Twentieth Century Bengal Research Articles

Writing Rokeya: Muslim Women’s Life-Writing, Intergenerational Camaraderie and Activism in Twentieth Century Bengal

This paper showcases how the intersubjective is at the heart of women’s associations through Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s nurturance and support of younger colleagues in colonial Bengal. Arguing that individual memory can be constitutive of institutional history/identity, it focuses on Shamsunnahar Mahmud’s Rokeya Jibani (1937), the first ‘official’ biography of Rokeya, and Sufia Kamal’s memoir, Ekale Amader Kal (1988), both of which posit Rokeya as a foremother to women’s movements of the time and inscribe her within a silsila (chain) of activist women who are sources of inspiration to successive generations. It also explores how Mahmud and Kamal emulate and extend Rokeya’s paradigm of multigenerational sorority.

Troublesome Keywords: Drama Books and Subversive Acts in Bengal 1905–1911

Vernacular word assumed a subversive role in early twentieth-century Bengal. The emergence of Bengali public sphere and the agitation against the partition of Bengal created a detrimental situation in which vernacular words became dangerous, and threatening, to the stability of the British Raj. Subversive vernacular words formed a sub-text in various media that garnered public support against the Raj and in favour of the acts of opposition against the Raj. The present research article evaluates a few of the dramatic texts in print to analyse how the sub-text vernacular word was circulated and how it affected the public mind against the British Raj.

“To Seek a Nobler Inheritance”: The Namasudra-Baptist Exchange of Early Twentieth-Century Bengal

Abstract This article presents a study of the dynamics that evolved between Dalits and Baptist missionaries in eastern India during the early years of the twentieth century. Drawing on hitherto unexamined Baptist publications, it attempts to discern what was at stake in their engagements through a close analysis of the exchanges that ensued between the two parties that, despite their extended unfolding, nonetheless resulted in few conversions. Proceeding from a consideration of nineteenth-century precedents, the article focuses on the period of their interactions that coincided with the Swadeshi movement in Bengal. It seeks to illustrate not only the considerable density of the collaborations they pursued but also to argue that their relationships contributed to the formation of a distinctive strand of liberalism. In so doing, the article invites reconsideration of the idea that subaltern consciousness was resistant to Western, and specifically missionary, influence.

The Ethical Thought of the Bengal Renaissance:The Neo-Hindu Conceptions (1880–1910)

A development of ethical thought by Neo-Hindu philosophers in Nineteenth– early Twentieth century Bengal is depicted in the article based on hermeneutic readings of the texts by Bankimchandra Chattopaddhyay, Swami Vivekananda, Aurobindo Ghosh. From the one hand, Neo-Hindu philosophers continue Rammohun Roy’s line of criticism of Indian society’s moral condition, consciousness and conduct. From the other hand, they formed their own ethical conceptions to present Hindu normative ethics. The research demonstrated for the first time the becoming of Modern Indian ethics in the conceptions of Bengal Neo-Hindu thinkers who are the real founders of ethics as philosophical discipline in India. Growing up from indigenous ancient tradition of exegesis of scriptures, Neo-Hindu conceptions of ethics are the new adogmatic interpretation of the native religious ethics in broad context of Modernity. The Bengal Renaissance thinkers had made an intellectual breakthrough in Indian philosophy. The result of intellectual works are following: 1) bringing morality to the fore in dharma to differentiate ethical issue-area as meaningful in thought and practice; 2) definition of universality of Hinduism’ s moral consciousness in the core; 3) normative ethics along with its imperatives and rules had presented as established and fixed in ancient Hindu scriptures; 4) the ethical ideal was found in images of sages and epic heroes as well as in their teachings; 5) ethical norms and ideal are practically oriented for the criticism of society’s morals and future development.

