Journal of Bengali Studies: Kolkata

ISSN 2277-9426
Journal of Bengali Studies

Vol. 3, No. 2
Kolkata
Jogoddhatri Pujo, 14 Kartik 1421 Autumn Issue, 1 November 2014

Journal of Bengali Studies (ISSN 2277-9426) Vol.3, No.2
Published on the occasion of Jogoddhatri Pujo, 14 Kartik 1421, 1 November 2014
The theme of this issue is Kolkata
ISSN: 2277-9426
Journal of Bengali Studies

Vol. 3, No. 2
1 November 2014
Jogoddhatri Pujo, 14 Kartik 1421
Autumn Issue
Kolkata
Editor: Tamal Dasgupta
Editorial Team: Subrata Nandi (Issue Editor)
Joydeep Bhattacharyya
Sourav Gupta
Mousumi Biswas Dasgupta

The commentary, article, review and workshop copyrights©individual contributors, while the
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Editorial©Tamal Dasgupta. Cover design©Tamal Dasgupta. Further, Journal of Bengali Studies
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Contents
Editorial 7
Article
CoordiNation and Deferral of Bengali Nation-Consciousness: Ishwarchandra Gupta in Nineteenth

Century Kolkata
Tamal Dasgupta 16
Kolkata Corporation and Subhas Chandra Bose: Death of a Dream
Chandrachur Ghose 84
Echoes from the Past: Revisiting ‘Old Kolkata’ in Gorosthane Sabdhan
Kallol Gangopadhyay 126
A Lesson in Living Life: The Portrayal of Kolkata in Satyajit Ray’s Short Stories
Zenith Roy 147
Demographic and Behavioral Profile of Street Children in Kolkata
Atanu Ghosh 164
Cottage and Small Scale Industries in the Slums of Kolkata: Growth and Constraints in Twentieth
Century
Subrata Nandi 176
Kolkata's Intellectual Response to Shakespeare: Academia, Stage and Little Magazines
Arindam Mukherjee 191
Tracing the Historical Roots of Kolkata's North-South Divide
Madhusree Chattopadhyay 229

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4 Journal of Bengali Studies, Vol. 3, No. 2
Review
Scanning Kolkata Stage through the Eyes of Five Doyens: A Review of Bratya Basu's Book of
Interviews
Sourav Gupta 247
Workshop
Love and Kolkata: Six Poems
Tamal Dasgupta 251
Commentary
Sister Nivedita in Kolkata: A Nation Awakens
Mousumi Bandyopadhyay 267
Living Heritage: Boats of Kolkata
Swarup Bhattacharyya 278
Traditional Sanskrit Learning in Kolkata
Somnath Sarkar 298

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The contents, views and opinions occurring in the contributions are solely the responsibilities of
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The image/s appearing in the Journal are parts of a critical project, not for any commercial use.
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For the previous issues of Journal of Bengali Studies, a peer-reviewed online journal please visit
http://bengalistudies.blogspot.com and www.bengalistudies.com
We have previously published five issues on the following themes, and all of them are available
online:
Ognijug (Vol.1, No.1)

Bengali Cinema: Bengalis and Cinema (Vol.2, No.2)
Bengali Theatre: Bengalis and Theatre (Vol.2, No.1)
Science and Technology in History: Modern Bengali Perspectives (Vol.2, No.2)
Literature and Movements: Bengali Crossroads (Vol.3, No.2)
Editorial
A sense of location is important across the entire plant and animal kingdoms. For the human animal this
sense of location is even more important, because we cannot thrive in a simple state of nature, and we
have to devise a culture in a collective manner; this culture is always locally rooted. Importance of
location spreads from our physiology (location as a biological factor; as I write this editorial this year's
Nobel prize in physiology and medicine is announced to be awarded to scientists who have worked on
the biological significance of location) to our anthropology, social sciences and cultural studies
(location as a social, economic and cultural construct). The significance of Kolkata for the history and
culture of the modern Bengali people is nonpareil.
Numerous books on the history of Kolkata exist which have proven it beyond doubt that
Kolkata was most certainly not born in 1690, that it does not have any such date of birth, that it is most
certainly older than 1690, that Kolkata goes back further in time, a point that was upheld by the
Calcutta High Court in its verdict dated 16 May 2003 (following an expert report submitted by five
renowned historians) where it directed to erase the name of Job Charnock as the founder of this city
from all history books (Bhoumik iii), and yet it is customary for a host of writers to religiously repeat
this myth that one Job Charnock was the father of this city of Kolkata who founded it in 1690
(completely ignoring the fact that he came to Kolkata/Sutanuti twice before – once in 1686 and then in
1687; it runs like a joke: Charnock already came to Kolkata twice, but he founds Kolkata on his third
visit in 1690); we are ritually reminded that where the landmarks like Museum and Victoria Memorial
stand today earlier used to be dense forest ,with wild animals roaming in the woods and brigands
lurking behind every bush (Joardar 14); nevertheless, while saying these, sometimes the guilt-conscious
comprador's hat is tipped to the direction of the ancient Kolkata that was the abode of meditation of
Chouronginath, the saint from the Nath order, from whom modern day Chowringhee derives its name,
or to the medieval Kolkata that finds a mention in the 1596 CE entry of Ain-i-Akbari of Abul Fazl as a
constituent part of the administrative division (Sarkar) Satgaon (Saptagram/Shoptogram on the
Hooghly), or to the Kolkata which is mentioned in Mukundaram's Chondimongol of 1445 CE
(Mukhopadhyay 15). Kolkata was a halt for Guru Nanak (as all Sikh histories unequivocally attest)
during his first udaasi between 1499 and 1506 covering entire eastern India (udaasis were journeys
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Nanak undertook to different corners of subcontinent and middle east), and a Sikh shrine named
Gurudwara Bari Sangat stands to this day at the place where Guru Nanak lived during his stay in
Kolkata; it's at Burra Bazar, situated on Kolkata's very own arterial thoroughfare known as M G Road,
as I myself once found out.
Armenian Church, Kolkata
The gravestone over Reza Bibi's tomb dated 1630 in the Armenian Church of Kolkata firmly
establishes that a settlement of the Armenians in Kolkata existed very much before the British came
here. The fact that some of our historians doubt the veracity of this gravestone and its inscription
establishes less the claim of Charnock than their own comprador status. We have been told by western
hegemony that only stone and metal inscriptions and coins count as historical evidences; our punthis
don't. The discovery of Gupta age gold coins at Kalighat in 1783 (at display in the British Museum
since then) is again somehow passed under the carpet. Ballala Sena's gift inscription (Daana Patra) that
pertains to Kalikhetro (Mukhopadhyay 6), which undoubtedly relates to the region of modern day
Kolkata is likewise underplayed.
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The ruins of Bansha Bati Raj Bari, situated at Bansberia, which is a part of Adi Shoptogram
This is a historical region where Kolkata stands today, and it did not appear out of a nothingness
as it is sometimes made out to be (Satyajit Ray's famous sleuth's Anglophilic speech about Kolkata
being a wild swamp prior to British arrival immediately coming to mind). Henry Cotton traces the
origin of the busy mercantile hub of Kolkata back to the renowned port of Saptagram/Shoptogram on
the west bank of Hooghly river (the Portuguese called it Porto Piqueno), that after the silting of the
river Saraswati somehow transferred its potential to Kolkata. Shoptogram was the nucleus of Kolkata,
Cotton observes (2). Cotton points out in the same breath that the migration of Setts and Bysacks from
Shoptogram to Gobindopur village – they came to Kolkata in 1537 CE (Bhoumik 28) – can be
considered to have formally inaugurated the business hub which was later to become the city of
Kolkata. It is said that the region of Kolkata became a thriving mercantile hub and a centre of textile
industry in next hundred years. The textile workshop of the Setts at Gobindopur employed a total of
2500 workers in 1632 (Bhoumik 8). Interestingly, the history of Gobindopur, which is normally
considered to have begun with the Setts (with the village deriving its from the name of their family idol
of Gobindo) can be traced back to tenth century CE (Bhoumik 32). Kolkata was an important outpost in
the kingdom of Maharaja Pratapaditya (ascension 1584), whose fort stood at modern day Bagbajar on
the Ganges (Bhoumik 59, 55). It survived the ravages of time and was used by British at the time of
Siraj's siege of Kolkata. Preceding decades already saw a burgeoning Kolkata during the time of the
Maratha expedition, when Bengalis came to live here from different parts of South Bengal, as it was
safely ensconced on the eastern side of Ganges, protected by the guns and canons of the Company.
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This temple at Bansberia is very unlike other Bengali temples and it shows the extent of foreign influence on this busy international port
Quite importantly, Kolkata shares a glorious lineage of the civilisations which since ancient
times flourished in Bengal in general and south Bengal in particular, from the days of the Gangaridai
empire and the ancient port of Tamralipta to the glorious days of the kingdom of Jessore under the rule
of Pratapaditya and the social, cultural and intellectual flourish of Nabadwip. Kolkata thus inherits the
legacies of a number of illustrious cities which flourished in Bengal's south western parts, the latest of
them being Nabadwip/Noboddip by Ganges and Shoptogram by Shoroshshoti.
Prior to the British East India Company's purchase of the revenue rights of three villages of
Kolkata, Sutanuti and Gobindopur (the deed is dated 10 November 1698), there was a procurement of
permission from the Mughal court in Delhi. Later in 1717 another Mughal farman entitled the
Company to purchase another 38 villages adjoining Kolkata. But Bengal's Nawab Murshidkuli Khan
took great care to instruct the zamindars of these villages not to sell their lands/revenue rights to the
British (Basu 21). Surely if this region held no strategic importance, if this was as wild, barren,
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depopulated and swampy towards the end of seventeenth century as it is often meant out to be, there
would not possibly be too many Zamindars looking over these lands, Nawab too would have not
bothered if the British purchased them, and on the top of it, the British company too would not have
bothered to purchase them at such a great cost to their treasury in the first place (the actual price of the
three villages, Rs 1300 was a pittance compared to the royal sum of Rs 16000 that was paid to the
emperor in Delhi for purchase rights of three villages in 1698 (Basu 14), but the question is, who gives
that kind of money to buy some pieces of wilderness anyway?).
As I have discussed in my article on Ishwar Gupta and nineteenth century Kolkata (which
explores the deferral of nation-consciousness among the Bengali people), attempts to denigrate our own
heritage, history, legacy and cultural treasures have been systematically undertaken by many of us, and
we should start to problematise such simplistic positions which think of Kolkata in such ahistorical,
amnesiac terms. We have to blast open the debris of colonialism in order to discover the underlying
continuum of the history of Kolkata which is now covered beneath a palimpsest of colonial disruptions,
discontinuities and epistemic breaks. Any discussion of Kolkata must not dispense with this cultural
unconscious, that Kolkata derives its name from Kalikshetra/Kalikhetro (Mukhopadhyay 6; Mallick 1),
that the region from Behala in the south to Dokkhineshshor in the north was called Kalikhetro in
Shakti Peethamala (one of the most ancient puranic chronologies of the history of Shakti Peethas all
over India; we need to remember here that though its temple is new, Dokkhineshshor itself is a very old
place), as Harisadhan Mukhupadhyay points out (10-11); that we Bengalis have a history of our own
making written in our own blood and pus, bravery and betrayal, victories and defeats. As we resisted
and appropriated and sometimes welcomed foreign influences, we made a history of our own, and that
is not merely the one haughtily allotted to us by our Islamic and Western conquerors and a plethora of
other colonisers like communists, and our own bhadralok comprador classes.
Speaking about our history, however, is not the same as espousing a nostalgia for an organic
past that got lost because of colonialism. Terry Eagleton supports Raymond Williams's view that the
organic society of the past is a myth, and the organic society has been always lost (Heathcliff 56).
Indeed, Raymond Williams in his The Country and the City records that the complaint about the loss of
an organic past is a characteristic lament of every age (10-12). The organic past is always in an infinite
regress, and therefore the human subject's desire to return to that organic past remains insatiable. Terry
Eagleton comments satirically: “History has been in steep decline ever since some indeterminate
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golden age. The nations best days have always gone” (Across the Pond 132). Therefore, while insisting
on the fact that Kolkata has a glorious, substantial pre-colonial past, we must steer clear of brooding on
a past golden age. The one major purpose of looking at our past is to gather critical resources for the
present and the future of Kolkata. Further, we do not think that the encounter with the west has not
been fruitful in any manner for the Bengali people, the ghastly facts of colonial domination
notwithstanding. There is a dialectic of influence and resistance throughout Kolkata's history, out of
which the forces of transcreation have emerged during the modern period, which, just like vaccines
using a microbial germ itself to produce its antidote, have striven to nurture the Bengaliness of this city
by superannuating all colonising attempts.
We have preferred the spelling Kolkata to that of Calcutta in this issue, for reasons obvious.
Calcutta renamed as Kolkata, at a time when Bombay and Madras too went on a renaming spree, could
be thought of as an expression of a deferred nation-consciousness (which my article deals with). The
change in nomenclature is an important milestone in that trajectory of the delayed aspiration of the
Bengali people.
Instead of tracing the physical history and geography of Kolkata, this issue of Journal of
Bengali Studies (JBS), Vol.3, No.2, themed on Kolkata traces the intellectual, cultural, political, social,
economic and literary history and geography of this city. This issue will interest all Kolkata
aficionados, academic and layperson alike, and will remain a collector's item so long as people study
this city and wonder at it. My own article is on Ishwar Gupta, who is foregrounded to nineteenth
century Kolkata. It argues that Ishwar Gupta's project can be best understood as a coordiNation, which
however keeps on getting deflected because of the constant pressure of colonialism. Chandrachur
Ghose's well-researched article on Subhas Bose's association with Kolkata (then Calcutta) Municipal
Corporation deals with a topic that has not been hitherto explored: Subhas Bose as a civic administrator
of the city of Kolkata. Subhas Bose the militant is well known and well researched, but it is for the first
time that someone has written an academic article on Subhas Bose the mayor of Kolkata, and
Chandrachur Ghose's work is pioneering in this respect. Subhas's anti-imperial project led him to talk
about municipal socialism, whereas it also involved evoking close ties with the rivals of Anglo-
American axis, and as a result of that we can see that he derives lessons from developed European
countries, taking inspiration from models outside Britain and its sphere of influence, while
ideologically he had a curious inclination towards both socialism and fascism (as Ghose bemusedly
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observes). May be we should explore the possibility that Subhas's orientation probably had a lot to do
with the fact that fascism and socialism used to be the two rival (and formidable at that) doctrines
which challenged Anglo-American hegemony of liberalism.
Kallol Gangopadhyay's article explores Satyajit Ray's Gorosthane Shabdhan which foregrounds
the colonial city of Kolkata (Ray's Charnock-consciousness led him to believe that Kolkata originated
with the British, which is not historically accurate, Gangopadhyay's article mentions the historical
debate in this regard, leading to the High Court verdict of 2003) whereas Zenith Roy's article focuses
on the portrayal of Kolkata in the short stories of Satyajit Ray. This is indeed a striking feature of this
issue that we have two articles on the depiction of Kolkata in Satyajit Ray's fictional works. They speak
of the tremendous popularity of his Bengali fictions which have Kolkata as a recurrent motif.
Atanu Ghosh's article is a much needed exploration of the dark side of Kolkata, an aspect that
the bhadraloks would not be even comfortable in acknowledging: the plight of its street children, and
the numerous abuses which they are subjected to in this city. Ghosh has done a neat job is data analysis.
Subrata Nandi's article continues that emphasis on the poverty-stricken (and yet undefeated and
indefatigable) face of Kolkata, as it surveys the cottage and small-scale industries in the slum areas of
Kolkata during a twentieth century time span, and this article includes some valuable insights about the
producers/artisans of some of our traditional art forms like the clay idol makers of Kumartuli and the
potua painters of Kalighat. From slums to Shakespeare is quite a leap, but Kolkata had such pogars
(large, canal-like open drains marking the early sewerage system of Briish Kolkata; a hygienic disaster,
they give us the proverbial expression pogar-par) which one had to cross; next in line is Arindam
Mukherjee's article on the relationship of Kolkata with Shakespeare, which is an interesting exploration
of academic, theatrical and Ltiile Magazines' works on Shakespeare which have been produced in this
city: it critically investigates the role of colonial hangover behind what the author dubs as failure of the
Bengali response to Shakespeare. Mukherjee measures this failure in terms of the inability to produce
any original creative or critical insight on Shakespeare, and argues that Kolkata in its dealing with
Shakespeare has not been able to come out of the shadow of Anglo-American influence. Madhusree
Chattopadhyay's article is a pioneering academic work on the legendary north-south divide in Kolkata,
a topic that lies very close to the fundamental conflict pervading the consciousness of this city: history
is on the side of north, progress on the side of south. North is north, south is south, and it seems that
never the twain shall meet!
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Sourav Gupta's review is in continuation with his (and this journal's) continued focus on
Bengali theatre (we published a theatre issue back in 2013) in general, and Bratya Basu in particular.
Bratya's book that contains interviews of five legendary theatre personalities of Kolkata theatre is
reviewed by Sourav Gupta. The workshop segment in this issue has six poems on Kolkata (which I
authored over a period of last eight years of my exile from Kolkata) written originally in Bengali and
then translated into English. Both the original and the translated versions appear in this workshop.
In this issue we have three commentaries; Mousumi Bandyopadhyay has written on Sister
Nivedita's role in the nationalist awakening that was centred in Kolkata, that was Nivedita's adopted
home and her sacred Karmabhumi, seat of her mission. Swarup Bhattacharyya's pictorial commentary
on the boats of Kolkata, many of them extinct today, is a visual delight, and this photo-essay with a rare
collection of images of Kolkata boats does justice to his scholarly reputation as the foremost living
authority on Bengal boats. Somnath Sarkar in his commentary on Sanskrit studies in Kolkata
illuminates an otherwise overlooked aspect of this city: the flourish of classical learning in Kolkata and,
in this regard he gives an overview of the academic institutions and universities as well as the
traditional catuṣpāṭhis which have been seats of Sanskrit learning since time immemorial.
Journal of Bengali Studies has remained committed to the project of developing an
interdisciplinary Bengali nationalist discourse in academia since we started publishing in 2012, and in
this sixth issue JBS once more renews that pledge. The editorial board (and the contributors) can be
reached at editjbs@gmail.com and shoptodina@gmail.com. Readers of JBS can find updates and call
for papers for the forthcoming issues, and post comments and responses at
http://bengalistudies.blogspot.in/ . Also, JBS can be accessed at at www.bengalistudies.com .
Bibliography
Basu, Ajitkumar. Kolikatar Rajpoth. Kolkata: Ananda, 2008.

Bhoumik, Haripada. Notun Tothther Alokey Kolkata. Kolkata: Parul, 2003.
Cotton, H. E. A.. Calcutta, Old and New. Kolkata: General Printers & Publishers, 1950.
Eagleton, Terry. The Rape of Clarissa. Oxford: Blackwell, 1982.
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---. Heathcliff and the Great Hunger: Studies in Irish Culture. London: Verso, 1995. Print.
---. Across the Pond. New York: W. W. Norton, 2013. Print.
Joardar, Biswanath. Onno Kolkata. Kolkata: Ananda, 2003.
Mallick, Pramathanath. Kolikatar Kotha (Aadikando). Kolkata: Pustok Biponi, 2001.
Mukhopadhyay, Harisadhan. Kolikata Shekaler o Ekaler. Kolkata: P M Bakchi, 2002.
Williams, Raymond. The Country and the City. 1973. New York: Oxford University Press, 1975. Print.
CoordiNation and Deferral of Bengali Nation-
Consciousness: Ishwarchandra Gupta in Nineteenth
Century Kolkata
Tamal Dasgupta
Abstract: This paper argues that the course of the development of nation-consciousness in nineteenth
century Kolkata as observed in the works of Ishwarchandra Gupta continues to get deflected, owing to
the pressure of colonialism and the tendency of Bengali comprador classes to remain supplicant in front
of imperialism. In order to describe the structure of Gupta's nationalist project, the word coordiNation
is coined. This paper explores how Bengali nation-consciousness is both coordiNated and deferred in
the nineteenth century Kolkata that Gupta inhabits.
Keywords: Ishwar Gupta, Nineteenth Century Kolkata, Bengali Nation-Consciousness, Nationalism,

Shongbād Probhākor, Kobigān, Kobiwala/Kobiyal, Pānchāli, Toppa, Ākhrāi, half- Ākhrāi,
Bharatchandra Ray, Ramprasad Sen, Ramnidhi Gupta, Gonjla Guin, Ram Basu, Dashu Ray, Horu
Thakur, Bhola Moyra, Anthony Firingi, Rupchand Pokkhi, Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, Bankim
Chandra Chattopadhyay, Dinabandhu Mitra, Krishnakamal Bhattacharya.
Our past is a resource that we constantly need to raid in order to illuminate our present, and this is one
of the reasons why I embarked on this work. This paper positions Ishwar Gupta within the historical
trajectory of nineteenth century Kolkata. While working on Ishwar Gupta – pronounced Ishshor
Goopto; I use the spelling Ishwarchandra Gupta throughout this article for familiarity's sake, though
Issurchunder Goopto was how he and his contemporaries spelt his name in English, while Probhakur
was the standard spelling for the name of his newspaper, as we get to know from his Collected Works
(2: 4) – there was an irresistible temptation to discover in Gupta a precursor/forerunner of the
nationalist movement. Indeed as the mentor of Bankim and other nationalist writers like Rangalal
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Bandyopadhyay and Dinabandhu Mitra, and having himself pioneered in authoring a number of
nationalist poems and having initiated nationalist projects, Ishwarchandra Gupta is entitled to that
honour. But this article will not do that. He was not to the nationalist movement and Hindu revival in
Bengal what Blake was to the Romantic movement. For one thing, the Hindu revival of Bengal should
be best thought of as a Long Revolution (a la Raymond Williams), which started as a resistance
movement right after the Mohammedan conquest and reached its apogee at the time of Chaitanya.
When Durga Pujo was being reintroduced after the fall of Siraj, at the behest of Krishnachandra of
Nadia and Nabakrishna of Kolkata, we witness another milestone in that trajectory. Ishwar Gupta is
part of that same trajectory which will see the advent of Bankim afterwards. The first half of nineteenth
century, which was the old nineteenth century, was culturally dominated by Ishwarchandra (died 1859),
and as that former half gave way, gave birth to the later half of nineteenth century, which was to be the
new nineteenth century, Bankim came to assume that role of the cultural patriarch. However, though
both Ishwarchandra and Bankim worked towards building a process of nation-consciousness, the
process itself remained very deeply problematic; it always presupposed a surrender of Bengal to the
British. It was with the gold from the loot of Bengal that England had its industrial revolution, but
Bengalis were too happy for having been free from the shackles of Islamic rule to notice that. Bengal's
Hindu revival thus got inextricably, intricately entangled with Bengal's colonisation by the West. What
followed was a dialectic of collaboration and confrontation with the west which earmarked the project
of Ishwar Gupta and characterised the course of history in nineteenth century Kolkata.
What did this collaboration entail? I suggest that it involved a hermeneutic damage. Let us take
an example. In a supposedly neutral, objective description of the interiors of a house, Bankim uses the
omniscient narratorial mode to take a potshot at the superstition of Bengali idolatry, decrying Durga
and Kali, in his first novel written in English, Rajmohan's Wife: “Two paintings of the largest size, from
one of which glowered the grim black figure of Kali, and on the other of which was displayed the crab-
like figure of Durga, faced each other” (77). Bankim later on goes for a huge course correction, to such
an extent that his earlier hostility to Hinduism is today almost unknown outside serious Bankim
scholars. When we are compelled to view ourselves from a prism borrowed from the West, it deflects
our culture, it displaces our dharma, as it delays our nation-consciousness. But not subscribing to that
discourse of western Enlightenment sometimes implies a more unfortunate regression into a forged pre-
modern vision, neurotically and triumphantly obsessed with the golden Hindu past, complacently
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unaware of many developments of modern history. So a denial of the western epistemology can be
equally troublesome, if not more problematic. There can be a golden mean, and that can be called a
synthesis, and it was precisely what Ishwarchandra himself (and still later Bankim) attempted, but this
also inevitably results in a distortion, where our culture and identity get deflected and can never be
identical with its pre-invasion form, as the prisms of western colonial hegemony end up besmirching
our perspectives. Then we can only revisit our past as confused onlookers.
The only available image of Ishwar Gupta on the internet
Our argument is that in Ishwar Gupta's oeuvre we find an emerging Bengali nation-
consciousness, where nineteenth century Kolkata is foregrounded as the space-time dimensions of that
discourse. This discourse is, however, continually shredded, mutilated, violently rearranged and recast
by colonial domination. Just like a black hole (or any massive object in the cosmos, for that matter)
causes the space and time that it comes in contact with to curve, in a similar way, colonial subjugation
has caused a curvature in Bengali identity, culture and history, and all attempts to re-assert them ends
up involving further distortions owing to the gravitational pull of the massive bulk of colonial
infrastructure that continually affects the dimensions of our existence to this day. Bankim once
famously told Ramkrishna that he became bent (Bankim in Sanskrit means bent, curved, crooked; that
which is not straight) because of the kicks of the British boots (Bhattacharya 341). It was not a mere
joke; there is a prophetic truth hidden in Bankim's utterance, we shall suggest.
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The main proposition of this article is that at the core of the resistance movement against
colonial oppression we can detect a deflection, a deferral of Bengali identity in order to accommodate
the tremendous pressure of colonial domination. This statement is not a Derridean interpolation in the
Bengali nationalist discourse; this is not a deconstructionist article in any particular way, and we have
simply taken up the dictionary meaning of deferral. We are not particularly concerned with any
Derridean differance here in this article. All we suggest here is that nation-consciousness is deferred in
its very act of inception because of colonial pressure. Let us take an example. Dwijendranath Thakur
reminisced about a national fair organised by Nabagopal Mitra (who was more popularly known as
National Nabagopal, because he popularised the use of the word national in his various activities)
where Dwijendranath to his horror discovered that a gigantic deshi painting (most likely a potchitro)
depicted Indians with folded hands supplicating before Britannia (Bipin Gupta 274). For Nabagopal,
this image was supposed to convey national art. Clearly that so called national fervour was not anti-
colonial at all; it was submissive; very often it imitated the patriotism of the British, modelled itself on
western-style nationalism, and was full of an Anglophile reverence for imperialism. National
Nabagopal himself was a regular visitor to the corridors of colonial power and took pride in being close
to British (Bipin Gupta 274-275). So there goes the inception of our nationalism proper.
The cover of this Sahitya Academy book in Hindi depicts the face of Ishwar Gupta quite differently
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We have spoken of the hermeneutic damage caused by colonial domination (that continues to
perpetrate itself in our country in spite of political independence, one may suggest). Let us take an
example of what I would call interpretive violence, which happens when a western paradigm is
imposed on Bengali culture. A recent critical appraisal of Ishwar Gupta done by Rosinka Chaudhuri
titled “Poet of the Present” is a case in point. The main proposition of Rosinka Chaudhuri can be
summed up in this statement from her article: “Iswar Gupta's oeuvre is like the gossip in Hutom's
Calcutta, which is constituted, as Ranajit Guha describes it, of an 'immediacy of presence' that 'as a
phenomenon', lives only for the day, literally as ephemeros or adyatana, in a state of utter transience'”
(108).
In the course of our article we shall see that Ishwar Gupta's poetry is deeply concerned with the
past and future of his country and countrymen. In an overzealous attempt to impose the ahistoricist,
amnesiac and comprador cult of the present (a comprador always lives in the present, and celebrates the
transient, as a comprador shares an Oedipal relation with his past and future; a comprador kills his past
and screws his future, if we are allowed a moment of levity here), the significance of Gupta's activity as
a compiler of old Bengali poetry of Kobigān is completely missed by this critic, who although is
nominally aware of Ishwar Gupta's role as collector and editor of Bengali Kobigān, as the notes and
bibliography at the end of her article attest. We shall also see that emboldened by this subaltern
espousal (this article appears in an anthology edited by Partha Chatterjee et al), Chaudhuri
enthusiastically goes on to compare Gupta with Baudelaire. In due course we shall show why there can
be no comparison between Baudelaire and Ishwar Gupta. As an aside, this is indeed unfortunate that the
subaltern group never questioned their own status as comprador intelligentsia. It might have made them
realise their own position of utterance. But let us return to the matter at hand.
Let us remember that the birth of Kolkata is smeared in the filth of comprador politics, as this
region was allotted by the Mughal commander Man Singh to Lokkhikanto (whose descendants, the
Saborno Roy Choudhuris later sold Kolkata along with Gobindopur and Sutanuti to the East India
Company) as a reward for their betrayal to Pratapaditya. Pramathanath Mallick points out that Kolkata
in this sense was born with the zeitgeist (Kāla Dharma) of a fallen age (Kaliyuga), which means it was
born in shackles of slavery, and it was somehow destined to continue in chains (16-17).
More importantly, colonial domination ensured (it still does) that we suffered from an anxiety of
approval, where we needed to conform to western standards. As a result, Bengali culture was about to
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be brutally split into the high and the low, as per the western norm prevalent in the nineteenth century.
The elitist, bhadralok disdain for our own indigenous culture remained obvious in the attitude of the
Kolkata intelligentsia as the nineteenth century gave way to the twentieth. We shall examine this
following remark by Tagore in this connection: “In Greece the plays of Sophocles and Aeschylus were
written and enacted not just for the VIPs. The common people there were fortunate not to have
submitted to some Grecian Dashu Ray;” Tagore thus castigates the very idea of Kobigān in the
sarcastic epithet “Grisiyo Dashu Ray.” He is referring to the legendary composer-singer of Kobigān and
Pānchāli, Dashorothi Ray here, in a denigrating way in his letter to Dilipkumar Roy, compiled in the
latter's Collected Works (624). Dashu Ray, we may note here, was a major influence on Ishwar Gupta
as he learnt the secrets of the trade of poetry from the practitioners of Kobigān and half-Ākhrāi in his
adolescence, as the foreword to Gupta's Collected Works points out (1: স ত). Further, Professor
Asitkumar Bandyopadhyay's foreword in Bipin Gupta's Puraton Proshongo mentions the pre-Bankim
era as the age of Guptokobi (this was how Ishwar Gupta was popularly known) and Dashorothi Ray
(প চ), implying that the age saw a Dyarchy, where both Ishwarchandra Gupta and Dashorothi Ray ruled.
Now, Tagore not only denigrates Dashu Ray; here he seems to have a haughty (and historically
incorrect) view of the evolution of popular performative art forms across the world. It is sufficient to
say here that Tagore displays a characteristic Brahmo and Victorian disdain for Bengali indigenous art
forms of Pānchāli and Kobigān (which are rustic, uncouth and indecent for colonial standards) that
spoke of our day to day experience with a sturdy materialism, without taking any recourse to, say, the
vague mysticism of a Lalan Fakir or sophisticated romanticism of a Tagore. Kobigān often tends to
challenge the soft lyricism of Tagorean Bengali poetry. It indulges into raw human aesthetics without
the invention of romantic or spiritual love. It too had its religious and devotional lyrics, but most of the
times, it spoke in a straightforward and materialist manner, without any mystification. It was therefore
popular among the masses, who loved its substantial entertainments.
Popularity was again a matter to be suspicious of, and one reason why Dashu Ray was low was
that he was popular, an artist of the masses. Popular culture, for a very long time, was low culture (prior
to the upheaval staged by Raymond Williams called cultural studies, a western phenomenon that now
encourages numerous Indian critics like Chaudhuri to refocus on popular culture a la the western
framework that for quite some time now has been in vogue). However, our comprador intelligentsia can
scarcely move out of their hegemonic, holier-than-thou, liberal-humanist piety even when they are
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supposedly working on low, popular culture, and therefore Ishwar Gupta is lambasted by Chaudhuri in
these terms: “It is the language he uses against the Muslims that is most offensive... Such sentiments,
expressed with an appalling coarseness of language, in the context of Muslims, are repeatedly present
in poems” (97). This prescriptive approach of political correctness and high-minded secularism of a
necessarily elite, bhadralok perspective, when mixed with a West-inspired, newly found, neophytic zeal
for the popular culture, together give birth to a mulish hybridity. There is mutilation and there is critical
malformation for us. It does not occur to this critic that Gupta might simply have been reflecting the
popular sentiment of his readers when he is speaking against Muslims, because such an idea would
unsettle quite a number of haloed liberal humanist assumptions.
The continuum between the past and the present is therefore doubly threatening for colonialism.
Not just the past offers a resistance to the dominant west-influenced distortions which have become
commandments for those under the spell of liberal humanist amnesia, the past is in league with the
present (however out of joint that present may be) as they secretly, subversively hatch a conspiracy
together to bring about their own guerrilla readings against the grain of received standards. The
politically incorrect art forms can live on in an underground manner. An obituary written in poetry by
Srijato (published in a magazine on 15 November, 2012, shared on his facebook.com page) after Sunil
Ganguly's death not just evokes Kolkata, it (unwittingly) evokes the tradition of the birds (Pakhi),
where those young poets who were close to Sunil are compared to birds. This particular piece by
Kolkata's popular poet-lyricist Srijato, it seems, is affected by a historical unconscious where the
Pokkhis of nineteenth century Kolkata seem to form a continuum with a group of poets of twenty-first
century.
The poetic obituary for Sunil written by Srijato which compares young Kolkata poets to bird/pakhi
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Well, while talking of Kolkata, and Kobigān (as we shall presently explore in details Ishwar
Gupta's collation of the lives and works of Kobiyals), one cannot escape the recent phenomenon of the
Bengali movie named Jatishshor which is a narration of the life of Anthony Firingi, the Bengali
Kobiyal per excellence who was not a Bengali by birth, but was a Bengali by choice. Here let us note
that throughout this article we use the traditional word Kobiwala (as used by Ishwar Gupta himself in
his pioneering studies of Kobigān) instead of Kobiyal. The word Kobi in the context of Kobigān meant
a piece of song, and not what the word is conventionally taken to mean, which is poet. Bankim points
out that in Kobir Lorai, it was the composition that was called Kobi (716), hence the origin of the term
Kobiwala, which meant a stockist/seller/dealer of Kobi, denoting the person who composed and/or sang
in Kobir Lorai. Brajendranath Bandyopadhyay affirms that Ishwar Gupta was the pioneer of collecting
Kobigān and observes that all anthologies of the compositions of the Kobiwalas which have appeared
since the days of Gupta are indebted wholly to Gupta and all have borrowed from his collection (1:
467). Sadly, Gupta is almost never acknowledged.
A still from the movie Jatishshor

The present researcher observed Kabir Suman's (the music director of the movie Jatishshor)
castigation of Tagore in an interview aired on ABP Ananda on 16 April 2014, retelecast on 17 April
2014, between 10 pm and 11pm. Further, in a facebook status update dated 17 April 2014 Kabir Suman
attacked the 'landed-gentry' aspect of Tagore which arguably led the Nobel Laureate to denounce the
marginal culture of Kobiyal-Kobigān. This is a confused application of Marxian notion of class war to
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the economic situation of nineteenth century Bengal, because that class of landed gentry, far from
showing a wholesale hostility to Kobigān, was very often its chief patron, as we shall see. Suman's is
not a historically valid observation, but then liberal humanism does not care for history, and is solely
driven by an amnesiac individual's grandstanding declarations. However, we cannot deny that
rediscovering the tradition of Kobigān is one major contribution generated by the phenomenal response
evoked by this award winning film, Jatishshor. Let us now have a look at Kabir Suman's statement:
It was not Kabir Suman who got the award. It was Bengal's music. The great texts written by
the wonderful Kabiyals of Bengal, whose work and contributions have always been belittled by
the Bengali gentry, their stupendous command over our language, its movement, its texture, its
power, its SOUND, its abundance and over meter made me compose the melodies for the 13
songs. I wonder why not even Rabindranath Thakur tried to assess the Kabiyals' contributions.
WAS IT BECAUSE THE KABIYALS REPRESENTED THE COMMON PEOPLE AND NOT
THE LANDED GENTRY? In my work I was influenced by Bengal's Kirtan, Ramprosad tunes,
Bangla Paala tunes and movements, Bhairabi baul, different modes of Shyamasangeet,
Hindustani raagas, Bangla "boiThoki gaan"... My own songs are a continuation of Bangla
Adhunik Gaan which, again, has always used raagas, Bengali folk music, Kirtan and European
music. Out of all these different elements the IDIOMS of Modern Bengali Songs were created. I
thank Srijit Mukherjee and the producers once again for giving me this opportunity to expose at
least some aspects of Bengal's Music to the world. (facebook.com, 17 Apr 2014)
Now, Brajendranath Bandyopadhyay's anthology attests that Kobigān was immensely popular as the
chief medium of popular entertainment in early nineteenth century Kolkata with the wealthy Bengalis
as its patrons; a Kobir Lorai between two troupes from Jorashnako and Bagbajar is narrated in a report
of 1829: the competition was held at the house of Gurucharan Mullick at Doyehata (1: 144). Bhabatosh
Dutta informs us that Ishwar Gupta was the songmaker (badhondar) of the Bagbajar troupe in this
competition (Ishwarchandra Gupta Rochito Kobijiboni ||‫ ں‬o).
Many other contemporary reports establish that the rich people were the patrons of Kobigān and
used to organise these soirées at their residences. Kobigān was uprooted not because of the hostility pf
the landed gentry (in fact we see that the patronage of the landed gentry was its lifeline and was what
allowed Kobigān to survive), but because of the Western influence among the bhadralok Bengalis.
Kobigān caused that anxiety of approval, as the Victorian norms gravely expressed their disapproval of
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this form. This genre of songs, associated with Bengal's pre-British past, came to mean regress, and it
took superhuman efforts on the part of Ishwar Gupta, as we shall soon see in this article, to rescue
Kobigān and the Kobiwalas from oblivion. Gupta was never acknowledged by anyone from the team of
Jatishshor in the midst of this entire fanfare, which once more establishes how past becomes
suppressed, censored and distorted in the triumphant march of colonial, liberal modernity. Kobigān as
an indigenous art form came to be associated with an uncouth, uneducated, rustic, un-enlightened, non-
Victorian, indecent milieu which had to be forgotten and annihilated if Bengalis needed to move
forward in a colonially approved telos of modenrity. When Bankim heaves a sigh, “খখখাঁটটি বখঙখটলি কটব
আর জনখয় নখ - জটনবখর উপখয় নখই – জটনয়খ কখজ নখই” (Pure Bengali poets are no longer born –
there's no way they can be born – there's no use in having them born ) (706), we detect the trauma of an
insufferable nostalgia felt by a generation mutilated and alienated by progress, looking back askance at
an organic past that is now forever lost.
Chitpur, neighbouring Bagbajar. Painting by James Baillie Fraser, 1826

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However, the one aspect of Tagore (that Kabir Suman completely misses out) that makes him
hostile to Kobigān is that Tagore represents the enlightened western liberal universalism, and Kobigān
stands for a 'regressive' Bengali parochial lowly art form. Farther, Kobigān as a collective art form
(there were always teams and troupes and never singular, standalone poets in this genre) might have
been injurious to Tagore's predominantly individualist sensibility. Tagore also displays a dismissive
attitude to Ishwar Gupta himself when he speaks of Bankim's awkward apprenticeship of language
under the tutelage of Ishwar Gupta, a suggestion which is incidentally challenged by noted Bankim
scholar Amitrasudan Bhattacharya (11). Bhattacharya observes that Ishwar Gupta in his editorial
comment following Bankim's published piece in Shongbād Probhākor pointed out that the writer
should not burden his poetry with an excessive dependence on lexicon; Bhattacharya further believes
that Ishwar Gupta's regime was not responsible for whatever weakness existed in Bankim's first
published prose, as “Ishwar Gupta himself in his prose was ahead of his time” (13).
Let us return to Kobigān. Rediscovery of Kobigān has somehow been linked to the Bengali
liberal humanist fanfare over baul, but our progressive secular-liberal universal humanists (in a word,
bishshomanob as we call in Bengali) rarely note that there are strong differences between these two
genres. Baul was an inverted way to celebrate western liberalism, an indigenous art form moulded and
reshaped and adequately sanitised to suit an individualist sensibility. Kobigān, in Suman's version
however, tries to keep up with largely the same liberal-imperial motif of the market of mohamilon or
the Ananda Bazar Patrika Abbey, where Indic Bengalis are required to surrender each one of their
unique civilisational heritages in favour of some bogus hybridity (bogus, because the moment we stop
taking it at face value, it will reveal itself as a façade behind which the systematic aggression of West,
Islam and other colonising forces against the indigenous culture of Bengal is hidden). The trajectory of
Kobigān as an art form remains recalcitrant and obtuse vis-a-vis all hegemonic attempts of
standardisation, and does not yield to appropriation as easily as the mystification of baul yielded to
western hegemony. This new interest in the deeply parochial genre of Kobigān (the spirit of which is
captured in the message of Ishwar Gupta: embrace the native dog, forsaking foreign god) 1 might later
embarrass those Western liberals among us who are trying to idealise the figure of the Kobiwala on the
model of the approved figure of baul, if they get to know more about the indispensable association of
the history of Kobigān with Ishwar Gupta.
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It has been customary to underestimate Ishwar Gupta, the man who ruled Bengali literature in
the pre-Bankim, pre-Madhusudan era. He is our major figure who curiously remains more obscure than
a host of minor figures. While Romesh Chunder Dutt in his The Literature of Bengal observes Ishwar
Gupta's strategic position within a society in transition, and his role as a link between the poetry of the
past and the present, he does not assign any significant place to Ishwar Gupta as a poet: “As a poet
Iswar Gupta does not rank very high,, as a satirist he stands first among the writers of Bengal” (151).
Clearly the overt post-romantic milieu interferes with a proper evaluation of Ishwar Gupta, because he
was the poet of “jaha aache” (that what is present), as Bankim put it so succinctly (717), yet
mistakenly, as we shall see. As the mood of the west-inspired romantic zeitgeist favoured that which
was not there, that which could only be accessed through a flight of imagination, creative writing
sufficiently displaced the everyday to point where it resembled the exotic, warded off the vulgar to the
point where poetry became venerable. This Romantic sensibility is also at work in Bankim, who says
that there's no use in having a pure Bengali poet any more. A poet like Ishwar Gupta who can only
write about those things which are here and now becomes therefore a liability. Since Bankim said this,
this became an ultimate shortcut in the criticism of Ishwar Gupta. The best way to form an opinion
about Gupta without reading him, it seems, is to read this particular phrase of Bankim.
So it is very convenient to forget that Ishwar Gupta is the first chronicler of the lives and works
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of Bengali poets and songmakers of pre-colonial and early colonial past. It is equally expedient to
ignore that Gupta was deeply concerned about the future of Bengali literature, too. This ignoring
attitude is evident in Rosinka Chaudhuri's article. We should observe in all fairness that as Kolkata was
preparing to stage its literary and cultural renaissance, it was Gupta who did the work of masonry for
that stage. In March 1853, Ishwar Gupta in his Shongbād Probhākor organised a “collegiate battle of
poetry” (Kalejiyo Kobitajuddho), where Bankim (then a student of Hooghly College), Dinabandhu
Mitra (then a student of Presidency College) and Dwarakanath Adhikary (then a student of
Krishnanagar College) participated in what was a periodical's version of Kobir Lorai (literally, battle of
poets, it meant the competition of Kobiwalas in front of an open audience) (Bhattacharya 16).
Dinabandhu Mitra Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay
Dwarakanath was awarded the first prize, and his early death ensured that he remained the only
unknown figure among these three. The other two entered the status of immortality in Bengali
literature. Dwarakanath died very young, and Bankim later reminisced about Dwarakanath in these
terms: “His writing method was somewhat simple and transparent like Ishwar Gupta – he used to
express native feeling in native words. He died in tender age. If he lived, perhaps he would have
become an excellent poet” (Bhattacharya 17). Bankim's poetry was first published in Gupta's Shongbād
Probhākor on 25 February 1852 (Bhattacharya 24). Bhattacharya quotes Bankim in this regard:
Bengali literature was then in a bad shape. Probhakor then was the most superior newspaper.
Ishwar Gupta used to rule single-handedly over Bengali literature. Young men having been
impressed with his poetry were eager to get introduced to him. Ishwar Gupta (too) was specially
inclined to encourage young writers. Hindu Patriot rightly observed that many among the
modern writers are disciples of Ishwar Gupta. … just as the excellent writers like Dinabandhu
Mitra, this small writer is also indebted to Ishwar Gupta. (25)
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Quite interestingly, Ishwar Gupta in his editorial advice reviewing Bankim's poetry asked the latter to
avoid the “dear words of the old poets” like “ এব , করব , ছ ন, ছ ”ন (Bhattacharya 25-26), which not only
establishes Gupta's progressiveness as an editor-advisor in discouraging archaic forms of words, but
also points towards an underlying trend in Bengali poetry since then: its attempt to stay as close to the
lived speech as possible. Gupta initiated this trend in Bengali literature, taking his cue from Kobigān
which as a tradition definitely contravenes against all arcane literary methods and mystifications of
archaicism. Ishwar Gupta champions that indigenous tradition of simple, colloquial, lively speech.
The formation of nation-consciousness is initiated by a collage of different materials taken
together, and which can be the better place for such a miscellany than the concatenation offered by a
daily newspaper? Gupta was the editor of what was to become the first Bengali daily, Shongbād
Probhākor, where he attempted a synthesis of different threads of Bengalis experience in order to forge
a common network. As an editor of a daily, he certainly was not exclusively confined to matters of
literary significance, and he participated in different social and cultural activities. An 1837 newspaper
report stands testimony to Gupta's attachment to the Bengali nationalist cause as he participated in a
meeting of Bongobhasha Prokashika Shomaj that resolved to protest against the government's new
policy of extracting revenue out of lands which used to be untaxed earlier (Brajendranath
Bandyopadhyay 2: 404-405). Clearly this refers to the places of worship, which traditionally have been
untaxed.
Gupta tried to achieve a consolidation of Bengali identity as the readership of his newspaper
continued to grow: this could be thought of a centripetal movement that proposed to initiate a space and
time coordination of the Bengali people which would ultimately bring forth a consolidation of nation-
consciousness, and attempt a network formation in geographical, cultural and historical terms. Nation
formation in modern period through the printing press is not a novel concept, it was suggested by
Benedict Anderson in Imagined Communities (this book, by the way, is one of the most misunderstood
works on nationalism; Anderson is generally sympathetic to nationalism, while anti-nationalism critics
have made his concept to appear to suggest a fictitious nature of nationalism; Anderson suggests that a
nation is an imagined community, not an immediate community like, say, the one constituted by
members of a committee, or neighbours in a housing estate where everyone personally knows other
members of one's community; the international workers' movement is also an imagined movement, or
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a huge rally of a million people is also an imagined procession, because someone present there does not
know everybody else).
There is a poetics of coordiNation in Ishwar Gupta, as we shall see. A portmanteau of
coordination and nation, this term I want to coin in order to explain the work of Ishwar Gupta. Having
a meaning that it self-evidently conveys, this word captures the spirit of Gupta's project which wanted
to achieve a consolidation of the Bengali people, an alignment of the past with the present, bringing
together different interest groups and different strata of society; it was this project that was historically
undertaken in Shongbād Probhākor. In his project of coordiNation, Gupta is critical of imperialism but
is never rebellious against it, therefore his coordiNation simultaneously posits and deflects Bengali
nation-consciousness. Further, it frequently undercuts various forms of the wasteful, diffusive
Romantic universalism (Bhadralok-ish, Brahmo, educated, Tagorean) which is already becoming
prominent in nineteenth century Kolkata and would later come to characterise and dominate Bengali
society and culture. Gupta's coordiNation is decidedly urban without being cosmopolitan, as opposed to
the liberal-humanist emphasis of a bhadralok ethos that wants to defer the lowliness of the real in
favour of the exotic imaginary of the ideal, wants to displace history by getting confined to an amnesiac
present, wants to deflect the indigenous by centring the universal, and ultimately wants to defer the
community by upholding the individual. CoordiNation is notably blasé too, as it is more concerned
with an arrangement of available elements of reality than with any flights of fancy. CoordiNation is
also more nuanced and accommodative in its approach to the past, and is not prescriptive like the elite,
bhadralok outlook. Gupta's coordiNation becomes a register of the cityscape of the nineteenth century
Kolkata, delineating the dialectics of nation-consciousness that was in making. Finally, Gupta's project
of coordiNation subverts colonialism at the strategic faultlines.
Liberal humanist universalism remains a force of collaboration, and plays its part by rallying its
bulk behind the colonial power, further facilitating the deflection and deferral of the task of weaving
together different aspects and dimensions of Bengaliness. Gupta himself belonged to the urban folk
tradition of Kobigān and half-Ākhrāi, but we shall see that contrary to popular perceptions, he mastered
the colonial standards equally well. He participated in various literary and philosophical societies, and
moved in erudite, western-educated company, yet he was an “uneducated” fellow, bereft of western-
style school and college education. He was associated with the Brahmos and we would see that Bankim
considered that Gupta officially converted himself to Brahmoism. Gupta's God was characteristically
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Brahmo, as we can see in his writing (1: 280ff). Though Probhakor was supportive of traditional
Hinduism at the time of its inception, during the course of its initial year of publication it slowly
gravitated to Brahmoism; another contemporary periodical made this observation (Brajendranath
Bandyopadhyay 2: 185). Gupta's treatise on the nature of God, also exploring the relation of human
beings with the divine, written in the format of a question-answer session between a father and his son,
which also included long devotional poems, came to constitute the text Probodh Probhakor that had a
distinctly paternalist notion of God (1: 291ff). But interestingly, as commentator Tripurashankar
Senshashtri points out in the introduction to the second volume of Gupta's Collected Works, the scheme
of theology Gupta offers here is also highly influenced by Sankhya philosophy (2: পবনবর). There is truth
in this observation, though Gupta's treatise is theist to the core (unlike Sankhya). Sankhya has remained
the dominant philosophical system in Bengal, informing both Shaktoism and Boishnobism, and this
was one of the core arguments in my article in the previous issue of JBS (Vol. 3 No. 1). Gupta's
synthesis of Brahmo philosophy and Sankhya philosophy brings together diverse elements from
different spheres of nineteenth century Kolkata, joining polytheistic idolatry with monistic worship.
Lalbajar, Kolkata. James Baillie Fraser, 1826

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However, Gupta's overt submission to an idea of a singular male God subscribing to the Brahmo
paradigm (which in turn not just derived its influence from Upanishada but also from the Semitic,
Judeo-Christian-Islamic conceptions of God) sometimes made his position askew to Shakti Worship,
the most important indigenous religious tradition of Bengal, Bengal's Boishnobism remaining a distant
second in terms of influence. Interestingly, in Gupta's play Bodhendu Bikash Goddess Saraswati is seen
to advise a devotee to dedicate himself to the worship of the idol forms of Shri Hari or Durga if he is
unable to contemplate on the worship of the indifferent, formless ParamaBrahma (Collected Works 2:
349). This might as well be a Kolkata bhadralok's red-faced compromise with the superstitious systems
of Shakto and Boishnob idolatry reeking heavily of maternal worship (be it Kali or Radha) which his
paternalist bosses from Islamic or Christian or liberal-rational or communist orders have alike despised
down the ages. But this invests Gupta precisely with that bhadralok respectability which is otherwise
arguably lacking in some of his poems. It is interesting to note that his Collected Works exclude some
of his so called obscene poems, but include those works which are respectable by bhadralok standards,
even if they are boring, and carry little or no literary substance. Bodhendu Bikash is one such play
which is disastrous as a work of literature but is measured high in terms of elitism, respectability and
chaste language (it is an adaptation of a Sanskrit play named Prabodha Chandrodaya).
Himself without an English education, Gupta remains remarkably receptive towards the
colonial system of studies, and speaks of the students of the three colleges of Kolkata, Krishnanagar
and Hooghly as the exemplary ones, who are fit for emulation for the young Bengalis elsewhere (1:
289). Clearly this is an indirect praise for Dinabandhu, Dwarakanath and Bankim. More importantly,
this establishes Gupta's alignment with colonial education, though he was not himself a product of it.
Though Gupta continued to speak of God in distinctly Brahmo terms, yet he remained an idolatrous
Hindu to the core, occasionally revelling in the Shakto worship of Durga and Kali. Gupta was a pure
Bengali poet, Bankim famously states, forgetting that Ishwar Gupta was also the first major Bengali
writer to have used English words in Bengali poems. These are not insurmountable contradictions: the
ideal individual subject of liberal-humanist thought may be an integer, but in real social practice, a
human subject is always an assemblage of diverse cultural and historical currents, which are often
cross-currents. Ishwar Gupta is an exemplary proponent of this assemblage, this collage of the
indigenous and the foreign. The making of the modern Bengali identity is full of contradictions which
nineteenth century Kolkata embodies. Some of the indigenous components of this collage later get
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suppressed, and many of the west-inspired elements get highlighted, as the colonisation of the Bengali
people attain greater proportions, further deferring the making of nation-consciousness.
One aspect of this colonisation is a growing elitism, another is a disregard for the local in favor
of a grandiose vision of the Global. Naturally, Ishwar Gupta's famous poetic proclamation to embrace a
country dog forsaking the foreign God became an anathema for the later ages steadily bred on a diet of
universal humanism or bishshomanobota. A routine condemnation of Gupta's narrowness has therefore
become mandatory on the part of all commentators, as the foreword to his collected works does the
same (1: ন ). However, such liberal critics of Gupta's narrowness rarely notice that this affection
otherwise offered to the dog of native country is not (in a rather discriminatory manner) offered to the
native crow! Gupta's hostility towards the leaders of 1857 great war of independence is recorded in one
of his poems, where Rani Jhansi is compared to a crow with chopped lips (implying that she emits
harsh sounds in a brazen manner) (qtd. in 1: পবনবর). The comprador features of Bengali intelligentsia
prevailed here. In any case the rebels against the Raj were perhaps more foreign to the Bengali babus
than the British rulers themselves. The nascent nation-consciousness, mortgaged to British imperialism,
remains bent and deflected since inception.
Nineteenth century Kolkata is exposed in all its rawness in Gupta, who is frequently criticised
by later generations for the fault of obscenity and also for lack of sophistication; the introduction to his
collected works does that, for instance (2: উননশ). It is true that there is no craft of concealment in his
writings, and that his wiring is bare. His superstructure readily betrays its foundation, and his artistic
devices remain uncovered, as if in a Brechtian theatre. What might strike an honest critic (who does not
dismiss Gupta in an offhanded manner as a mere cog in the nineteenth century Calcutta wheel evoking
little more than archaeological curiosity) as a plethora of contradictions is actually the organic
framework of a writer's works as this writer in question is revealed to be a representative of the
nationalist awakening of Bengal with all its promises and problems. Sadly, that has not been the case,
and Gupta has been a victim of negligence, simplifications and sweeping generalisations. That Ishwar
Gupta is a writer of triviality, temporality, tendentiousness and terrible alliterations has become a
critical commonplace. He is considered to have become quickly outdated, as critics and commentators
since Bankim routinely point out. Gupta is charged with obscenity by an age that wants to purge the
last vestiges of any non-bhadralok sensibilities. His classicist, realist, satirist sensibility soon became
out of joint in an age dominated by post-Romantic slumber of Victorian pieties, and so the lofty, high-
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minded, noble-intentioned, elite poets like Nabinchandra, Madhusudan and Hemchandra soon replaced
him with their turgid idealism which thoroughly smacked of Romantic sloppiness, Victorian prudery,
approved colonial standards of literature and high culture, while Bengali society began its long, noble
trek towards Tagore. Since then no one ever tried to rescue Ishwar Gupta from the infamy which is
customarily heaped on him. Gupta as the defender of the indigenous has been largely neglected by
subsequent generations who remained embarrassed not just with Gupta's lack of western-style
education, but also with Gupta's brazen espousal of pre-modern, pre-British styles of Bengali poetry,
thus continually postponing a proper evaluation of Ishwar Gupta. Let us examine here what Bankim
said about Ishwar Gupta (rather harshly and unsympathetically, but he is being typical of this new
generation of western educated intelligentsia):
He was a very remarkable man. He was ignorant and uneducated. He knew no language but his
own, and was singularly narrow and unenlightened in his views; yet for more than twenty years
he was the most popular author among the Bengalis. As a writer of light satiric verse, he
occupied the first place, and he owed his success both as a poet and as an editor to this special
gift. But there his merits ended. Of the higher qualities to a poet he possessed none, and his
work was extremely rude and uncultivated. His writings were generally disfigured by the
grossest obscenity. His popularity was chiefly owing to his perpetual alliteration and play upon
words. We have purposely noticed him here in order to give the reader an idea of the literary
capacity and taste of the age in his a poetaster like Iswar Chandra Gupta obtained the highest
rank in public estimation. And we cannot even say that her did not deserve to be placed in the
highest rank among his Bengali contemporaries, for he was man of some literary talent, while
none of the others possessed any. How much we may lament the poverty of Bengali literature,
the last fifteen years have been a period of great progress and hope; within that time at least a
dozen writers have arisen, everyone of whom is immensely superior in whatever is valuable as a
writer, to this – the most popular of their predecessors.
Strange as it may appear, this obscure end (sic) often immoral writer was one of the
precursors of the modern Brahmists. The charge of obscenity and immorality mainly applies to
his poetry. His prose is generally free from both vices, and often advocates the cause of religion
and morality. (qtd. in Bhattacharya 204-205)
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What we observe in Bankim's statement is a censuring: Gupta is appreciated only so far as his writing
conforms to the norms and standards approved by nineteenth century colonial sensibility. Even today,
as we have seen, Gupta continues to be misinterpreted and abused by the standard-bearers of the
western liberal-humanist order.
But it is worse when Gupta comes to be colonised and appropriated, because we tend to think
that a writer like him is immune from liberal appropriation. A proud declaration adorns the foreword of
the posthumous edition of Shottonarayoner Brotokotha (first published in the Bengali Year 1319,
reproduced in the second volume of Gupta's Collected Works): “Madhusudan is Bengal's – Milton.
Hemchandra – Pindar. Nabinchandra – Byron. Rabindranath, Shelley; … But what is Ishwar Gupta to
Bengal? Ishwar Gupta is Bengal's Ishwar Gupta” (144). There used to be this assurance among Bengali
nationalists that Ishwar Gupta was nonpareil, that at least he could not be tagged with a Western
identity like other writers. Bankim himself gave such an impression in his essay on Gupta. Well, that is
no longer the case. That assurance suffers a terminal onslaught when Ishwar Gupta is compared to
Baudelaire by Rosinka Chaudhuri in her article, albeit completely disregarding the fact that Ishwar
Gupta had a traumatic colonial experience to deal with, unlike Baudelaire. France was already a nation
per excellence, Bengalis were yet to forge their identity. Ishwar Gupta did not enjoy the luxury to
become a rootless individual deliberating on the angst of urban experience, freefloating like the flaneur
from Baudelaire's works, as Chaudhuri suggests (104). Chaudhuri proceeds to observe in Gupta a
(Baudelaire-like) motion of popular, mass poetry in the backdrop of the giant city of Kolkata:
Keeping in mind the essentially urban character of Iswar Gupta's poetry, it should be possible to
see, in Benjamin's foregrounding in Baudelaire of the metropolitan masses that inhabit 'giant
cities', the public as it was taking shape in mid-nineteenth century Calcutta. The verse of Iswar
Gupta, so different in form from his French contemporary, was similarly inhabited by the
pressure of a public made up of 'the people in the street' … For Iswar Gupta, these are the
readers of a poetry which, both in its physical incarnation and its content, was essentially poetry
that was designed to be sold in the streets. (Chaudhuri 92)
In support of this view, Chaudhuri quotes from Shibnath Shastri: “When the Prabhākar was published,
newspaper-sellers would stand at the cross-roads and read aloud from the poetry in it and in no time at
all a huge number of papers would be sold” (92-93). However, as the present researcher investigated
the life and works of Gupta, it became evident that Gupta did not herald a poetry movement for the
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people on the urban streets in a Baudelairean fashion, in the vein of some Marxist telos that depicts the
progress of bourgeoisie. Gupta was necessarily addressing the educated middle and upper class
Bengalis through his newspaper. At the most, Shastri can be deduced to be claiming that Gupta wrote
for the people on the cross roads, and not really for the people on the street in the manner of some
Parisian poet. Literacy level and colonial circumstances of Kolkata would scorn at Chaudhuri's far-
fetched attempt to compare between Baudelaire's Paris and Gupta's Kolkata. However, Chaudhuri is
right to point out some of the pioneering works done by Gupta in Shongbād Probhākor:
The Sambād Prabhākar was perhaps the first Indian regional language newspaper to carry a
literary supplement – from the Bengali New Year of 1853 it published a monthly supplement
that provided a much more substantial space than the daily newspaper for the publication of a
variety of occasional verse, as well as an eclectic range of prose and imaginative writing,
providing Iswar Gupta with more space in which to indulge his creative output than was
available in the news-oriented daily newspaper. (Chaudhuri 93-94)
Use of the term “regional language” is highly objectionable, but there is little doubt that being the first
vernacular daily newspaper in the subcontinent, it was indeed the first to carry a literary supplement.
The monthly literary supplement of Shongbād Probhākor that Ishwar Gupta started is very highly
praised by Krishnakamal Bhattacharya, who also mentions Gupta's repute as an acclaimed badhondar
or composer of kobigān in the same vein (Bipin Gupta 55).
Interestingly, though Gupta could not sing himself, as he had a husky voice, but songs
composed by him used to be sung in all the villages of Bengal (বসকব তহ র ন ঙ র পলবত পলবত ত
হইত) (Bipin Gupta 55). Further, Krishnakamal reminisces that the original, pre-British method of
writing Bengali, that was unspoilt by westernisation and at the same time was not burdened with undue
Sanskritisation could be found in Bharatchandra, Dashorothi Ray and Ishwarchandra Gupta (Bipin
Gupta 56). Ishwar Gupta commanded a folk popularity that was unparallelled, and he held a
tremendous appeal for the educated upper and middle classes too. Furthering the consolidation of his
people through the vehicle of literature was crucial to Gupta's project of coordiNation: “From 1851
onward, Iswar Gupta began to organize a literary festival in Calcutta on the day of the Bengali New
Year on the 15th of April at his printing press” (Chaudhuri 94). This may be an example of Gupta's
ingenuity to invent a new tradition (another process that is central to nationalism). The customary ritual
of Halkhata of the New Year (beginning of fresh book-keeping at the business establishments) was
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creatively transformed into a celebration of Bengali poetry. Renowned poet Nabinchandra Sen's
account of the reception of Ishwar Gupta's poetic, journalistic and other works during his childhood
and youth in Chittagong in the 1850s is quite significant: “In those days, Bengal's Saraswati Devi's pale
and poor image was to be found installed at the baṭtalā. There, whatever was birthed by the Mother on
the poorest paper in illegible print – I read it all. Gradually, Iswarchandra Gupta and the god-like (deb-
pratim) Iswarchandra Vidyasagar began to dawn upon the sky of Bengali literature” ( qtd. in Chaudhuri
94). Encouraged by Nabinchandra's juxtaposition of Saraswati and bot-tola, Chaudhuri goes on to trace
a fusion of the high and the low in Gupta: “The self-division of Bengali modernity, at odds between the
baṭtalā and Saraswati Devī, found a fusion of form and figure in the personality of Iswar Gupta in mid-
nineteenth century Bengal” (95).
A Nineteenth Century Bot-tola imprint of Goddess Saraswati
However, the present researcher would maintain that it is an error to think of Ishwar Gupta in
terms of fusion (of the high and the low), because he championed a culture that existed prior to that
fissure (which separated the Bengali elites from the Bengali masses) brought about by colonialism. To
call that culture a fusion is to seriously misinterpret it, because that culture still held its internal
coherence, no matter how great the external disturbance was. Gupta himself emphasises a certain
ability of the Kobiwalas to appeal to the elites and the masses alike, and recounts one anecdote where
Nitai Boiragi is shown to have seamlessly pleased the elites and masses alike by singing songs from his
impressive repertoire which had fast, rhythmic songs for the masses as well as slow, romantic songs for
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the elites (1:167). Some may suggest that this eventual segregation owed to an increased
Sanskritisation, but as Bankim points out, Hindu sages never held any prejudice against the use of so-
called low languages, and even indulged in it while making a point or while venting their anger in high
debates and scholarly dissensions (719). Rosinka Chaudhuri comments that Ishwar Gupta was censured
by Bankim for obscenity (98); the fact of the matter is that Bankim in his essay defended Gupta on this
point, since Bankim realised that the nuances of our tradition should not be collapsed and deflated in
order to conform to western norms. But otherwise it is true that Bankim too was helpless in front of this
tide of westernisation. An anxiety to secure respect from foreign rulers forced nineteenth century
Bengalis to adhere to Victorian standards, freaking at the obscenity of their indigenous tradition. A
paper titled “Bengali Poetry” that was written and read by Horochondro Dutta, an Anglophile, at the
Bethune Society on 8 April 1852 very heavily criticised its subject matter, i.e. Bengali poetry for being
vulgar and profligate, as Bhabatosh Dutta in his editorial commentary to Ishwarchandra Gupta Rochito
Kobijiboni points out (1).
Utpal Dutt in his Girish Manosh repeatedly emphasises the role of Ishwar Gupta in fostering a
native, folk sensibility that also influenced the theatre of Girish Ghosh. Dutt says that Girish actually
worshipped Ishwar Gupta (31), and observes that not only Girish was an admirer (gunomugdho) of
Ishwar Gupta, Girish himself was a practitioner of the performative form of half-Ākhrāi, a form much
favoured by Gupta himself (3). While Tagore was summarily dismissive of Kobigān, and in a rather
elitist manner looked down upon it as vulgar and deviant, not conforming to proper aesthetics
(jothartho shahittorosh), Vidyasagar once quite famously made a statement in favour of the Kobiwalas,
when he said that in order to keep the Bengali society alive, the advent of Kobiwalas like Bhola Moyra
is essential (qtd. in Utpal Dutt 35).
Noted actor AsitBaran as Bhola Moyra; a still from UttamKumar-starrer Anthony Firingi (1967)
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Vidyasagar's espousal of Kobigān, who was one of the greatest Sanskrit scholars who ever lived
in India, representing the best of the Brahminical scholarly tradition of Bengal, perhaps is a case in
point: the fissure that is brought about in the wake of colonialism has not yet been able to segregate the
high from the low, the respectable from the vulgar, the decent from the obscene, the elite from the
masses in the nineteenth century Kolkata that Ishwar Gupta belongs to. Ishwar Gupta is a
representative of the same sensibility which Vidyasagar seems to have shared and which by the time of
Tagore came under severe assault. However, it would be wrong to assert an unproblematic stance of
Vidyasagar in favour of Bengali nation-consciousness. On one hand, he stood for Sanskrit College, an
institution where he studied and later became the Principal. That institution was started by Orientalists
(those western scholars who had a paternalistic, patronising attitude to Indian culture), but later came
under assault from the Anglicists (who wanted the imperial administration to aggressively promote
English language and culture at the cost of Sanskrit and vernacular). Macaulay, the arch-Anglicist
wanted to abolish Sankskrit College itself (Bipin Gupta 118), and then a Sanskrit shloka was written by
Joygopal Torkalonkar (Vidyasgar's teacher) addressed to the chief patron of this college, Horace
Heyman Wilson, that translates like this: his Sanskrit Pathshala is like a lake, and the pundits who have
been placed by you here are like swans, but a few cruel hunters having come near this lake are now
about to kill them. If you protect the swans from these hunters, your deed will be immortal (Bipin
Gupta 118-119). Clearly, Vidyasagar too must have suffered from that insecurity as a scholar of
Sanskrit which Sanskrit as a subject suffered under increasing momentum of cultural colonialism.
Vidyasagar confided in Krishnakamal Bhattacharya, his close disciple, towards the end of his
life: “Whatever else I do or not to the kids, will certainly never again teach them English. Such a path
to become empty (অস র ) and over-smart (ব বপ )!” (Bipin Gupta 117). But on the other hand, the same
Vidyasagar ironically initiated a number of pro-English reforms in Sanskrit College when he became
the Principal; he made English compulsory in the higher classes, he stopped Sanskrit as a medium of
learning Mathematics as traditional Sanskrit texts for learning mathematics were also withdrawn, and
in their stead English textbooks were introduced (Bipin Gupta19). We know from other sources that
Vidyasagar stopped the teaching learning of a number of Indian philosophical traditions, including that
of Sankhya and Vedanta, on the ground that they were “false” systems of thought (Sumit Sarkar vainly
defends Vidyasagar on this ground in his essay 119-120 ). Macaulay already stopped the teaching-
learning of Ayurveda in Sanskrit college by a government order dated 28 January 1835. In
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fact, there was a coordinated attempt to dissociate Sanskrit from science.

