent approximately. The V&yu Purdna refers to a Bharatavarsha that was situated to the north of the sea and to the south of the Himalayas and whose sons were called Bhdrati. As Dudley Stamp says, ‘There are perhaps few parts of the world better marked off by nature as a region or a “realm” by itself than the Indian subcontinent.’ 3 So appellations like Jambudwipa and Bharatavarsha primarily denoted a geographical entity, but also a cultural one—a people bound by a loose cultural unity. (This was not to deny the internal political, administrative, social, economic, religious and cultural divisions.) The geo-cultural unity of the subcontinent was also acknowledged by foreigners who attributed to it distinctive names like Indoi (or India), Shen-tu (or Yin-tu) and Hindustan (or Hind). But this India was not really the Indian nation of the nineteenth century.4 The nation is a very modern phenomenon in history. It arises out of an aspiration to cope with forces of modernity. In the colonial world the nation is invariably a response to the colonial situation. The urge for nationalism in the minds of some Bengali subjects of the British Indian empire of the nineteenth century had two major sources. Colonial rule was breaking up their old society (or societies) based on strong communitarian feelings. Networks of kinship (often with local structures) were being disrupted. A process of individuation was taking place and an impersonal society was emerging. In Europe such a development had taken place roughly from the fifteenth / sixteenth centuries due to the emergence of several new economic forces culminating in pie Industrial Revolution. In India it started a bit late and here it came under the pressure of colonialism. Everywhere this process of the end of the age of collectivity breeds a sense of vacuum and insecurity among people and urges them to invent a different type of collectivity. The idea of nationalism proves very convenient in such situations. In the words of Eric Hobsbawm, ‘For those who can no longer rely on belonging anywhere else, there is at least one imagined community to

IMAGINING THE NATION

3

which one can belong: which is permanent, indestructible and whose membership is certain, the nation appears as the ultimate guarantee when society fails.’ 3 The second and a more immediate source of the nationalist urge in the nineteenth century was a sense of self-respect in relation to the colonial masters. Ranajit Guha rightly says, ‘The self-respect at issue here was the self-respect of a subject people reconciled to its subjection.’ ‘Its loss was not ascribed to want of political independence but to want of recognition within the framework of colonial dependence.’ Guha has used rather strong words to describe this selfrespect. He says that it was like a savant’s urge for recognition from his master.6 The subjects of the British Indian empire needed a self-identity to establish their self-respect. Acquaintance with the history of nationalism in Europe prompted them to use the idea of nation for this purpose and to devise a suitable form for themselves. A nation is a community which even while covering an extensive territory is supposed to be very closely knit. Living inside it must foster a sense of solidarity and belongingness even more than that of Mukunda in regard to his native village. A man can go to the extent of laying down his life for his nation. Such intensity of the nationalist sentiment becomes possible from the fact that it centres not only around a country but more importantly around a community, the members of which are supposed to be kin-folk. Of course, such a community has» to be an ‘imagined community’, as Benedict Anderson’s highly influential book has made clear to u s.7 A nation is an imagined community because even though it evokes a strong sense of kinship, ‘the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet th an or even hear of them .. . . In fact, all communities larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact (and perhaps even these) are imagined.’ * Anderson, however, warns that the word ‘imagined’ should not be taken to mean fabricated or false. He argues that a nation is a ‘cultural artefact’ that acquires legitimacy in course of time. We can venture the guess that even very old communities believed to be based on ‘primordial’ ties had once been imagined into existence in similar manners, then gradually became established as objective realities in history. Though the nation is a ‘novelty’ in history, it makes men assume

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‘that national identification is so natural, primary and permanent as to precede history,’ says Hobsbawm echoing Anderson. 9 So the primary task of self-identification of a nation is to give itself a ‘retrospective mythology’, which, of course, is simply called ‘history’ by nationalists. In other words, ‘getting its history wrong is part of being a nation’. 10 Those who are imbued with this history that nationalism gives itself, may find the idea of the nation as an imagined community pretty explosive. But dispassionate views have been increasingly available. Scholars like Ranajit Guha, Partha Chatterjee and Sudipta Kaviraj have made important contributions to the study of Indian nationalism from this standpoint.11 I magining

Two N ations

at a

T ime

The degree of imaginariness of nations, however, varies; and histories of all nations are not equally wrong. Sometimes nationalists hit upon the idea of a bond which is already existent as a more or less objective reality, though not yet used as the basis of a nation. Such nations approximate to something already established in history. But in some cases nationalists canvass an idea that is totally new and even wrong. The difference is like that between realistic art and abstract art. All arts are by definition abstract. But this abstraction can be of two kinds. The artist can abstract a form from what he sees before his eyes or he can present something wholly non-objective. The difference between Bengali ^nationalism and Indian nationalism of the nineteenth century Bengali nationalists will illustrate this point. When these bhadralok felt the need for a collective self-identity, a language-based regional consciousness already prevalent among them came in handy. Since the fourteenth or fifteenth century, Bengal had become an identifiable space — a territorial base for an exclusively Bengali-speaking people. As noted already, a Bangali language and a Bangui country were noticed by the Chinese traveller Ma Huan in the fifteenth century. It is true that this language was not yet standardized and was actually a sum total of four sub-languages. It is also true that even after Ma Huan it was mostly called Prakrit or Lok-bhasha (folk language) instead of by a distinct name like Bangld or B&ngcl-bh&sha. Still this language gradually became the rallying point of a regional identity.12 The Bengali intelligentsia of the nineteenth century inculcated this concept of a geo-linguistic entity with great enthusiasm for making

IMAGINING THE NATION

5

their nation. The Bengali nation came to be deeply etched in their collective mind. After all, a linguistic bond is the strongest possible ‘primary’ bond to be cultivated by any nation. The nineteenth century literati had to put in tremendous literary efforts to standardize their language in order to make it a criterion for nationhood. Thus, Bengali, the norm language and the basis of Bengali nationalism, was a somewhat new phenomenon in the nineteenth century. But it was not just a figment of the imagination. It had a long history of evolution behind i t .13 The relative authenticity of this criterion for nationhood will become clear if we compare it with the basis of the Indian nation as conceived by the same Bengali elite. Like Bengali and Bengal, India (or BhUratavarsha) had a long precolonial past. The British empire geographically approximated to the old India and retained this name. As the Bengali bhadralok inevitably found that their Bengali nationalism was not enough to negotiate their relationship with the British and realized that they must search for a bigger nation with greater resources, it was this British Indian empire that naturally became the framework of their broader nationalist thinking. Of course, a nation cannot be gifted by colonial masters, and the bhadralok knew that they would have to make it on their own toms. But all those whom the British derogatorily addressed as ‘natives’ within the geographical limit of their Indian empire were to constitute this Indian nation. We have many more instances of nations thus created within the boundaries of colonial empires. In the case of Dutch Indonesia those who were called ‘inlanders’ by their colonial masters made the Indonesian nation. Negritude, i.e. the concept of a nation consisting of all natives of Africa, came in a similar way (though later it was realized that all Africans could not belong to a single nation). So this new Indian nation was physically and nominally the same as the old India or Bhdratavarsha. But ideationally it was totally different. The ‘new India’ was vastly different from the traditional India. Hence, Sudipta Kaviraj makes the apparently curious assertion that India came into existence for the first time in the nineteenth century in the nationalist imagination, though he is presumably aware of the existence of a country named India from a vary ancient period.14 The traditional concept of India or Bhdratavarsha standing for a loose cultural bonding within certain natural boundaries failed to appeal to the nationalists. A nation is not a geographical space, but a community of people, and a very

6

NATIONALISM AS POETIC DISCOURSE

compact community at that. It must be based on some stroog internal principle traceable in history. No single language could serve as such a principle in the case of India. A very convenient concept was found at this juncture, viz. the concept of ‘Hindu’. It was the concept of an immemorially old ‘we’, with a large popular basis and with a frontier that seemed to tally with the frontier of India. Not that there was ever any real ‘Hindu’ community in history, united politically, culturally, linguistically or even religiously. The idea was nothing but a myth constructed on a negative basis. Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay (1838-94), a famous proponent of nineteenth century Hindu nationalism, admitted quite candidly: ‘Search through all the records of pre-Mohamedan India; nowhere will you meet with even such a word as Hindu, let alone Hindu religion.’ 15 The concept ‘Hindu’ was defined in terms of those who were not Hindu, and was probably reinvigorated in the first half of the nineteenth century in the context of religious assaults by Christian missionaries. The bhadralok grabbed at this negative concept and could not think of any alternative criterion for nationhood. In north India the concept of ‘Hindi’ was added to ‘Hindu’ as the foundation of the nation. Pratap Narayan Mishra (1856-95) coined the nationalist slogan ‘Hindi Hindu, Hindustan’. 16 But the Bengali literati could not give a linguistic orientation to their Indian nation. They imagined the nation solely through Hinduness. The notion of the glorious Hindu past was consolidated when the cultural-cum-religious concept ‘Hindu’ was equated with the ethnic concept ‘Aryan’, thanks to the linguistic research of Max Mueller bringing out the common origin of all Indo-Aryans. Hindu = Aryan = Indian was the equation that emotionally swayed a large number of people. The Indian Aryans appeared not only to be a people with a glorious past, but also distant cousins of their British rulers. So this was a doubly soothing concept to a subject people. Needless to say, this concept is not anthropologically correct. In the ever-changing social reality it is difficult to trace any race in its pure form and it is impossible to trace the Aryans at all. But this practical problem does not prevent people from inventing ethnicity overnight to facilitate nation-making.17 The recent history of Europe is replete with such examples.18 However, to be fair to Max Mueller one must admit that by Aryans he just meant a linguistic group and not a race. But the Bengali bhadralok twisted

IMAGINING THE NATION

7

and used his scholarship to their own advantage.19 Their Indian nation thrived on the twin myths of ‘Hindu’ and Aryan’. Poetry played an important role in the making of both the Bengali and the Indian nations by the nineteenth century bhadralok. All their nationalist poems were concerned with either Bengal or India, which, almost as a matter of rule, was Hindu-Aryan in character. Most of the poets felt themselves to be both Bengali and Indian, leaning towards either of the nationalities at one point of time. The two wore even combined in some poems. But we will discuss the exact relationship between the two nationalities of the bhadralok in the next chapter. I magination C ombined w ith C alculation

At this point, what Sudipta Kaviraj says about the way the nation, whether imaginary or real, conceives itself, will come to our use.20 The nation is a product of a conjuncture of modernity. Modern communities conceive themselves in a way that is different from the earlier way of self-perception of communities. The pre-modern social form may be called primary group or gemeinschaft (in the term used by the sociologist Toennies), to which one does not have to make an interest-actuated decision to belong. People living therein have a strong communitarian feeling, usually stronger than in modern societies. Also, the traditional communities have ‘naturally’ limited contours and the ‘primordial’ nature of their solidarity makes them seem indissoluble. All this distinguishes them from the modem social form or gesellschaft. The latter rests on conscious calculation of self-interests by its members. Here atomistic individuals enter into relations with each other on the basis of a rational calculation of advantages. The boundaries of a gesellschaft may be conveniently gerrymandered* Contractual dissolubility is another important feature of such communities, of which the nation is a good example. But origins of a gemeinschaft perhaps lie in some ancient gesellschaft. Similarly a gesellschaft often steals the idea or rather ‘poetry of primordiality’ from the gemeinschaft. It claims indissolubility and feigns an antiquity and authenticity, which can be traced way back in history. We haw already said that claiming for itself a past is very important for becoming a nation. A nation has to write its own history. And this history is usually associated with poetic passions. Hence the history-

g

NATIONALISM AS POETIC DISCOURSE

writing of nationalists is of a poetic nature and nationalist poetry is writing of history to a large extent. Nationalist poets are in fact historians about whom Hobsbawm has said, ‘Historians are to nationalism what poppy-growers in Pakistan are to heroin-addicts: we supply the essential raw material for the market.’ 21 The history of India that the British had recently taught Indians was constituted of accounts of several dynasties ruling in different parts of the subcontinent during different periods. The poet-historians of the nineteenth century found this history inadequate and prosaic. The nation is based on only one true sovereignty and must have a singular grand history. And this led the poets to a single source of Indian tradition in the two absolutely wrong but captivating ideas, viz. ‘Hindu’ and ‘Aryan’. They constructed the history of their Indian nation on the basis of these two ideas. Their Bengali nation was somewhat lacking in historical glory. But after all, its basis was a language, something long pre-existing and source of a strong ‘primordial’ bond. Apart from imagining a history of the nation, nationalists also imagine as the basis of the nation some bonds, which are pre-given and un chosen, just like an individual’s bond with his/her parents. Language, religion and ethnicity can easily be imagined as very strong bonds. Because they are unchosen, man’s relation with them is not one of selfinterest. It is precisely lor this reason that a person can even lay down his/her life for the sake Bharata he, dukha-sagara santari para habe', included in his Geetikabita, first part, 1882. 9 (a) See Anandachandra Mitra’s songs included in Bhdratiya Sangeet Muktdbali and other anthologies, and also the poems in his collection Mitra

Kdbya. (b) Dwarakanath Gangopadhyay’s songs included in the an&ology Jatiya Sangeet (ed. by Dwarakanath himself, published in 1876) and other anthologies. (c) Rajkrishna Ray’s Bhdrat-Gdn: Bhdratvarsha Sambandhiya Ekshata Geet and also his other songs and poems in Rajkrishna Rayer Granthdbali (particularly from the verse-book ‘Abasar-Sarojini'j published by Gurudas Chattopadhyay, 1290 b s (1883). (d) Radhanath Mitra’s songs in Bhdratiya Sangeet Muktdbali, op. cit and Sangeet-kosh (ed. by Upendranath Mukhopadhyay, published inl896) and other anthologies. (e) Biharilal Chakrabarty’s book Nisarga-Darshan (1870), particularly its first part ‘Chinta’ and second part ‘Samudra-darshan’, available in his Granthdbali (complete works) published in 1320 b s (1913). (f) Upendranath Das’ song ‘Hay ki tamasi nishi Bharat mukh dhakilo’ in his play Surendra-Binodini (1875). 10 The poem titled ‘Janmabhumi’ in Fakirchandra Sadhukhan’s Bhab o Chinta, 1297 b s (1890).