Sofia Khatun’s Silsila: A Genealogy of Foremothers in Print

Between 1922 and 1925, Sofia Khatun, a Muslim woman writer, published over 25 essays in some of Calcutta’s most widely circulated Bengali periodicals. Among these essays, her accounts of women’s position in premodern Greece, Rome, India and Egypt and her speculation on the originary sites of women’s movements are particularly interesting. Khatun here challenges the primacy of western actors and explicitly connects women’s emancipation with the era of Islamization in West Asia and North Africa. While reconfiguring dominant narratives of women’s social and political activism, she seeks foremothers in both obvious and obscure milieux. In doing so, Khatun traces a silsila or chain of predecessors, who are sources of inspiration to herself as well as her contemporary readers. A time-honoured tradition in Islamicate cultures, salasil (plural) usually foreground Sufi pirs (spiritual guides) and transmitters of Hadith (sayings attributed to the Prophet), more often men than women. Khatun reorients this practice to showcase women activists as key players in a male-dominated textual space. The conceptual metaphor of silsila captures her bringing together of Anglo-American suffragists, Arabian sultanas and African women warriors within a single genealogy. Khatun draws on two genres popular in medieval Arabia to enable her eclectic assemblage of foremothers to speak to the concerns of women readers in twentieth-century Bengal. The first, tabaqat, are biographical dictionaries that provide emulative paradigms. The second, a set of belletristic genres encompassed within the term adab, are short prose pieces and precedents to the ‘modern’ essay. Building on the former’s didactic function and the latter’s anecdotal quality, Khatun allows her foremothers to articulate multiple models of gender justice pursued at different times and across transregional spaces. By upholding such pluralistic and heterodox feminist pasts, she pays attention to the intersectional nature of gender inequity and addresses the ‘woman question’ in all its complexity in late colonial Bengal.

Dr. Chunilal Bose: a forgotten scientist and a science communicator

Modern medical education began in Bengal with the establishment of Calcutta Medical College (CMC) in 1835. Soon it became an important centre for medical education and research in India. Chunilal Bose (1861–1930), an alumnus of CMC, worked in his alma mater as the Chemical Examiner of Bengal for more than three decades and conducted pioneering researches on toxins and poisons, food poisoning, food adulteration, diabetes, small pox, forensic science, effects of narcotics etc. His research publications appeared in reputed journals such as British Medical Journal, Transactions of the Chemical Society of London, The Indian Medical Gazette, and Calcutta Medical Journal etc. Bose was also instrumental in passing the Indian Poisons Act (1904) and in creating a public awareness against consumption of narcotics. Bose was an able science communicator of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Bengal and extensively wrote and lectured in a simple language, both in Bengali and English, on the subjects of public health and hygiene, general science and history of science that were connected to the wellbeing of the common people, with an intention of creating science awareness and scientific temper in the society. Honours and awards showered upon him during his lifetime, but Bose’s important contributions to medical sciences and science popularization were less discussed by the historians of science, as the focus generally remained on his more illustrious contemporaries. In the course of time, Chunilal Bose became a nearly forgotten scientist and a science communicator. His 160th birth anniversary was observed in 2021.

(Anti-)Colonialism, religion and science in Bengal from the perspective of global religious history

AbstractThis article focuses on debates about the relationship between religion, science and national identity that unfolded in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Bengal. Combining perspectives from religious studies and global history, it offers a specific approach to theoretical and methodological issues revolving around entanglement, agency and modernity. This will be operationalized, first, through an exploration of personal networks surrounding the Bengali Tantric pandit Shivachandra Bhattacharya Vidyarnava; his Bengali disciple, philosopher and nationalist educator, Pramathanath Mukhopadhyay and Shivachandra’s British disciple, the judge John Woodroffe. Second, an investigation of the connections between self-referentially ‘orthodox’ societies, so-called reformers, and the Theosophical Society will further illustrate the global exchanges that conditioned and shaped contemporary debates about religion, science and politics. This will complicate and shed new light on the contested relationship between modernity and tradition, or reformism and orthodoxy, opening new perspectives for further dialogue between religious studies and global history.

Reading Creative Translations of Jibanananda Das’s Bengali Poetry into English: A Journey across the Frontiers of Experiences

Indian English literature generally refers to that body of writing, which is produced in the English language by the litterateurs of an Indian origin. It is however, understandable that creative translations should also be located into the corpus of Indian English literature. Historically speaking, what gave the first solid footing to Indian English poetry was Rabindranath Tagore’s Gitanjali, and this came in the form of creative translation. After Rabindranath we find another accomplished poet of twentieth century Bengal to practice creative translation of his Bengali poetry into English. This poet is Jibanananda Das, whose English- language poetry in the form of creative translation is yet to receive a broader audience. The present paper seeks to study three of these creative translations titled Meditations (Manosarani in Bengali), Darkness (Andhakar in Bengali) and Sailor (Nabik in Bengali), which seem to form a complex sequel in respect of Jibanananda’s deep concern for the socio-cultural unrest that characterized the general fabrics of life in Bengal after the Partition of 1947. Moreover, these poems appear equally contemporary in the twenty first century, when the disruptive forces of corruption, falsehood, debauchery, political coercion and cultural denigration are more severely at work to corrode and annihilate the cultural roots of Bengal. So, the purpose of the present study is two-fold: first, to show how the creative translations of Jibanananda continue to strike the note of a universal humanity in the present times, and second, to voice for their inclusion in forthcoming anthologies of Indian English poetry. For, these poems composed by one of the greatest poets of modern Bengal would make room for readers from all over India to savour the taste of a fine artistry that transcends the limits of every ideological bias.