Further, Marshman's History of Bengal, which was a deeply imperial text denigrating the
Bengali people was translated by Vidyasagar and the same was introduced as a textbook of Bengali
(Bipin Gupta 19). Vidyasagar was convinced of the holistic superiority of the English people,
Krishnakamal tells us (“সব টবষয়য়ই ইইংরখজ শশ্রেষ”) (Bipin Gupta 26). Moreover, Vidyasagar was
admired by Bengalis because he was close to the colonisers, as Krishnakamal, Vidyasagar's close
disciple tells us; a sorry state of colonial power system is corroborated as Vidyasagar's perennial
anxiety about his position is revealed by Krishnakamal who tells us that Vidyasagar was afraid of his
possible competitors among his fellow natives who could outdo him in being a favorite of the British,
and did not want any other Bengali to become close to the colonial administration (সময়য় সময়য়
আশঙখ হইত শয, পখয়ছে আর শকখনও বখঙখলিলীর 'সখয়হবয়দের' কখয়ছে তখখাঁহখর শচেয়য়ও শবশলী প্রটতপটত্তি হয়)
(Bipin Gupta 45). So, as a part of the government machinery, Vidyasagar was subjected to a colossal
pressure of colonialism, and therefore, his position was far more complicated than Gupta, who was not
on the pay of the government, or did not depend of the colonial system (of education, as in Vidyasagar's
case) for livelihood.
Interestingly, Krishnakamal Bhattacharya suggests that the common indifference shown by the
modern day Bengalis about Ishwar Gupta is because he was not familiar or close to the colonial
government (টতটন গভয়মর্মেয়ন্টের টনকটি বড় একটিখ জখটনত টছেয়লিন নখ), Bengalis being guided in their
choice by western stamps of recognition; Krishnakamal Bhattacharya further observes that not a single
image of Ishwar Gupta is available anywhere, owing to this lamentable indifference (Bipin Gupta 57).
Anyway, to return to the matter at hand, Rosinka Chaudhuri's talk about Ishwar Gupta being a fusion is
anachronistic, because a fission is yet to happen in the sensibility that Gupta represents. The rich and
the poor are yet to have an insurmountable cultural gap between them in the Kolkata that Gupta, as one
of the last of the Mohicans, represents. But if this fusion is conceived to be always already there, and
the social cohesion (the lack of any other name for which tempts us to call it an organic integrity) with
a seamless exchange of the high and the low which characterised pre-Anglicist sensibility of Bengali
society, is to be dubbed as fusion, then some serious jeopardy is committed to lexicon as well as
history. Fusion presupposes segregation. Now, Islamic subjugation and imposition of Persian as official
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language in the middle ages could not achieve that segregation on such a grand scale what imposition
of English language and culture later did. Compared to Islam's general epistemological and
philosophical weakness, British colonisation went far deeper, its machinations had far-reaching
consequences; Islam had Mohammad but did not have its Macaulay. It might have had its enraged
Gazis (slayers of kafirs) and Jihadis (crusaders) but did not have its Enlightenment and its schools and
colleges. Hegemony was to achieve what blatant coercion could not do for centuries: Bengalis were
about to be subjected to the mild-altering experience of colonial modernity. Now, during Ishwar
Gupta's time, this colonial process indeed begins, and that is why Gupta repeatedly laments for the loss
of older forms of Bengali culture, but that process is yet to gain such momentum which is required to
violently split the Bengali gemeinschaft (the older community, based on custom and tradition) in order
to produce a contractual society of gesellschaft. Gupta therefore is still able to use an unfractured
language and still has at his command an unfractured ethos which are not yet differentiated into the
different lingoes and world-views of the enlightened-western-elites and the regressive-native-masses.
Sadly, not only this impending split derails nation-consciousness to a very great extent, but it will also
ensure tragic consequences for the nationalist movement in Bengal, which will never again be able to
fill up in the gap between the elite bhadraloks and the rustic masses. We need to be aware of this
historical trajectory while studying nineteenth century Kolkata, which is subjected to an anachronistic
simplification if we dub Ishwar Gupta's literary and journalistic oeuvres as fusion.
Chaudhuri also thinks of Gupta as the founder of 'everyday' in Bengali poetry (which hitherto
was deprived of the quotidian) while uncritically and non-contextually reproducing a fragment from
Bankim's commentary on Gupta in support of her claim: “Iswar Gupta brought something into the
Bengali language … that was not there before him, which had given the Bengali language strength.
Iswar Gupta's poems in the Prabhākar showed for the first time how everyday business, political
events, and social events – all this can become the subject matter of poetry'” (99). Only a complete
ignorance of Kobigān can facilitate such a statement, committing a violence against our native history,
culture and heritage. Was Bankim capable of doing that? Unfortunately, Rosinka Chaudhuri misquotes
Bankim here in a zeal to establish the pioneering nature of Ishwar Gupta's poems in portraying the
everyday life for the first time in Bengali poetry, which is really what her article's argument is all about.
If we investigate what Bankim originally wrote in his essay on Gupta, we see that Bankim is actually
talking about Shongbād Probhākor as the pioneer in foregrounding the quotidian, not Ishwar himself.
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Bankim was familiar with Kobigān and he knew very well the inspirational influence of that genre on
Gupta's poetry about everyday life. Bankim actual statement is hereby quoted: “Routine matters, royal
incidents, social incidents, that these can be subject of humorous poetry was shown for the first time by
Probhakor. Today the Sikh war, tomorrow Poush festival, today missionary, tomorrow sycophancy, that
these matters exist under the purview of literature was exhibited by none other than Probhakor” (711).
Ishwar Gupta was busy in running this newspaper establishment, he was running the very first
Bengali daily, the foremost periodical of his days, where he eventually rose to become the editor
proprietor of that venture. He encouraged new writers, and he rescued many deceased poets belonging
to eighteenth and nineteenth centuries from oblivion, his being the first recorded attempt at chronicling
the history of these renowned Bengali poets and kobiwalas, without whom modern Bengali literature
would have become completely rootless. Ishwar Gupta thus intervened to impregnate his times with a
nation-consciousness. As this nation-consciousness was being made in the womb of history, Ishwar
Gupta became a turning point in the trajectory of the so called Hindu revival of Bengal that would
flourish in the later half of nineteenth century.
Gupta's identification with Baudelaire by Rosinka Chaudhuri is no silly mistake, there is a
design behind that colonising statement. This is a case of imposed significance, which characterises the
reading of our texts by western parameters. The comprador intelligentsia wanted to believe in an image
of itself which is at par with the west, as a measure of comforting itself into the global discourse,
moving above and beyond the local in that process. The trauma of being a colony, which is the local as
far as the Bengali experience goes, therefore must be relegated to the point from where it can no longer
be assessed. Now, Chaudhuri's proposition is that Ishwar Gupta occupies a space which is similar to
Baudelaire; Baudelaire was a “painter of modern life” and “here in Calcutta in the 1850s it is
unmistakably Iswar Gupta who occupies that space. Such an artist is a flaneur, a traveller, a
cosmopolitan, but he has a loftier aim. Baudelaire says, 'he is looking for that quality which you must
allow me to call 'modernity'” Chaudhuri declares, insisting on a rather unproblematic assertion of
modernity in Gupta's writing (104). However, Chaudhuri begins her article by stating: “the further
Bengal travelled the road of nationalist modernity, the further away it went from any understanding of,
or sympathy for, the works of Iswarchandra” (87). Now, apart from the fact that nationalism never
shares a linear, non-problematic, non-dialectical relationship with modernity, and therefore the
simplistic use of a phrase like “nationalist modernity” can confuse and jar any reading of Bengal's
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complex trajectory (twisting the fact that modernity in Bengal has been largely colonial, not
nationalist), here we encounter a contradiction in Chaudhuri: Gupta is a modernist, a painter of modern
life, Chaudhuri says; Chaudhuri also proposes that Gupta is undervalued and depreciated by the same
modernity. Surely Chaudhuri fails to observe the real force behind the eclipse of Gupta: an increasingly
pervasive colonialism, and comprador desperation to conform to the Macaulavian standards, that
included Victorian prudery, snobbery, elitism and disregard for precolonial folk sensibility. While
Ishwar Gupta is thought to possess inferior education by colonial standards (which counts as Gupta's
demerit for all the successive ages), we notice that the bhadralok anxiety for colonial approval which
originated in the colonial times is well carried over to the 'postcolonial' times when Gupta's
“uneducated” status becomes a rallying point for hostile commentators and critics. A commentator
observes that though Gupta was the first to compile poet Bharatchandra's works, “it is to be doubted
whether he actually understood the real meaning of Bharatchandra's poetry. He and his contemporary
song-writers did not have have the education, understanding, or imagination to have taken in
Bharatchandra's refined and dense language, educated sensibility, easily-learned wit” (qtd. in
Chaudhuri 88). Bankim himself probably started this onslaught on Gupta's inferior education with what
was probably meant to be his rather sympathetic pronouncement on Gupta: “If there is one great truth
that we imbibe from an analysis of Iswarchandra's life, then it is this – talent cannot reach its fullest
apotheosis without good education” (qtd. in Chaudhuri 88). Bankim's scathing remarks against Ishwar
Gupta in an English essay on Bengali literature (which was one of Bankim's earliest writings) are far
more unkind than this, as we have already seen. Was Bankim, the first graduate of the Macaulavian
University of Calcutta, here oedipally rebelling against his Guru, Ishwar Gupta? Bankim indeed speaks
of Ishwar Gupta as a creditor of Bengali literature who is hurriedly forgotten by his debtors who even
cease to utter his name as soon as he is gone, and Bankim counts himself as one of the debtors of Gupta
(711). Now, though Bankim does not acknowledge this, but his condemnation of Gupta was surely
done under the pressure of colonialism. Of course Bankim would later resist that pressure. As we have
observed, one who would later compose Vande Mataram was the same person who once wrote about
the crab like appearance of Durga and the disgusting appearance of Kali in Rajmohan's Wife.
Ishwarchandra Gupta's family surname was Das (Dasgupta), his parents were Horinarayon Das
and Srimoti Debi, as Bankim informed us (707). Ishwar might have resorted to the surname Gupta in
order to blend well with his Kolkata surroundings, as Dasgupta as a surname is totally known to be a
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'Bangal' (belonging to east Bengal) surname that was not held in high esteem in western Bengal.
According to Brajendranath Badyopadhyay, Ishwarchandra Gupta was born on 6 March 1812 at
Kanchrapara. He died at the age of 47 on 23 January 1859. He came to his maternal home in Kolkata at
a tender age. His maternal grandfather was a friend of the Thakurs of Pathuriaghata, and he thus
became friends with Jogendramohan Thakur, who was of same age as Ishwarchandra and an admirer of
his poetry; their friendship lies at the root of the inception of Shongbād Probhākor.
Gupta's published books as recounted by Brajendranath Bandyopadhyay are:
1. Kalikirton Grontho by Late Ramprasad Sen. 1833.
2. The Life of Bharatchandra 1855.
3. Probodh Probhakor. 1858.
4. Hit Probhakor, 1861
5. Bodhendu Bikash, 1863.
6. Shottonarayoner Brotokotha 1913. (2: 738-9)
The cover of Gupta's Life of Bharatchandra, 1855

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We can see here that half of these publications are posthumous; Gupta's journalistic work might have
prevented him from authoring more book length texts. But undoubtedly, Shongbād Probhākor was
Gupta's greatest contribution, for which alone his name deserved to be written in gold in the history of
the Bengali people. Some details of this newspaper are provided by Chaudhuri:
The Sambād Prabhākar was the first daily newspaper in Bengali, starting as a weekly in 1831,
developing into a thrice-weekly publication from August 1836, and finally morphing into a
daily from 14 June 1839. A notice at the end of the last column in the newspaper of 5 April
1849, proclaimed: 'This Prabhākar newspaper is published everyday excepting Sundays from
house No. 44/3 situated in the lane on the southern end of the open road appearing on the south
side of Calcutta's Simuliya Hendua pond. Yearly advance is valued at Rs 10.' After Iswar
Gupta's death in 1859, it continued to be edited by his brother, Ramchandra Gupta, circulating
till the 1880's (sic), after which it became irregular and finally ceased operations. (92)
Probhakor published some 69 odd issues during its first phase of publication, before winding up in
1832 (Brajendranath Bandyopadhyay: 2: 173). Gupta was just 20 years old at that point of time, and he
was already renowned for his poetry. The present researcher would argue that Gupta's attachment with
the cultural history of his spatial domains is discernible from the fact that the three main locales of
Gupta's Kobiwalas are Kanchrapara and adjoining areas (Gupta's native place), Jorashanko (Gupta's
maternal home in Kolkata) and Shimuliya (the place of Probhakor's operations). The relationship
between Gupta and the cultural inheritance of Kolkata was intensely intimate, personal. Gupta's
nonchalance about school education and his propensity for Kobigān is quit urban, and in this he is an
archetypical spoilt boy (bokhate chele) of Kolkata who cares little for studies and freely pursues his
'lowly' interests. Gupta's project to collect and collate the works of Bengali poets starting from the late
medieval writers was inaugurated in Shongbād Probhākor on 15 July 1854, as he issued an open appeal
to his countrymen to contribute in this process of documentation. The appeal made it a collective
initiative, and it turned out to be a stepping stone of nation-consciousness, with a keen sense of history,
time and location.
The idea of timelessness is not exactly an invention of liberal modernity, but it has made an
ample use of this idea. Certain ages are more anxious to transcend the barriers of time, and accordingly
they search for that literature which is not of an age, but of all ages. The foreword to the first volume of
Ishwar Gupta's collected works titled “Kobi Ishwarchandra Gupta O Bangla Shahitto” written by
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Tripurashankar Senshastri begins with a customary disclaimer to this effect: Ishwar Gupta did not
possess a timeless genius (“kalojoyi protibha”), the foreword diligently observes in the very first
sentence (স ত). An age that is anxiously aspiring for the status of timelessness is generally the one that
wants to erase its past. When Buddhism was uprooted by Brahmanism in Bengal during the eleventh
century, a similar erasure of the past was done. Twentieth century Bengal, home to the Tagorean cult of
universal humanism, was enamoured with the ideas of timeless truths, eternal literature, everlasting
aesthetics and as a direct endeavour to impose its very own temporal standard, now promoted to an
eternal status as the trans-historical ideal, goes on dismissing any literature that palpably defends the
local and temporal concerns. Such literature is narrow, outdated, archaic. The sheer ahistoricity of this
'timeless-genius' theory is an enemy of any objective, material analysis.
Ishwar Gupta's series on the lives, times and works of the Bengali poets/songmakers consisted
of biographical sketches, commentaries, collections of poems/lyrics of every individual author, and
anecdotes (they were published in the literary supplement of Shongbād Probhākor, and this last
component betrayed a journalistic style of writing). In his essay on Bharatchandra, quite significantly
Gupta castigates the colonial present, and longingly, nostalgically speaks of the pre-British times,
lamenting for the loss of an organic past:
The times when we have been born as humans have been our undoing, our termination. These
times on behalf of our British rulers (the shorthand for British used by Gupta is 'the Red
coloured', র ঙ) became giant wings spread out to extinguish the light of this swarthy country.
Where is that freedom? Where is that happiness? Where is that ethics (dharma)? Where is that
work (karma)? Where is that knowledge? Where is that driving force? Where is that
scholarship? Where is that spirit of poetry? Where is that appreciation? Where is that honour?
And where is that enthusiasm, that passion? With the murder of freedom, time has devoured
everything. (1: 8)
It is pertinent to observe here that Ishwar Gupta is not speaking of the loss of freedom of the Hindus
following the Muslim conquest in the remote past. He does not displace the current trauma of
colonisation in the manner of Bankim to the Islamic conquest. He categorically evokes the time of Raja
Krishnachandra of Nadia as the age of freedom, thereby paradoxically portraying a time when Hindus
had been 'independent', not subjugated by the British (this is paradoxical on two counts: first, Hindus
really had a limited freedom because Bengal at that point of time was under the rule of a Muslim
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Nawab and secondly, Krishnachandra was one of the main architects of the cessation of the rule of Siraj
which heralded the rule of the British; in other words, Raja Krishnachandra himself brought about the
downfall of this so-called freedom which Ishwar Gupta discovers in the Raja's golden, exemplary rule
prior to the advent of western domination). Gupta laments the loss of an age when Bengalis were free
and wrote such poetry as befitted a free people which they now no longer can write as the present times
have deprived them of that freedom which is a necessary condition for all substantial creations,
according to Gupta. The collection of the poetry of his predecessors is full of his sighs for a lost age to
which those poets belonged.
Gupta was not having an exceptional, isolated, uncharacteristic bout of anti-colonial feeling
here. Utpal Dutt in his Girish Manosh is full of praise for Gupta's anti-British satirical poetry,
ostensibly commemorating the ascension of Queen Victoria to the throne of India, written from the
perspective of the Bengali native subjects, who are compared to posha goru (domesticated cows), who
not being able to tolerate an odd punch, kick or blow, will be happy to chew fodder (31). Gupta indeed
wrote some poems celebrating British victory over India, but, that might have owed to a pressure from
his subscribers, saying which of course does not absolve him of the charge of compradorship. Gupta's
brazen support for the British in the aftermath of the great rebellion of 1857 in his poems has drawn
many criticisms. Bengali educated classes in different parts of India unanimously sided with the
British. Calcutta Babus being the rank and pillar of British civil administration were caught in the
vortex of 1857, as it has entered into the folklore of Sepoy mutiny, the rebel Sepoys used to attack, and
often imprison Bengali Babus after they were done with the British (Joshi branchcollective.org, Husain
xxx). Under such circumstances, Ishwar Gupta had to cater to the sentiments of these Calcutta Babus,
many of them readers of Shongbād Probhākor: “The diasporic Bengalis living in northern and western
India were subscribers of Probhakor and they regularly sent updates about local important matters.
During the Sepoy Mutiny these correspondents rendered a special service to Probhakor” (Bankim 712).
A celebration of Kolkata as the archetypical expression of Bengaliness is very often
indistinguishable from a celebration of the empire in the literary and cultural products of the nineteenth
century. Rupchand Pokkhi's renowned song about Kolkata is a case in point (fully reproduced in Patrea
9-14). It begins with a chant of 'glory to the city of Kolkata', and calls Kolkata a celestial city ('elder
sibling of heaven'). Then the song rapidly degrades into a catalogue of the achievements of the British.
This celebrated song comes across as a piece of sycophancy at worst, and public relation for the white
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rulers at best when we read it today. But Bengali identity in making was in many respects a
contribution of the newfound position of significance which Bengalis enjoyed under the British,
following the successful conspiracy leading to the removal of the last Muslim sovereign of Bengal.
Gupta's defence of the British must be seen in this respect. Upper and middle class Bengalis thrived as
an ally of the British during this period which was yet to witness any major clash of interests between
them. It is interesting to note that a general current of Anglicisation led Rupchand Pokkhi to always
give his name as R. C. Bird, i.e. Roop Chund Bird as the editor's foreword in Bipin Gupta's Puraton
Proshongo informs us (সবতর).
The trauma over a loss of the past is integral to all major revival movements, as the history of
Irish revival also attests. Ishwar Gupta attributes a want of historical sense among the Bengalis to the
lack of record-keeping and unavailability of biographies of the great people born in Bengal. An elated
reader's letter to Shongbād Probhākor observes that Ishwar Gupta's initiative will bring the great poet-
singer Ramprasad (creator of devotional songs of Kali known as Shyamashongeet) to the purview of
Nobbo Shomproday (New Society, a shorthand for the westernised Bengalis) who were hitherto
ignorant of him (Collected Works 1: 25). The same letter also painstakingly and anachronistically
attempts to establish Ramprasad's credentials as the worshipper of a single godhead, rather in the vein
of Brahmo elitism, Kali being a mere name for that godhead (the letter writer goes on to muse: what is
in a name after all, and a rose being called by any other name would smell just as sweet). Ramprasad's
evocation of Kali is little more than a mere lip service to idolatry, the letter observes (1: 26-27). Ishwar
Gupta himself later states: whom the non-idolatrous worships under the name of Brahma, Ramprasad
worships the same God under the name of Kali (1:40).
Ramprasad Sen
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A deflection of our own heritage of Shakto worship is thus consciously or unconsciously

undertaken by Ishwar Gupta. But this deflection is not without benefits to the nation-making, as
Gupta's attempt of consolidation is apparent in his identification of idolatrous Kali of the Hindu masses
with the non-idolatrous Brahma of the Brahmo elites. As Gupta stated what Ramprasad Sen
worshipped as Kali was what the Brahmos worshiped as Brahma (1: 13), he was pursuing
coordiNation.
North Kolkata, near the renowned temple of Chitteshshori, from whom Chitpur derived its name. James Baillie Fraser, 1826
However, Gupta's project is also marked by a sense of urgency, as the rapid erosion of the old
society caused by the advancement of colonialism made it increasingly difficult to carry out the process
of documenting the past. Gupta speculated that in another five years all records of the works of these
poets would be lost as the ancient people who still were alive and could offer testimonies and
manuscripts and transcripts from memory would be no more, and the contemporary young men coming
out of western education system would have been forever deprived of this legacy (1: 56). Gupta
appeals to the “Nobbo Shobhbho Shomproday” (New Civil Society, the westernised elites) to read the
lives and works of the old poets in order to appreciate the wealth of Bengali language and literature (1:
56-57). While giving the details of the mechanism of patronage which helped the old poets survive and
thrive in society, Ishwar Gupta clearly desired a similar mechanism in nineteenth century Kolkata.
Evidently, Gupta who himself was dependent on the vagaries of market and other interest lobbies
looked back longingly at the older patron-poet relationships and networks: “Oh! What pleasurable
times that were lost. Now that King Krishnachandra is no more, that patron-encourager, that fortune's
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favourite is no more, that Bharatchandra is no more, that Ramprasad Sen is no more, Anything of their
kind is no more to be found. This age now is a false age.” (1: 76). We should ask ourselves here: is
Ishwar Gupta a writer who remains obsessively confined to whatever he finds around him? Is he just a
poet of jaha aache as Bankim put it so eloquently? Reading Gupta's works convinces us otherwise.
Here it is important to note that Gupta's collection of lives and works of Bengali poets is not a
hagiography; for example, he is fairly critical of Bharatchandra's renowned mongolkabbo
Onnodamongol which, as Gupta says, lacks in most of the nine classical rasas except that of the erotic
(Shirngāra rasa), with a little bit of heroic (veera rasa) thrown in to compensate; Onnodamongol is a
testimony to Bharatchandra's scholarship, knowledge, diligence and care, while it also exposes a lack
of what Gupta thinks as divine, creative inspirational force (1: 85-86). Ishwar Gupta's chosen
dimensions of space which defined these poets-predecessors clearly reflect a larger pattern of the pre-
British civilisational heritage that went into the making of Kolkata. The location of Bharatchandra is
crucial here, as Gupta puts it: “The king asked: Which place under my dominion that is stretched from
Nabadwip to Kolkata do you wish to inhabit?” (1: 68). The king in this sentence is Krishnachandra, and
the “you” in this sentence is poet Bharatchandra, who comes to choose Mulajor as his preferred place
of residence (modern day Shyamnagar on the Ganges, 25 km from Kolkata). Bharatchandra's origin is
traced back to Burdwan, while he flourished in Krishnanagar in the royal court of King Krishnachandra
and settled to live in Mulajor, thus moving progressively closer to Kolkata. This is not consciously
suggested, but a careful reader can decipher in this trajectory the epicentre shifting slowly to Kolkata as
if in a cultural-historical mapping which governs Ishwar Gupta's literary unconscious. Further,
Ramprasad Sen lived at Kumarhotto, (modern day Halishahar on the Ganges, not far from Shymnagar
again). This must be mentioned that these areas are not very far from Ishwar Gupta's own birth place at
Kanchrapara on the Ganges. They constitute a common cluster.
Ramnidhi Gupta, more popularly known as Nidhubabu, during his childhood was reared at
Kumartuli, Kolkata. He is the third poet whom Ishwar Gupta discusses after Ramprasad and
Bharatchandra. With Ramnidhi, Ishwar not just comes to Kolkata proper, he also delves into the subject
of eighteenth century Bengali songs which included various popular and urbane forms like Kobigān. In
connection with Ramnidhi, Ishwar speaks of the Pokkhis, a close-knit countercultural movement of
intoxicated singers, heavy smokers of cannabis who dressed to appear like birds and spoke in a cooing
manner (hence the name, Pokkhi). A place at Shobhabajar was the favourite den of the Pokkhis which
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was also frequented by Ramnidhi, who as a singer was much admired by the Pokkhis (1: 89-90). Ishwar
Gupta offers a very lively sketch of the Pokkhis' ways of life in connection with the biography of
Ramnidhi. It is quite interesting to note that the wealthy patron of Ramnidhi as well as the Pokkhis
named Ramchandra Mitra, the aatchala (arena with a typical eight-sided roof as can be seen in
Bengal's temple architecture) of whose Shobhabajar residence used to host these musical soirées,
amassed his riches by virtue of being an “agent of an American Captain” (1: 89-90). The comprador
economy of Bengal is seen to be capable of promotion of Bengali culture, provided the latter does not
clash in any immediate manner with the former.
Ishwar Gupta ventures into a brief sketch of Ākhrāi songs, the main proponent-practitioner of
that genre being Ramnidhi Gupta's maternal uncle Kului Chandra Sen (1: 91). Ramnidhi had his own
foray into Ākhrāi music; he had organised an Ākhrāi competition between two teams, belonging to
Bagbajar and Shobhabajar respectively, where he himself composed music and lyric for the Bagbajar
team, the lead singer of which was Mohonchand Bose. This event took place in the Bengali year 1211
(1: 91). Later, a more popular version of Ākhrāi developed by Ramnidhi's close associate Mohonchand
Bose came to be known as half-Ākhrāi (1: 92). While Ishwar Gupta was writing this article,
Mohonchand was still alive, and was a living legend, albeit in frail health, a shadow of his former self.
Interestingly, one of the major differences between the formats of Ākhrāi and half-Ākhrāi seems to be
that in the former genre, the singer stands in the fashion of Kobigān which is also performed by
standing poets (দ ড় কন ) (though Ākhrāi did not employ an exchange of challenges and replies in the
vein of Kobigān and here victory and defeat were solely determined by popular verdict on the
performance of the teams), while in half-Ākhrāi the singer actually seats in the fashion of Toppa (1:
93). Toppa was the form of music pioneered by Ramnidhi Gupta which revolutionised Bengali songs
and even today, after two hundred years, the genre is fondly sung and heard. Given the sad demise of
Ākhrāi – it was already dead for thirty years by the time Gupta was writing his essay (1: 95) – as well
as the passing away of Kobigān, Pānchāli, Pokkhi and most other forms of our indigenous music, the
survival of Toppa is significant.
Ishwar Gupta's choice of the first three poets in this series on the poets and songmakers of the
past age is indeed significant, as the works of these three have survived the weathering of time;
Ramprasad's devotional songs addressed to Ma Kali (Shyamashongeet), Bharatchandra's text
Onnodamongol and Ramnidhi's Toppa have managed to interest Bengalis steadily throughout the
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modern period. They still strike a chord because the creations of these three writers have gone into the
making of the cultural legacy of the Bengalis of Kolkata. Otherwise, the steady loss of older forms of
entertainments as time and mentality change is an inevitable fact of cultural history that Ishwar Gupta
bemoans (1: 95), and in that context, we may observe that Gupta's project of coordiNation has
succeeded to a certain extent. He instilled a love for some of these older forms of Bengali poetry in the
mind of the increasingly westernised Bengalis as the Bengal Renaissance was about to dawn, and
Gupta ensured that they would never again be lost by making their appeal discernible for the newly
ascendant class of university educated Bengalis. The pre-colonial roots of a colonised people were
restored, never again to be easily lost.
Interestingly, Brahmo movement seems to have encouraged a seamless exchange between
Ākhrāi and its own devotional repertoire. Gupta observes that a noted singer of Ākhrāi was also a
regular performer of Brohmoshongeet at Rammohan Roy's meetings (1:94), whereas the formless
(nirakara) unitary god of the Brahmos became a topic of the Ākhrāi songs (1: 93-94). It shows that the
popularity of this medium of Ākhrāi was such that the Brahmo movement felt a need to appropriate it,
whereas Ākhrāi too felt a necessity to align itself to the intellectual and philosophical currents of
Brahmoism, which became prevalent in the educated society. Ākhrāi had a geographical trajectory that
once more exhibited a movement towards the epicentre of Kolkata: it originated at Shantipur, then it
started being performed at Chinsurah; performers from Chinsurah used to come to Kolkata's
Burrabazar (Borobajar) for Ākhrāi soirées at the floral garden (phoolbagan) of a rich patron named
Kashinath, Gupta informs (1:103). Eventually, Jorashanko of Kolkata became a centre for Ākhrāi
music, with its own local breed of performers. Later, Shyampukur also boasted of the honour of an
Ākhrāi team of its own. This Kolkata-bound movement of Ākhrāi also changed its generic format; the
original version performed in Shantipur had two segments, namely Kheur (argument) and Probhati (of
the morning) but Chinsurah and Kolkata teams of Ākhrāi added an introductory part which sang of the
subject of Durga (Bhobani bishoy). Further, Ākhrāi was purged of those elements which were
considered to be uncouth, rustic and obscene as it moved towards an urban, metropolitan sensibility,
which is evident in Gupta's commentary (1: 103). This is obvious that Kolkata tended to move away
from all folk rusticity, as the city strove for sophistication and a certain bhadralokisation. Ishwar Gupta
appreciates that tendency, not realising that his own poetry will later fall victim to that very trend as his
poetry will fall short of the suave standards of colonial urbanity, Bankim's adverse comments coming
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immediately to mind.
Committing the entire oral tradition of Bengali music into writing, haunted by a sense of
urgency on the face of a quickly vanishing past that is becoming increasingly difficult to be accessed by
the colonised Bengalis, Ishwar Gupta's oeuvre is marked by a tension, an apprehension: Gupta
repeatedly says that with the possible impending demise of all the old timers, Bengal will be forever
impoverished, deprived of its heritage (1: 107). Gupta is worried that the new, westernised generation
will forever remain misinformed about the glorious heritage of Bengali music and poetry if this project
is not carried out and past works are not retrieved:
How can some young men, who, with practising western knowledge and western poetics have
only learnt western connoisseurship, be appreciative towards Bengali poetry? Because they
have no cultivation (অনশ ন), they have not heard anything. They scoff at and dislike (Bengali
poems and songs) upon hearing a vulgar poem or two in marketplaces from mere actors.
Therefore we cannot accuse the new lot (Nobbogon) as callous, because how they can (be
expected to) appreciate unacquainted matters (1: 109).
Gupta expresses his hope that once the westernised youth of his day gets a glimpse of this treasure of
Bengali music, the attitude of indifference (or that of contempt) will yield to that of an appreciation of
tradition. Here he is concerned about Kobigān in this particular statement.
The so called lower castes played a huge role in the performance and reception of this genre,
whereas the rich classes, comprising of upper and lower castes alike, patronised kobigān. Ishwar Gupta
rescued Kobiwala Gonjla Guin from oblivion, who belonged to the lower stratum of society. Ishwar
Gupta attempted to retrieve this tradition of Kobigān which had Guin at its origin, while this chiefly
oral tradition was at a substantial risk of being forever lost. Sadly, the twentieth century Hungryalists,
masquerading their westernisation in the guise of subaltern sensibility, did not even care to mention
Ishwar Gupta in their revolutionary proclamations involving the name of Gonjla Guin and other
Kobiwalas (Nachiketa Bandyopadhyay 190-191). Gupta informed us: “It had been 140 or 150 years
since Gonjla Guin set up his professional troupe that used to sing at the soirées held at the residences of
rich people;” Guin left behind three pupils: Lalunondolal who lived at Forashdanga (Chandannagar),
Roghu and Ramji; Horu Thakur was a disciple of Roghu, Bhobane Bene of Ramji and Nitey Boishnob
of Lalunondolal; further, Keshta Muchi (a cobbler by caste) was a fearsome opponent and defeated
Horu Thakur (who was a Brahman) a number of times (1:109). The origin of Kobigān is traced back to
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Gonjla Guin by Gupta, who offers his obeisance to Guin in these words: “O Guin, were you a mere
human being? One whose expanse is like that of the cosmos, is named Gonjla (the term means a pint of
alcohol)! Can one measure this pint (Gonjla) with a palm's offering (Aanjla)?” (1: 110). This work of
collecting old Bengali poetry was a work more difficult that meditation on a corpse (Shob Shadhon),
according to Gupta, who interviewed more than two hundred odd old-timers for this project (1: 111). It
is indeed a measurement of the deflection of nation-consciousness of the Bengali people that the
Hungryalists have been allowed to make a song and dance about the Kobiwalas of Bengal, lifting them
straight from Gupta's works without bothering to acknowledge this man's hard labour. Surely, Gupta
did not suit the temperament of the westernised intelligentsia, and he had to be assigned to oblivion.
The life of Kobiwala Ram Basu once more depicts the Kolkata-bound movement. He was born
in the village of Shalikha (modern day Shalkia) of Howrah district, and as a child came to Jorashanko
to live with Banarasi Ghosh, his uncle (pishemoshai), Gupta tells us (1: 111). He was a lyricist and
wrote for many noted Kobiwalas (including Bhobane Bene, Nilu Thakur, Mohon Sorkar, Thakurdas
Singha) since his early adolescence, before coming to don the hat of Kobiwala himself, launching his
own troupe of Kobigān. Later, under his tutelage, a troupe of Kobigān also came into existence at
Bhowanipore which regularly performed his songs. Ram Basu died at the premature age of forty two,
while Ishwar Gupta highly praises Ram, bestowing upon him a crowning glory among all Kobiwalas:
“What Kalidasa is to Sanskrit Poetry, what Bharat Chandra and Ram Prasad are to Bengali poetry, Ram
Basu is to the poetry of Kobiwalas” (1: 113).
Ram Basu died in the Bengali year 1235/1236, Gupta tells us; Basu returned in ill health after
performing at the Durgapujo held in the residence of Raja Harinath Ray of Murshidabad (1: 112). This
brief information probably tells us two important things. First, Kolkata was steadily emerging as a
beacon for the districts which looked forward to hearing from the songmakers of Kolkata, as the
districts got directly exposed to the culture of Kolkata. Kolkata artists performing in districts thus
begins as a steady cultural practice, particularly during Durgapujo festivities. Secondly, while the rich
people constantly patronised him, Ram Basu was probably over-exhausted owing to the demands
placed on him by the lovers of Kobigān, and that such performances probably took a toll on his health.
Gupta further observes that since the death of Ram Basu, no one is enamoured of hearing the songs of
the Kobiwalas anymore (1:130). While discussing Ram Basu, Gupta takes good care to include the life
and works of some of his renowned contemporaries: Rasu Nrishingho, Horu Thakur, Nilu Thakur,
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Nitaidas Boiragi (1: 130-131). He thus effectively records that milieu in which a plethora of talents
flourished during a period which was the peak of the art-form of Kobigān.
Durgapujo at the residence of a wealthy Bengali. James Prinsep, 1840.
As Gupta was carrying out his project, he was also being engulfed in that movement of colonial
urbanity which will very soon claim himself as a casualty. Colonisation was an ongoing process. This
was the big crunch, here was the formation of the metropolis as its periphery broadened and the ever
expanding city continued to swallow its villages. Folk sensibility continued to shrink as the colonial
city enlarged. This happened in terms of space, and in terms of history and culture. Exemplifying that
colonial progress, Nirad C Chaudhuri in the twentieth century ridicules the remnants of rural
superstition among the people of Kolkata:
In the narrow lanes of Calcutta were to be found, surviving and spinning out an unnatural
existence, rituals and beliefs, practices and superstitions, … The people of Calcutta worshipped
the “Goddess of No Prosperity” together with the Goddess of Prosperity; they worshipped the
Goddess of Skin Disease and of Cholera; the Goddess of Smallpox was one of their major
deities. Their menfolk (sic) were extremely afraid of going into the water closet with their hair
let down, and they always tied its ends in a knot before going in, because they believed the
W.C.s to be the favourite haunts of evil spirits who would possess them unless their hair was up.
(402-403).
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The Enlightenment haughtiness with which Nirad C. pokes fun at Olokkhi (Goddess of No Prosperity)
and Lokkhi (Goddess of Prosperity), Goddess of Cholera (OlaiChondi) and Goddess of Smallpox
(Shitola), though he does not mention the original Bengali names of these goddesses, is a
characteristically male and imperial denigration of one's own native Shakto heritage. Nirad C. wants to
make it doubly disreputable, and therefore conjures up a separate Goddess of Skin Disease, whereas
Bengalis only have a Goddess of Smallpox, Shitola, whose history by the way is more than a thousand
years old and is at least traced back to the Buddhist period. Further, imposition of Western standards
often resulted in dubious systems of analysis. WC of the west cannot be compared to the Indian style
toilets, which were often a long walk from one's house, invariably always outside one's main residence
(owing to reasons of purity), usually at the periphery of one's premises, under the open sky, very often
near bushes and woods, fit places for imagining the haunting of ghosts. Nirad's imposition of the
yardstick of WC on Indian style toilets only serves to condemn our cultural realities.
Another depiction of Chitpur, the typical Bengali Kolkata, with the temple on the background. Charles D'Oyly, 1830.
Kolkata, as the second city of the empire was encouraged to lose its own identity, tradition and
history in a deluge of colonialism. Ishwar Gupta is fighting against that tide which is about to claim
himself as its prey, but before that, he is capable of doing his bit: he resuscitates Bengal's forgotten
glory of Kobigān. And he is doing this precisely at a time when Bengal's past is getting violently
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uprooted owing to the machinations of colonialism: Gupta laments that even those cultural forms which
were prevalent only 20 or 30 years ago are getting lost nowadays, with no hopes for retrieval, and the
young Bengalis are being forever deprived of the glorious legacy of Kobigān. He reiterates that unless
young people are acquainted with the nuances of these indigenous cultural forms, appreciation of these
art forms is not possible (1: 131). However, at times Gupta voice resonates with the certainty and
confidence of a seer; “henceforth these poets will roam immortal in the world,” he proclaims with an
authority after publishing the collections of the lives and works of these pre-British Bengali poets
(1:182). Further, we should note that as he recorded the chronicle of Bengali poetry of seventeenth,
eighteenth and nineteenth century, he was acting as a connoisseur, as an insider, not just as a
conservationist, which is evident everywhere in his commentary on these poets. He considered it a
pilgrimage, not a painstaking task. Committing oral traditions to written discourse is of singular
importance as nation-consciousness begins to assume definite shapes and forms, and Gupta's
contribution in this regard is Promethean. One oral song after another comes to him in incomplete and
fragmentary shapes, but Gupta never gives up, and he renews his requests to all old-timers to come
forward and help in this project with whatever that can be excavated from their memory.
Nitai Boiragi was born in the Bengali year 1158 at Chandannagar, south of Chuchura. His main
songwriter Gour Kobiraaj was an inhabitant of Shimulia (Shimla) of Kolkata, and Gour Kobiraaj was a
regular writer for a number of other Kobiwalas, including Lokey Jugi (Lokkhikanto, who was a Jugi by
caste) and Nilu Thakur. Nitai Boiragi was called by his ardent followers Probhu Nityananda (after the
name of Nityananda, the legendary religious leader and social reformer of the Boishnob movement),
and Gupta notes that his sphere of influence included Kumarhotto, Bhatpara, Kanchrapara, Tribeni,
Bali, Forashdanga and Chuchura (1: 167). These locales (which include Gupta's own native place
Kachrapara) speak of a cultural map that went into the making of Kolkata. The fact that Nitai too met
the same way of death as Ram Basu did (he returned ill from a performance during Durgapujo at the
house of the king of Kashimbajar and died eventually) (1: 167), speaks volumes about the predicament
of a Kobiwala and the crisis of the cultural practice of Kobigān which was an absolutely exhaustive
performing art, with a requirement of a tremendous amount of mental and physical labour.
CoordiNation as a project in order to be carried out needed the best possible contributions from
Gupta's countrymen, who once lamented that his project could succeed only if there was a synthesis of
“the intellect of the Bengalis and the physical strength of the Khotta (a derogatory Bengali term for the
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people from the part of upper India including modern day Bihar and UP who are considered to be
physically robust), riches of the wealthy and the mindset of an enthusiast” on the part of the Bengali
people (1: 181). Not to be deterred by difficulties, Gupta continued to chronicle the literary history of
Kobigān. Renowned Kobiwalas Rasu and Nrishingho were brothers, who lived at a village near
Forashdanga. They performed together (hence their names were always taken together as Rasu
Nrishingho, as if they were one) and were contemporaneous with or slightly senior to Horu Thakur, as
Gupta records (1: 183). Lokey Kana (not to be confused with Lokey Jugi) was another renowned
Kobiwala based at Thonthon, Kolkata. His real name was Lokkhikanto Biswas, he was an excellent
composer and singer, he specialised in Pānchāli, and according to Gupta he was renowned as a great
humorist. Legendarily ready-witted, he was frequently compared with Gopal Bhanr (1: 207). His main
opponent was Ganganarayan Naskar of Shobhabajar. Lokkhikanto was admired by his wealthy patrons
who also feared the sharpness of his wit. He was survived by his son Boiddonath who carried on his
troupe, and still later Lokkhikanto's grandson (by his daughter) Dorponarayan continued that tradition;
he died some thirty five years before Gupta was recording Lokkhikanto's life and works (1: 209). Gupta
refrains from reproducing Lokkhikanto's most works because of the high frequency of obscene words
in them; Gupra uses the words profane (অপন ত), unchaste (অস ধ) to describe Lokey Kana's lyrics (1:
207-208).
Ishwar Gupta while tracing a history of Kobiwalas gives us valuable insights into the cultural
environment of the old, traditional Kolkata and adjoining districts of south Bengal. The fact that he
himself belonged to this region which was now forming the nucleus of a consolidated Bengali identity
and ushering the Bengali revival is significantly aligned with Gupta's project: he is a native inhabitant
of this region which now serves as the epicentre of Bengal's nation-consciousness, and it gives him an
insider's privilege in collecting the lost chronicles of these Bengali poets at the risk of being completely
forgotten as colonial modernity continues it triumphant march. Consistent with Gupta's cultural
mapping, Horu Thakur was a native of Kolkata's Shimulia again, and like a majority of other
Kobiwalas he was neither educated in English or Sanskrit, nor he was particularly decent by the
Victorian standards which was increasingly becoming the norm of the day in Ishwar Gupta's Kolkata.
Gupta's collection therefore had to censor and suppress some segments of Kobigān which are not
commensurate with imperial civilisational standards. Gupta says:
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But the sad part is that some too debased, too hated, non-audible, unspeakable words used to fill
(their poetry), therefore publishing them is not legitimate. … Earlier our most exalted
noblemen, that included Maharaja Krishnachandra, Nobokrishno and others used to be very
satisfied with such peculiar slangs (Sho-kar, Bo-kar, as Gupta puts it; in Bengali that means
unspeakable vulgar expletives, mostly beginning with Sh and B), their entertainment having no
bounds. Surrounded by cousins, relatives, kinsmen, good people, they heard with glad minds.”
(1: 190).
Gupta adds in the same breath that Raja Nabakrishna was an ardent admirer of Horu Thakur whereas
Krishnachandra's favourite was Lochon Khorki of Shantipur. It is significant that Gupta extensively
speaks on Horu, but Lochon Khirki of Shantipur finds just a cursory mention, proving that Kolkata and
its surroundings are being privileged in his discourse. Further, here Ishwar Gupta is seen to be
completely affected by the current standards of decency, calling those parts of Kobigān obscene which
do not conform to those standards, thus purging those elements out of his chronicles which embarrass
the imperial metropolitan sensibility.
We have seen that the elitist cult of Victorian prudery wreaked havoc in the field of culture.
Bengali Kobigān came to be consigned to the wasteland of history by stalwarts like Tagore. Further,
there was manipulation, censuring and complete overhauling of lyrics in order to secure respectability
and acceptance. Comprador classes were eager to conform to the standards provided by colonial
masters. One interesting example of this bhadralok manipulation of texts of can be found if we
compare the texts of the Kobir Lorai (Battle of Poetry, the standard competition in public between two
rival Kobiwalas) between Bhola Moyra and Anthony Firingi as recorded by Kalidas Ray's Prachin
Bongo Shahitto and Purna Chandra Dey's work on Anthony. With the recent republication of Purna
Chandra Dey Udbhatsagar's text, Kobi Anthony Shaheb, this Kobir Lorai has been depicted in
numerous stage adaptations and films which are made on the life of Anthony. Now, there is a place
where Bhola responds to Anthony, saying that Anthony is confusing him with Lord Bholanath (Lord
Shiva) and Bhola says (in Purna Chandra's version): “If I am that Bholanath, then why it is so that
everyone searches for the feet of Bholanath, but never searches for my feet (to pay obeisance)?” This
line also featured in the lyric of Uttam Kumar-starrer Anthony Firingi. Interestingly, Kalidas Ray omits
this particular line (that follows “If I am that Bholanath), saying that this part was obscene (667). It
seems that Purnachandra Dey provided an altered version, because there is no obscenity there. There is
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no way we can know for sure how that 'obscene' line went originally. Though, this is probable that the
original version somehow went like this: If I am that Bholanath, then why it is so that everyone
searches for the phallus (lingo) of Bholanath, but never searches for my phallus (to pay obeisance)?
Further, the next four lines which follow are provided in Ray's work but find no mention anywhere
else, as these lines, belonging to the segment of Kheur (quarrel) where the Kobiwalas attacked each
other in expletives with some élan and gusto, were also indecent by the bhadralok standards. Now, this
is one example where a Bhadralok sensibility is successful in deflecting an original lyric which now
exists only in the manipulated version and can now only be heard within the colonially approved
format of decency.
Exchange between Anthony Firingi (UttamKumar) and Bhola Moyra (AsitBaran). A still from Anthony Firingi (1967)
Owing to UttamKumar's stellar performance, Bengalis think of Anthony Firingi whenever they hear a mention of Kobigān
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Nineteenth century Kolkata, as the colonial city, was subjected to a “sweeping imperial sense of
metropolitan enormity” (Hunt 187). It was inside this enormity of a colonial headquarter that Ishwar
Gupta was producing a native cultural counterweight by running the first vernacular daily in the
subcontinent, where he tried to foster a sense of native rootedness, which later acted as the strongest
motif in the Bengali renaissance. Gupta's project of coordiNation is about recovering an identity that
one can call one's own. Gupta wanted to rescue the traditional identity and culture of this city that was
increasingly at a risk of being devoured and appropriated (which these days is suitably glorified as
hybridity and fusion and cultural dialogue in liberal-humanist parlance) in a Macaulavian manner that
ominously resonates throughout Hunt's book: “Kipling himself had once written of Calcutta, 'Why, this
is London! This is the docks. This is Imperial. This is worth coming across India to see!'” (189). The
city called Calcutta was the headquarter of British India and was in the vortex of 'modernity' which
increasingly became synonymous with a steady loss of heritage: “attorney William Hickey commented
on how during the 1770s the old Bengal style of mud houses was 'being replaced by well-constructed
solid masonry' (Hunt 198). Further, “a fiercely Enlightenment notion of progress and improvement,
crucial to European self-approbation, was evident in the development of Calcutta. Out of the dense
jungle of Bengal and the thick swamps of the Hooghly there arose a glistening tribute to Western
civilization protected by the might of Fort William” (Hunt 198). Now, this myth has been perpetuated
ad nauseum thanks to a certain amnesia on the part of the gullible Bengalis, who would always readily
come to believe that Kolkata rose out of barren lands, that it rose out of jungle and swamps. Our
colonisers wanted this impression, that nothing at all existed here immediately prior to their arrival.
Whatever past glories that India could boast of must be suitably pushed back to ancient times (owing to
the Aryan invasion theory, the British too could bask in the glory of ancient India). Colonialism
justifies itself precisely on these terms of an a priori blankness or backwardness of the colonised
people.
While “in Calcutta, there took place a sustained process of cultural Anglicization” (Hunt 219),
the attempt to justify the violation of Bengali cultural traditions also came in a packaging of plurality
and multiculturalism, cross-cultural dialogue and coexistence of communities. Liberalism never fails to
serve the long-term purposes of imperialism in a colony. Sample this statement: “Calcutta was, like
Cape Town, an expressly multicultural city. 'Chinese and Frenchmen, Persians and Germans, Arabs and
Spaniards, Armenians and Portuguese, Jews and Dutchmen, are seen mixing with the Hindoos and
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English, the original inhabitants and the actual possessors of the country,' as Maria Graham recounted
it” (Hunt 202). Multicultural Kolkata is home to everybody, with no superior claim or priority of the
Bengalis. As colonial standards preside over this multicultural domain, effectively the status quo of the
most powerful principle of domination (that of colonial authority) remains supreme, because any
indigenous power can never challenge that authority by staking its own claim to rule its own land
without in fact unsettling the fundamental premises of multiculturalism. Acceptance of this
multiculturalism is habitually done by a bhadralok liberal-humanist sensibility that remained one of the
most potent factors behind the deferral of nation-consciousness.
However, as opposed to the multicultural and cosmopolitan Kolkata, there was another Kolkata
that was not embarrassed of its Bengali characteristics. Gupta was rooted in the native (and not the
multicultural) Kolkata. Bankim wrote about an anecdote that relates to Ishwar Gupta's childhood years
in Kolkata's Jorashanko. It consists a rhyme of two lines that later acquired a legendary status:
It is said that when Ishwar Gupta was three years old, once he fell ill after coming to his
maternal home in Kolkata. He was bed ridden in that illness. Kolkata in those days used to be
quite unhealthy, and there was too much menace of mosquitoes and flies. A bed ridden Ishwar
Gupta one day composed and recited the following
Mosquitoes by night, flies by day
Shooing these in Kolkata I stay
(বরবত মশ নদবন ম ন
এই তড়ব কলবকত আন )
Really? Many may not believe this – we don't know whether to believe or not. But since the
legend about John Stuart Mill learning Greek at the age of three has spread throughout the
world of letters, then let this word have its spread too. (708).
Now, Gupta's childhood composition was a typical nineteenth century celebration of native Kolkata, in
the midst of all the dirt and drudgery. It could well have been a characteristic piece from the genre of
Kobigān. Indeed Gupta's proficiency in this genre was noticed by people around him during his
childhood. Bankim extensively quotes from a letter written by a childhood friend of Ishwar Gupta
published after Gupta's death, in the Shongbād Probhākor Literary supplement of 1 Boishakh 1266
Bengali Year, which informs us of the following:
1. That Gupta, when he was 11/12 years old, started doing extempore composition for professional
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teams of Kobiwalas when they came to perform at Kanchonpolli (original name of Kanchrapara).
2. That Gupta was always a gifted poet, and could easily compose verse since early childhood.
3. That he was a shrutidhor, which means he could remember whatever he heard just once. It is pointed
out by Gupta's childhood friend that Gupta could remember all Bengali poems which he heard, and he
had a pictorial memory, which used to capture words forever in its canvass.
4. That he was a good student (now, this is a curious point, given that he did not complete any formal
education), and on his own initiative he mastered entire Sanskrit grammar (Mugdhobodh) in one and
half month flat, at the age of seventeen (Bankim 709).
“Gentoo Pagoda and House” of Chitpur by Thomas Daniel, 1787. Contrast the cleanliness, hygiene and prosperity of this
'native' Kolkata with the ones painted by Fraser (1826) and D'Oyly (1830). It exposes the fact (otherwise carefully
overlooked) that British colonisation impoverished and degraded the Bengali parts of Kolkata
It seems that Gupta was a prodigy, and that the responsibility of recovering Bengaliness from
the onslaught of colonialism was in able hands. Ishwar Gupta died at a premature age of 47, as if
finishing his jobs early imposed an early retirement on him. A new scene was about to begin, and it is
as if Gupta went away from the stage to make way for the new actors who would now occupy
centrestage and limelight in Kolkata. One of Gupta's early jobs was the founding of Shongbād
Probhākor in 1831, when he was just nineteen years old. Jogendramohan Thakur of the Pathuriaghata
Thakur family was of same age and was Ishwar's close friend and patron. It was Jogendramohan who
funded Shongbād Probhākor as it was published for the first time in the Bengali Year 1237 (1831 CE).
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Bankim in his essay on Ishwar Gupta called this collaboration between Jogendramohan and Ishwar
Gupta as an alliance between Lokkhi and Shoroshshoti, i.e. wealth and creativity (710). Ishwar Gupta's
account of the history of Shongbād Probhākor (published in the issue of 1 Boishakh 1253) informs us
that this venture as it was founded was completely dependent on Jogendramohan for finance (qtd. in
Bankim 710). Prior to Probhakor's publication, there were only a handful of Bengali newspapers; their
numbers totalled six, and none was a daily. Probhakor became the first vernacular daily of India, as
Bankim points out (710, 712).
Following Jogendramohan's death in the Bengali Year 1239, Probhakor ceased its publication,
only to reappear in 1243, this time also under the patronage of the Thakurs of Pathuriaghata (Bankim
711). Clearly, the crowd-on-the-street hypothesis of Rosinka Chaudhuri does not hold much ground.
Upon a close inspection of the history of Probhakor and Gupta, we can see that Gupta and his
newspaper thrived on the patronage of the rich, as an extensively long list of its wealthy patrons
published by Gupta and quoted by Bankim establishes beyond doubt (712). The list contains a total of
twenty two names, including some of the crème de la crème of the wealthy and powerful Bengalis of
Kolkata. Gupta once told his brother (who showed some indifference to work and salary, and did not
take professional responsibilities seriously): “If I go on begging for one day, from this Kolkata city
alone I can fetch one lakh rupees. What will befall you (when I am no more)?” (Bankim 715). This
shows the extent of Gupta's influence over his rich patrons.
This is not to say that Gupta or Shongbād Probhākor did not enjoy popular support of the
common readers. They surely did. In fact Gupta's project of coordiNation necessarily depended on an
alliance of different interests, different classes and different sensibilities. He freely moved across the
boundaries which separated these different zones because here was a language at his service that was
yet to be split between the high and the low, here was an indigenous ethos that was still commonly
shared: “Ishwar Gupta lived at the crossroad of the old and the new. Just like the new times, he took
membership of a number of societies including Brahmo Samaj, and just like the old times, Gupta used
to compose for Kobi troupes and half-Ākhrāi” (Bankim 713). In other words, Gupta effortlessly walked
to and fro across the line between new and old sensibilities, he was open to the new while firmly rooted
in his old cultural traditions. Sadly, the new would not show the same openness to the old and very
soon the old would be discarded as obscure and obscene. Bankim recollects that there took place a
severe Kobir Lorai (albeit one that was in printed format), between Ishwar Gupta and Gourishankar
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Bhattacharya, editor of Roshoraj. There was 'high obscenity' from both sides in this battle, which was
finally won by Gupta. James Long campaigned for an anti-obscenity law in the aftermath of this
sensational incident. Following the enactment of this law Bengali literature was purged off this sin of
obscenity, as Bankim observes (713).
A core concern of Gupta's project of coordiNation was to consolidate the Bengalis living in
different geographical locations, in different parts of Bengal and India. He tried to accomplish this
mission with his daily, where he used to publish accounts of different districts of Bengal, facilitated by
his extensive travels in these districts. Gupta used to travel by boat after Durgapujo, as Bankim tells us;
he tried to excavate Bengal's history as he tried to map Bengali culture through these travels. Upon
touring east Bengal, he wrote a poem about Raja Rajballabh; he wrote on the ruins of Gour, the ancient
capital of Bengal (Bankim 714). Thus, Gupta was turning his Kolkata daily into a worthy vehicle of
Bengali nation-consciousness, as Kolkata was justifying itself as the epicentre of Bengali identity.
Consolidation of the Bengali community was being spearheaded from Kolkata, the seat of Bengali
revival.
Chandpal Ghat on the Ganges. James Baillie Fraser, 1814.
In Bankim this revival comes to be self-conscious of its deflection from its indigenous co-
ordinates: “Obscenity is a major fault in Ishwar Gupta's poetry. By omitting that (obscenity), in order to
bowdlerize (Bankim uses the word 'bowdlerize' in his Bengali essay on Gupta) Ishwar Gupta, we have
made his poetry powerless. The true connoisseur of poetry will decry us.” (718-719). Bankim proceeds
to observe that Ishwar Gupta's obscenity is not really obscenity after all, because his is an anger against
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falsehood and sin. This point is repeatedly emphasised by Bankim throughout his essay on Gupta: that
Ishwar Gupta was an enemy of falsehood: “The sages used such language. For the Bengalis of those
days such a language was habitual. I have seen many such instances, where veteran, noble-souled,
sober, civil, honest people have started using foul language by looking at a sinful crime. The language
to express anger in those days was obscene itself.” (719). Bankim insists that Gupta does not resort to
obscene language for sensual, selfish gratifications, but with the purpose to give vent to his ire. This
defence by Bankim is purported to save Ishwar Gupta from being castigated by an increasingly prudish
age, under the heavy influence of Victorian morality. Further, Bankim is also quick to point out that the
question of taste varies across time, and across space, and varies from one country to another (719).
Caution therefore had to be exercised by those educated Bengalis who were bearers of Victorian
sensibility before summarily dismissing Ishwar Gupta. Thus a thorough but veiled defence of Gupta's
obscenity comes from Bankim, who challenges the imperial codes penalising Gupta's obscenity.
Bankim pithily comments: “Many ancient poets of our country after being caught by the law of British
taste have been convicted of the crime of obscenity for no guilt of their own” (720).
Nation-consciousness attempts to fight back deflection, as Bankim defends Ishwar Gupta.
However as the terms of that defence also had to be colonially approved, conforming to the dominant
colonial standards, the resultant circuit of forces becomes rather complex. Bankim in any case did a
commendable job, he did the best he could do, given the tide of those times. Bankim spoke of Ishwar
Gupta as a prophet who was ahead of his times: “Ishwar Gupta was much larger than his poetry. His
real identity is not there in his poetry. Those who are specially talented very often are ahead of their
times. Ishwar Gupta was ahead of his time” (723). It is interesting to note that Bankim here probably
alludes to Gupta's prose, most likely his journalistic writing, as greater than his poetry. It's clear that
Gupta's poetry remained decisively passé for the new sensibility of the new nineteenth century, whereas
Gupta belonged to the old nineteenth century. However, Bankim cites three cases of Gupta's pioneering
role.
First, patriotism. Bankim is not sure whether it ever existed among the Bengalis of previous
eras, but he notes that it was really rare at the time of Gupta, and here Bankim quotes from Gupta's
celebrated poem Swadesh (Shodesh). Bankim begins his essay with an anecdote where a Bengali after
newly acquiring the status of a Shaheb (a westernised gentleman) cannot understand what mocha
(plantain flower) is, and after much trouble decides to call it kela ka phool (flower of banana, in
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Hindustani, which was a lingua franca of Raj administration). Bankim says that while majority of
Bengalis are being westernised these days (and therefore joining the kela-ka-phool bandwagon), Ishwar
Gupta sticks to the Bengali mocha (706). There is also one personal experience which Bankim shares
in order to explain the importance of Gupta to Bengali nation-consciousness. Bankim recounts an
experience of enjoying a moonlit night by the Ganges, when he was looking for an apt poetic
expression which would correspond with the scenery. He found none in English, and he could not find
any such expression in modern Bengali poets like Madhusudan, Nabinchandra and Hemchandra. Then
he heard a song of a boatman from afar: “Only this desire is there in my mind, mother/ By uttering
Durga, I give up this life on Ganges”. Upon hearing that, Bankim animatedly felt: “Then my soul got
quenched, the tune of my mind was there, could hear the heart's desire of a Bengali in the Bengali
language” (706). Bankim observed that here was an element of identification, here someone could
identify with one's own land, one's own locale, one's own roots, which was not to be found in the recent
Bengali literature which was under heavy western influence, which was 'sophisticated' (again by
colonial standards), but was certainly uprooted. “That is why I have attempted to collect Ishwar Gupta's
Poetry. Here everything is purely Bengali. Madhusudan, Hemchandra, Nabinchandra, Rabindranath are
poets of the educated Bengalis. Ishwar Gupta is a poet of the Bengalis. Nowadays pure Bengali poets
are no longer born – there is no scope for that – there is no use for that. Unless the condition of Bengal
deteriorates, a pure Bengali poet cannot once more be born” (Bankim 706).
The second aspect of Gupta's pioneering role was his attitude to religion. Ishwar Gupta's
religious views were ahead of his times, and here Bankim shares this starling information with us that
at one point of time Ishwar Gupta was a Brahmo (706). Gupta was a part of Adi Brahmo Shomaj, and
was a member of Tottobodhini Shobha; he used to worship together with Brahmos and used to give
speeches in Brahmo meetings. He was close to and admired by Debendranath Thakur, as Bankim
informs us. The third aspect was Ishwar Gupta's politics. Bankim comments that Gupta's political view
was quite generous (Bankim uses the word 'udar' which can also mean liberal), and in this too he was
ahead of his time (706). Unfortunately, owing to his space constraints Bankim does not discuss this
point any further.
Bankim is quite correctly aware of the geocultural significance of Gupta's accounts of his
travels in the districts of Bengal. What I call Gupta's project of coordiNation in this article is most
strategically executed in this part of Gupta's career. Gupta travelled through the Rajshahi district of east
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View of Kidderpore from the opposite bank of Ganges. James Baillie Fraser 1826.
Bengal on boat along the river Padma, and his travelogue is published under the heading “Bhromonkari
Bondhur Potro” (A Travelling Friend's Letter) (1: 211ff). He talks about the significant people whom he
personally met there, about local schools and institutions, the history of which he came to know. He is
aware of amusing and idiosyncratic anecdotes and shares them. He introduces some major figures of
local importance who constitute the upper echelons of Bengali society in the district. From Rajshahi
Gupta travels to Pabna, as leaving the river Padma he sails on Ichamoti river (1: 217ff). His itinerary
closely reflects the cultural geography of Bengalis, always a riverine people. Gupta fearlessly criticises
the indigo planters who oppress farmers and the complicity of the local British administrator in that act
of oppression, offers a demographical sketch of the district and tells us about its administrative
structure and division into thanas, provides a thorough list of all the Jomidars of this district, briefly
describes its creation in 1828 by eking out some of the areas of Rajshahi and Jessore, and expresses his
grief that the high officials (all British) of the district have not learnt Bengali well enough, which acts
as an impediment in governance.
This should be noted here that Ishwar Gupta used Shongbād Probhākor as a vehicle of protest
against the severe oppressions of the colonial indigo planters, and an otherwise hostile anthologist
Swapan Basu (he is adverse to Ishwar Gupta for siding with the British against the revolutionary
movement of the Santhals, instead of expressing a solidarity with the latter (1: 43); Basu is highly
anachronistic in expecting an expression of revolutionary solidarity from Gupta towards the Santhals,
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we might say that he is judging Ishwar Gupta by his an unfair yardstick) showers high words of praise
on Gupta for fearlessly writing against this oppression on the Bengali farmers carried out by the white
colonisers. Since the inception of Shongbād Probhākor in the 1830s Gupta's newspaper took up a
fearless stand in favour of Bengali farmers who were oppressed by indigo planters, and Gupta did not
stop writing against the colonial atrocities committed in Bengal's villages by the indigo planters till the
end of his life; even after his death, Probhakor remained faithful to the editorial line set by Ishwar
Gupta, and continued to give detailed coverage on the atrocities of indigo Planters, even at the risk of
legal-governmental actions (Basu: 1: 50). Basu's collection also establishes that Probhakor criticised
not just the white non-governmental settlers who imposed indigo planting in one village after another,
but the British magistrates were also exposed in Gupta's daily (1: 330).
Let us go back to Gupta's travels in districts. The next region in his itinerary was Faridpur, and
Ishwar Gupta gave a detailed account of this area, including its demography, its cultural life and its
institutions. An account of Dhaka College follows (one notices that not a single Muslim is found
among the scholarship holding students – though the community held a demographic majority in this
area – the complete list of whom is given by Gupta) (1: 231ff), and then an account of the district
Bhulua is given where Gupta talks at length about its natural and human geography (1: 234ff). Gupta
repeatedly observes that the caste hierarchy of east Bengal (Bhulua and Chittagong in particular) is at
variance with the system prevalent in west Bengal (1: 237, 241, 248, 263). A description of Chittagong
follows next, and then Gupta takes up Tripura, Coomilla and Bikrampur. He discusses about Rajnagar
at length, the capital of Raja Rajballabh, and mentions the Raja's praiseworthy attempt to initiate
widow marriage (1: 263ff). Next, Gupta turns to Barisal. He notices that Barisal has a total of 1 million
population, out of which majority is Hindu (dosh ana, or 10/16th as he puts it) (1: 268), but he also
notices that among the Muslims the Firajis (adherents of Faraizi movement, started by Haji
Shariyatullah) are gaining momentum. Firajis are extremely tyrannical and aggressive, Gupta observes
(1: 277). A word or two about this movement (with close links with Wahabi) may not be out of place
here. Founded in 1818, this movement wanted to purge all Hindu impurities from Islam in Bengal. It
insisted on adherence to proper Islamic codes, and aggressively propagated Islam, subjecting non-
believers (i.e. Hindus) and deviants (who were Muslims but were not following proper Islam; for
Faraizis they were deviants) to violence. Probably the Faraizi movement played a key role in changing
the demographic composition of Barisal and other districts of east Bengal, by slowly making them
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Muslim majority areas. This is a trajectory of Bengal's modern history which needs to be explored in
details. Gupta's merit was that he was able to bring the worrying feature of the Faraizi movement to the
notice of Kolkata intelligentsia. But his was just a cursory glance at that phenomenon which would
consequently prove fatal for the Bengali speaking Hindus in the next hundred years. Gupta did not
certainly foresee that.
With Barisal his travelling commentary on east Bengal districts comes to an end, in which
Gupta has offered objective portraits of folk life that was vanishing fast in the wake of colonialism. His
itinerant project of writing about east Bengal qualifies as our first cultural documentation. However, it
is not without flaws. Gupta sometimes appears to patronise rural life which can amount to
condescension. Needless to say, a big brother attitude of Kolkata does not help coordiNation. But to his
credit, Gupta has an open mind, and a curiosity worthy of a cultural historian which together inform his
attempt to document the socio-cultural life of the districts. Gupta consolidates Bengali nation-
consciousness with Kolkata as its worthy epicentre, as the purveyor of Bengali territories, coordiNating
among its peripheries. Modern day Bengalis become part of a coordinating system with Kolkata as
their heart and as their nerve centre, ensuring that a network is maintained and information from
different parts are duly received and processed inside a new discourse of nation-consciousness. Thus a
sense of a common Bengali community is forged through Shongbād Probhākor.
Probhakor became a name. So, exploiting its brand name, Gupta later authored a book named
Hit Probhakor which as a text mixed poetry with prose, touching upon God and the human relationship
with God, but here the focus was really on the ethical questions of existence meant for young minds, in
the vein of classical Indian texts like Panchatantra and Hitopadesha. But this book also contained a
number of banalities, like the advice for dispensing with a bad wife, an arrogant servant and a crooked
friend (Collected Works 2: 34). This book has four chapters: Mitrolabh, Shuhridbhed, Bigroho and
Shondhi which closely parallels the textual scheme of Panchatantra. Significantly, this book was
written upon a request from Bethune, who wanted Ishwar Gupta to produce a book of Bengali verse for
school going children, as Ishwar Gupta's brother Ramchandra informed in the preface to this
posthumously published text, where he attached the original letter from Bethune and its translation in
Bengali (Collected Works 2: 2-4). Here it is quite amusing to note that Ishwar Gupta himself
lampooned Bethune in one of his satirical poems that spewed venom against female education initiated
by Bethune, who alone had destroyed the traditional virtues in women (like those of keeping brotos,
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which were rituals involving folk worship in different seasons of the year; there were chants in Bengali
and a fast had to be maintained till the worship was over) in his zeal to impart Western education on
Bengali girls, according to Gupta (1: এ বর).2 Extract from that satirical piece is provided in the notes.
But Shongbād Probhākor supported the demand for education for girls throughout 1840s and
1850s, it supported widow marriage, and opposed Kulinism (that encouraged polygamy which in turn
could be a bane for all Bengali women, not necessarily the women of the three upper castes –
Brahman, Vaidya and Kayastha – alone where Kulinism was prominent), as Swapan Basu (who is
otherwise very highly critical of Ishwar Gupta, as we have already noted) tells us (1: 8). Ishwar Gupta
himself participated the first meeting of the governors of the first all girls' school in Kolkata founded
upon the initiative of Bethune, named Victoria Balika Biddaloy (later rechristened on Bethune himself
after his untimely death), as a report in Shongbād Probhākor dated 25 May 1849 tells us, extracted in
Basu (2: 273-274); in another report published in the same year on 24 July, Gupta's newspaper exhorts
all stakeholders to come forward for the noble cause of female education, and particularly criticises the
Brahmos for their inaction in this front: this is also available in Basu's anthology (2: 277). Probhakor
continued the editorial policy of Gupta and continued to support the cause of girls' education, which is
evident in another report published in 1879 (Basu: 2: 329).
So, is there a dichotomy in Gupta then? Does he both support and oppose female education?
Having himself authored brotokotha or ritual chants for the worship of Shubochoni and Shottonarayon,
Gupta as an ardent supporter of these brotos might have been offended that in the western-style
education girls were encouraged to treat such indigenous rituals as little more than superstition.
Importantly, his nostalgia for the vanishing culture of brotos seems to be shared by others as well. For
example, a magazine named Deepika lamenting for the steady loss of the culture of broto among
Kolkata women in its issue published in the Bengali Year 1294, quotes those lines of Ishwar Gupta
which precisely speaks of the loss of the culture of observing broto in women; this issue of Deepika is
collected in Swapan Basu's anthology of nineteenth century Bengali periodicals (2: 127).
Gupta was not a misogynist, as it is sometimes made out to be, after Bankim in his essay made
some adverse comments about Gupta, regarding the lack of a soothing feminine presence in his life,
which, according to Bankim, suppressed Gupta's ability to sympathise with the fairer sex (710). Gupta
in fact encouraged women writers and correspondents, by publishing their writings in Probhakor, this is
evident in the case of Thakurani Dasi, a forgotten writer who used to publish her columns in Gupta's
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newspaper (Basu 2: 701). Surely his editorial policy was not misogynist. Further, Gupta's Probhakor
was a staunch supporter of Rani Rashmoni, and publicised her different welfare activities (one report
dated 14 March 1853 is about the Rani's contribution towards building up civic amenities and urban
infrastructure including roads, sanitation, drinking water and building of ghats), printed her appeal
against rampant polygamy of Kulinism (report dated 31 July 1856), as well as her initiative for revival
of Bengal's Hinduism which took a concrete embodiment in the Dokkhineshshor Kali Temple (report
dated 12 April 1856, and here we must note that the Rani faced a lot of hostilities from conservative
Hindus because of her lowly status in the Brahminical caste hierarchy as she was a Mahishsho/Māhiṣya
by caste, and was not considered to be eligible to build a temple, and therefore the stand of Probhakor
vis-a-vis the Rani is anything but a conservative, reactionary Hindu stand); Probhakor also reports in
pithy details about the drunken raid of a band of armed Britishers (a hundred in number) upon the
residence of Rani Rashmoni (dated 6 May 1858), a report that created a stir among the Hindus of
Kolkata (Brajendranath Bandyopadhyay: 2: 743-744). Looking at Ishwar Gupta's admiration for the
Rani, it is quite hard to believe that he was not able to respect women, as Bankim suggests.
Rani Rashmoni
However, those apparently misogynist lines of Gupta which lampooned the western-style
education for girls are oft quoted by progressive critics inevitably to brandish a sword against Gupta,
but indeed what we see here is a prophetic statement; education on colonial terms spelt a disaster for
the indigenous culture of Bengal. One easy proof of that would be to ask those who regularly parade
this piece of Gupta's poem as a specimen of conservative Hindu misogyny that how many of them
know anything at all about the broto of Shanj Shenjoti (স জ ছসবজনত), which in Gupta's poem is cited as
one of the lost traditions.
In fact, the present writer looked up Abanindranath Thakur's Banglar Broto in search of the
broto of Shanj Shenjoti, to no avail. After looking up internet, a number of sites (almost all of them
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from Bangladesh) told us that this broto probably originated among the Oraon tribe who still practise it,
and that Shenjoti/Shejuti rituals are held in the late autumn month of Oghran/AgraHaayana,3 while a
page devoted to the district of Faridpur in Bangladesh mentions this broto in a cursory manner among
other brotos which, we are told, are still practised by the villagers of this district. 4 Finally, a full
transcript of the ritual chants of this broto of Shanj Shenjoti was found in Dakshinaranjan Mitra
Majumdar's Thandidir Thole- Banglar Brotokotha which forms a part of the first volume of his
Collected Works (355-364).
Gupta's support of and opposition to female education therefore form a core dilemma of nation-
consciousness, that keeps on pushing its trajectory in two opposite directions: collaboration and
resistance, social reform and social reaction, imperial Enlightenment and native tradition. And they
were sometimes held together, albeit in a great tension. Hit Probhakor is meant for imparting a lesson
in Bengali poetics as well as classical Indian ethics, but this book can also be considered as a product of
the school education system introduced by British. A newsreport of 1839 collected in Brajendranath
Bandyopadhyay's anthology attests Gupta's long term interest in the spread of liberal school education,
while he participated in the foundation meeting of a school at Barasat (2: 71-72). Clearly, Gupta and
others saw a potential in the western-style education as it was seen to be accommodative of Hindu
interests, though it is equally true that clashes were also frequent. Hindu College authorities once
deliberated on the option of prosecuting Gupta because of his comments against the college, we are
told in Bhabatosh Dutta's introduction to Ishwar Gupta Rochito Kobijiboni, and the same source also
tells us that Gupta translated Tom Paine's Age of Reason into Bengali as a counter-ballast against
Christian missionaries, on behalf of a conservative Hindu association named Dhormoshobha (||o). In
this period, the strange transaction between the Hindu interests and the Western interests was in its full-
fledged form, and it produced some fruitful manoeuvres where the Hindu was able to produce his own
ideological discourse provided that it did not immediately collide with the interests of colonialism.
Kolkata of nineteenth century is all about this strategic and strange marriage of convenience between
the occident and the orient. It involves a deferral of the nation-consciousness, the way the end of
Bankim's Anandamath involves a deferral of Hindu self-rule in favour of immediate British
colonisation. Kolkata would gladly remain a colonial city in this precise gesture of deferral, singing the
praise of the British empire, provided the empire offered the space necessary for the Bengali Babus to
stage a Renaissance. This deferral of nation-consciousness is archetypically exhibited by the nineteenth
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century Kolkata which was Ishwar Gupta's world, as his life and works symbolise the deferred
movement of Bengali identity. Some of Gupta's poems containing praises for the British empire are
produced in the notes.5
The concepts of nationalism and patriotism were undoubtedly influenced by an exposure to the
west, though this is a simplification to say that notions of a coherent Bengaliness did not exist prior to
the arrival of British. But it is indeed true that poems like Shodesh (Swadesh) speak of a nationalist
fervour which was perhaps absent in the poetry of previous ages (translation of a part of this poem done
by me is provided in the notes). Again, Gupta's poem 'Matribhasha' (2: 441) is a case in point. The very
phrase of 'mother tongue' was brought about by colonialism, and Gupta's use of the phrase matribhasha
is a straight translation of the phrase mother tongue. What deflected nation-consciousness also helped
to produce nation-consciousness by a dialectical process, and we can think of this as a pearl-oyster
model of the birth of nation-consciousness, where the trauma of imperialism produces the pearl of
nation-consciousness. It was a composite phenomenon.
Nineteenth century Kolkata was a composite event, and it was taking place not just right in front
of Ishwar Gupta's eyes, this event was happening with Ishwar Gupta performing in it. Old was giving
way to the new, but was leaving nevertheless its ineluctable imprints. The Kobiwalas of Gupta's
chronicle were breathing their last as Gupta was growing up in this city. Horu Thakur of Shimulia died
in 1824, and Nilu Thakur (also of Shimulia) died in 1825, as the obituaries in Shomachar Dorpon tells
us, collected in Brajendranath Bandyopadhyay's anthology of early nineteenth century periodicals (1:
143). If one needed to write an obituary for Ishwar Gupta, it should have mentioned him as a
collaborator of colonialism and a sad victim of the same, as a leader of the cultural resistance
movement of his people against colonial aggression, as a forgotten Brahmo who remained a traditional
Hindu all the way to his core, as a reformer who sometimes was trapped in reaction, as an important
turn in the time-space curve of Bengali nation-consciousness which he helped to both grow
courageously and grovel abominably in front of the British eyes. He was born a Boddi, considered to be
the archetypically intelligent caste among Bengalis – indeed, he is referred to in one of the
contemporary rival periodicals as “Ishshor Boddi” in a slightly contemptuous tone (Brajendranath
Bandyopadhyay 2: 186) – and he was uneducated, and yet before he was twenty he became editor of a
newspaper that was about to become the first vernacular daily in the Indian subcontinent. He became a
renowned poet while still in his adolescence, he became our first cultural historian and chronicled the
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lives and works of Kobiwalas. His people had a glorious history of cultural performance, which was
becoming obscure very fast, and he anxiously wanted to rescue that history. He coordiNated
Bengaliness in the best possible way that he could do in those circumstances and by the time he died at
the premature age of 47 in 1859, he came to be seen as the grand patriarch of Bengali art and letters. In
childhood he was a prodigy, in adolescence he was an uneducated poet-songmaker, in youth he was an
establishment, and in death he is a misunderstood figure. He is nineteenth century Kolkata crying out
to be reread.
A clipping from a youtube video which laments that Ishwar Gupta's birthplace at Kanchrapara lies neglected and forgotten.
Curiously, the heading of this report in this image introduces Gupta as an “eminent journalist”
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x44vbT6YCAg)
Notes:
1. Here is a translation of a part of that poem of Ishwar Gupta done by me, where he exhorts his
countrymen to embrace a native dog, forsaking the foreign God:
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Shodesh (Swadesh/One's Own Country)
Turn to a worship of the nature And all cheerfully hail her
Bow down to the earth's loving feet
Particularly for your own land Send a congenial errand
Lives are enchanted whom she'd charm to meet
On to the abode of the supreme king You won't feel like to cling
Of which the feel of heaven a mere symptom is
The mountain home of Shiva Full of name of blessing-giver
Your own land is the supreme abode of benevolence and bliss
False are dear pearls and gold Love of one's land dearer mould
There's not a jewel that did dearer come and stand
As honeybees nectar bring Nurture thirsty hungerlings
So do the good missives from one's own land
Feeling fraternity among you Ye countrymen purview