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11 Sbashipada Bandyopadhyay’s song ‘Prabhu ei taba padey kari nibedan’ in Bharatiya Sangeet Muktabali. 12 Rabindranath’s song ‘Oi bishadini bina’ included in Jallya Sangeet compiled by Dwarakanath Gangopadhyay. Available also in Gitabitan (in the section entitled ‘Jatiya Sangeet’). It was sung at the 1877 session of the Hindu Mela (according to information provided by Gitabitan). 13 (a) Rajkrishna Ray’s poem ‘Bina’, first published in the journal of the same name, ed. by Rajkrishna himself. This journal of poetry appeared about the time of the gagging of the vernacular press. Later the poem was included in his Abasar-Sarojini. (b) A song of Anandachandra Mitra in his Mitra-Kabya. 14 ‘Tomari tarey ma sampinu e deha’, 1284 b s (1877) in Gitabitan (in the section entitled ‘Jatiya Sangeet’) 15 The poem titled ‘Utsarga’ in Shibnath Shastri’s book of poems Pushpamald, second edition, 1287 (1880). 16 The poem ‘Ma Amir’ in Kamini Ray’s book of poems A h o Chhdyd (1889) 17 The song ‘Agey chal agey chal bhai’, 1294 b s (1887), in GitabitOn (in the section entitled ‘Swadesh’). 18 Published in the journal Education Gazette on 7 Sravan, 1277 b s (1870). Later included in Hemchandra’s Kabitdbali. 19 ‘Chal re chal sabey Bharata-santan’, BinabOdini Patrikd, Chaitra 1304 BS (1898) 20 From Dwijendranath Thakur’s poem ‘Bharati’ included in the anthology Jatiya Uddipand, 1284 b s (1877). 21 ‘Ekbar tora m a bolia d a k ’, (1292 b s) (1885) in Gitabitan (in the section ‘Jatiya Sangeet’) 22 ‘Anandadhwani jagao gagane’, Falgun, 1299 b s (1892) in Gitabitdn (the section called ‘Swadesh’) 23 ‘Amra milechhi aj mayer dake’ (1886) sung at the second session of the Indian National Congress in that year. 24 The song ‘Jagao Bharat hridey utsaha anal’ in Arya-Gatha. 25 ‘Utho go Bharatalakshmi’, composed sometime in 1892/93. Included in Atulprasad’s collection of songs titled Geetigunja. 26 This poem was published in the Education Gazette, Jyaistha, 1277 b s (1870). Though ‘Bharat Bilap’ was published earlier, it was written later. 27 The poem titled ‘Utsarga’. 28 Atulprasad composed this song in Venice, Italy, on his way to England. He set it to the tune of a song of the gondoliers. 29 Bhdrat-Gdn. 30 Bandhab, e ig h th iss u e , 1285 b s (1878). 31 The books of poems Mdnasi. 32 ‘E desher dukhey kar na sarey chokher jal* in Bharatiya Sangeet Muktabali.

NOTES

203

m

33 ‘Chhado be asar alas’ quoted in Jogeshchandra Bagal’s Hindu Melar

Itibritta. 34 ‘Miley sabey Bharata-santan1, sung at the second session of the Hindu Mela. Included in Hindu Melar Itibritta. 35 ‘Ek sutre bandhiachhi sahasrati man’, first published as pait of Jyotirindranath Thakur’s p la y Puru-Bikram in 1286 b s (1877). The refrain ‘Bande Mataram’ was added much later - during the Swadeshi Movement. Available in Gitabitan (in the section ‘Jatiya Sangeet’) 36 See Bharat-Gan, Abasar-Sawjirti and other books of Rajkrishna Ray. 37 A poem entitled ‘Geeti ke jeno gailo’ in the anthology Jatiya Uddipana, printed from Dhaka Girish Jantra, 1284 b s (1877). The poet called himself ‘Bharat-suhrid’ there. 38 PrabSsi, Bhadra, 1308 b s (1901). 39 ‘Nirbachan Sangeet’, Janmabhumi, Chaitra, 1298 b s (1892). 40 Two poems titled ‘Bhot-bhiksha - Tailik Bhabaney’ and ‘Bhot-bhiksha Dhibar Grihey’ were published along with the above-mentioned ‘Nirbachan Sangeet’. 41 Partha Chatteqee, The Nation and Its Fragments, p. 137 : ‘We must not overlook the hegemonic possibilities of this internalized critique: it could, up to a point, retain its own legitimacy and appropriate both feminine and popular ridicule simply by owning up to them.’ 42 Bandhab, e le v e n th is s u e , 1288 b s. 43 Published in the journal Bharat Shrumajibi, 1874. See Kanailal Chattopadhyay ed., Bharat Shramajibi, first edition Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, 1975, second edition National Book Agency, 1994. 44 Somprakash, 20 Ashwin 1270 b s (1863). 45 Included in the anthology Jatiya Sangeet (1876). 46 For example Shibnath Shastri’s verse ‘Kalaratri pohailo, udilo sukha-tapan’ in Bharatiya Sangeet Muktabali, where he mentioned the prisoner-like condition and misery of women and the waiting of widows. 47 ‘Bharat shmasan majhey ami go bidhaba bala’. Also see his ‘Cheye dekho dekho ohe Bharat-santangan’ in Bharatiya Sangeet Muktabali. It says ‘As long as the women remain low/ The sun of India’shappiness will not rise’. 48 ‘Bharat-Kamini’, first published in the Education Gazette, 31 Bhadra, 1278 b s (1871). Later included in Hemchandra’s Kabitdbali. 49 Sangeet-kosh. 50 See the chapter entitled ‘The nation and its Women’ in The Nation and

its Fragments. 51 Tanika Sarkar, ‘The Hindu Wife and Hindu Nation: Domesticity and Nationalism in Nineteenth Century Bengal,’ Studies in History (Jawaharlal Nehru University), July-December 1992, p. 217. This point has been ignored by Partha Chatterjee.

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52 See Gulam Murshid, The Reluctant Debutante: Response of Bengali Women to Modernization, 1849-1905, Sahitya Samsad, Rajshahi University, Rajshahi 1983. 53 The poem entitled ‘Tai dali paye’ in her posthumously published book of poems Smritikana, 1308 b s (1901). The poet died at a very young age. 54 ‘Alas Yuvak’ published in SadhOrani, 5 Ashwin, 1281 b s (1874). The footnote records that it had been written by a woman of 17 years of age, that her husband has sent the poem to the editor of the periodical and that the couple reside in Nasipur. 55 ‘Amader Desh’ was first published in Nabya Bharat, Ashwin, 1299 b s (1892). Later it was included in Mankumari’s book of poems Kabyasusumdnjali, first edition, 1300 b s (1893). 56 Partha Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments, p.6. 57 The poem (written in 1304 b s) was published in Bharati, Ashadh, 1305 b s (1898). It was later included in Rabindranath’s Kalpana. 58 The poem entitled ‘Arghya’ in Pramathanath’s books of poems Padma, second edition 1308 bs (1901). 59 The poem titled ‘Bharat’ by Akshaychandra ChaudhurL Published in Bharati, Chaitra, 1313 (1907). The footnote says that it was recited at the Chaitra Mela (out of which grew the Hindu Mela) on the last day of the year 1789 Saka (1867). 60 See Basantakumar Chattopadhyay, JyotirindrandXher Jibansmriti, Shishir Publishing House, 1326 b s (1919). 61 See Hindu Melar Itibritta. 62 This poem has already been mentioned more than once in this book. It was probably written by Nabinchandra Mukhopadhyay. The villagers of Boral sent it to be read at a session of the Mela under the inspiration of Rajnarayan Basu. 63 See Hindu Melar Itibritta 64 ‘Chihnita Suhrid (Covenanted Friend)’ was published in Bangadarshan, Jyaistha, 1281 b s (1874). But the last few lines were censored by the editor. The latter said in the foot-note that those lines of this otherwise excellent poem could not be approved. Later the whole poem was included in Nabinchandra’s verse-book Abakdshranjini, second part. 65 Included in Abakashranjini, Part n, 1878. 66 Nabinchandra’s ‘Arya-Darshan’ was published in the first issue of the journal of the same name, Baisakh, 1281 b s (1874). Later it w a s included in Abakashranjini. See Amdr Jiban (‘My life’) in Nabinchandra Rachanabali (Bangiya Sahitya Parishad) for the incident. 67 ‘Anandamath’ was serially published in Bangadarshan from Chaitra, 1287 b s (1881).

NOTES

205

68 The poem was published under the heading ‘Prerita Patra’ in Somprakdsh, 30 Magh, 1284 bs (1878). 69 Both included in Shatagdn ed. by Sarala Devi. The first one starts with the line - ‘Bandi tom aye Bharat-janani’ and the second with ‘Namo namo namo jagatjanani’. 70 The second edition of Anal-Prabaha came out in 1315 bs (1908). It was proscribed in 1317 b s . 71 Published in Prabasi, Kartik, 1310 bs (1903). 72 The poem ‘Ahvan’ in Nabanur, Sraban, 1310 bs (1903). 73 A few instances - (a) Pramathanath Raychaudhuri, ‘Jaysangeet’, celebrating the triumph o f Japan in Bangadarshan, Chaitra 1311 b s (1905). (b) Swarnakumad Debi, ‘Japani Bir’, Bharati, Agrahayan, 1310 b s (1903). (c) Rajanikanta Sen, ‘Boer Yuddha’ in his collection of poems Kalyani, 1905. 74 For example Pramathanath Raychaudhuri’s poem ‘Ranir Ranayatra* in his Arali published in 1309 bs (1902). 75 She also published a poem entitled ‘Birashtamir Gan’ in Bharati, Kartik, 1311 b s (1904). 76 Cf. ‘Jibansmriti’ in Rabindra Rachanabali, Vol. xvi. The book was originally published in 1912. 77 Naibedya was published in 1306 b s (1901). The book titled Utsarga was published much later, but all its poems had been published in KObyagrantha (ed. by Mohitchandra Sen) in 1310 b s (1903 ). 78 Chaitali was published in 1303 b s (1896). 79 Sumit Sarkar, The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, 1903-1908, People's Publishing House, 1973. The other three trends were, according to him, (1) moderate politics, (2) passive resistance and (3) revolutionary terrorism. 80 The treatise titled “Satyer Ahvan” in Kdlantar, 1344 b s (1937) is included in Rabindra Rachanabali, VoL xxrv. In Rabindranath’s own translation of the essay, under the title T he Call of Truth’, the lines read : ‘So in 1905, I called upon my countrymen to create their own country by putting forth their own powers from within. For the act of creation itself is the realization of truth. The Creator gains Himself in bis Universe. To gain one's own country means to realize one’s own soul more fully expanded within i t This can only be done when we are engaged in building it up with our service, our ideas and our activities. Man’s country being the creation of his own inner natue, when his soul thus expands within it, it is more truly expressed, more fully realized.’ Cf. The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, ed. Sisir Kumar Das, v o l. id, Delhi : Sahitya Akademi 1996, p. 414. ‘The Call of TYuth’ was originally published in The Modem Review, October 1921. The Bengali address was first read in August 1921.