The Dilemma of ‘Science’: ‘Tradition’ and Archaeology in Early Twentieth-century Bengal

The study of history as a genre became important not only as an academic concern but to recover the lost pride and dignity of the indigenous people in a colonized land. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Bengal, the study of the past assumed prime importance in the context of nationalism to counter the disdain of colonial historians and revive national pride. History as a ‘scientific’ discipline functioned as a tool in this regard, where the vernacular emerged as the principal medium of communication. Individuals from diverse backgrounds debated whether a more rigorous understanding of the past through Western ‘scientific’ methods could supplant the information from traditional texts and legends. Material culture or ‘hard’ evidence considered more suitable for a ‘modern’ objective historical account gained precedence over the traditional texts, dismissed as imaginary and mythical. A heated debate emerged between two groups, the archaeologists who believed in the objectivity of material evidence and the traditionalists who subscribed to the view that classical literature was not irrelevant to understanding the past. However, this division remained nebulous, and both groups remained in a liminal interstitial space engaging and contesting with their notions of ‘tradition’ and ‘science’. It was from this contested space that emerged an ambivalent archaeological method which formed an important characteristic of Indian archaeology in the post-Independence era.

Generic Shifts in Women’s Travel Writing between Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Bengal

Generic Shifts in Women’s Travel Writing between Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century Bengal

Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay’s Caitālī ghūrṇi and The Dystopia of Hunger

The article reviews one of the lesser-known novels of Tarasankar Bandyopadhyay, Caitali ghurni (1931), as a dystopian narrative. In an attempt to review potential dystopian elements in vernacular texts, the article evaluates and compares the prominent features of western dystopian fiction to explore the characteristics and uniqueness of Caitali ghurni as a dystopian novel. In the process, the study sheds light on the relationship of such texts with the rise of realism in literature or bastabbadi sahitya in early twentieth-century Bengal and how that ushered in literary modernism. The primary aims of the article are to chart the contribution of the novel in expanding the horizon of dystopia as a literary genre to accommodate similarly themed literature produced in the vernacular, and thus to look beyond the confines of a western definition of dystopia. This is achieved through a close content-oriented reading of the novel, especially focusing on the aspects of hunger, social and familial relationships, and sexuality.

Nishchindipur: The Impossibility of a Village Utopia

This article seeks to examine the persistence, in Indian and specifically Bengali literature of the twentieth century, of a contradiction: the myth of an ideal or utopian village set against actual experiences of suffering, inequality, and deprivation. It traces some elements of this contradiction to Thomas More’s foundational text, Utopia (1516), and continues by examining the idealization of the self-sufficient and unchanging Indian village community in the social thought of the nineteenth-century British jurist Sir Henry Maine. Subsequently, the village becomes a focal concern for Indian nationalists, producing a strain of idealized ‘pastoralism’ as well as utopian dreams, countered by equally important critiques of rural obscurantism and decay. Both idealization and critique find their place in the literature and art of early twentieth century Bengal, but the category of the village Utopia proves impossible to sustain. The title of the article gestures towards this failure by citing the name (Nishchindipur, meaning ‘place of contentment’) of the village setting for Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s Bengali novel Pather Panchali (1928), made into an iconic film (1955) by the director Satyajit Ray. The film generated a curious conjunction of the epithets ‘idyllic’ and ‘impoverished’, and was criticized for its unsparing depiction of rural suffering.

Intimate revelations: Conversations among “evil” women in Rokeya’s Padmarag

Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain creatively demonstrates in Padmarag (1924) the socially embedded association of women with evil. She brings together a group of women on the premises of Tarini Bhaban in order to explore their psychological terrain, as they share with each other previously untold memories and document their experiences of patriarchal oppression and domestic abuse. Through their reminiscences and memories, Rokeya lays bare the angst of women in a patriarchal social order that silences and suppresses them. Beyond the belief of sisterhood at Tarini Bhaban, in one way or another, most of these women are considered “evil” in society as a whole. For example, Saudamini is a stepmother with no biological children of her own and is regarded as a dakini (witch) and rakshasi (a female demon). Other women of Tarini Bhaban have received comparable tags from society and experienced similar victimization. Based on the representation of “evil” women in the novel, in this article I will discuss their stories and examine some of the contributing factors to their victimization and characterization as wicked in the context of early twentieth-century Bengal.

