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Critical Observations on Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay's ESSAY those who consider both options 1 and 2 order, securing the lives of its citizens and would simply not advance its case for a neither viable nor desirable. The first step respecting their human rights, promoting separate statehood if the state of which it in moving towards post-nationalism development and welfare, etc. The state is presently a part is a good state judged would involve shifting of the principal will be like a corporation, whether by the criteria suggested above. On the basis on which state claims legitimacy municipal or multinational, which other hand, if the state of which it is and asserts authority. Were the provides services not to nations but to its presently apart is bad, the ethnic group postcolonial state not to claim that it 'clientele' and is judged in similar terms. will not need to prove it is a nation in order represents a nation and its national This foundational shift in the claims to justify its move to secede. Nationhood interests, it would simply not matter made by the state cannot but in turn will not be the basis of demanding or whether the state is national, sub-national, fundamentally affect the claims of withdrawing political obedience. or supra-national. It would nationhood-claiming ethnic groups. multinational Bhupinder Brar is Professor of Political There will be no distinct advantage left in be a good state or a bad state depending Science, Panjab University, Chandigarh on how efficient it functionally is in aspiring or claiming to be a nation. It establishing rule of law and maintaining • • • Critical Observations on Bankimchandra • • by AMIYA P. SEN Chattopadhyay's Ana-ndamath [1882] • • • • It would indeed appear to be somewhat Bankimchandra himself foresaw or interesting point that the metaphor of the ironical that a work which became desired any such use of it", Dutt wrote, country as the 'Mother' was in fact quite virtually synonymous with militant "is impossible to believe." untypical of traditional Hinduism. The nationalism in India and greatly Inl908,inabooktitledlndianProblems, poet Kalid~ for example, likened the contributed to Bankimchandra's fame as a fellow Bengali, S.M. Mitra observed that country and the world to the 'Father'/' a novelist is generally not rated very Bankim composed the novel 'in a fit of 'Fatherland' viz. Jagate Pitorou Banda, highly within the general corpus of his­ patriotic excitement, after a good hearty Parvati Parameswara'. writings. In terms of either sophistication dinner which he always enjoyed'. We know for a fact that Anandamath in plot or literary artistry, it compares There was in fact, a school of thought was begun at a time when Bankim was rather poorly with Bankim's other novels which maintained that the idea or the transferred from his charge at Hoogly to such as Durgeshnandini, Bishbriksha, imagery employed in Anandamath was Howrah. This coincided with certain un­ Mrinalini, or Krishnakanter Will. Its specifically focused on Bengal and pleasant experiences as soon after he immediate impact on contemporary Bengalis. Here, Bankimchandra was seen joined his new charge, Bankim ran into Bengali or Indian life too was quite to be the founder of a healthy Bengali some trouble with his superior, C.E. - negligible. The civilian Romesh Chandra provincialism, not as palpable in the Buckland, the District Collector. This was Dutt once made the apt remark that the writings of earlier writers, poets or also a period of personal tragedy as his patriotic cry of Bande Mataram, extremely novelists such Bhudeb Mukhopadhyay, father, Jadav-chandra, also a member of popular during the anti-partition Rangalal Bandopadhyay or Hemchandra the sub-ordinate bureaucracy, passed agitation in Bengal, was seldom, if ever, Bandopadhya who were more enthused away. There are moreover, various used during the time that it was composed by the heroism of the Rajputs and the explanations about the possible and made public through the novel. For Marathas. The so called 'Santans' of inspiration behind the work. The well instance, it does not seem to have been Anandamath, on the other hand are knownhistorian B.B. Majumdar believed used during the two major public typically Bengali in their values and that Bankim was inspired by the rebellion controversies of the period viz. the Ilbert sensibility and use cultural ideas or led by Vasudev Balwant Phadke in Bill agitation and the contempt case artefacts that are palpably drawn from Maharashtra in 1866-67. The historical involving the nationalist leader Surendra­ traditional Bengali life. This, incidentally, linkages between mal-administration and nath Bannerjee. Dutt was also to make the was also the opinion of knowledgeable popular rebellion as evident in the case of point that the 'evil notoriety' that the song European writers and observers like Phadke and as depicted in Anandamath acquired during the Swadeshi days was Henry Cotton