Let compassionate eyes open and applaud
How affections manifold On to the native dogs we hold
Discarding all the mighty Gods from abroad
(Collected Works 2: 439-440)
2. It is tempting to quote from that supposedly anti-feminist poem by Gupta.

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যত ক ব র যব ছযন সব
ই(বরনজ ক ক ভব ।
ছধ বর গর পরত ম বর জবত
নভখ র নক অন প ব ?
আব ছমব গব ন ভব
বত ধম/ ছক বত/ সব ।
এক ছ থন এবস ছশষ কবরব
আর নক ত বদর ছতমন প ব ?
যত ড় গব তড় ছমবর
ছকত হ বত ননব2 যব ।
তখন এ. ন . নশবখ ন ন ছসবজ
ন ত ছ কব ই কব ।।
এখন আর নক ত র স নজ ননব
স জ ছসবজ নতর বত ব ?
স ক ট চ মবচ ছধ রব ছশবষ
নপনড় ছপবত আর নক খ ব ?
ও ভ ই, আর নক নদন ছ বচ থ কব ,
প ব ই প ব ই ছদখবত প ব ।
এর আপন হ বত হ নকব
বড়র ম ব6 হ ও খব ।
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আব ছ ট কতক বড় য নদন
ত নদন নক রক প ব ।
ও ভ ই, ত র হব ই দফ রফ
একক ব স ফনরব যব ।
(Collected Works 1: এ বর - বর )
In this poem Gupta laments about the loss of the traditional virtues of women and in a sudden flourish
of dystopic misogyny shudders at the prospect of Bengali women becoming masters of their own fate
like the white European women after being subjected to western-style education, becoming
independent, themselves driving horse-drawn carriages to enjoy the evening air of Maidan. It is not
necessary to translate the whole poem. As it is impossible to translate Gupta's wonderful rhymes in
Bengali, there is little use in translating his anti-feminism alone. In this connection, it may be pertinent
to quote from Mousumi Dasgupta's review article from the inaugural issue of JBS:
Fakir Mohan Senapati, considered the father of Oriya nationalism, once commented that Oriya
language survived the onslaught of Turk-Afghan-Persian-Arabic influences because of the
domestic sphere that was dominated by “Gruhalakshmis” who resisted the foreign influence that
had the men under its sway (since they worked in close contact with the Islamic colonizers and
used a language and adopted a culture that celebrated this collaboration) as Esha Dey, noted
Bengali writer recently reminisced in a personal conversation with the editor of JBS. Women's
role in sustaining the indigenous culture and language within domestic spheres has every claim
to be a topic of critical study. Women were less prone to foreign influences and they played
crucial roles in celebrating cultural expressions of identity
However, the male fantasy of women's purity contributes heavily to this image. It was
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certainly no glory of the Indians that women had to be confined within the boundaries of her
home (as some nationalists uncritically assumed), and yet we see that women's confinement
became a matter of glory for patriarchy, and the nationalists of the old school. Women as prized
possession of patriarchy and women as unspoilt, pure, innocent space (free from all polluting
and corrupting foreign influences) meant for the furtherance of the ancien regime are the two
fancies which come together in this celebration of women as the sustainers of lost treasures.
("Motherhood/Maidenhood in Revolutionary Nationalism", JBS 1.1, 2012, p 151-52)
3. <http://onushilon.org/geography/bangladesh/khudro-nrigosthi/orao/orao.htm>. Accessed on 17 Sep

2014.
4. <http://greaterfaridpur.info/index.php?option=content&value=347>. Accessed on 17 Sep 2014.
5. Some extracts from Gupta's overtly collaborationist poems are provided here, where he sings the
praise of the British empire and lampoons the rebels of 1857 war of independence.
ধনন নচফ কম ণ র ধনন ছদও ব
ণন বট সসনন ণ ধনন ছদও ত ।
ব / র রনহ মন ব র ক> প ।।
সদ সমরকব? ন ভ দ ম ।
... জ নবটবশর জ রবণ নবটবশর জ ।।
ছপবট ছখব নপব6 স এই কন ধর।
র জ র স হ যনবহত রণসজ পর।।

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ন ন প বপ পট ন ন ন নক গবণ, ন ,ন ।
অধবম/র অনক বর হই ব ক ণ ।।
ভ -বদ বষ ভ তনম ঘট ব পম দ।
আব বত ছদবখ ঘঘ, ছশবষ ছদখ ফ দ।।
নপপ ড় ধবরব ন মনর র তবর।
হন বদ নক শনন ণ?
হন বদ নক শনন ণ ঝ ননর র ন
ছ6 টক ট ক ক ।।
ছমব হব ছসন ননব স নজ ব ন নক?
ন ন ত র ঘবরর ছঢনক
ন ন ত র ঘবরর ছঢনক ম ছখক
ছ ব র দব ।
এতনদবন ধবন জবন য ব রস তব ।। (Collected Works 1: পবনবর )
পড়ক ন পকদ মবনর অনব
উড়ক নবটশ ধজ সমদ সব ।।
ই(র বজর পর কম রন র পক শ।
অতন চ র-অনক র হই ন ন শ।।

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নবটবশর জ জ সব ভ ই ছর।
এবস সব ছনবচ কবদ ন ভগণ ই ছর।। (Collected Works 1: ছষ )
All of these poems are written on the occasion of the victory of the British in 1857, which is divinely
ordained for Gupta. Clearly Gupta reflects the dominant feeling of euphoria among the educated
Bengalis who constituted the backbone of British civil administration throughout India. Gupta freely
uses English words like “Lord” and “God” in his Bengali poems in order to create an atmosphere of
loyalty. Again, there is no use in translating whole pieces,. Interestingly, Gupta's dyspeptic lampooning
of Rani Jhansi (Gupta does not spare Nana Sahib as well) has a distinct feel of Pānchāli, as it uses
refrains and metres and rhythms suitable for this genre. One can almost visualise Gupta's poems being
sung by some performer of Pānchāli after British victory in 1857, before this indigenous art form
finally went extinct.
Primary Bibliography
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Senshastri. Kolkata: DuttaChowdhuri and Sons, 1361 (Bengali Year).
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1365 (Bengali Year). Note: The preliminary pages of this book use anna (erstwhile constituent of
rupee) symbols as page numbers, and while citing from this book's introduction written by Dutta,
closest available symbols have been used.
Secondary Bibliography
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(All translations from Bengali which appear in this article, unless quoted from another critic, are done
by the author. All Bengali words, apart from familiar proper nouns, are spelt according to Bengali
standard of pronunciation)
Tamal Dasgupta is the founder editor of Journal of Bengali Studies and Assistant Professor of English,
Bhim Rao Ambedkar College, University of Delhi, Delhi, India.
Kolkata Corporation and Subhash Chandra Bose: Death
of a Dream
Chandrachur Ghose
Abstract
While the rest of the country struggled to obtain more concessions from the British Government, or
prepared to throw out the yoke of foreign rule by revolutionary activities, Kolkata in 1923 got the
opportunity to shape its own destiny. The Swarajya Party was elected to the seat of power in what could
still be considered the second city of the British Empire. In the driving seat to execute the programmes
for materialising the dream of transforming the city and to prove to the world that Indians were capable
of self-governance was a young man of 27 – Subhas Chandra Bose. In the following two decades
Subhas grew from a talented local leader to become ‘Netaji’ for millions of Indians. The dreams of
urban transformation, however, never left him even in the turmoil of provincial, national and
international politics. This article chronicles his involvement with the Kolkata Corporation. It is neither
a history of the Corporation, nor a biography of Subhas – the only purpose is to highlight the interface
between the two.
Crowning glory of a waning icon

Indian politics had reached a feverish pitch in November 1921. As the end of the year came closer, the
non-cooperation movement led by Mahatma Gandhi gathered steam around the boycott of the Prince of
Wales’ visit and of foreign cloth. Expectations around the “Swarajya in the course of a year” 1 promised
by Gandhi in September 1920 peaked after the All India Congress Committee (AICC) authorised the
provincial Congress committees to undertake civil disobedience. The Prince’s arrival was marked by
riots (in Bombay) as well as relatively peaceful and complete shutdown (in Kolkata) on November 17.
As the upheaval raged on in the streets, on 22 November, a seventy three year old man stood up
in the Bengal Legislative Council to propose a law which would be his crowning glory. Sir
Surendranath Banerjee, the Minister in charge of the Department of Local Self-Government, placed on
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the table of the Council a Bill to amend the law regulating the Kolkata Corporation. The Bill, which
Surendranath claimed to be in line with the Montagu-Chelmsford reforms scheme, broke with the past
in many aspects. It increased the number of members of the Corporation from 50 to 80; the number of
elected members was increased from 35 to 72; women’s suffrage was introduced and posts of
Aldermen were created. Although he provided for 13 seats reserved for the Muslim community, he
advocated their election through mixed electorates. The effect of communal electorates, “moral and
material, are baneful,” he argued. It impeded the growth of “Indian nationhood.”2
At any other time, the Bill would probably have been hailed as a major step towards Swaraj, but
the mood of the country was now different. The reforms (now enacted into the Government of India
Act 1919) which Surendranath extolled, was not acceptable to the Congress, and it was on this point
that he had disassociated himself with the Congress and formed the Moderate party three years ago.
Leading the charge against the reforms scheme was someone who Surendranath had ceremoniously
presented to Bengal politics a few years ago. In the summer of 1917, Surendranath introduced
Chittaranjan Das as the president of the Bengal Provincial Conference with a prophecy: “If I am
permitted to indulge in a bit of prophecy which is my birth-right by virtue of my Brahmanical position,
I will say this that he will within a measurable distance of time become one of the most prominent
leaders of public opinion in this Province. I trust that his election on the present occasion will be the
royal road to that which is the coveted honour and distinction of public life in India—its highest honour
and distinction viz., the Presidentship of the Indian National Congress.” 3 The bonhomie was gone;
Surendranath and Chittaranjan now stood at the opposite ends of the political spectrum.
Departure from Gandhian strategy: Chittaranjan Das leads Bengal

In organising the non-cooperation movement, Chittaranjan, now designated the ‘dictator’ of Bengal
Congress, was being assisted by a young man who had joined him only a few months ago. On the
threshold of his twenty-fifth year,Subhas Chandra Bose had spurned the offer to join the Indian Civil
Service earlier in the year and returned home to find a role in the freedom struggle. Dissatisfied with
what he considered lack of clarity in Gandhi’s political vision, Subhas chose Chittaranjan as his
political mentor. Chittaranjan appointed him as the principal of the National College, but before he
could do much the high tide of the non-cooperation movement arrived. As a leader of the volunteer
corps in Kolkata, Subhas went around picketing shops which sold imported cloth, managing a
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gradually increasing number of volunteers.4 While Das coordinated the volunteers’ overall activities,
Subhas plunged into organising the hartal. As the secretary of the Publicity Board of the Bengal
Congress, Subhas drafted detailed instructions for the hartal, of which around a million copies were
printed in Bengali alone, apart from English and Hindi. Distributed in the interiors of the province,
these instructions played a significant role. The extent of personal contact he had established with
different groups in the city within a short span, and the respect and loyalty of the volunteers that he
commanded left his colleagues in little doubt about his abilities.5

With the Government determined to break the movement, large-scale arrests took place from 10
December, 1921, when both Subhas and Chittaranjan were packed off to prison along with other
Congress leaders. Subhas’s trial started almost a month after his arrest and on 7 February 1922, he was
sentenced to six months imprisonment. By the time Subhas came out of the prison in August, the
political situation had changed completely. Gandhi had withdrawn the non-cooperation movement in
response to a violent outrage in a remote village in the United Provinces in February.As the movement
waned, the Government put Gandhi in prison.
Infuriated with Gandhi’s approach, Chittaranjan changed his strategy by going back to his
earlier position of contesting elections rather than boycotting them, so that the Government could be
opposed from within the legislature for wrecking the scheme of diarchy introduced by the
reforms.Chittaranjan took his programme to the Congress for approval, but failing to muster majority in
the annual session at Gaya in December 1922, he resigned the post of president and on the first day of
1923, announced the formation of the Congress Khilafat Swaraj party within the Congress along with
leaders such as Motilal Nehru, Hakim Ajmal Khan, Vithalbhai Patel, NC Kelkar, MR Jayakar, etc.6
During the course of the year, Chittaranjan led his Swaraj party to three important victories: he
succeeded in compelling the Congress to accept his programme of council entry, wrested control of the
Bengal Provincial Congress Committee (BPCC) which had been taken over by the Gandhian faction
during his imprisonment, and leading the party to emerge as the largest one in the elections to the
Bengal Legislative Council. The Swaraj party won forty seven seats out of hundred and fourteen
elected seats. The most striking feature was the party’s victory in twenty one out of thirty nine seats
reserved for Muslims.7 Subhas, however, could not contest the elections as his name was not on the
electoral roll.
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From his early days in politics, Das had been vocal about two critical components of his
concept of swaraj – ensuring the involvement of the people who had been kept out of the ambit of
bhadralok politics, and ridding the society of the communal problem. Being involved in the swadeshi
movement from its inception, he witnessed how dissension between the Hindus and the Muslims were
exploited by the Government of the day. Bengal had seen some of the worst riots in the recent past too.
It was therefore clear to him that to be able to exert pressure on the Government, it was imperative to
bring the two communities together. To this end, he worked out a pact with Muslim leaders spelling out
the opportunities to be provided to the Muslims on achievement of self-government to help them bridge
the gap of backwardness. The ‘Bengal Pact’ was ratified at a conference of the Swarajist and nationalist
councillors on December 16, and was published two days later with Subhas’s signature as the secretary
of the BPCC.8 The Pact provided that Muslims’ share of representation in the Council would be
determined on the basis of their population share, with separate electorates; representation to the local
bodies would be on a proportion of sixty to forty for the majority and minority communities in the
districts, respectively; till the time the appointment to Government posts amongst Muslim and non-
Muslim reach the proportion of fifty five to forty five, Hindus would be recruited to only twenty per
cent of those posts. The Pact also stipulated that no law would be enacted on an religious matter
without the consent of three-fourths of the community affected; that music in procession would not be
allowed in front of mosques; that there would be no interference in cow killing for religious sacrifices
and both communities, rather than enacting laws on the issue, should come to an understanding on cow
killing; that representative committees would be formed in each sub-division comprising equal number
of members from each community.9

The Congress, however, refused to ratify the Bengal Pact. At the Coconada annual session in
December 1923, Motilal Nehru’s motion to refer the Bengal Pact to the sub-committee of the Congress
which was engaged in drawing up a National Pact was defeated, despite support from some leaders
such as Rajagopalachari and Sarojini Naidu.10 The Pact was, however, accepted by the Khilafat
Conference which too was under way in Cocanada.
While Subhas held forte in Kolkata focusing on the publication of Forward– the newspaper
published by Chittaranjan - and organisational work, Das busied himself in strengthening the party at
the national level.11 It was in this environment that revolutionary activities, lying dormant for the past
few years, erupted again with an attempt on the life of the commissioner of police in Kolkata,
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forcefully marking its return to the mainstream political discourse. In doing so, it also provided an
avenue to the Government, on the backfoot in the legislatures, to intensify its actions against the Swaraj
party on the ground of its purported encouragement to the revolutionary acts. On January 12, young
GopinathSaha shot dead Ernest Day mistaking him to be Charles Tegart, the police commissioner. The
police immediately swung into action, raiding the BPCC office the next day, arresting some of the
Congress workers.
Swarajya in the Corporation

The next big political victory of the Swarajya party came in March 1924, when it won majority of the
seats in the Kolkata Corporation elections. The extent of support commanded by Chittaranjan amongst
the Muslims was evident from the fact that out of fifteen Muslim seats in the Corporation ten were won
by the Swarajists. Chittaranjan was elected the first Mayor of the Corporation and appointed Hussain
ShahidSuhrawardy as his deputy even in the face of opposition from the Hindu communalists. Subhas
won his seat unopposed and was given the charge of the municipality administration, being appointed
the Corporation’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO).
Subhas had demonstrated his organisational and administrative capabilities consistently since
the time he took the plunge into politics around three years ago, but he was still a political greenhorn,
just twenty seven years old, and not the automatic choice for the post. Contemporary accounts indicate
that Chittaranjan had initially assured BirendranathSasmal that he would be appointed as the chief
executive, but had to step back when faced with pressure from his powerful group of supporters in
Kolkata to whom an ‘outsider’ from a small town was not acceptable. Some even raised objections on
the ground of Sasmal’s caste. They preferred Subhas. An insulted Sasmal left Kolkata resigning his seat
in the council, resulting in the weakening of the party. Das had no option but to give in to this uncouth
development in the larger interest of maintaining unity in the party, although it must have been
extremely distasteful to him.12 Gopal LalSanyal, an eyewitness to these developments, however, later
wrote that along with many seekers of power and patronage, it was Sasmal who demanded the post of
the CEO, much to displeasure of Chittaranjan.13
There is no reliable account of how Subhas saw these developments, or whether he was exposed
only to the outer manifestations of the clash in the form of Sasmal’s keenness to be elected, without
being aware of the underlying politics. Although unlikely, this appears to be the case from an almost
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casual recounting of the incident two decades later: “Though my appointment to this important post at
the age of twenty-seven was generally approved in Swarajist circles, it did not fail to cause a certain
amount of heart-burning in some circles within the party.”14

This was not all. While the Government took over a month to approve his appointment,
Hemanta Sarkar, his best friend of childhood and now an emerging labour and peasant leader elected to
the Council, too was not happy with Subhas accepting the appointment, especially with regard to the
emoluments that went with the CEO’s office.
The greenhorn CEO

Once Subhastook charge of the corporation on May 16, it was time to deliver on the promises. This was
an opportunity to show that Swaraj party could not only block and bring down an administration but
was equally efficient, if not better, in constructive work. And that was to be demonstrated by
overcoming obvious tensions between different factions in the party, balancing unlimited expectations
from patronage seekers, and neutralising the manoeuvres of a hostile provincial Government.
Das laid down the deliverables in his inaugural speech in the corporation: free primary
education, free medical services to the poor, supply of good quality food and milk, improvement in
supply of filtered and unfiltered water, better sanitation, housing for the poor, development of suburban
areas, improved transport facilities and greater efficiency in administration at a cheaper cost. The
overarching objective was to be the service of the daridranarayan.15 As the chief executive, it was upon
Subhas to deliver.
Much was done to symbolise the transition of the corporation into a Swarajist one. Khadi was
taken up as the official uniform, streets and parks were named after Indian icons, swadeshi goods
received preferential treatment in case of store purchases, receptions for Government officials were
stopped and instead the practice of giving civic receptions to nationalist leaders was initiated. 16 As he
was used to do for any assignment he took up, Subhas threw his heart and soul into executing the big
plans. In order to be able to give his full attention to the work of the corporation, he gave up his
involvement with Forward.
It was impossible to achieve the tall order that was set for the new municipal administration
without discipline, and Subhas led from the front to infuse discipline amongst the workforce. He went
out taking rounds of the city almost every day to personally inspect the work, infused the habit of
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punctuality amongst the staff and went through the files to clear them, often taking them home after
work. His close friend Ksitish Prasad Chattapadhyay joining the Corporation as the education officer
gave him a shot in the arm in implementing the education programme.
Free primary schools for boys and girls sprang up all over the city, Health Associations,
financed by the Corporation, were started in every ward of the city by public-spirited citizens for
carrying on health propaganda among the people. Dispensaries were opened in the different districts for
giving free medical treatment to the poor. Infant clinics were established in different parts of the city
and to each clinic was added a milk-kitchen for supplying free milk to the poorer children.
The Intelligence Branch (IB) of the Government alleged that the Swarajya Party was exploiting
its position in the Corporation in giving away contracts to raise party funds. In one instance, it alleged
that Subhas arranged for the Corporation to give the contract for the Palta Water Works Extension
scheme to a particular engineering firm, despite its higher quotation, over another firm which had
quoted a lower amount for the work. The IB noted that this was done in return for a donation of Rs
75,000 by the firm to the Swarajya party funds and for bearing an expense of Rs 3,600 for the Swarajist
delegates to the Ahmedabad Congress.17
The Bengal Pact had not been received well by the Liberals led by Surendranath,the ‘no-
changer’ section of the Congress as well as communal Hindu leaders and Subhas had to face their
criticism for following the Pact in recruiting Muslims for posts in the Corporationv. Amidst all the
criticism, however, Gandhi came forward in his defence. Under the caption ‘Favouritism or Justice’ he
wrote in Young India of July 31, 1924:
I note that the chief executive officer of the Calcutta Corporation has come in for a good deal of
hostile criticism because of his having given 25 out of 33 appointments to Mussalmans. I have
not read the comments themselves. But I have read the statement made by the chief executive
officer. In my humble opinion, it is a creditable performance. I have no doubt that appointments
have not till now been made with impartiality, whether by Europeans or Indians. There is no
doubt, too, that in many cases Hindus have influenced decisions in their favour. It ill-becomes
them to quarrel against many posts having now gone to Mussalmans. If the charge be true that
the appointments have a party purpose behind them, there is nothing immoral or reprehensible
in the fact itself if they are otherwise justifiable. In England, such appointments are certainly
made in party interests, though, as a rule, care is exercised not to sacrifice efficiency. Personally,
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I would like appointments to go to the best men irrespective of parties, and should, therefore, be
made by a permanent non-party board. But if Hindus wish to see India free, they must be ready
and willing to sacrifice in favour of their Mussalman and other brethren. I can heartily endorse
the remark of the chief executive officer when he says:
With thousands of educated young men out of employment and on ihe verge of
starvation and, with a very limited number of vacancies, it is not possible for any human
being to do anything which will please all. Whatever Imay do, I am sure to leave Ihe
major portion of the unemployed as discontented as before. The only solution of this
problem is the provision of technical education and in this matter, the Corporation can,
in my opinion, do much.
We must learn to do without these appointments. Only a microscopic minority can get them.
Education must cease to be merely clerical. Why may not a graduate be an artisan or a hawker
of vegetables or khaddar?18
Life was however not only about administration and politics. The friends and their mentor had their
share of fun as well. Indian Book Club, Hemanta’s bookshop in the College Street market was a
gathering place for the young revolutionaries, where Chittaranjan too would stop by occasionally.
Subhas, on his way back from the office of Banglar Katha– another newspaper published by
Chittaranjan - would invariably stop over and make tea for everyone on a stove. Since the use of a
stove in the market was not allowed, the market superintendent would regularly scold Hemanta,
without ever being able to see that it was actually Subhas who made the tea behind the bookshelves.
Consequently, he would complain to Subhas regarding the risk of fire. Much to the mirth of the friends
and embarrassment of the inspector, Hemantabroke the carefully preserved secret by taking the
inspector inside his shop when CEO Subhas was making tea and his boss Das waited to be served.
Needless to say, the superintendent did not know which way to look and how to escape from such a
situation. But Hemanta explained to him that given his very low income from selling books, he had no
alternative to using the stove in his shop.19

In the midst of all this euphoria, some of the prominent men of yesteryears were not happy. As
he would later write in his autobiography, Surendranath saw doom in the victory of the Swarajists,
particularly in the rise of Chittaranjan, who he had eulogised a few years ago. Selecting him as the
Mayor was the “first crowning blunder of the new regime” if only because he “has not during the
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whole of his public career been within miles of a municipal office.” He accused Chittaranjan of
usurping both offices of the Mayor and the Chief Executive Officer and thus obliterating the distinction
that the law had intended between the two offices. Moreover, the Swarajya party has, he wrote, “started
by making appointments in the Corporation based on the communal principle, which all Indian
nationalists condemn as fatal to the Indian nationhood.” At a more philosophical level, he believed that
“Municipal affairs should not form the battle-ground of political warfare. When the civic affairs of a
great city are used for political or party purposes, they are exposed to great menace. Party
aggrandizement and not the public good becomes the objective of civic efforts.”20
The Bengalee, edited at that time by Bepin Chandra Pal, was not far behind. With Surendranath
out of public life, Pal aimed at his erstwhile close associate who was now largely responsible for his
political eclipse. “Never before have bribery, corruption, intrigue and intimidation been so rampant in
Indian Nationalist politics,” it wrote in July 1924.21 Any reference to the constructive work,
understandably, was not to be found in such publicity.
What the residents of the city thought was another matter. As one of the citizens who lived
through that period in the city would later write:“The new dispensation had begun with very high hopes
for us natives in 1924, when CR Das became its first Mayor and Subhas Chandra Bose its first
Executive Officer. We thought at last we should have the same amenities as the European quarters, and
we did. Within a year asphalt began to be put on the streets of Bengali Calcutta, and we did not have to
splatter our clothes with mud during the rainy season.”22
In the meantime, the Commissioner of Kolkata Police Charles Tegart alerted Governor Lytton
about a revival of the revolutionary activities which had been suppressed during the war years. Soon
arrests started under Regulation III of 1818 after the Government linked revolutionary organisations to
five murder cases in Kolkata and to preparations of overthrowing the Government by force. After the
failed attempt on Tegart by GopinathSaha, Lytton issued a stern warning while inaugurating the new
legislative assembly on January 23, 1924. He made it clear that his Government would not be satisfied
with bringing to justice the perpetrators of violence, but would “employ emergency measures, to strike
swiftly and unhesitatingly at the leaders, to stop the poison at its source.”23
In a letter to the Viceroy describing the situation in Bengal, Lytton laid the blame squarely on
Das and Subhas for funding the revolutionaries. “Subhas Bose the new Chief Executive Officer, of the
Corporation is subscribing Rs. 1200 a month of his official salary to the Revolutionaries (sic),” and Das
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was paying them in exchange for their support to his Bengal Pact. Since the revolutionaries were
getting large amounts of money from Das and Subhas, and could therefore focus on their core activities
without having to bother about raising resources through robbery. Hence, although the situation was
apparently peaceful, the reality was actually more alarming. It was necessary to arrest Subhas, Das and
other well-known individuals, but to be able to do that, he needed more powers which could be
obtained only by enacting a law in the lines of Defence of India Regulations which had helped the
Government to suppress the revolutionary movement during the war years.24

Writing to the Home Department on July 10, the Chief Secretary of Bengal went a step ahead of
Lytton in calling Subhas an active revolutionary: “The revolutionaries now have active members in
high places, including four or five members of the Legislative Council and the Chief Executive Officer
of the Kolkata Corporation, besides supporters like C. R. Das and Byomkesh Chakravartti.” The
Government of India agreed with the assessment, pointing out the increased clout of the revolutionaries
in the political life of Bengal:
For the first time the revolutionaries can command from a political party public countenance,
secret subsidies and executive offices in a great corporation and can contribute in return
organised support in election campaigns and at political meetings and votes in a legislature. This
may clearly create a situation which it will be our duty to suppress at whatever cost and
whatever risk.25
The resolution praising Gopinath Sahaat the Bengal Provincial Conference at Serajgunjin 1924 was
taken as evidence that the Swaraj Party was openly inciting youth for committing murder. Moreover,
revolutionaries were being recruited in the Kolkata Corporation. No arrests, however, took place
immediately as exchange of views on the Ordinance proposed by the Bengal Government with the
Government of India and the British Cabinet went on till late October.
The CEO in prison

On October 22, Reading informed Olivier that the Bengal Government had scheduled October 25 to
announce the Ordinance.26 It was announced on the midnight of October 24, and by early morning of
the 25th the arrests were made. Subhas was woken up from sleep early in the morning to be told by the
deputy commissioner of police that he was being arrested under Regulation III. Reflecting the
preparation that had been going for their arrest, the warrants for their arrest were signed in July.27
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Massive searches were conducted across Kolkata and other towns in the province, but pouring
water on the intelligence on the basis of which Lytton had been fuming for many months and which
ultimately brought around the Viceroy and the British Government to announce the Ordinance, the
police failed to unearth any of the much touted bomb factories or arms which it had claimed that the
revolutionaries were accumulating.28
News of Subhas's arrest published in Amrita Bazar patrika,October 26, 1924
By his own admission, the arrest came as a surprise to Subhas, and to others as well. Even as
the deputy commissioner drove him to the Alipore Central Jail in his car, no one whom he met on the
way could think that he was being taken to jail. The surprise was not due to his ignorance of the Bengal
Government’s moves, for it was public knowledge that the Government was looking for an opportunity
to clamp down on the revolutionary groups, but because he had been away from politics since the time
of taking charge of the corporation. He had resigned from the post of the secretary of the BPCC in
April, disassociated from the editorial work in Forward, and “Everyone knew…that I was engaged day
and night in my municipal duties and had been forced to give up politics altogether.” HemendraNath
too in his biography of Subhas has pointed out the distance Subhas maintained from the work of the
revolutionary groups. “I can tell for certain, that upto the year 1924, Subhas had not the least concern
or connection with anarchical activities of any kind whatsoever.” It was rumoured that his arrest could
have been the result of some disgruntled subordinates in the corporation feeding false information to
the Government. The Forward published a letter in which an agent of the India Office claimed that
Subhas was arrested on the basis of verbal testimony of some people and in fact there was no
documentary evidence against him.29

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A wave of protests followed, throughout the country. Das, who was convalescing in Simla,
rushed back to Kolkata and called a general meeting of the Kolkata Corporation rising to his defence
and condemning the arrest. As the leader of the Swaraj Party and the mayor of the corporation, why
should be let alone if the chief executive officer was arrested? Subhas “is no more a revolutionary than
I am...If Subhas Chandra Bose is a criminal, I am a criminal.” 30 The corporation passed a vote of
confidence in favour of Subhas, with six European members opposing the motion. Nilratan Sarkar, PC
Roy, Bepin Pal, ShyamSundarCharavarti and thirty other leaders from Kolkata issued a call for a
nationwide hartal on November 1. The Indian Association also asked the Government to revoke the
Ordinance and hold trial of those arrested under existing laws.31

The Government, however, allowed Subhas to continue his work as the chief executive of the
Corporation till December 2. He received official files and met his secretary and the deputy executive
officer of the Corporation in presence of a police and a jail officer. From jail he oversaw the publication
of the Calcutta Municipal Gazette, the first issue of which was published on November 15. By the end
of November there was also speculation that the Government would release him, but nothing came of
that. On December 3 he was transferred to the Berhampore jail, cutting off the easy access to him, and
taking away the facilities provided to him as he was no more allowed to function as the chief executive.
The suspense over a probable release sometime soon remained alive, as the Government did not specify
for how long he would remain imprisoned.32
Prison thoughts
Being disassociated from the municipal work bothered Subhas, but he kept himself occupied with study
of municipal administration and making plans for the city to be executed when he was released. For
this he asked Sarat to send him books from the corporation library. To whatever little extent his
Government-sanctioned limit of writing two letters a week allowed him, he discussed the corporation
schemes for city development with elder brother Sarat and other colleagues such as Santosh Kumar
Basu.
Two days after his twenty eighth birthday, Subhas was again shifted from the jail. On his way to
Kolkata, he was informed that his final destination was the Mandalay prison in Burma. After spending
the night at the Lalbazar police station in a cell infested with mosquitoes and bugs, without decent
sanitary arrangement or privacy, Subhas’s journey to Mandalay began in the darkness of the morning.
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The four days journey by ship as a high security prisoner was as good as it could get under the
circumstances, with the Assistant Inspector General of police Lowman participating freely in
discussions on a wide range of topics with Subhas and his fellow prisoners. It was only a day before
reaching Rangoon that he got the opportunity to write to Sarat and Janaki NathBose about his
relocation. The group of prisoners were taken to Mandalay by train, escorted by a large police force.33
The hope of an early release, if any, probably died with this transfer to a land far away from
home. Among the bitter reality of being confined to a cage-like jail built from wooden palisades,
leaving the prisoners at the mercy of the weather, the only solace at the beginning was the association
of the place with some of the most prominent freedom fighters of yesteryears. LokmanyaTilak, Ajit
Singh, Lajpat Rai too had graced the Mandalay prison. There were still some people to recount
anecdotes of the Lokmanya; the lemon trees planted by him still stood as a silent witness to his
suffering.
Thoughts on the working of the Kolkata Corporation and improvement of civic amenities in the
city occupied a large part of his letters during the entire period of incarceration. The Corporation had
given him the opportunity to implement his ideas to transform the city and achieve concrete results; and
he preferred this over the verbiage of politics at this stage of life. 34 This probably also led him to
explore the possibility of getting elected the district board of the Twenty Four Parganas.35
Within the short span of six months which were available to him as the chief executive, Subhas
had chalked out programmes for developing the city and improving the quality of life of its inhabitants.
Frequent enquiries, pithy observations36 and detailed notes37 and suggestions, to the extent possible,
filled pages of his letters to Sarat and others associated with the Corporation. To stay updated on the
affairs of the Corporation, he insisted that the Government should allow the Municipal Gazette and
minutes be sent to him, permission for which was initially denied by the Intelligence Branch (IB) of the
Criminal Investigation Department (CID). The role of political considerations in appointments and
award of contracts were undoubtedly a reality in the matters of the Corporation, but what emerges
clearly from the letters is his reluctance to get involved in such matters and stay focussed on ensuring
the successful execution of the projects which had been initiated and those which he wished to but
could not. This is particularly clear from his reactions to the letters he received from employment-
seekers requesting him to endorse their candidature.
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Subhas wished that there were serious debates on the various aspects of municipal governance
before the ideas matured and were put into action. It was critical to keep abreast of the developments
taking place on municipal governance in other countries. In the age of specialised knowledge, it was
imperative for the Corporation to convince the Kolkata University to open a sub-department for
teaching municipal governance, under the political science department.38 At a more specific level,
while planning for the city’s development, he pointed out, it was important to keep in mind the nature
of its future expansion. Certain areas needed to be developed only as residential areas and therefore
facilities such as godowns for pulses and hide should be located away from them to keep the
environment healthy.39 Not happy with the city roads and the working of the Roads Department of the
Corporation, he planned to write a note for the committee studying the condition of the city’s roads,
and asked for a competent person to be sent abroad to learn the latest road construction technologies.
There was no uniform rule to make the departments efficient: while it was essential to decentralise the
Health Department and delegate responsibilities to health associations in the various municipality
wards, the Roads Department should be centralised under a specially trained engineer.40
The markets in Kolkata needed better organisation and any expansion of these was bound to be
haphazard without a proper vision. He was reading up about food preservation and suggested that the
city should have cold storages for preservation of perishable food items such as fish, meat and fruits in
order to keep a steady supply of food by reducing wastage, which would also moderate the increase in
food prices. He asked Santosh Kumar Basu to get in touch with the Ministry of Health in England or
the London County Council to obtain more information on how this could be done. To understand
better the price movements of commodities, their monthly prices in all municipal markets should be
compiled so that if necessary, corrective action can be taken in subsequent years based on an analysis
of the price variations and their reasons. Further, it bothered him that Kolkata was behind Delhi,
Bombay and Chittagong in the matter of providing compulsory primary education. “A department
which is responsible for the education of all the indigent boys and girls of Calcutta of school-going age
cannot fall short of any other department in the matter of importance.” He was annoyed that in spite of
his writing a note to Deputy Mayor Suhrawardy “he had not stirred his little finger yet”, but was later
happy with the move of the Corporation to undertake an education survey in the city. It was critical for
the Education Officer would not only take steps to make the compulsory primary education successful,
but to be conversant with educational psychology and kindergarten principles.
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The problem of river engineering, urban drainage systems and sewage disposal interested him
greatly. He was unhappy that the councillors did not pay enough attention to these problems - “Our
engineers know precious little about river and our public men know still less” - and hence he took it on
himself to delve into studying these to explore the best possible solutions to Kolkata’s problems. He
thought that it would be helpful to bring an expert from abroad to obtain insights on Kolkata’s drainage
problems. Sometimes detailed, and often brief insights on these and numerous other issues such as that
of street-lighting, encouraging home industry development through the Social Service Department,
exploring innovative ways to generate revenue, preventing recurrence of diseases such as malaria and
small pox, proper cremation of unclaimed dead bodies, managing stray dogs etc. filled the pages of his
letters.
While he remained confined in the faraway jail, Chittaranjan passed away on June 16, 1925. At
Gandhi’s intervention, the triple crown of Chittaranjan – leader of the party in the Council, Mayor of
the Corporation, and leader of the Bengal Congress – was passed on to Jatindramohan Sengupta.
Gandhi at the funeral of C R Das

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New challenges under changed circumstances

With his health failing, and suspicion of him having contracted tuberculosis, Subhas was freed from
prison on May 16, 1927. Before that, in November 1926, he was elected to the Bengal Legislative
Council from North Kolkata constituency. The Calcutta Municipal Gazette claimed that it was
“Calcutta's reply to the Government which has deprived Mr Bose of his liberty.”41
News report in the contemporary periodical Bangabani (Jyaishtha, 1334) after release of Subhas Chandra Bose from Mandalay prison.
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Quite as a coincident, his tenure of the Corporation’s CEO ended on the same day of his release.
The Corporation had waited for his return, appointing the First Deputy Executive Officer JC
Mukerjeaas the acting CEO. But now, with uncertainty over his health and release, the Corporation
appointed Mukerjea as his successor a week before his release. When the news of his release reached
the office, the Corporation celebrated by declaring it a holiday, and adopted a unanimous resolution the
next day welcoming him.
Subhas was shifted to a bungalow in Shillong – the Kelsall Lodge, which Sarat had rented– in
mid-June. The change in climate helped, and so did the presence of Janaki Nath, Prabhabati, and Sarat
and Bivabati along with their children from time to time. Dr Sunil Chandra Bose and Dr Bidhan
Chandra Roy kept him under watch.
Two issues which were at the top of his mind at this time were the continuing detention of
political workers and the disputes within the Bengal Congress. The detentions under the Regulation III
and the Criminal Law Amendment Act not only violated all forms of justice, but at the same time
prevented workers of proven mettle from rejuvenating the political movement in the province. The
factional feuds, on the other hand, was fast degenerating the formidable organisation that Chittaranjan
had built. He looked forward to attend the proceedings in the Legislative Council, which was scheduled
to sit from August 23 to 26, and obtained Bidhan Roy’s permission to travel to Kolkata.42
Sengupta was the leader chosen by Gandhi, but the feuds showed that the leadership question
was far from settled. To make progress it was imperative to settle the dispute. Subhas believed that
Chittaranjan’s widow, Basanti Devi’s acceptance of leadership would help to seal the differences.
About his position, he wrote to her:
These are critical days for Bengal. There is a serious dearth of “wholetime” workers. It will be
no exaggeration to say that Mr Sengupta has nearly given up Congress work. Kiron Babu has
served me a notice that in October he will pass all the burden on to me and retire. I do not now
find much enthusiasm or eagerness on TulsiBabu’s part in national work. You know the Big
Five – excepting TulsiBabu all of them are professional people, so they cannot devote much
time to Congress work. At the moment only BidhanBabu is interested in the work of the BPCC
but even he has very little time. The treasury of the Congress is absolutely empty.
In private letters he could open his heart to his ‘Mother’Basanti Devi and tell her what he could not
speak publicly. His letter of mid-October to her is revealing. Just before the AICC was to meet in
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Kolkata he was telling her that politics happened by accident; that the road to spirituality was more
appealing.
I have been thinking for some time why must it all be my headache, why must I alone carry this
unwanted burden to my own spiritual detriment? Politics is not a suitable field of work for me.
It is only by chance that I have drifted into the whirlpool of politics. Now I can…go back to my
chosen field. I have no attachment to the material world, so I chose not to enter worldly life. I
do not see any reason why in the present condition of the country, I should leave the path of
peace, create a new worldly snare and get myself enmeshed in it.
By the end of 1927, the political mood of the country was changing after a few listless years. In the
Madras Congress, Jawaharlal Nehru’s resolution stating India’s goal as complete independence was
adopted.43 The Congress also decided to boycott the Statutory Commission set up by the British
Government to decide on India’s constitutional progress, and to hold demonstrations where the
Commission went. Being unwell, Subhas was unable to attend the Madras Congress, but plunged into
organising boycott meetings from early 1928. Through the first three months of the year, he
campaigned tirelessly across Bengal for boycott of foreign clothes, Hindu-Muslim unity and
rejuvenating the Bengal Congress by resolving the factional feuds.
It was also the year when his political world expanded beyond Bengal. Subhas was appointed a
member of the committee formed under Motilal Nehru to determine the principles for a Constitution
for India. Starting in May, he toured several provinces including Maharashtra, where he was chosen as
the President of the provincial conference, United Provinces and Delhi. Later in the year, he was
appointed a general secretary in Independence for India League along with Jawaharlal. At the Kolkata
Congress held in December, he picked up the cause of independence, apart from organising an
impressive show of volunteer corps, much to the displeasure of Gandhi.
The increasing involvement in provincial and national politics however did not reduce his
interest in municipal politics. As his prison correspondence show, he had an unfinished agenda. There
were efforts towards the end of 1927 to reinstate him as the CEO of the Corporation, but Subhas was
not willing, probably because of his poor health.
Return to the Corporation

Subhas returned to the Corporation through a bye-election in March 1928, winning uncontested. It was
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also the time for the election of the Mayor and Deputy Mayor which were held at the first meeting of
the Corporation every year. Since Chittaranjan’s death the mayoral position had been with Jatindra
Mohan Sengupta, but in 1928 a section of Bengal Congress wanted Subhas as the mayor and he
agreed.The quality of work by the Corporation had deteriorated due to factional squabbles which
naturally led to lack of discipline and dereliction of duties by officers and workers. The state of affairs
in the Corporation at this time has been described by the same person who lived in the city, who has
been quoted above: “After that [Chittaranjan’s death and Subhas’s incarceration] there was no one to
check its steady descent into inefficiency and graft. The last had reached such proportions when I went
to work for it [in 1934] that the popular name for the Calcutta Corporation was the ‘Calcutta
Corruption’.” 44
With his keenness in civic administration, the urge to improve the state of affairs wouldn’t be
surprising. Even Sengupta, who was being played up against Subhas by a rival faction, came forward
with his support.45
At the annual session of the Congress 1928. At the centre is Motilal Nehru. On his right is Jatindra Mohan Sengupta and on his left is
Subhas Chandra Bose
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Lack of Swarajist majority in the Corporation from 1927 and an anti-Congress coalition of
Muslim and Hindu councillors representing communal interests, combined with European councillors
however led to his defeat at the hands of a liberal candidate BK Basu, who got 49 votes against 39 of
Subhas. Only one Muslim councillor out of eighteen voted for Subhas. 46 Subhas was graceful in
accepting defeat, but called out the opportunistic nature of this coalition in which, he pointed out, the
communal Hindu leaders who used to accuse Congress of being pro-Muslim had offered special
benefits to the Muslim councillors only to isolate the Congress. This kind of alliance was possible,
according to him, only because the election to the Corporation had been held immediately after the
1926 riots, thus resulting in the election of a number of communal representatives.47
Not to give up a chance to mock the Swaraj party, the conservative British newspaper The
Times noted with some glee: “Since his release from detention Mr. Bose has lost his character as a
martyr, and to-night’s rejection of his candidature is the first evidence of the disgust at his methods and
the most telling defeat which the Swarajists have suffered in Bengal.”48
When the Swarajists also lost control of the committees in the Corporation, The Times reported
that elections “for the committees took place amid scenes provoked by the disappointed supporters of
the Congress who for months had been calculating on putting Mr. Subhas Bose in control of the
Corporation.”49
The defeat was without doubt a setback for his wish to play a deciding role in shaping the city’s
municipal affairs but it was not enough to make a dent in his interest in the subject. Even as he
remained out of municipal administration,or merely as a councillor, he was frequently felicitated by
other municipalities with whom he shared his philosophy. At a reception given by the Kushtea
municipality at the end of March, for instance, he explained that it was important to capture institutions
of local governance not only to improve the administration but also to prove through these institutions
that Indians were ready for “higher responsibilities and for democracy.”50 It also opened the avenue for
reviving the democratic institutions which had existed in ancient India.51 To him, capturing the local
bodies in an organised manner was the only way to be able to implement a programme. Thus, those
who were criticising the introduction of politics in municipalities were only trying to delude people. 52
Moreover, the local bodies offered real power to serve people, in contrast to being a Minister in the
Council who had no real power. This was the training ground to make people fit for Swaraj. 53
Municipalities therefore must strive to improve the state of public health, education etc.54
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That his brief stint as the CEO of the Kolkata Corporation was well recognised is evident from
the reception given by the Poona Municipality:
We may be permitted to refer here very briefly to your interest in any sympathy with the
administration of Local Self-Governing institutions. Formerly as the chief officer of
Corporation of Calcutta and now as a corporator of the same body, you have been devoting a
large portion of your energies, otherwise more widely and intensely engaged in national work,
to the service of local Self-Government. It is, indeed, highly worthy of you that you should have
left the stamp of your genious [sic] on this civic work as you have raised noble hopes in the
minds of the Indian people by your magnanimous sacrifice and service…55
In August, Subhas along with Sengupta successfully sponsored a move to compel the Corporation
administration to refuse information sought by the education committee of the Statutory Commission.
In December, he moved a motion censuring the Mayor for throwing a garden party to the visiting
Viceroy, which was defeated again due to lack of support. If Subhas was finding ways to utilise the
Corporation for making a political statement, he was suggesting concrete measures for the city’s
improvement too. Writing in the Calcutta Municipal Gazette, he held the absence of a “full-fledged”
road department in the Corporation for the lack of proper roads; road construction was left to the
whims and fancy of the district engineers and there was no policy for building roads in a planned way
to keep up with the growing city. While the major cities around the world constructed their roads in a
scientific manner, the Kolkata Corporation did not have a laboratory to determine the nature of road
surface required for different types of roads. “If we want to tackle the question of road-making
scientifically, we should classify the roads according to the nature of the traffic…Moreover, all the
parts of the city should receive equal attention,” he suggested. A roads department headed by a fulltime
roads engineer, aided by an attached laboratory was essential. The Bombay Corporation, he noted, was
doing better work on this aspect.
Drawing attention to the work of the Nagpur municipality, he also pointed out to the immense
potential of sewage farming after removal of solid and semi-solid substances from the effluent. “The
Calcutta corporation owns the Dhappa area. It can also acquire other areas if necessary. If these areas
are developed with the help of the sewage which now runs to waste, the Corporation will be able to
make a lot of money and, thereby, serve the best interests of the rate payers!”
The Kolkata Corporation must “without delay shake off its inertia and tackle the various
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municipal problems in a thoroughly up-to-date, business-like and scientific manner,” if it wanted to

retain its reputation as a premier Corporation in India, was his warning.56
His growing involvement with labour movements at this time also led him to engage with the
union of the Corporation employees. While he encouraged them to organise themselves, struggle for
their rights and advised them on the way to take their movement forward, his first advice was regarding
their behaviour with the people they served.
…whether you are a clerk or an officer, you are, in either case, a servant of the public, and as
long as you act and behave as honourable men and as gentlemen, I think you should be proud of
yourself…You all know that here are some departments – particularly some departments of the
Government – the employees of which do not behave as servants of the public. They behave as
masters of the public…That is all the more reason why in a body like the Corporation you
should conduct yourselves in such a way as to set a standard for all public servants.57
With his involvement in national and provincial politics with increasing intensity, Subhas’s activities
regarding the affairs of the Corporation were very little in 1929. Probably the only notable development
in this field was his election in June by the Corporation members as their representative to the Bengal
Government’s Waterways Advisory Committee to consider the Grand Trunk Canal project. 58 It was the
year of Council elections, and as the president of the Bengal Provincial Congress Committee Subhas
led the campaign, touring the entire province. He was also elected as the president of the All India
Trade Union Congress, and continued the work of organising the student and youth groups throughout
Bengal as well as in other provinces. The year saw Sengupta return as the Mayor of the Corporation,
but by the end of the year the factional rivalries from which both leaders had managed to largely keep
themselves away had caught up with them.
As the year drew to an end, the ground was being prepared for his third term of imprisonment.
He was booked for sedition and unlawful procession for taking out a procession observing the All India
Political Sufferers’ day on August 11. On being sentenced to one year’s rigorous imprisonment
(reduced to nine months on appeal) in January, Subhas resigned from his seat in the Corporation. “I
shall be doing an injustice to my electorate if I retain my seat while I shall be in jail,” he wrote to the
Mayor when the Corporation passed a resolution asking him to withdraw the resignation.59
These were difficult days for Sengupta too. Suffering from poor health, he left for Singapore
[and Rangoon] in late January. He was arrested on his return and sentenced to ten days’ prison in
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Burma, only to be re-arrested and sentenced to prison in mid-April on his return from Burma. Within a
month of his release in September, he was again put in prison till January 1931. 60 The Swarajists in the
meanwhile regained control of the Corporation, emerging as the single largest party, by winning forty
three out of the eighty five seats.61 Sengupta was re-elected as the Mayor in April 1930 while in jail.
The elections to the posts of Mayor, deputy Mayor and the five Aldermen led to some bitterness as no
Muslim candidate was elected to any of these posts.
Fazlul Huq accused the Congress of moving away from the ideal and the practice espoused by
CR Das.62 “Events in the Calcutta Corporation during the last few days have convinced us Moslems
that if the Congress succeeds in capturing the administration of the country, there will be no hope for
the Moslem Minority in India,” Huq announced in a meeting of the Corporation convened to pay
homage to Gandhi, who was arrested on the midnight of May 4-5 after breaking the salt laws. “The
Maulvi’s speech, which caused a great sensation and was cheered by the gallery packed with Moslems,
is a step in the Moslem revolt against the Swarajist domination of the Corporation,” The Times noted.63
The differences were temporarily resolved when Muslim councillors were given three seats in each of
the standing committees of the Corporation in June, with the right to elect two chairmen and two
deputy-chairmen of these committees.64
Sengupta had to give up the mayoral post in August as he could not take oath of office for three
months, being in the prison. From jail, Subhas was elected as an Alderman of the Corporation on
August 18 and within the next few days, on August 22, 1930 as the next Mayor for the remaining part
of 1930-31. The transition was, however, not smooth. The factions supporting Sengupta and Bose had
earlier reached an agreement that Dr Bidhan Roy (who was elected as an Alderman of the Corporation
for the first time this year) would be the next Mayor after Sengupta’s term expired after three months.
Yet, when time came, he reneged and his supporters mounted a campaign against Roy and Subhas to
get him re-elected. Annoyed with this breach of promise, Subhas came forward to neutralise the
campaign of the Sengupta group.65
The Mayor
Released from prison on the night of September 23, Subhas took oath of office on the next day. In a
crowded Corporation office, packed with councillors, workers and visitors, Subhas outlined his
programme for the coming year. He reiterated his adherence to the 1924 mayoral speech of
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Deshbandhu where he had promised to serve the interests of all communities “unless that interest goes
against the well-being of the whole community, by which I mean the Indian people or the citizens of
Calcutta in this particular respect.” The Corporation would specially focus on the ‘Daridra Narayana,’
by providing for their housing, primary education and medical relief. Improving supply and quality of
water, ensuring cheaper and unadulterated food items, providing for better sanitation in slums and
congested areas, developing suburban areas and assuring an efficient administration were the other
priorities, which too had been promised by Deshbandhu.
A lot needed to be done, but substantial work had been done since 1924 when the Swarajists
captured the Corporation, especially in education. Giving an account of the achievements, Subhas
pointed out that number of schools had increased from 19 to 218 and number of students in these
schools (which had increased more than tenfold during these years to 25,560) accounted for a quarter
of all children of school-going age in Kolkata. Planning for housing had also made some progress.Yet,
not all children were going to school. Therefore, it was necessary to make primary education
compulsory, Subhas suggested.
It was probably on this occasion that Subhas propounded his ideological inclination towards a
combination of socialism and fascism. Referring to programme for the Corporation outlined by
Deshbandhu, he said:
…if I may put his policy and programme in modern language, I would say that we have here in
this policy and programme a synthesis of what Modern Europe calls Socialism and Fascism. We
have here the justice, the equality, the love, which is the basis of Socialism, and combined with
that we have the efficiency and the discipline of Fascism as it stands in Europe today.
An analysis of this ideological proposition is beyond the scope of this article, but it is beyond doubt
that what he was referring to was the more benign forms of the two ideologies, ignoring the their darker
sides.66
Subhas was also talking about the city’s transport issues. “We have not as yet realised the
gravity of the city’s traffic problems,” he told a meeting of the Bengal Bus Syndicate, expressing the
hope that the country will have a Ministry of Transport on gaining independence.67
A change in the work atmosphere in the Corporation also became visible with Subhas
occupying office. As one correspondent noted in the Calcutta Municipal Gazette, the cushioned chair
of the Mayor was replaced by a normal office chair which he used while working as the CEO,
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attendance became more regular, all complaints from citizens were duly forwarded to the relevant
department for reporting to the Mayor, and the preparation of administrative reports were accelerated. 68
Till the end of the year, Subhas continued to engage regularly with various localsamitis, international
delegations, interest groups, swadeshi entrepreneurial initiatives etc., and at the same time the
Corporation continued to express its views on national developments; for instance, it issued
condemnations on the arrest of Sengupta and Jawaharlal Nehru and against the first Round Table
Conference in November.69 In December 1930, Subhas started the Bengal Swadeshi League, bringing
together businessmen, industrialists, economists and Congress workers to promote Swadeshi goods in
Bengal.70
The Civil Disobedience movement started by Gandhi was on the wane and this provided Subhas
the opportunity to focus more on political organisation than agitation – he toured several places in the
province - and to lift up the profile of the Corporation. The relative calm was broken on December 8,
when three young men of Bengal Volunteers – Binoy Bose, Dinesh Gupta and Badal Gupta – walked
into the Writers’ Building and shot dead the Inspector General of prisons, Lieutenant Colonel NS
Simpson. The Secretary of the Judicial Department and an Indian orderly were injured in the attack.
The Corporation adopted a resolution condemning the “dastardly outrage” and conveyed its
“profound sympathy to the family of the deceased gentleman and the injured persons. Subhas
associated himself with the resolution but put the blame at the doorstep of the Congress programme and
the Government repression. “I sincerely deplore the tragic incidents of Monday last,” but,“it will not do
simply to brand as misguided the youths who are responsible for these incidents.” It was obvious that
there were people in the country who wanted freedom, very soon, and at any cost. The incident was “a
confession of the temporary failure of the Congress programme and also the temporary failure of the
Congress leaders to influence cent per cent of the younger generation in the country.” 71 He could not
see how violence could be prevented if the people were not convinced that the Congress’ way was the
only way to achieve freedom.
On December 19, inaugurating Chitra, the new cinema house constructed by BN Sircar, on
Cornwallis Street (now BidhanSarani), Subhas urged to develop cinema as a national industry. The first
movie to be shown there was Srikanta, based on Sarat Chandra Chattapadhyay’s novel of the same
name. He was happy that Bengalis were making efforts to achieve that, but noted that the Board of
Censors in India were not capable of realising the needs and aspirations of the country, and hence could
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not judge the standard of movies that needed to be produced. His concern was how cinemas could be
utilised for educational purposes, as in Russia. “Our cinema houses have a crowded audience today.
Most often the films are useless, even harmful. But the cinema habit, the cinema taste have come to
stay. The point then is how to make cinemas useful, how to turn them to good account.”
His personal freedom was curtailed soon enough when he went out in January 1931 to tour the
districts of North Bengal. On his way from Berhampur to Maldah, he found that he was prohibited
from entering the district. On refusing the offer of the district administration to drop the plan to visiting
Maldah and return, he was arrested and tried in an improvised Court in the Amnurarailway station (in
Bangladesh now) and sentenced to seven days’ simple imprisonment. The Corporation protested by
remaining closed on January 19, and the next day a hartal was observed in the city. After being brought
to Alipore Central Jail from Rajshahi Jail, Subhas was released on January 24.
Speaking at a reception given by Kalighat Union, he again tried to explain the severe limitations
under which the Corporation had to function. For instance, the Corporation had the financial
responsibility for supplying water in the city, but the scheme under which water was supplied was
designed by the provincial Government. A number of schemes designed by the Corporation had to wait
for approval from the Government. Thus, the scheme of compulsory primary education was stuck since
the Government had held back its approval.72
The Congress had declared its observance of January 26 as the Independence Day from 1930.
Anticipating trouble, the city police started taking precautionary measures. On Sunday, January 25, an
inspector of Kolkata Police went up to Subhas’ house, handing him a notice prohibiting him from
participating in any meeting or procession in the city the next day. Such a notice of course meant
nothing to him, and his response was typical – “Tell your boss that I will break the law.” True to his
words, he led a procession from the Corporation office to hoist the national flag and address a meeting
at the foot of the Ochterlony monument. The police tried to stop the procession, severely injuring him
and finally arrested and locked him up in Lalbazar police station without food or medical treatment.
Subhas refused to take part in the court proceedings and was sentenced to six months’ rigorous
imprisonment on charges of unlawful assembly, rioting and endangering public safety – his fifth prison
sentence in just about ten years of public life. After raising a howl over police assault on the Mayor, the
Corporation appointed a committee to enquire into the incident, which submitted its report condemning
the police action in July.
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Subhas, released early, rushed to meet Gandhi in Bombay in the middle of March to discuss the
pact the Mahatma had signed with the Viceroy on March 5. It was also the time for the annual Congress
session at Karachi. After the Congress, Subhas toured extensively addressing meetings at Delhi, Sind,
Punjab and the United Provinces, before returning to Kolkata around mid-April.
Packed off to exile, again