A Culture of Violence? Women in Twentieth Century Bengal

Violence is one of the primeval instincts of human kind. It is not restricted by spatio-temporal frontiers and majority of human beings, irrespective of their gender, age, nationality, orientation, etc. are subjected to some form of violence during their lives. However, as the societal conditions have always enabled the subjugation of the “weak” by the “powerful”, violence against women has been identified globally as one of the most systematic and widespread human rights violations. Using three short stories authored by Jagadish Gupta, Tarashankar Bandyopadhyay, and Mahasweta Devi in twentieth century Bengal as case studies, this paper seeks to examine the diverse trajectories of violence perpetrated against women in the aforesaid period. Analysing particular modes of violence like dowry-based homicide, witch-hunting, and rape as political instrument of oppression, this study intends to qualify Michael Taussig’s thesis on “culture of terror” by situating it against the wider backdrop of the “culture of violence” and the discourses of resistance that simultaneously emerged in twentieth century Bengal.

Gender, Medicine, and Society in Colonial India: Women's Healthcare in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Bengal.

Gender, Medicine, and Society in Colonial India: Women's Healthcare in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Bengal.

Gender, Medicine, and Society in Colonial India: Women’s Health Care in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Bengal, written by Sujata Mukherjee

Gender, Medicine, and Society in Colonial India: Women’s Health Care in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Bengal, written by Sujata Mukherjee

Nation in Ephemeral Literature: Dynamics of Demonstrative Resistance and Swadeshi Nationhood (1905–11)

A new image was engendered in twentieth-century Bengal. The image clarified the direction of public opinion, whether it sanctified the actions of the colonizers or that of the colonized. In the process, those who chose to side with the colonized developed a close bond with the others who became a part of the camaraderie. The resultant image, envisioned by the people, did not come to them naturally; it was produced in their mind. The word of the age, printed and performed, helped produce this vision using the context as an index of reference. Words were transmitted and circulated among large number of people, who came to know, discuss and debate it. Despite the strict vigilance of the Raj that censured objectionable words, it nevertheless reached the public. Words found expression in ephemeral media that made the words disseminated untraceable. One such medium was the placard. This article analyses the placards circulated and posted, during the early twentieth century, and delves deep into the process of demonstration and persuasion adopted by the placards to invoke an image of nation among the Bengalis.

Rabindranath Tagore’s Syncretistic Philosophy and the Persian Sufi Tradition

Abstract Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) has been praised by a number of Bengali Muslim authors for his sympathetic portrayal of Islamic concepts and ideals, and it is well known that some of his works of prose and verse were influenced by Persian poetry and Sufism. Tagore’s father knew Persian and could recite the poetry of Ḥāfiẓ (d. 1389) by heart. Tagore himself was also deeply influenced by the Persian classical poet. In the last decade of his life, Tagore described his admiration for the great Persian Sufi poets, visiting the tombs of Ḥāfiẓ and Sa‘dī in Shiraz. In this article, I will discuss the spiritual milieu of the Persianate culture of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Bengal to shed light on the extent of the influence of Persian Sufi ideas on this milieu in general and Tagore in particular. Attention will also be given to other aspects of Tagore’s religious syncretism: Bāul mysticism and its lyric poetry, Sahaja Buddhism, Vedanta philosophy, the Upanishads, and a few other currents of Eastern thought. Lastly, I will explore Tagore’s relationship with Persian Sufi concepts and poetry and discuss the effect of his visit to Iran and his encounter with the poet Ḥāfiẓ.

Institutionalization of Nursing as Profession in the Early Twentieth Century Bengal

Institutionalization of Nursing as Profession in the Early Twentieth Century Bengal

Milk, ‘Race’ and Nation: Medical Advice on Breastfeeding in Colonial Bengal

This article analyses medical opinion about nursing of infants by memsahibs and dais as well as the Bengali-Hindu bhadramahila as the ‘immature’ child-mother and the ‘mature’, ‘goddess-like’ mother in the tropical environment of nineteenth and early twentieth century Bengal. It shows how the nature of lactation, breast milk and breastfeeding are socially constructed and become central to medical advice on motherhood and childcare aimed at regenerating community, ‘racial’ and/or national health, including manly vigour for imperial, colonial and nationalist purposes. In colonial Bengal, the topic of breastfeeding surfaces as crucial to understanding colonial and nationalist, medical and medico-legal representations of maternal and child health constituted by gendered, racialised, classed and caste-ridden, biological/cultural and pure/polluting traits, often considered transferable through milk and blood.