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81 Ibid. Cf. The English Writings of Rabindranath Tagore, VoL in, p. 417 : ‘The call to make the country our own by dint of our own creative power, is a great call. It is not merely inducing the people to take up some external mechanical exercise; for man’s life is not in making cells of uniform pattern like the bee, nor in incessant weaving of webs like the spider; his greatest powers are within, and on these are his chief reliance.’ [Rabindranath’s own translation of the same text.]

7

Racism Carrying over Nationalism to an Anti-colonial Attitude 1 I have borrowed the concepts of ‘external authority’ and ‘internal authority’ from Erich Fromm’s Fear o f Freedom. 2 T R Metcalf, Ideologies of the Raj (New Cambridge History of India), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, first paperback edition, 1998. 3 Partha Chatteijee, too, has recognized the ‘rule of colonial difference’ in his The Nation and Its Fragments, Chapter Two ( ‘The Colonial State’). 4 The role of Le Petit Bengali, a French paper published from Chandemagore, during the Ubert Bill controversy may be cited as an example. Cf. Nemai Sadhan Bose, Racism, Struggle for Equality and Indian Nationalism, Firma KLM P vt Ltd. (with assistance of University of Southern California, Los Angeles), Calcutta 1981, p. 238. This book will provide many examples of white racism. 5 Sumit Sarkar, Modem India, MacMillan India Ltd., Delhi, 1990 ed.( p. 22. 6 Ibid, p. 23. 7 In a letter to Roseberry in July 1985, quoted by Sumit Sarkax; op.cit p. 23. 8 It was noted down in Bhudeb Mukhopadhyay’s personal diary. See Ibpan Raychaudhuri, Europe Reconsidered: Perceptions o f the West in Nineteenth Century Bengal, OUP, Delhi 1988. 9 Nemai Sadhan Bose, op.cit p. 164. 10 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, London, 1983. 11 Metcalf in his Ideologies o f the Raj says more or less the same thing: It was no longer practical politics to suppress working class ambition and schemes for partial enfranchisement had been floated even before the Hyde Park riots of 1866. No longer was it possible to conceive the lower classes at home as in some measure equivalent to colonized peoples overseas. This further sharpened the distinction between superior white and inferior non-white. 12 Edward Said, Culture and Imperialism, Vintage edition, p. 290. Said is a persistent critic of the way in which ‘knowledge’ and the supremacist

NOTES

13 14

15 16 17 18 19

20 21 22

23 24 25 26 27

207

ideologies of the western European culture have constructed the Oriental ‘other’. Ibid p. 236. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched o f the Earth. The original French edition was published in France in 1961. I have used the Penguin edition, 1990. This has a preface written by Jean-Paul Sartre. This book has had a great influence on theoretical debates about race and colonialism for over four decades now. In recent years with the growth of interest in postcolonial theory, particularly in the fields of literary theory and cultural studies, Fanon’s study of how colonial discourses produced racialized meanings about both the ‘colonizer’ and the ‘colonized’ have drawn much attention. See for example, Les Bade and John Solomos (eds.), Race and Racism: A Reader (Routledge). Almost all the extracts in Part Four (‘Colonialism, race and the other') engage in one way or another with Fanon’s work. Ibid p. 30-31. Ibid p. 27. Black Skin, White Masks, Pluto Classics, 1986. The Wretched o f the Earth, pp. 179-180. This incident has been narrated by Jogeshchandra Bagal in his ‘Jatibaira Ba Amader Deshatmabodh’ ( ‘Race-hatred or our patriotism’) which was serialized in Mandira from Baisakh, 1352 bs to Baisakh, 1353 bs (19451946), and later published as a book. Nemai Sadhan Bose, op.cit p. 124 See Balaichand Mukhopadhyay’s Dwijendra-Darpan and Sudhir Chakrabarti’s Dwijendralal: Smarane, Bismarane for such stories. Recounted in Sahitya Sddhak Charitmald (die volume on Dwarakanath Gangopadhyay) by Bngendranath Bandyopadhyay, Bangiya Sahitya Parishad, Calcutta. Nemai Sadhan Bose, op.cit p.128. I am grateful to my colleague Professor Swapan Basu for this information. Tip an Raychaudhuri, op.cit And to a lesser extent the contempt of court case against Surendranath Baneijea, which was closely related to the Ilbert Bill issue. Rajat Ray’s book Urban Roots o f Indian Nationalism: Pressure Groups and Conflicting Interests in Calcutta City Politics, 1875-1939 (Vikas Publishing House, Delhi 1979) also deserves mention in this connection. Within the restricted arena of Calcutta municipal politics Ray shows that though the relationship between the imperial administration and the politically conscious intelligentsia was not one of bare confrontation and though rival Indian politicians competed with each other for favours from the Raj, there was a long-term growth of conflict between the Raj and its subjects. There was a fundamental opposition between imperial interests and national aspirations, reflected in the city politics in the antagonism

208

28 29

30 31 32 33 34

35 36 37 38 39

40 41 42 43

NATIONALISM AS POETIC DISCOURSE between the European commercial community on the one hand and the native business and professional groups on the other. Ray can easily see that this antagonism was basically a racial antagonism. He shows how racial bitterness marked the Calcutta Corporation politics from the beginning and reached its height during the Ilbert Bill agitation. He attributes this bitterness particularly to the protection of European commercial interests through built-in devices. I owe this information to Swapan Basu. The Prajabandhu cited the Bharat Hitaishi as its source for this news. It is Professor Swapan Basu once again, who has supplied me with this information. Binay Ghosh, Samayikpatrey Banglar Samdjchitra, Vol. n, Calcutta 1963, pp. 130-132. Ibid Vol in, Calcutta 1965, p. 394. This has been quoted by Nemai Sadhan Bose, op.cit The Fuller episode has been discussed in detail by N S Bose, op.cit pp. 137-140. This song along with some others was published in early editions of Dinabandu Mitra’s famousplay Nildarpan. It waspublished once again in Dinabandhu Rachanabali, Calcutta : Sahitya Sams ad, November 1981. (Cf. Kshetra Gupta’s Introduction). Sadharani, 2 Kartik 1280 b s Quoted by Nemai Sadhan Bose, op.cit p.144. Ibid p. 215. Ibid. p. 201. Ibid. p. 150. He says this in the specific context of profession of loyalty by most native papers following the passing of the Vernacular Press A ct He also attributes this profession of loyalty to the fact that due to financial weakness no paper could afford to provide bail-bonds, pay heavy fines or withstand confiscation of its press. See the chapter ‘Allegiance or Antagonism?’ in the present book. This also applies to the above-mentioned book of Rajat Ray (See Note no. 27). Raychaudhuri, op. c it Earlier we have seen that the nationalists divided their world into an outer/ material and an inner/spiritual domain. The nationalist politics dealt with by N S Bose belonged to the former. Here collaboration with and emulation of the British was the rule. And though the nationalists questioned all unfairness and inequalities of British rule, they did this in the name of British principles of universal humanism, liberalism etc. In the spiritual sphere the nationalists tried to form a cultural identity of their own, away from the hegemony of the colonial state. However, the ‘politics’ and ’culture’ I am talking about were not strictly segregated along those

NOTES

44 45

46

47 48 49 50 51

52

209

material and spiritual lines. We have seen in our last chapter that the spiritual domain was gradually getting activated and admitting ‘politics’ (of course, in a deeper sense than in which Bose views it) and anti-colonial politics at that too. Similarly ‘culture’ was present not only in the spiritual domain, but in the material domain as well. The over-all attitude of the bhadralok to the colonial connection can be defined in terms of culture. It was an overwhelmingly loyalist culture. In fact, the nationalists made the material-spiritual division at the intellectual level to make their servility to foreigners look respectable. They meant to assert that though they were servile in the material domain, there was a spiritual domain where they were the sovereigns. At the emotional level, however, this culture had a strong antinomian element It was their counter-racism that was responsible for this antinomy. So on the whole, it was a complex culture. We would try to understand it with the help of the literature penned by them, for culture is best reflected in literature. Nildarpan, Act n, Scene i. These two plays were reprinted by Pashchim Banga Natya Akademi, Calcutta, in a single volume in 1993. Dr Mahabir Parasad Saha has written a preface for this edition. Sarat-Sarojini, Act i. Scene n. It is interesting that while the pundits were enthusiastically discussing the common linguistic roots of the Indian and Western Aryans, the anti-white feeling of the Indian masses led thei$ to a very different theory. The Bombay Native Opinion of 25 April, 1875, wrote : ‘Whatever theories there may exist on the common Aryan descent of the English and the Hindus and however largely philological testimony may militate in its favour, a long series of ages and the immense distance between the homes 6f the two races have practically effaced all relationships and they have become entirely estranged from each other. Indeed, popular belief still prevails to a large extent over the length and breadth of this country that the English are nothing more than the descendants of the monkeys who aided Rama in his conquest of Lanka, and whom be had for a reward of their services, afterwards converted into men.’ (Quoted by N S Bose, op.cit p. 123). Act t, Scene a. Act i. Scene I. Act t. Scene n. The novel appears in Bankim RachanObali, Vol. I, published by Sahitya Sam sad, Calcutta. Published in Bina: Bibidhakabitamayee Masik Patrikn, Vol. iv, 1294 b s • (1887). Ishancbandra was brother of the illustrious poet Hemchandra. The journal Bina was edited by Rajkrishna Ray. The plight of the tea-coolies did not always evoke this kind of response, Compare and contrast Dakshinacharan Chattopadhyay’s Cha-kar Darpan

299 : 14

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210

Naiak, which describes the terrible oppression and shameless promiscuity

53 54 55 56 57 58

59

60

61

62 63

of tea-planters and the resulting rain of a coolie family. But even the killing of an innocent and young wife of one of the workers failed to incur any anger. A relative of the dead just timidly said - “ Alas! When we expect the sahibs to be compassionate to the poor, this is what they do to us!” This play was published by Sri Jadunath Mondal in Paush, 1281 b s (1874). Jyaistha, 1303 b s ( 1896). Included in his book of poems, Padmd, second edition, 1308 b s (1901). Paush, 1310 bs ( 1904). Included in his book of poems Bibidha Kabila. From his farce Gramya-Bibhrat. Chaitanya was also called ‘Gauranga’ and ‘Gorachand’. These words, too, weie used sarcastically by the nineteenth century bhadralok to describe white men. Ranajit Guha, ‘Neel-Darpan: The Image of a Peasant Revolt in a Liberal Minor’, originally published in the Journal o f Peasant Studies, included in Peasant Resistance in India, 1858-1914 (ed. David Hardiman), OUP, Delhi 1992. Though recently a scholar has shown that the play did not scare the British rulers as much as we would like to think See Shibabrata Chattopadhyay, ‘Natya Niyantraner Prahasan’, Desh, 18 August 2001. 25.02.1860.This letter has been included in Sambad-SOmayikpatrt Unish Shataker Bangali Samdj, Vol. x, entitled Krishak-pmjdr Abasthd: Ganaasantosh-Bidroha (compiled and edited by Swapan Basu), Paschim Bang a Bangla Akademi, Calcutta April, 2000. Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach, 1845, quoted in Maynard Solomon ed. Marxism and Art, Hartvester Press Ltd.j Sussex 1979, p. 15. Cf. ‘General Introduction: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’, in Marxism

and Art. 64 Hemchandra wrote another poem on Ripon - ‘Jaymangal Geet: Abhishek’. 65 In fact, whatever the bhadralok said or wrote, at least some of them must have had an inner feeling that racial discrimination and antagonism was only to be expected under a foreign rule. As early as 1854 the periodical Sarbashubhakari published an essay entided ‘Subjects of a rajah belonging to a different race cannot be completely happy’ (Fourth issue, 1776 Saka). It said, ‘If the king belongs to a different race, he would give priority to the good of his own race over the good of his subjects. Our government is always busy advancing its own interests. ...The white rulers treat the servants worse than dogs and foxes, refuse to pay the normal salary unless they labour two or three fold.’ 66 Quoted in Sumit Sarkar, ’Rammohun Ray and the Break with the Past’, in V C Joshi, ed Rammohun Ray and the Process of Modernization in India, New Delhi 1975 p. 59. 67 Tip an Raycbaudhuri, Europe Reconsidered, p. 116.

