Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay Research Articles

Anwesan: A Search Engine for Bengali Literary Works

Most of India's literature was written in Bengali since the beginning of the 19th century. Hundreds of authors have contributed to the enrichment of Bengali literature for years. Besides that, nearly 300 million people around the world speak in Bengali. The language, having a rich traditional background and popularity throughout the world, must be taken care for the web users in the present era of World Wide Web (WWW). The digitization of Bengali literary works and the development of the search engine is very important for the benefit of the Bengali language users all over the world. The paper describes Anwesan, a search engine for Bengali literature. Currently the entire work of Rabindranath Tagore and a part of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay's work is searchable through Anwesan. Several advanced search features necessary for simple and expert users are supported. It also serves as a digital library with various metadata information. The engine is implemented by customizing DSpace in Bengali language and is perhaps the most exhaustive exercise in this direction. This search system was primarily open for the public in Kolkata Book Fair 2010 only with Rabindra Rachanabali collection. Since then,its been in high use.

Book Review: Poetry and History: Bengali Mangalkabya and Social Change in Precolonial Bengal and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay: An Intellectual Biography

Book Review: Poetry and History: Bengali Mangalkabya and Social Change in Precolonial Bengal and Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay: An Intellectual Biography

Problematizing Realism in Early Bengali Novels: The Prehistory of a Narrative Convention in Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay's Bishbriksha (The Poison Tree, 1872–73)

This essay revisits the question of realism in early Bengali novels, with special attention to Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay's Bishbriksha or The Poison Tree (1872–3) as a case study. The argument is twofold: First, I argue that the contingent form emerges through complex negotiations with the time of colonial modernity and the available literary tradition. Second, I demonstrate that Bankim uses certain irregularities of the form to force it into a conversation with his contemporary issues, most notably social reforms in nineteenth-century Bengal. Through the conjoined narrative of the normative and the irregular, there emerges a unique realism suitable for the narration of colonial modernity.

Bande Mataram: Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay's nationalist thought revisited*

(2002). Bande Mataram: Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay's nationalist thought revisited. South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies: Vol. 25, No. 1, pp. 121-142.

The Unhappy Consciousness: Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay and the Formation of Nationalist Discourse in India.

The Bengali novelist Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay produced some of the most searching critical reflections on modernity in colonial India. Dr Kaviraj rejects the traditional view that Bankim was a conservative, arguing that we require a different and more complex description of the historical significance of his art. This book is intended for scholars of India's literary, political and cultural history.