This time around, Subhas did not take up the mayoral post again. On April 15, BC Roy was elected the
new Mayor of the city. Subhas occupied himself with tour of Bengal’s districts, organisation of the
labour movement and subsequent elections to the BPCC, which were marred by acrimony between him
and Sengupta’s supporters. In October and November, he was arrested twice when he disobeyed
Government orders prohibiting him from entering Jagatdal and Dacca. However, when two
revolutionaries in the Hijli prison camp were killed by the guards’ firing, Subhas declared that it was
high time for unity in the Bengal Congress, and resigned from his posts of the president of BPCC and
alderman of the Corporation. He egged on the Congress leadership to start a campaign against
Government repression, receiving Gandhi at Bombay on his return from the unfruitful talks at the
Round Table Conference in London. As the Congress prepared for another round of civil disobedience,
the Government cracked whip. Subhas was arrested on his way back from Bombay on train at Kalyan
under Regulation III of 1818 on January 3, 1932. Gandhi, Ballabhbhai Patel, Jawaharlal, Rajendra
Prasad and other leaders were arrested the next day, and the Congress was declared as an unlawful
organisation.
This was the beginning of a five year long break from his political life in the country. Locked
away, first in Seoni, then in Jubbulpore, Madras and in Bhowali sanatorium in Nainital, Subhas’ health
broke down and in February 1933 he sailed for Euorpe. Even as he worked tirelessly in his exile in
Europe to campaign for India’s independence, he kept in touch with domestic politics. The larger issue
of generating international support for India’s freedom remained the prime mover, but he never lost
interest in development of cities and municipal administration.
The European models

One of his first meetings on reaching Vienna was with the Mayor of the City. The public welfare
undertaken by the socialist city administration (most notably in providing housing to two hundred
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thousand people in the past twelve years) impressed Subhas. He went around to see the city with the
municipal officials, and was so impressed with the civic amenities, construction plan of the city and the
municipality-run power utilities that he thought of writing a book on the subject for the benefit of
municipal councillors in Kolkata. He particularly took note of the fact that all this work had been
accomplished by the municipality only through its revenues generated by taxing “amusements,
luxuries, etc., with the object of making the rich pay so that the poor could be looked after better…” 73
The Mayor of Vienna, in his letter to new Mayor of Kolkata Santosh Kumar Basu, noted that Subhas
“has been studying very carefully our municipal institutions and all the social welfare work for the poor
and for children, and I hope that he found many things which will prove to be useful to your city
also.”74
Throughout his visits to the major European cities - he was received by the Mayors of Prague,
Warsaw, and Berlin - he noted their work with a keen eye of an administrator and kept writing about
them to the new Mayor of Kolkata, Santosh Kumar Basu.75 Transmitting the information was
important, but he must have tempered his expectations with the knowledge of the situation at the
ground. The Mayoral elections to the Kolkata Corporation had turned especially nasty. In the elections
held in April 1934, FazlulHaq was elected Mayor, with the support of the Muslim councillors and the
Sengupta faction of Congress over NaliniRanjan Sarkar (who was supported by the Congress
Municipal Association and by European members) as the nominated and European members of the
Corporation were not allowed to vote.76 Based on the complaint of the nominated members, the
Government, however, annulled the election77 and after two more attempts at election, Sarkar was
elected as the Mayor.78
The debilitating fight for crumbs

In July 1934, his frustrated question to Satyendra Nath Majumdar, then the editor of Ananda Bazar
Patrika, was “How much further will the quarrels in the Corporation go?” 79 “I am content to serve my
country in my own way…There is nothing to choose between the two parties in Calcutta that are now
fighting for crumbs,” he wrote bitterly to Satyendra Chandra Mitra. “I do not want to have anything to
do with the wretched party-politics of Calcutta.” 80 He was extremely upset with the way NaliniRanjan
Sarkar’s victory as Mayor was obtained – “I am ashamed to have anything to do with a party that sets
up Sj. Nalini Sarkar as the Mayor of Calcutta on the strength of European support,” he wrote to Mitra
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in October.81 When Fazlul Haq was elected the Mayor in 1935, Subhas congratulated him.82
The period from 1934 to 1937 is marked by a decline in his commentary on municipal affairs in
Kolkata. In fact, his two letters to Fazlul Huq congratulating him on his election as the new Mayor, and
condoling the death of Huq’s wife are the only communications to any Corporation official. Primarily it
was because of his detention from April 1936, when he returned home from exile against the wishes of
the Government and was promptly arrested, for the next one year. Even when he was given a public
reception in April 1937, on the occasion of his release, he spoke mainly about national problems, with
only a passing reference to the Kolkata Corporation. In fact, he made it clear that he was going to
devote his time to national politics in the near future. “While I am not in a position to announce my
future plan of work today, I should, nevertheless, make it quite clear to you that in future I intend to
devote a good portion of my time and energy to All-India problems and activities.”83
National politics was the priority now, but municipal affairs could not be completely out his
mind. However, there no sign of revival of active interest yet probably because he was appalled by the
state of affairs in the Corporation disgusted him. He had remained silent for nearly three years, and was
still not making public statements, but did not mince words on what he thought regarding the
Corporation politics when an employee of the Corporation wrote to him asking for his intervention to
improve the pay and emoluments of the “poorer” employees. In a scathing response, which the
Calcutta Municipal Gazette published in August 1937, Subhas wrote:
You have an exaggerated notion of my influence. If I have any influence with the public – it
certainly does not exist within the Corporation walls. Otherwise many things would not have
happened which have actually happened during the last few years…Nepotism has been so
rampant during the last few years that it makes me hang my head down in shame…The
arguments that are usually trotted out for resisting the claims of the poorer employees to an
increase in their pay and emoluments would do credit to the most deep-dyed bureaucrat. My
sense of fairness as a human being and my conscience as a Congressman revolts at it – but for
the time being I am helpless.
As a Congressman, I have a certain responsibility for what is happening within the Corporation,
and I am fully alive to it…I cannot tell you to-day how I shall act when I am back to my work. I
can only tell you this that if I have anything to do with Bengal politics – the Augean stables of
the Calcutta Corporation will have to be swept clean, or, in the alternative, the Congress Party
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will have to wash its hands of any responsibility for what the Calcutta Corporation does.
Although he had not definitely made up his mind to return to the Corporation, he was certainly
considering the option. “Can you let me have your opinion as to what should be done to cleanse the
Augean stables?” he asked Santosh Kumar Basu in a letter.85
Subhas was formally back to the Corporation in September, being unanimously elected as an
Alderman. The ex-mayor FazlulHuq was now at the helm of the Bengal Government, and when the
news of the Government’s plans to overhaul the constitution of the Corporation emerged, Subhas
issued a warning, ironically, invoking the memory of SurendraNath Banerjee, whom he had not
hesitated to trivialise in his youth. “If Mr Fazlul Huq takes a step in the direction of further
democratisation, or attempts to recast the constitution on Socialistic principles, we shall welcome it…
The citizens of Calcutta have not won their constitution without a fight…But that fight was a backyard
scrap compared to what Mr Fazlul Huq will have to face, if his rump of reactionaries attempts to
trample under foot the legacy of the late Sir Surendra Nath Banerjee,” he told the United Press. 86 His
reference was to the efforts to bring back the system of separate electorate for Muslims, which
Banjerjee’s Act had stipulated only for the first nine years.
Rashtrapati’s city
The return to Corporation was temporary. Subhas left for Europe again in November, and when he
returned in late January 1938, his selection as the Congress President kept him occupied. At one of the
civic receptions, arranged by the Bombay Municipal Corporation, he again outlined his thoughts
regarding municipal administration. Appreciating the work done by the Bombay Corporation, he
described the achievements of the municipality in Vienna and referred to the programme laid down by
CR Das for the Kolkata Corporation. The world was moving towards what he termed as “Municipal
Socialism,” – “a collective effort for the service of the entire community.” “Today a modern
municipality has to furnish not merely pure drinking water, roads, lighting, etc., but it has to provide
primary education and it has to look after the health of the population and to tackle problems of infant
mortality, maternity, drainage and the like – problems which the municipalities did not think of a few
years ago. It is difficult to say where you are going to draw a line in future.”87
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At the podium of the Haripura Congress, 1938
The Kolkata Corporation, however, was still plagued with internecine quarrels. Drawn into such
a quarrel over the dismissal of the Corporation’s education officer, Subhas first tried to work out an
honourable compromise, but failing to achieve that resigned from the post of Alderman as well as the
leader of the Congress Municipal Association in June. When the Municipal Association pressed him to
withdraw the resignation, he demanded greater discipline amongst the Congress members and re-
consideration of the dismissal of the Education Officer, which he thought had been done unfairly. With
the efforts of Subhas for reforming the working of the Corporation gaining wide support, the Municipal
Association acquiesced to his demands and Subhas withdrew his resignation around mid-July.88
In an effort to induce greater efficiency and transparency in the Corporation, the Municipal
Association under Subhas appointed a sub-committee to frame rules for recruitment in the Corporation
through competitive examinations. The Calcutta Municipal Gazette announced that Subhas would be
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preparing a comprehensive scheme for the “general welfare of the city.” At the same time, Subhas
applied for lease of a plot on the east of Chittaranjan Avenue for ninety nine years at a nominal rate for
erection of a building, which later came to be known as the Mahajati Sadan.89
The break with Congress, and search for alternatives

The efforts driven by Subhas soon ran into the ground with the acrimonious contest between him and
the Gandhian faction over his re-election as the Congress President and Congress policy in the wake of
the Second World War. As an Alderman, his association with the Corporation continued, dotted
withwith numerous receptions and felicitations, but was perforce tenuous, except during his opposition
to amendments to the Municipal Bill proposed by the Fazlul Huq Ministry, which was in turn an
extension of the development in national politics.
According to the original Act of 1923, the provision of separate electorates for Muslims came to
an end in 1932. Elections to the Corporation were henceforth to be held by mixed electorates; but by
the same amendment, the Government increased by the number of seats reserved for Muslims by six(its
support to an amendment to the Act sponsored by MaulaviAbulKasem seeking re-introduction of
separate electorate system was defeated in the Legislative Council).90
Calling the proposed amendment to re-introduce communal electorate in Corporation elections
“a crime against democracy and progress,”Subhas reminded the Huq Government in April 1939 of his
earlier promise to fight its attempt to “pamper with the Calcutta Municipal Act,” but said that he had
not made up his mind over the form of opposition. 91 Despite his intentionshe failed to build up an
opposition, mainly because of his preoccupation with national politics since the Tripuri Congress. The
Bill was passed and the next elections to the Corporation held in March 1940 were held under the new
law. Under the new arrangement, 47 out of 98 seats were reserved for Hindus (of which four were for
Scheduled castes), 22 for Muslims, 12 for special constituencies such as Bengal Chamber of
Commerce, etc., eight for nominated members (of which three were for Scheduled castes), five for
elected Aldermen, two for labour and two for Anglo-Indians.92
In the meantime, Subhas had been banned from Congress for three years from August 1939 and
the BPCC headed by him was dismissed by the Congress Working Committee (CWC). While he toured
the country to organise his ‘Forward Bloc’ the CWC appointed an ad hoc BPCC first headed by
MaulanaAbulKalam Azad and later by Surendra Mohan Ghose, as the dismissed BPCC continued with
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Subhas at its head. In an atmosphere of communal polarisation Subhas reached out to all parties in an
attempt to forge a broad coalition as far as the Corporation was concerned. Stating that the Corporation
dealt with civic affairs, and the political and communal questions did not hold a prominent position, he
invited all parties to work together for the interest of the city’s development.
He followed up his appeal by striking an alliance with the Hindu Mahasabhain February-March
for contesting the elections and thereafter running the Corporation. But the understanding soon broke
down over the selection of candidates. He made another attempt at reaching an understandingafter the
elections, but that effort too failed to materialise due to differences over selection of Aldermen. Subhas
then took a step which was unthinkable to the Congress or the Mahasabha: he entered an agreement
with the Muslim League. By this arrangement AR Siddiqi of Muslim League was elected the new
Mayor.
Expectedly, the decision came in for strong criticism from various quarters. What the
MasikBasumati wrote probably reflected the views of a large section of people:
We have agreed with Subhasbabu’s programme many a times, and at times have disagreed with
him too. We are however infinitely surprised and saddened by his recent act…Whatever else
Subhasbabu’s Forward Bloc does, it at least stands for a united India; Muslim League on the
other hand wants to weaken India by dividing her into India and Pakistan…When Subhasbabu
was the Congress President, he knocked on Jinnah’s door more than once to unite Congress and
Muslim League. If could not succeed then, what is the secret of his success now? We are not
only saddened to see Subhasbabu plunge into the filth of politics, we are shocked!”93
Prabasi (edited by Ramananda Chattapadhyay, a Hindu Mahasabha sympathiser), one of the most
prominent Bengali literary magazines, had its own interest in decrying the development. It had heartily
supported the initial agreement between Subhas and the Hindu Mahasabha, warning that if they failed
to work together, the influence of the Hindus in the Corporation would decline, leading to waste of
money and undertaking welfare work will be difficult.94 With the Subhas-Mahasabha agreement
breaking down, Subhas became the target of the magazine’s ire. Modern Review, the other magazine
edited by Chattapadhyay also kept writing in the same tone. Presiding over a Mahasabha meeting at the
Town Hall to oppose the Subhas-League agreement, he claimed that Subhas was indirectly supporting
the Pakistan demand of the League, and insinuated that Subhas’s opposition to the amended
Municipality Act and his pronouncements at the Anti-Compromise Conference at Ramgarh were only
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empty words.95
Within the Corporation, NC Chatterjee,96 leader of the Hindu Mahasabha party, took up the fight
against the coalition, accusing it of discrimination and party prejudices. The All India Hindu
Mahasabha Working Committee meeting held in May in Bombay adopted a resolution condemning the
pact for being “highly detrimental to Hindu solidarity and interests in Bengal.”97
While the Ananda Bazar Patrika and the Hindustan Standard were supportive of Subhas,
amongst the contemporary magazines the one which came out in support of Subhas most prominently
at this time was Jayasree, edited by Leela Roy. Roy, in her editorial observed that the Mahasabha’s
victory in a number of seats indicated the increasing interest in a sizeable section of middle class
Hindus to protect their interests in reaction to Bengal Government’s policies; but sannyasis dressed in
saffron and carrying tridents, and jumping up and down to canvass for votes for lawyers and barristers
was neither a pleasant sight nor did it bode well for the Hindu Society. Roy welcomed the
understanding between Subhas and the Mahasabha as a step towards preventing the European bloc
from taking over the Corporation.98 A month later, she argued that amongst other reasons, the pact
between Subhas and the Muslim League could be beneficial as it restricted the space for any third party
(the British) to make mischief and aggravate the communal polarisation and gave a chance to national
integration.99
Subhas responded to his critics defended his approach of building coalitions with ‘communal’
organisations in his party organ Forward Bloc. Referring to the ban imposed by the Congress on
members of Hindu Mahasabha or the Muslim League joining any elective committee of the Congress,
he wrote, “While trying to discard social untouchability, we are, as it were, encouraging political
untouchability.” Accusing the Congress to be prejudiced against him, he claimed that this alliance with
the Muslim League actually held out hope that Hindu-Muslim question could be solved on a permanent
basis.
We, on our part, do not regard the communal organisations as untouchable. On the contrary, we
hold that the Congress should try continuously to woo them over to its side. During the last
three years, repeated attempts have been made to bring about a rapprochement between the
Congress and the Muslim League…At that time, the attempt failed, though the writer had been
blessed by the Congress Working Committee and by Mahatma Gandhi. Those who had not
objected to that attempt which failed ultimately, now strongly object to the present attempt,
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because it has succeeded. Can prejudice go any further?

…This time we have broken through the wall and through the fissure, a ray of light has poured in. there
is now some hope that we may ultimately succeed in solving a problem which has proved well nigh
insoluble to many. Great achievements are often born out of small beginnings.100
Trying to build up from this agreement, Subhas issued an appeal to Gandhi and Jinnah to make
an attempt for the settlement of the Hind-Muslim question so that a joint demand for transfer of full
powers to the Indian people through a provisional national Government could be made. 101 In June he
met Gandhi, Jinnah and Savarkar to find a way to unified struggle against the British. 102 But before he
could take this initiative any further, he was arrested under the Defence of India Act on July 2, for his
announced plan of agitation for the removal of the Holwell Monument.
Thus the curtain fell on his involvement with the administration of the city which he had learnt
to love and had adopted as his own.
The broken dream and an unanswered question

Tragically, between 1924 and January 1941, a journey that started with great hopes ended in petty
squabbling. The desire to set an example before the world of the administrative prowess of Indians
gave way to patronage seeking, promotion of sectarian interests, and plain corruption.
Two aspects of Subhas’s involvement during these years that stand out are (a) his clear
conception of what needed to be done to improve the city, and (b) his willingness and capability to
provide leadership to reach the goal. The achievements in the first few months, and the return of the
original spirit when he became Mayor show that the city could have progressed as planned. But the
external environment was anything but favourable. The death of Chittaranjan Das in 1925 was a
watershed in Bengal politics. With the power to hold together the various interest groups gone with
him, and Subhas away in jail, the influence of the central Congress increased steadily, the effect of
which were not completely beneficial. Out of these seventeen years in question, Subhas spent more
than eight years in exile, and over a year in prison. This was time enough for factional feuds amongst
the Congress workers as amongst the revolutionary groups and between leaders to take firm roots; a
development whose direction was also determined by the influence of national politics.
He was learning from the world about municipal Governance and trying to pass the knowledge
on to the institution, but realised very quickly that unless he took the lead himself, these would remain
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just ideas. Tragically, even his sporadic involvement was not enough to stem the rot. Along with the
squabbles, his own increasing involvement in the national politics would not allow Subhas to be able to
successfully implement his thoughts.
The natural question that therefore arises is: could he have prevented the decline in any way?
Clearly he did not have the command which Chittaranjan enjoyed over the political players in the
province. Additionally, the opponents (within and outside Congress) were more virulent and the stakes
were far higher. But undoubtedly, he was the tallest leader and had the boldness and resourcefulness to
try out the implementation of new strategies demanded by the time. Probably, if he had more time to
devote, the Corporation would be different. Yet, this shall remain a hypothetical question.
What is more important is the fact that his involvement – not too long and sporadic – shows
Subhas in a different light, as a modern thinker on civic administration, quite different from the image
of the militant leader that has been traditionally associated with him.
Notes
1. Gandhi’s speech at the special session of the Congress at Kolkata in September 1920; Swaraj in
One Year, Young India, 22 September, 1920, Swaraj in Nine Months, Young India, 29 December
1920, in Swaraj in One Year, pp. 1-26
2. Bengal Legislative Council Proceedings, 1921, Fifth Session, Vol. V, pp. 121-128
3. Bengal Provincial Congress 1917
4. Congress Politics in Bengal, p 52; Subhas Chandra, p 40
5. Subhas Chandra O Netaji Subhas Chandra, Sabitri Prasanna Chattapadhyay, pp. 33-35; Sroter
Trina, BirendranathSasmal, p 29
6. Indian Annual Register, 1922-23, Vol. 1, pp. 813-872 (n)
7. Social Conflict and Political Unrest in Bengal, p 317
8. Elite Conflict in a Plural Society, p 245
9. Indian Annual Register 1923 Volume II Supplement, pp. 127-128
10. Indian Annual Register 1923 Volume II Supplement, pp. 121-127, 134-145
11. The crucial role which Forward went on to play can be gauged from its assessment by the
bitterest critic and opponent of the Swaraj Party – the Governor of Bengal Lord Lytton.
Referring to the publicity campaign of the party, he wrote, “their official organ The Forward – a
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most excellent newspaper, well printed, well edited and cleverly written – is their most
effective weapon.”Memorandum by the Governor of Bengal, August 31, 1924, Cabinet
Records, CAB/24/168/0060
12. Elite Conflict in a Plural Society, pp. 330-331; Subhas Chandra, pp. 68-69; DeshapranSasmal,
pp. 106-113
13. Je Kathar Shesh Nei, p 54
14. The Indian Struggle, p 136
15. Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das, pp. 96-97
17. IB 1924, ‘Non-Cooperation – the Swarajya Party’, cited in Social Conflict and Political Unrest
in Bengal, p 320
18. Young India, July 31, 1924, Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. 28, pp. 391-392
19. Subhaser Songe Baro Bochhor, pp. 140-1
20. A Nation in Making, pp. 360-364. Subhas’s position on this point was completely opposite. In
numerous speeches he reiterated his own view that life should be considered as one whole, and
cannot be compartmentalized between the political and the non-political.
21. Lord Olivier and Mr Das, The Times, July 29, 1924, p 11. The Times regularly quoted from the
Bengalee to show the Swarajya party and Das in poor light.
22. Autobiography of an Unknown Indian: Part II, p 379
23. Lytton’s address to the Bengal Legislative Assembly on January 23, 1924, The Bengal
Legislative Council Proceedings, 1924, Volume XIV, No. 1, pp.6-7
24. Letter from Lytton to the Viceroy, June 26, 1924, Cabinet Records, CAB/24/168/0025
25. Letter from the Chief Secretary to the Government of Bengal to the Government of India, July
10, 1924; Dispatch No. 2 of 1924 from Government of India to India Office, August 9, 1924,
Cabinet Records, CAB/24/168/0048
26. Telegram from Viceroy to the Secretary of State, October 22, 1924, Records of the Cabinet
Office, CAB/24/168/0079
28. The Indian Quarterly Register, July-December 1924, p 160; Prabasi, Agrahayan, 1331, p 264
29. The Indian Struggle, p 153; Subhas Chandra, p 74
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30. Subhas Chandra, p 75

31. The Indian Quarterly Register, 1924, July-December, pp. 176, 180-181
32. The Indian Struggle, pp. 181-182; My Uncle Netaji, p 16
34. Expressing initial reluctance to contest elections to the Bengal Council in 1926, he wrote to
Sarat, “if I have to choose between civic work and politics – I am not sure that I shall feel
inclined to give up a less humble but more tangible programme in favour of a more wordy one.”
Letter to Sarat Chandra Bose, March 17, 1926, Netaji Collected Works, Vol. 3, p 259
35. Letter to Sarat Chandra Bose, January 24, 1925, Netaji Collected Works, Vol. 3, p 35
36. Letter to Sarat Chandra Bose, May 22, 1925, p 64; Letter to Sarat Chandra Bose, June 6, 1925,
Netaji Collected Works, Vol. 3 p 69
37. Letter to Sarat Chandra Bose, August 18, 1925, Netaji Collected Works, Vol. 3, p 105
38. Letter to Santosh Kumar Basu, April 26, 1926, Netaji Collected Works, Vol. 3, pp. 279-83
39. Letter to Sarat Chandra Bose, July 2, 1925, Netaji Collected Works, Vol. 3, pp. 72-3
40. Letter to AC Ukil, June 1926, Netaji Collected Works, Vol. 3, p 305
41. Calcutta Municipal Gazette, November 27, 1926, p 69
42. From his letters written to Sarat from Mandalay, it can be seen that Subhas was as serious about
learning the ropes of Council politics as he was in any other work he took up. From Shillong, he
advised Sarat, who had been elected from the Calcutta University constituency, that in each
session he should do something to nurse his constituency. It was not possible, he knew, to do
anything substantial, “but one has to make a show – by means of questions and resolutions.”
Letter to Sarat Chandra Bose, August 11, 1927, NetajiCollected Works, Vol. 4, pp 250-251
43. Gandhi was extremely unhappy with this development and sternly rebuked Jawaharlal for what
he considered to be a hasty decision.
44. Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, Part II, p 379
46. Calcutta Municipal Gazette, April 14, 1928, pp. 919-928
47. Subhas Rachanabali, Vol. 1, pp. 166-167
48. Independent Mayor of Calcutta: A Swarajist Defeat, The Times, April 3, 1928
49. Swarajists Defeated in Calcutta, The Times, April 5, 1928
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50. Calcutta Municipal Gazette, March 31, 1928, p 50

51. Subhas Rachanabali, Vol 1. p 96
52. Calcutta Municipal Gazette, February 25, 1928, p 49
53. Calcutta Municipal Gazette, June 9, 1928, p 61
54. Subhas Rachanabali, Vol. 1, p 200
55. Calcutta Municipal Gazette, May 19, 1928, p 60
56. Two of our Problems, Calcutta Municipal Gazette, November 17, 1928, pp. 62-63
57. Calcutta Municipal Gazette, December 15, 1928, pp. 246-250; Subhas Rachanabali, Vol. 1, pp.
289-291
59. Calcutta Municipal Gazette, January 25, 1930, pp. 454-455
60. Brothers against the Raj, p 224
61. Swarajist Control in Kolkata, The Times, March 20, 1930
62. Brothers against the Raj, pp. 226-7
63. Revolt against Congress, The Times, May 16, 1930
64. Hindu Concession to Kolkata Moslems, The Times, June 12, 1930
65. Interaction at a reception organised by Bangiya Jana Sangha at Albert Hall, Kolkata, November
9, 1930, Subhas Rachanabali, Vol. 3, pp 35-39
66. Calcutta Municipal Gazette, September 27, 1930
67. Calcutta Municipal Gazette, October 25, 1930, pp. 989-990
68. Calcutta Municipal Gazette, October 18, 1930, p 925
69. Calcutta Municipal Gazette, November 8, 1930, p 1069; November 15, 1113-1115
71. Calcutta Municipal Gazette, December 13, 1930, pp. 213-215
72. Speech at a reception by the Kalighat Union, January 25, 1931, Subhas Rachanabli, Vol. 3, pp.
60-62
73. Letters to Santosh Kumar Basu, Mayor of Calutta, May 11 and May 23, 1933, Netaji Collected
Works, Vol. 8, pp. 10-11, 13-14.
74. Calcutta Municipal Gazette, November 17, 1933
75. Letters to Santosh Kumar Basu, June 18, 1933, March 14, 1934, April 7, 1934, Netaji Collected
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Works, Vol. 8, pp. 16-17, 57-60, 64-66

76. First Moslem Mayor of Kolkata, The Times, April 11, 1934
77. Kolkata Election Annulled, The Courier and Advertiser, May 14, 1934.
78. New Mayor of Kolkata Elected, The Times, July 5, 1934.
79. Letter to Satyendra Nath Majumdar, July 5, 1934, Netaji Collected Works, Vol. 8, p 72
80. Letter to Satyendra Chandra Mitra, July 25, 1934, Netaji Collected Works, Vol. 8, p 75
81. Letter to Satyendra Chandra Mitra, October 18, 1934, Netaji Collected Works, Vol. 8, p 83
82. Letter to Fazlul Huq, May 10, 1935, Netaji Collected Works, Vol. 8, p 96
83. Calcutta Municipal Gazette, April 10, 1937, pp. 659-660
84. Calcutta Municipal Gazette, August 14, 1937, p 496
85. Letter to Santosh Kumar Basu, August 17, 1937, Netaji Collected Works, Vol. 8, p 220
86. Calcutta Municipal Gazette, October 9, p 810
87. Address to the Bombay Corporation, May 10, 1938, Netaji Collected Works, Vol. 9, pp. 31-35.
He spoke in similar terms at a reception given by the Lucknow Municipality in November and
Karachi Municipality in December (Calcutta Municipal Gazette, November 26, 1938, p ix;
December 10, p 130)
88. Brothers against the Raj, p 368
89. Calcutta Municipal Gazette, July 30, 1938, p 310
90. Kolkata: Story of its Government, pp. 246-247
91. Statement to Associated Press, Calcutta Municipal Gazette, April 22, p 848
92. Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, pp. 107-108
93. Bosu-League Jogajog, Masik Basumati, Baishakh 1347, p 166
94. Prabasi, Baishakh (April-May), 1347, pp. 113, 126.
95. Prabasi, Jyaishtha (May-June), 1347, pp. 241-244, 247-249; Ashadh (June-July), pp. 382-384,
397-398
96. Father of Communist leader and later Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee
97. The Modern Review, June 1940, pp. 617-618, 625
98. Jayasree, Baisakh (April-May), 1347, pp. 1156-1157
99. Jayasree, Jyaishtha (May-June), 1347, p 1229
100. Signed editorial in Forward Bloc, May 4, 1940, in Netaji Collected Works, Vol. 10, pp.
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98-100
102. Subhas Chandra O Netaji Subhas Chandra, p 107
Bibliography
Books
A Nation in Making, Sir SurendranathBanerjea, 1931, Humphrey Milford, Oxford University Press
Autobiography of an Unknown Indian: Part II, Nirad C Chaudhuri, Jaico Publishing House
Bengal Divided: Hindu Communalism and Partition, JoyaChatterji
Bengal Provincial Congress 1917, Yatindra Kumar Ghosh (compiled), Firma KL Mukhopadhyay
Brothers against the Raj: A Biography of Sarat& Subhas Chandra Bose, Leonard A Gordon, Viking
Kolkata: Story of its Government
Congress Politics in Bengal: 1919-1939, Srilata Chatterjee, Anthem Press
DeshapranSasmal, PramathaNath Pal, The Central Book Agency
Deshbandhu Chittaranjan Das, HemendranathDasgupta, Publications Division, Ministry of
Information and Broadcasting, Government of India.
Elite Conflict in a Plural Society: Twentieth Century Bengal, JH Broomfield, University of California
Press
Je KatharSheshNei, GopalLalSanyal, JayasreePrakashan
My Uncle Netaji, AsokeNath Bose, BharatiyaVidyaBhavan.
Swaraj in One Year, Mahatma Gandhi, Ganesh & Co, Madras, May 1921
The Bengal Legislative Council Proceedings, 1921, Fifth Session, Vol. V
The Bengal Legislative Council Proceedings, 1924, Volume XIV, No. 1
Social Conflict and Political Unrest in Bengal: 1875-1927, RajatKanta Ray, Oxford University Press
Sroter Trina, BirendranathSasmal, GopinathBharati
Subhas Chandra, HemendraNathDasgupta, JyotiProkasalaya
Subhas Chandra O Netaji Subhas Chandra, SabitriPrasannaChattapadhyay, JayasreePrakashan
Subhas Rachanabali,JayasreePrakashan
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SubhaserSongeBaroBochhor: 1912-24, Hemanta Kumar Sarkar, Sarkar & Co.

The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi (Electronic Book), New Delhi, Publications Division
Government of India, 1999
The Indian Annual Register, 1922-23, Volume 1, HN Mitra (ed), Gian Publishing House
The Indian Annual Register, 1923, Volume II Supplement, Gian Publishing House
The Indian Quarterly Register, July-December 1924, HN Mitra (ed) The Annual Register Office
The Indian Struggle: 1920-34, Subhas Chandra Bose, Thacker, Spink& Co. Ltd
Newspapers and Magazines

Jayasree, Baisakh, Jyaishtha, 1347
Masik Basumati, Baishakh 1347
Prabasi, Agrahayan, 1331; Baishakh, Jyaishtha, Ashadh, 1347
The Courier and Advertiser
The Modern Review, June 1940
The Times
Official Records
British Cabinet Records, accessed from the British National Archives
Chandrachur Ghose is a business strategy consultant by profession based in Gurgaon, National

Capital Region (NCR), India. He is a founder member of MissionNetaji, a group that conducts
research on various aspects of the life, work and the mysterious disappearance of Subhas Chandra
Bose, and runs the website www.subhaschandrabose.org.
Echoes from the Past: Revisiting ‘Old Kolkata’ in
Gorosthane Sabdhan
Kallol Gangopadhyay
Abstract
Ace Bengali Filmmaker and writer, Satyajit Ray created the character of ‘Feluda’, a detective who
earned a niche in the minds of readers both young and old. One such text being Gorosthane Sabdhan
set in the backdrop of Kolkata.
The paper attempts to understand the links and co-relate the anecdotes on incidents and objects
surrounding the text "Gorosthane Sabdhan" and literature available on the history of old Kolkata. It
tries to present the foundation of the fiction (story) along with the parallel information available from
primary and secondary literature on Kolkata, tracing the influential trajectory.
Keywords
Cemetery, church, adventure, mystery, British, native.
Introduction
After continually writing for six days (27 August – 1 September) in 1977 Satyajit Ray completed his
15th narrative on Feluda. It was published that very year in the festival (Durga Puja) issue of Desh
(magazine) by the name "Gorosthane Sabdhan" (The Secret of the Cemetery), which had the name
"Sabdhan Gorosthan" in the first draft. The book "Gorosthane Sabdhan" was published in 1979. Sleuth
Feluda’s own city Kolkata1 had featured in couple of stories earlier, yet this is the first full length novel
from the author to his readers which features Kolkata as the heartland of all adventures. As Topshe
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narrates, ‘Feluda and I had travelled to so many different places trying to solve mysteries – Sikkim,
Lucknow, Rajasthan, Simla, Varanasi – and had had plenty of adventures everywhere. But I had no idea
that this time; we would get involved in such a bloodcurdling experience without even stepping out of
Kolkata’ (Ray 2004: 89).
Feluda’s Passion meets Profession
It was impossible for Feluda alias Pradosh Chandra Mitra to get involved in the mystery surrounding
the cemetery in Kolkata if the history of old Kolkata did not interest him. In Topshe’s opinion Sidhu
jeytha2 is partly responsible for Feluda’s interest in old Kolkata. ‘In the last three months, he had read
endless books on the subject, looked at scores of pictures and studied dozens of maps’ (Ray 2004: 3) as
a result.
In "Gorosthane Sabdhan", Feluda talks about the initial years of this city’s history and in the
very opening sequences of the novel, we encounter a real character who lived 325 years back in this
city. He is Job Charnock. Feluda’s interest in old Kolkata drew him to visit Job Charnock’s tomb in St.
John’s Churchyard with Topshe and Lalmohan Babu.
As Topshe states, ‘After seeing Job Charnock’s grave Feluda was keen to make us visit the old
cemetery at Park Street’ (Ray 2004: 6) but the sudden bad weather played spoilsport that day as the
novel narrates.
But that evening in South Park Street cemetery a strange incident took place. The fierce storm
blew off a large branch of a mango tree and seriously injured a middle-aged man named Narendra Nath
Biswas. The very next day Feluda along with Topshe and Lalmohan Babu discovers a recently dug pit
at the site of the accident. Someone had dug a pit beside the grave of a Britisher, named Thomas
Godwin. This triggered a suspicion in Feluda’s mind which gave rise to a power packed mystery –
central to which is a peculiar crime – grave digging. ‘It was clear that we had got embroiled in a
bizarre mystery’ Topshe thinks, ‘It was like being lost in a maze ... something perhaps even more
complex than the Bhoolbhulaia in lucknow’ (Ray 2004; 51).
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Calcutta within Kolkata
To resolve the mystery in the seventies the three musketeers boarded in Lalmohan Babu’s newly
purchased second-hand Mark II Ambassador and travelled through the heart of Kolkata from New
Alipore to Chowringhee. At the same time they also stealthily adventured through the unknown
historical alleys and by the lanes of old Kolkata. As a reason we see another Kolkata unravelling which
was embedded within. This is more exhilarating than fiction.
The paper tries to thread into a timeline the information and clues available on old Kolkata
based on the novel Gorosthane Sabdhan and look back on the days and times once lived in the city.
In an attempt to construct the city of memories, the topics which we have identified as markers
appear in the story line as per the following sequence:
• Fancy lane and the hanging of Nanda Kumar
• Kolkata – from a trading factory to the City of Palaces
• St. John’s Churchyard and Charnock’s Mausoleum
• South Park Street cemetery
• Ochterlony Monument
• Lower Circular road cemetery
• Adjutant (Hargila) birds
• The White Town and the Black Town
• Bourne and Shepherd
• Charnock’s grave and its opening in 1892
But if we want to arrange the incidents chronologically the sequence will change to form a new order:
• Kolkata – From a trading factory to the City of Palaces
• St. John’s Churchyard and Charnock’s Mausoleum

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• The White Town and the Black Town
• Adjutant (Hargila) birds
• Fancy Lane and the hanging of Nanda Kumar
• South Park Street cemetery Fancy lane and the hanging of Nanda Kumar
• Ochterlony Monument
• Lower Circular road cemetery
• Bourne and Shepherd
• Charnock’s grave and its opening in 1892
Travelling against the tide of time, our virtual tour of old Kolkata will begin with the new order listed
above – with Job Charnock as guided by chronology.
Kolkata – from a trading factory to the City of Palaces
According to Feluda, although Kolkata was a ‘young’ city compared to Delhi and Agra, its importance
could not be undermined. It was true that Kolkata did not have a Taj Mahal, or a Qutab Minar, or the
kind of forts one might see in Jodhpur and Jaisalmer, or even a famous alley like Vishwanath ki gali in
Benaras (Ray 2004: 3-4).
‘But just think,’ Feluda had said to Topshe, ‘one day, an Englishman was sitting by the Ganges
in a place that was really a jungle, packed with flies, mosquitoes and snakes, and this man
thought he’d build a factory in the same place. And then, in no time, the jungle was cleared,
buildings were built, roads were made, rows of gas lights appeared, horses galloped down those
roads, palkis ran, and in a hundred years, the place came to be known as the city of palaces’.
(Ray 2004: 4)
It is believed that Job Charnock stepped out gingerly from his merchant boat onto the banks of the river
Ganga near the village Kalikata on 24 August 1690.This brought to the world the news of a tiny Bengal
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village, Kalikata. Though the history of the city is generally dated from Charnock’s entry, but the High
Court of Kolkata on 16 May 2003 ruled that neither could ‘Charnock be regarded as the founder of
Kolkata, nor (could) the claim that Kolkata was born on 24 August, 1690’ 3 be substantiated historically.
The judgement was almost entirely based on the finding that the history of Kolkata stretched way into
the centuries past before Charnock had even set foot on the Indian soil.
There exists at the India Office a series of eleven volumes, extending to 1706, the first of which
is entitled ‘Diary and Consultation Book for affairs of the Rt. Hon’ble English East India Company
kept by the Rt. Worshipfull the Agent and Council, beginning July 16, 1690.’ Here may be read, in the
words of Charnock, the story of how on the 24th August, 1690, the English occupied the deserted
village of Suttanuttee for the third and final time:
Extracts from Chutanutte Diary and Consultation, August 24, 1960. Factory Records, Calcutta,
No. 1.
The arrival.
August 24th, 1690. – We arrived about noon but found the place in a deplorable condition
nothing being left for our present accommodation, and the Rains falling day & night, We are
forced to betake ourselves to boats, which considering the Season of the years is very unhealthy.
(Wilson 1906: 6)
Calcutta was then full of jungle, and might not inaptly be termed a part of the Sunderbunds. It
was a swamp. [...] The jungle, the dampness of the soil, the impure air blowing from the
Sunderbunds and the Salt-water Lake standing in its vicinity were all insanitary factors, and
Calcutta, in consequence, was the picture of unhealthiness. [...] Wild boars, crocodiles,
alligators, reptiles and leopards infested the place, [...]. It seems wonderful today that, in spite of
these disadvantages, Job Charnock selected the site - ‘this very small spot of raising ground on
the east side of the river’- as the trading centre. It would scarcely be reasonable to credit him
with a calculating prescience of the glory of the town, and one can only regard him as the
unconscious instrument of a Divine purpose. Whatever the reasons of his choice, it has been
justified by the event, and to-day it is possible to describe him as ‘the illustrious Job Charnock
the first conspicuous Englishman on this side of the world’. (Deb 1905: 8)
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Calcutta, as it is to-day, may truly be called a great and magnificent city. [...] The various
institutions of public utility, the structural improvements and improved sanitation, the rapid
increase of population, and the growing progress of arts and commerce, have transformed this
once unhealthy cluster of villages into a town of conspicuous prosperity and grandeur. One is
almost staggered and awed at the unprecedented increase of luxury and magnificence that have
attended the change when he looks at the innumerable, broad and well paved roads running
symmetrically, and the many houses that have sprung up, whose splendour and the beauty have
deservedly won for Calcutta the appellation of ‘The City of Palaces’, […]. (Deb 1905: 1-2)
St. John’s Churchyard and Charnock’s Mausoleum
Topshe writes, ‘Job Charnock’s tomb- said to be the first brick structure built in Kolkata- was in the
compound of the two-hundred-year-old St. John’s Church BBD Bagh’ (Ray 2004: 4). There is also a
mention of the Latin inscription in Gorosthane Sabdhan. Feluda explains the meaning to Topshe and
Lalmohan Babu.
The Charnock Mausoleum in St. John’s Churchyard is a massive structure, octagonal in form
with a double dome. In each face there is a low and narrow archway. The date of its erection, says
Archdeacon Hyde, who has discussed the question with much thoroughness, cannot be dated many
months earlier or later than the year 1695. We may certainly therefore claim it to be the oldest example
of British masonry now existing in Kolkata. The original Fort William itself was not begun till 1696
and was 3 years in building (Hyde 78, 81).
Governor Charnock, [...] worn by thirty-six years of hard work and considerable suffering in
Bengal, broke down: his mind gave way, and, [...] he died on the 10 th of January, 1692, and was
buried in the burial-ground of the settlement, adjoining the Creek. This burial-ground now
forms St. John’s Churchyard, where the mausoleum erected over Charnock’s remains by his
son-in-law, Eyre stands to this day in excellent preservation, the lettering of its inscription
almost as sharp and clear as when first raised (1695) (Blechynden 1905: 9-10)
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The Latin epitaph:
D.O.M. Jobus Charnock, Armiger Anglus et nup. in hoc regno. Bengalensi dignissimum Anglorum
Agens Mortalitatis suae exuvias sub hoc marmore deposuit, ut in spe beatae resurrectionis ad Christi
judicis adventum obdormirent. Qui postquam in solo non-suo peregrinatus esset diu reversus est
domum suae aeternitatis decimo die 10th Januarii 1692.4
Translation:
In the hands of God Almighty, Job Charnock, English knight and recently the most worthy agent of the
English in this Kingdom of Bengal left his mortal remains under this marble so that he might sleep in
the hope of a blessed resurrection at the coming of Christ the Judge. After he had journeyed onto
foreign soil he returned after a little while to his eternal home on the 10th day of January 1692.5
From the time of Charnock until the opening in 1767 of the South Park Street Cemetery, St.
John’s Churchyard was the sole burying-place of the settlement. [...] The graves of only a few remain
to-day. The excavation of the foundations of the Church was the cause of the disappearance of many
obelisks and pyramids which our fore-fathers in Calcutta loved to place over their dead and which form
so prominent a feature of every view of the old Burying-place prior to 1780. Others were removed in
1802, when they are stated by Asiaticus6 to have fallen into such a condition of irreparable decay that it
was deemed necessary to pull down most of them ‘in order to prevent any dangerous accidents which
the tottering ruins threatened to such as approached them’ (Cotton 1909:424). The only graves to have
been left undisturbed were those of Job Charnock and Admiral Watson. Surviving headstones from the
old burial ground are arranged around the Charnock Mausoleum. The mausoleum also houses the
remains of Charnock’s wife, who was a native, and probably a Hindu widow. She did not convert to
Christianity, though Charnock buried her in the Christian manner, and by some accounts sacrificed a
cock on her grave at each anniversary of her death.
The White town and the Black Town
Sitting at Blue fox restaurant Feluda informs Lalmohan Babu about Kolkata two hundred years ago:
‘[…] there was the house of the Governor-General, St. John’s church, The Park Street Cemetery,
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theatres in Theatre Road, and lot of other buildings where the British lived. That area was known as
White Town. Native Indians were not allowed to live there. North Kolkata was known as Black Town’
(Ray 2004: 36).
By the early eighteenth century, the Kolkata had come to be divided into fairly well-defined
European and Native quarters, known as the White and the Black Town. The communities from the
many parts of undivided India who arrived and settled in Kolkata, peopled that area which came to be
called the Black Town. In his notes to the illustration ‘The Black Town of Calcutta’, Balthazard
Solvyns writes:
Each nation at Calcutta has its particular quarter: so we have the English quarter, the Portuguese
quarter […] That which is inhabited by the natives, who, whether they are originally Hindoos or
Mussulmans, differ from all the others by their complexion which is as dark as the Caffries, is
called the Black Town. No European is to be seen there, and the construction of the houses is
entirely different from ours […]’ (Hardgrave 1990:31-46)
While the White Town lay to the north of the old fort, the Black Town spread over Sutanuti, Chitpur
and Gobindapur. The gradual movement of the whites away from the area of Sutanuti where Charnock
had first landed accentuated the division between the White and the Black Towns (Lahiri Chaudhury
1990: 156-7). The deep trench, 16-18 feet wide, that was dug in 1710 ostensibly to drain the White
Town was also a way of separating the White Town from the Black (Nair 1990: 227). The difference in
the lifestyles of the two towns was vast.
In1758, the construction of Fort William and the demolition of Gobindapur required the
inhabitants of the area to move to Taltala, Kumartuli and Shobhabazar, where they were given land as
compensation. In the 1790s, the area around Chowringhee was still considered ‘out of town’, but
affluent Europeans had begun to build ‘garden houses’ in the area (Hardgrave 1990: 31-46). Between
the White and the Black Towns of Kolkata lay those areas in which lived Portuguese, Armenians and
Jews. This was the area between Janbazar and Park Street which had earlier attracted some 40
Europeans to build their residences there (Cotton 1909:106). Gradually, though, the areas around
Writer’s Building, Baubazar, Dharamtala and Janbazar declined in worth and were taken over by ‘the
rest’, which included Anglo-Indians, Portuguese, Armenians, and the growing community of the Jews,
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‘to become grey areas between Black and White Towns of Kolkata’ (Lahiri Chaudhury 1990: 159-60).
Adjutant (Hargila) Birds
Feluda informs Lalmohan Babu about adjutant birds seen two hundred years ago in Kolkata. He notes:
‘They were as common in those days as crows and sparrows are today. They were big birds, about four
and a half feet high. They went about peeking at all the rubbish they could find in the streets. If they
saw a corpse floating down the Ganges, they would perch themselves on it and get a free ride down the
river (Ray 2004: 36). […] they […] used to sit on compound walls and railings. There is enough
evidence of that in old pictures drawn at that time.’ When Lalmohan Babu queried about the look of it
Feluda informs, ‘The municipal building has a crest on the front wall. There’s a picture of an adjutant
bird in it. I can show it to you’(Ray 2004:67).
In the 19th century, they were especially common in the city of Kolkata, where they were
referred to as the ‘Calcutta adjutant’. Known locally as hargila (derived from the Sanskrit word for
‘bone-swallower’) and considered to be unclean birds, they were largely left undisturbed but
sometimes hunted for the use of their meat in folk medicine. Valued as scavengers, they were once used
in the logo of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation.
The first emblem of the Corporation of Kolkata came into existence in 1896. It represented two
adjutant birds holding serpents in their beaks and carrying a crown on their shoulders. On 22 February,
1961, the old emblem was changed and a new design was adopted.
Cotton notes: ‘[…] we shall look in vain for the adjutant birds, once a familiar feature of the
Calcutta landscape and bold enough to annex even the lion and unicorn on the stately facade’ (Cotton
1909: Introduction i-ii).
South Park Street cemetery
In the novel Gorosthane Sabdhan, on 25 th of June, the trio visited the South Park Street cemetery. At
the entrance Feluda assured visibly subdued Lalmohan Babu , ‘In the last one hundred and twenty- five
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years, no one has been buried in this cemetery.’ Topshe gave us graphic description of the place as they
went down the paved path through rows of tombs –
‘They were all twelve or fourteen feet high. At some distance, to our right, was a tomb as high
as a three-storeyed house. Feluda said it was probably the tomb of the scholar, William Jones. It
was the tallest tomb in Kolkata. Each tomb had either a white or a black marble plaque, with the
dead person’s date of birth, the date on which he died and some other facts. Some large plaques
had brief details of the person’s entire life. Most tombstones rose like columns. Their bases
were broad, but they tapered off as they rose higher’. (Ray 2004: 9)
Feluda told Topshe that these columns are called obelisk in English. Topshe further added, ‘Some
tombs bore the same family name – obviously the people were related to one another. The earliest date
I had noticed so far was 28 July 1779, twelve years before the French Revolution’ (Ray 2004: 10).
Feluda informed Topshe later that there were more than two thousand graves in that cemetery.
Once known as the ‘Great Cemetery’, the Park Street cemetery was one of the earliest non-
church cemeteries in the world and probably the largest Christian cemetery outside Europe and
America in the 19th century. It houses more than 1600 dead – buried over a period of more than 150
years when the colonial power was at its zenith in India (BACSA 1992). ‘It was opened on August
25th, 1767, for the reception of the body of Mr. John Wood, a writer in the Custom House, whose tomb
was subsequently levelled to make way for the western cross road’ (Cotton 1909:568). The earliest
grave dates to 1767 and the last memorial was erected in 1895 (BACSA 1992).
Park Street cemetery was a burial ground that housed not only the dead remains of the colonial
bureaucracy, military officials, mercantile elite and their families but also the common and sundry
citizenry. These were among the earliest Europeans who came to Kolkata from a different world,
thousands of miles away, leaving their families and homes in search of money, fame and power (see
Dutta 1994).
The average life expectancy of Europeans in India during the early colonial period, excluding
infant and child mortality was well under 30 for men and 25 for women. Most of the deaths occurred
during the monsoon months. Wilkinson notes: ‘In Calcutta in one year, out of the total 1200, over a
third died between August and end of December. It was a regular annual occurrence: the survivors used
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to hold thanksgiving banquets towards the end of October to celebrate the deliverance’ (Wilkinson
1976: 7).
These dead are commemorated with monumental tombs, some enormous in their size and sheer
volume – huge canopies, supported by giant pillars, structures raised to about 100 ft above ground –
providing a grandiose effect. Others are more humble and consist of obelisks set on square podia, or
mere marble slabs covering family burials with intimate histories of the deceased clan. The most
monumental memorials imitate the pyramids of Egypt; others are imposing cenotaphs faithful to the
designs found in Victorian England and are examples of neoclassical influence (Davis 1985:61). Some
tombs are like small brick houses while some mausoleums are in the form of temples coated with
stucco and then painted. The architectural feature of each tomb in the cemetery imitates the glory of the
British Raj – its power, its ideological ubiquity. As Rudyard Kipling sardonically notes in the chapter
on the Park Street cemetery in his City of Dreadful Night – a scathing commentary on colonial Kolkata:
“The tombs are small houses. It is as though we walked down the streets of a town, so tall are they and
so closely do they stand – a town shrivelled by fire, and scarred by frost and siege. Men must have been
afraid of their friends rising up before the due time that they weighted them with such cruel mounds of
masonry” (Kipling 1891).
Until the middle of the 19th century, this area was a dense tropical bamboo forest frequented by
the colonial elite on tiger hunts. Today, it is a jungle of colonial, modern and postmodern buildings,
jostling for space in a city of more than 13 million people.
Fancy Lane and the hanging of Nanda Kumar
Topshe informs: ‘Feluda’s latest passion was old Kolkata. It started with a visit to Fancy Lane, where
he had to go to investigate a murder. When he learnt that the word fancy had come from the Indian
word phansi meaning death by hanging, and that two hundred years ago, Nanda Kumar had been hung
in the same area, Feluda became deeply interested in the history of Kolkata’ (Ray 2004: 3).
Cotton notes: ‘Many of the lanes about Bentinck Street and Dalhousie Square had the same
names a century ago as at the present day, such as [...] Fancy Lane (251). [...] Archdeacon Hyde traces
the derivation of Fancy Lane to phansi or gallows which he places in this locality in the early days
when Calcutta was surrounded by palisades and the southern boundary was shut in by the creek which
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flowed along the course of what is now Hastings Street’ (258).
The trial and execution of Maharaja Nanda Kumar (referred to in contemporary documents as
Nuncomar) was one of the most infamous episodes of the early days of the East India Company’s rule
in India. Nanda Kumar was an Indian tax official, appointed collector of Burdwan and given the title
‘Maharaja’ by Emperor Shah Alam II in 1764. A bitter enemy of Warren Hastings, Nanda Kumar
accused him, through a letter, of accepting a bribe from Mir Jafar’s widow, Munny Begum for securing
for her the guardianship of the Nawab Mubarak-ud-Daulah, then a minor. The case was taken up in the
Supreme Council of Bengal by Hastings’ rival, Philip Francis. But Hastings was able to overrule the
Council, and even though he admitted to have accepted bribe, he could not be brought to justice.
Nanda Kumar was however, prosecuted, first on the charge of compelling a certain native by the
name of Kamal-ud-Din to falsely accuse Hastings, and second, the more serious charge, of defrauding a
certain Indian banker, by the name of Bolaqi Das Sett, of the sum of Rs. 70,000. Nanda Kumar was
tried under Elijah Impey, India’s first Chief Justice, and friend of Warren Hastings. He was found
guilty, sentenced to death, and executed. Whether or not this constituted ‘judicial murder’ is a subject
that is still debated.
But Indian documents from the time, do not point out the exact spot where he was executed.
Multiple British records however point to a spot near Cooly Bazar, which would roughly correspond to
today’s Hastings, close to ‘Hastings Bridge’ which would be what we call the Kidderpore Bridge today.
Cotton notes: ‘[...] after crossing the bridge (Kidderpore bridge), we find ourselves in Hastings,
a Government colony, [...]. It was here that Nunda Kumar, Dewan to the Nawab of Moorshedabad, was
executed, August 5th, 1775, the first Brahman hanged by the English in India. The old name of the
place was Cooly Bazar, and it is said that it owes its origin to the numerous workmen and coolies
employed in building the Fort who are said to have formed a regular village to the south’ (226).
Busteed notes: ‘We are indebted to an old number of the Calcutta Review for the identification
of several modern localities in this city with old ones. [...] It is there stated that Nuncomar was hanged
near the river between Cooly bazaar and Hastings Bridge, a platform being erected for the purpose’
(Busteed 1897: 59-60).
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Ochterlony Monument
From Topshe’s description we come to know about how Lalmohan Babu found an important clue for
Feluda – a wallet at Park Street cemetery. Inside the wallet there was a hundred and fifty year’s old
paper cutting from a newspaper which reported about the construction of the Ochterlony monument.
Lalmohan Babu informed that he read an article on the Monument written by Narendra Nath Biswas,
the owner of the wallet, in the magazine Vichitrapatra.
For decades Ochterlony Monument has been amongst the most prominent landmarks in the city.
It was erected on the north-eastern quadrant of the Maidan in honour of a distinguished soldier, Major
General Sir David Ochterlony, the hero of the Nepalese War (1814-1816). He joined the East India
Company's army as a cadet in 1777 and rose to the rank of Major General. He died in Meerut in the
year 1825. In the year 1828, the monument was built under the expert supervision of architect J.P.
Parker who executed the design of Charles Knowles Robinson at a cost of about Rs. 35,000 which was
met by public subscription. Cotton notes: ‘The design of the structure was taken from Moslem
architecture. The upper part of the column is the reproduction of one in Syria, to which is added a base
which is pure Egyptian and the dome which has a metallic cupola is Turkish. The column itself is a
brickwork, and the circular staircase within (by which access is had to the two galleries which encircle
the column from outside) is constructed of Chunar stone. It rests on a massive pedestal of brickwork
and stone, and bears a circular disc of white marble with the following inscription:
‘Sir David Ochterlony, Baronet, Grand Cross of the Bath, Major-General in the Army of
Bengal, died at Meerut on the 15th July, 1825. The people of Bengal, natives and European, to
commemorate his services as a statesman and a soldier, have in grateful admiration raised this column’
(330).
In 1969, however, it was renamed Sahid Minar or Martyrs' Column in memory of the Indian
freedom fighters who had laid down their lives for freedom of this nation. The city's skyline and
identity will not be complete without this Monument, which despite the changing times is still standing
tall and proud.
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Lower Circular road cemetery
In the novel before going to Sidhu jeytha’s house for consultation Feluda and Topshe ‘had spent an
hour and a half that morning in another cemetery in Lower Circular Road. It had been built later than
the one in Park Street, and was still in use’ (Ray 2004:24). Feluda’s meticulous investigation in the
story revealed that Thomas Godwin’s next three generations including his daughter Charlotte were
buried in this cemetery.
Cotton notes: ‘From North Park Street the visitor should pass on to the Lower Circular Road
Cemetery. Crossing the boulevard which covers the site of the old Mahratta Ditch, he will find himself
in a short space of time before the portals of another great Campo Santo, opened in 1840 for the
remains of a little child: it has been ever since the repository of the Calcutta dead’ (580). It is still in use
and houses more than 12000 dead.
Bourne and Shepherd
Feluda got a copy of the wedding photograph of Parvati Charan Biswas (Great- grandfather of Michael
Narendranath and William Girindranath Biswas) and Thomas Godwin’s granddaughter Victoria from
Bourne and Shepherd. The trio had visited the store at 141 S.N. Banerjee Street and came to know that
the studio had ‘got all the negatives of photos taken since 1854’ (Ray 2004: 68).
The oldest surviving photographic studio of the world Bourne & Shepherd at Esplanade was set
up in 1840, a year after the introduction of the daguerreotype and calotype processes of photography
(the first commercial photography) in France and England. Kolkata-based photographer William
Howard founded the studio in 1840. During his photographic assignment in Shimla, he came across
Samuel Bourne in 1863. They set up a new studio Howard and Bourne in Shimla. Around the same
time, Charles Shepherd established a studio with Arthur Robertson, called Shepherd and Robertson, in
Agra. Subsequently, Robertson left the business and joined Bourne, came to Kolkata in 1963 and
together, they upgraded Howard's studio into Howard, Bourne and Shepherd. In 1866, after the
departure of Howard, the studio became ‘Bourne & Shepherd’.
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In the heyday of the studio, photographs were widely retailed throughout the subcontinent by
agents and in Britain through wholesale distributors, and were patronized by the upper echelons of the
British Raj as well as Indian royalty. So much so that at one point no official engagement, investiture or
local durbar was considered complete without being first captured by Bourne & Shepherd
photographers. A B&S photographer used to accompany the governor general at each and every of his
meetings.
A widely travelled person, Bourne, used to move with a large retinue of 42 coolies who carried
his cameras, darkroom tent and chests of chemicals and glass plates. He went on to become one of
India's greatest photographers of that era. Charles, on the other hand, became known as a master
printer. He stayed back in Kolkata and Shimla and managed the commercial distribution and printing
aspects of the business. In 1870, Bourne went back to England. He sold off his shares in studios, and
left commercial photography all together; also left behind his archive of more than 2,200 glass plate
negatives with the studio, which were constantly re-printed and sold, over the following 140 years.
After Bourne's departure, new photographic work was undertaken by Colin Murray till 1884 (see
Falconer 2001).
The last European owner was Arthur Musselwhite. Musselwhite took over the studio in 1930s,
later after a major business slump following the independence, and exodus of European community and
the end of princely states, he held an auction in 1955, in which it was bought over by William Walker,
Varjivan Jaitha and S J Suraiya. From them, the studio went to Qimat Rai Jindal in 1957. Finally, in
1964, the studio was taken over by current owners K J Ajmer and Jayant Gandhi.
According to heritage activist and state convener of Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural
Heritage G M Kapur, Bourne and Shepherd being the world's oldest functioning studio is undoubtedly
a heritage address in the city.
Charnock’s grave and its opening in1892
Initially though Sidhu jeytha remarks about the incident of grave digging as pure nonsense, yet a
similar incident had taken place in this very city. The first incident of grave digging in Kolkata
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happened on a Monday, 21 November, 1892. Then, a two hundred year old grave had been dug – it was
of Job Charnock.
We find a mention of this incident in chapter 8 of the novel: ‘Do you know that a skeleton can
remain intact even two hundred years after the body is buried?’ Lalmohan Babu asked Topshe. His
question reminded Topshe of the story Feluda had told him about Job Charnock’s tomb. Topshe
repeated it to Lalmoha Babu:
‘Two hundred years after Charnock’s death, a priest at St. John’s Church suddenly grew
suspicious about what lay underground. Had Charnock really buried there, or had someone
simply erected a tombstone? His doubts began to worry him so much that the priest had the
grave dug up. At first, his men dug four feet, and found nothing. Then they dug deeper, and
another couple of feet lower, the arm of a skeleton slipped out. The priest quickly had the grave
refilled’. (Ray 2004: 70)
Blechyaden notes:
In November, 1892, two hundred years after the death of Job Charnock, the mausoleum was
repaired by the Public Works Department, when advantage was taken of the opportunity to
ascertain whether it contained a vault. The Rev. H.B. Hyde, at that time chaplain of St. John’s,
in a note7 read at the meeting of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in February, 1893, after stating
that no trace of a vault was found, describes the result of the investigation as follows:
‘On visiting the mausoleum next morning, the 22nd of November, I found that the grave had
been opened to a depth of fully six feet, at which depth the diggers had stopped, having met
with a trace of human remains. The excavation was somewhat smaller than an ordinary grave,
and lay east and west in the centre of the floor. At the bottom of it the workmen had cleared a
level, at the western end of which they were beginning to dig a little deeper when a bone
became visible. This bone was left in situ undisturbed, and the digging had ceased on its
discovery. On seeing this bone, I felt sure it could be no other than one of the bones of the left
fore-arm of the person buried, which must have lain crossed upon the breast. A little beyond it I
observed a small object in the earth, which I took at first for a large coffin nail, but, on this
being handed to me, it was very apparent that it was the largest joint of, probably, a middle
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finger, and that, judging from its relative position, of the left hand. This bone I replaced. I
permitted no more earth to be removed save only a little above and to the east of the remains,
sufficient to reveal a black stratum in the soil which might have been the decayed coffin-lid. It
was quite evident that a few more strokes of the spade would discover the rest of the skeleton,
perhaps perfect, after just two hundred years of burial. There can be no reasonable doubt,
arguing from the position of the body and the depth at which it lay, that it was the very one to
enshrine which only the mausoleum was originally built – the mortal part of the Father of
Calcutta himself.
Having seen what I did, I had the grave filled in, for I feared to leave it open lest the coolies
might ransack its contents in search of rings or other valuables, and further I felt it improper, in
view of the interest which must attach to such investigation, to permit myself to continue it
alone. If it were to be prosecuted at all, it should at least be in presence of a representative
company of Englishmen. For my own part, with the bones of the famous pioneer’s hand
accidentally discovered before me, and the strange and solemn statement of his epitaph just
above them, that he had laid his mortal remains there himself ut in spe beatae resurrectionis ad
Christi Judicis adventum obdormirent, I felt strongly restrained from examining them further’
(Blechynden 1905: 11-13).
The last paragraph of Rev. Hyde’s note was most important. Hence it is not unlikely that in a two
hundred year old grave we might find embedded a valuable possession of the deceased or expensive
jewellery. So this could be a reason for which Thomas Godwin’s grave was dug up. As Feluda
enlightens us that according to Godwin’s daughter Charlotte it was ‘Father’s precious Perigal repeater’
(Ray 2004: 53). Nawab Sadat Ali had gifted this as his first reward to Thomas Godwin in recognition
of his culinary skills – a pocket watch created by one of England’s greatest craftsman Francis Perigal.
On the one hand a gift from Nawab of Lucknow, on the other it was two hundred years old – the two
put together makes the watch priceless. All crime, adventure and mystery in "Gorosthane Sabdhan"
surround this Perigal repeater.
Feluda’s role-play in Gorosthane Sabdhan is akin to that of Rev. Hyde. The entire incident is
like a recap of digging Job Charnock’s grave in St. John’s churchyard. This similarity could not be
overlooked by someone like Feluda who was aware of Kolkata’s history. And his intuition was correct.
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Thomas Godwin’s grave was dug for the precious Perigal repeater and there was no other reason.
Conclusion
Just as Feluda warns Topshe that lengthy descriptive adulation is the purpose of a Tourist guide not an
adventure writer – similarly this paper refrains from praise of the city referred as the ‘City of Joy’.
However in attempting to read past the historic connections to the primary text "Gorosthane Sabdhan",
we find interesting links and at the same time we discover the references to the past rhetoric regarding
Kolkata.
So, we can echo the very remarks of Feluda: ‘Unless you learned something about a place
before you went to visit it, you could never know it fully. As a person can be identified not just by his
name, appearance and character, but also by his personal history – so can a city.'
Notes
1. The first mention of the name ‘Calcutta’ was possibly in 1688, in a letter to Job Charnock by
two East India Company servants from Dhaka. Calcutta was respelled as Kolkata by legislation
in 2001.
2. A character in Feluda novels who serve as the living encyclopedia.
3. The division bench comprising Chief Justice A K Mathur and Justice J K Biswas accepted the
report by five-member committee headed by eminent historian Nemai Sadhan Bose. The order
came after Advocate General Balai Roy informed the court about acceptance of the contents of
the expert committee report by the West Bengal Government.
4. The Bengal Obituary: or, A Record to Perpetuate the Memory of Departed Worth to Which Is
Added Biographical Sketches and Memoirs of History of British India, since the Formation of
the European Settlement to the Present Time (1848), ed. P. Thankappan Nair (Kolkata: 1991), p.
2.
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5. Robert Travers, Death and the Nabob; Imperialism and commemoration in Eighteenth-Century
India,Past and Present,No.196 (August 2007) pp.89-90, fn.18
6. The Asiaticus was compiled by John Hawkesworth who had also penned a couple of earlier
books on the colonial history of the English in Bengal. The first part of the book was primarily
a chronological and historical account of the English expansion, and the latter consisted of
epitaphs.
7. It was published in the Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, No. III. March, 1893 as
titled Note on the Mausoleum of Job Charnock and the Bones recently discovered within it – By
the Rev. H. B. Hyde, M.A.
References
Primary texts
Ray, Satyajit (1997) Gorosthane Sabdhan. Kolkata: Ananda.
Ray, Satyajit (tr.) Majumder, Gopa (2004) The Secret of the Cemetery. New
Delhi: Puffin.
Secondary texts
BACSA (1992) South Park Street Cemetery, Calcutta: Register of graves and
standing tombs from 1767. London: British Association for Cemeteries in
South Asia.
Blechyndess, Kathleen (1978 [1905]) Calcutta Past and Present: Kolkata;
General Publishers.
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Busteed, H.E. (1897) Echoes from old Calcutta. Kolkata: Thacker, Spink &
Co.
Chaudhuri, Sukanta, ed. (1990) Calcutta: The Living City, Vols 1 and 2. Delhi:
Oxford University Press.
Cotton, H.E.A. (1980 [1909]) Calcutta Old and New: A Historical and
Descriptive Handbook to the City (ed. N.R. Ray). Kolkata: General
Publishers.
Davis, Philip (1985) Splendours of the Raj: British Architecture in India 1660-
1947. New Delhi: Das Media.
Deb, Raja Binaya Krishna (1905) The Early History and Growth of Calcutta
(ed. Subir Roy Choudhuri) Kolkata: Riddhi.
Dutta, Abhijit (1994) European Social Life in 19th Century Calcutta. Kolkata:
Minerva Associates.
Falconer, John (2001) India: Pioneering Photographers 1850-1900.London:
The British Library.
Hardgrave, Robert L. Jr. (1990) A Portrait of Black Town: Balthazard Solvyns
In Calcutta, 1791-1804. In. Pal, Pratapaditya. ed. Changing Visions, Lasting
Images: Kolkata Through 300 Years. Bombay: Marg.
Kipling, Rudyard (1891) The City of Dreadful Night. Allahabad: A.H.
Wheeler.
Lahiri Choudhury, Dhriti Kanta (1990) Treands in Calcutta Architecture. In