NOTES

211

68 Ibid, p. 249. 69 To be fair to Max Mueller one must admit that by Aryans he meant a linguistic group and not a race. But the native intelligentsia twisted and used his scholarship to their own advantage. 70 It must also be remembered that there were British anthropologists too, who assailed the common European origin of some of the European and Asian races and propagated the superiority of the Europeans. 71 Quoted in N S Bose, op.cit, pp. 152-153. 72 This has been pointed out by Metcalf, op.cit 73 Quoted in Anil Seal, The Emergence of Indian Nationalism: Competition and Collaboration in the Later Nineteenth Century, Cambridge University Press, 1971, p. 140. 74 This is the same Viceroy who admonished Leeds, the Magistrate of Agra, _ for having spared Fuller. The excess of racism in this case was found unacceptable to Lytton and his attitude was a pleasant surprise for the press and the people of India. But actually Lytton was racist too. See N S Bose, op.cit, pp. 137-140. 75 See Metcalf, op.cit 76 See Prabhat Kumar Bhattacharya’s Bangla Natakey Swadeshikatdr Prabhab, Sahityashri, Calcutta 1385 b s (1978), for excerpts from some of these favourable notices. Also see Dhruba Gupta, ‘Jatiyatabad, Dharmiya Sankbyalaghutva o Nari Prasanga ebam Duti Natak’, Anustup Special Autumn Issue, 1996, for a good discussion on these two plays of Upendranath. Here we find a description of the crowd in the High Court at the time of the hearing of the case against Upendranath. It consisted mostly of middle-class youth who showed a very solemn attitude. Gupta has found this description in the contemporary periodical

Sadhdraru. 77 See Bipan Chandra, Rise and Growth of Economic Nationalism in India, People’s Publishing House, New Delhi 1977. 78 Poverty and the Un-British Rule of India was the tide of a book by Dadabhai Naoroji, a pioneer of ‘economic nationalism’. 79 It is interesting that in a book entitled Jati-baira Bd AmUder Deshatmabodh ( ‘Race-hatred or our patriotism’) written just before Independence, Jogeshchandra Bagal equated race-hatred with not only patriotism, but also with anti-colonial nationalism. In an account of our national movement till the 1870s he has giveh an almost mono-causal explanation of the emergence of anti-British resistance in terms of race-hatred. The account was serialized in the periodical Mandird from Baisakh, 1352 to Baisakh, 1353 bs (1945-1946), and later published as a book. 80 An in-depth study of the attitudinal changes involved in the Swadeshi Movement will be found in my article ‘Kabider Swadeshi Andolan’ (The Poets’ Swadeshi Movement’) published in ShraddhalekhamSld: SukumOr

212

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Sen Shatavarsha Smarak Sankalan (Sukumar Sen Centenary Commemoration 81

82 83 84 85

86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93

Volume) of Paschim Banga Bangla Akademi, Calcutta 2003. Davidson thus put his case for ‘the new African response’ after 1945 (Africa in Modem History). This has been quoted by Edward Said in Culture and Imperialism, p. 236. Sartre’s Preface to The Wretched of the Earth. Cf. Said quoted earlier in the present chapter. Anderson, op. cit ‘SIrthak janam amar janmechhi ei deshe’, composed during the Swadeshi period. See Sumit Sarkar, The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, 1903-1908, PPH, Delhi 1973, p. 293 From Robert Browning’s poem ‘One Word More’. ‘Introduction’, Black Skin, White Masks. See both ‘Introduction’ and ‘Conclusion’ of Black Skin, White Masks. Rabindranath Tfcgore, Nationalism, 1917, pp. 11-12. Ibid. p. 15. Ibid. p. 121. Ibid. p. 129. We may also cite the Nobel Prize acceptance speech of Rabindanath in this connection — ‘We must discover the most profound unity, the spiritual unity between the different races. We must go deeper down to the spirit of man and find out the great bond of unity, which is to be found in all human races. And for that we are well equipped. We have inherited the immortal works of our ancestors, those of great writers who proclaimed the religion of unity and sympathy, in say: He who sees all beings as himself, knows TYuth. That has once again to be realized, not only by the children of the East but also by the children of the West. They also have to be reminded of these great immortal truths. Man is not to fight with other human races, other human individuals, but his work is to bring about reconciliation and Peace and to restore the bonds of friendship and love. We are not like fighting brutes.’ From the recent edition of Gitanjali brought out by Rupa, Delhi.

BIBLIOGRAPHY C ontem porary

and

N ear -C ontemporary L iterature

(Books of Poems and Songs; Plays, Novels etc.) Anonymous. Manojabd (book of poems), writer anonymous (probably a female writer). No further details are available. Akshay Kumar Badal. Kanaknnjali Geeti-Kabya (book of poems), 1292 b s (1885). Amritalal Basu. Baijayanta B&s (play) ------, Bilap Bd Vidyasagarer Swargey Abdhan (play), 1298 b s (1891) ------•, Ekfikar (farce), 1895. ----- ,Grdmya-BibhrCU (farce), 1304 b s (1897). ------, Kdjer Khatam (farce). Most quotations from Amritalal in this book are taken from either Amrita Granthdbali, 1312 b s (1905) or Amritalaler Granlhdbali (Basumati Sahitya Mandir, Calcutta), n.d. Anandachandra Mitra. Mitra-Kdbya (book of poems). The first volume was published in 1874 and the second in 1877. I have consulted a later edition containing both. Ashwinikumar Datta Ashwinikumdr Rachand Samgraha (collected works), ed. by Manindra Kumar Ghosh, Calcutta 1968. Atulprasad Sen. Geetigunja (collection of his songs), n.d. Benowarilal Goswami Khichudi (book of poems), 1308 b s (1901). Biharilal Chakrabarty, Nisarga-Darshan (book of poems), 1870, available in his Granthabali (complete works), published in 1320 b s (1913). Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay. Anandamath (novel), 1882. ------, Debi Chaudhurani (novel), 1884. ------•, Kamalakdnta (a book of skits and other writings) originally p u b lis h e d in th e Bangadarshan d u rin g 1280-1282 b s (1873-75). ------, Lokrahasya (a book of skits and other writings) originally published in Bangadarshan, first published as a book in 1874. 213

214

NATIONALISM AS POETIC DISCOURSE

Muchirim Guder Jibancharit, origilnally published in Bangadarshan, September, 1880. The book was first published in 1884. ------, Introduction to Ishwarchandra Gupta Kabitd-Samgraha. Available in Ishwarchandra Gupter Granthabdli, Basumati Sahitya Mandir, n.d. ------, ‘Banglar Itihas’ (essay) written as a review of Rajkrishna Mukhopadhyay’s Prathamsikshd BOngdldr Itihas ----- , ‘Bangalir Utpatti* (essay), published in Bangadarshan, Baisakh, 1288 b s (1881). All the writings of Bankimchandra used in the present book are available in BanJdm Rachandbali, Vols. I and n (with ‘Introduction’ written by Jogeshchandra Bagal, Sahitya Sams ad, Calcutta). Vol. I (first Sahitya Samsad edition 1360 b s ) contains the novels and Vol. II (first Sahitya Samsad edition 1361 b s ) all other writings. Bhudeb Mukhopadhyay, Swapnalabha Bhdrater Mhds, Hooghly, 1302 b s (1895). Dakshinacharan Chattyopadhyay. Cha-kar Darpan Ndtak (play), published by Sri Jadunath Mandal, Paush 1281 b s (1874). Dinabandhu Mitra. Nana Kabitd (book of pom s), 1869. ------ , Dwddash Kabitd (book of poems), 1872. ------ , Nildarpan (play), 1860. ------ , Sadhabar Ekddashi (play), 1866. All the writings of Dinabandhu are available in Dinabandhu Rachanabali, Sahitya Samsad, Calcutta, second edition, November 1981 (Introduction by Kshetra Gupta). Dwarakanath Vidyabhushan, Biswerwar Bildp: Bibidha Neetipuma Bdngdld Padyey Kdshir Pop Bamana Kariyd Pap Hoitey Birata Haibar Upadesh, ¡H in ted at Somaprakash Press, Changripota, 1281 b s (1874). Dedicated to the author’s childhood f r ie n d Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar. Dwarakanath Gangopadhyay. Bir-Ndri (play), 1281 b s (1874). Dwijendralal Ray, Arya-Gathd (book of songs), first part, 1892. The second part was published in 1893. ------ , Ashadhey, 1899. ------ , Hdsir gdn, 1900. ------- , Mandra, 1902, also available in Dwijendra Rachandbali (Sahitya Samsad, Calcutta), Vol. n. ------ , Bahut Achdiha ba Prayhschtaa (farce), first enacted in 1308 b s (1901). ------ , Shdhjdhdn (play), 1909. F or Dwijendralal’s writings I have extensively used Dwijendra Rachanabali, ■Vols. I and n, Sahitya Samsad, Calcutta.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

215

Fakirchandra Sadhukhan. Bhdb o Chintd book of poems, 1297 bs (1890). Girishchandra Gfaosb. Asrudhdra: Victoria Bilap (play). ------, Satndm (play), 1902. Gobindachandra Das, Chandan (book of poems), 1896, available in Gobindachandra Das Kdbya-Sambhdr. Gobindachandra Ray. Geetikabitd, Part 1, 1288 b s (1881). Hemchandra Bandyopadhyay. Bibidha Kabitd (book of poems) ------ , Kabitdbali, ed, by Sajanikanta Das and published by Bangiya Sahitya Pari shad, Calcutta, first edition Paush 1360 b s (1953), second edition Jyaistha 1371 b s (1964). It has a long introduction by Sajanikanta Das. Indranath Bandyopadhyay. Indrandth Granthdbali, ed. by Srikumar Bandyopadhyay, Calcutta 1969. Indranath published quite a few humorous pieces in the journals Bangabdsi and Janmabhumi under ¿he pendame ‘Panchananda’ or ‘Panchu Thakur’, which are not included in Indranath Granthdbali. However, all his poems used in the present book are available there. Ishwarchandra Gupta All his poems used in the present book are available in either Ishwarchandra Gupta Praneeta Kabitd Samgraha, ed. by Gopalchandra Mukhopadhyay, 1293 b s (1886) or Ishwarchandra Gupter Granthdbali, Basumati Sahitya Mandir, n.d. Kaji Najrul Islam. Najrul Rachand Sambhdr, Vol. I, subtitled NajrulGeeti (Akhanda), ed. by Abdul Aziz Al-Aman, Haraf Prakashani, Calcutta, second edition 1981 (the chapter entided ‘Deshatmabodhak’). Kaliprasanna Singha Hutom Pyanchdr Nakshd (the first vol. published in 1862 and the second vol. in 1863). We have used the annotated edition prepared by Arun Nag, published by Subamarekha, Calcutta, second edition, 1403 b s (1996). Jibanananda Das. Rupasi Bdngld (book of poems). Published posthumously in 1957, though most of the poems had been written much earlier. I have seen the Signet Press edition, Calcutta 1378 b s (1971). Jogendrachandra Basu. Abakdsh Kdbya Kusumhdr (book of poems). ------, Bdngali-Charit, 1292 b s (1885). ------- , Model Bhagini (novel), 4 parts, 1293-95 b s (1886-1888). ------, Chinibds Charitdmrita (novel), 1886. Jyotirindranath Thakur. Puru-Bikram, Sawjini and Ashrumati (plays), published in 1874, 1875 and 1879 respectively. ----- , Prabandhamanjari (book of essays), 1905.

216

NATIONALISM AS POETIC DISCOURSE

Kamini Ray. Alo o Chhàyà (book of poems), 1889. Karunanidhan Bandyopadhyay. Banga-Mangal (actually a single long poem), published in 1308 b s (1901). Kiranchandra Bandyopadhyay. Bhdrat Mòta (play), 1874. ------, Bhàratey Yavan (play), 1874. Kumudini Basu. Abha poems, Comilla 1312 b s (1905). Mankumari Basu. Kàbyakusummjali poems, first edition 1300 b s (1893). Manomohan Basu. Harishchandra (play), written in 1875. ------- > Manomohan-Geetàbali ( b o o k o f songs), 1293 b s (1886). Mir Masharraf Husen, Sangeet-Lahari (bookof songs), 1887. This book and other writings of Husen are available in M ir Masharraf Husen Racharn Samgraha, Dhaka. Michael Madhusudan Datta. Chaturdashpadi Kabitàbali (book of sonnets), first edition, 1866. Seven poems were added later. ------, SharmistM (play), 1859. ------, Ekei Ki Baley Sabhyatà (play), 1860. ------, Krishnakumdri (play), 1861. ----- , Meghnàdbadhkàbya (epic poem), 1861. Available in Michael Madhusudan Granthdbali.Woìs. I and II, Basumati Sahitya Mandir, n.d. Mukunda Chakrabarty Chandi Mangal Kàbya. I have used the edition of Chandi Mangal Kàbya edited by Sukumar Sen and published by Sahitya Akademi in 1975. Nabinchandra Sen. Palashir Yuddha (epic poem), 1875.1 have consulted the tenth edition edited by Sajanikanta Das, published by Bangiya Sahitya Parishad. The differences from the original text are indicated here. ------, Abakashranjini (book of poems). Part I published in 1871 and Part II in 1878. I have consulted a later edition containing both parts, edited by Sajanikanta Das and published by Bangiya Sahitya Parisad, Calcutta 1366 b s (1959). ------, Amar Jiban (Nabinchandra’s autobiography) in Nabinchandra Rachandbali, ed. by Sajanikanta Das, published by Bangiya Sahitya Parishad. Pankajini Debi. SmritikaruT (book of poems), 1308 b s (1901), published by Pankajini’s husband after her untimely death. Pramathanath Raychaudhuri. Padmà (book of poems), second edition, 1308 b s (1901). ------- , Arati (book of poems) published in 1309 b s (1902). Rabindranath Thakur. Chaitaii (book of poems), 1303 b s (1896).