and George A. Grierson. however has historical precedents. In the far from the intention of its author . "That The latter, in particular, also made the Persian classic Siyar-ul~Mutakhkherin, the SUMMERHILL liAS REVIEW • 16 • Winter 2002 ESSAY author, Syed Gholam Hossain Tabtabai known that the administrative lapses and the 'Manwantar'[the period of distress tells us how the Punjab peasantry the moral responsibility for w hat and famine] and how Bankimchandra, in embraced Sikhism byway of seeking relief transpired during the 1770s, could more particular, remembered such episodes from prolonged oppression by the Indo realistically be attributed to the greed, quite vividly. In the Anandmath then, Muslim ruling class. It is quite probable corruption and insensitivity in the higher Bankimchandra would in fa ct appear to that Bankim was aware of Phadke's ranks of the Company's servants. Such indulge in deliberate double-play­ rebellion but the overarching conclusion facts are actually brought out quite diluting history but also historicising of Anandamath as we shall presently see, sharply by the correspondence between what hitherto remained inchoate at the comes closer to the observations of the Court of Directors and the Bengal level of collective memory. Bankim Tabtabai. It is now widely accepted that administration or other related official claimed to avoid history but actually the most tangible inspiration for the work publications and could not have been ended up sensitizing the educated was derived from the w idespread entirely hidden from our author. What Bengalis about their perceived past. In the popular rebellion that affected parts of m akes Bankim' s portrayals doubly novel, the Hindus seem to be affected by a north Bengal and Bihar in the 1770s, perplexing is the fact that in 1886, in strong sense of being wronged- a feeling reacting against prolonged famine response to public pressure, he did that is at once intense and pervasive. There conditions and its particularly inept and furnish historical details regarding the so are, for instance, passages inAnandamath insensitive handling by the officials of the called Sanyasi rebellions of the 1770s, where one encounters not aggrieved East India Company and its Indian agents. drawing upon official publications such subjects resorting to legitimate protest What is somewhat intriguing here is the as Gleig's Memories of the Life of Warren against an irresponsible administration, way Bankimchandra altered v ital Hastings and Hunter's Annals of Rural but the unleashing of bitter communal historical details even as he used a Bengal which make it amply clear that it violence whereby one community wrecks historical episode for the purposes of the was the complicity of the Company its vengeance upon another. In part III, novel. Thus, whereas the uprisings officials that resulted in an un­ chapter 7 of the novel, Hindus are seen to affected north Bengal and Bihar, Bankim precedented rural crisis that wiped out even contemplate demolishing mosques locates these in Birbhum in south central virtually a third of Bengal's population to give way to Hindu temples. All this Bengal with no comparable history of and left the countryside ravaged and in a resonates with occurrences closer to our popular insurrection. Given the state of utter deprivation. Thus, if the time. On the other hand, in Anandamath somewhat contrived and dramatic nature incidence of rural taxation was in fact itself, the Muslim per se has become [to of the plot one cannot help wondering if increased at a time the Bengal countryside use a currently fashionable turn of 'Birbhum' is only an allegory for was in the grip of severe famine, the phrase] the 'other'. 'Birbhumi'-th e land of the brave. The responsibility for the act could not be Bankim also indulges in certain unique point however, is that the deliberate pinned down on Muhammed Reja Khan, reconstruc-tions of Hindu history and change of historical details does not , in who, as was made dear in his deposition, tradition. Whereas historically, the any way, enhance the literary or aesthetic was only acting upon orders. Thus; while Sanyasi insurgents who led the rebellion quality of the novel and one may indeed there would have been some official in the 1770s were Saivite ascetics [Naga ponder over what exactly Bankim might pressure on him, it has also to be admitted Sanyasis], Bankim' s characters are have gained with a change of venue or alongside that the Anandmath reflects distinctly Vaishnav in their cultural or the names of some principal historical Bankim's rather naive accept-ance of religious orientation. Their invocations characters. It might of course be argued certain postulates incipient in Whig­ [as in the use of Dashavatar verses from that his status as a civil servant put severe Positivist historiography such as the idea Jaideb's Geet Gobinda ] are peculiarly con straints upon Bankim' s literary that Indo-Muslim rule represent-ed a dark Vaishnav.
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