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Chaudhuri, S. Calcutta: The Living city, Vol. 1. Delhi: Oxford University
Press.
Nair, P.T. (1990) Civic and Public services in Old Calcutta. In Chaudhuri,
S. Calcutta: The Living city, Vol. 1. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Wilkinson, Theon (1976) Two Monsoons. London: Duckworth.
Wilson, C.R. ed. (1906) Old Fort William in Bengal. In Indian Records Series,
Vol. 1. London: Murray.
Kallol Gangopadhyay, after completing his Masters in Bengali from Jadavpur University, went on to
do a post graduate diploma from Satyajit Ray film and Television Institute of India. He currently
teaches in the Bengali department of Jogesh Chandra Chaudhuri College as an Assistant Professor,
under University of Calcutta. He had edited and co-scripted documentaries and shorts, and written on
comics, theatre, film and literature. He has lectured and presented papers at seminars in various
interest areas like the- Early Bengali cinema, literary influences in Bengali cinema, History and formal
aspects of bangla comics, Imprint of Cinematic images in letters from Tagore, etc. His current writings
include –The graphic novels on Vivekananda and Illustrations in Children’s literature written on life of
Vivekananda and Memoirs of Partition, Himalayan travel writings.
A Lesson in Living Life: The Portrayal of Kolkata in
Satyajit Ray’s Short Stories
Zenith Roy
Abstract
The current write-up attempts to briefly study the presentation of the city of Kolkata in the short stories
written by Satyajit Ray, an area hardly highlighted till date. Ray, born and brought up in Kolkata,
remained lifelong a fervent admirer of the city despite all its drawbacks. Being a keen observer, he
minutely espies things, including the idiosyncrasies of people, elements that generally escape our
cursory glances. In his stories he projects Kolkata and some of the quintessential traits of her identity
which is the prime focus of the article that follows.
Keywords: admiration, unique, love, losers, degenerate, drawbacks
Kolkata may not have a Taj Mahal, a Kutub Minar, the grand forts of Jodhpur-Jaisalmer, or the lanes of
Bishwanath to boast of, ‘yet, Topshe, just think of it ― a foreigner, standing amidst an alien wilderness
infested with snakes, flies, mosquitoes, and frogs on one of the banks of the Ganges, dreams that he
would establish a colony there, and overnight the wilds are scythed off, houses are built, roads are
constructed, gaslights are installed along them, horses and palanquins start to ply on them, and within a
century’s time, comes up this unique city called the City of Palaces.’1
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This is how Topshe, cousin and companion of Feluda, Satyajit Ray’s iconic private investigator,
conveys to us the awe and wonder with which Feluda looks up to Kolkata 2 and her phenomenally rapid
rise to eminence from a savage wasteland swarming with wild animals and other perils to a civilized
city dotted by grand architectures. This awestruck admiration and veneration for Kolkata expressed by
Ray’s most popular fictional character is undoubtedly Ray’s own. Mementoes of Ray’s love and
admiration which underline his deep attachment to this city of his birth lie scattered all over the vast
body of his literary work. In the present article, I attempt to figure out and analyze the various shades
of Ray’s treatment of Kolkata in the massive body of short stories he has written.
‘Ray’, this formidable name invokes the awe-inspiring image of a towering figure with sharp
eyes intently engaged behind the movie camera, the film-maker par excellence. To the world at large,
Ray’s primary identity is that of a maverick moviemaker who has endowed the medium of cinema with
a new meaning and expanded its dimensions by bringing the apparently trivial ― elements that were
largely considered un-cinematic ― within the purview of the movie camera. Unfortunately, Ray’s
humongous personality of a filmmaker and his momentous contribution to cinema tend to overshadow
the same broadening of horizons he brought about in the region of the Bengali short story also.
Arriving on Bengal’s literary horizon in the 1960s, Satyajit Ray embarked on his literary
odyssey prompted by the necessity to helm Sandesh, the magazine for young readers. The result of this
literary expedition has been massive, prominent among which are his novels, conforming to the genres
of crime fiction, science fiction, and the supernatural, and a large number of stories dealing with themes
that are unique and unusual.
The era in which Ray started writing his stories was a time when the Bengali short story had
started to plumb new lows of mediocrity following the end of the halcyon days it had seen under
eminent writers like Parashuram, Tarashankar, and Manik Bandopadhyay. Ray took up the pen at such
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a point of time, but instead of following the trajectory of his mighty predecessors or his able
contemporaries, he deviated from topical issues and crises that appealed to the adult mind, and aimed
his pen primarily at the mind of the young reader. To quote Ray:
I never thought my stories would be considered worthy of critical study, I had told
myself that I would be content if all those for whom I wrote my stories were happy. I
never thought of myself as a writer. All that I knew was that interesting plots came to my
head, and when I came to write them out, a kind of tight order came naturally. There was
nothing more to it.3
Ray devised his unique thoughts and themes with the sole ambition of providing the reader
with pure and unadulterated pleasure of reading by bringing them face to face with the terrors of the
shadowy frontiers that lie beyond the periphery of the sensory world, by taking them on an interesting
exploration of the ingenuous mind of a private investigator, and by introducing them to the miraculous
wonders of science. The appeal of these themes was further intensified by a straightforward storytelling
and the usage of an easy and everyday language. Ray thus ushered in a new lease of youth into the
senescent body of the Bengali short story and set it free on an unbridled flight of fancy.
Interestingly, these tales that targeted the tender mind appealed equally to the adult reader as
well, by providing them with something refreshingly new and different from the monotonous and
cheaply sentimental yarns of the day that involved a generation’s moral deterioration, marital discord,
familial disputes, and mushy romance. One of the prime factors behind the perpetual popularity of
Ray’s stories is that just like his multi-layered films, especially Goopi Gaayen Bagha Baayen or
Heerak Rajar Deshe, which are interpreted so differently by the young and the adult viewer, they hold
different sets of appeal for readers of different age groups. While the adolescent reader derived pleasure
from Ray’s stories, the mature mind found in them both pleasure and fodder for thought as well as a
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welcome escape to the salad days of blessed adolescence, unsullied by worries and anxieties and the
gamut of other existential maladies. The everlasting appeal of Ray’s stories consists of this much-
coveted relief they grant to the reader, young and aged alike, from the tedious grind of a routine-bound
existence.
Each of the myriad of remarkable elements and lines of thought we come across in Ray’s stories
merits extensive study and analysis, the treatment of the city of Kolkata being one of them. Right from
the early stories like Barnandha (Colour Blind, 1942) or Anathbabur Bhoy (Anathbabu's Fear, 1962) to
late stories like Sahajatri (The Co-passenger, 1989) or Dui Bandhu (Two Friends, 1989), the city of
Kolkata is the backdrop in most of them. Manifestly or by implication, the city proclaims its mighty
presence in these stories, often visibly or implicitly impacting and influencing the lives and / or actions
of the characters.
Steeped in the spirit and ambience of the city of Kolkata, Ray's stories offer a comprehensive
idea of the city’s uniqueness, underpinning the pride of its people in its rich and glorious past and the
anguish articulated by the same people at their beloved city’s decline into a decadent present. Although
Ray remains politically correct by avoiding all possible references and allusions to Kolkata’s political
scene for the sake of his purported target circle of impressionable young readers, it does not restrict him
from giving us an idea of the dismal declension of a once distinguished city through other things. The
stories, vis-à-vis their picturization of Kolkata, constitute a virtually chronological graph imaging the
changing contours of the face of the city. An interesting point in this regard is that Ray achieves this
mostly by implicit hints, not by explicit comments.
As we know, Ray had a lifelong love-affair with this exclusive city called Kolkata. It was in the
northern part (Garhpar) of the city where he was born. Kolkata was a companion to the young Satyajit
who had a rather lonely boyhood with no friend for company. In the lazy summer noons in the
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Bhowanipur house of his uncles, to which he had shifted with his mother from Garhpar, the young Ray,
a boy uncommonly sensitive to sounds and lighting, would identify the brands of passing cars by the
sound of their horn and watch, lying alone, the projections of the inverted images of the traffic outside
on the wall of the bedroom, probably one of the factors that subsequently goaded him into adopting
cinema as his calling. Barring the time he spent in Shantiniketan as a student (of fine arts) and the
occasional stints abroad to attend film fests or to accept awards, most of Ray’s life was spent in
Kolkata. To quote Ray himself, recalling his years of youthful exuberance in Kolkata:
As one born and bred in Calcutta, I loved to mingle with the crowd in Chowringhee, to
hunt for bargains in the teeming profusion of second-hand books on the pavements of
College Street, to explore the grimy depths of the Chor Bazaar for symphonies at
throwaway prices, to relax in the coolness of a cinema, and lose myself in the make-
believe world of Hollywood.4
The same well-versed acquaintance with the city and its nook and crannies, its lifestyle, and its myriad
idiosyncrasies are found in the protagonists of his stories, who, without being explicit, imply, through
what they say and do, a love and attachment for the city that has been their habitat for many years.
Their grief at the degenerate condition of the city is a case in point.
In spite of the difficulty of existence in this city with its squalor and chaos and lackadaisical
pace of life, exacerbated by various ills and impediments, like 'load shedding' (the popular Kolkatan
name for 'power cut'), and in spite of his exposure to some of the topmost cities across the world,
Kolkata remained Ray’s first love as well as the epicentre and the nucleus of his existence as an
individual, a filmmaker and an author, till the last day of his life.
Self-admittedly, he never felt the urge for work until he sat in his special chair in the congested
study, choc-a-bloc with books and papers, amidst the din and cacophony of the world outside. ‘I don’t
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feel very creative when I’m abroad somehow. I need to be in my chair in Calcutta!’ 5 And probably
working in such an unfriendly atmosphere was for Ray a challenge and a way of realizing the validity
of his belief that ‘[T]here is something about creating beauty in the circumstances of shoddiness and
privation that is really exciting.’6 Andrew Robinson recalls watching Ray at work in his unbelievably
crammed study:
He struck me immediately as more animated than in London ― thoroughly at ease with
his surroundings . . . This is the atmosphere he finds congenial and creative . . . Often he
spends a whole day at a stretch in the chair . . . Much of this time he is deaf to the world,
absorbed in his thoughts, an ability cultivated by him in the several houses and flats he
has passed through in south Calcutta, so as to exclude the increasing blare of car horns,
amplified film songs and festivals from the teeming city, the chatter of visitors talking
among themselves and, sometimes, unwelcome attempts at conversation.7
Ray makes us see Kolkata through a new lens that focuses on the abundance and predominance
of loners in his stories. This seems to point at the irony that despite being a populous city of chaos and
clamour, this is essentially a city of loners. Kolkata thus becomes a microcosm, representing the reality
of the world at large where every city, notwithstanding the abundance of gregarious masses, is a city of
loners.
To be acquainted with these reclusive humans portrayed by Ray is to travel across Kolkata,
from Bhowanipur to Shobhabazaar, from Garhpar to Kalighat. Asamanjababu, a bachelor with a
meagre number of friends and relations, lives in a one-and-a-half-room apartment on Mohinimohan
Road at Bhowanipur; Tulsibabu, in Brihachchanchu (1979), an employee with Arbuthnot Co. and a
bachelor, resides with his servant in a first-floor apartment on Masjidbari Street at Shobhabazaar;
Surapati, the celebrity magician in Dui Magician (Two Magicians, 1962) lives at his uncle’s house on
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Bipradas Street at Garhpar (where Ray’s early years were spent) while Tripuracharan Mallick,
Surapati’s teacher of magic, lives in a Mirzapur Street apartment; Aniruddha Bose, the 29-year-old
protagonist of Neel Aatanka (Indigo is the Colour of Fear, 1968) is still a bachelor living in a flat on
Sardar Shankar Road at Kalighat. We go back to Bhawanipur to meet the chiroptophobic narrator of the
story, Baadurh Bibhishika (The Bat Phobia, 1963) and Nitaibabu, an unmarried employee of the
accounts section of National Insurance Co. in Nitaibabur Moyna (Nitaibabu’s Bird, 1989); in Load-
Shedding (1979) Phanibabu, another of Ray’s bachelor protagonists, lives alone in a second-floor
apartment which is a 35-minute bus ride from Dalhousie, Kolkata’s business district.
With this fascinating arraignment of losers across its expanse, Kolkata seems to appear with a
distinctive demographic dimension. Ray seems to subtly invest the various precincts of Kolkata with
traits unique to them. The southern side of the city, comprising locales like Bhowanipur, Kalighat, and
Kasba, with their well-maintained and plush residences, forms a posh and mainly upper-class
ambience. It is an area for the well-off and the affluent. On the other hand, the northern regions of the
city, including Shovabazaar and Mirzapur Street (now Surya Sen Street), the abode of the
comparatively less affluent, consist of a relatively pedestrian and predominantly middle-class
population. However, Garhpar, although largely considered a part of north Kolkata, is relatively
upmarket with the population chiefly comprising younger generations of aristocratic families. In Dui
Magician, the established magician, Surapati has earned himself a celebrity status by the clever
marketing of his wizardry, and lives in the relatively posh Bipradas Street at Garhpar, while the person
from whom he has learnt all his tricks has failed to utilize his talent and has remained poor as ever,
living in the middle-class or lower middle-class locality of Mirzapur Street.
In the story, Class Friend (1979), which is about two friends, Mohit and Joy, Kolkata’s
demographic divide is perhaps at its most obvious. Mohit Sarkar, now one of the well-established
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officers at the helm of a reputed concern, lives in his own decent and well-decorated house on Lee
Road at Bhowanipur. On the other hand, his closest companion of his school days, Joydeb Bose, who
has failed to do anything worthwhile, lives on Mirzapur Street, probably in a rented flat, located in an
ambience of filth and clamour and marked with tell-tale signs of penury and the lack of care. The
dismal interiors of his residence can easily be imagined from Joydeb’s shabby cloths and dishevelled
looks.
Nitaibabu, a clerk in the accounts department of National Insurance Co., a reasonably well-
heeled man, lives in an apartment on Beninandan Street at Bhowanipur. Sudhin Sarkar in Gagan
Choudhuryr Studio (Gagan Choudhury’s Studio, 1983), not actually a loner (as he intends to marry), is
affluent enough to own an adequately spacious flat at Bhawanipur.
In stark contrast to these, Kolkata contains loners of a different sort too. For example,
Badanbabu, the protagonist of the story, Pterodactyl-er Dim (The Pterodactyl Egg, 1961), is one of
those typical office goers who constitute a huge mass of the city's population and one of the several
clerk-status individuals who people Ray’s stories. However, unlike the other members of this
community, Badanbabu possesses a poetic bend of mind that craves for a creative unwinding at the end
of a day in unperturbed tranquillity amidst nature’s bliss, before starting for the self-same confines of
his home on Shibthakur Lane in north Kolkata. Although Badanbabu is a family man, he is a loner in a
league of his own, as his is almost a dysfunctional family with a physically challenged son and a wife
who merits minimal mention. That Badanbabu lives in north Kolkata implies his dreary and bleak
existence.
Badanbabu’s situation is reminiscent of what Ray portrays in his ‘City Stories,’ namely the
films, Mahanagar, Pratidwandi, and Seemabaddha, which ‘legitimately belong to the present. They
talk about the incompatibility of old values with the practicable attitudes and postures in a changing
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world visibly different and indifferent to finer sensitivities.’8
One of the prime aspects of these lonesome entities is their love and deep attachment to Kolkata
which has long been their habitat. Their anguish at the transformations they find their beloved city
undergoing is an indicator of their love and concern for the city. Interestingly, most of these isolates
prefer the good, old Kolkata and it is through them that Ray projects some of the old, extinct or near-
extinct features of life and prominent landmarks that were once synonymous with the entity of Kolkata,
or were so at least during the ideation of these stories.
The average Kolkatan’s love of books is one of the salient elements of Kolkata life projected in
Ray’s stories. In Barnandha, one of Ray's early stories, we see the protagonist emerging from inside a
shop of old books, proudly clutching a rare book in the safe haven of his underarm. The book, a gem of
a find, written in French on Chinese clay art, is bought at a measly price and is nothing less than an
invaluable piece of diamond for the one who has acquired it. He is a representative of that clan of avid
seekers of knowledge which is seen scouring stalls on College Street, that sell antique and rare books,
undeterred by the excruciating torture such an arduous activity involves in the humid and suffocating
interiors of a bookstall on a sweltering August afternoon. Asamanjababu, the protagonist of the story,
Asamanjababu-r Kukur (Asamanjababu’s Dog, 1978), procures a book on the care and maintenance of
dogs from a shop of old books on Free School Street while in Mrigankababu-r Ghatana
(Mrigankababu’s Incident, 1987), Mrigankababu finds a book on evolution at a book shop on College
Street.
Ranjan, the narrator-protagonist of Brown Saaheber Bari (The Lodge of Mr. Brown, 1971) is a
self-admitted buff of old books who spends at least half of his monthly salary in buying old books, his
‘sole addiction’9:
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I have amassed a huge collection of books on what not ― travel literature, hunting
stories, historical writings, autobiographies, diaries ― in the last five years. Pages
dented by worms, pages brittle with age, pages rendered colourless by damp atmosphere
― all these are my most familiar and most favourite things. And the odour of old books
is unique. The combined fragrances of aguru, kasturi, golaap, hasnuhana and even the
fragrance of French perfumes are no match for these two smells.10
The love for old books and the hobby of book-surfing is not merely a popular pastime of
Kolkatans but a means for them to clutch on to the old and rich cultural past of the city in a desperate
bid to sustain its essential identity against the invasion of new developments. Sahadebbabu, the
protagonist in Sahdebbabur Portrait (Sahadebbabu’s Portrait, 1978) who frequents an auction shop on
Mirza Ghalib Street on Sunday mornings in quest of valuable curios, is one such admirer of Kolkata’s
illustrious past. The bibliophiles and the aficionados of other old things represent the refinement of the
Kolkatan population. In spite of the blitz of cheap and superficially gaudy things, the commoner in
Kolkata holds on to his attachment to his elegant likings that make him an indubitable connoisseur. One
of such enthusiasts is Bipin Choudhury who must compulsively buy a number of books on Mondays
from Kalicharan’s bookshop at New Market to sustain his existence for the entire week. He has to buy
at least five books at a time which comprise detective thrillers, mysteries, and ghost stories. Regardless
of his choice of books, he is doubtlessly one of that fast disappearing species who love to read.
At the same time, these steadfast adherents to the things of the past evince a streak of madness
in their readiness to go the extra mile, even at the cost of personal well-being, when it comes to
sustaining their devotion to those special personal likes.
However, despite the earnestness of their attempts to hold on to the past and the rapidly
receding glory of Kolkata these characters know that the past cannot be revived. This is a realization
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that pains these ardent lovers of Kolkata deeply. A case in point is Ranjanbabu’s expression of anguish
at the sorry state of the city in the story, First Class Kaamra (The First-Class Compartment, 1981):
It seems that the thing called comfort has been vanishing fast from the city of Calcutta.
Although he [Ranjanbabu] has never had the ill-luck of commuting by buses and trams,
travelling by motor car has not been any less nightmarish. The traffic snarls are
suffocating and the limbs seem to be disintegrating from the body when the car falls into
a crater.11
Ranjanbabu is a pure-bred Anglophile who firmly believes that all the ills that have plagued
Kolkata are the results of independence. Kolkata was never in such a shoddy state during British rule.
In those days Kolkata seemed to be a civilized city of a civilized country. Ranjanbabu steadfastly
believes that whatever little charm or beauty Kolkata has, e.g. the Maidan, is courtesy the British.
Contrasting the disciplined and restrained lifestyle of London with Kolkata’s unruly multitudes, he
observes that ‘In spite of having a sizeable population, there’s no stampede-like rush at bus stops, no
deafening yells, no howling bus conductor, or any crashing blows on the buses in London. The buses
there do not run tilted to one side, as if they would overturn any moment.’12
Although not a vociferous admirer of things British, Badanbabu rues the fact that Curzon Park,
his favourite city haunt for having brief relaxations at the day’s end, has changed drastically with the
tramlines snaking in. The bounties of nature and the poetry-inspiring bliss, that had made him fall in
love with the place, have been ruthlessly usurped by the clamour of the machines and the cacophony of
the commuters.
One of the focal reflections of Kolkata and her miserable degradation is the sorry condition of
the cinema houses that once were proud landmarks of the city’s cultural sophistication with their
throbbing business.13
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Among the Kolkata cinema houses, the Lighthouse (which no longer exists), New Empire, and
Metro (which has stopped operation very recently and is expected to have a makeover) find repeated
references in Ray’s stories. New Empire is referred to as the venue for hosting prestigious magic
shows, as we see in the story, Dui Magician. For an aspiring wizard, it was a privilege to perform at
New Empire before its elite audience. Tridib Banerjee and Sanjoy Lahiri, the two characters in
Sahajatri (The Co-passenger, 1989) lament the miserable condition of the cinema houses of the city. As
they inform us, cinema houses like Lighthouse and Metro, where watching cinema used to be such a
soothing experience (courtesy the air-conditioned luxury), have turned into filthy places,
uncomfortably hot (due to the non-functioning air-conditioners) and infested by rats. Both lament that
the habit of going to the movies has become an obsolete thing because of the easy availability of video
cassette players.
Mahim Chatterjee, while waiting for his friend Pratul in the lobby of Lighthouse Cinema in the
story, Dui Bandhu (Two Friends, 1989), glances at the cheap oil-painted posters of the Bollywood pot-
boiler playing at the theatre and regrets the fact that the prestigious cinema house, which was once
famous for the Hollywood movies it used to show, has to thrive on brainless Hindi masala movies now.
‘Movie-watching has nowadays become a domestic affair with the arrival of the video player. What a
pathetic condition the movie halls are in! Mahim had heard from his father that the Lighthouse used to
be Kolkata’s pride. And now? One just feels like crying.’14
One cannot help wondering at Ray’s inimitable style and the sheer effortlessness with which he
makes a global phenomenon (the rampant spread of the home video culture) affecting the film
industries worldwide a major pointer to the moral, cultural as well social degradation of his beloved
city. The downward journey of these cinema halls allegorically pictures Kolkata’s descent from the
ecstatic zenith of intellectual advancement and cultural richness to the depressing nadir of mediocrity
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and moral as well as cultural bankruptcy. No comment on the political scenario, no direct criticism, no
attempt to even remotely court controversy, yet the truth is driven home.
Of course, Ray’s sensibilities as a film-maker were at work to a great extent influencing his
distress at such a sorry state of affairs vis-à-vis the cinema houses. Ray, both as a film-maker and an
average denizen of this city, was at agony to witness the ruining of Kolkata which is so subtly stated
with such nonchalant brevity in some of his stories. A rather serious comment on the miserable disarray
of Kolkata’s roads caused by the excavations for the Metro Railway and the ordeal of travelling on
them is wrapped in a witty word-play in the story, Bhuto (1981) as Nabin, the ventriloquist, in course of
one of his performances on the stage, converses with his puppet, Bhuto:
‘Bhuto, do you know that Calcutta is going to have underground (‘paatal’) railway?’
Bhuto, nodding ignorance, replies, ‘No, but I have heard of the hospital (‘haaspaatal’)
rail. A massive surgical operation, the entire city is being dissected by the scalpel; the
city seems to be on the verge of collapse. What else can you call it but a hospital
(‘haaspaatal’)?’15
Immediately after, Ray includes an oblique indictment of the people of Kolkata who are excited
and entertained by such funny but sarcastic comments on the problems faced by them. Nabin, having
sensed the pulse of his audience, writes dialogues on Kolkata’s topical tragedies, e.g. load-shedding,
the escalation of the price of essential commodities, the maddening rush in the public vehicles, etc. The
maladies are critical, but the irony is alarming, and the satirical denunciation stinging.
One of the major drawbacks of Kolkata that often left Ray irritated was the problem of load-
shedding. He devotes an entire story, named Load Shedding (as mentioned earlier) to show the terrible
consequences to which this major impediment to the city’s development may lead, as we see in the case
of Phanibabu, the protagonist.

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However, despite the various drawbacks of life in the city of Kolkata, Satyajit Ray never
abandoned this city. With all its flaws and lack of amenities, Kolkata remained the ideal place for Ray
to work and to lead his creative impulses to their complete fruition. In the early 1970s, the situation in
Kolkata was increasingly becoming difficult and uncertain to go on making films in that climate of
violent anarchy. Andrew Robinson states that Ray had termed the Kolkata of 1970-71 as ‘a nightmare
city’16 and had even written to Marie Seton, one of his biographers, of his decision to leave the city,
although he later on said that it was never a serious decision.
For me Calcutta is the place to work, the place to live, so you take what comes – you
accept the fact of change.17
Despite being subjected to some serious obstacles, particularly in making movies, Ray held on to his
indomitable spirit and went on working, taking all impediments and limitations imposed by the Kolkata
situation in his stride. And it is here that he reached the apex of his career both as a film-maker and an
author.
The protagonists of Ray’s stories reflect the same invincible spirit in their everyday existence as
well as transactions with this Kolkata. They may grieve over the loss of the green spaces, or the closure
of their favourite cinema halls, or the steadily deteriorating standards of life, yet, just like their creator,
they never bid adieu to this city for greener pastures. With their humble dreams, ordinary aspirations,
and simple desires they go on being a part of this city in the midst of all the filth, clamour, and
inadequacies. What Ray’s own and his protagonists’ loyalty to the city suggests is a symbiotic
relationship. For them, Kolkata is the only abode that could have given them sanctuary while Kolkata
would not have been Kolkata without the existence of these ordinary individuals with extraordinary
attributes. It is the inherent magnetism of Kolkata that inspires the people of this city to stick on to it
with the optimum utilization of their inexorable determination.

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Life in Kolkata, as sampled by Satyajit Ray in his stories, thus reaffirms our faith in humanity
and in the ultimate triumph of humanity.
Notes and References
1. Satyajit Ray, Gorosthane Saabdhaan (Kolkata: Ananda, 1979), p. 2.
2. In Ray’s lifetime, this city was known by its colonial name Calcutta.
3. Ray, quoted in Saroj Bandyopadhyay: The Literary Works of Satyajit Ray, Satyajit Ray: An
Intimate Master, ed. Santi Das (Kolkata: Allied, 1998), p. 84.
4. Satyajit Ray, quoted in Andrew Robinson, The Apu Trilogy: Satyajit Ray and the Making of
an Epic (London: I. B. Tauris, 2011), p. 10). Ray said this in his Kolkata lecture in the
context of his initial doubts about liking the Shantiniketan ambience being a thorough-bred
Kolkatan.
5. Ray, quoted in Andrew Robinson, Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye: The Biography of a Master
Film-Maker (London: I. B. Tauris, 2004), p. 4.
6. Ray, quoted in Robinson, p. 4.
7. Robinson, pp. 4 – 6.
8. Adoor Gopalakrishnan, In the beginning there was Pather Panchali, Satyajit Ray: An
Intimate Master, ed. Santi Das (Kolkata: Allied, 1998), p. 58.
9. Satyajit Ray, Brown Saaheber Bari, Galpo 101 (Kolkata: Ananda, 2001), p. 125.
10. Ray, Brown Saaheber Bari, p. 125.
11. Ray, First Class Kaamra, Galpo 101 (Kolkata: Ananda, 2001), p. 310.
12. Ray, First Class Kaamra, p. 310.

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13. In Tollywood-e Tarinikhudo (Tarinikhudo in Tollywood, 1985), Tarinikhudo, one of Ray’s
iconic fictional characters, recalls the halcyon days of the cinema houses in 1942 when all
shows used to run to packed houses.
14. Ray, Dui Bandhu, Galpo 101 (Kolkata: Ananda, 2001), p. 629.
15. Ray, Bhuto, Galpo 101 (Kolkata: Ananda, 2001), p. 288.
16. Robinson, p. 204.
17. Robinson, p. 204.
Bibliography
Das, Santi, ed. Satyajit Ray: An Intimate Master (Kolkata: Allied, 1998)
Gupta, Kshetra, Satyajiter Galpo (Kolkata: Pustak Bipani, 2003)
Ray, Satyajit, Bisay Chalachchitra, Kolkata: Ananda, 1982
Ray, Satyajit, Ekei Boley Shooting, Kolkata: Newscript, 1979
Ray, Satyajit, Jakhon Chhoto Chhilam, Kolkata: Ananda, 1982
Ray, Satyajit, My Years with Apu, Delhi: Penguin, 1994; London: Faber and Faber, 1997
Ray, Satyajit, Our Films Their Films, Delhi: Orient Longman, 1976
Ray, Satyajit, Pratikriti, Soumyen Pal, ed., Kolkata: Ananda, 1997
Robinson, Andrew, The Apu Trilogy: Satyajit Ray and the Making of an Epic (London: I. B.
Tauris, 2011)
Robinson, Andrew, Satyajit Ray: The Inner Eye: The Biography of a Master Film-Maker, André
Deutsch, 1989; London: I. B. Tauris, 2004
Seton, Marie. Portrait of a Director: Satyajit Ray. Bloomington, Indiana University Press
[1971]
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Zenith Roy is an assistant professor and the head of the department of English at Dinabandhu
Mahavidyalaya, Bongaon, 24 PGS (N), West Bengal, India. He has authored and edited school-level
grammar and composition books for secondary and higher secondary students. He has also authored a
few papers, of which one has been published in the Calcutta University Journal of the Department of
English. Mr. Roy has performed his Ph.D research in the Department of English, University of Calcutta
and recently submitted his doctoral thesis.

Demographic and Behavioral Profile of Street Children in
Kolkata
Atanu Ghosh
Abstract: Street children are highly mobile population and difficult to reach. Yet there are few
empirical data available about the nature of this “hidden” population. Available studies reflect that
street children are vulnerable to substance abuse, physical and sexual abuse and they also involve in
risky sexual behavior. Data for this study was collected from 43 Time Location Clusters of Kolkata.
Among 408 participants 76% were boys and 24% were girls. Girls tended to be younger than boys. The
study aimed to find out the vulnerability pattern of the street children in Kolkata. Of the total sample,
276 (67.6%) were substance abusers; 159 (39%) had been sexually abused and 227 (67%) had been
physically abused. Nearly one in every four children (23.3%) reported ever having engaging in
penetrative sex. This study will help the policy makers in formulating program plan for this “hidden”
population and thereby to reduce their vulnerabilities.
Keywords: Street children, Kolkata, vulnerabilities
Introduction
There are 18 million street children in India, who are living in different urban centers in deplorable
situation (UNICEF, 2005). There are major difficulties in trying to estimate the number of street
children and the magnitude of difficulties they experience. In their marginalized state they constitute a
truly "hidden" population that are not covered by or find place in the national census, educational or
health data, largely because they have no fixed address. The existing body of literature established that
street children are prone to different vulnerabilities; like mental health disorders or depression (Nayar,
U.S., 2002), delinquent activities (Wanger et al., 2001; Mundy et al., 1990), feelings of emptiness (Deb,
S., and Mitra. K., 2002), emotional, physical and sexual abuse history (Pagare et al., 2005;
Ahmadkhaniha et al., 2007; Poornima, T., 2007), unprotected sex, transmission of STDs and
HIV/AIDS (Aral et al., 2005; Tyler et al., 2000; Cates, 1991; Sonenstein, 1989). The lack of any social
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control, easy availability of different substances and involvement with deviant peers pushes them to
early initiation of substance abuse (Ghosh A., 2009; Pagare et al., 2004; Auerswald C.L., 2002). In a
study conducted among street children aged 6-16 years in Delhi (Pagare et al., 2004), it was found that
nearly six in every ten children (57.4%) had indulged in substance abuse before coming to the
observation home. The age of initiation of substance abuse was as low as 5.5 years.
The constellation of risk behaviors results in exceptional vulnerability to poor health outcomes,
particularly sexually transmitted diseases, hepatitis, unplanned pregnancies, HIV infection, and
accelerated immune dysfunction associated with AIDS (Stricof et al. 1991; Yates et al. 1988). There is
limited empirical information available about the nature of this complex and "hidden" population or the
distribution of risk behaviors within it and hence, little empirical basis for the development of critical
prevention strategies and policies. This paper aims to find out the vulnerability pattern of the street
children in Kolkata. The aim of this study is to explore the reasons that children live on the streets of
Kolkata, their livelihood strategies in the street economy, different vulnerabilities those are associated
with them and coping up strategies.
Background and Methods

Street children are neither usually counted nor they are subjected to any national census, so their exact
numbers are unknown. Representative data on street children are more difficult to obtain because their
lifestyle excludes them from sampling usually used to obtain probability samples (Anderson, 1994).
Most of the available information about this population is derived from quasi-institutional samples
recruited in homeless shelters, foster care, drug treatment programs and at the criminal justice system.
The inferences that can be drawn from such data are limited. Many on the streets do not utilize shelter
and treatment services and hence, are not represented in these samples. An additional limitation stems
from the fact that these children in all of these institutional settings often conceal their involvement in
high risk behaviors because of fear of stigma and of being denied of services. In order to overcome
these limitations, a Time Location Cluster (TLC) sampling approach was adopted for this study. TLC
refers to those geographical locations where street children use to congregate at different slots. It is
important to mention that based on congregation of street children at different time slots, a single area
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can be considered as different TLC for different time slots. A total number of 408 street children (311
boys and 97 girls) aged between 13-19 years were interviewed directly on the streets of Kolkata
Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA) area. Local NGOs who are working with Street
Children have been found to be a great help to develop the sampling frame and to reach the target
group. Another challenge lies while working with such population is the process of taking informed
consent from the target population. As most of the children were living by their own without the
parents so, informed consent from the individuals and assent from the respective NGOs were taken,
who were rendering services to them. Relevant information in detail about the substance abuse (like
age of first initiation, current and ever use of substance etc.), socio-demographic details, family
attachment, experiences in street etc. was collected in a pre-designed and pre tested questionnaire.
Street adolescents were interviewed though semi structured interview schedule. Data analysis was
performed using SPSS 17 version. Bi-variate frequency distribution, correlation tables, and multiple
logistic regressions have been used to interpret the findings. Chi-square test was also computed to
assess the association between different explanatory variables with the outcome variables.
Demographic Characteristics and Behavioral Profile

Socio-Demographic Characteristics
The data presented in Table 1 shows age-sex distribution of street adolescents. It is noted that out of
408 street adolescents interviewed, 311(76 percent) were males and 97 (24 percent) were females. This
finding is in agreement to other Indian studies on street adolescents where they have found
comparatively less adolescent girls than boys (Behura et al., 2005). Girls tended to be younger than
boys: About three-quarters (73 percent) of the girls and little more than half (52 percent) of the boys
were in the age group 13-15 years. The median age for boys and girls were 15 and 14 years
respectively with an overall median of 15 years. None of the street adolescents were attending to school
during the survey period. Therefore, this study has collected information on whether the respondent had
ever been to school and, if so, the grade he/she had successfully completed. Educational attainment
among adolescents was very poor; only a quarter had completed grade 4-6. Illiteracy among girls was
higher than boys. Twenty-nine percent girls reported to be illiterate against 22 percent boys.
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Homelessness
At the time of the interview, more than half (56.6%) of the sample were chronically homeless, defined
as living in street alone or with their friends (42.2%) or living in NGO run shelters (14.5%). The
families of most of the adolescents, who reported sleeping with their parents, took shelter on footpaths
and the spaces below flyovers and bridges. In some cases, such families took shelter in abandoned
houses, particularly belonging to the railway department. A majority of the adolescents, who were
living alone or with their friends, were sleeping in some corner of the railway platform, market places,
Thela (hand cart) stand, car sheds and footpaths. Only 15 percent of the respondents reported sleeping
in NGO run night shelters. More than three fourth of the girls (76 percent) reported sleeping on the
streets with their family members whereas, half of the boys reported sleeping on the streets either with
their friends or by themselves. On an average, the boys had been living on the streets longer than the
girls; 33 percent of boys and 21 percent of girls had been living on the streets (in the widest sense of
the word, including unoccupied dwellings, footpaths, railway platforms, under flyovers, wastelands,
etc.) for more than four years prior to the survey. Higher proportion of street adolescents living without
parents and longer duration of living on the streets is certainly a matter of concern considering the need
for their rehabilitation. At the same time, it is found that a sizeable proportion of adolescents (37
percent) had been living on the streets for less than two and a half years. As reported by NGO
professionals it is easier to rehabilitate such street children who have left their home very recently than
those who are living in street for longer duration. According to the NGOs who are working with the
street children, 3 to 4 children arrive (runaway) on trains from some part of the country every day.
Street Occupation, Income, Expenditure and Saving

Education attainment among these street children was poor as we can see only 25 percent of sample
studied class 4 or more. Thus, with limited education and few marketable job skills, these children have
very limited access to stable sources of legal income. Moreover, the kinds of activities available to
them within the illegal street economy are situational and unstable; often only generate small amounts
of cash at a time, and vary in productivity according to both short-term and long-term cycles in the
street economy. Consequently, they rely upon multiple "hustles" within both the formal and informal
economy. Street children do not bother about the social sanctity of the jobs they adopted and minded
less for their social prestige in the public. Most of the jobs did not require any capital investment. Many
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of them were involved in more than one earning activities. In this study, all respondents reported to
work either for cash or both cash and kinds. Seventy three percent of street children reported to work
for cash and 27 percent reported to work for both cash and kinds. Street children reported to engage in
as many as 16 different occupations including sex work and begging. Details presented in Table 2 show
that driving pedal rickshaw/hand cart (Thela), helper in street based hotels (dhabas), helpers to
hawkers/vendors and rag picking were among the major economic activities in which street children
were engaged. Some children reported that they were engaged in helping cooks, searching left outs in
Trains (6 percent), loading and unloading of goods from one place to another (5 percent) and doing
other miscellaneous occupations. Four percent of girls reported sex sale for their livelihood. Nine
percent of girls were engaged in drug pedaling. Six percent of respondents reported begging and 5
percent reported to clean cars at the traffic signals.
It is also found from the qualitative study that many of these children were engaged in illegal
survival activities like shoe lifting, bag lifting, pick pocketing, petty theft, drug pedaling and selling sex
for money. Informants said that youngsters were drawn into illegal activities because of the low and
unpredictable income generated by street based jobs and because they learn from more experienced
street youth. Six percent of respondents were involved in selling tobacco products in trains/buses/traffic
signals. They bought these items from local traders near the railway station through part payment for
those items. The profit margin varied from one item to another. The adolescents developed good
relations with those traders and were able to keep their unsold stock with them and take it for selling
again. But since selling of these items was banned in railways, it was a risky business because of the
fear of being caught by the railway police and harassed. Many of them had been caught and beaten by
the police several times for doing so. But, they would still continue the same because they found it
more profitable than others job. Working hours of street adolescents varied from 4 hours to 12 hours in
a day. It was found that the working hours for the street adolescents who were engaged in footpath
based hotels (Dhabas) and garage work were comparatively higher than others. All of the respondents
reported having rest during their total working hours.
The earning, expenditure and saving pattern of the target population reveals an interesting
finding. In this study, it was found that some of the adolescents were engaged in some wage earning
activities whereas, some others were involved in self earning activities like rag picking, collection and
selling of semi burnt coal etc. where their per day earnings were not fixed. In such cases, the average
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was taken from the last seven days’ earnings. Such an average was also taken for calculating the per
day expenditure on different items. For example, expenditure on recreational activities and gambling
was not regular. Therefore, weekly expenditure on those items was taken and daily average was
calculated. Whereas regarding saving money, adolescents were asked about their monthly savings. For
the purpose of analysis, per day average of saving was calculated. The average per day earning of
adolescents boys was Rs.36 and for girls Rs.32. There were variations in average earnings by
occupational categories. The income was minimum for those who were involved in collection and
selling of semi burnt coal. Adolescents who were involved in pulling pedal rickshaw/hand cart (Thela)
or in shifting goods from one place to another were earning better than others.
Abuse
The overlap of substance, sexual and physical abuse among street children have been found in this
study. Two third (67%) of the respondents reported to be a victim of physical abuse and 39% were the
victims of sexual abuse. Incidents of sexual abuse found to be higher among girls (53.6%) than boys
(34.4%). It is often believed that in case of sexual abuse the abuser is usually a stranger. This popular
perception is found to be false in this study, as only in about 9 percent of cases of sexual abuse
recorded in this research was a stranger involved. In most of the cases the abusers were persons who
were very close to them and well known to them.
Sexual Activity
In this study an attempt was made to understand the sexual behavior of the street children. Nearly of
the sample (47%) reported ever engaging in sexual intercourse either homo or hetero sexual. It is found
that higher proportion of boys (49%) reported to have experienced penetrative sex than their female
counterparts (40%). An attempt was made to understand whether the first acts of heterosexual and
homosexual intercourse were consensual or not. It was seen that all the boys who reported to have been
involved in homosexual intercourse were forced into it. For boys the main partner of heterosexual
intercourse found to be commercial sex workers. Many boys in the older cohort reported to have
multiple sexual partners. Nearly one-half (44 percent) had had unprotected sex in last 30 days,
including vaginal sex (70 percent), anal sex (59 percent).
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Knowledge of RTI/STI
Unsafe sexual behavior increases the risk of having Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs). As the
study population was very unhygienic and frequently involved in unprotected sexual activities, they
were at high risk of getting infected with Reproductive Track Infection (RTI) and STI. An attempt in
this study was made to understand the knowledge level of this target group whether they have heard
about it, or they are aware about different symptoms of RTI/STI. The knowledge about these terms as
well as about the symptoms of RTI/STI were very low both among boys (27%) and girls (31%).
Drugs abuse behavior

Street children use a wide variety of illegal drugs. Table 6 shows distribution of street children by use
of different substances. It also gives the value of ‘p’ to measure whether any significant differences lie
in substance use behavior between boys and girls. Chewing tobacco products (e.g. Gutka) was
prevalent among 91% of the children followed by cigarettes/bidis (75%) and inhalants like glue, paint
thinner etc. (62%). Twenty eight percent of adolescents reported to have ever drunk alcohol. Smoking
of marijuana was also reported by one fourth (26%) of the respondents. Fifteen percent of the children
had ever had medicinal drugs like sleeping pills or cough syrup etc. No injecting drug user was found
in this study. Multiple usages of substances were observed among both boys and girls. Significantly
more boys (71%) had ever used any non tobacco substances than their female (58%) counterparts (χ 2 =
5.716, d.f = 1, p = 0.017). For most of the substances, a significantly higher proportion of boys reported
to have had them as compared to the girls. Only in the case of medicinal drugs, a significantly higher
proportion of girls (26%) reported to use them as compared to boys (12%).
Conclusion
This report has provided a demographic and behavioral profile of street children in Kolkata City. Data
shows that street children are involved in multiple risk behaviors, including chronic, high-risk drug
abuse, as well as high-risk sexual behavior. This is but one local example of the emerging "class" of
adolescents and young adults, one that is notably overrepresented among ethnic and sexual minority
groups, who are "coming of age" in the burgeoning drug and sex economies now flourishing in all
Metro and million plus cities in India. The confluence of drug and sex risk among street children
worldwide is of particular concern in relation to HIV infection because several segments within this
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population interact behaviorally with two other high-exposure populations: adult gay men, in the
context of commercial sex work, and adult intravenous drug injectors, in the context of high-risk drug
injection practices-both populations with high background seroprevalence. Situated at a behavioral
"crossroads," street youths form an epidemiological bridge between these high-exposure populations
because the youths' drug and sexual risk behaviors frequently include individuals from one or both
groups. Although street outreach services have been shown to be an effective means of educating street
children about risk for HIV infection, and the use of the Harm Reduction Model has proven to be an
especially powerful tool in attracting them to social and public health services, retaining them in
services, and promoting health seeking behaviors (Clatts et al. 1999), existing resources for prevention
services targeted to this population are woefully inadequate relative to the scope of the population and
the complexity of these youths' needs. In particular, there is an urgent need to expand and integrate
street outreach, shelter, drug treatment, and primary health care services, and to do so within a unified
service-delivery model (Clatts et al. 1999) that is responsive to the individual needs and capacities of
youths within this complex and growing high-risk population.
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runaway and non-runaway youth”. American Journal Public Health, 78, 820–821.
Table 1: Percentage distribution of street adolescents by selected characteristics (n=408)

Background characteristics Street Adolescents
Boys Girls Total
% n % n % n
Age category
13-15 Years 52.1 162 73.2 71 57.1 233
16-19 Years 47.9 149 26.8 26 42.9 175
Median Age (in Years) 15 14 15
Place of living during night
NGO run night shelter 16.4 51 8.2 8 14.5 59
On the street with family members 33.1 103 76.3 74 43.4 177
On the street with friends or alone 50.5 157 15.5 15 42.2 172
Number of years living in street
Less than two and half years 34.7 108 42.3 41 36.5 149
21⁄2 - 4 years 32.2 100 37.1 36 33.3 136
More than 4 years 33.1 103 20.6 20 30.1 123
Educational status
Illiterate or class one 35.4 110 48.5 47 38.5 157
class 2-3 35.4 110 39.2 38 36.3 148
class 4 or more 29.3 91 12.4 12 25.2 103
Total 100.
100.0 311 100.0 97 408
0
Percentages are taken for Column;
Table 2: Distribution of street adolescents by types of occupation (n=408)
Type of work Street Adolescents
Boys Girls Total
% n % n % n
Helper of hawkers/vendors 12.2 38 6.2 6 10.8 44
Helper in footpath based hotel 16.4 51 11.3 11 15.2 62
Helper in garage 7.7 24 0.0 0 5.9 24
Helper in matador 3.2 10 0.0 0 2.5 10
Shoe polish 4.5 14 0.0 0 3.4 14
Car wash at traffic signal 4.5 14 6.2 6 4.9 20
Begging 3.9 12 12.4 12 5.9 24
Rag picker 6.4 20 17.5 17 9.1 37
Searching for left outs in trains 5.8 18 6.2 6 5.9 24
Driving pedal rickshaw /hand cart (Thela) 17.4 54 0.0 0 13.2 54
Collection of semi burnt coal 5.1 16 8.2 8 5.9 24
Potter 6.1 19 0.0 0 4.7 19
Collecting and selling vegetables 1.6 5 10.3 10 3.7 15
Selling Tobacco Product in Train/Bus/Traffic signals 5.1 16 8.2 8 5.9 24
Sex Work 0.0 0 4.1 4 1.0 4
Drug Paddling 0.0 0 9.3 9 2.2 9
Total 100.
100.0 311 100.0 97 408
0
Percentages are taken for Column;
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Table 3: Distribution of adolescents by per day per capita earning, expenditure and saving
Mean per day earning,
expenditure on different items and Boys Girls
saving
Mea
Mean Min Max S.D. Min Max S.D.
n
Earning 35.87 7.0 170.0 31.43 31.86 10.0 180.0 29.94
Median Earning 25.00 25.00
Expenditure
Buy food 11.75 0.0 60.0 12.08 8.47 0.0 50.0 10.14
Buy tobacco or other substances 13.14 0.0 100.0 12.62 9.93 0.0 80.0 12.36
Recreational activities like watching
movie etc. 6.34 0.0 80.0 10.90 6.18 0.0 20.0 4.99
Rent for shelter 0.16 0.0 10.0 1.26 0.21 0.0 20.0 2.03
Gambling (playing cards) 2.59 0.0 60.0 7.59 0.00 0.0 0.0 0.00
Giving to parents 3.16 0.0 30.0 6.59 7.89 0.0 40.0 8.00
Others 0.00 0.0 0.0 0.00 2.94 0.0 100.0 14.75
Saving 2.87 0.0 23.33 5.25 1.43 0.0 20.0 4.21
Note: The addition to different expenditure and saving may not match with average income
Table 4: Distribution of adolescents by the type of sexual behavior

Sexual behavior Adolescents
Boys Girls Total
% n % n % n
Ever engaged in penetrative sex 49.2 153 40.2 39 47.1 192
Ever engaged in hetero sexual activity# 77.8 119 100.0 39 82.3 158
Consensual 100.0 119 15.4 6 79.1 125
Non consensual 0.0 0 84.6 33 20.9 33
Ever engaged in homo sexual activity# 40.5 62 NA NA 40.5 62
Consensual 0.0 0 NA NA 0.0 0
Non consensual 62 NA NA 100.
100.0 62
0
# out of respondents who ever engaged in penetrative sex (n=192)
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Table 5: Distribution of adolescents who have heard about RTI/STI and reporting knowing
specific symptoms
Background characteristics Street adolescents
Boys Girls Total
% n % n % n
Have heard about RTI/STI 26.7 83 30.9 30 27.7 113
Those who have heard about RTI/STI their knowledge on specific morbidities
Genital Ulcer 48.2 40 56.7 17 50.4 57
Lower abdominal pain 0.0 0 20.0 6 5.3 6
Scrotal Swelling 39.8 33 0.0 0 29.2 33
Burning sensation during urination 2.4 2 20.0 6 7.1 8
Vaginal discharge 0.0 0 13.3 4 3.5 4
Involuntary passing of semen 31.3 26 0.0 0 23.0 26
Involuntary urination while sneezing or others 0.0 0 16.7 5 4.4 5
Percentages are taken for column. Responses are not mutually exclusive
Table 6: Substance abuse behaviors of street children by sex (n=408)

Ever used substances Street Adolescents
Boys Girls Total
% n % n % n
91.1
Ever used chewing tobacco product*** 96.78 301 73.20 71 8 372
74.7
Ever smoked bidi/Cigarettee*** 91.64 285 20.62 20 5 305
28.1
Ever used alcohol*** 35.69 111 4.12 4 9 115
25.9
Ever smoked Ganja*** 34.08 106 0.0 0 8 106
62.0
Ever sniffed Glue* 63.99 199 55.67 54 1 253
15.4
Ever used medicinal drug*** 12.22 38 25.77 25 4 63
Ever used alcohol or any substance*** 97.4 303 75.3 73 92.2 376
Ever used of any non tobacco substance ** 70.7 220 57.7 56 67.6 276
Percentages are taken for Column; Responses are not mutually exclusive; Significant levels for χ 2 test
*p<0.10; **p<0.05; ***p<0.01;
Atanu Ghosh, PhD, is a development economist, presently working as an Assistant Professor of

Economics in Bankura Christian College, Bankura, West Bengal, India. His research interest is on
Population, Reproductive Health and Development Studies. He had been associated with Tata Institute
for Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, Georgetown University’s Institute for Reproductive Health (IRH)
and Department of Health and Family Welfare, Govt. of West Bengal at different capacities.
Cottage and Small Scale Industries in the Slums of
Kolkata: Growth and Constraints in Twentieth Century
Subrata Nandi
Abstract
Slums of Kolkata are generally known for over congestation, birth place of various diseases and filthy
atmosphere. But there is another aspect of slums i.e. these are centres of various types of Cottage and
small-scale industries .The aim of the paper is to highlight the growths, problems and future prospects
of such industries.
Introduction
Kolkata being the centre of trade and commerce it attracts large number of immigrants from different
parts of India throughout the 20th century. The census of 1911 gives us a clear picture of the extent of
nature of immigration. Most of them are forced to take shelter in overcrowded slums. Similar picture of
overcrowding can also be seen in the tenements of London where about 17.8 per cent of the total
population actually lived at that time 1. The hereditary profession of the immigrants were agriculture
and production of different kinds of goods. The major problem before the immigrants is
accommodation as during the early decades of the century suburbs of the city were not developed and
the civic authority did have hardly any plan to provide shelter to this category of people .At that time
the Development Department of Bombay embarked on the project of construction of houses for this
category of people. 2
Most of the immigrants both male and female livings in slums were employed in factories .A
portion of slum dwellers are engaged in small scale and cottage industries. References of early such
industries are very scanty as the colonial govt. did not have any interest in these ventures. So no survey
report or any other direct official record is available. After 1947 the department of Small scale and
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cottage industries was established in every state for the development of these industries. The Civic
authorities and Nationalised banks also come forward to encourage these industries. Such initiatives are
preceded by number of surveys which are also used as sources for this paper.
There are different types of industries in the slums of Kolkata .Some of which still exist and
some went into oblivion.
Extinct cottage and small scale industries
Glass-Bangle Making —The bangle made of glass is one of the most popular jewellery favoured by
Indian women because of its beauty and cheapness. This cottage industry actually flourished in
Ghoshbagan slum, goods mostly produced by Muslim artisans. The artisans used traditional techniques
for bangle making which were to be sold by their women from door to door. The production of this
industry declined due to the uneven competition with the goods manufactured at the factories of Agra.
The industry existed to a very limited extent till 1960s. At that time the raw material for bangle making
glass was to be collected from the rag pickers.3
Soap –making – Soap is an item of common need of people. At the outset of the century common
people preferred to utilise soaps, produced mostly by cottage industries in slums. People of affluent
classes prefer foreign soaps for their daily use. This industry was also dominated by people of Muslim
Community. The market of the products was diminished due to emergence of soap factories such as
Bengal Soap Company, the Oriental Soap Factory and boolbool soap factory etc.4
Match Manufacturing industry – This industry developed in Kolkata immediately after the
imposition of duty on the import of matches though a few attempts had been taken by Indian
entrepreneurs to set up a number of match making company but they failed. In Kolkata a number of
such factories were set up. It was estimated by Tariff Board in 1928 that there were 27 such factories in
Kolkata. This industry was linked up with a number of cottage industries for production of a number of
goods, such as box making. The labourers use their hands widely in handling explosives while making
matches without any precaution.5

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Generally all processes of manufacture were not carried out by the members of a single family
in their own house.Some of which were done in the houses of hired labourers. This might be due to the
fact that the factories were situated in congested areas where space was a major problem. The IBT
report on match reveals the fact that outbreak of fire and loss of lives were common phenomena as the
Kolkata Corporation had no proper regulation.6
The cost of production of matches manufactured in cottage industries was higher in comparison
with that of mechanised ones.The market of the goods produced in this industry was restricted to small
towns as Rajat Kanta Ray considerd that matches produced by big factories like Wimco flooded in the
market.7
Paintings of Kalighat – The patua community resided in the slum area of kalighat due to situated in
the vicinity of the famous Kali temple which drew a large number of pilgrims there.Their hand
paintings were to be sold at the bazaars of Kolkata.In 19 th century artists used cloth as canvas for
painting. Later cloth was replaced by paper to make the paintings cheap.They use mainly simple
techniques of paintings.The painters of kalighat lost their importance as cheap German paintings
became available in the market.8
There were references of a number of industries which were mostly dominated by women e.g.
rice pounding ,rice husking, weaving of cloths etc. In these industries women engaged in production
along with marketing of products.9
Images of painters of Kalighat Source- google.co.in accessed on 10th September 2014

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Existing industries
The existing industries can be categorised under two heads viz slums specialised in manufacturing a
particular kind of product and slums having different types of industries. Slums of Metiabruz and
Kumortuli belonged to the first category and dominated by a particular community whereas other city
slums come under the different category and mostly dominated by people of heterogeneous linguistic
and religious groups. There are numerous industries come under the latter category.
Industries:
Group Items
1. Light Engineering : Lathe machine, steel Almirah& Trunk making Dice
manufacturing, Sanitary fittings,Tubewell pipe fittings,Electrical
goods etc.
2. Plastic works : Toys ,Polythene bottles and goods.
3. Chemical Industry : Soap,Paint,Acid grease etc.
4. Glass & glass ware : Ampule.
5. Rubber Products : Pipes,tubes,tyres etc.
6. Carpenters(woodwork) : Furniture ,sport goods and others.
7. Pottery : Ceramic & others
8. Clay modelling : Images & Doll making
9. Miscellaneous : Paper packets ,baskets, Jute bag, cloth printing, Bead garland,
Couch, Bungles,Bakery,’biri’ making,bi-cycle &tri-cycle etc.
Source- An approach to economic renewal and promotion programme, informal industry sector,
Economic and social support programme cell, Directorate of Planning,CMDA,1977
Slum dwellers are disproportionately engaged in different industries. This will be clear from the survey
conducted by the CMDA over 1341 families living in different slums of the city .The following
outcome has been found.
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Slum dwelling families by major industrial pursuit
SL No. Type of industries Number of families P.C.
1 Garment making 599 44.67
2 Light engineering workers 227 16.93
3 Leather goods makers 114 8.50
4 Carpenters 82 6.11
5 Others 319 23.29
Total 1341 100
This is not possible to provide glimpse of all the existing industries in this paper.A number of such a
category have been highlighted to make one understand the nature and extent of industrial development
in slums.
Clay –Model making
This kind of cottage industry is found in the slums situated in the northern part of the city.Artisans are
mostly Hindus belonging to kumor community. They actually make images of different Hindu deties
required for different festivals. The raw materials for clay modelling is alluvial soil which they mostly
procured from the Ganges and other materials are collected locally. Normally the artisans still today do
not get any formal training. They could learn the technique form their families themselves. Over the
years their mode of business has changed. Previously the artisans used to go to the clients house in
order to make clay images as in those days Barawari puja or Puja organised by a group of people was
unfamiliar.10 Small deities for daily worshiping were mostly produced by the artists of Kumartuli.
Besides idol making the potters of Kumartoli produce different types of clay utensils for daily use of
common people of the city.
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The study conducted by the CMDA in June 1977 on the clay modellers of Kumortuli reveals the
following informations.11
In the clay modelling operation 587 workers are deployed, of which 269 members belong to the
resident clay modellers families. And the rest, 308 are hired workers hired by these families. The
female participants in such clay modelling and doll making are few. It also divulges the fact that a
number of families under study run the making of sola craft and trading with it. There is no specified
market to sell out the products of Kumortuli.Generally the customers purchase those products from the
location. To attract the customers producers displayed their products on road side.
Clay idol maker, Kumartuli. Source- google.co.in accessed on 10th September 2014
Nowadays the demand for utensils made of clay has come down as cheap plastic goods has flooded the
market. With the decreasing demand a number of artisans have shifted to another profession and they
are in a better off condition than the artisans who still stick to their hereditary professions. Most of the
artisans now a days take up the occupation of pulling rickshaw or different kinds of jobs other than the
months preceding the Durga Puja. This industry actually is in a sharp competition with the idols
imported from China.12