BIBLIOGRAPHY --------,

217

Kalpana (book of poems), published in 1307 b s (1900). — r*. Manasi (book of poems), 1297 bs (1890). ------, Naibedya (book of poems), 1308 b s (1901). ----- , Utsarga (book of poems). The book titled Utsarga was published much later, but all its poems had been published in Kabyagrantha (ed. by Mohitchandra Sen) in 1310 b s (1903). ----- , Kdlantar (book of essays), 1344 b s (1937). I have used two essays — ‘Satyer Ahvan’ and ‘Brihattara Bharat’ (.Rabindra Rachanabali, Vol. 24, Visva-Bharati). Rabindranath Thakur. Jibansmriti, 1912 (available in Rabindra Rachanabali, Visva-Bharati, Vol. 17). All the Bengali writings of Rabindranath used in the present book are available in Rabindra Rachanabali, Visva-Bharati, and also in the set published by the West Bengal Government. His nationalistic songs can be found separately in Gitabit&n (the sections entitled ‘Swadesh’ and ‘Jatiya Sangeet’ in particular). Rabindranath Tagore, Nationalism, 1917. The English Writings o f Rabindrananth Tagore, edited by Sisir Kumar Das, Vol. in, Sahitya Akademi, Delhi 1996. ----- , Gitanjali Rupa and Co., Delhi 2002. Rajanikanta Sen. Bdni (book of poems), 1902. ------, Kalyani (book of poems), 1905. Rajkrishna Ray, Bharat-Gdn: BhUratvarsha Sambandhiya Ekshata Geet ( a collection of 100 songs), 1285 b s (1878). ------, Abasar-Sarojini (book of poems), first part published in 1876, second part in 1879. The third and fourth parts were later published in his Granthabali (complete works). ------, Bharatey Jubaraj (a long poem published as a booklet), 1875. I have extensively used Rajkrishna Rayer Granthabali, published by Gurudas Chattopadhyay, Calcutta 1290 bs (1883). Rajnarayan Basu. Rajndrdyan Basur Atmacharit (Autobiography), first edition, 1909 (I have seen the Orient Book Company edition, 1961). Ramesh Chandra Datta. Banga-Bijeta (novel), 1874. ------, Madhabi-Kankan (novel), 1877. ------, Rajput Jiban-Sandhya (novel), 1878. ------, Maharashtra Jiban-Prabhat (novel), 1879. ------, Sansdr (novel), 1886. ------, Samaj (novel), 1894.

218

NATIONALISM AS POETIC DISCOURSE

All of them are available in Ramesh Rachanabdli: Samagra Upanyas (Sahitya Samsad, calcutta, 1990) Rangalal Bandyopadhyay. Padmini Updkhydn (epic poem), 1858. ------, Karmadebi (epic poem), 1862. Both available in Rangalal Granthdbali, Basumati Sahitya Mandir, Calcutta (‘Granthabali’ series), n.d. Saratchandra Chattopadhyay. Srikdnta (novel), first part, serialized in Bhdratvarsha, 1322-23 b s (1915-1916) and published as a book in 1917. Available in Sarat-Sahitya-Samgraha, Vol. I, M.C. Sarkar & Sons Pvt. Ltd. Calcutta. Satyendranath Datta. Bern 0 Bind, published in 1906. Syed Abu Mohammad Ismail Hossain Shiraji. Anal-Prabdha (book of poems), 1308 b s (1901). The second edition came out in 1315 b s (1908). It was proscribed in 1317 (1910). The third edition was published in East Pakistan sometime during the early 1950s. I have seen this one. Shibnath Shastri. Pushpamald (book of poems), second ed. 1287 bs (1880). Upendranath Das. Calcutta, Sarat-Sarojini (play), 1874. ------, Surendra-Binodini (play), 1875. These two plays have been published by Paschim Banga Natya Akademi, Calcutta, in a single volume in 1993. Dr. Mahabir Parasad Saha has written a preface for this edition.

J ournals

Arya-Darshan Bdndhab • Bangadarshan Bind: Bibidhakabitamayee Mdsik Pairikd Binab&dini Bhdrati Dhaka Prakdsh Janmabhumi

Nabajiban Nabanur Nabyabhdrat Prabdsi

BIBLIOGRAPHY

219

Sddhdrani Somprakdsh

P oetry A n th o lo g ies

Amritalal Basil. Bindr Jhankdr, published in 1319 bs But some of the vases included hoe seem to have been written in the nineteenth century. Anuradha Ray. Swadhinatd Sangrdmer Gdn o Kabitd: Bingsha Shatabdi, Sahitya Akademi, Delhi 1999. Durgadas Lahiri. Bdngdlir Gdn, Calcutta 1312 b s (1905). Dwarakanath Gangopadhyay. Jdtiya Sangeet, Calcutta 1876. Geeta Chattopadhyay. Bangld Swadeshi Gdn, University of Delhi, Delhi 1983 Jogendranath Sarma. Swadesh-Sangeet, Published during the Swadeshi Movement Munshi Maulabaksh Printer (printer and publisher). Jdtiya Uddipand, 1284 bs. Printed from Dhaka Girish Jantra. In his foreword the publisher says, ‘Srijukta BabuRasbihari Dashas taken great pains to compile tins anthology’. Nabakanta Chattopadhyay. Bhdratiya Sangeet Muktdbali. I have used the third ed., 1893. Prabhat Kumar Goswami. Hdjdr Bachharer Bdngla Gdn, Saraswat Library, Calcutta 1376 b s (1969). Sarala Devi, Shatagdn, Calcutta, 1900. Soumendranath Gangopadhyay. Byanga Kabitd o Gdney Swddeshikatd, Sanskrit Pustak Bhandar, 1384 b s (1977). Upendranath Mukhopadhyay, Sangeet’kosh,\&96.

E x cerpts

fr o m

P eriodicals

and

N ew spapers

Binay Ghosh (ed.). Sdmayikpatrey Bdngldr Sdmajchitra, Vol. II, Calcutta. 1963, pp. 130-132. Kanailal Chattopadhyay (ed). Bhdrat Sramajibi, first edition, Sadharan Brahmo Samaj, Calcutta 1975, second edition National BookAgency, Calcutta 1994. Swapan Basu (compiled and edited). Sambdd-Sdmayikpatre Unish Shataker Bdngali Samaj, Vol. I, entitled Krishak-prdjar Abasthd: Gana asantosh -Bidroha, Paschim Banga Bangla Akademi, Calcutta, April, 2000. (I am grateful to Professor Swapan Basu for giving me some useful excerpts from periodicals like Sarbashubhakari, Shrimanta Sadagar, Prajdbandhu and Bhdrat-Hitaishi.)

NATIONALISM AS POETIC DISCOURSE

220 S econdary W

orks

B engali W orks

Anisuzzaman. Muslim MOnas 0 Bangla Sahitya, second edition, Muktadhara, Dhaka 1971. Anuradha Ray. ‘Kabider Swadeshi Andolan’ in Shraddhalekhamala: Sukumar Sen Shatavarsha Smdrak Sankalan (Sukumar Sen Centenary Commemoration Volume), edited by Pabitra Sarkar, Paschim Banga Bangla Akademi, Calcutta 2003. Balaichand Mukhopadhyay, Dwijendra-Darpan, Bookland, Calcutta 1967. Basanta Kumar Chattopadhyay JyotirindranOther Jibansmriti, Shishir Publishing House, Calcutta 1326 bs (1920). Bhabatosh Datta (ed.). Ishwarchandra Gupta’s Kabijibani (a biography of Nidhubabu), Jijnasa, Calcutta 1966. Brajendranath Bandyopadhyay, Sahitya Sadhak Charitmnla (the volume on Dwarakanath Gangopadhyay), Bangiya Sahitya Parishad, Calcutta. -----, Sahitya Sadhak Charitmdla, Vol. 33 (on Hemchandra), Bangiya Sahitya Parisad, Calcutta. ------, Sahitya Sadhak Charitmala, Vol. 51 (on Manomohan Basu), Bangiya Sahitya Parishad, Calcutta, Calcutta. Bratindranath Mukhopadhyay. ‘Bangla Bhashar Nam Katadiner’, Desh, 7.12.91 ------,‘Bharatiyader Jatitva — Bhaugolik o Samskritik Bicharey’, Nandan, January, 1993. -----, Itihaser Aloke Arya Samasyd Paschim Banga lthihas Samsad, 1995. Dhruba Gupta, ‘Jatiyatabad, Dharmiya SankhySlaghutva o Nari Prasanga ebam Duti Natak’, Anustup (special autumn issue), 1996. Jnanendramohan Das (compiled). Bangla Bhashar Abhidhdn, Vol. II, Sahitya Samsad, Calcutta, second edition (reprint), 1986. Jogeshchandra Bagal. Hindu Melar Itibritta, Maitreyee, Calcutta 1375 b s (1968). ------, ‘Jatibaira Ba Amader Deshatmabodh’, serialized in Mandird from Baisakh 1352 to Baisakh 1353 (1945-46), and lata: published as a book. Juthika Basu (Dr.). Bangla Sahityey Byanga Rachanft: Unish Shatak, University of Burdwan, Burdwan 1982. Nagendranath Som. Madhusmriti, 1327 b s (1921).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

221

Prabhat Kumar Bhattacharya. Bangla Natakey Swadeshikatar Prabhab', Sahityashri, Calcutta 1385 b s (1978). Prathama Bandyopadhyay. ‘Kalpanar Kaj: Oupanibeshik Banglay Samay o Itihas Che tana’, Aitihasik, Year IX, Nos. I and II, Baishakh-Chaitra, 1407. Publication Paush, 1409 b s (2000). Ramakanta Chakrabarty. Bismrita Darpan: Nidhubabu / Babu-Bdngla / Geetaratna, Calcutta, 1378 b s (1971). Rejaul Karim. Bankimchandra o Musalman Samdj, Indian Associated Publishing Company (second edition), Calcutta 1954. Shibabrata Chattopadhyay. ‘Natya Niyantraner Prahasan’, Desk, 18 August, 2001 Calcutta. Sudhir Chakrabarti. Dwijendralal Ray: Smarane, Bismarane, Pustak Bipani. Sukumar Ray, Samagra Shishu-Sdhitya: SukumarRay, Ananda Publishers. (In some of these books I have found primary materials like quotations from nineteenth century verses).

E n g lish W orks

Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread o f Nationalism, London 1983. Arnold, Matthew. ‘Sweetness and Light’, Culture and Anarchy, 1869. Back, Les, and Solomos, John (eds.), Race and Racism: A Reader Routledge, London 2000. Bakhtin, Mikahail. Rabelais and his World, translated by Helene Iswolsky, Indiana Univarsity Press, Bloomington 1984. Banerjee, Sumanta. The Parlour and the Streets: Elite and Popular Culture in Nineteenth Century Calcutta, Seagull Books, Calcutta 1989. Bhabha, Homi. The Location o f Culture, Routledge, London, first published, 1994. Bose, Nemai Sadhan. The Indian Awakening’and Bengal, Firma KLM, Calcutta, 1969. ------Racism, Struggle fo r Equality and Indian Nationalism, Firma KLM Pvt. Ltd., Calcutta 1981, with assistance of University of Southern California, Los Angeles.

