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Scott of Bengal”: Examining the European Legacy in the Historical Novels of Bankimchandra Chatterjee

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Scott of Bengal”: Examining the European Legacy in the Historical Novels of Bankimchandra Chatterjee “Scott of Bengal”: Examining the European Legacy in the Historical Novels of Bankimchandra Chatterjee Nilanjana Dutta A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department English and Comparative Literature Chapel Hill 2009 Approved by: Sucheta Mazumdar John McGowan Eric Downing Srinivas Aravamudan Tony Stewart ABSTRACT Nilanjana Dutta: “Scott of Bengal”: Examining the European Legacy in the Historical Novels of Bankimchandra Chatterjee (Under the direction of Sucheta Mazumdar) It is generally agreed that the novel is of European origin and that it was imported into non-European countries through colonial contact. While acknowledging this European precedence, it is important to also acknowledge the unique ways in which non- European authors indigenized the form to respond to the needs of their contemporary readers who were their intended audience. The works of the nineteenth-century Indian novelist Bankimchandra Chatterjee are a case in point. This dissertation focuses on the role the historical novels of Bankim performed in determining Indian identities at a particular juncture in Indian colonial history. A comparative study with selected novels of Sir Walter Scott, the premier historical novelist of Europe, helps illustrate the singularity of Bankim’s task; Scott and Bankim occupied quite different worlds and their works serve as metaphors of this difference. As the first successful novelist of India, Bankim took on the task of invoking history to create a national identity for a people who, he felt, did not have one. This identity had to be imagined through complex negotiations of race, religion, and gender, each of which required constant redefining. Bankim’s choice to define Indian history with a strong Hindu bias created an ambivalent ii and often hostile space for the non-Hindu participants of Indian history. This dissertation examines that space and the role assigned to the antithesis of the Muslim “other,” the ideal Hindu. It also studies the role of the Hindu woman in Bankim’s historical novels. The nation is imagined as a woman and the many dimensions of that role add richness to Bankim’s texts. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to sincerely thank my dissertation director, Sucheta Mazumdar, for her guidance and encouragement. Her insightful comments at various stages helped me sharpen my focus and stay on track through the long and rigorous process of writing. Sucheta’s emphasis on breaking the dissertation into smaller parts and meeting frequent submission deadlines made the process more manageable than it would have been otherwise. In addition, she has been a true mentor who, in spite of her busy schedule, has been extremely generous with her time and advice. Eric Downing and John McGowan have been involved with my dissertation ever since its inception. They were the readers for my major and minor exams and stayed with me as my dissertation took shape and until it was completed. They supported my decision to write on Bankim and helped me with the comparative aspects of my work. I thank them from the bottom of my heart for their untiring support. Srinivas Aravamudan’s comments about the relationship between empire and romance strengthened my own understanding of the topic. His suggestion to study Anandamath alongside Old Mortality opened up a comparative aspect that I had not initially considered. Finally, my thanks to Tony Stewart for commenting on my dissertation draft. Many family members and friends have been with me in this long journey. Without the support of my husband Santanu, who never failed to appreciate my commitment to this demanding undertaking, this dissertation would not have been iv possible. He always believed I could complete what I set out to do; without his enthusiasm, writing this dissertation would have been much harder than it was. My daughters, Raka and Ria, have never failed to cheer me up when I needed them to. I am grateful to many of my family members in India whose love has sustained me. Finally, I would like to acknowledge my colleagues at UNC, George Mason and elsewhere, who have offered intellectual stimulation and support throughout the process. v TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION…………………………………………… 1 CHAPTER 1: THE MILIEU THAT SHAPED BANKIM……………… 18 CHAPTER 2: BANKIM AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE BENGALI NOVEL…………………………….. 43 CHAPTER 3: SCOTT AND THE“SCOTT OF BENGAL”: A STUDY OF SCOTT’S IVANHOE AND BANKIM’S DURGESHNANDINI …………………………………… 78 CHAPTER 4: THE NATION AND THE “OTHER” IN ANANDAMATH AND OLD MORTALITY …………... 123 CHAPTER 5: THE MUSLIM IN BANKIM’S VIEW OF HISTORY … 147 CHAPTER 6: A GENDERED IDENTITY: THE NATION AS MOTHER, WIFE, AND DAUGHTER IN BANKIM’S HISTORICAL NOVELS ………………….. 202 CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………….. 254 BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………………………………………………….. 