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The image making of Hindu deities involved a number of artisans of specialising in making
different kinds of artefacts for decoration ,previously produced by Muslim artisans ,living in the
surrounding bustees.13 With the passing of time these types of cottage industries have been wiped out
as different kinds of materials are available.
Garment-making
This industry developed in different slum pockets of the city over the years, mostly dominated by
Muslims. The centre of this industry is Metiabruz and surrounding slums. The root of the industry goes
back to mid 19th century when a group of follower of the exiled Nawab Wazad Ali Shah of Oudh came
to that region, took up tailoring as profession. This is still one of the thriving small scale industry
emerged in slum areas of the city. This tailors are locally known as dorjis and the owner of the karkhan
or workshop is named as Ostakar. At the outset of the century this industry is dominated by the
Muslims of Upper India .Later the job opportunity attracted large number of immigrant from different
parts of Bengal.Women of this community are also employed in various activities of this industry.14
Earlier this small scale industry used to function in a limited extent as most of the artisans of this region
serve as artisans on daily wage basis in the tailoring shops of the city or would sell their small number
of manufactured goods in streets and door –to –door basis. Now a days the scenario has been changed.
The reason behind the enormous growth of the industry is the rising demand of ready made garments
due to change of fashion of people. Marwari community is now a days is running business of cloths
and other items in that area which make easy supply of raw materials to the workshops on credit basis.
The govt. a number of times took initiatives to set up training centre to train up the artisans in a proper
way but all of the attempts did not materialise. Generally children of this locality get trained up in
workshops as apprentice.
Paper and allied crafts
This type of industries actually develop in the Parsi bagan slum ,situated outside the Business District
of the city. This industry includes manufacturing of envelop , book binding, card-board box, files, kites
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etc. The manufactured goods has the market in College Street, very close to the slum. Besides
men,women and children are employed in making those products.15
Timber and allied crafts
This category of industries concentrate in the slums of Ultadanga and Beliaghata along the canal which
was previously used to transport the timber blogs . Timber is actually used to manufacture a number of
products such as plywood, packing box, etc. This business is seasonal in nature. During the rainy
season the production gets hampered as open space is required to dry up raw materials.
For marketing of their manufactured goods wealthier entrepreneurs have to depend on middle
men whereas the weaker ones mostly rely on themselves. The reason behind the fact is that the former
group of entrepreneurs sell their products to middle men on whole sale basis, keeping a limited margin
of profit. 16
Table No-16
Group Marketing
SS MM
A 97 % 3%
B 75% 25%
C 72% 28%
D 50% 50%
NB:MM=Middle men, SS=Self Selling
Source-A study report on small scale timber and plywood industries at Ultadanga and Beleghata in
Kolkata, CMDA, 1977 p733
NB-Group A (having total capital less than Rs 5000)

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Group B(having capital between 5001 and Rs 40,000)
Group C (having capital between Rs.40001 –Rs. 1, 00,000)
Group D (having capital 1, 00,001 above)
Finance
During the colonial days there was hardly any state run institution to finance these small scale and
cottage industries. The banks which emerged during the Swadeshi days were mostly invested by big
zaminders or indigenous rich persons aimed at yielding high dividend to their shareholders. Scanty
capital required for investment was mainly supplied by local money lenders. After independence the
scenario has been changed to some extent. The Govt. established the Department of Small Scale and
cottage industries in order to provide training and finance to develop the industries. The Nationalised
Banks have come forward to provide loan to these type of people .
The banks had selected four categories of industries to provide financial assistance for their adequate
growth. These were-
I)Tailoring and garment making at Metiabruz.
ii) Image making and clay modelling industries at Kumartuly.
iii) Timber & Plywood industries at Ultadanga & Beliaghata Road Areas
IV)Tannery industries at Tiljala of East Kolkata18
The first three industries were properly surveyed by various Nationalised banks in 1977. The Terms
and conditions for a borrower was also framed by the banks. They were –
i)Educated unemployed people.
ii) Persons having little general education but some technical knowledge and experience.
iii) For uneducated and new labour –force seeking employment opportunities.
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The loan facilities extended to the artisans engaged with various categories of industries seem to
have limited success. This is quite clear from the following table available from UBI, Kumartuli 19
Table No-11 20
Information on Bank Loans Extended to the clay Modellers and realisation.
Year/Seasons No.of borrowers Loan sanctioned
1974 37
Durga Season 37 1,11,625
Saraswati -- -----------
1975 114 3,92,400
Saraswati ‘’ 44 97,200
1976 131 4,64,700
Saraswati “ 54 1,30,200
1977
Durga Season*
Saraswati ‘’ 59 1,46,500
*The season is yet to come .Source: UBI office at Kumartuli
Generally it is found that the poor artisans hardly arrange to get any opportunity of loan from
banks due to non proper maintenance of accounts and inability to fulfil the criteria framed by the
banks.The loan facility could only secure those artisans who have some amount of wealth. The non-
banking financial institutions mainly lend money to this weaker section of the artisans.21
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Swadeshi Enterprise vs petty enterprises in slums
The Swadeshi movement encouraged the setting up of a number of industries in Kolkata as well as
different parts of Bengal. These enterprises included the setting up of textile factories, chemical
industry, tannery and leather works, banking, insurance etc. Most of the industries were financed by
indigenous capitalist class, especially Zamindars. The bourgeois participation in these kinds of
enterprises is the most remarkable feature 22
. The machines which were utilised for industrial
production were both made of traditional techniques and in many cases were imported from foreign
countries. Foreign technicians were sometimes recruited to supervise the manufacture of different types
of goods. Some times youths financed by indigenous rich were sent to foreign land to learn different
modern techniques for manufacturing of varieties of goods 23
Sumit Sarkar considers that Swadeshi
movement actually brought more money in the hands of the mercantile class and they invested that
capital in Swadeshi manufacture 24.A number of shops to sell Swadeshi products were established in
different parts of Kolkata as well as Bengal e.g Swadwshi bazaar on Cornwaliis Street ,Swadeshi
Bastralaya on Chitpur Road etc. Sumit Sarkar shows that these shops were earning handsome profit
by raising the fact that these stores earned a profit of Rs.14737-1-0 and a dividend was declared in
August 1906. 25
So most of the Swadeshi enterprises were financed by share holders .Sumit Sarkar
considers that major propaganda of the Swadeshi movement was industrialisation as unemployment
was a major problem 26.
In contrast to the features of the Swadeshi enterprises, the petty enterprises of the early
decades of the twentieth century grew spontaneously to satisfy the needs of common people based on
small tools made themselves or procured locally. The scanty finance required for these types of
industries was mostly provided on loan basis by money lenders of different categories. The Swadeshi
banks which emerged as an outcome of the Swadeshi Movement to finance the industries in Bengal
were not successful enough to meet the financial needs of the industries .The attempts were failed. 27
Big industries versus cottage and small scale industries
The impact of big industries on cottage and small scale industries is two sided. In some cases the rise
factories diminished the market of a number of similar products manufactured in slums e.g.
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manufacturing of matches.On the other hand a number of products manufactured in certain slums are
high demand in various big factories e.g. small machineries produced in city slums are used in the Jute
Mills.28 In certain slums of Bombay ,there are existence of ancillary units of big industries. For
example a number of components of Godrej Refrigerator are manufactured at the slum of
Indiranagar.29 In Kolkata such a relationship can hardly be traced due to sorry state of industrial
growth.
Problems
The slums of the city still today have different types of cottage and small-scale industries producing
different types of goods. The reasons causing hindrance for the growth of the industries have been
stated below.
I) Most of the slum dwellers are not aware of the facilities provided by the Small scale and cottage
industry deptt. of govt as well as the banks to promote their ventures as the level of literacy among
them is very low. Besides they cannot fulfil the criteria set up by the banks.31
2) In most of the cases such industries are mostly located in the huts of the artisans. So space problem
is one of the major problems. Due to paucity of space the artisans have to use in many cases the
footpaths adjacent to their huts avoiding all kinds of problems. 32
3)The artisans and entrepreneurs in most of the cases do not get any kind of formal training rather they
acquire their skills through apprenticeship whereas training in govt. sponsored training centres is not
very lucrative to these kind of people. 33
4) For marketing these products the entrepreneurs mostly rely on middle men as proper market for
these goods have properly not developed.34
Prospects
The census of India of 2011 brings into focus that a vast majority of the city population is living in
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slums. Some of the people within the population have been inheriting traditional skills of
manufacturing different types of goods. If the human resource of this category of population can be
utilised in a systematic manner through providing easy loan from banks as well as encouragement from
govt. and NGOs different kind of industrial development could be achieved
References
1.J.A Yelling, Slums and Development:Policy and Practice in England ,1918-1945(London:UCL

Press:2004)14
2.Sandip Hazareesingh,The Colonial City and the Challenge of Modernity:Urban Hegemonies and
Civic Contestations in Bombay 1900-1925 (Hydrabad:Orient BlackSwan:2005)48
3.M.K.A.Siddiqui,Muslims of Kolkata:A Study in Aspects of Their Social

Organisation(Kolkata:Anthropological Survey of India:2005)106-107
4. ibid
5.Report of the Indian Tariff Board Regarding the Grant of Protection to the Match Industry (1928)
p.155(Kolkata)
6.ibid
7.Rajat K. Ray,Industrialisation in India :Growth and Conflict in the Private Corporate Sector 1914-
47(Delhi:Oxford University Press:1982)156
8 Gerorge William Archer,Bazaar Paintings of Kolkata: the Style of Kalighat( London: Her Majesty’s
Stationery Office, 1953)
9.Census of India India,1911
10.www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumortuli(accessed 10 September 2014)

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11.A Study Report on Clay Modellers’ Community at Kumartuli in Kolkata(1977)p

665(Kolkata,CMDA)
12.Sonali Biswas,Acute Shelter and Space Crisis of Kumartuli Potters of Kolkata-A Case Study
Conducted Recently in December 2012,08-SHL-SONALI BISWAS (accessed on 10 September 2014)
13. M.K.A.Siddiqui,Muslims of Kolkata:A Study in Aspects of Their Social

Organisation(Kolkata:Anthropological Survey of India:2005)118
14.Field survey in the slum of Metiabruz done by author himself.
15. M.K.A.Siddiqui and Y.Hossain,Life in the Slums of Kolkata:A study of Parsi Bagan Bustee(New
Delhi:Institute of Objective Studies)69-86
16.A Study Report on Small Scale Timber and Plywood industries at Ultadanga and Beleghata ( June
1977)p717-742(Kolkata,CMDA)
17.ibid.718
18.An pproach to Economic Renewal and Promotion Programme-Informal Industry

sector(1977)p597(Kolkata,CMDA)
19.ibid,596
20.A Study Report on Clay Modellers Community at Kumartuli in Kolkata(1977)p

666(Kolkata,CMDA)
21 A Study Report on Small Scale Timber and Plywood industries at Ultadanga and Beleghata ( June
1977) 733(Kolkata,CMDA)
22.Amit Bhattacharyya ,Swadeshi Enterprise in Bengal 1900-1920(Kolkata:INA Press),
23.ibid
24.Sumit Sarkar,The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal 1903-1908(New Delhi:People’s Publishing

House)98-99
25.ibid,117
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26.ibid, 99
27. Amit Bhattacharyya ,Swadeshi Enterprise in Bengal 1900-1920(Kolkata:INA Press)236
28. A Study Report on Small Scale Light Engineering Industries of Belilious Road Belt in
Howrah(1977)694
29.Jeremy Seabrook ,Life and Labour in a Bombay Slum(London:Quartet Books)
Subrata Nandi received M.A in History from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. He is currently working as
Assistant Professor in the Onda Thana Mahavidyalaya, Bankura, West Bengal, India. Professor Nandi
is also pursuing Ph.D at the department of History, University of Burdwan. The title of his dissertation
is ‘Changing profile of Kolkata slums’.He is regular in writing articles in different scholarly journals.
Kolkata's Intellectual Response to Shakespeare:
Academia, Stage and Little Magazines
Arindam Mukherjee
This study focuses on the ways in which Bengali writers and academics of pre-and post-independent
periods in Kolkata responded to Shakespeare in order to show how much of this response is derivative
and how much of it is truly Bengali.
Shakespeare came to be used as one of the planks of the edifice of English education in India.
Shakespeare gave the study of English literature a kind of respectability that set the native students and
scholars competing for recognition by the colonial rulers over their mastery of English language and
literature. It was because of the centrality of Shakespeare in the colonial agenda of cultural hegemony
that his works were translated and adapted for the Bengali stage and included in the academic curricula
at schools and colleges. In Calcutta (now Kolkata), Presidency College, a premier institution of
academic excellence, built up a solid tradition of Shakespeare studies addressed to the needs of the
students. H. M. Percival edited a number of Shakespeare’s plays with a scholarly competence, which
was rivalled even by the British editors. Calcutta University and later Jadavpur University contributed
in their own ways to the rising interest in Shakespeare, as the greatest literary gift of the Raj.
One important consequence of this extensive exposure to Shakespeare was the growth of
Bengali drama modelled on Shakespeare’s plays. Shakespeare criticism in England not only helped the
Bengali academics to understand Shakespeare better, but also provided a whole set of criterion for
judging the native dramatic practice. In fact, Shakespeare studies by Bengali academics had no
alternative but to grow and maintain its credentials only in the shadow of Shakespeare studies in
England. This made most of Shakespeare studies in Bengal very much derivative, which were rather
inevitable in a British colony. Unlike the French and Russian, Bengali scholars could not be expected to
evolve their own ways of looking at Shakespeare. As a result, Bengal could not produce a Shakespeare
critic like Voltaire or Tolstoy.
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In the post-independent phase of Shakespeare criticism one still notices profound erudition
operating very cautiously within the critical tradition of received ideas. All the approaches,
biographical, historical, psychological, practical and textual, which were popularized in England, came
to be adopted liberally.
It is interesting to note that when the sanctified image of the Bard was challenged by his own
countrymen, it found its echo in certain quarters of Bengali scholarship. An independent critical
outlook displayed by Bankim Chandra and Rabindranath in their comments on Shakespeare’s plays,
had little chance of being developed by Bengali academia. What happened in the 50s, 60s and 70s of
the last century, before the advent of recent theories in the field of Shakespeare studies in West Bengal,
is only repeating itself in the 21st century, a new phase of derivativeness in a deceptive guise.
After the advent of East India Company on the shores of Bengal, British Colonialism not only
established its political power but also took steps for a cultural conquest of the colonized Bengalis in
and around Calcutta. The missionaries continued to use various indigenous means to arrive at the banks
of the Ganga and work for dissemination of western education. They learned Bengali so that the
Bengalis could be taught English. Possibly, they believed that such a venture would fulfil their purpose
of proselytization. It was the ‘Charter Act’ of 1813, which encouraged the learned Bengalis for
improving their literary excellences and knowledge of science through western education.(S.C.Ghosh,
The History of Education in Modern India, 1757-1986, Hyderabad, Orient Longman; 1995.) Raja
Rammohan Roy was the first Bengali who advocated that modernization of India would come through
English Education and proper inculcation of the knowledge acquired by western sciences. In between
1813 and 1835, when the government was not so eager to spend money in this field, public missionary
institutions like ‘Church Missionary Society’, ‘London Missionary Society’, Robert May’s school in
Dutch Chinsurah played a significant part. ‘Serampore Baptist Mission’ and its trio Carey, Marshman
and Ward, was the pioneer in imparting of Western education. Thomas Babington Macaulay’s ‘Minute
on Indian Education’ (1835) became the blue print for the introduction of English education in India.
He argued, “Such an education would create a class of persons between us and the millions we govern,
a class of persons Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals and
intellect.”(Ibid. pg.32)
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The Days of the British Raj: Discussing a Time Frame
Gradually a new education system was introduced in India, especially in Bengal, in which the task of
producing knowledge was assigned to the colonial country, while in reproduction; replication was left
for the colonial people. This was the beginning of the western type of modernization project in which
English language and literature was introduced in the academic curriculum. R.C. Majumder writes,
“English education was made the only passport to higher appointments available to the Indians, and
hence its popularity and rapid progress were assured.” (R. C. Majumder, H. C. Raychaudhuri and
Kalikinkar Dutta: An Advanced History of India, Macmillan, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1965, pg.
819)
On the contrary, Gauri Viswanathan in her book, Mask of Conquest: Literary Study of British
Rule in India. (New York, Colombia University Press, 1989. pg. 38) has argued that English education
was present in India in various forms before 1835. However, while previously English was studied in a
classical fashion primarily as a language, the new shift was towards the study of literature as a medium
of modern knowledge. English literature, particularly Shakespeare and other Renaissance authors were
ideal representations of English identity, sanctioned and abstracted from the immediate history of
exploitation and oppression. Moreover, it would incorporate a group of natives into the structure of
colonial rule, which remained the main political agenda of Anglicism. In a way, the whole indigenous
society was benefitted from western authors, particularly Shakespeare and imbibing his superior moral
and ethical ideals. Even in 1854 when Charles Wood’s ‘Educational Dispatch’ of recommending the
extension of Vernacular was introduced, it did not affect at all the Western writers like Shakespeare
because by then he had become a colonial icon and the Bengali ‘BhadrolokBabus’ started translating,
adapting and critically evaluating his works.
Higher education thus received further boost as in 1857 the three Universities namely Calcutta,
Bombay and Madras were established on the model of the University of London, which was found to
be more suited to colonial conditions. In some secondary schools where the medium of instruction was
English, Shakespeare was compulsory in the academic curriculum. In the intermediate and degree
courses, Shakespeare was taught with great emphasis and the best teachers were given the task to teach
his plays (SwapanChakravorty, “This Sad Interim: Shakespeare in the Indian Classroom.” Published in
“Re-presenting Shakespeare: Text, Performance and Analysis” ed. Sarbani Chaudhuri.pg. 40).
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Mostly middle class Hindus of Calcutta reaped the advantages of English education while the
Hindu aristocrats and Muslim community kept aloof from it. The middle class Hindus not only had
started the Young Bengal movement but also had instilled the spirit of unity in the minds of the masses.
So teaching Shakespeare to the common masses in Calcutta and its peripheral areas was well taken
upby the middle class intellectuals and thus Shakespeare made a permanent place in colonial education.
Therefore, the matrix of Shakespeare studies in Bengal goes back to around the third decade of the
nineteenth century through translations, adaptations, stage performances and a little later through the
classroom studies, primarily at Hindu College (now Presidency University), Calcutta University, Dacca
University, St. Xaviers’ College (Kolkata) and Scottish Church College, Calcutta . Therefore, Calcutta
became the cultural hub for Shakespeare study in eastern India and scholars, translators and actors
came to Calcutta from all parts of Bengal.
The Matrix of Shakespeare Study in Kolkata: Historically Determined
The main objective here is to focus on the various ways in which Bengali writers and academics in both
the pre and post-independence periods responded to Shakespeare. With the introduction of English
education in Bengal, Shakespeare came to be used as one of the planks of edifice of English education
in India. The Bengali bhadroloks since the first quarter of the nineteenth century opted for English
education to appease their colonial masters and many of them vied with each other to show their
reverence for Shakespeare’s works by translating, adapting and producing them on the stage. The
colonial rule of one hundred and ninety years not only cemented English Language and Literature in
the academic curriculum but also made the sanctified image of the bard an epitome of cultural glory
especially in Kolkata, the capital city of India. This had been made possible by the British teachers who
came all the way from England to teach in Kolkata, and by the greatest master and mentor of ‘the
young Bengal,’ Henry Louis Vivian Derozio.
The prime focus is to show that the Bengali response to Shakespeare was derivative for a long
time and then it became self-reliant. The basic intention in dealing with the ‘Translation and Adaptation
of Shakespeare’s Plays,’ highlights how faithful translations, which appealed to the masses and inspired
others to take up this venture. The art of translating a Shakespearean play in Bengali was done first not
by any native Indian but by an Englishman of Fort William College, named Claude Moncton. The next
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Bengali translation was not a full-fledged play but of a play’s prose rendering of ‘Romeo and Juliet’
(Tales from Shakespeare) and Gurudas Hazra was the pioneer, naming it ‘Romeo Juliet er Monohar
Upakhyan’ (1848). By the middle of nineteenth century, ordinary Indians had learnt English well
enough to attempt translating most of Charles Lamb’s tales. Even Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar made a
prose rendering of ‘The Comedy of Errors’ with the title ‘BhrantiBilas.’ (1867) Soon the Bengali
writers felt the necessity for translating the complete plays and they followed three distinctive patterns:
(1) Literal or word for word translation. (2) Rendering of and adapting to the storyline of the original
plays.(3) Amalgamating the literal translation and adaptation in terms of contemporary socio-economic
and political conditions; this has been categorized as ‘cultural translation’. In the second half of
nineteenth century, at least thirty–five renderings were either adapted or culturally translated of just
sixteen plays. Literal translations suffered as it appeared unpleasant to the ear and failed to please the
Bengali readers because of the diversity in local customs and religious beliefs.
The first adaptation of Shakespeare in Bengali was, probably, of ‘A Most Pleasant and Excellent
Conceited Comedy, of Sir John Falstaff, and the merry Wives of Windsor’. The adaptation is found in
dramatist Dinabandhu Mitra’s play ‘Nabin Tapaswini’ (1863), not as the main plot but as a sub-plot.
The sub-plot revolved around Jaladhar, an Indian minister who is a spitting image of Falstaff, the
British knight. Jaladhar makes amorous advances towards two married women, Malati and Mallika,
just as Falstaff did towards Mistress Ford and Mistress Page. Jaladhar sneaks into Malati’s house quite
as Falstaff went into Mistress Ford’s house. Then the women scare Jaladhar into masking himself,
much as Falstaff was tricked to hide in a laundry basket. The consequent humiliation of Jaladhar is also
similar to that of Falstaff. However, in spite of such similarities, there are some differences between
Shakespeare's original and Mitra's adaptation. As writer AjitkumarGhosh notes, “In Shakespeare's
comedy the cleverly contrived intriguing situation is the source of laughter, but here in the
'Jaladhardhar episode' … the witty dialogues of Mallika and Malati are the sources of laughter.”
(Makers of Indian Literature, 28)
On 28 January 1893, a Bengali translation of 'The Tragedy of Macbeth' was staged at Kolkata's
Minerva Theatre. It was by the pioneering dramatist Girish Chandra Ghosh who had declared, “I have
got the piece mounted by European artists and Dressed (sic) it under European supervision and 'make
up' by Mr. J. Pimm.” (Amrita Bazar Patrika, 28 January 1893) Ironically, Ghosh's fidelity towards the
original resulted in the failure of the translation. His ‘Macbeth’ was too European for Indians to warm
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up to, and consequently, could not run beyond a few shows. Literary historians PoonamTrivedi and
Dennis Bartholomeusz write:
“This was the quite un-Shakespearean spectacular pictorial realism following Charles
Kean, the Victorian imperial standard long questioned in London but relentlessly carried
throughout the empire by traveling players like George C. Miln and Alan Wilkie. . . .
The well-intentioned Victorian “supervision in the European tradition was the source of
the problem. The localization of Macbeth had stopped at translation. It had not gone far
enough.” (India's Shakespeare: Translation, Interpretation and Performance, 205)
Around November 1880, Rabindranath Tagore’s translation of ‘Macbeth’ appeared in the Bengali
journal ‘Bharati’. This was followed by Girish Chandra Ghosh’s faithful literal translation of ‘Macbeth’
in 1897. While the former was only a fragmentary translation, the latter appeared obscure, as it did not
suit the taste of traditional Bengali audience. Despite being popular among theatregoers and lovers of
drama, neither Michael Madhusudan nor DinabandhuMitra translated a single play, though in their
original plays there were Shakespearean echoes. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, the greatest novelist
and the editor of the eminent literary journal ‘Bangadarsan’, was never involved with any translation
of Shakespeare, though he had the greatest admiration for Shakespeare. Possibly the tendency for the
translation of Shakespeare’s plays gradually diminished in the last decade of the 19 th century because
of several socio-cultural and political reasons.
In the first quarter of the 20 th century, only twenty-two translations and adaptations were made
of twelve popular comedies and tragedies. Most of these plays were translated or adapted before,
barring ‘Measure for Measure.’ This is possibly because of the uprising of the national movement in
which the middle class Bengalis in Kolkata and its adjoining places took the maximum initiative to
dethrone the British Raj. Another reason might be that Shakespeare study in the classroom was at its
pinnacle by the greatest of the English teachers, and translation or adaptation was considered inferior.
Distinguished teachers of both European and Indian origin put the art of translation, adaptation and
stage performance at the back seat. For the next twenty-six years (1926-1952), not a single play was
translated or adapted for the stage. There was immense political unrest from all corners of Bengal and
particularly in the main cultural centre, Kolkata. Only the poet Nirendranath Roy made a successful
cultural translation of ‘Macbeth’ in 1952 and Sisir Kumar Bhaduri directed it while young Utpal Dutt
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acted the role of Macbeth. After independence, no Bengali dared to attempt adapting any play of
Shakespeare but Sunil Kumar Chattopadhyay, KalyanbrotoDutta, Ashok Guha and Sudhidranath Raha
made cultural translations of the romantic comedies, the last plays, the love tragedies and the four great
tragedies. No doubt, these plays were chosen for translation as they were prescribed for the
undergraduate and postgraduate academic syllabi in all the universities of West Bengal. Students
succumbed to short cut methods and gradually the desire to probe into the deeper level of the text was
lost. It is really striking that in the long history of translation - adaptation in Bengali, which spans more
than one-hundred sixty years, no one thought of either translating or adapting any history play. It might
be that these writers felt that such a theme might be too alien for the common Bengali audience. The
beginning of the new millennium started looking afresh on the art of translation and adaptation. The
English Department of the University of Kalyani, organized a seminar entitled ‘Re-presenting
Shakespeare: Interpretations and Translations’, where scholars pointed out the problems of translating
Shakespeare’s plays. New evaluations were made on GirishGhosh and Jatindranath Sen Gupta’s
‘Macbeth’ and Utpal Dutt’s adaptation ‘Chaitali Rater Swapna’ from ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’
Thus, we see that though Shakespeare was translated and adapted in various ways by Bengali
writers, their primary aim was to present Shakespeare before the Bengali audience. Therefore,
Bengalisation of the bard was not only historically inevitable but also desirable.
The second phase consists of the Bengali ‘Bhadralok Babus’ in Kolkata responding
indigenously to Shakespeare. Again, it was the initiative of the English teachers like D. L. Richardson,
H. L. V. Derozio of Hindu College, Charles Tawney and J. W. Holme and the greatest of them H. M. V.
Percival of Presidency College, who had instilled in the Indian students a true love for literature and
admiration for the great writer. Derozio with his followers known as ‘Young Bengal’ brought about a
cultural revolution, which erased many prejudices of the society. His scholarly yet lucid representation
of Shakespeare’s plays, and the sonnet on Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ acted as an enthusing
spirit among his followers. Most of the Bengali Babus showed their interest either in academic pursuits
of Shakespeare or in translating, adapting, and staging of his plays in Bengali in the second half of 19 th
century till the first quarter of the 20 th century. Even persons like Banquo Behari Dutta, Michael
Madhusudan Dutta, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Toru Duttta,
Haraprasad Shastri, D. L. Roy, Balendranath Tagore and the saint and seer of India Swami
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Vivekananda had taken up their pen to write articles in appreciation of the bard’s multifarious
creativity. However, most of these sketches are sincere and originally conceived, at times comparing
Shakespeare’s works to the oriental Classical writer Kalidasa. Bankim Chandra’s assessment of
Shakespeare in his article ‘Sakuntala, Miranda ebon Desdemona’, where he conceives “Kalidasa’s
Sakuntala as half Miranda and the other half as Desdemona”, shows his versatile genius who wielded
his magic wand in many branches of literature besides prose fiction. He is at his best when he takes us
back to Shakespeare, who also exercised the greatest influence on his own creative works. The most
brilliant of these occurs in the course of his analysis of Bhababhuti’s drama ‘Uttar Ramcharit’.
Departing from the original story, Bhababhuti makes Sita come back to see Ramchandra in the
woodland, though as a spirit she is herself invisible. Quoting this observation, Bankimchandra
comments:
“In point of literary excellence this episode is comparable to all that is beautiful in any
drama in any language…..Such sentences are to be found in Shakespeare.”
This astute comment shows a profound understanding of Shakespeare. Banquo Behari Dutta assessed
that “both Homer and Shakespeare are praised to a degree almost bordering on idolatry.” Haraprasd
Shastri places Shakespeare above Kalidasa, as Shakespearean characters are more diverse and
stimulating but praises the Indian Kalidasa above everyone as he depicts wonderfully “the inner beauty
of the soul”. In a letter to his friend Gour Basak, Michael Madhusudan justifies why the Indians are
more romantic than their colonial masters. On the contrary, the plays of Shakespeare presetn to him,
“stern realities of life, lofty passion and heroism of sentiment.”
The study of Shakespeare in the first half of 20 th century continued with the same enthusiasm
and the struggle for freedom did not deter the serious learners. Schools, colleges and universities like
Calcutta and Dacca laid special emphasis on Shakespeare study and a full paper comprising about
twelve plays and all the sonnets were meant for compulsory study. Presidency College had a set of
brilliant teachers like H. M. Percival, Manmohan Ghosh, legendary P. C. Ghosh, Srikumar Banerjee to
name only a few. They taught with so much of competence that interested students even from semi
urban colleges would flock to attend their classes. Rajsahi College also had a rich legacy of
Shakespeare teaching as teachers from Presidency College and other government colleges like Hooghly
Mohsin College, Chinsurah and Chandannagore Government College (formerly known as ‘Dupleix
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College’ as it was once a French colony) would be transferred on routine basis over there. Some of the
missionary colleges like Scottish Church College, St. Xaviers’ College and even Serampore College
had put in efforts to teach Shakespeare with élan. Therefore, Shakespeare came to rule the classrooms
but in stage productions, he trailed behind.
Like the previous century, the 20th century also had a galaxy of creative writers and thinkers
who had special interest in Shakespeare. The historians had rightly called the period the epitome of the
‘Bengal’s Renaissance’. Rabindranath Tagore was greatly influenced by Shakespeare’s multifarious
creativity and humanism. His sonnet written as a tribute to Shakespeare in 1916 (the Bengali version
written a year before in ‘Balaka’) is still recognized as a brilliant homage, which appears in
Shakespeare’s birthplace inscribed on the bust of Rabindranath. Apart from the penal task imposed by
his tutor of translating ‘Macbeth’, he later on made some fine comments on Shakespeare’s plays in his
literary essay ‘Sahitya’. The expression “jivanerjvar” in “Mrityur Pare” is reminiscent of
Shakespeare’s “life’s fitful fever”. There are other Shakespearean reminiscences and echoes, direct or
indirect, in the literary writings of Tagore, which have been identified.
Aurobindo Ghosh whom the world knows as a Yogi and a philosopher is still a recognized
Shakespearean scholar and critic. He was the first Bengali who identified Shakespeare’s poetic
greatness. He compared Shakespeare’s fecundity to that of Racine and Goethe’s literary excellence. He
even pointed out the roles of accent, stress and quantity in Shakespeare’s poetry. He even showed why
Shakespeare is better than other writers like Chaucer, Marlowe, Milton, Donne, Blake and Browning.
He even compares Kalidasa’s prose to Shakespeare’s verse. Rightly has he called Shakespeare the
“Elizabethan Viswamitra.” His ‘Future Poetry’ has Shakespearean reminiscences from objective to the
subjective approach and from subjective to spirituality.
Men from all occupations showed interest in Shakespeare and by this time, he had become a
colonial icon. Men like Ramendrasundar Trivedi, Brojendranath Seal, Purna Chandra Basu, Priyanath
Sen, Prabhat Kumar Mukhopadhyay, and even one of the greatest scientists of Bengal, Acharya
Prafulla Chandra Roy contributed articles on the bard’s profound acceptance in “the palm groves of the
Indian Sea.” Some like Purna Chandra and Priyanath Sen were Shakespeare’s detractors while the
Bengali scientist Acharya P. C. Ray raised tantalizing questions whether Shakespeare was a papist or
not.
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Academic response to Shakespeare during the pre-independence period was, however, not
beyond the confines of classroom studies, though only a few discussions were organized in the
‘Calcutta University Institute Hall’. Occasionally literary journals would come out either from
Presidency College or Calcutta University that had articles of merit. Srikumar Banerjee, J. L. Banerjee
and D. N. Ghosh brought out their own editions of ‘Macbeth’, which could have rivalled many
recognized foreign editions both in penetrating analysis and in stimulating annotations. Srikumar
Banerjee’s article ‘Hamlet and Ophelia’, published in ‘Presidency College Magazine’ (1945) is
undoubtedly the first thought provoking article that compelled his eminent pupil Taraknath Sen to write
on a congruous theme ‘Hamlet’s Treatment of Ophelia in the Nunnery Scene.’ Research works
published, were scanty, except “Courtesy in Shakespeare” by Mohini Mohan Bhattacharyya from
Calcutta University in 1940. After eight years, he wrote another book on ‘Elizabethan Stage and the
Audience of Shakespeare.’ (Calcutta University) None of these books achieved high acclaim in the
academic sphere of Kolkata though both the books had accuracy of erudition coupled with exact
scholarship. The reason probably was that in the heart of hearts, the Bengali academics had developed
an anglophile nature and books published in Britain were easily accessible in Kolkata. Their love for
Shakespeare was so intense that the teachers referred to books written by authors from Shakespeare’s
own motherland.
Shakespeare studies by academics during the post-independence period were so ingenious and
diverse that it can be divided into three phases. The first published works of the authors of the the first
phase, were four in number. Here critics like Subodh Chandra Sen Gupta, Taraknath Sen, Sailendra
Kumar Sen and D. N. Ghosh should engage us. S. C. Sen Gupta’s seven books on Shakespeare namely
‘Shakespearian Comedy’, ‘The Whirligig of Time: The problem of duration in Shakespeare’s Plays’,
‘Shakespeare’s Historical Plays’,‘Aspects of Shakespearian Tragedy’, ‘A Manual on Shakespeare’, the
two monographs ‘Shakespeare and Keats’ and ‘Hamlet Once More’ are all thought provoking surveys
of different areas of Shakespearian study. The first of these discusses in detail the nature of the comic
characters, the comic situation and the comic elements in tragedy. It has been reviewed in ‘Shakespeare
Survey V’, and the critic Allardyce Nicoll appreciated the book.
‘The Whirligig of Time: The Problem of Duration in Shakespeare’s Plays’, discusses the
concept of ‘time’ as used in the plays. He discusses in a subtle manner the differences between
chronological ‘time’ and the dramatic ‘time’ and touches upon the theme of ‘Double time’, thereby
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propounding a theory, which reconciles the rudimentary differences between temporal time and the
seamlessness of dramatic time recurrent in Shakespeare’s tragedies and comedies. He shows how
‘duration’ takes an active part in developing the characters.
The third book ‘Shakespeare’s Historical Plays’ proves that the ten history plays are not political
or didactic treatises but they possess aesthetic appeal through the life-like characters in the plays. He
has shown that these plays altogether form a different category and they reflect certain history but they
are neither ‘moral homilies nor political treatise.’ Selected excerpts from the book were included in the
memorable book entitled ‘Shakespeare’s Critics: From Jonson to Auden', edited by A. M. Eastman and
G. B. Harrison”. He is the only Asian to be included amongst 122 critics of Shakespeare. Eminent critic
Irving Ribner wrote an essay on: ‘Professor Subodh Chandra Sen Gupta as a Shakespeare Critic’
(1965), in which he appreciates the style the author takes up in discussing the drama of the ‘Henriad’.
The fourth book ‘Aspects of Shakespearian Tragedy’, (O.U.P.; Calcutta 1971), comprising six
chapters, examines the various aspects of Shakespearian tragedy. In the initial chapter, he assesses the
contribution of A. C. Bradley for the book ‘Shakespearian Tragedy’ (1904) and he argues why Bradley
is better than the more learned scholars like Saintsbury, Chambers or Stoll. He admits that despite
having certain limitations like the adoption of Hegelian theory to arrive at a synthesis, A. C. Bradley’s
contribution to ‘Shakespearean Tragedy’, makes him feel that it is “the greatest work of Shakespearean
criticism”. In the chapters that follow on ‘Happy Valiancy of Style in Antony and Cleopatra’,
‘Macbeth: A Tragedy of Imagination’ ‘Symbolism in Othello’ ‘Nature in King Lear’ and ‘Hamlet in the
Light of Indian Poetics,’ Sen Gupta presents delectable variety and freedom of Shakespeare criticism
which has been made possible by close reading of the text. He has a kind of analytical approach, not
easily found in Shakespearean criticism in India.
The fifth book ‘A Manual on Shakespeare’ (1977) contains eight independent yet linked essays
that touch on all areas of Shakespeare’s life and work. The book opens with a brief survey of
Shakespeare criticism and this is followed by an attempt to understand the nature of Shakespeare the
man. He then discusses Shakespeare’s use of source materials and the fourth chapter deals with the
ambivalence of different attitudes in ‘As You Like It.’ The fifth chapter ‘Tragedy and Comedy: Barabas
and Shylock’, compares Shakespeare and Marlowe and interfuses the tragic and the comic. The next
two chapters discuss the textual problems and Shakespeare’s theatre while the ultimate chapter assesses
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the varied themes in the sonnets.
The monograph ‘Shakespeare and Keats’ (1986) deals with Keats’ criticism of Shakespeare and
he out - rightly differs from critics like Arnold, Bradley, Middleton Murray and Caroline Spurgeon who
have been inclined to discover kinship between the two though there is none. Sen Gupta traces the
evolution of Shakespeare’s ideas leading to ‘Imagination and Art’ that is also pertinent in Keats.
‘Hamlet Once More’ (1988) deals with the problem of Hamlet by examining the texts and the
source in order to trace the theme of revenge in Hamlet. However, the author did not deal much with
the dilemma and moral questions of the play. The next two articles ‘Hamlet: The Mona Lisa of
Literature’ and ‘Hamlet: A Reassessment’ present his own assessment of the play through a detailed
analysis of the plot structure and character presentation of the play though later Bengali scholars
JagannathChakravorty and SukantaChaudhuri have made much intensive analysis of the play in their
books.
Taraknath Sen’s book ‘Three Essays On Shakespeare’ (1978, posthumous publication), contains
three essays namely ‘Presidency College and Shakespeare’, ‘Hamlet’s Treatment of Ophelia in the
Nunnery Scene’ and ‘Shakespeare’s Short Lines’. The first gives a vivid account of the great tradition
of Shakespeare teaching at Presidency College from D. L. Richardson down to P. C. Ghosh. The
Englishmen had started the great legacy of teaching Shakespeare to the native Indian students at Hindu
College (later Presidency College) and the baton was passed on to the Indian teachers like P. C. Ghosh,
“whose teaching of Shakespeare brought to the learner an opulence of satisfaction” (Taraknath Sen
(Ed.) Shakespeare Commemoration Volume, p. 9)
‘Hamlet’s Treatment of Ophelia in the Nunnery Scene’, is the second essay in which Taraknath
Sen refers to the leading critics like Helen Gardner and John Dover Wilson in relation to the Nunnery
scene. This he does to refute their views and he opines that Hamlet’s mind was in extreme trauma at
that time when his personal problems become for him the problems of life. ‘Shakespeare’s Short
Lines,’ the essay he wrote as a tribute to his teacher P. C. Ghosh is a gem. He suggests the critics to
think thrice before commenting on them as the blemishes of Shakespeare’s verses.
Sailendra Kumar Sen’s two books ‘Capell and Malone and Modern Critical Biography’ (1965)
and ‘English literary Criticism in the Second Half of Eighteenth Century: A Reconsideration’ (1965)
and the articles: ‘What Happens in Coriolanus’ and ‘And Therefore Look You Call Me Ganymede’ are
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significant. No critic in India before him had dealt with the textual problems, critical evaluation and
editorial theory so astutely.
A little later, it is seen that Shakespeare Studies after Independence were toeing the footsteps of
the British critics and a survey of the contemporary academics from almost all the universities in West
Bengal who contributed during the quatercentenary year will establish this point. They may be less
eminent than either their predecessors or their successors but they wrote copiously on diverse themes
in Shakespeare’s plays. Sitansu Maitra, professor of RabindraBharati University wrote the book
‘Shakespeare’s Comic Ideas’ in which he had dealt with the comprehensive study of psychological
realism in Shakespeare’s plays. The book is more a compilation of ideas fostered by some of the great
authors like T. M. Parrot, H. B. Charlton and Maitra’s mentor S. C. Sen Gupta who all wrote books on
similar themes. D. N. Ghosh’s treatment of ‘Shakespeare’s Text and Textual Problem’ is a mediocre
work but his editions of twelve major plays and the sonnets, are still popular even today. Probodh
Chandra Ghosh and Krishna Chandra Lahiri taught at Calcutta University and their works
‘Shakespeare’s Mingled Drama’ and ‘Pedagogues in Shakespeare’ respectively created lesser impact,
though the former has a comparative study of Kalidasa and Shakespeare. Lahiri’s book deals with six
pedagogues in Shakespeare’s plays that are elusive and resourceful like other characters. N. K. Pandey
of Kalyani University in his book ‘An Introduction to Shakespeare Criticism—A Study in Changing
Pattern’ has discussed all leading critics of Shakespeare from Ben Jonson to T. S. Eliot. S. P. Sen
Gupta of North Bengal University had written two books entitled ‘Trends in Shakespearean Criticism’
and ‘Some Aspects of Shakespeare’s Sonnets’ which have been very popular with the students of
Shakespeare criticism in Bengal. Geoffrey Tillotson had written the ‘foreword’ to the former book,
while Harold. F. Brooks wrote the latter. Both the critics had taught Sen Gupta at London University
but they have been ambivalent in their appraisal. Pandey and Sen Gupta have echoed what F. E.
Halliday and A.Ralli (A History of Shakespeare Criticism, 2 Volumes, New York, and Humanities
Press, 1965,) have already said in their study of Shakespeare criticism.
Shakespeare Studies in Kolkata after Independence
Here we have five contemporary scholars of Shakespeare namely Jagannath Chakravorty and Dinesh
Chandra Biswas of Jadavpur University, Jyoti Bhattacharyya and Arun Kumar Das Gupta of Calcutta
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University and the two contemporary (living) scholars namely Sukanta Chaudhuri and Swapan
Chakraborty. Jagannath Chakravorti’s two books ‘The Idea of Revenge in Shakespeare - with a special
reference to Hamlet’ and ‘King Lear-Shakespeare’s Existential Hero’ are wonderful study of the two
greatest tragedies in terms of two pertinent themes and allied perspectives. In the first, the author hints
at the rise and development of ‘revenge’ in two pre-Shakespearian tragedies like ‘Gorboduce’ and ‘The
Spanish Tragedy’. He then discusses the revenge motif in the un-Shakespearean play ‘Titus
Andronicus’, and then proceeds with his discussion on ‘Hamlet’ from chapters VI to XIII. The
penultimate and ultimate chapters ‘Revenge in Tragedies’ and ‘Revenge in Comedies and
Transmutation of Revenge in the Final Plays’ respectively show how revenge tradition pervades the
other plays. It also shows that ‘Hamlet’ is not an isolated case. The Gandhian ‘Satyagraha’ and Sartre’s
‘Existentialism’ have been wonderfully amalgamated in treating the ontological theme of ‘Being and
Nothingness’ in ‘King Lear.’ After a series of discussion on the ‘Existential Freedom’ of the storm,
‘Existentialist Bad Faith’ of the fool and ‘Reason in Madness’—the writer synthesizes his view that
“King Lear is an Existential Drama on the universal situation of Man.”
Dinesh Chandra Biswas’ three books -- ‘Shakespeare’s Treatment of His Sources in the
Comedies’, ‘Shakespeare in His Own Time’ and ‘Scepticism in Shakespeare and Other Essays’ show
the author’s commendable skill in the entire Shakespearean canon. In the first book, the author takes up
seventeen comedies and deals with the enormous bulk of comic matter in Johnsonian pattern. The other
two books are collection of essays ranging from ‘Shakespeare’s Prince Hall’ to ‘Troilus and Cressida
and the Renaissance Concept of Value’. In the ultimate book the essays range from ‘Shakespeare’s
Conception of a Courtier’ to ‘Politics in Julius Caesar’, thereby hinting that Shakespeare is more
inculcated in “the farthest step of India,” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream- II, i, L69.)
Gouri Prasad Ghosh contributed considerably to the development of Shakespeare study in

Kolkata. An ardent teacher and a clever scholar, Shakespearean tragedy was his forte which is clear
from the diversity of his articles: (1) ‘Shakespeare’s Problem Plays: Alternation of a Negative Vision’,
(2) ‘Othello and the Problem Plays: A World of Chrysolite Embedded in Chaos’ (3) ‘King Lear: A Dark
Synthesis Leading No Where,’ (4) ‘Macbeth: Struggle and Defeat of the Moral Will.’ All these articles
published between 1980-1984 in different issues of the ‘Journal of the Department of English,’
characterize a continuation of the author’s studies seeking to offer a new interpretation of the
development of Shakespeare’s life vision through the tragedies and problem plays.
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Among the four articles of Jyoti Bhattacharya, two are of international repute--(1) ‘Kenneth
Muir’s Edition of King Lear: A Few Questions’ and (2) ‘King Lear: The Last Four Lines.’ In the
former, he points out subtle editorial slips in successive publications -1952 and 1972. In the latter, he
openly challenges the leading critics like Maynard Mack, John F. Danby and R. B. Heilman for their
views on ascribing the lines to Edgar.
Arun Kumar Das Gupta wrote five articles on Shakespeare and Renaissance intellectualism
coupled with humanism, and most of them are of great merit. They are: -(1) ‘The Interplay of Fortune
and Freedom: A Shakespearean Theme’, (2) ‘Divided Love: An Approach to Shakespeare’s Sonnets’,
(3) The Intellectual Foundation of the Renaissance, (4) A note on ‘Macbeth’ (II, ii, 61-63, Shakespeare
Quarterly; Notes and Queries, 1960) (5) ‘A note on Titus Andronicus’ (II, i, 1-11 ‘Shakespeare
Quarterly’, 1961). (6) ‘The Phantom of Melancholy: An Essay on Hamlet’. (Taraknath Sen (Ed.)
Shakespeare Commemoration Volume, p. 125—137)
The continuation of the third phase includes scholars after 1980 and also brings in its fold the
writers of today. The list, however, is considerably large, encompassing both the pedagogues and the
pupils alike in all the eight universities of West Bengal. One of the greatest of Shakespearean scholars
in the world today, Sukanta Chaudhuri feels that Shakespeare will never appear to be over--explored in
the land of Tagore. His two books: (1) ‘Infirm Glory-Shakespeare and the Renaissance Image of Man’
and (2) 'Renaissance Pastoral and its English Development’, are notable ventures in the history of
Shakespearean criticism in Bengal. Beside the numerous articles like ‘The Tragic Libertines: Self –
Expressions in the tragedies of Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, ‘The New Machiavelli:
Shakespeare in the Henriad’, ‘King, Villain, Sacrifice: Macbeth as Tragic Hero,’‘Internet Shakespeare
Edition: Shakespeare in India’ he has edited a number of volumes on Renaissance themes and
particularly Shakespeare. His recently published edition of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ for the
‘New Arden Series’ is as scholarly as it is illuminating.
Another notable Renaissance scholar who has considerably contributed to the study of
Shakespeare is Swapan Chakravorty whose essay in the journal ‘Shakespeare in the Mediterranean’,
edited by Tom Playton, has had tremendous impact in the academic world in the West. His edition of
‘As You like It’, published by Orient Longman can be placed alongside any authentic editions. His
short biographical sketch on Shakespeare in Bengali will enable any Bengali reader to know many
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obscure facts not only about the dramatist’s life but also about Elizabethan England. The catholicity of
his mind is revealed in his book written in arduous Bengali ‘Bangaleer Engreji Sahitya Charcha’ (‘The
Study of English Literature by the Bengalis.’) There are three essays on Shakespeare’s varied themes
like teaching of Shakespeare in the classroom, re-evaluating Renaissance culture and studying
Shakespeare in the modern age, lastly a comparative study of Faust and Hamlet. These essays may
seem obscure for common readers but their critical merit is unquestionable. His articles in English on
Renaissance literature and particularly on Shakespeare attract common readers as well as scholars.
Subha Mukherji who teaches English at Downing College, Cambridge University also
contributed amply to the development of Shakespeare Criticism. Much younger yet her erudite
scholarship in Renaissance Literature and particularly Shakespeare has enabled her to publish an article
on “‘Lawful Deed’: Consummation, Custom and Law in All’s Well That Ends Well.” (Shakespeare
Survey: 49, 1996). Her doctoral thesis ‘Issues of Evidence-Interpretation and Judgement in
Renaissance English Drama, 1580-1640’, contains two chapters---the first and the sixth devoted
entirely to Shakespeare’s plays which analyze critically and exhaustively on matters of law, judgement,
justice and juridical themes in his plays. Until date, she has published the maximum number of articles
among the living Bengali scholars on Shakespeare in international journals, besides ten critical books
on varied issues on Renaissance with primary focus on Shakespeare.
The Kolkata connection of 'Shakespeare in Academic Journals and Special Issues on

Shakespeare’ shows how the Bengali academics at the time of quatercentenary celebration of
Shakespeare have regularly published papers on him. Not only had the Universities of Calcutta,
Jadavpur, Burdwan and Presidency College published special issues on Shakespeare’s dramatic art,
some indigenous institutions like ‘Indian National Library’, ‘Indian Oxygen News’ and ‘Shakespeare
Quater- Centenary birth Celebration Committee’ had also contributed immensely to reevaluate the
sanctified image of the bard. Thus, seminars and conferences on Shakespeare have become an annual
event for teachers, students and researchers in West Bengal. When Prof. ‘Mohinimohan Bhattacharya
Memorial Lecture’ was inaugurated in Calcutta University in1978, for the first three consecutive years
the topic was ‘Shakespeare’ and the speakers were S. C. Sen Gupta, Srichandra Sen, and A. G Stock. In
1986, Jadavpur University published a special issue on Shakespeare, edited by Debabrata Mukherjee.
Very recently, volumes of books like ‘Renaissance Essays for Kitty Scoular Datta’, ‘Renaissance
Theme’ (both edited by Sukanta Chaudhuri) and ‘Renaissance Text and Context’ (Edited: Amlan Das
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Gupta) have added a new dimension to Bengali response to Shakespeare. ‘Shakespeare Society of
Eastern India’ has brought out special issues on Shakespeare by eminent academics through the bi--
annual event: “The World Shakespeare Conference” since 2002.
Response to Shakespeare outside Academia: Kolkata Stage
We also need to record mainly the contributions of two doyens of ‘People’s Little Theatre’ Utpal Dutt
and his successor cum companion SatyaBandopadhyay. Dutt’s book ‘Shakespeare-er Samaj Chetanna’
is based on Marxist doctrines where he deals with mercantile classes, history of the Tudor Age,
religion, Christianity and Jesus, bourgeois monarchy and warriors. His article, ‘Shakespeare and the
Modern Stage’ and his interview given to Samik Bandopadhyay give only a partial estimate of the man
and artist. Satya Bandopadhyay’s book ‘Shakespeare O’ Tanr Theatre’ provides a unique background of
Elizabethan dramatists, the Shakespearean Stage and dramaturgy, Shakespearean audience, legal acts
on theatre during Queen Elizabeth’s reign, Shakespeare in the eyes of his contemporary and successive
dramatists, Shakespeare production in various European countries and ultimately Shakespeare on the
various stages in Kolkata.
As colonial education flourished, Bengali students of the early schools of Kolkata were eager
enough to show their talents in reciting Shakespeare, presenting short scenes of significance and
ultimately the learned bhadraloks took the venture to stage full-scale productions in between 1820 and
1920.It was Henry Derozio who as a student of Drummond’s Dhurrumtollah Academy started this
process. Later on this art of reciting Shakespearean passages was taken up mostly by the pupils of
Hindu College, as well as by the students of St. Xavier’s College, David Hare and Metropolitan
academies. Apart from the houses of the aristocratic and distinguished Bengali ‘babus’,the Hindu
College, Town Hall, Oriental Theatre and Jorasanko Theatre were other places where the excerpts or
full plays were staged.
By the 1870s the focus had shifted to vernacular as the medium to exhibit original dramatic
creativity. With the acceleration of the nationalistic movements since the second decade of the
twentieth century, the desire to enact the plays of Shakespeare in English came to a halt. Now,
amateurism led to professionalism in the theatres of Kolkata because of social, political and cultural
reasons.
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The actors for the original English plays of Shakespeare in the initial stages were Derozio and
his followers who left a lasting legacy. The first President of independent India, Rajendra Prasad, and
Sisir Kumar Bhaduri, (one of the greatest thespians of Bengal after Girish Chandra Ghosh), the famous
Bengali linguist and national professor, Suniti Kumar Chattopadhyay and Srikumar Bandopadhyay, the
renowned scholar of British Poetry were the distinguished luminaries of Calcutta University who acted
in various Shakespearean plays.
Some of the travelling English companies had enduring effect on the future theatre workers in
Kolkata. The famous actor- manager - director-dramatist Matheson Lang, who had the privilege to
work with Granville-Barker in London, performed in Kolkata in 1911-1912, influenced many,
particularly Sisir Kumar Bhaduri, who became a legendary theatre director immediately after this
impact. Even Geoffrey Kendal’s ‘Shakespeareana’ which toured around India since the second World
War onwards, had admirers like Utpal Dutt, Satya Bandopadhyay and innumerable others. Immediately
after independence, the local production of the plays in English suddenly stimulated as if the intention
was to show that the Bengalis no longer harbour any ill feeling for the language. Henceforth college
and university students, English educational institutions and organizations like British Council
frequently performed in Shakespeare’s plays in English. Shakespeare once again came to the Bengalis
more as a colonial icon.
Kolkata theatre was primarily commercial in between 1872 and 1947. When the translated and
adapted versions were not well accepted at the box office, the directors then felt the necessity to
“experiment and interpret Shakespeare indigenously.” The birth of the “group theatre” movement
around 1947 advocated innovative ideas to stage plays that would be received rather enthusiastically by
more faithful translations as the directors had great respect for the venerable bard. Notable actors from
Girish Chandra Ghosh to AhindraChaudhuri acted in several characters of Shakespeare’s plays in
translation but that did not appeal to the Bengali audience, however authentic they might be in
approach. Utpal Dutt with his group theatre dominated the Bengali stage with most of Shakespeare’s
plays in English and Bengali. He apprenticed himself in English, performing Richard III, Othello,
Bottom, Mercutio, Brutus and Malvolio and then did all of them in Bengali except Richard III and
Brutus and then did Shylock, Macbeth and Julius Caesar. Dutt’s ‘Little Theatre Group’ produced some
brilliant actors.
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Surprisingly, after a long absence Shakespeare has again appeared on the Bengali stage. Suman
Mukhopadhyay has directed ‘Raja Lear’, with the gifted actor Soumitra Chattopadhyay as Lear, and
the production has been highly popular. Koushik Sen unlike Suman has tried to offer a new
interpretation of ‘Macbeth’ in the recent political context in Bengal. ‘Othello’, has been staged and
directed by Goutom Halder, who is famous for his unique but controversial style of acting. The stage
enactment of ‘Hamlet’ in Bengali produced by Bibhash Chakraborty where the role of the protagonist
has been played by the well-known actor Surojit Bandopadhyay had also become popular on the
Bengali stage. ‘Kasba Argha’ has presented a dramatic pageant ‘Shakespeare’s Heroes’ which is yet to
get a good response. The director Manish Mitra has upset many critics for showing a nude scene of
Othello and Desdemona. Let us hope, this revival of interest in Shakespeare, the man of the theatre
would gradually lead to a theatrical approach in our classroom lectures.
Shakespeare in Little Magazines
A survey of Shakespeare in the Bengali Little Magazines will show how various scholars,
academics, thespians, lawyers and schoolmasters contributed articles on Shakespeare in Bengali. Often
these little publishing houses are on the verge of extinction owing to financial constraints but are never
deterred from publishing innovative and thought-provoking articles on a wide range of subjects.
Shakespeare features among them. There are more than two hundred articles published on Shakespeare
but unfortunately, most of the publishing houses have perished, keeping only a little trace of their
literary legacy.
‘Little magazines’, often called "small magazines", are literary magazines that publish
experimental and non-conformist writings of relatively unknown writers. They are usually
noncommercial in their outlook. They are often very irregular in their publications. The earliest
significant examples are the transcendentalist publication The Dial(1840–44), edited by Ralph Waldo
Emersonand Margaret Fullerin Boston, and The Savoy(1896), edited by Arthur Symonsin London,
which had a revolt against the VictorianMaterialism as its agenda. Little magazines played a significant
role for the poets who shaped the Avant-garde movements like ‘Modernism’ and ‘Post-modernism’
across the world in the twentieth century.
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The Little Magazine Movement originated in the fifties and the sixties in many Indian
languageslike Bengali, Tamil, Marathi, Hindi, Malayalamand Gujarati, as it did in the West, in the early
part of the 20th century. Kolkata has a prominent place in the history of Little Magazine Movementin
India, which was largely dominated by Bengali languagemagazines. This goes back to the foundation
of ‘SabujPatra’ in 1914 and Kallol in 1923. The tradition continued with the advent of ‘Post-
Modernist’ writing in Bengali Literature. With the arrival of ‘Krittibash’, ‘Hungry Generation’ and
periodicals like ‘Kourab’, many little magazines started to flourish.
In Bengali literature, it started with Kallol, mouthpiece of a modernist movement, established in