222

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Bose, Sugata, ‘Nation as Mother: Representations and contestations of ‘India’ in Bengali Literature and Culture’, Nationalism, Democracy and Development: State and Politics in India, ed. by Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal, OUP Delhi, 1997. Brass, Paul. Ethnicity and Nationalism. Theory and Comparison, Sage, New Delhi 1991. Burke, Peter. Popular Culture in Early Modem Europe, first published in 1978.1 have used the revised edition brought out by Scolar Press, London, 1996. Chandra, Bipan. Rise and Growth o f Economic Nationalism in India, People’s Publishing House, New Delhi 1977. Chandra, Sudhir. The Oppressive Present: Literature and Social Consciousness in Colonial India, OUP, Delhi 1992, p. 140. ------‘Literature and Colonial Connection’ in Social Transformation and Creative Imagination, Allied Publishers, Delhi 1984. ----- Communal Elements in Late Nineteenth Century Hindi Literature, an occasional paper of Nehru Memorial Museum and Library (mimeographed). Chatterjee, Partha. Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse?, OUP, Delhi 1986. ------ ‘Claims on the Past’ in Subaltern Studies, Vol. VIII (Essays in Honour of Ranajit Guha), ed. by David Arnold and David Hardiman, OUP, Delhi 1994. ----- The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories, Princeton University Press, 1993 (The edition I have used is an OUP paperback, Delhi 1997). Chakrabarty, Dipesh. ‘Nation and Imagination’ Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, Princeton University Press, New Jersey 2000. Chaplin, Charlie. My Autography (first published in 1964), Penguin edition, Harmondsworth 1982. Chomsky, Noam. Language and Mind, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Camb. Mass. 1972. Ellmann Richard and Feidelson, Charles, Jr. The Modem Tradition: Backgrounds o f Modem Literature, OUP, New York 1965. Fanon, Frantz, The Wretched o f the Earth. The original French edition was published in France in 1961. I have used the Penguin edition, Harmondsworth 1990, with a preface written by Jean-Paul Sartre.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

223

------Blade Skin, White Masks, first published in French, 1952. I have seen the English Pluto Classics edition, 1986. Freud, Sigmund Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious, first published 1905. I have used the Penguin Paperback edition, Harmondsworth 1991. Fromm, Erich. The Fear o f Freedom, Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd., London 1942. Guha, Ranajit An Indian Historiography o f India: A Nineteenth Century Agenda and its Implications, S.G. Deuskar Lectures on Indian History, published by K P Bagchi & Company for the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta 1987. ------‘Neel-Darpan: The Image of a Peasant Revolt in a Liberal Mirror’, originally published in the Journal o f Peasant Studies, included in Peasant Resistance in India, 1858-1914 (ed. David Hardiman), OUP, Delhi 1992. Hobsbawm, Eric J. ‘Whose Fault-line is it anyway?’ a lecture to the American Anthropological Association, reprinted in Anthropology Today, February, 1992. ------Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, first published 1990.1 have used the second edition (Canto), 1994. Jha, Hetukar. ‘Nationalism and Ethnicity’, Journal o f Historical Studies, Department of History, Patna Univarsity, No. I, April 1995. Kaviraj, Sudipta. ‘The Imaginary Institution of India’, Subaltern Studies, Vol. VII, ed. by Partha Chatterjee and Gyanendra Pandey, OUP, Delhi 1992. ------, Mimeographed essay ‘Humour and the Prison of Reality: Kamalakanta as the Secret Autobigraphy of Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay’ (Occasional Paper VI, Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, New Delhi). This essay of Kaviraj was later included in his book The Unhappy Consciousness: Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay and the Formation o f Nationalist Discourse in India, OUP Paperbacks, Delhi 1998. Metcalf, T R. Ideologies o f the Raj (New Cambridge History of India), Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, first paperback edition 1998. Mukherjee, B N. The Foreign Names o f the Indian Subcontinent, published by Place Names Society of India, Mysore. 1989.

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------‘The Etymology of the Indian Nation’, The Telegraph, 19 August 1992. Murshid, Gulam. The Reluctant Debutante: Response o f Bengali Women to Modernization, 1849-1905, Sahitya Samsad, Rajshahi University, Rajshahi 1983. Nairn, Tom The Break-up o f Britain, London 1977. Palma-, Bryan D. Descent into Discourse: The Reification o f Language and the Writing o f Social History, Temple University Press, Philadelphia 1990. Ray, Rajat. Urban Roots o f Indian Nationalism: Pressure Groups and Conflicting Interests in Calcutta City Politics, 1875-1939, Vikas Publishing House, Delhi 1979. Raychaudhuri, Tapan, Europe Reconsidered: Perceptions o f the West in Nineteenth Century Bengal, OUP, 1988. Roy, Parama, ‘Introduction: Identities and Negotiations in Colonial and Postcolonial India’ Indian Traffic: Identities in Question in Colonial and Postcolonial India, Vistaar Publications, New Delhi 1998. Said, Edward. Culture and Imperialism, first published 1993. Vintage edition, 1994. Sarkar, Tanika. ‘The Hindu Wife and Hindu Nation: Domesticity and Nationalism in Nineteenth Century Bengal’, Studies in History (Jawaharlal Nehru University), July-December, 1992, p. 217. Sarkar, Sumit, Modem India, Macmillan India, Delhi 1990 edition. ------‘The Complexities of Young Bengal, A Critique o f Colonial India, Papyrus, Calcutta 1985. ------The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, 1903-1908, PPH, Delhi 1973. ------ ‘Rammohun Ray and the Break with the Past’, in V.C. Joshi, ed. Rammohun Ray and the Process o f Modernization in India, New Delhi 1975. Seal*, Anil. The Emergence o f Indian Nationalism: Competition and Collaboration in the Later Nineteenth Centiiry, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1971. Solomon, Maynard ed. Marxism and Art, Harvester Press Ltd., Sussex 1979. Wilbanks, Jan. Hume’s Theory o f Imagination, the Hague 1968. Woodworth, Robert S (ed.). Contemporary Schools o f Psychology, Methuen, London, reprinted 1970.

INDEX Abakan (poem) 42 Abakashranjini (book of poems) 71 Act XI 151 Afghan 25, 40, 71 Africa, African 5, 148 Agamani (poem) 71 Agra 24, 153 Aji Ki Ananda Basar (poem) 165 Akbar 36, 42, 58, 62, 63, 128-9 Alas Yuvak (poem) 133 Alauddin 36, 38, 42 Alexander (Sekendar) 20, 36, 48, 94 Algerian liberation war 146 Ali, Syed Emdad 129 Alivardi Khan 49 Allah 50, 60 Amdder Desk (poem) 133 A m erica / American colonies / Americanism 36, 105, 145, 164 Anandamath (novel) 28, 136 Amra. (poem) 25 Anal-P robaka (book of poem) 137 Anderson, Benedict 3, 4, 13, 17, 47, 53, 55, 79, 140, 145, 146, 161, 173, 174 Anglicization / sahebiana / bibiana, see social manners, etiquettes, 225 299 : 15

customs and values (traditional/ anglicized) Annals and Antiquities o f Rajasthan (book) 38, see also Tod, James Anti-Semitism (hatred for Jews) 53,145 Arab, Bedouin 121 Arabic 15, 18 Arcot 33 Aristocracy / Aristocratic groups in the metropole 145, 161 Aijun 47, 48 Arnold, Matthew 65 Arts and handicrafts 81 Arya, Aryan, Aryanism 6-8, 24-27, 29-30, 32, chapter 3, 67, 104 -7, 113, 124-25, 136, 139, 142, 167, 173 Aryan racial theory 6, 142, 148, 209n, 21 In Arya-Darshan (periodical) 26, 136 Arya-Gatka (book of songs) 26, 50, 57, 67, 121, 125 Arya-Sangeet (poem) 26, 46 Askrumati (play) 36, 58 Asia 51, 77, 137 Asiatic Society 150 Asir Gan (poem) 137 Assam 161 Atmaskakti (self-prowess) 138-40

226

NATIONALISM AS POETIC DISCOURSE

Atri 48 Aurangzeb 42, 151 Ayodhya 1, 57

Babar 42 BSbu (skit) 100 Badal, Aksbay Kumar 70 Baijayanta-Bas (play) 77 Ba/imat (poem) 81 Bakhtin, Mikhail 91-2, 118, 122 Banaras/ Kashi 72, 83 Bande Motaram (Song) 8, 10, 15, 28, 128, 136, 178n, 203n Bandhab (periodical) 127, 130 Bandyopadhyay, Charuchandra 137 Bandyopadhyay, Durgadas 114 Bandyopadhyay, Gurudas 136 Bandyopadhyay, Hemchandra 29, 35-6, 69-71, 73-75, 77-8, 81, 94, 97, 108, 122, 127, 131, 162, 165 Bandyopadhyay, Indianath 31,95,107, 110, 121-22 Bandyopadhyay, Ishanchandra 160 Bandyopadhyay, Jogeshchandra 190n Bandyopadhyay, K aruaanidhan 30-31 Bandyopadhyay, Kiranchandra 60-61, 76 Bandyopadhyay, Rangalal 20, 38-40, 43 Bandyopadhyay, Shashipada 125 Bandyopadhyay, Tbrinicharan 46 Baneijea, Surendranath 95, 151 Banexjee, Prathama 47 Bangabir (poem) 107 Bangadanhan (periodical) 69 Banga-Mangal (book of poems) 30-31

Banga-mald (poem) 10, 30 Bängälir Mahimä (poem) 106 Banga-Bijetä (novel) 58 Banger Krishak Sampraday (poem) 130 Bankimchandra o Musalmän Samäj (book) Bangladesh 1 Bardhaman 1, 101, 154 Bargis 27, 49 Barisal 60, 134 Basantak (periodical) 101, 108 Basu, Amritalal 21-22, 70-71, 77, 81, 105, 117, 119, 122, 162 Basu, Dineshcharan 48, 190n Basu, Jogendrachandra 97, 101, 104, 111 Basu, Kumudini 83 Basu, Mankumari 133 Basu, Manomohan 41, 42, 71, 76, 83, 100, 135, 189n, 197n Basu, Pankajini 60, 132 Basu, Radhakanta 162 Basu, Rajnarayan 50, 63, 8i, 184n Behrampore 150 Belgachhia 119 Bern o Bind (bode of poems) 30 Bengal British Indian Society 151 Bhagalpur 150 Bhagirathi, see Gang a Bhakti (cult of devotion) 11 Bharat (poem) 134 B h äratavarsha / B h arat / B härati / Bhiratbasi 1, 5, 26, 28, 125 Bhdrat-bhumi (poem by Madhusudan Datta) 25 Bhärat-bhumi (poem by anonymous writer) 41 Bhärat-bhikshä (poem) 73 Bhärai-Biläp (poem) 73, 127

INDEX

Bkärat-Gän: Bhäratvarsha Sam bandhiya Ekshata Geet (book of songs) 26, 57, 127 Bhärat-Geeti (book of poem) 26 Bhärat-Mätä (play) 61, 76 Bhärat Mätär Shräddha (poem) 104 Bhärat-Sangeet (poem) 35-36, 73, 127 Bhärat Santäner Prati (poem) 25 Bharat Uddhdr Käbya (narrative poem) 31, 107-8, 122 Bhärater Abasthä (poem) 25 Bhärater Bhägya B iplab (poem) 25 Bhärater Sukhäbasän (poem) 40 Bhäratey Yavan (play) 60 Bhärati (periodical) 162 Bhäratiya Sangeet M uktäbali (anthology of songs) 26 Bhäratvarshiyadiger R äjnaitik Swädhinata (essay) 58 Bhavabhuti 48 Bhikshäyäng Naiba Naiba Cha (poem) 134 Bhim 47-8 Bhishma (Thakur Bhishmadev) 48, 107, 128 Bhotmangal bä Sajib Putlo Näch (play) 103 Bihar 10, 29, 59 Bilätphertä (poem) 106, 110 Binär Jhankär (anthology of poems) 115 Bir-Näri (play) 48 Birdshtami Pujä 138 Bisweswar Biläp (book of poem) 147, 175 Black Acts (1849) 143^4, 151 Black Skin, White Masks (book) 147, 175

227

Boer/Boer War 137 Bombay 29 Bose, Nemai Sadhan 151-52, 155-56, 174 B oycott of foreign goods and manufacture / use of indigenous goods, see economy etc. Brahmdbarte (poem) 40 BrBhmikâr Bahire Gaman (skit) 101 Brahmin (Brahman) 32, 59, 94, 108 Brahmo / Brahmo Samaj / Brahmoism 15, 26, 49-50, 56, 101-2, 105, 108, 132, 188n Branson 144, 162 Briddha Hindur Âshâ (book) 63 Britannia Sameepe India (poem) 70 British Indian Association « 151 British Shdsan (poem) 71 Buddhist, Buddhism 13, 14, 49, 186n Burke, Peter 122 Byron 20

Calcutta (Kblkata) 117-119, see also Municipality of Calcutta Calcutta High Court, see judiciary Calcutta International Exhibition • 150 Calcutta Municipal Act 97 Carbonari 138 Carnival 122 Carpenter, Miss Mary 101 Caste 9, 44, 52 Cavaliers 59 Cha-kar Darpan (play) 209-lOn Chaitali (book of poems) 30, 139 Chaitanya 163 Chakrabarty, Bibarilal 125 Chakrabarty, Dipesh 12-14 Chakrabarty, Mukunda 1-3, 37