266 vi INTRODUCTION This dissertation focuses on Bankimchandra Chattyopadhyay (1838-1894), who is generally considered to be the first successful novelist to write in any Indian language and the ways in which he shaped the emergence of the historical novel in India. The very mention of the term “historical novel” immediately brings Walter Scott to mind and the imprint of his legacy on the genre. Below, I introduce Bankimchandra or Bankim (as he is traditionally referred to in Bengali) and explore some dimensions of the influence of Scott on the historical novel in India. In a literary career that spanned roughly thirty years, Bankim wrote in Bengali, the language spoken in the eastern state of Bengal in British India (now the language of the Indian state of West Bengal and the independent country of Bangladesh). Although much has been written in Bengali and other Indian languages about him, as one of the major literary figures of modern India, he has not received comparable attention in western scholarship. The power of transcending the limits of time and space, which makes works produced in one specific era and one specific culture relevant in another, belongs to those we call classics. Bankim’s works are certainly considered classics in the canons of Bengali literature, and as the first successful Indian novelist he has a permanent place in the canon of Indian literature as well. Bankim’s works continue to be of value more than a hundred years after the last of them was published, because they address many issues we still contend with in our own times. One of the issues regarding which Bankim continues to be relevant is that of legitimate citizenship. He was the first Indian author to examine in a significant and sustained manner the underpinnings of nationalism. Benedict Anderson writes about nations as communities that are imagined into existence. In Bankim’s works, especially in his novels with historical backdrops, we see this process of imagining unfold. Cultural roots, one of the many aspects of nationalism that Anderson discusses,1 inspires people to kill and, more importantly, to die for a nation. These sentiments are visible in many of Bankim’s works of which one of the best examples is the hymn “Bande Mataram” (alternately spelled “Vande Mataram” and translated variously as “Mother Hail,”2 “I revere the Mother,”3 “ I bow to thee, Mother”4). During the Indian freedom struggle Bande Mataram came to symbolize a militant nationalism with its emphasis on both dying and killing for the motherland. 5 The song, which for Indian freedom fighters was a battle cry against the British,6 acquired more problematic connotations when used in 1 Benedict Anderson. Imagined Communities. (London, New York: Verso, 1983, 1991) 7 2Basanta Koomar Roy, trans and ed. Anandamath (New Delhi, Bombay: Orient Paperbacks, 1992) 37 3 Julius Lipner, trans and ed., nandamath or the Sacred Brotherhood (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005) 144 4 This version by Sri Aurobindo is mentioned, among others, by Tanika Sarkar in Hindu Wife, Hindu Nation: Community, Religion, and Cultural Nationalism (London: Hurst and Company, 2001) 289 and Barbara Southard in “The Political Goddess: Aurobindo’s Use of Bengali Śākta Tantrism to Justify Political Violence in the Indian Anti-Colonial Movement.” South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 30:2, 269-292. 5 Bhabatosh Chatterjee makes this point in his discussion of polyvalency of the novel in his introduction to the compilation of essays on Bankim titled Bankimchandra Chatterjee: Essays in Perspective, (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi, 1994). He also points out that the novel in which the song is embedded is routinely celebrated more for its nationalistic message than for other aspects such as romance between men and women and the challenge that desire poses to duty (LXXIV). In the same anthology, Sunil Gangopadhyay mentions that Bande Mataram was originally written “when [Bankim’s] press compositor asked him for a poem to fill up a blank space on a page” (“The Making of the Indian Novel” 390). 2 instances of political agitation and communal riots in independent India. The controversy provoked by Bande Mataram, which was initially chosen by the Indian National Congress as the National Anthem in 1896 and was later replaced because of its perceived Hindu supremacist overtones, continues even today. Proponents of Hindutva (loosely translated as Hindu-ness), who champion the cause of India as a Hindu nation and enthusiastically promote the conflation of religion and politics, find much to celebrate in the hymn by Bankim,7 and the song continues to be popular among the masses.8 Yet some Muslims citizens of India reject the hymn for its iconographic association with Hinduism. Anandamath, the novel in which Bande Mataram appears, provokes similar debates. The centenary of the novel in West Bengal was marked by the official distancing of the state government from the celebrations because of the novel’s perceived anti-Muslim stance.9 In spite of the controversy (or perhaps because of it) that surrounds the works of Bankim, they prove to be concrete examples of Anderson’s point about the cultural roots of nationalism that inspire extreme passions.
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