1923. The most popular among the group were Kazi Nazrul Islam(1899–1976), Mohitlal
Majumder(1888–1952), Achintyakumar Sen Gupta(1903–1976), Satyendranath Dutta(1882–1922), and
Premendra Mitra(1904–1988). Then Bengali poetry got into the brightest light of modernism in the
1930s, through the movement of a few other little magazines, such as BuddhadebBasu's ‘Kabita’and
SudhindranathDatta's ‘Parichay’. Most of the little Magazines are pro-left and anti-establishment.
Krittibas first appeared in Kolkatain 1953. It played a highly influential role in the Kolkata
literary scene in the decades after Indian independence, and provided a platform for young,
experimental poets, many of whom went on to become luminaries of modern Bengali poetry. The
editors of the inaugural issue in July 1953 were Sunil Gangopadhyay, AnandaBagchi and
DipakMazumdar. Gangopadhyay later became sole editor. Indeed,he was most closely associated with
the magazine. Others who also edited the magazine at one point or another included Shakti
Chattopadhyay, Sarat Kumar Mukhopadhyay and SamarendraSengupta. During 1961-65, several poets
left the magazine and joined the ‘Hungry Movement’. Most of these Little Magazines were pro-left and
anti-establishment and Shakespeare study did not get enough significance in these issues. On the
contrary, writers like T. S. Eliot and Bertolt Brecht featured frequently in these magazines as some of
these poets and writers were more influenced by the form and the content of the modernist approach to
literature and art.
Hungry Generation and Anti-establishment Movements
The little magazine explosion in Kolkata took place after 1961 when the ‘Hungry Generation
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Movement’ took the cultural establishment by storm. In fact, it changed not only the types of
publication but also the naming of magazines. The ‘Hungry Generation Movement’ aimed at waging a
war against the literary establishment and the decadent society in general. Prominent figures included
Shakti Chattopadhyay, Malay Roy Choudhury, SubimalBasak, TridibMitra, Samir Roychoudhury,
Falguni Roy, SubonAcharjo, PradipChoudhuri, SubhasGhosh, and BasudebDasgupta. There are other
Bengali writers who raised their voice against the establishment but did not join the ‘Hungry
generation’ Movement. Most notable among them is the maverick writer Subimal Mishra. Other
experimental writers who mostly wrote in little magazines include Kamal Kumar Majumdar,
Amiyabhushan Majumdarand Udayan Ghosh. However, there was never a comprehensive preservation
attempt made for these immensely valuable cultural items either in the academic or in public libraries
until SandipDutta founded a library in 1979 and it was officially registered in 1996 with the name
‘Kolkata Little Magazine Library and Research Centre.’
Rise and Development of Bengali Little Magazines
Little magazines in ‘Bengali’ are creative, being enriched with well-informed essays. These magazines
do not have any definite timeline. From the beginning of the twentieth century when full-fledged or
commercially successful magazines came up, the distinctions became more prominent. Readers started
accepting such magazines early in the last century when they found that most of them were both
creative and informative. The main motive of these magazines was also that they acted as a platform
where budding writers got in touch with the readers through their compositions. Little magazines today
take pride in publishing them provided they are readable. That is why they have an appeal even in the
age of electronic media. In Bengal it is striking how ‘little magazines’ are increasing everyday, as they
do not have professional or profit motive. Nowadays poems, stories, essays and autobiographical
renderings or biographical sketches are not the only contents but it includes political debates,
sociological evolutions, economic theories, philosophical thoughts, historical accounts, even modern
cinema, and popular songs. The approximate number of ‘little magazine’ in Bengali throughout the
world is “seven hundred” (Sandip Dutta: ‘Little Magazine Bhabna’: articles and interviews on little
magazine,Kolkata, 2002, p. 37)
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Beginning of Shakespeare Study in the Bengali Little Magazines
Shakespeare appeared in the ‘little magazine’ in Bengali about 1964, the quater-centenary year of his
birth. However, much earlier in the late nineteenth century several translations and creative articles
were published in magazines like ‘Bharati’ and ‘Bharatbarsha’. Like special editions for special
occasions, ‘Shakespeare’ issues were immensely on demand whenever any publishing house took the
initiative. Sometimes ‘little magazines’ are more like an obsession for those who think they are
journeying towards a new goal of triumph. Nowadays articles on western authors and comparative
study of writers have become a recurrent theme for these magazines. Shakespeare perhaps is the most
discussed of all foreign authors, he is most acceptable to the Bengalis even in this post-colonial age,
and special issues come out from time to time but the number is meagre. Not only academic scholars
who contribute generously to the bard’s multifarious talents but also thespians, lawyers, creative
writers, school masters and even students contributed copiously in every field of Shakespeare studies.
However today there are more than ‘two hundred articles on Shakespeare in Bengali.’ (ibid.p.48)
Early Issues of Little Magazines on Shakespeare
It was Srikumar Bandopadhyay who pioneered this journey after independence with his article entitled
“Shakespeare Pratibha” (‘Talents of Shakespeare’) in 1964 in which he shows the enigma of the poet
and dramatist and how successful he has been in creating an unrealized beauty to the known world and
life and thus brought before us an unworldly riddle. For Bandopadhyay Shakespeare was the only
dramatist in the world who would occupy pure and all-pervading insight of a composer to whom any
fact would get the shape of a drama. This assessment appears hyperbolic as he fails to show any
shortcoming in Shakespeare’s dramatic style. He cites instances like Macbeth’s imagination and
philosophical aptitude and Lear’s burning curses and how these are enriched with poetic faculty and
dramatic skills to show the realistic world of Shakespeare- where man dominates with his weaknesses
and strengths and the illusory world of the witches, fairies, ghosts appear.
Bandopadhyay then shows how ‘The Merchant of Venice’ is a depiction of the features of the
contemporary Renaissance but the characters possess liberal mentality of modernism and the value of
life. He further points out how Portia’s marriage is bounded with some peculiar conditions, as she
independently cannot select her husband. If the role of fate is taken into consideration, we can admit
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with the writer that the characters of Portia and Bassanio have excelled with beauty and their conjugal
life gets newness amidst hindrances.The writer sees another feature of an ideal dramatist in
Shakespeare and that is called ‘self-absorbability’ in creation. He notices the difference between the
poet and the dramatist. In a subtle manner, Bandopadhyay tells how a poet reflects himself in his
creations while a dramatist hides himself in that position. He even notes that Shakespeare never
imposes like Bacon the moral or didactic views in his plays and this short essay in Bengali is more a
tribute to the bard on his acceptability in post-colonial Bengal where students and scholars read and
research on him every day. Nirendranath Roy wrote two articles virtually on the same theme with
different titles: ‘Banglai Shakespeare Charcha’ (DeshPatrika; 28 March, 1953.) and ‘Bangalir
Shakespeare Prem’ (Parichai, May, 1964). While the first rendering records, how the Bengali writers
and academics since the time of Capt. D. L. Richardson responded to Shakespeare studies, the latter
reflects how intense the response was that it resulted in deep love and emotional attachment. The two
articles of Roy are repetitive and they fall far short of the normal standard.
Another notable academic Amalendu Bose wrote three articles for the Bengali little magazines:
1) Shakespeare -er- Comedy Bhumikai; (‘Uttarsuri, 322-329) (The Introduction of Shakespeare’s
Comedy); (2) Shakespeare O’ Bangali; (Uttaran, 1964; 323-331) (Shakespeare and the Bengalis) (3 )
Sphatiker Rang: Shakespeare-erSamadarsita: (R. B. U .academic journal, 71 - 79) (The Crystal’s
Colour: Shakespeare’s Sense of Equality).
The first of these articles gives a historical account on the rise and development of
Shakespeare’s comedy since its first publication in 1623 though initially they were not called so.
‘Cymbeline’ at first was regarded as a tragedy but Bose agrees with modern scholars to term it as a
‘comedy’ with tragic traits. He then discusses Shakespearean comedy in detail about the characters and
incidents and mentions that the number goes up to twenty, which is higher than the tragedies and
historical plays taken together. For him the comedies unravel self-expressions and they are never
tending towards propaganda. This way, Shakespearean comedy is different from the Restoration
“comedy of manners”, feels Bose. He also cites reasons why Shakespeare started his literary career
with the comedy and ended with the same. He even feels that the direct value of Shakespeare’s comedy
is the philosophy of life which is very much post-colonial by nature. Shakespeare is in favour of
natural love in his comedy and to the author these comedies express positive approach to life’s
expectations and supportive by nature. He also shows how in the last plays despite all psychological
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adversities, sweet youths win over in the end. Finally, Bose pointed out there is no difference between
the value of life both in the tragedies and in the comedies. However, he utterly dwindles in
differentiating between the two types of comedy or point out the essential differences between them.
Nevertheless, he has been original in interpreting and differentiating Shakespeare’s romantic comedies
and the comedy of manners in vernacular.
The second article of Amalendu Bose: ‘Shakespeare O’ Bangali’ (‘Shakespeare and the
Bengalis’) reflects simple appreciation where he feels that the Bengalis have considered Shakespeare
as a colonial icon and he has crossed all boundaries and barriers to be read, performed and adored in
Bengal. It is Shakespeare’s humanism, which have been appreciated through the ages. Bose sees that in
the play ‘King Lear’ which is not confined in the ambit of a country’s time frame, dramatis personae or
Christian connections but has a universal appeal. Bose opines at length in his discussion about poetic
skills of Shakespeare which has appealed to the intellectual Bengalis who he feels possesses romantic
bent of mind. He even points out how Shakespeare has occupied a place in the history of Bengali
literature and cites four reasons for it: (i) the love for Shakespeare is not a new feature but it has got
immuned in the colonial and cultural community of Bengali hegemony. (ii) Secondly he feels that
Shakespeare’s plays and poems represent the realistic life-- that the sensuous sentiments of the
Bengalis and sing the songs of triumph. (iii) Bose tells that Shakespearean literature is the successful
representation of the animated life. Shakespearean heroes speak and act as the readers or audience
would prefer to do in that situation. (iv) He further cites that sentiment and intellect are the two
rudimentary traits of the Bengalis. That is why ‘Metaphysical Poetry’ appealed to the Bengalis since
the early twentieth century and Tagore himself had quoted Donne in his novel ‘SeserKabita’ (The Final
Poetry). Shakespeare’s works having the finest sensibilities became so acceptable.
The next article by Amalendu Bose ‘Sphatiker Rong: Shakespeare-er Samadarsita’ (‘The
Colour of Crystal: Shakespeare’s Sense of Equality’) is a symbolic sketch on the potential creativity of
Shakespeare. He points out how the characters in the plays have been created with a keen insight and a
sense of tolerance that looks like a crystal. He calls this Shakespearean profundity and feels this to be
the atomic power of Shakespeare’s genius. He further asserts that Bankim Chandra and Rabimdranath
Tagore despite possessing great talents and patches of Shakespearean philosophy could never come in
comparison with the bard of Avon. It is the author’s conviction that if one reads Shakespeare for the
entire life then also he would be mentally satisfied with the power of reasoning, ethics and practical
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approach to life. This may appear hyperbolical but Bose feels that these qualities of the bard beams in
his plays like a crystal. Shakespeare possesses equality but he is far away from partiality in his writings
for portraying his characters. In the end, he sums up in Tagorean appreciation:
“He is present in all the characters but never lost in any character. He is nobler than all
the characters as the creator is greater than his creation and God is brighter than all
his creations”.
(‘Shakespeare O’ Bangali’) (‘Shakespeare and the Bengalis’, p.9).
Bhabotosh Dutta makes a fine comparative study of the literary contributions of Rabindranath and
Shakespeare in his article ‘RabindraSahitye Shakespeare’ (‘Uttarsuri’ 4th issue, 1964, p.323-25.) He
points out how Tagore was influenced by Shakespeare’s dramatic style. Shakespeare’s characters and
situations attracted Tagore, which possess psychological sharpness and internal conflicts. Rabindranath
was keen on using allegory and he had done it brilliantly while Shakespeare was far away from using
though Tagore initially had adopted the Shakespearean style, after ‘Prayaschitto’ (1909) (Expiation
Penance). Tagore excels in creating eternal human characters, which has made him reach the zenith.
Dutta cites instances from ‘Galpoguccho’ (The Collection of Short Stories) to show Tagore’s
independent approach to life, different from Shakespeare’s own. He even shows why Tagore has
discarded Shakespeare’s dark mystery. However, Tagore had been greatly influenced by Shakespeare
and his poems in ‘Balaka’ are the finest example. However, in this study Dutta proclaims with applause
Tagore’s inventive powers though he had conceived Shakespearean pattern quite early in his life.
SitangsuMaitra’s article ‘Banglai Shakespeare Charcha’ (Parichay, May 1964; p.311-23) (The
Study of Shakespeare in Bengali) discusses that Shakespeare study among the Bengalis has been
insufficient, as none of the critics have discussed his plays from scholastic point of view. Most of the
academic scholars have confined themselves to classrooms and they feel elated when they are
recognized as ‘authority’ on Shakespeare. This might appear ironical but nevertheless it is true. He
cites an instance when ideas were corroborated to popularize Shakespeare among the masses in 1954
through the establishment of ‘Bangiya Shakespeare Parishad’. This attempt was futile as there was
always a dichotomy between academic pursuit by scholars and staging Shakespeare in original or
through adequate translations about supremacy in the structural pattern. In a way, Shakespeare study by
Bankim Chandra and Madhusudan Dutta differed from that of Rabindranath Tagore regarding the
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earthy love and life’s philosophy. Despite some of the best efforts made by GirishGhosh and others,
Shakespeare could not be popular as the academics showed skeptical and fastidious attitude for the
stage. The article possesses enough matter but the manner of presentation lacks organization and
elegance since the writer deviates unconsciously from his focus and fails to maintain uniformity.
The greatest thespian of Bengal after Girish Chandra Ghosh is Sisir Kumar Bhaduri and despite
being a professor of English Literature and an ardent follower of Western theatre, he wrote little on
Shakespeare. His essay entitled ‘Shakespeare’ (SaradiyaYugantar, 1939; p. 9-13) is readable, as he has
compared Shakespeare’s works and characters to the epic characters of Mahabharata. He even pointed
out Shakespeare’s universality even during the tyrannical rule of Hitler and Mussolini. He showed how
Shakespeare’s appeal is beyond all barriers and his genius is illuminated with the instincts of human
minds. Bhaduri shows by instances that Shakespeare was neither for the aristocrats nor for the
feudalists but the themes and characters possess and symbolize manifold attributes. Even in the modern
age when Ibsen had tremendous impact on playwrights like Shaw, Shakespeare’s universality never
diminished. Being a noted thespian,Bhaduri could better have dealt with the technical problems and
emendations of Shakespeare’s stage performance in Bengal than idolize the dramatist.
Much younger than Bhaduri and one of the leading thespians of recent times Rudraprasad Sen
Gupta wrote an informative article titled ‘Bangla Natake Shakespeare-er Probabh.’ (Parichay 1964, p.
Shakespeare’s 354-371) (‘The Influence of Shakespeare on Bengali Drama.’) He emphasized how
Shakespeare study in Bengal gradually crept from classroom to stage performance. In doing so, the
Englishmen must be applauded. They not only acquainted the Bengalis with western plays but also
enthuse the Bengali playwrights like Michael Madhusudan Dutta, Dinabandhu Mitra, Jyotindranath
Tagore, D. L. Roy, Khirod Prasad Vidyabinod et al to write Bengali plays based on Shakespeare’s
prototype. Some of them also amalgamated the strict rules of Sanskrit plays and the liberal tradition of
Shakespeare’s plays to compose the Bengali plays on Shakespearean model. Sen Gupta shows how
Madhusudan was obliged to Shakespeare to introduce ‘character based tragedy’, ‘the use of
Shakespearean blank verse’ and ‘the comic in tragedy’ in his Bengali plays
like‘Padmabati’and‘Krishnakumari’. The latter however is the first tragedy in Bengali literature and
‘BhimSingha’ is more a tragic protagonist like ‘King Lear’, being estranged from his daughters. He
notes that like Shakespeare, Madhusudan never ended any act in sheer lamentation or bewilderment.
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In Rudraprasad’s evaluation, Dinabandhu Mitra was another talented dramatist who was so
much devoted to Shakespeare that he used Shakespeare’s quotations in his plays. These were used
either in situation, in dialogues or in theatrical conventions. The play ‘NabinTapaswini’had the image
of Shakespeare’s ‘The Merry Wives of Windsor’, where the character of ‘Jalandhar’ had the shadow of
Falstaff. Mallika and Malati are witty and jolly as Mrs. Ford and Mrs. Page. In another play like
‘KamaleKamini’, Dinabandhu used some lines of ‘Macbeth’ in the epigraph. Sen Gupta notices that the
theme of disguise has been wonderfully dealt in the play ‘Lilabati’ when he painted ‘Champa’ as a nun.
Jyotindranath Tagore is another significant name in the history of translation studies on

Shakespeare’s plays. Being well acquainted with western literature, his original plays had immense
impact of Shakespeare and other Elizabethan playwrights, opines Sen Gupta. The play like ‘Ashrumati’
had also Shakespearean echoes as the character of Selim reminded the audience of Othello. Selim like
Othello suspected his wife’s credibility and fidelity and out of this envy, he killed her and laments
intensely like the Shakespearean hero. Even ‘PunarBasanta’ had resemblance with ‘A Midsummer
Night’s Dream’ in episodic organization and structural pattern.
Rudraprasad Sen Gupta then shows how Girish Chandra towards the end of nineteenth century
had translated and enacted Shakespeare’s plays with enormous impetus, declaring, “Shakespeare is my
idol. I am following his footstep”.The play ‘Siraj-ud-Daulla’ had reminiscences of Shakespeare’s
‘Richard II’ in both structural pattern and thematic sequence. Nevertheless, his translation of Macbeth
was too chaste to appeal the common Bengali audience.
Dwijendralal Roy, popularly known as D. L. Roy, was inclined to Shakespeare so much that his
play ‘Shah Jahan’ (Act V, Scene iii) possesses free translation of the famous ‘Storm Scene’ of ‘King
Lear’. His creation of the historical character of NurJahanbears great resemblance to Shakespeare’s
creation of the character of Lady Macbeth, feels Sen Gupta. He further points out how D. L. Roy was
influenced by Shakespeare’s concept of tragedy. Khirod Prasad Vidyabinode, a contemporary of D. L.
Roy, was even no less influenced by Shakespeare’s ‘The Tempest’ as the heroine Sarbani of his play
‘RakshaRamani’ bears plentiful similarity in spirit to Miranda. Another play ‘Nara Narayan’ followed
the style of Shakespearean tragedy.
Sen Gupta concludes his article with a detailed analysis on the impact of Shakespeare’s plays
on Rabindranath. He pointed out by instances how Tagore’s play ‘SheshRaksha’ (‘The Last Save’) is an
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echo of Shakespeare’s early play ‘The Comedy of Errors’. However, such comparisons are forced than
genuine. Rudraprasad has even noticed Shakespearean style reflected in the play ‘Raja O Rani’ that
was written in the early phase of Tagore’s literary career.Towards the end of Tagore’s literary career, he
shed off Shakespearean influence and adopted his own style because he realized that the Bengali
audience or readers would not accept the lofty Elizabethan style. In Rudraprasad’s view, these factors
made Tagore more a naturalist, an allegorical or a symbolic dramatist than a mere Shakespearean
devotee. Sen Gupta at least for once did not admit that the prime intention of all the versatile writers of
the late nineteenth and early twentieth century had been to idolize Shakespeare as a colonial icon.
Modern Bengali poet Bishnu Dey’s article ‘Shakespeare O’ Bangla’ (Parichay, 1964, p414-19)
(Shakespeare and Bengali) contains some rare information about Shakespeare study. He suggests that
Vidyasagar’s‘BhrantiBilas’ and Michael Madhusudan’s‘Hector Badh’ are the two eventful works that
tell us about Shakespeare’s adaptations. He points out how the dialogues are very relevant in making
Shakespeare the greatest dramatist in world literature. Dey compares Tolstoy with Shakespeare and
shows how the two writers have excelled in the two genres of literature. He takes up two Bengali
translators of Shakespeare like Nirendranath Roy and Sunil Kumar Chattopadhyay and shows how
they had different modes of approach relating to the art of translation. While the former follows the
classical pattern, the latter gives a popular rendering, which becomes not only lucid but also more
applicable to the stage. Dey’s article possesses merit as he covers an enormous periphery from
Rabindranath to UtpalDutt and he suggests that actors like Dutta and Bijan Bhattacharyya must have
enacted and directed Shakespeare more on the stage to popularize him to the common Bengalis.
Ajit Kumar Ghosh’s article ‘Bangla Natake Shakespeare-er Probabh’ (Rabindra Bharati
Patrika, 1965; p. 39-53) (The Impact of Shakespeare on Bengali Drama) is based on Sanat Kumar
Mitra’s book ‘Shakespeare O’ Bangla Natak’.Ghosh gives two reasons for the popularity of
Shakespeare in post-colonial Bengal. In the first place, the study of Shakespeare in the academic
curriculum had a lucrative impact and secondly, the performances of the plays in both English and
vernacular brought him much closer to the people. Above all the intermingling or amalgamation started
since the days of Girish Ghosh when he met Mrs. Lewis of ‘Lewis theatre’. He further gives instances
of the staging of Shakespeare in David Hare Academy and Circular Seminary and response to it.
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Moreover, he gives reasons why early translations and adaptations influenced the writers of
vernacular plays that had a mixed form of Indian and Western style. Michael Madhusudan’s plays
‘Sarmistha’ and ‘Padmabati’ started with Shakespearean pattern but became more Indianised in
approach. Nevertheless, sometime later when he wrote ‘Krishna Kumari’, it had more Shakespearean
resemblances. Ghosh mentions in his study why Rabindranath shed off Shakespearean influences in his
symbolic plays except in ‘Raja O Rani’, ‘ChirakumarSabha’ and ‘Bisarjan’. The article is packed with
interesting finds and presents a chronological account of the various writers and scholars, their
response to Shakespeare in their own way and re-presenting him to the common Bengali mass.
In 2002 ‘Ebon Musaera’, (8th year,4th issue, Jan- March), a tri- monthly Bengali magazine that
deals with literature and popular culture had published a special issue on ‘Hamlet’ under the editorship
of SubolSamanta, in which the academics and the intelligentsia have expressed their views on the play
in a new dimension. There are altogether forty-three articles and seven fragmentary translations of the
play ‘Hamlet’ in Bengali made at different phases since the second half of the eighteenth century. The
basic intention here is to show how they have adapted to the changing interpretation of the play and
tried to prove the validity of our beliefs with regard to the tragic hero. There are even excerpts from the
past like ‘Muriel Morgan Gibbon’s’ report on the visit of the Prince of Wales at Copenhagen for the
inauguration of the Anglo-Danish exhibition.
Jagannath Chakrabarty has justified with reasons why ‘Hamlet’ is the most widely read and
critically evaluated work in the world literature but he has at times been repetitive in his approach and
failed in clarifying his proposition. He cites T. S. Eliot’s statement on Hamlet being the “Mona-Lisa” of
literature as it holds a variety of complications--delay, inaction, revenge-play and above all a great
tragedy. Hamlet’s inaction has caused the birth of the drama’s actions and gradual progression.
Chakrabarty agrees with critics who had viewed that the reasons for this delay is not external but
purely internal and he feels that Hamlet’s mentality is purely responsible for such a delay. However
internal is this delay, it is long-termed. Chakrabarty however, feels that Hamlet’s plans and applications
show us a higher process of action, which is interlinked with his idealism. Shakespeare portrays an
ideal person in his mind that he regards for his reasoning, action and belief. He never believes in the
theory that malice has its revenge, as Polonius possesses such an attitude. The conflicting behaviour of
Hamlet is a striking feature that creates an oscillation in him. Ultimately, Chakrabarty opines that
Hamlet is at war with himself to destroy the compromising attitude of his character but does not
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succeed at all. Audiences are enthralled by his soliloquy and he struggles against his mind but
surrenders finally to lower mentality at the end by uttering:
“I’ll not be juggled with
To hell, allegiance, vows to the blackest devil!
…Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit! I dare damnation.”
Shibnarayan Roy’s essay entitled ‘Hamlet - Rahasya: Nayak, Natak O’ Upanyaser-Upakramanika’

(The Hamlet Riddle: Hero, Drama and Introduction to Fiction) is an innovative study highlighting why
Goethe has identified Hamlet as a handsome, pure and a person who is capable of shouldering great
responsibility. Roy feels that Goethe studied Shakespeare with keen attention and felt how a personal
tragedy turns into a universal one. He further quotes Robertson and T. S. Eliot and concludes, “So far
from being Shakespeare’s masterpiece, the play is certainly an artistic failure” (Ebon Musaera pg.36).
Roy cites Ernest Jones, the biographer of Freud, who had viewed that Hamlet is a youth of
strong personality but he is inclined to his mother from his childhood through the ideology of “Oedipus
Complex”. Roy has noticed the presence of this complex in Hamlet’s character in every aspect of his
actions. Judging Hamlet’s mental set-up and his assertions the thinkers of Spain like S. de. Madariaga
has called Hamlet both selfish and rude who values his own interest above everything and tries to hide
his mental conflict by sheer verbal power. The German scholars like Otto Rank and Kuno Fischer also
bear the same view. Roy ends his compact article of twelve pages by mentioning that most critics have
noted the incompleteness of the play ‘Hamlet’ in terms of Aristotelian dictum. The source materials
have been reshuffled by Shakespeare not merely to present a story for mere entertainment but to depict
the spirit of Renaissance humanism by portraying characters in his own tantalizing perspective for
aesthetic reasons, which made him the greatest dramatist.
Alokeranjan Das Gupta’s study of ‘Goethe’s Hamlet’ shows Shakespeare’s advent in Germany
started with Lessing who first staged the play ‘Hamlet’ successfully thirty-times. From this
performance, Goethe has expressed his own view on ‘Hamlet’ by mentioning that Shakespeare’s
openness enabled him to raise the strength of freedom and reasoning. He was successful enough in
uniting the Renaissance and the modern worlds. Biswanath Chattopadhyay’s essay ‘Mukhar Nayaker
Birambana’ (The Predicament of the Garrulous Hero) shows that in literature few characters have had
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so much attention as ‘Hamlet’ had. In Chattopadhyay’s view, Hamlet is not a character who lived four
hundred years back. On the contrary, he is very much a contemporary of today, full of life and vitality.
Considering the greatest tragic heroes, the author feels that Macbeth is a poet, Othello is imaginative,
and Lear is an orator but none of them is as thoughtful as ‘Hamlet’. In fact, the admixture of several
responses in his character is so engrossing that he becomes typically a baffling character for whom we
feel pity and pain. He points out to the feminine traits in Hamlet’s character and that Hamlet lacks the
masculine power to perform. For this, he vacillates in taking revenge of his father’s murder. He is eager
to advise others but reluctant to accept it because of his egoistical nature.
Dipendu Chakrabarti’s stimulating article ‘Amrai Hamlet’ (We Are All Hamlet) shows that to
understand the present day situation we need to read Shakespeare. Universality is not a rigid affair; it
changes its identity in various ways. The problem of Hamlet is that of an intellectual. Being a
university student, he is an avid reader, but he finds it difficult to link himself with the content of the
book. Chakrabarti also hints at Hamlet's Oedipal relationship with his mother, yet he regards his father
to the utmost. His cynical and rude attitude towards women has distanced him from his mother.
Chakrabarti compares Hamlet with those intellectuals of our time who fight against injustice and
become tired. In spite of all these, Hamlet takes revenge of his father’s death at the cost of his own life.
Chakrabarti’s innovative ideas deserve appreciation.
A series of articles both in theme and content have been written in this issue.
ParthaPratimBandopadhyay mentions in ‘Amader Hamlet’ (Our Hamlet) the poet Bishnu Dey’s two
poems like ‘Ophelia’ and ‘Elsinore’ have reawakened the interest of the common Bengalis’ response on
this tragedy. He further feels that this Hamlet is more a Bengali writer’s work than Shakespeare’s, as
when he is at a loss after his father’s death and his mother’s frailty, he wants to live in Ophelia’s love.
However, Bandopadhyay justifies the reasons for Hamlet’s procrastination in taking the revenge. Such
situations appear like household affairs in today’s Bengal and we are all but Hamlets with our pains
and sufferings. Though this essay lacks proper focus, it possesses fragments of brilliance. The study
also fails to show Hamlet’s reason in his madness.
Sudeshna Chakrabarty’s article ‘Denmark-er Jubaraj Banglai: Hamlet-er-Bangiya Rup’ (The

Prince of Denmark in Bengal-The Bengalisation of Hamlet) is a study of the various translations and
adaptations of the plays since the days of the British rule. This shows the fondness of the Bengalis for
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Shakespeare and that in no other Indian language had Shakespeare been worked upon so much till date.
Chakravorty feels that adaptations appealed more to the audience than cultural translations, as they
loved to see the characters in Indian costumes and local names. So, Girish Ghosh’s translation became
less popular with the masses though critics have acclaimed it highly.Even it is true with Vidyasagar’s
adaptation of ‘Bhrantibilas’. Her article on ‘Bange Macbeth’ is more comprehensive than this
Abhijit Sen in his essay ‘Shakespeare-er Mancha Nirdesh O’ Hamlet’ (Shakespeare’s Stage
Direction and Hamlet) gives an account of the stage direction during the early modern period in
England. He compares the stage set-up of Shakespeare and Ben Jonson and shows why the latter was
better though Shakespeare had his audience in his mind while writing the plays. Being an actor,
playwright and partner of the production, Sen confirms that Shakespeare’s advice made the productions
more acceptable and directions more effective.
Amitabha Roy in ‘Shakespeare-er Hamlet na Amader?’(Is it Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ or ours?),

admits candidly that all theatre producers across the world believe that theatrical efforts remain
incomplete if they do not stage Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ at least once in their career. If this appears
hyperbolic, Roy cites instances of twentieth century leading directors in the whole of Europe. Modern
directors do not limit Hamlet simply as a product of “Renaissance humanist” but more as a humanist
who fosters the philosophy of our life, time and society. Even today, we visualize the agony as well as
exhilaration of the tragic protagonist in our society as if the play has been a product of the recent time.
The play has not been restricted to a definite period but his voice echoes through generations. Roy tries
to contemporize Hamlet in the post-colonial perspective.
Manjubhash Mitra’s article ‘Freud-er Aloke Hamlet’ (Hamlet in the light of Freudian
Interpretation) is a study which mainly highlights how the tragedy of ‘Hamlet’ has enormously helped
Freud to establish his psychoanalytical doctrine of the “Oedipus Complex”. Mitra in his study cites the
example of Kenneth Muir who opined in one critical essay in an antithetical tone, to say that, “Oedipus
Complex” is the key to Hamlet’s character is to undervalue the complexity of the play. On the contrary,
Muir suggests that super-ego seems to be more important factor in analyzing the character of ‘Hamlet’
but Freud believed that super-ego is the result of “Oedipus Complex.” Mitra feels that according to
Freud’s interpretation, he regarded Hamlet as a new incarnation of King Oedipus. He could not shed
off his childhood “Oedipus Complex” as his father was his model. Moreover, had he been more
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engrossed in his world of love rather than egoistically envying his mother’s conjugal life, much of the
tragedy could have been averted. However, Mitra seems to be abrupt in his treatment of Freud and
Shakespeare.
There are other articles like ‘Hamlet: Chinta O’ Sanbitti’ (Thoughts and Consciousness) by
Satya Bandopadhyay, ‘Hamlet: Kichu Katha: Bangla Natak O’ Manche Hamlet’ (Hamlet: Some
Observations: Bengali Drama and the Staging of Hamlet) by Ajit Kumar Ghosh, ‘ElsinorerJishu’ (The
Jesus of Elsinore) by Tapati Gupta, ‘Picasso, Aargau, Hamlet’ by Samik Bandopadhyay and ‘Hamlet
baBangaliBhadrolok’ (Hamlet or the Bengali Gentleman).Ketaki Kusari Dyson, one of the
distinguished contemporary Bengali scholars living in England translated a few songs of Ophelia. A
few significant translations of the play’s selected passages like Jatindranath Sen Gupta’s ‘Hamlet’ (I, i-
iii), Ajit Gangopadhyay’s (I,iv), Tarun Sanyal’s (I, ii,) Sova Sen et al have been included in the list to
mark quatercentenary year of the play. Another notable observation is that some distinguished
criticisms on the play by eminent critics like T. S. Eliot, Boris Pasternak, and Ian Kotthave been
translated for the Bengali readers, though they are not of high merit. However, the endeavour to bring
out such a book deserves appreciation from the readers to scholars. Prior to this publication, Bengali
little magazines brought out articles, which had arbitrary topics and revolved round the periphery of
appreciation for Shakespeare and his relevance in today’s world rather than any critical or analytical
evaluations.
The Bengalis have made Shakespeare their own writer in the last two centuries not only by
mere translations or by adaptations of the plays and poems but also by their stage performances and
pedagogical studies. However, the academics failed in most cases in bringing out innovative
interpretations and evaluations of the plays in keeping with the taste of the average Bengalis.
Comparatively, the little magazines had evoked a better response for the Bengalisation of the bard of
Avon.
Conclusion
But, all said all done; certain unpalatable thoughts inevitably haunt our mind with a regretful note
which is expressed in brief as follows:
Bengal had witnessed its cultural heydays during the nineteenth century and early twentieth
century with an aura of Bengal Renaissance, the splendour of the legendary stalwarts in the field of art,
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literature, fine arts etc. Kolkata in the British period had an edge over other cities in India as it was the
capital of the country till 1911. Rightly enough is Kolkata called the cultural capital of India. The
aphorism “what Bengal thinks today, India will think tomorrow,” still reverberates in the Bengal air.
Enjoying such pride of place in so far as cultural excellence is concerned, Kolkata is very logically
expected to have reaped the most plentiful and brilliant harvest in Shakespeare studies or staging of his
plays in the country.
This expected phenomenon, however, remained unattained. Shakespeare criticism both in terms
of quality and in quantity evinced its high and low with flashes of brilliance at times and paling into
mediocrity very often. Besides, it has been pointed out, Shakespeare criticism most frequently
remained under the long shadow of the Anglo-American critics. A shade more of innovative brilliance
was indeed expected than toeing the West's line in most parts in the whole gamut of the criticism.
Shakespeare studies too in the academic spheres were characterised by very irregular radiance. Both
criticism and standard of academic studies could rarely soar up to the heights of international glory.
When it comes to staging of Shakespeare’s plays Bengal had of course a few productions,
which, apart from being popular, deserved to be ranked high, though most of the rest may be
considered as most commonplace. Even film making in Bengal which has catapulted Kolkata to the
special porch in world film in terms of quality with the geniuses like Satyajit Ray, Mrinal Sen and a
few others, almost shows a vacuum in producing films with the storyline or themes of Shakespeare’s
plays. This vacuum is indeed very surprising and defies explanation.
Until date, we have not found anything like Ian Kott’s perception of Shakespeare in the
contemporary context. Perhaps our colonial hangover is responsible for our lack of courage to see
Shakespeare through our own eyes. The Bengali Shakespeare scholars have failed in making a mark
and that is why Anglo- American Shakespeare studies hardly refer to Bengali Shakespeare scholars.
At the end, it must be admitted that in spite of the Bengali academics’ extensive exposure to the
British studies, there has not been a Bengali critic counterpart of Ian Kott who can offer a new
perspective on Shakespeare studies in terms of our Indian culture and society. In the ultimate analysis,
our Shakespearean studies are largely Anglo-centric and have to go a long way before we can assert an
independent voice.
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Chakravorty, Jagannath. The Idea of Revenge in Shakespeare with special references to
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Calcutta, Orient Longman 1961.
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2nd Ed.New Delhi, 1981.

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--- Trends in Shakespearean Criticism; (with a forward by Geoffrey Tillotson.)

Calcutta, Vidyodaya Library, 1965.
Sen Gupta, Subodh Chandra Shakespeare; A Book of Homage. Calcutta, Jadavpur University, 1965.
--- Shakespearian Comedy. Calcutta Geoffrey Cumberlege, O. U. P. London, 1950.
--- Aspects of Shakespearian Tragedy, Calcutta, O.U.P. 1972.
--- Shakespeare’s Historical Plays.London, O.U.P. 1950.
--- A Shakespearian Manual.Calcutta, O.U.P. 1977.
--- ‘Shakespeare and Keats’ – (A Monograph.)Calcutta, Shakespeare Society and

Avant-garde Press, 1986.
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Calcutta, Orient Longman 1961.
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Sikdar, Lipika. Shakespeare in the Media. Calcutta, The Shakespeare Society and Avant-grade Press;
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Arindam Mukherjee is an M.A, M.Phil, in English Literature from University of Calcutta where he has
recently submitted his doctoral thesis on ‘The Changing Bengali Response to Shakespeare: A Critical
Study of Shakespeare Criticism by Bengali Writers & Academics.’ He has also published an article on
‘Narratology& its Developmentsin Biblical Samson, Miltonic Samson & Hollywood Samson.’ He wrote
some articles in Bengali for various Bengali Little Magazines published from Kolkata. He also
participated actively and presented papers in the ‘World Shakespeare Conference, 2000.’ At present, he
teaches English at GhutiaBazar MallickBati Pathsala(H.S) in Hooghly, West Bengal, India.
Tracing the Historical Roots of Kolkata's North-South
Divide
Madhusree Chattopadhyay
Abstract: Kolkata experienced a process of a new pattern of urbanism in the first half of the twentieth
century mainly in the southern part of the city. This paper seeks to trace the development of both north
and south Kolkata in the colonial times and tries to find why the physical appearance of the city
differed in the two parts of the city, how from the late eighteenth century the two Kolkata, namely the
‘Sahebpara’ or the European quarter and the native portion also labelled as the ‘black town’ grew up,
that vast areas of the southern locations were rural areas with swamps and marshland even in the first
half of the twentieth century and how the activities of the Kolkata Improvement Trust led to the
emergence of a fashionable, well-ordered “south” while the failure of the Trust to reshape the north led
to the continuance of the historic north –south divide of the city.
In the study of the process of the urbanization of Kolkata we can put forth two simplified categories,
the urbanism of the banyan-landlord-merchant class going back to the eighteenth century on the
northern part of Kolkata and the new urbanism of middle and upper middle class, mostly in the south
from the early decades of the twentieth century. In the early nineteenth century a new style of living
developed and the ‘Wellington Square-College Street-Cornwallis Street axis with lanes and by-lanes
radiating from it or meeting it was eagerly sought after as an alternative to the far older Chitpur Road-
Burrabazar axis’.1 Later in the second half of the nineteenth century, Kolkata began to grow fast with a
concerted plan of governance along with a cohesive town plan being laid out, outlining improved
sanitary and municipal infrastructure. As time rolled on, the process, nature and extent of the urban
development of the city of colonial Kolkata in the last decade of nineteenth and first half of the
twentieth century saw rapid strides. The period around 1911 can be seen as an important watershed.
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This particular year saw two significant events -namely the transfer of capital from Kolkata to Delhi
and setting up of the Kolkata Improvement Trust, both the events that remarkably affected Kolkata’s
urban destiny. It can be suggested how conscious city building projects, especially the activities of
Kolkata Improvement Trust which came into existence in 1911 in the footsteps of Bombay
Improvement Trust, left its impact on the city’s urban history. The Trust emphasized more on the
demolition of old , dilapidated buildings rather than remodelling and restoring old structures as “a
permanent and effective solution over other less drastic measures’’ leading to a steady loss of
prominence of the northern section of the city. Under the axe of Trust the glorious days of north
Kolkata waned away fast and the erstwhile ‘babus’ vanished in the air. Simultaneously it came up with
plans for development by road building, improved sewerage and similar beautification plans that led to
extension of the city towards the southern part like in Bhowanipur and later towards Ballygaunge and
other southern localities, along with movement of people towards these newly developing areas.
II
In most of the literature of the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century there is mention of
the two Kolkata, namely the ‘Sahebpara’ or the European quarter and the native portion also labelled as
the ‘black town’.2 The period from 1690-1850 saw the pattern of English settlement in Kolkata,
resulting in a process of urbanization and extension of town-limits and the growth of the city with a
“white town” and a black town” where the native population resided. These were surrounded by
peripheral hamlet (Dihi), forming a varied range of agricultural and fishing settlements, sacred spots,
trading halts, and other nodal point. The English town clustered round the old fort, which occupied the
site of present Customs House and Post Offices. As time rolled on the European quarter began to
spread behind the Chowringhee, connected by three main routes running nearly east and west. – the
Park-Street, Theatre Road, and Lower Circular Road. Skirting the European quarters on the north and
the east were the native quarters. Kolkata was interspersed with bastis or native hamlets of mud hut.
Eastwards from Chitpore Road these bastis became numerous. During the period 1757 to 1800, the
reclamation of the waste and jungle-lands became rapid. After the battle of Plassey, a greater sense of
security enabled the English to built houses away from the fort. House building activities began on a
large scale. Earlier there were very few ‘pucca’ dwellings, particularly in the native quarter, and most
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houses were built with straw and mud. Henceforth, the construction of pucca dwellings swelled up
.This marked the beginning of rapid phase of urbanization in early Kolkata. During this period the
native residents were removed from the village of Govindapur to Sutanuti and the new Fort William
began to be erected. Simultaneously the old river front was gradually abandoned and new buildings
came to be erected towards the south face of the Esplanade. The southerly location of the new fort
reinforced a southward thrust to the European quarter.
Unlike the native quarter on the north that generated an impression of utter disgust and
contempt, the European part had semblance and order, and appeared pleasing to the spectator. The
European quarter was far better, with well laid out road. In fact the European town stood in dark
contrast to the native quarter with its huts and other ruinous dwellings. The European quarter was long
beien celebrated for well stocked gardens, long lines of casurinas, tall bushes of tamarind and banyan
trees. It lay in the south end of the city. The beautiful plain called the Maidan stretched a mile and half
long, extending towards the river. “The maidan spreads over a spacious area, intersected by very broad
roads, and on two sides of this superb quadrangle a part of the city and the fashionable suburb of
Chowringhee extend themselves.”3 Fort William stood on the centre of the river bank. The plain was
always green, and contained several old trees, along with large water bodies. The residence of the
English bordered inner side of the plain. The houses were adorned with white walls, broad verandas,
and green Venetian windows. George Johnson4 writes “in the best streets there are chimneyless forms
of the house, with their coloumned verandahs, and spacious windows’’ that reminded him of the hey
days of Athens, justifying the title ‘the city of palaces “to Kolkata. All the important government
buildings faced the plain to the north. On the East, were the finely built houses of the suburb of
Chowringhee.
At the cross-road opposite the Fort, a fine panoramic view of Kolkata in the right could be seen,
with Chowringhee on the left and Fort William, river and shipping in the front white pillared building
and a sunlit atmosphere – a grassy plain with coconut, clumps of bamboos rearing thin feathery sprays
in the air. A drive, along the Circular Road brought the visitor into more immediate contact with the
morasses and wilderness which surround the habitations of the Europeans in the outskirts of the city.
This part of Kolkata is chiefly the residence of shopkeepers, clerks etc, both Britons and Indo-Britons,
especially the latter, and seldom men from the fashionable portion of the city visit this place. The native
town occupied nearly six square miles of the entire city. It was also called the Black Town, and
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extended along the river in the North. It filled all the northern end, and ran to the South along the back
of the English quarter. This part of the city is little to boast of, and was much low in standard than those
of the old localities found in Delhi, Benaras or Upper India. Except a few trunk roads built by the
British, the streets, roads and lanes were too narrow .Emma Roberts writes “a more wretched looking
place can scarcely be imagined, dirty, crowded, ill-built and abounding with beggars and bad smells.” 5
Monkland writes as every city in the face of the earth has some labyrinth in the care, so also the city of
palaces is not without lanes, alleys, and ditch, black as style rat-infested. There were numerous bazaars
in the locality, that were always in a crowded state. The Barabazar was almost in a ruinous state. There
were numerous shops, selling items of myriad varieties, and the roads were littered with dust. The
native bazaar was full of unsightly articles of every description. Few of the houses, except those
exclusively owned by the Europeans were kept in good shape and repair The courtyard of the houses
were full of litter and there was an air of squalor spread over the whole area. The streets in native
quarter were remarkably narrow and in a crowded state, dotted with stagnant and consequently
offensive drain, that seem prophetic of miasma and pestilence. However scattered over the city, though
on narrow streets, were the family mansions of native gentlemen, with their broad central courtyard,
pillared verandahs and numerous rooms. Some were palaces in appearance, but were surrounded by
filthy drains, many were out of repair, The walls were eaten by saltpetre, the courtyards were full of
heaps of rubbish, overgrowth of weeds and threatening to tumble into ruin, signifying the rise and fall
of the fortune of the native gentry. To most European eyes what was striking was that palatial structure
and miserable mud huts of natives stood side by side. The town was built without any care to beauty or
regularity. Emma Roberts writes that amidst mud hut and small dingy brick tenements and the
dilapidated bazaars of the middling and lower classes of natives, there are good-looking houses
enclosed in court-yards, belonging to the Armenians merchants, Parsees and the Bengali gentlemen of
great wealth and respectability. The avenues which lead to these mansions are exceedingly narrow, but
most buildings had beautiful garden, where flowers of many variety blossomed. A mud hut, or rows of
native hovels, constructed of mats, thatch and bamboo often rest against the outer wall of palaces.
III
James Long in an article published in the “Calcutta Review” titled “Calcutta in the Olden Times: Its
Localities”6 gives description of many old localities of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.
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He begins with Khidirpur. The localities that are described in succession are Chauringhi, thence to Tank
Square and its vicinity and then Chitpore. The description ends with the Circular Road. Interestingly,
only three places are described on the south of Fort William in details, namely Khidirpur, Garden
Reach and Alipore indicating that the rest of the areas were almost uninhabited and had no proper
means of communication. Khidirpur could be approached from inland by the Hastings’ Bridge, which
stood near the much famed Surman’s Garden. South of the garden was the limit of Company’s colony
called Govindapur. Close to it was the Watson’s Dock. The Diamond Harbour Road terminated at
Khidirpur. The way from Khidirpur to Bursea was lined with trees, extending thirty nine miles to
Diamond Harbour. The next locality of importance was Garden Reach, mentioned even in the map of
General Martine (1760). It was a favourite place of residence “out of the town”, and contained many
fine bunglows. Long informs us that William Jones who lived in Garden Reach travelled via Khidirpur,
as then there were no direct route from Garden Reach to Kolkata in those days. In those days the
neighbourhood of the old fort was too stuffy, and the only open spot for fresh air was the Respondentia
walk, lying beyond Chandpal Ghat, for most the outlying land was full of jungle infested with wild
animals. People returned to Kolkata in the cold season from their country villas, many of which were in
Garden Reach. Similarly Alipore, with Belvedere, was a favourite spot of Hastings. It was the country-
house in those days, as was Barrackpore in the time of Wellesley. The General Hospital was previously
a garden house of an individual and later purchased house of an individual and later purchased by the
government. North of Alipore flowed the “Tolly’s Nullah”, its old name being Govindapur creek,
where the famous native merchants named Seths resided.
The next important locality was Chourongi, a favourite spot of retreat from the hot and
unhealthy town. Chowringhee originated from the “rage for country house”. In the eighteenth century it
was a far-away place and for fear of dacoity and robbery, palki-bearers charged double fare. 7 Later it
developed into a locality full of garden houses. Emma Roberts writes” (1837) “the Suburb of
Chowringhee had lately extended over a large tract of country”. It was the favourite residence of the
European community. Most houses here stood separate, standing in the midst of garden. No particular
plan was followed while they were erected, but most of these are pleasant, and the trees and flowering
shrubs adorned the place. From the roofs of these houses the river with different kinds of vessels, and
the towers and pinnacles of majestic buildings can be seen , and nearer at hand, swamps and patches
of unreclaimed jungles.8
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Towards the close of the eighteenth century, more houses come to be erected. Upjoin’s map
shows twenty four houses in Chourongi, between Dharmatala and Birjitalao, the Circular Road and the
Plain. Park Street in Upjoin’s map (1794) is called Burial Ground road, being out of town in the
eighteenth century and a route for burials from northern part of Tank Square.
Perhaps the most important and famous locality in the south was Kalighat, frequented both by
the Europeans and the natives. Monkland 9 recollects his visit to “Callia Ghat”. The latter was situated
on the banks of a small “nullah”, or channel of communication “between the Sunderbans and Hooghly.
The temple appeared in his eyes to be an imposing structure and a “substantial mason work”, standing
in the midst of series of common straw thatched native hut. A great number of natives came to this
place. Monkland writes that even ‘Sati” was performed here. Mary Carpenter also recollects her visit to
Kalighat. James Long accompanied her to the visit of the temple of Kali.She said that the temple was
situated on a “thickly populated suburb”, with narrow lanes and small shops on its both sides.10
Further south, thickets of trees, weeds, pools, small stagnant tanks, jheels, and forests abounded
everywhere on each side of the road from Chowringhee, Brejeeltullah, to the end of Russapuglah, on
each side of the Kalighat Road, on to Tolly’s Bridge, on each side of the Tolly’s Nullah. In the mid
nineteenth century the Alipore jail was the healthiest part of the southern localities. The whole of
Alipore was higher, and better drained, the soil is sandy, and hardy. Alipore jail was an open space,
clear of jungle, and the prisoners could breadth pure air, for there was absence of jangal, filth, bad
water and other nuisances which normally affected the other localities in the outskirts. The air was
clear, and the jail tank was probably the best, of any, either in or near Kolkata. Also in Ballygunge, the
soil condition was less harmful for health. The soil of Ballygunge being sandy, could absorb water and
“lands to the south-east as far as Gurriah-haut, and very far beyond that place are an open plain,
occasionally with the exception of garden cultivation, cultivated with rice or tobacco to the extent of
many miles, say twenty, and it is only here and there that villages are to be seen, and these at a great
distance from each other…”.11 The inundation of 1833 caused sickness in every house of Garden
Reach, and other parts of suburbs, except Ballygunge and Alipore jail. Great mortality affected the
native population. The flooding even affected the health of the city, rate of mortality nearly doubled in
1833 . F.P. Strong refers to Prince Sooroodeen, who allowed jungles to grow up to his very doors at
Russapuglah. Strong also refers to residence of a native doctor, whose family house was at
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Bhowanipur. It was a place of jungle with an old piggery, inhabited by chamars and their pigs. The
native died of diseases caused by this extremely unhealthy atmospheric surroundings. In Garden Reach,
scarcely a house escaped the epidemic fever. Martin observes that in all these places, not six square
acres of soil occupied by the natives were there which did not contain marsh, and other concentrated
source of periodic fever , leading to disease of spleen and fatal diarrhoea. Nearly two third of the poor
who mainly lived in this locality died of these diseases. Kidderpore, which was less populous, had
greatly surpassed Bhowaneepore in its unhealthiness. No part of Bengal or Orissa, had a locality so
generally bad . Fever was general throughout, even in the healthiest season, along with want of good
water. There was not a square foot that was not in a surprising state of neglect and portions between the
Bridge end and Kyd’s dock was one entire jheel (shallow lake). Both Bhowaneepore and Khidderpore
were peculiarity exposed to the effects of inundation.
IV
The south contained a flavour of rurality even in the early parts of the twentieth century. Recollections
of these places in several autobiographies and memoirs of this time amply describes the cityscape .
Ahindra Choudhury recollects that on the Shambhunath Pandit Street, where later Calcutta Club was
built, stood the house of the agent of the Tram Company. Behind it was the tram depot and also a stable
for horses, for carriage was the principal means of transport in those days. It had beautiful ivy creeper
on all sides. Victoria Memorial was yet to be completed. On the east of this land stood the ‘Habildar
Tank’, used by common people for bathing. There were two big banyan trees, and in front of the church
stood a huge field called ‘church- field’. In part of this ground the garden of the Victoria Memorial was
laid out later. On its western side of it was the Race Course. 12 Even Ballygaunge of this time exhibited
an air of rurality. The bazaar of Haji Qasim stood at the site of the present crossing of Rashbehari
Avenue. On the south-east of this crossing stood the haunted house of Tipu Sultan. Huge banyan trees
grew on its rooftop. The place generated an eerie sensation. One would feel scared to go there even
during daytime.13 The tram ran up to the Gariahat crossing. Then one had to walk to move ahead. Very
few houses stood here and there. Ballygaunge was sparsely populated. There were few vehicles on the
road, but only the slow-moving tram that ran lazily over the Rashbehari Avenue. Houses were few in
number. Most of it was open field with greenery on all sides. Many walked their way through the bye
lanes to catch the tram. The jungles were not yet cleared. Bullock carts moved in a row on the road.
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The way ahead was almost dark. There were some small grocery shops. The land was marshy and
swampy. Dense growth of water hyacinth floated on numerous waterbodies that dotted this locality..
Ballygaunge was not a favoured choice of residence even in the early decades of the twentieth century.
Those who had built houses near Ballygaunge station- on the Station Road lamented that there were no
tenants who would like to compromise the advantage of the city and come to live in a place full of
jungle, with the howl of the jackal that could be heard in the back yard of the house.
Of the total eight square miles of area, the native Kolkata occupying the northern half of the
whole was about four square miles. This part of the town lying on the North was a “scattered and
confused chaos of houses, sheds, huts, streets, lanes, alleys, windings, gulleys, sinks and tanks, jumbled
together into an undistinguished mass of filth and corruption.” 14 Later when the commercial profile of
the city improved, “kutcha” houses were replaced by masonry buildings erected on the same site.
Palatial houses came to be erected on the narrowest windings. In north Kolkata there were large areas
where at least half the masonry buildings were unapproachable by any wheeled vehicle . It was mostly
courtyard type houses because of the “purdah –system”. This type of house disallowed infiltration of
sunrays or free flow of air. Further there was innate unwillingness of some people to leave the area of
their ancestor. The Bengali families had an extraordinary affection for their ancestral house and were
apathetic to shift even if the house was in the worst dilapidated condition. Further the “inadequate
buildings laws and the inclination to evade even those which existed , produced an extraordinary
number of buildings upon lands which under modern conditions would not be available for building at
all. It was a common feature of the town to find an expensive and well constructed building having its
frontage upon a lane a few feet in width, and the ground floor and even some of the upper floors both
lightless and airless. Interspersed with these brick-built houses were blocks of mud and bamboo huts.
The most striking feature of the architectural pattern of Kolkata was the number of bustee dwellings of
a more or less insanitary character in almost every part of the town. The juxtaposition of good and bad
buildings was equally noticeable. These were extremely unhealthy because their foundations were
damp and they harbored rats, the transporters of plague. The irregular winding lanes, covered ditches,
sewers were in many cases the ventilation channels for properties which were themselves insanitary. Dr
Crake’s Report on the sanitary condition of the town showed that almost 18.7% of houses were
“hopelessly insanitary” mostly because of inadequate street system.15
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There was extreme congestion in the northern quarter of the city and an increase of population
in already densely populated areas by the beginning of the twentieth century. This was because the up-
country immigrant labourers preferred to live with their friends in areas already congested, leading to
an unchecked growth of slums. Congestion in the bastis were on the bursting point. It appeared as if the
“Curse of Midas” fell on the city. The concentration of trade in Burrabazar was the most important
factor that caused street congestion. Because the trade of the city centered so largely on this area, it
followed that a large portion of the goods traffic either originated or terminated in this area, within
which there was not one good road. With the single exception of Harrison Road; the remaining
connections were nothing but narrow lanes, in the greater number of which it was impossible for two
bullock or buffalo carts to cross-in fact, the position was so bad that that the replacement of bullock
and buffalo carts by motor transport would result in no improvement. There was no doubt that the
roads, with the single exception named, were disgracefully narrow and are totally inadequate for the
traffic. (transported almost entirely by means of bullock and buffalo carts) which they are called on to
carry. The very poor road facilities and the primitive methods of transport accentuated the difficulties
arising from the concentration of trade within an insufficiently large area. The result was an area which
was hopelessly overcrowded, both indoors and in the streets, which was dingy and insanitary and
which had no means of ventilation - a most unsatisfactory state of affairs considered in the light of the
value to the city of the trade carried on in the area. Along with this streetlessness and extensive slum
bore its inevitable consequences the plague. A survey of the area bounded by the Chitpore Road and
Halliday Street on the east, where stood Ward Number 8. ie Kolutola area showed extremely narrow
streets and close and bad arrangements of buildings . This area was at the very centre of Kolkata. Of
the 256 masonry buildings 33% were unfit for human habitation, 54% partially insanitary and only
12.5% fit for living. It was a densely populated ward with 258 persons per acre. It was one of the five
worst plague –ridden wards, with a majority of immigrant male population. 16 Apart from that the worst
plague areas were Wards V(Jorabagan ), VI( Jorasanko), VII(Barabazar), VIII(Kalutola).Also the coolie
classes who migrated to Wards XIX(Entally) and XX(Beniapukur) were the carriers of plague.
V
Towards the second and third decade of the twentieth century south Kolkata was gradually developing ,
exhibiting a complete contrast with the northern part. Metropolitan Kolkata was emerging fast in this
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part of the city. New roads were laid out and new houses appeared on newly reclaimed land. While
northern part of Kolkata was declining , newer localities as Bhowanipur was coming into prominence
during the first part of the twentieth century. It appeared as if a new city was coming up in this part
.The roads were all new. The city has given birth to a new civilization here. It was the newborn child of
the twentieth century. The aristocracy of Bowbazar was missing here, but there was a kind of
sophistication. Like the houses of this locality which were of a different pattern, so also the residents
who looked different. There is no aristocracy of north Kolkatan type, but there was a kind of refinement
and culture. Here the guard at the main gate addressed the owner of the house ‘saheb’, the Bengali
counterpart of white gentleman and not the ‘babu’, who lived in the eighteenth and early nineteenth
century as a native with his own separate identity beside the white town of the Europeans. This was a
time at the dawn of the twentieth century, which saw the growth of a new market economy and similar
economic possibilities. This led to the emergence of a new class of entrepreneurs, who shed off not
only the earlier feudalistic pretentions but also their choice of residence by moving mostly towards this
southern part of the city. A graphic description of the new south comes from the pen of Bimal Mitra in
his “Kori Diye Kinlam”. The garden of Haji Qasim was razed to the ground and new houses were built
there. The gurudwara of the Sikhs was set up on the broad road on the leftern side of the park. 17 With
Russa Road being widened and extended, localities as Ballygaunge, Southern Avenue and the like were
developing rapidly. The houses in Ballygaunge were of latest fashion (‘hal fashioner’). The main
entrance of such houses were an intricately decorated (with designed entrance gate, tall tower and
glass-fitted windows) – all aesthetically designed, following the modern concepts of architectural
knowledge.
Manik Bandopadhyay’s novel “Shahartali” gives a detailed description of the fast changing
landscape of the suburban localities. Broad roads were laid out. Many new houses of fasionable design
were being built. Older shops were decorated and given a facelift. Many others of an unimpressive
style gave way to new type of shopping destinations. Streets were well lit. 18 Even insignificant areas (as
Iswar Ganguly Lane in Kalighat bore evidence of an ‘improving Kolkata’. Great changes have taken
place there. Everything looked different. The oil pressing machine of Ahsoo, the locality of the
charcoal sellers was no more. Earlier bus or car could not reach the narrow Ishwar Ganguly Lane. Now
that the roads were widened, any vehicle can move upto the house named “Aghor Shaudh” that stood
on this lane. Author Pratibha Basu recalls how Russa Road looked around 1930s. The wide street
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glittered like a polished mirror. Trees stood in neat rows on two sides of the road. Beautifully designed
houses stood separated from each other on this road.
The process of urbanization gathering momentum, along with improved transport and
communication of roads and railways, towards the second decade of the twentieth century, a
burgeoning group of middle class- lawyers, doctors, teachers, clerks, authors and intellectuals showed
an increasing preference to built their residence in the newer areas south of Bhowanipur where the
Improvement Trust was building new roads and extending municipal facilities. A new urban culture and
mentality was coming up. Several localities of Kolkata, indicated how these small areas within the city
situated in close geographical proximity, had their respective urban experience and each acquiring
individual and distinctive characteristics in the last thirty years preceding independence and partition.
While some localities as Kalighat grew up as a middle class locality (‘madhyabitta para’), Ballygaunge
gradually became the residential hub of the upper middle class.
The first Chairman of the Calcutta Improvement Trust E. P Richards wrote “It is only south-
wards and south –eastwards that Calcutta can develop freely and largely in a suburban way” because
she is hemmed in by the river on the west, by comparative narrowness of habitable land on the Howrah
side, and by swamps to the north, north-east, and near-east. 19 The direction of suburban development
was naturally on the north and south-east. It was Ballygaunge, Tollygunge, and round about Diamond
Harbour Road where expansion was possible. It was thought that Russa Road and Lansdowne Road
improvements would give ready access to Ballygaunge and Tollygaunge suburb and would materially
facilitate rapid transit to the southern areas. The Trust also outlined direct routes from the suburbs to the
commercial centres of the city. Tollygaunge, Bhawanipore, and the neighbouring districts could have
direct and ample approach to the city via the Russa Road when widened. Ballygaunge will have direct
access to the city via Lower Circular Road and Camac Street, or Park Street when widened; Loudon
Street, Amherst Street South, Ripon Street diagonal, Wellesley Street, Princep Street and Mangoe Lane
or Bentinct Street were also to be widened. The traffic of Wards XIX(Entally) and XX(Beniapukur) can
be provided by Park Street or Ripon Street diagonal route. Similarly Manicktala can be served by
Maniktala diagonal, Central Avenue and Harrison Road while people from Cossipore and Chitpore
could reach city via Cornwallis Street, Maniktala diagonal and Central Avenue. The latter was of
immence importance for it afforded easy and direct route between north and south of the city, relieve
the congestion of the Chitpore Road and help to open up large insanitary areas of the northern outskirts.
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The importance of the suburb of Manicktola and a direct access from here to the centre of
Kolkata is highlighted, along with a shift of population here to solve the problem of congestion. 20 Mr.
Bompas and his Board of Trustees turned attention at the very inception of the Trust towards
Manicktola in affording an obvious solution to the congestion of Kolkata. It was clearly outlined that
the day was not far away when the low-lying swamps of Manicktola drained by large sewers and
intersected by a complete system of broad, well-lighted roads, will attract people in thousands from the
airless and congested area of northern Kolkata. This was not a dream, but an inevitable stage in the
movements of the population of a great city like Kolkata. The suburb of Howrah also got special
attention of Richards.21 After thorough study of its growth as an industrial centre, its advantageous
position opposite Kolkata's business area, the existence of bridge connection, and the rail terminus, he
laid special emphasis for a wider Howrah Bridge and tramlines on it to bring commuters straight to
Kolkata and develop Howrah as a future residential and working class suburb. Howrah can be not only
be developed admirably to a very good residential site with all modern comforts and facilities of
conveyance attending suitable home to business men who are huddling in the garrets of Kolkata but
also presented an excellent opportunities for both working class and second class suburban
development. It represented the open land along 40 per cent, of the north Kolkata borders. With but one
insufficient bridge, and the city tram service cut in two by the same, dwellings at Howrah would
eagerly be occupied by Kolkata people. The bridge will be of great importance to the future operation
of the Trust. A survey of Howrah was partially undertaken by Trust soon to be intimately connected to
city by a double service of electric tram cars, carried by the New Howrah bridge. The unbroken tram
service will accentuate development of Howrah as a big manufacturing and residential suburb of
Kolkata. There were men in nearly every big Kolkata Office, who resided in Howrah, and the villages
near by. In the report published in 1913, titled “General Main Road Report, Part-I, Chiefly on the width
of New Howrah Bridge and its importance to the Trust E. P, Richards suggested that a “ bridge of
nearly 112 feet width is required to the traffic of the next few decades, it is absolutely essential…A
wider bridge is required in view of the growth and expansion of population, trade, railway passenger
and goods traffic and tram car traffic in Calcutta and Howrah.”
The development of Kolkata towards south demanded for building sites in the area which
Improvement Trust was then developing in Russa Road and the Excavation Area. In 1915 a sanction
was obtained for a scheme for development of suburban areas of about 150 acres in the south of the
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city to accommodate persons displaced due to operation of the Trust. During the year 1915-16, the bulk
of the acquisition of the Improvement Trust was in the Area Improvement Scheme in Bhowanipore
where land was cheap, for acquisition in more expensive quarter of the town, the Trust feared that
expenditure would go high. It was also felt that no loss would be incurred in acquiring certain portions
of the Russa Road area for connecting the same with the Gariahat Road. The Government approved the
Trust to obtain earth for filling tanks and raising the areas under Improvement schemes for villages of
Mudiali , Baroj, Govindapur, Dhakuria, and Gariahat in Dihi Panchannagram, , Pargana Khaspur, in
district Twenty- Four Parganas.22
At one time it was thought that though development of the south may be inevitable, but it could
not be feasible to initiate expansion towards the east and north of the city. However in the absence of
any clearly defined drainage policy, the work of Improvement Trust in Manicktola was held up. At
Maniktola there was unlimited room for expansion in a low- lying area. It was thought that the
Maniktola harbor would enable a large area of low-lying land to be raises to a level at which it can be
properly drained and would confer a vast benefit to Kolkata by improving this insanitary area. It could
create a new industrial area and possibly a new residential suburb along the canal. But the project was
not pursued seriously in the later years. The problem of congestion of the northern part of the city could
not be remedied. On the contrary the operation of the Improvement Trust mainly led to large-scale
demolition in northern part of the city.
Most importantly cleaning of slum areas was not taken up seriously. The Barabazar scheme was
not taken up as it would have locked up the lion’s share of the fund of the Trust. The developments in
the later years have been laid out almost wholly in the south and the south west neglecting the most
congested areas, for it was found to be a Himalayan task to improve the congested north. Until the
Grand Trunk Canal scheme could be executed, plans of drainage or road lay- out for the northern
suburbs could not be taken in hand. Though by 1919 some of the problems to the developments of the
north were cleared, the problem of finance appeared as a stumbling block. Thus prospect of developing
the northern suburb was thwarted for the time. The outbreak of the First World War (1914-1918) gave a
break to the execution of the plans. Prices of building materials soared high - tram lines could not be re-
laid , bridges could not be built or drainage work be executed. After the war there was a boom followed
by slump in Kolkata that affected land prices. – the assets of the Trust was frozen . In 1919 cost of
building became so high that it became extremely difficult for men of ordinary means to build a new
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house. The city of Kolkata and the northern quarters sank into a phase of horrible difficulty and mess.
The city was desperately in need of building land for development; but, for that, a city plan was
necessary and Improvement Trust had no powers to produce a city plan or to produce streets.
An impression of North Kolkata in the pre- independence days can be obtained from Bimal
Kar’s novel “Dewal”. There is a description of one Fatik Dey Lane in one of the most prominent
locations of North Kolkata, namely Bahubazar. Unlike the south there was no grandeur in this locality.
The lane was extremely narrow. During monsoon months flooding was inevitable and dirt and filth of
every kind found easy way inside the houses of the locality, causing utmost suffering to the residents of
the place. (Bahubazarer Fatik Dey Laner cheharae chatak nei. Latae patae jatata baro, gaye gatare
tatata khato. Har jirjire. krisha- karun, garanta parjanta adbhut. Kachhaper pither moto anekta;
dudik dhalu, majkhane unchu. Golite jal jamle du pash thai, thai. Kharkuta, nongra, ento-kanta, mal –
mayela bhaste bhaste anyer sadare dhuke jaye.) A similar picture of North Kolkata of the same time
can be obtained from a recent publication of the recollections of the eminent economist of the time
Pranab Bardhan, titled “Smritikundayan”. He tells us how the “methars” or the sweepers used to clean
every day the locality where he spent his childhood and how within just half an hour the place gained
back its original unclean state, being a receptacle of all sorts of nuisance and objects that were
offensive to the visual as well as the olfactory nerves. (“ Roj sakalbela ora amader goli o tar
nardamaguli jhant diye parishkar korto………….tarpar adh ghantar moto samay golitake ektu dekha
jeto. Kintu alpa samayer madhyei janaprabahr jabatiya abarjana, thonga, ar paner pik-e goli tar
purba rup dharan korto....... ......................”.)23 A completely contrary picture was exhibited by
Ballygaunge of 1933. “What a difference between the heart of the city and Ballygaunge! Here green
soothes the tired eye and a gentle sense of peace secured, satisfies the stifled spirit. One could go into
ecstasies over the respectabilities generated here by good living……………......”24 Thus by the mid-
nineteenth century South Kolkata began to develop into a fashionable , sophisticated and refined
locality while the North with its narrow lanes and crooked alleys led to the continuance of Kolkata's
historic “north- south divide.
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Notes
1. Pradip Sinha, (1978), Calcutta in Urban History (Calcutta : Firma KLM) .
2. See Nair’s collections of Calcutta in the 17th , 18th , and 19th century.
3. Emma Roberts, (1837) -Scenes and Characteristics of Hindostan with Sketches of Anglo-Indian Society (in Two
Volumes)Second Edition, Lindon, Wm. H.Allen and Co, Leadenhall Street.
4. George. W. Johnson, (1843), The Stranger in India ;Or Three Years in Calcutta ,Volume-I, London, Henry Colburn,
Publisher .
6. Rev. James Long ([1852, 1860] 1974), ‘Calcutta in the Olden Time : Its Localities/ People’, Calcutta Review, XVIII and
XXXV, December 1852 and September 1860 (reprint, Calcutta : Sanskrit Pustak Bhandar).
8. ibid
9. Monkland (1828), Life in India or the English at Calcutta , Volume –I, II, London , Henry Colburn , New Burlington
Street.
10. Mary Carpenter , (1868)- Six Months in India, Volume-I, Longman’s, Green, and Company, London .
11. F.P. Strong, ([1849]/1978), Extracts from the topography and vital statistics of Calcutta; reprinted in Alok Ray, ed.,
Calcutta Keepsake (Kolkata: Riddhi India).
12. Ahindra Chowdhury,- Nijeke Haraye Khunji (Part- I and II) ,Saptarshi Prakashan, August, 2011. This autobiography
gives details on Bhowanipore of late 18th and 19th century.
13. Bimal Mitra, (1952, 1970), Sahib Bibi Golam (Calcutta : New Age)- For the literary impression of Kolkata during time.
14. Emma Roberts, (1837),Scenes and Characteristics of Hindostan with Sketches of Anglo-Indian Society.
15. See E. P, Richards, Report by Request of the Trust on the Condition, Improvement and Town Planning of the city of
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Calcutta and Contiguous Areas , Chapter XIV ( Origin of Calcutta slums) and XV ( Some evil results of streetless areas
and slums) .
16. Annual Report of the Calcutta Improvement Trust. (1912-1913).
17.Bimal Mitra, -Kari diye Kinlam(Part –I and II)
18.Manik Bandopadhyay, ( Bhadra 1379) -Sahartali, (First and Second Part) , Mondal Book House, New Edition, Kolkata.
19. E. P, Richards, Report by Request of the Trust on the Condition, Improvement and Town Planning of the city of Calcutta
and Contiguous Areas.
20. Calcutta Improvement Trust, (1923) Note on the Improvement of Manicktola by M. R. Atkins, Calcutta: CIT.
21. E. P, Richards, (1913) CIT, General Main Road Report, Part-I, Chiefly on the width of New Howrah Bridge and its
importance to the Trust.
22. Annual Report 1915-1916, also see the same for schemes regarding road and bridges sanctioned in this year by the
government.
23. Pranab Bardhan -Smritikundayan, Desh, 17 Jan,2012.
24. “Suburbania” , By Suburban Ballygungite Calcutta Municipal Gazette, 1st. July, 1933.
Bibliography
Books:
1. Carpenter , Mary (1868)- Six Months in India, Volume-I, Longman’s, Green, and Company,
London.
2. Chaudhuri, Sukanta, ed. (1995), Calcutta, The Living City, Volume I, II. (Calcutta, Oriental
University Press).
3. Johnson, George. W. (1843), The Stranger in India; Or Three Years in Calcutta,Volume-I, London,
Henry Colburn, Publisher.
4. Long, Rev. James ([1852, 1860] 1974), ‘Calcutta in the Olden Time: Its Localities/ People’,
Calcutta Review, XVIII and XXXV, December 1852 and September 1860 (reprint, Kolkata : Sanskrit
Pustak Bhandar).
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5. Monkland, (1828), Life in India or the English at Calcutta , Volume –I, II, London , Henry
Colburn , New Burlington Street.
6. Nair, P. Thankappan, complied (1984), Calcutta in the 18 th Century [Impressions of Travellers]

(Calcutta: Firma KLM Private Limited).
7. Nair, P. Thankappan, ed. (1989), Calcutta in the 19 th Century [Company’s Days] ( Calcutta :
Firma KLM).
8. Roberts, Emma (1837), Scenes and Characteristics of Hindostan with Sketches of Anglo-Indian
Society.
9. Strong, F.P. ([1849]/1978), Extracts from the topography and vital statistics of Calcutta;
reprinted in Alok Ray, ed., Calcutta Keepsake (Kolkata: Riddhi India).
Calcutta Improvement Trust Reports:
1.Calcutta Improvement Trust, City and Suburban Main Road Projects, Joint Report by
James Maden and Albert De Bois Shrosbree (Calcutta: Trust Engineer and Chief Valuer’s Office,
1913).
2. E.P. Richards, Calcutta Improvement Trust: Report by Request of the Trust on the
Condition, Improvement and Town Planning of the city of Calcutta and Contiguous Areas
(Hertfordshire : Jennings and Bewley, 1914).
3. M. R. Atkins ,Calcutta Improvement Trust, (1923) Note on the Improvement of Manicktola,

Calcutta: CIT.
4. E. P, Richards, (1913) CIT, General Main Road Report, Part-I, Chiefly on the width of New
Howrah Bridge and its importance to the Trust.
5. Calcutta Improvement Trust , Annual Report 1915-1916,

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Calcutta Municipal Gazettee:
1. “Suburbania” , By Suburban Ballygungite Calcutta Municipal Gazette, 1st. July, 1933
Literature:
1.Bandopadhyay, Manik ( Bhadra 1379) -Sahartali, (First and Second Part) , Mondal Book House,
New Edition, Kolkata.
2. Bardhan Pranab , 17 Jan,2012, Smritikundayan, Desh .