228

NATIONALISM AS POETIC DISCOURSE

Chamunda 160 Crown prince, the (Prince of Wales, Chdnakya Shloka (poem) 96-97, Edward) 68, 73, 81, 108 162 Culture and Imperialism (book) 146 Chandimangal Kabya (ballad) 37 Curzon 33, 170 Chandra, Sudhir 43-45, 68 Customs, see social manners, etiquettes, Chandrasekhar (novel) 160 customs and values Chaplin, Charlie 89 Cuttack 33 Chatteijee, Partha 4, 54 -55, 79-80, Czechoslovkia, Czech 54, 64 82, 129, 133, 174 Chattopadhyay, Bankimchandra 8, 10, 15, 21, 27, 28, 93, 95, 97, 100, Daminya 1, 2, 37 103, 110, 111, 113, 115, 116, 120,Dantbhanga Kdbya (poem) 108 127, 136, 138, 150, 151, 154, 157, Das, Atalbihari 137 160, 166, 167 Das, Gobindachandra 49, 60 Chattopadhyay, Nabakanta 26 Das, Jibanananda 33 Chattopadhyay Saratchandra 34 Das, Upendranath 125, 158, 169, Chattopadhyay, Shitalakanta 24, 61 211n Chaudhuri, Akshaychandra 134, Dasgupta, Pyarisankar 87 189n Datta, Aswinikumar 26, 59, 63, 84, Chaudhuri, Jogeshchandra 69 104, 134 Chhapra 18 Datta, Michael Madhusudan 20, 21, Child-marriage, see social reforms 23-25, 32, 44, 101, 110 Chinese 1, 4 Datta, Ramesh(chandra) 48-50,58-59, Chinibas Charitamrita (novel) 111 65, 83 Chitor/Chitor War 35, 36, 38 Datta, Satyendranath 30 Chittagong 71 Datta, Ullaskar 174 -75 Debs of Shobhabazar 108 Chomsky, Noam 13 Christianity / Christian 49, 50, 143 Decolonization 146-47 Church/Catholic Church 91-92 Delhi, Dilli, the Grand Durbar of Delhi Civil Service/ ICS 50, 151 24, 37, 69, 125 C iv ilizatio n / civ ilized / W estern Democracy / democratization 78, 97, civilization 77, 79, 93, 95, 99, 129, 145 Dera-Ismail 29 148, 159, 162, 167, 172, see also West, Western culture etc. Debi Chaudhurani (novel) 138 Clerks 98, 108, 114, 122 Deputy Magistrate, see judiciary Coleridge 13-14 Derozio, Derozians 24, 25, 101, see also Young Bengal Conservative / conservative Hindu 26, Deshparyatan (poem) 24, 61 108, 109, 132 Croats 54, 178n Desher Unnati (poem) 128 Cromwell 107 Dhaka 60, 109

INDEX

Dhakaprakash (periodical) 125 Dhiraj 101, 154 Diamond jubilee of Victoria’s reign 69, 156, 165 Dillir Durbar (poem) 125 Disraeli 168 Divinity ascribed to British royalty/ rule 45, 74, 75 Doctor 108 Dowry .system, see social reforms Drain of wealth 71, 83 Dramatic Performance Bill 160 Drighangchu (story) 111 Drona 48, 107 Duff, Grant 144 Duffin, L t Col. 150 Duke of Edinburgh 42, 76 Duranta Asha (poem) 121 Durga 10, 11, 15, 104, 119, 136 Durgabati 49 Duryog (poem) 30 Dutch / Hollander 5, 173

East, the 80, 82, 170, 176 East India Company / Company, the 18, 117 Economy / economic exploitation / ‘economic nationalism’ / economic programme (boycott of foreign goods, manufacture of indigenous goods) 39, 41, 80, 83-84, 123, 134, 139, 143, 162, *168-71, 197n Edinburgh, see Duke of Edinburgh Education (w om en’s, scientific, English, traditional etc.) 79, 93, 98, 101, 131, 132, 135, 139, 148, 166, 168

229

Education Gazette (periodical) 36, 194n Edward, see crown princa Ekei Ki Bale Sabhyata (play) 101 Elgin 144 ‘Empress of India’, the, see Victoria Engels 64 Englishman (periodical) 168 Enlightenment 77-79 Ethiopian 144 E thnic / eth n icity / race / racism / counter-racism 6, 8, 50, 141-176, Chapter 7 Eurasian 143 Europe 2, 6, 54, 55, 80, 91, 92, 142, 172, 174, see also West etc. Europe o Asia (poem) 87 Europe Reconsidered (book) 151, 157, see also Raychaudhuri, Tapan Extremists / extremist politics 26, 106, 108

Fanon, Frantz 146-48, 172, 174-76 Fear o f Freedom (book) 84-87, 206n Federalism / federation 29-30, 64-65 First World War 176 Flora and fauna (natural beauty) of the motherland 8, 10, 23„ 24 Folk culture / popular culture 117-19 Fort William 108, 159 Foucault, Michel 113 French 163, 166 French Revolution 127 Freud, Sigmund ^9-90, 92, 110, 116 Fromm, Erich 85-87, 206n Fuller episode, the 153, 21 In

230

NATIONALISM AS POETIC DISCOURSE

Gandhi 172 Gandbian phase of nationalism 130 Gargantua (book) 91 Ganga / Bhagirathi / Jahnavi 9,46,105, 106 Gangopadhyay, Dwarakanath 26, 48, 49, 125, 131, 150, 154, 161 Gangopadhyay, Nabinchandra 193n Gaya 104 Geeiar Abishk&r (poem) 107 Gemeinschaft 7, 9, 10 Germany, Germans 54, 86, 163 Gesellschaft 7, 9, 10 Ghosh, Girish(chandra) 22, 59, 62, 64, 69-71, 81, 103, 117, 122, 156 Ghosh, Kalicharan, 193n Golden jubilee of Victoria’s reign 42, 68, 69, 72, 156 Good and bad Englishmen 41, 43, 70, 76, 158, 161, 165, 166 Goswami, Benowarilal 107 Great Queen, the, see Victoria Great Shoe Question, the 150 Greece, Greeks 36, 54, 74 Guha, Ranajit 3, 4, 163, 187n Gujarat 10, 29, 59 Gupta, Ishwar(chandra) 21-22, 25, 71, 74, 79, 101, 106, 122 Gupta, Ramnidhi (Nidhubabu) 18-19 Guru Govind (Gobinda) 49, 57, 60 Gymnastics / gymnasiums / byayam 81, 133, 135, 138, see also physical prowess (bahubal)

Hanumadbdbusambad (skit) 95-96 Hari 103, 105

Harishchandra (play) 83 H arishchandra, Bharatendu 68, 186n Hasir Gan (book of poems) 57, 121 Hely 160 Himalayas, the 2, 29 Hindu, Hinduism, Hindu nationalism 6-8, 13-15, 23-27, 29-30, 32, chapter 3, 73, 75, 104, 105, 108, 124, 128, 136, 139, 167, 173, 209n Hinduani (doting on Hinduism) 104105, 119 Hindu College 25, 150, 183n Hindu Mela 33, 47, 49, 50, 56, 81, 82, 124, 125, 128, 135, 187n Hindu Patriot (periodical) 164 Hindu religious texts (the Shastras / die G eeta/the Vedas) 59, 103, 105, 107 Hirak Jubilee: Victoria Mahotsav (play) 69, 156 History o f Civilization in Ancient India (book) 50 Hitler 86 Hobsbawm, Eric 2, 4, 8, 64 Hobson, J A 146 Humanity / humanism 145-49, 163, 172, 175-76 Hume, David (his theory of imagination) 180n Husen, Mir Masharraf 69, 84 HumourV satire 22, 31, 81, chapter 5, 162-^3 Husain Shah 51 Hutom Pyanchor Naksha (book)/ Hutom 98-100, 105, 109, 110, 119

INDEX Ilbert 155 Ilbert Bill (controversy) 94-95, 14344, 151-53, 155-156, 162, 165, 169, 208n Imagined Communities (book) 145, see also Anderson, Benedict Imperialism: A Study (book) 146 Independence (1947) 33, 34, 173 Indian Association 161 Indian National Congress / Congress 29, 30, 50, 59, 61, 78, 83, 106, 107, 124, 127, 133, l79n, 202n Indian World (periodical) 152 Indigo Revolt / indigo planters / indigo peasants 98, 143, 144, 152, 153, 158, 160, 164 Indonesia, Indonesian 5 Indraprastha 41 Industrial Revolution 2 Ingmj Stotra (verse) 97, 100, 110 Ionia /Ionian 36 Islam 49 Islam, Kaji Najrul 14, 15 Italy, Italian 54, 138

Jain 29, 49, 59, 63, 186n Jambudwipa 2 Janmabhumi (periodical) 129 Japan / Japanese 137 Jaquemont, Victor 166 Jardine Skinner and Co. 144 Jashoharer Palan (poem) 41 Jä ti/jä t 32, 51, 59, 60, 63, 76, 129, 135 JOti-Baira (essay) 154 Jatiya Gaurav Sampad ani Sabha 81 Jätiya Sangeet (poem) 113, 121 Jatiya Sangeet (book of poems) 26

231

Jatiya Uddipana (book of poems) 26, 56 Jatiya Unnati (poem) 103, 110 Javanese 173 Jaysalmeer 39 Jew /Isai 29, 53, 59, see also antiSemitism Jhansi (Queen of Jhansi) 137 Jokes and their Relation to the Unconscious (book) 89, see also Freud, Signund Jubilee (poem) 42 Judiciary (court, civil court, Calcutta High Court, judge, deputy m agistrate, ju ry etc.) 81, 93-94, 102, 108, 110, 136, - 144, 150, 152, 158, 159, 167, 174 Jung, Karl, 180-81 n Jury Act 151

Kabir Swapna (poem) 40 Kabitdbali (book of poems) 73 Kabyabisharad, Kalipr asanna 30 Kaikobad 15, 35 Kaldntar (book of essays) 140 Kalapatu ba Hindumate Samudrajatrd (play) 105 Kali 10, 11, 15, 136, 137 Kalidas 48 Kaliyajna (poem) 106 Kalpand (book of poems) 30 KalyOni (book of poems) 102 Kamalakanter Jobdnbandi (skit) / Kamalakanta (famous character of this skit) 93-94, 105, 109-110, 113-114, 116, 120 Kamsa Kdragdre Devaki (poem) 73

232

NATIONALISM AS POETIC DISCOURSE

Kangal Fikiichand 47 Karachi 29 Karim, Rejaul 15 Karmadebi (epic poem) 39 Karr (Principal, Hindu College) 150 Kdrtikeyar BaktritH (skit) 162 Kashi, see Banaras Kaviraj, Sudipta 4, 5, 7, 9, 17, 18, 49, 188n Keswick JJJ 144, 162 Khichudi (book of poems) 107 Khotta 27, 33 Khusrvj (poem) 120 Kinchit Jalajog (play) 101 Kono ek atyachari Ingrajer prati (poem) 160 Koulinya, see social reforms Kripacharya 107 Krishnakumari (play) 44 Kshatriya 35, 38, 73, 139 Kunti 73 Kumkshetra 128, 193n

Lakshmi 11 La Marseillaise 28, 127 Land Holders’ Society 151 Law, International, Hindu / lawyer (advocates, attorneys) / legal measures 94, 108, 123, 136, 143, 144, 150, 153, 163 Law and order .1 5 8 , see also suppression of dacoits Leeds 153 Legislative Council J60 Liberalism f liberal nationalism , historian, government etc. 26, 48, 54, 56, 57, 66, 123, 151, 158, 163, 174

Local self-governm ent / sthdniya dtmashdsan 120, see also municipality Lokarahasya (book) 97, 115 Lombards 54 Long, Rev. James 158 Lower classes (underdogs, masses, the poor and the illiterate), peasants, workers, coolies 23, 52, 84, 86, 98, 116-19, 129-30, 143-44, 153, 160-61, 170, 173-74 Loyalty Lotus (poem) 68 Lunacharsky 122 Lytton, Lord 69, 168

Ma Huan 1, 4 Macaulay 79, 198 Mad man / madness (eccentricity) 113-114 MSdhabi-Kankan (novel) 58 Ma(n)dras 10, 29, 59 Magadh 29 Mahdbhdrata, the 97 Mabrashtra / Maratha (Marhatta) 10,27, 29, 35, 44, 49. 107 Maharashtra Jiban-Prabhdt (novel) 49, 58 Mahmud Sharif 37 Majumdar, Bjjaychandra 40, 107 Manasi (book of poems) 107 Manchester 84 Mansingh 32, 37, 41 Mantrasddhan (poem) 78 Marathon (Battle of) 107 Marx, Karl 165 Masses, see lower classes Material (outer) and spiritual (inner) domains, see spiritual (inner) and material (outer) domains

INDEX Maurya 51 Max Mueller 6, 167, I78n, 21 In Mazzini 54 Medicine 81, 133 M edo/M edua 27, 33 Meghnadbadhkdbya (epic poem)

21 Metcalf T R 142, 168 Mewar 23 Midnapore 152 ‘Mimic man’ 99, 110 Minto, Lord 150 Mir Qasim 18, 59, 62 Mishra, Pratap Narayan 6 Mitra, Anandachandra 40, 41, 49, 84, 125, 131, 190n, 193n Mitra, Digambar 109 Mitra, Dinabandhu 24, 40, 43, 68, 76, 101, 120, 158 Mitra, Nabagopal 124, 128 Mitra, Radhanath 125 Mitra, Rajendralal 109 Model Bhagini (novel) 101 Moderates / moderate politics 26, 50, 106, 108 Modernity / modem 2, 55, 77-79, 83, 93, 133, 141 Mohammad Ghori 32, 40 Monwaruddin Khan 33 Morel 160 ‘Mother archetype’ 180-8In Muchiram Gud-er Jibancharit (burlesque) 103, 109 Mughal (Mogol) 23, 36, 40, 58, 121, 135 Mukheijee, Jagadananda, see Bajimdt (poem) Mukbopadhyay, Bhudeb 36, 63, 151, 157, 194n Mukbopadhyay, Harimohan 137

233

Mukbopadhyay, Nabinchandra 46, 184n, 190n Mukhopadhyay, Nilkantha 193n Munshi Maulabaksh Printer 56-57 Mukunda Chakrabarty Municipality, of Calcutta / municipal system 93, 95-97, 102, 162-63, 207-8n Music/singer 81, 56, 133 Muslim (Musaiman, Mohamedan, Yavan) 6, 14 -15, 23, 26-27, 29, 32-33, Chapter 3, 73, 75, 109, 128-129, 136, 148, 188n Mutsuddi 108

Naba-bdnijyargOn (poem) 112 Naibedya (book of poems) 30, 138, 139, 140 Nanda 47, 48 Nandalal (poem) 107 Naoroji, Dadabhai 83 Nationalism (book) 176 Natural beauty of the motherland, see flora and fauna Nawab of B engal/of Murshidabad 33 NUdarpan (play) 40, 76, 158, 163, 164, 169 Nil/car (poem) 74 Nimchand (famous character of a famous play), see Sadhabar Ekadashi Negritude / Negro 5, 53 Never Never (poem) 94, 162, 165 New Year’s Day (skit) 115-116 Nidhubabu (See Gupta, Ramnidhi) North India, see west India Northbrook, Lord 77 Nuddea 164

234

NATIONALISM AS POETIC DISCOURSE

Orissa, see Utkal

Padmini Updkhydn (epic poem) 20, 38 Pdgaler Gdn (poem) 114 Paikpara 109 Pakistan 8 Pal, Bipin Chandra 50 Pal, Krishnadas 109 Palâshir Yuddha (epic poem) 28, 42, 72-73 Panchdshi Parab (poem) 72 Panipat 42 Pan-Islamism 66 Parishodh (poem) 161 Parsi 29, 59 Partition (1947) 33, 34, 66 Pataliputra 41 Patanjali 48 Pathan 32, 39, 40, 135 Peacock's Bill 151 Peasants, see lower classes Persia 74 Persian 18 Philippines 174 Physical prowess / bahubal 26, 82, 135-38 Plassey (Battle of) 28, 42, 73, 164 Polygamy, see social reforms Positivist 50 Prdbâsir Bilâp (poem) 24 Prajâbandhu (periodical) 152 Pratapaditya 41 PrSyaschitta (play) 117 Press / newpapers (Anglo-Indian, native) 144, 152-55, 163, 169, 208n, 21 In ‘Print-capitalism’/ printing machine 17-19

Prithwiraj 40, 49, 61 Purçab 10, 29, 59 Puni (Porus) 20, 48 Puru-Bikram (play) 36

Queen, the, see Victoria Queen’s Proclamation (1858), the 41, 76, 154 Qutab Minar 61

Rabelais 91-92, 118-119 Rabelais and His World (book) 91 Race / racism, see ethnic / ethnicity Racism, Struggle fo r Equality and Indian Nationalism (book) 151, see Bose, N anai Sadhan Radhi 108 Railways 75, 83, 93, 143 Raja Jatindramohan Bahadur 109 Raja Ramnath Bahadur 109 Rajputana (Rajasthan) / Rajput 10, 23, 29, 35, 38, 39, 48, 49, 51, 58, 59 Rdjput-Jiban-Sandhya (novel) 48, 58 Rdkhibandhan (poem) 29, 78 Ram (Sri Ram) 48, 57, 63, 95-96, 209n Ramayana, the 1, 95 Ramkrishna 138 Ramrajya 72, 95-96 Rana Pratap 36, 48, 57, 58 Ranjit Singh 94 Rationalism / rationality / reason 55,93, 99, 100, 141 Ray, Dwijendralal (D L Ray) 23, 50, 57, 67, 105-7, 110-11, 113, 117, 120-22, 124-25, 127, 150, 154

INDEX

235

Ray, Gobindachandra 40, 50 Sakas 59 Ray, Kamini 126 Sakhd o SOthi (periodical) 162 Ray, Rajkrishna 10, 26, 57, 69, 125, Salim 58 127-28, 192n Samdchir Sudhdvarshan (periodical) Ray, Rammohun 149-50, 154, 166-67 83 Ray, Satyajit 111 Samdj (novel) 59 Ray, Sukumar 111 SamSj-Gdn (poem) 100 Raychaudburi, Kshirodchandra 46 Sambad Bhaskar (periodical) 152 Samsdr-Kathd (novel) 59 Raycbaudhuri, Raja Pramatbanatb 109, Samudragupta 47, 48 134, 161, 205n Raycbaudhuri, Tapan 35, 151, 157, Sang 119 174, 188n, 195n Sangeet-Kosh (anthology of songs) Revolutionary politics / terrorism / 131 terrorists 138, 157, 174 Sanjivani Sabha 138 Revolt of 1857 / 1857 / Sepoy Mutiny Sanskrit 18-20, 28, 81, 97, 105 25, 39, 48, 71, 82, 105, 135, 137, Sanskrit College 150 142, 168 Santiniketan 139 Rhine 46 Sarala Devi (Chaudhurani) 10, 29, 59, Ripon, Lord 70, 95, 155, 165 63, 133, 137-138 Ripon Utsav (poem) 70, 165 Sarat-Sarojini (play) 158-160, 163, Ripon Geeti UchchhvSs (poem)-70 165, 169 Rizal 174 Sarbashubhakari (periodical) 21 On Roads, construction of 75, 93, 122 Saikar, Akshaychandra 112 Rome 74 Sarkar, Biharilal 189n Roundheads 59 Sarkar, Gangacharan 70 Rupasi BSngld (book of poems) 33 Saikar, Sumit 139, 144 Russia, Russian Revolution, Soviet Sarkar, Ibnika 132 Russia 91-92, 118, 135, 137 Sawjini (play) 36 Russo-Japanese War 137, 170 Sartre, Jean-Paul 149, 171-173 Satirical humour, see humour / satire Satnam (play) 59, 62 SabOs Hujuk Ajab Shahare (poem) S cien ce / te ch n o lo g y / s c ie n tific 97 education 55, 80, 82, 93 Sabitri 48 Scotland, Scottish, Scot 59, 64 Sadhabdr Ekddashi (play) / Nunchand Scott, Walter 20, 59, 64 101-102, 114, 120-121 Sealdah station 150 Sddharani (periodical) 125, 154 Sekendar, see Alexander Sadhukhan, Fakirchandra 125 Sekendra 128 Saheb Stotrang (poem) 97 Sen, Atulprasad 10, 127, 178n Said, Edward 65, 146, 172, 174. Sen, Dinanath 40, 190n

236

NATIONALISM AS POETIC DISCOURSE

Sen, Keshabchandra 104 Spiritual (inner) and material (outer) domains / spirituality 80, 82, 123Sen, Krishnabibari 188n Sen, Nabinchandra 28, 42, 68, 71, 24, 131 72, 76, 121, 135, 136, Srikdnta (novel) 34 205n Srimanta Sadagar (periodical) 84 Sen, Rajanikanta 102-3, 110 Stalin / Stabilization 91, 118 Sen, Shashankamohan 87 Stamp, Dudley 2 Serbs 54, 178n Statecraft 80, 82, 123 Shabasddhan (poem) 42, 135-36 Suja 58 Shakti (worship) 10, 136, 137 Sulabh Samachdr (periodical) 153 Shaiva 49 Suk-Sari Sambad (folk song), parody Shahjahan 41, 58 of 115 Shahjahan (play) 23 Sunni 51 Shared (poem) 11-14, 30 Suppression of dacoits (thuggies) 75, Sharmishtha (play) 20 122 Shastri, Shibnath 126-27, 129-31 Surabhi o Pataka (periodical) 150 Shiah 51 Surendra-Binodini (play) 158-60, 163, Shivaji / Shivaj Utsav 27, 138 165, 169 Shyenjit 94 Swadeshi M ovement / era / antiSikh 25, 29, 49, 59, 63, 71, 107 Partition agitation 14, 31, 57, 59, Singha, Bamacharan 189n 60, 65, 87-88, 122, 127, 134, 139, Singha, Kaliprasanna (Hutom), see 140, 161, 171, 172, 191n, 203n Hutom Pyanchar Nakshd Swadhinata-Bandand (poem) 137 Swapnalabdha Bharater Itihds (book) Shiraji, Syed Abu Mohammad Ismail Hosain 137 63 Sirajuddaulah 59, 62 Swaraj 156 Sita 48 Swamakumari Debi 133, 205n Slovaks 54 Social manners, etiquettes, customs and values (traditional/anglicized) Tajmahal, the 60 22, 81, 82, 99, 100, 103, 104, 106, Tantrik worship 136 Ttakacburamani, Sasadhar 188n 112, 119, 133, 135, 139 Tattvabodhini Patrika (periodical) Social reform s / reform ist sp irit (koulinya, child-marriage, dowry 152 system, widow-remarriage) 22, Temple, Sir Richard 97 100, 119, 131, see also women/Thakur brothers / family 50, 56, women’s education 108 Somprakdsh (periodical) 130, 152, Thakur Company 119 155 Thakur, Dwarakanath, 119 Spanish government 174 Thakur, Dwijendranath 127, 189n

INDEX Thakur, Ganendranath 48, 128, 189n, 197n Thakur, Jyotirindranath 36, 48, 58, 60, 65, 101, 127, 134 Thakur (Tagore), Rabindranath 8, 1014, 21, 30, 49-50, 65, 69, 105, 107, 111, 119, 121, 124-28, 134, 138-40, 172, 174-76 Thakur, Satyendranath 49, 128 Thermopylae, Battle of 107 Theses on Feuerbach (book) 165 Third World 55, 146, 174 Thomas Sdheb Bhyabachyakd (poem) Tod, James 38, 48 • Town Hall 144, 152 Toennies 7 Trevelyan 142 Tushanal (poem) 77

Udey 27 Un-British rule 41,43, 45, 75-76,162, 166, 170, 172 Unmeshana (poem) 137 Utilitarians 50 Utkal/Orissa 10, 24, 29, 37, 59, see also Udey Utsarga (book of poems) 30, 138

Vaishnava 49 Valmiki 1, 48 Vashistha 48 Vayu Purana, the 2 Vernacular Press Act 125, 153, 168, 208n ‘Vicarious nationalism’ 35-39, 73 Victoria / the Great Queen / the Queen / ‘the Empress of India’ 41-43, 45,

237

68-71, 74, 76-77, 98, 106, 125, 130, 158, 168 Victorid-Geeti (poem) 41, 76 Victorian morality 131-32 Vidyabhushan, Dwarakanath 72 Vidyasagar, Ishwarchandra 21, 101, 150, 154 Vietnam War / Vietnamese 173-74 Vikramaditya 47, 59 Vivekananda 138, 157, 166-67 Vyas (Vedavyas) 48, 107

Washington 107 West Bengal 1, 34 West India /north India 19, 22-24 West, the/Western culture / Western civilization / Westerners 22, 48,55, 77, 79, 80, 82, 88, 93, 95, 99, 113,116, 122, 131, 133, 139, 146, 147, 159, 162, 166, 167, 170, 172, 176 Widow-remarriage, see social reforms Women / women’s education / ‘women’s question’ / women as the babu’s others 22, 27, 80-81, 86, 99-101, 108, 114, 119, 130-33, 144 Workers, see lower classes Wretched o f the Earth The (book) 146, 149

Yamun$-Lahari (poem) 40 Young Bengal 24, 101, 109# 119, see also Derozians Yuddha (poem) 40 Yudhisthir 48 Yugoslavia 54, 178n Zamindar 108, 109, 161