3. Chowdhury, Ahindra , August, 2011, Nijeke Haraye Khunji (Part- I and II) ,Saptarshi Prakashan.
4. Kar, Bimal (1993), – Dewal, Ananda Publisher Pvt. Limites , Kolkata.
5 .Mitra, Bimal (1952, 1970), Sahib Bibi Golam (Kolkata : New Age)
-Kori Diye Kinlam.
Madhusree Chattopadhyay is Assistant Professor of History, Serampore College, Hooghly, West

Bengal, India. She is currently pursuing doctoral research on a topic related to colonial Kolkata.
Scanning Kolkata Stage through the Eyes of Five Doyens:
A Review of Bratya Basu's Book of Interviews
Sourav Gupta
Je Kotha Boloni Age, E Bochor Sei Kotha Bolo- A Collection of Five Interviews of Theatre Persons
taken by Bratya Basu. (Publisher: Kalindi Bratyajan/Kolkata/2014/Hardbound)
In a television interview taken a few years ago on the eve of the birthday of the legendary theatrician
Sambhu Mitra, Bratya Basu had pensively remarked: “I think he (Mitra) is arguably the greatest
among the fathers of our theatre.” Basu evidently reflected the deep respect he possessed for his
predecessors in theatre. In his speeches, writings and also informal discussions, he seems to be very
passionate and well informed about his seniors in Kolkata Theatre. Their knowledge, hard work and
activities over the years have found place in Basu’s photographic memory. Though Basu is known for
challenging the existing norms in both playwriting and theatre philosophy and bringing an altogether
fresh air in these paradigms, he has been a proud legacy-bearer of Kolkata Theatre. Even after he took a
partisan political stand and the Kolkata theatre fraternity getting sharply divided on the basis of
political ideology in recent times, Basu has personally maintained a good relationship even with the so
called “others” like Rudraprasad Sen Gupta and Ashok Mukhopadhyay. In an effort to introspect deep
into the thetrical journey of the contemporary stalwarts, Basu interviewed five of them each year for
“Bratya jan Natyapatra”, the theatre journal of his outfit ‘Kalindi Bratyajan’. The book “Je Kotha
boloni Age….”, titled aptly after a poem by the late Shakti Chattopodhyay, showcases five interviews
taken by Basu in his signature style-informal but brooding. The interviewees have also been benefitted
by the sharp, razor edged questions of Basu as it helped them to vent out their feelings to the truest.
The series starts with Rudraprasad Sen Gupta , who had a disturbed solitary childhood, a
turbulent, wayward youth which ultimately found discipline in theatre where he was introduced by
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theatre great Ajitesh Bandyopadhyay. He went on to transform Bandyopadhyay’s group ‘Nandikar’ into
one of the most disciplined theatre group in India. His interview traces his life as well as the changes
that took place in post colonial Kolkata and the lives of the people in the city. It is really an intriguing
description of the development of the communist movement in Bengal and its fallacies from an
insider’s point of view. Sen Gupta very candidly explains his relationship, differences of opinion with
contemporaries like the colossus Ajitesh Bandyopadhyay and Keya Chakarbarty. His expressions
reaffirms his capabilities as a Man of Theatre, an organizer par excellence, who at 74 is equally
energetic to guide 'Nandikar' to newer avenues. At the same time, largely due to Basu’s adept querying,
the dilemma of a father and husband, torn between personal relations and theatre also reflects and one
has to applaude Sen Gupta that he prevailed over everything to make Theatre his priority. One actually
feels inspired at the end when he concludes, “ theatre has given me a share, a share in bridge with
life.”
Unlike Sen Gupta, who fell into Theatre by accident, Bivas Chakrabarty, his contemporary was
drawn to the act early in life, at Srihatta in undivided East Bengal. Post partition problems taught him
to be accommodative and unlike many who cannot forget the trauma of the partition and rehabilitation,
he took it into his strides. Even after establishing himself as an important director in the 1970s,
Chakrabarty states that he has never been carried away with success. He admits his desire to become a
leader but also claims to be unambitious inside. The interview unfolds Chakrabarty’s creative thoughts
behind his masterpiece productions. It also traces the underlying reasons of his departure from theatre
groups like Nandikar &Theatre Workshop and his ideological differences with the CPI(M). He appears
satisfied with the coming up of the ‘Anya Theatre Bhawan’ as a tangible contribution to Theatre and at
the same time expresses frustration over the standard of theatre workers he has to work with. That he is
an artist to the core becomes evident when Chakrabarty wishes to become an artist in his next birth
also.
The book becomes a real treat when Basu interviews Manoj Mitra. Mitra and Basu both being
acclaimed playwrights turn the conversation to a coaching manual for aspiring dramatists. Added to
that is Mitra’s intrinsic sense of humour which makes the piece a delectable reading. It reveals how
Mitra has blended his knowledge of philosophy with his personal experiences, manifested real life
characters into his plays. The partition of India and its pangs are portrayed with empathy through the
initial lines of the interview as Mitra comments about 16th August 1947, “Chhatrahara seidin thekei”
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(from that day I became devoid of shelter). The two master playwrights dwell into the depth of literary
issues like plot making and realism. Basu through his questions and interpretations actually opens up a
new world of seeing Mitra’s plays the most significant of which is an allegation that the latter has not
posed faith in characters belonging to the young generation. Mitra, witty that he is, takes it as an
interesting anecdote to know his self. Inevitably, cinema also forms a vital part of the conversation.
Basu’s one on one with veteran director Arun Mukhopadhyay a starts off with the latter asserting that
politics or political alignment should not affect the solitarity of artist fraternity-something which West
Bengal has noticed in the recent times. The interview traces the upbringing of Mukhopadhyay in
Howrah, adjacent to Kolkata, as a naughty, innocent boy who once fled from home as a passionate
movie buff. Infact, his stint as a director started with the enactment of the scripts he adapted from these
films in his residential stage during Durga Puja. He was inclined to communism from his early theatre
days in IPTA which finally culminated into forming his own theatre group ‘Chetana’ following a
successful stint at Coordination Committee of government employees. Throughout his journey in
theatre, Arun Mukhopadhyay has been torn between progressiveness and reactionary, theatre and
cinema, actor and director, success and failure, son and self. But amidst all these opposites he has
believed in his penchant for directing plays that has enabled him to prevail over all kinds of crisis. Basu
has also beautifully brought out the musical aspect that is so integral to Arun Mukhopadhyay.
The last interview was of Ashok Mukhopadhyay, once again depicting the turbulence of
partition , independence as the backdrop of his upbringing in Kolkata. Nurturing the dream of a bright
career in Academics, Mukhopadhyay was struck by a thunder in the form of Ajitesh Bandyopadhyay
and he could not resist himself from joining theatre actively. His frequent changes in job locations
couldn’t hinder his passion for theatre. After a brief and irregular apprenticeship under Ajitesh
Bandyopadhyay in ‘Nandikar’, he grew into an eminent actor under the direction of Bivas Chakrabarty
in ‘Theatre Workshop’, the group which would be later led by him as the chief playwright-actor-
director. Basu with his sharp, razor like questions bring out the theatrician in Mukhopadhyay in full
spectrum- starting from his relations with comtemporaries, socio political situation, politics in theatre,
the changing paradigm of Group Theatre in Bengal. The conversation smoothly strolled along different
quarters like theatre, politics, society, literature and makes a palatable reading.
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Basu has done a great favour to the upcoming young generation of theatre workers in Bengal as
this collection has become a great document of the paradigm of theatre practice prevalent in Bengal
between the 1960s to the present. He has set up the interviews so wittily that it no longer remains a
personal view but becomes a reflector of time, philosophy and throws up debatable areas of what was
right and what went wrong in the period. Basu has dissected personal lives, philosophical and
ideological orientation of his seniors in a way that can teach the next generation of theatrician. It indeed
is a commendable job by Basu and special mention should also be made of his assistants Shobhan
Gupta and Rajarshi Dey too. One feels an eeriness in Basu’s questions at times as one cannot forget
that it was he who at the turn of the century started questioning and challenging the set norms of the
then status quo of Kolkata Theatre Scenario and this collection is just a cross check of what he has been
advocating.
Sourav Gupta Assistant Professor, Assistant Professor at Centre for Journalism & Mass
Communication in Central University of Orissa, Koraput, India. He is one of the Assistant Editors in
Journal of Bengali Studies. He has been a noted dramatist and is founder of Theatre Spandan, Kolkata
and has currently set up Koraput's first theatre group.
Workshop
Love and Kolkata: Six Poems
Tamal Dasgupta
Preface
Urban poems can capture the fleeting moments, fragmentary strolling of an alienated cityscape along a
lane, an alley, or a street. Kolkata since the days of Kobigaan to Chandrabindoo has been represented in
various ways in poems.
City poems speak of a fascination with the peripatetic, chaotic life of the flaneur, as opposed to
the organic serenity of nature. City defines itself as culture, that which is made by humans, as opposed
to nature.
Further, a poem that identifies itself with certain locations in a city act out against any grand
design or big narrative and profound ideas; in other words, such poems have defined the post-Tagorean
sensibility in Bengali poetry. City poems come into that category of the narrowly specific, as opposed
to the broadly universal. They speak for the momentary and the local, even when they speak of the
transcendental, they have a sense of history, change and rootedness as an integral part of that which
appear to transcend.
The following poems foreground Kolkata. Some of them are written with an exile's longing for
one's city of origin, so then they speak of a displacement. They are sometimes about a privileged
insider's careless existence in Kolkata, and the memory attachments of a cultural geography speak
forth.
First the Bengali poems, and then the English translations follow.
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পপ্রেম ও কলককাতকা: পচচৌরঙঙ্গী সননেট
>নষ্টির মত আচমক আর পপূ /ননধ/ নরত, আম নভনজব তনম ছনবম এবসন ব কন ম ক নস্ট্রিবট, নশ ( এর ছমব । এখনও ছত ম র ছসই
ত ক ষ/বণর কত শনকব য নন। ছসই ছ শ ভ ব ,আনম খ ন -স দ পরত, অ ধন রক্তম (স খবড় ছত ম র স রক তব
আন য ক...
শহর এখনও ছমমৌন রব ব , ছত ম র ন ছ ব এখনও প বক/র ছ নঞ্চিবত
ভ ন , এই ছত কব ক ঘন ...পথম চমর পবর
আসব অবনক য ছকবটব , মবধন এবসব কব কট মহ বদশ
ও ন ওব র ছস ন জ ন, ম ঝর স ছক বত্থেবক এ ছত ম র চব র ন...
আনম এই র ত নচনন, আর এই আব আনম আব ও ছদবখন ম।
আনম জ নন এই ছচমৌরঙ র ফটপ বথ আজও তনম আনম ছহবট য নচ
ছত ম র ছক মবর হ ত ছরবখ, এই শহবরর ক প ঈষ/ র উপবভ ন
হ ল শ বতর ক শ , ছস ন এখনও তনম ক বধ ননশ স ছফ ব ।
একট আঙ ন শপস হ উবস, অনন আঙ ছসন প বসর শ বষ/
ছফ্রেম নন হব আ তনম র নতর ছফ র বত, আনম ছসই কন বমর র স ক
এও জ নন আনম একনন যনদ পবকট হ তড় ই, ছকন ট ক / ন , দ-আঙব শধ ছত র ন উব6 আসব
ঠিক ছযমনট হত স্বণ/ ন , ছত র ছ আজও আম র জ ম র ছভতবর

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ছসই অ ধন শ বট/র স্বরন নপ দন খ দ নন
ক ক ত আর ভ ব স আজও এবক অননবক ছ বড় য নন
Love and Kolkata: Chowringhee Sonnet
As sudden and predetermined as rain, you came down on Camac Street drenching me, girl from the
land of clouds. Still the wounds given from your sharp rainfalls are not dry. Well then, let me open up
the red and white bandage, and dig up your memento of defiant blood and flesh.
The city's still silent, your smell still sticks to the Park benches
I was thinking, it's just a few hours... after the first kiss
Actually many eras passed, a few continents came between you and me
Clever life of one way traffic, where from the smell of your hair comes in the middle of the road...
I know this night, and I saw this light earlier too.

I know that on this Chowringhee pavement me and you are walking even today
Shivering envies of this city are enjoyable with my hands around your waist
In the mist of this mild winter, dear, you are still breathing on my shoulders
One finger is on Bishop's House, another is on the top of St Paul's Cathedral

You are filmed in the frame of the fountain of night, I am a witness to that camera
I know this too, if I look into my pockets right now, not a credit card, fingertips will fetch your photo
Like it used to be, girl, your touch is still inside my shirt
Notations of that unruly shirt haven't changed; look,

Kolkata and love still have not left each other's nook.
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পপ্রেম ও কলককাতকা -২
ও ছকন আম বক ছর দবর ছফব জব নদবত য ব ?
হুনদন পবর মবন পড় , , কন ত র মত,শর বরর মত, স দ ক ব বপ, ছকন আম বকই এক ন বক আজ ন ব খ ব ঠিক
ন ব খ ব প ন্তর আর ছ নক/ সদবন ছচসব / আর ননবন নফবক ছ চ আর দ-একট চম ক ড়ব ...
ন বক ন ব আম বক, এনদবক তনম প ক/স্ট্রি বট য ব
এখ বন শকবন অথচ ছদবখ , ও ছচবখ ছদখব ঝন/ র ফ ঝনর
ছক থ ক র এক উটবক জব র ছত ড় এবস ছধ ওর ছদহ ছথবক আম র ছদবহর নচহ, আনম নহ(স ন ণ/, আনম 6 6 দপবরর
উন দ, আনম শযন র মরভপূনমবত শবনন দপূবর শ ও বরর শব, আনম ছত বক নদব ননসব
আনম এও জ নন আজ সনন এই র কস ছক নজ ছক নও অনন পরষ খজব ...
আনম র ন স্ট্রি বটর চ / ক, আনম ছর জ ধ র কবর ছত র শর বরর ম খন চ টবত এবসন ,
আনম ক স ফ ইবভর ড্রপআউট, আনম ড় ত ড় ত নড় শর বর আগন, আগবন আবমজ, আবমবজ মরবত নশবখন
আনম ন শপ হ উবস ভপূত হব প বশ উনক ছমবর এক র বত ছদনখ ছক নও 6ন ট ছমম ন ব করব ,
ত ই কননথড্র ব র আব আহ ছস নপর ঝণ/ ধ র ধবচ র বতর র স জবড় র খ এক গচ ট রফ , আর ছসই ফ গন শকব ন
ন ক> ষ ক> ষচন, য র খ ননক আব ই নসর জ সনরব ক ইভ ন ট বক আনব ন, আর দ / পবজ র শর আর এই শহবরর হ পত্তন
আর ম রক নশবমর চক বন্ত ব ম র য ন র জ লভ, আর ননকম র ফ নসবত ছঝ ব ন ইবম এ ( ছহনস(স এর ব , আনম এ-স
স>নতর স ক , এ ছমব বক আনম সকবশ র ছথবক ছর জ ঝ নড় ছমবর এবসন
এই ছমব ত ই আম বক নভবক ছদ ন
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এই সনন তনম অবননর হু গ , তনম ঘ সজনম চবর খ চ, তব ছফর র পথ ছখ ছরবখ , র ত খ ননক ভ র হব স্বণ/ ন ছত ম
আ র খজব , আনম এই নম্ববর দশট র পবর ছফ ন কবর ছফর , ছমব আজও আনম হ জ র র আব ক র ক মপূনত/র ন বম
শপথ কবরই ন ছ শধ ব নদও এক র। ছকনন , ছত ম র স্পশ/ ড় এ শ্মশ ন আম বক ছন ন
ম ঝর ত এব উড়বত ছ নড়ও, ইনন
নভবক নর র বন ছয-স চ বদর ফব র আগন জবমব এতনদন, আর মধ ব ন ম ইবক , ছসই ননড়র নদন ন রইব , তনম ত র
ছথবক ধনন জ ন ও, আর এর ছ নশ ছপম ছক নওনদনও আনম ছত ম র ক ব ছত চ ইনন
Love and Kolkata -2
Why would she leave me in the sun and take a dip in water?
Coming to mind after ages, hell, like a poem, like a body, in black and white impressions, why the lone
afternoon will have to devour me today the horizon will surely do and the chessboards of Gorky Sadan
and the mild lemon tea at Nandan and will steal away a few kisses
This afternoon devours me, when you'll be a Park Streeter
It's dry here, but see, she is tasting fireworks of waterfalls
Where the hell this upstart flow of water comes from, to wash my signs off her body, I am envy blue
and shoddy, I am madcap of Indian summer noon, I have heard the sounds of shower's doom, from the
desert of bed, having given you I am silent and dead
I also know where this lamia will search for other men in this evening...
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I am carpe diem of Rowden Street, I took loans everyday to come to lick up your body's butter
I am a drop-out of class five, I knew too early of body's fire, joy in fire, and death in joy's flutter
Becoming a ghost at Bishop's House I peep sideways one night to see a brash whitewoman's wedding
So in the Cathedral lights oh those comprador fountains flood a bunch of jasmine across the roads of
night, and those flowers are smelled by Nobokrishno Krishnochondro, who just a little ago removed
Siraj to bring that Clive bloke, and the start of Durgapujo and this city is set up and Rajballabh is
drowned by Mirkasim's plotting, and Nuncoomer is hanged by Impey and Hastings, I am witness to
these memories, I have espied on this girl since her teenage
So this girl does not give alms to me
In this evening you are in the arms of someone else, you are grazing on grasslands, but keep your way
back open, when this night grows deeper I shall again search for you dear, After ten o'clock in the night
I shall call up this number, to say again, girl, I swear even today in the name of the thousand year old
Kali idol, just touch me once. Because, without your touch this cremation ground does not take me.
Take to flying, witch, when it's midnight
The fires of the moon flower which gathered so far in the garden of Victoria, and the mead touched by
Michael, for those pebbles' sake, you flame up your bonfire from them, and I have never demanded
from you any more light
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পপ্রেম ও কলককাতকা -৩
অবধ/ক ক ক রণন আর নক অ(শর র বতর শহর
রক কবর চ ব আজও স ব ক স>নতর তন পহর
ণসঙ বত >ন ক সর ছম নচ নশবজজ বফ্রেননক
র বতর ধম/ত জ নম ন ব আম ক> ষন র
দ'ব ক ছ ত মন বনজ কর আবমজ আম র ধ বরই চব
আনম আর নতন ক রণনম কবন বস আউটর বম
এ ওর জনড়ব ধবর ভ ন এই ছয নথ ম বস্কেট স/
র ত ছপ হ ব ই যদ হব শভস ঙ জব
ড করণ, ড করণ, আহ ছ ঝ র ছচষ্টি করন
ড করণ, ড চ র, ড ছ - স দনন দ নর
চ রবট ম নষ, নতনবট ছননড়, এ ( নক ছহনব আগন
ছক র স ইন , ছদখন দ দ সবয ছপব আনমও প নর

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Love and Kolkata 3
A half bosomful of pity and the rest is the night's city blocks
Still keep on guarding my past memories and drowsy clocks
Choral singer in mass songs, keeping in tune schizophrenic
Black holes devour me at this Esplanade of night hawks
A bottle or two managed, joys I always borrow

At Outram me and three constables full of sorrow
Hugging one another, here are three Musketeers
Will make corpses float on Ganga when night's over; there will be a war tomorrow
It's full of pity, try to grasp this ditty

It's pathetic, it's disabled, it's a rudderless perspicacity
Four men, and three street dogs and some stunning fire
Sing together: given a chance we too can dance in this city.
পপ্রেম ও কলককাতকা - ৪
এমন সন্ত নদবন...বকাড়ড় পফের ম (স নকবন...
এই স সন্ত সনন পপূ /স>নত নফবর আবস, আর তনমও আম র ক ব ছফর র ছচষ্টি কবরন ব , যখন মবন হব ন সমপূণ/ ম নষজন
ছকবট য ব শধ অত তকথবন, আর আঙ ইব প রনমত ছকবট পড় অথচ ঘনড়বত ছম বট স বড় ট , আনম ছসরকম সনন র শপথ
ননব ন , ইবম ম দ ন ছথবক সবর য ও র দছখ আমর এখনও দই ভরর ম বঝ জনমব র নখ, আর খ সম্ভ ত আনম এই
জ ন নন ছশষ হও র আব ই ক ক ত ছ বড় চব য , ত ই ব তনম উড় প নদব নভবক নর ছথবক প ক/ স ক/ বস য ও র
সম কন ম ক নস্ট্রিবটর নদবক অপ বঙ ত ক বন ন ছক বর ন , ক রণ ওখ বন নভন ইবমনশবন আম বদর দ একট পনতচন এখনও
উত্তর অনভমবখ ছহবট চব ব , ছযমন দহ জ র এক স ব আমর ছহবট চ ত ম, আনম আর আম র পরষ ন অনভনজত, সম ন্তর ব
ছসই কনহ ন এক ই ছযখ বন আম র পপূ /পরষর একট সওদ নর আনপবস (শপরমর চ কনর করবতন, এও দরক র ছয
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হ জর ছথবক ছ ক ম বক/ট পয/ন্ত প ব ব র হ ত ধবর হ টবত ছ ব তখন ছক নও পন বর ব র আব দন করবত হত ন , আজ ছযরকম
প স ছথবক নফরবত ছ ব কর ধনত মপূ ক, এ নক বণন পপূণ/ প ণ ইবত ছ ব আজ এই স পবর বন প প চ র ড় মবন পড়ব ,
ক রণ আজ ছ ম ন ন রকবমর পন ত পবফশবন চব এবসন , অথচ এখ বন আস র কথ ন ন, ঘ যত বন ছপন ( ছ স হব
থ কবত থ কবত নক কবর ছযন আনম ছদড় হ জ র নকব নমট র দপূবর চব এবসন , নকন ক ক ত ই ছত ক ব পড়ত, এনদবক কস
নর চ রত র ফন বট দ / পবজ অষ্টিম র র বত এক ম>ত ম নষবক ন দরজ কর ঘ ত করবত ছশ ন র পবরও আনম শ
ম ক/ বদ ন শ স হ র ম ন , তব ভ বল্টের ছ নন নমবনর চন হব যও স্ব ভ ন ক ন , অ শন একসম এই আনমই
এসএফআই এর নমট( এ বস সন বসর ন স নরত পনরক?ন অ(শ ননব ছভব ন ম, ন প্ল এভ ব ই দ ঘ/জ ন হব ...
পবহন র...মহবত নক হন ...আখনর র...মহবত নক হন
আম বদর প ট/ টর নসট পবড়ন ছসন ছজজনভ বস/, আর নতন বরর কব জ জ ন ছশষ হব এ ছযনদন, আমর অবনবকই ঝবত
প নরনন এরপর ছক থ যও দরক র, ছমব র পর ক নদব ন আচ য/ জ দ শ স কব বজ, র ন সদবন গ ত নন কর র জনন
একনতত হব ছদখ ছ খ ফ ক ফ ক ছ6কব , ত ই আমর ছঘবষ জবড় হব স ম, অবনবকই ভ/যনণ ক বক ব ঝবত
প রন , ক রণ ত/ম বনর ভ/ ছথবক ভন ষনত এ র জন ননবত চ ইব , ছযমন আ হম ন ক ধবর চব আসব , আমর র ন
সদন ছথবক ন নজ/ত ও নফবর ছদখ ম, ত রপর ছহনস আন পনরর আস ন ছ বভন র হব উৎসভপূনমবত নফবরন , হ জর ছম বড়
তখন র ত স বড় নট র ক ক ত উত্তর-আবশ্লেষ ত> নপ ননব শব আব , এ ( ছসই ড় নড়র পবর আমর স ই আর কখবন
একসবঙ ছদখ করবত প নরনন, এন ট প বক/ দহ জ র ন সব ছচষ্টি হব ন অ শন, ক রণ প নরজ বতর ক ঠি ছর এখনও
আব চন র ছসর সঙত, যনদও যমন , ছগ আর ইট হ উস এখন ন হব য ও র ফব আমর প ক/ স্ট্রি বটর উত্তবর ছযবত
ছক নও উৎস হ ছপ ম ন , ননউ এম বর নহনন ন , য বত স ই একমত হ ছয ছঘ র কন ক চ ব ক ক ত ...
জ দ হন নশ হন , তঝবক ভ বক অ য উ ক হ
হ / ট/ ছদবখ পচর ঘন ম ছখব পবর বন ক ক ত বক ছপম ননব দন কর ম কব জ নস্ট্রিবট, অথচ ছস ম ন ট চব ছ ধ প র ম ব6
নম নবম (আনম আজক হনর ননভ নশখন ছসজনন নক রকত চব আসবত প বর), ছ ধহ নথ/ ছপনমবকর মত আনম
আজ ন ক ক ত বক ফন ন স ইজজ কবর য , তব এও ছত ঠিক ছয আনম অ ক নদ বন্ত ছস্পশন এজবকশন ছজজ বন ন ব একপ
ছম বষর ত ড় ছখব ও6 র আব ই য দ পবর ছ ন স ছহ বসব র ইবর ছত ম র সবঙ পনর র পনরক?ন কবর ছরবখন ম, এ (
এভ ব ম নষ গন জব ট ছথবক ছপ স গন জব ট হব ওব6, তব আ রনন এই ছয মক ই নড়র চ খ ও র জনন আম বক ক ক ত

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ছ বড় নদনল আসবত হ ...
দ>নষ্টিবত ঝর ও আগন, ইনতহ স ছসবক ছনব রট
ওফ নক জঘনন আগন ছজব ব এই সনর স্বণ/ ন সনন , আর আম বক স ক ছরবখ তনম নন শন ইববনর কমপ উবন ছত ম র
ছপ বজক ছপ বপ জজ হও উনড়ব নদব একট ছ ট কত্ত ন বক ননব আদর কবর ছয ঙ ন ছর মন ননকত ছদখ ব , ত শধ এই
ক রবণ ন ছয তখন সনতন ঙ র নদক ছথবক খ হ ও ইন , আসব আন পবরর খ চ থক ঘ নস(হর ম বঝ ম বঝ ইবর
ছ নরব এবস হুবদ হুবদ পবফসরবদর একট থ প্পড় ছমবর ছযবতই প বর, য র কব জ স নভ/স কনমশবন নসনপএম এর এবট ক ট ছচবট
ছচবট ন র হব ছ ব , আর আনম ভ ব শধবর নদও, আনম ক ক ত ছ বড় আস র র বত ছত ম র অরনন ন যতদপূর মবন
পবড়, ছত ম র হত শ ঘট ব আনম দছনখত, নম কইপ , তব আনম যদবকত ছ বড় প ভ ন নন কখনও, এ ( আনম আজ এ যবদ
নতন ফ্রেন খ ন পনশ্চিমপ বন্ত, তনম পপূ /নদবক আম র অবপক ছথক, আম বদর ছদখ হও র সম্ভ ন ইনতহ স উনড়ব নদবচ ন ...
Love and Kolkata 4
Such a Spring day's treat, go home after buying meat...
On such spring evenings past memories come back, and you also tried to return to me, when it seemed
like this entire human life will be spent in talking about the past, and Pamela escaped right after making
a contact with her fingertips though it was just six thirty on the clock, I swear in the name of such an
evening, we still nurture between our eyebrows the sorrow of the book fair's removal from the Maidan,
and most likely I shall leave Kolkata before this confession is even complete, but despite that you
please do not stop taking a sidelong glance at Camac Street while travelling on the flyover from
Victoria to Park Circus, because there, in a different dimension a few reflections of us are still walking
northwards, like we used to walk in the year two thousand and one, me and my boyfriend Obhijit, on
the parallel that very goalless Exide where my forefathers used to work at a mercantile farm for
generations, and it too is necessary to be said that one did not need to appeal for a parole to walk from
Hazra to Lake Market holding the hands of Payel, like it is mandatory today in order to return from
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sojourn, these old vices throng my mind too well if I try to sing a Tagore song today, because I have
arrived at an unsuitably pious profession, but hell, I was not supposed to come here, while staying as a
paying guest at Bagha Jatin I somehow traversed a distance of a thousand and half, but Kolkata would
have been nearer, and still at Kasba at a friend's third floor apartment even after having heard a dead
human knocking on the window during the night of Oshtomi of Durgapujo I did not lose faith in
Marxism, but it was natural to have become a follower of Walter Benjamin, though it was me only who
once thought that revolution would thus live long having participated in detailed plannings of red terror
in SFI meetings
Loved for the first time, loved for the last time...
The seat of our graduation final exam was at St Xavier's, and the day when the three years of college
life came to an end, many among us could not understand where to go next, the girls gave exam at AJC
Bose college, and when we came together afterwards at Rabindra Sadan we felt a vacuum around us, so
we became dense and sat down touching each other, as many among us could understand what labour
pain is, because now future wanted to be born of the present, like it is happening since eternity, we
retrospected Birjitalao from Rabindra Sadan, then walking across Belvedier, the den of Hastie Alipuri
we returned to the land of origin for one last time, the Kolkata of 9.30 pm was then lying at Hazra
More with post-jouissance satisfaction, and after that separation we never were able to see ourselves
together, though there was an attempt at Elliot's Park in two thousand nine, because the Kati wraps of
Parijat are still the best accompaniments of gossip, although we did not feel enthusiastic to go further
north past Park Street owing to the closure of Jamuna, Globe and Light House, and as a Hindi movie
was going on at New Empire, everyone agreed that Kolkata was now seeing its end of days
There's magic and there's craving for more, how can I forget and where can I go...
I was swollen after watching Herbert and proposed to old Kolkata, but that bitch went to the disposal
ground of Dhapa on EM Bypass (I am learning Hariyanvi these days so a bit of roughness may come to
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the speech), perhaps like a failed lover I'll keep on fantasising Kolkata all my life, but this is also true
that before being chased by a herd of buffaloes at the special education zone by unreal horizons I
already did a family planning with you outside the Ladies Hostel at Jadavpur, and this is how a man
goes from graduate to being a postgraduate, though the irony is that in order to taste Mokaibari tea I
had to leave Kolkata and come to Delhi...
Let fires rain from your eyes, so that history may cook its rice...
Oh what a bloody fire is raised by this pleasant evening of burning gold, and your Bengali romanticism
in blowing off the torn pieces of your project proposal in the wind while cuddling a puppy in the
National Library compound with me as its witness was not only just owing to a lot of breeze coming
from the riverside, but actually the tigers and lions living inside the cages of the Alipur zoo can
sometimes come out and slap the heavyweight professors who turned into Rhinos after licking the
leftovers of CPM at college service commission, and correct me if I am wrong, the far I remember you
kept a fast the night I left Kolkata, I am sorry if I've caused despair in you, mea culpa, but I never
thought that I would leave to escape the battlefield, and today in this war I open a new western front,
you wait for me on the east, history is not ruling out the possibility of you and me meeting again...
পপ্রেম ও কলককাতকা - ৫
নয় ছেয় হয়য় যখওয়খর দুপপর আনয়ত শনই
শসখনখ, এমন আখাঁচে শপয়লি আর বখখাঁচেয়বখ নখ

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নষ্ট দু-হখত, শঠখখাঁটি বখড়খয়লিই অঅখয়ন্টেনখ
শকখয়ডের ভখষখ, অনঅ শলিখয়ক জখনয়ছে নখ
সব ভখষখ, সব শয়ব্দের মখয়ন জখনয়ত শনই
শতখর শছেখখাঁয়খ, তখই আর এ রুমখলি কখচেয়বখ নখ
ভর সয়ন্ধেয় শচেখখ শময়র শদেয় ফপ লিঝপ টর
চেল শসখনখ, কখলি অটফস শকয়টি শপ্রম কটর
কলিকখতখ, চেল অটফস শকয়টি শপ্রম কটর ...
Love and Kolkata 5
Do not bring such afternoons of ransacking breadth

Girl, I won't be able to live after such warmth
Two spoiled hands and lips, if go on turn into aerials

This is cipher and others are not in the know.
Not all languages and sounds are for decoding

Your touch is here, will never again wash this kerchief.
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Firesticks blinked in the middle of this evening

Hey, let's bunk office and have a date tomorrow
Kolkata, let's bunk office, let's go on a date tomorrow.
শপ্রম ও কলিকখতখ ৬
বড় অবলিলীলিখক্রয়ম চেপমপ শখয়লি, শসখনখ।
মপয়খ শয আগুন টছেলি। পপয়ড়য়ছে সলীমখনখ।
আয়গ্নেয়টদেন যখরখ শয়ব্দে টভয়জয়ছে
প্রটতকখর শভয়ব যখরখ পয়থে দেখখাঁটড়য়য়য়ছে
শযখখয়ন অনঅ স্বর শফয়র টখমটডেয়পখ
বখটলিগঞ। রখয়ত নখকচেখটব হখটরয়য়য়ছে।
শকননখ শস সময়য়রখ খপব এয়লিখয়ময়লিখ
শঠখখাঁয়টি শময়শ শঠখখাঁটি। আর শখয়স শখস শময়শ।
প্রচেণ্ড কম্পয়ন শতখর অলিঙখর
খয়স শগয়লি, ফপ টিটব্রিজও শতখয়ক ভখয়লিখবখয়স।
শশষ টখম চেয়লি যখয়ব। শশষ বখসও যখয়ব।
রখটত্রির কলিকখতখ, আমখয়ক জড়খয়ব?

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Love and Kolkata 6
You kissed with so much ease dear.

My boundaries got burnt. Your lips had fire.
Those fiery days that got drenched in sounds

Those who thought it a remedy and took to street fight
Like the other voice returning to Tram depot
At Ballygunge. The nose ring was lost at night.
Because those moments were too unruly

Lips in lips and breaths in breaths ensue
When sheer vibes made your jewel
Fall, this footbridge too fell in love with you.
Last bus will go away. Last tram too will lug.

Kolkata of night, what about giving me another hug?
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Coda
Urban existence is about a sharply defined aesthetic of locations (includes every street, every landmark,
every alley; each has a distinct feel of its own; urban locales are uniquely distinguishable from each
other). They supply an impressive arsenal of objective correlatives for any poet, and for any poet who
is in love with Kolkata, this city is an indispensable repertoire: its horizons of skyscrapers and flyovers,
its histories of banishment and betrayal, its neighbourhoods of a Shaare Chuattor like community and
Herbert like alienation, its nights of flourish and futility, its magnesium of a moribund Coffee House,
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its sulphur of protest rallies, its landmarks bearing colonial imprint as well as the suppressed footsteps
of the martyrs, its neon lights of dread and dust and mist composing urban fairy tales where lovers
unite: they all provide space-time coordinates for a poet's language. These translations have attempted
to transcreate Kolkata, the quintessential Bengali city into a globally understood medium of English.
There will always be a gap between the Bengali original and English translation. I cannot expect them
to coincide. In English translations, rhymes have sometimes been abandoned and sometimes
reproduced, metrical schemes of Bengali originals have almost always been dispensed with, and this
has been done with no fixed planning, as the project was undertaken in an automatic, spontaneous flow
of transcreation, just like this unplanned colonial city flourished in a spontaneous manner.
Do these poems translate Kolkata back into Calcutta? They don't, because history cannot be
reversed, and this writer-translator, being involved in a Bengali nationalist project, is keenly aware of
the trajectory of history of Kolkata. Why translate and preserve these poems into a language of global
communication? Because we in this workshop are in transit, we are passing from one territory to
another, we are coming into contact with a wider audience who are interested in the works done by us
at JBS and might not have immediate access to Bengali language. When we know that we are
traversing through a no-man's land where we need to emit some signals and receive some others, we
need to resort to a semantic pool that is commonly shared. Kolkata is a complete linguistic universe for
me, when I first wrote the original poems in Bengali, in a sense they too translated the time and space
of that city, and now I have tried to transact that language called Kolkata in these original and
translated poems across the window of JBS. Cheers!
Tamal Dasgupta is editor of Journal of Bengali Studies, a teacher of English literature and a creative
writer. He is a Kolkata aficionado.
Sister Nivedita in Kolkata: A Nation Awakens
Mousumi Bandyopadhyay
While paying homage to the memory of Sister Nivedita, Nevinson, a Western critic says that he
remembers her as a soldier in the War of Liberation – a soldier with a flaming sword. We remember her
today as an epitome of Nationalism – as a passionate fighter for India’s freedom. However, few of us
remember her social ideas which were strikingly original and her role as a relentless fighter against
social evils, oppression, injustice and corruption in her chosen karmabhumi, place of work, which was
Kolkata. Sister Nivedita adopted Kolkata as her home and till her death toiled ceaselessly to mitigate
sufferings of her fellow Kolkatans. Her life is a profile of courage and devotion – a tribute to
patrioitism. Nivedita played a stellar role in the awakening of Bengal and of India at a crucial juncture
of history. She nurtured the cultural and political movements of the time. The most important of all, she
had studied with meticulous care Hindu ways of life, thoughts, legends, arts and architecture and thus
she had become thoroughly ‘Bengalicised’ in outlook and she loved and understood India better than
many enlightened Indians. In fact, she, with her perceptiveness, gave Bengali life a new meaning and
purpose that sophisticated, westernised Kolkata fellows would fail to recognise.
The nineteenth century can be earmarked as a period of spiritual and intellectual regeneration of
Bengal. In the nineteenth century the wave of creativity permeated into the cultural life of Bengal and
the effect was an unprecedented spiritual and intellectual regeneration. The national awakening in the
nineteenth century, known as the Bengal Renaissance, was the forerunner of the Indian Renaissance.
Swami Vivekananda was not only a premium product of the Renaissance, but its ‘moulder and
fashioner as well’.1 Nineteenth century Bengal absorbed the impact of West and this absorption helped
to bring to the forefront people like Raja Rammohan Roy, Michael Madhusudan Dutta, Bankim
Chandra Chatterjee, Iswarchandra Vidyasagar, and Swami Vivekananda. In Swami Vivekananda, the
Patriotic and spiritual impulses mingled in a supreme desire to uplift the humanity in India, with a view
of restoring her, to her proper place among the nations of the world. He believed that the present
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warring world might be saved by spiritual teachings which Hinduism could impart, but before India
would do this, she must enjoy the respect of other nations by raising her own status. It was
Vivekananda who for the first time in the modern age boldly proclaimed before the world the
superiority of Hindu culture and civilization, the greatness of her past and the hope of her future. This
combined with his patriotic zeal, made him an embodiment of the highest ideals of the renascent Indian
nation.2 Sister Nivedita, who was among the most ardent disciples of Swami Vivekananda, was not a
product of the Bengal Renaissance, but it formed the background against which her entire life was
dedicated to the upliftment of India, Bengal and most importantly, Kolkata.
Margaret Elizabeth Nobel was the original name of Sister Nivedita and she was born at
Dungannon in the County Tyron in Ireland on 28th. October 1867. She breathed her last in Darjeeling
on 13th October 1911 with life span of little less than forty four years. Her family was originally from
Scotland and had settled in Ireland in the fourteenth century. Born in Ireland, “trained and educated as
English girls are”, Margaret was the product of the European civilization which was then at the very
‘zenith of its powers’ in every sense of the word. Her mind had the privilege of being nurtured in its
intellectual ambience. The Englishmen of the nineteenth century were prepared to reconstruct their
society. This period was a testimony to the discovery and flourishing of the inventive genius of the
European people. Their supremacy may largely be attributed to the new skills and machines born
during the Industrial revolution and to the extraordinary and parallel growth in their numbers. Ireland,
however was not blessed with the benefits of the Industrial revolution and the Irish people were left
with Hobson’s choice of either emigrating or simply starving. Margaret’s grandparents had a large
contribution to the Ireland’s struggle for independence from the clutches of British rule. Samuel
Richmond Nobel, the father of Margaret was inspired by the same idealism to lead men to salvation
and set Ireland free. Nivedita was profoundly influenced by these ideals of attaining salvation of the
people and the freedom from foreign yoke from her childhood. She could relate the situation prevailing
in India with that of her own country and dedicate herself to the cause of our people when she came to
our country. Nivedita met Swami Vivekananda in London in 1895, who was looking for a woman who
could help in the amelioration of Indian women without whose upliftment , no real regeneration of
India could be achieved. Vivekananda had occasion to write to Nivedita as follows: “Let me tell you
frankly that I’m now convinced that you have a great future in the work for India. What was wanted
was not a man, but a woman; a real lioness, to work for the Indians, women especially”. 3
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Nivedita responded whole-heartedly to this call of Vivekananda and came to India in 1898 and
devoted the remaining fourteen years of her life to ‘Jana desha dharma’, the people, the land and the
religion of the country of her adoption. Her arrival in the city of Kolkata, the political and cultural
capital of Colonial India, marked the beginning of an era of relationship with the soul with the city as
Kolkata was the city of Vivekananda, her mentor. She could feel the pulse of Kolkata and relate with its
situation as it was very similar to the place which she hailed from, a Colonial Construct of the British.
Kolkata was at the epicenter of all the major activities. At that time, culturally and politically Bengal
was way ahead of the other states of the country. Nivedita involved herself totally in driving the
nationalist and revolutionary movements based in Kolkata. She felt an imperative need for a national
awakening of Indian masses as a precondition of the nationalist movement, and she felt that Kolkata
was just about the right place to initiate that. Her relationship with the city was intact till the time of her
death. Though she had to go back to England for some dire needs, she returned back to the city with
renewed vigour and a stronger bonding emerged with the city, which was her home in mind and spirit.
Occidental notions of patriotism and nationalism, hitherto unknown in nineteenth century India,
gradually percolated into the igniting Indian minds and the concept of British democratic system of
governance inspired the thought process of Indians. Consequently, the Indian National Congress was
born at the end of the century, which gave impetus to the political awakening and sowing the seeds of
patriotism and nationalism and unified the approach as that of a nation, despite the diversity in the
languages and communities. Then came the life and times of Sister Nivedita, “These were the years of
fiery speeches and fierce writings and of bomb throwing; of mass rallies and secret societies; of fearless
demands and brutal repressions; of bold aspirations and agonising sufferings; of the mendicants and the
militants.”4 These years were a testimony to the partition of Bengal, boycott and Swadeshi – when
Nationalism as a sentiment combined with Nationalism as a movement to overthrow the British
suzerainty. Aurobindo could infer some similarities between the Bengal Renaissance and that of the
Celtic movement in Ireland where a rising nationalism was in quest for a new impulse of self
expression to give spiritual force to a spectacular re-awakening. He writes “...in Ireland this was
discovered by a return to the Celtic spirit and culture after a long period of eclipsing English influences,
and in India something of the same kind of movement is appearing and has especially taken a
pronounced turn since the political outburst of 1905.”5 These were the formative years for India’s
struggle for independence. Nivedita not only lived during these years but was one of the creators of
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history for this period. She delved into India’s glorious past while giving the revitalizing force on the
edifice of which she enunciated the future. To give impetus to the latent nationalism she interpreted
India’s art and culture, the socio-religious customs as well as the traditions in the light of Vedanta as
taught by Swami Vivekananda. Her mission was the liberation of the Indians from an alien culture and
from colonial servitude. She carved the path towards the creation of Indian Nationality. As a matter of
fact, Sister Nivedita left her imprint as a single individual, in guiding and inspiring a number of
leading movements of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century’s that ultimately culminated into
Indian independence.
Sister Nivedita came to Kolkata in 1898 and made it her home except for two interruptions till
breathing her last in 1911. When she first landed here she was a British subject in mind and spirit and
though she developed a fondness for India, her loyalty to the English throne remained undiminished for
long. But within a fortnight of the demise of Swamiji, when the mission authorities asked her to chose
either the mission or politics, she chose the latter as with her prudence she could realize that the need of
the hour was a political struggle virtually leading to the liquidation of the British Empire. The entire
focus of Vivekananda’s teachings was aimed at bringing about a resurgence in Hindu society and a
national reawakening through the regeneration of the masses. Vivekananda was instrumental in
instilling a spirit of nationalism and a national consciousness in the minds of the people. Albeit without
any political affiliations, Swamiji’s teachings could not steer clear of political repercussions.
Nationalism in Bengal, more specifically militant nationalism under the leadership of Bipin Chandra
Pal and Aurobindo Ghose were profoundly influenced by the Neo-Vedantic movement of Swami
Vivekananda. It was his disciple Sister Nivedita, who “took the fire and blew it among the young
Nationalists who were seeking a new Path.”6
On entering the Indian political arena, Sister Nivedita met with a number of diverse political
opinions and activities all over India. A new era in the political life of India began with the foundation
of the Indian National Congress towards the end of the year 1885. It was the first organised expression
of the Indian National movement on a Pan-Indian scale. The period from 1858 to 1905 is referred to as
the time of gestation of Nationalism in India. Till 1905 the National Movement was dominated by the
moderates, whose method was prayer, petitions and pleading to the government for reforms. However
this method did not become very popular and ultimately the Indian National Congress failed to secure
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from an unsympathetic government any significant political reforms which it had been demanding for
over two decades since its inception. It could not keep pace with the changing political ideals and failed
to cope up with the enhancing sense of nationality and patriotism which grew in the last quarter of the
nineteenth century. There was a rising disenchantment amongst a section of the Nationalists and
inevitably the situation gave birth to a set of new leaders who were more radical in their demands and
believed in a more militant form of nationalism. These leaders came to be known as the extremists and
the chief exponents of this school were Lokmanya Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal, Arabindo Ghosh and Lala
Lajpat Rai. While the moderate leaders could garner their support from the enlightened elite class, the
new leaders were accepted by a wider circle of lower middle classes, students and some sections of
workers and peasants. Taking recourse to the means of passive resistance through non-cooperation and
boycott of foreign goods with Swadeshi as the solution, they set their objective as Swaraj or complete
independence. The extremists were at the height of their power during Nivedita’s active years in
politics. Yet another movement of the militant nationalists was also running at the same time. The
revolutionary nationalist movement was a fallout of the suppressions and repressions of the British
government and the resulting political discontent. The young militants tried to achieve political
freedom by creating terror in the hearts of the rulers. Nivedita played the role of harmonising with all
the three streams of political opinion and activities, though she was particularly well connected with the
militants and nationalists. During the active years of Nivedita the Extremists were at the pinnacle of
their influence and power.
Among the moderates, Nivedita was particularly close to leaders like G.K. Gokhale, R.C. Dutt
and Anandamohan Bose. Time and again they came to her house at 17 Bosepara lane, Bagbazar. When
Nivedita after her strenuous work in East Bengal in 1906 during the natural calamities of flood and
famine there, had fallen ill and had been recuperating at Dum Dum in the house of Shri A.M. Bose, she
was also visited by the leaders regularly. It is said that Gokhale spent several nights at her bedside
crushing and applying ice on her head. Mr. Gokhale came to her house regularly during the Kolkata
session of the Indian National Congress to discuss various burning issues of National Interest. Mr.
Gokhale invited Nivedita at the annual convention of The Indian National Congress held in Benaras in
December 1905 which was attended by her. She not only attended all the sessions but also gave the
vote of thanks. R.C. Dutt, another close friend of Nivedita, gave an insight of the Indian economy and
its blatant abuse by the British government to her.
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Even after having close ties with the moderates, Nivedita developed an inclination towards the
Nationalists and militants. During the period of revolutionary nationalism, several secret societies were
developed among which the most important were the Anushilan Samities of Kolkata, the Jugantar of
Kolkata and Mitra Mela founded by the Savarkar brothers of Maharashtra. Nivedita was associated
closely with the Anushilan Samiti right from the time of its inception. Mr. Satish Chandra Basu, one of
the leading lights of the Anushilan Samity, tells us that when he went to Nivedita before the formation
of the Samity and she had said “You know the teachings of Swamiji; so you should improve your
health and do all kinds of physical exercise including the use of lathi and other things”. 7 But the role
played by Nivedita in the revolutionary movement apart from giving advice is difficult to ascertain. But
what can be proclaimed with certainty is the fact that she devoted herself to the cultural regeneration of
India and her writings and speeches had a profound influence among the youth of Bengal. Bramhachari
Arup Chaitanya writes,
She never took any active part in the revolutionary movement but keeping herself in the
background she gave encouragement to the revolutionaries. She was Irish by birth. Ireland had
fought for her freedom. She often expressed views in favour of Ireland’s independence. Later,
coming to India, she, while not taking any direct part in the freedom struggle of India, indirectly
exhorted the youth to plunge into the freedom movement. She thought that Indians were weak
in heart and soul, but she felt if the gospel of freedom and nationality was dipped into the ears
of the Indians they would wake up and make self sacrifices for the independence of the
country.8
In fact Nivedita frequently visited the secret societies and gave them books on Irish revolution, history
of mutiny, the American war of independence, the lives of Mazzini and Garibaldi as she thought that
would inspire and motivate them.
There is lot of speculation regarding the role of Nivedita in the political movement of India at
that time. There are many who think that she helped in making bombs in Muraripukur Road laboratory.
It is also stated that there was a close tie between Aurobindo's revolutionary party and Nivedita to such
an extent that Aurobindo’s party came to be known as Nivedita’s party. It is also common knowledge
that Sister Nivedita was closely associated with the working and training of its members. Lizelle
Reymonds, the biographer of Sister Nivedita writes “Nivedita did not hesitate to help this amateur
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chemists as best as she could. Daringly, she smuggled them into the laboratories of Presidency College
as assistants of J.C. Bose and P.C. Ray who were Professors of Chemistry”. 9 However Prabrajika
Atmaprana, in her famous work on her, strongly refutes Sister Nivedita’s active participation in such
activities. But paying due respect to Atmaprana, it would be pertinent to mention, as opined by the
eminent historian Dr. R.C. Majumdar, that the role played by Nivedita in the formation of secret
societies in Bengal leaves no doubt that she did not altogether discard terrorism as a method of political
warfare. The revolutionaries were solely inspired by the idea of overthrowing the British rule in India.
The revolutionaries had lofty ideals, exemplary courage and nobility of souls, so much so that any
nation in the world would feel proud of them. We are fortunate enough that Sister Nivedita understood
the true significance of this movement and ceaselessly kept on inspiring the young revolutionaries.
Nivedita wanted the real awakening of India and she thought that young people must arise and assume
a death-defying attitude. Above all she thought that India’s destiny should be left to be worked out by
the Mother-the mother being none else than Goddess Kali. Nivedita had the blazing, burning faith in
mother Kali, the maker as well as the destroyer of the universe. Vivekananda imbibed his respect for
Kali from his master Ramakrishna and Kali worship was turned by Vivekananda to a political purpose.
It was considered by him as a means of reviving the degenerated Indian strength. Nivedita was also
converted to this cult of Kali worship and as Kali was a subject which roused the strongest of emotions
in those days, Nivedita decided to speak on the subject. Accordingly she spoke at the Albert hall,
Kolkata on 13th February 1899 before a learned audience which included among others Dr. Mahendra
Lal Sarkar, Shri Satyendra Mohan Tagore and Dr, Nishikanta Chatterjee. Here in her speech Nivedita
explained the real meaning of Kali and so impressive was her speech on Kali at this meeting that
shortly after this another invitation came from the trustees of the Kali temple of Kalighat inviting her to
speak on the same subject. She accepted and on May 28 1899, she spoke at Kalighat before an audience
of three thousand including some Europeans. Kali as well as Kalighat is also a hallmark of the city of
Kolkata hence Nivedita’s lecture had an added significance and Nivedita became inseparable from the
spirit of Kolkata. To the revolutionaries and in the secret societies worship of goddess Kali was
customary. Nivedita being profoundly influenced by the cult of Kali came even closer to the
revolutionaries and the nationalists .
There might be some difference of opinion in the involvement of Nivedita in the “cult of
bomb”, but there is absolutely no doubt of her association with the “cult of Nationalism”. The partition
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of Bengal gave an impetus to the Nationalists to further strengthen themselves and their policies of
boycott and Swadeshi became national issues overnight. Sister Nivedita was in total agreement with
their policies and whole-heartedly patronised the Swadeshi. She used Swadeshi commodities and
abandoned all foreign goods and was extremely hopeful about the success of the Swadeshi movement.
In her own words,
It is necessary to say, and I feel that it cannot be said too strongly that in the Swadeshi
movement the Indian people have found an opportunity to make themselves respected by the
whole world. For the world respects that which shows that it is to be feared, and the one thing
that is feared by all is strong, intelligent and united action. We conquer a single elephant with
ease. But where is the man who would attack a herd? The note of manliness and self help is
sounded throughout the Swadeshi movement. There is here no begging for help, no cringing for
concessions. What India can do for herself that she will do. What she cannot at present do for
herself will be considered hereafter.10
On national education also her views were equally noteworthy. On the appointment of the University’s
Commission by Lord Curzon in 1902, she said: “We have had a University Commission lately, which
had its very best to kill all education and especially all Science education. This is the point in India’s
wrongs that fires me, the right of India to be India, the right of India to think for herself, the right of
India to knowledge..”.11
She was an ardent Nationalist to the core of her being and there cannot be a deeper feeling and better
expression than this. Nationalism for Nivedita was much more than a political movement. Amongst
other aspects of Nationalism, one significant part was to motivate people to work in the spirit of intense
devotion to the country. Regarding education, she had a very specific approach when she says.
Education in India today has to be not only national but NATION-MAKING. We have seen
what a national education is, a training which has a strong colour of its own and begins by
relating the child to his home and country through all that is familiar but ends by making him
free of all that is true, cosmopolitan and universal. This is the necessary condition, in all
countries, whatever their political position or stage of development. These general statements
are as true of England and France as of India, as true in happiness as in adversity.12
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She wanted the revival of art, the creation of great literatures in diverse provincial languages to bring
about a cultural renaissance in the country. She strongly believed that the rebirth of art was essential for
the remaking of the nation. Abanindranath Tagore, the Vice-Principal of the Kolkata School of Art who
was imbibed with foreign ideas initially, later was to a great extent, due to Nivedita’s inspiration,
switched over to the Indian style. When Abanindranath painted the ‘Bharat Mata’, Nivedita wrote “We
see in this drawing something for which Indian art has long been waiting, the birth of the idea of those
new combinations which are to make the modern age in India.” 13 In this context it would be pertinent to
refer to her lecture on goddess Kali at Kalighat where while giving answer to a question that whether
European sculpture was superior or not she expressed her views with a clear nationalist fervour. In her
words,
With regard to their own mythology, and their own works, the Indian people ught to take their
eyes off the West and cease to compare. Let the go on putting more and more idealism and
reverence in their own way into the portrayal of the mother; and they would at last produce
something national and great. Otherwise they would be misled by the mere superficial prettiness
of foreign execution without understanding its deep inspirations and ideals, and so would still
further vulgarise and degrade their own by Europeanising it.14
From the entire discussion it is evident that Nivedita had been involved deeply in the revolutionary
movement of Bengal that had its centre in Kolkata. At the same time Nivedita was much greater than a
mere worker in the secret revolutionary field. She was a woman of high intellectual stature and she
acquainted herself deeply with the spiritual and cultural treasures of India accumulated from the earliest
period to the modern period.
Nationalism is actually based upon a common heritage of memories of the past whether of
suffering and sacrifice or of achievement and glory. Nivedita revived the memories of the history of
India and with this history as the background , she gave a new and broad based interpretation of Indian
Nationalism. In doing so, she endeared herself to the common people on one hand and on the other
hand she became very close to the eminent and renowned Kolkatans. Dr. Jagadish Chandra Bose
likened her to the ‘lady of the lamp’ and shri Aurobindo thought she was fire (Sikhamoyee). She was
philosopher and guide to Gokhale and Tilak, and ‘Mahasweta’ to Abanindranath. Rabindranath hailed
Nivedita as ‘Lokmata’ or ‘Mother of the People’ as she was the quintessential embodiment of spiritual
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motherhood with her span spread beyond the family borders to the entire nation. Her single point
agenda was the upliftment of the nation and she was personally responsible for facilitating the national
awakening. Many years prior to that Swami Vivekananda had already presented her in a poem in which
he had converged all the hopes, aspirations and good wishes of the master for his disciple. Swamiji
wrote “Be thou to India’s future son, the mistress, servant, friend in one..”. And Swamiji’s prophecy
was absolutely on the dot as Nivedita did exactly what Swamiji wanted while laying the foundation
pillars of a reawakened India. The contribution of Sister Nivedita is immense but much of what she did
is not widely known. The extent and nature of her selfless services is yet to be appreciated by the
present Indian society cutting across the borders of Bengal.
References:
1. Santana Mukherjee; Sister Nivedita in Search of Humanity, Kolkata, 1997,p.21
2. R.C. Majumdar, H.C. Roychaudhuri, K.K. Datta; An Advanced History of India, London, 1963,
p.886
3. Letters of Swami Vivekananda, Kolkata, 1970, p.363
4. Rakhohari Chatterjee; Sister Nivedita in the background of contemporary Indian politics in

Sankari Prasad Basu & Sunil Behari Ghosh Ed., Bhagini Nivedita, Janmasatabarshiki Smarak
Grantha Vol-I, Kolkata, 1966, p.75
5. Santana Mukherjee: op.cit.,p,23
6. Ibid
7. Rakhohari Chatterjee; op.cit.,p,88
8. Quoted in Dr. Biplab Ranjan Ghosh, Sister Nivedita and the Indian Renaissance, Kolkata, 2001,
p.13
9. Lizelle Reymond; The dedicated: A Biography of Nivedita, India, 1985, p.337
10. The Complete Works of Sister Nivedita Vol-IV, Kolkata, 2010, p.276
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11. Rakhohari Chatterjee; op.cit.,p.91
12. The Complete Works of Sister Nivedita Vol-IV, Kolkata, 2010, p.347
13. Rakhohari Chatterjee; op.cit.,p.91
14. The Complete works of Sister Nivedita, Vol-II, Kolkata, 2012, p.436
Mousumi Bandyopadhyay is Associate Professor of History, Sivanath Sastri College, Kolkata, India.
After doing Postgraduation from Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan, she went on to do her MPhil and PhD
from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. She has published a monograph titled Kadambini Ganguly: The
Archetypal Woman of Nineteenth Century Bengal.
Living Heritage: Boats of Kolkata
Swarup Bhattacharyya
Kolkata has retains its old character through some wooden traditional boats. There are a great variety of
distinctive boats visible in Kolkata and its vicinity and many variations of the same type, reflecting
local traditions, adaptations to navigational requirements and user demands. Old photographs, painting,
etching and sketches gives us clue about the water transport in 18 th, 19th and 20th century. In this
pictorial depiction three typological boat varieties have been emphasized.
THE PANSI
Figure 1: River Ganges near Autram Ghat in late 19th century
Wooden sailing ships anchored near Autram Ghat of Kolkata. Calcutta High Court which was built in
1872 is visible in rear side. Strikingly though we have lost these gigantic sailing ships but the smaller
boats which are visible are still very much in existence in this area till now. These smaller boats are
called Pansi. Spoon shaped round hulled shell built such boats are used for pleasure trip to River
Ganges. In older records it has mentioned that the Pansi is a passage boat very convenient for inland
navigation. Pansi is convenient only for short passage. Mainly a rowing boat, it can act as water taxi.
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Semicircular shed is not convenient for a longer journey. There was no provision for cooking. Stern
portion of the boat is placed in higher position than the stem.
Solvyns mentioned “there are others which carry six oars, and are better equipped: those go
down the river to take passengers to and from the ships”. According to Admiral Paris’s Native Boats,
“There are a great variety in the line and size of this name; they have no keel , are longer and less flat
than ‘dinghis’, and are easier to sail… Almost all carry a cabin made of planks and matting, with a
thatched roof.
Figure 2: Kolkata Pansi (Old Photograph)
Figure 3: Present day Pansi with semi-circular shed

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Figure 4: Kolkata Pansi with semi-circular cabin supported by two vertical beams
Figure 5: Pansi, F. B. Solvyns, 1799
Figure 6: Punsoee, Coleswarthy Grant, Rural Life in Bengal, 1866

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Figure 7: Calcutta Panswai, G. A. Princep, 1830
THE BHOULIYA
Figure 8: Pontoon Bridge of River Ganges(Old Photograph)
A pontoon bridge is a bridge made of several boats keeping side by side are especially useful in river
crossings. To connect Howrah and Kolkata this bridge was opened in October 17, 1874 in the exact
place of todays Howrah Bridge (Rabindra Setu). 1528 ft long, 62 ft wide bridge was later replaced by
the present bridge. Interestingly the above photographs is showing a boat with a cabin at the aft. Small
and narrow such boats were used on that time to carry passenger is no more visible in the visinity of
Kolkata. The typological name of this small and narrow boat is Bauleah/Bhaule. F. B. Solvyns in his
Calcutta edition of A Collection of Two Hundred and Fifty Coloured Etchings : Sec. VIII, No. 5.
Calcutta, 1799 mentioned Baawalee-a, a large narrow boat for expedition. Colesworthy Grant in Rural
Life of Bengal, 1866 has also indicated the presence of a mast.
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Figure 9: Baawalee-a (Etching of F. B. Solvyns, Paris Edition 1808-1812
Figure 10: Bhouliya, Coleswarthy Grant, Rural Life in Bengal, 1866
Bahuliya/Bauleah/Bhaule is a long and narrow river boat with four to eight oars. Hobson-jobson refers
to as a kind of light accomodation boat with a cabin, in use on the Bengal rivers. Buchanan Hamilton
writing about 1820, says: “The bhauliya is intended for the same purpose, (conveyance of passengers),
and is about the same size as the Pansi. It is sharp at both ends, rises at the ends less than the Pansi.
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Figure 11: Bhauleah, G. A. Princep, An Accounts of Steam Vessel... 1830
Figure 12: Bhauliya on River Ganges in 20th Century (Old Photograph)

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Figure 13: Bhauliya on Adi Ganga in 19th Century (boat located centrally)
O’Malley in District Gazetteers of Midnapore (1911) referred the boat variety. Hunter in Statistical
Account of Bengal: in Vol I (24 Parganas) (1875-77) has mentioned Bhaulia as a rowing boat of
generally 4 to 6 oars and with one small cabin. In present time Bhauliya boat type is no more in
existence in Kolkata. But people of Benaras still recognized the boat type and referred to a boat type
which is not akin to the older boat type.
THE SALTI
Rectangular shaped long and narrow such boats used to carry grains and other objects from Kolkata to
South Twenty Four Parganas. Older photos have shown that their presence in Adi Ganga River. These
boat varieties are not common in other parts of Bengal. Still those kind of boats are found in parts of
Sonarpur, Baruipur area. Author has identified similar kind of boat in Karanjali of South Twenty Four
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Parganas District which is meant to carry straw. James Hornell in his Water Transport (1946)
mentioned the Salti is a dugout made of sal tree (Shorea robusta). O’Malley referred the boat with
dimension of 20 feet or more with 2 feet in width. Usually the boat is propelled by bamboo poles. Such
kinds of boats are equipped for small passengers as well as small burdens. Present day salti is not of
that kind. It is essentially a planked boat but having the similar rectangular shape.
Figure 14: Salti on Adi Ganga (Old Photograph)

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Figure 17: Salti on Kalighat (Old Photograph)
Figure 18: Salti in Karanjali
James Hornell in his Water Transport mentioned the Salti as a dugout. F. B. Solvyns in his etching has
also referred similar kind of structure but termed it as Ekgachee. Ekgachee in Bengali denotes a boat
with a single log. From the diagram it is also clear that this type of boat is made up of a single trunk of
a tree. Closer view of Ekgachee also suggests that the stem and stern portion of the figure 18 are
identical. It characterized that though the method of building of such boats have changed but its
appearance remains same.
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Figure 19: Ekgachee: Solvyns
NOUKO/NOUKA
Spoon shaped long and wide boats which carry greater amount of commodities are popularly known as
Nouko/Nouka. Nouka is a generic term denotes all kind of boats. In cognition Nouko is bigger in
dimension than the Dingi. Sometimes these boats are called as Mahajani Nouka/Mahajani as these
boats supply goods to their respected clients. Their capacity ranges from 1000 to 5000 mounds. Various
old photographs revealed that they were concentrated mainly in two regions. One is in and around
Posta region of Kolkata and other is in the Chetla /Kalighat region on River Adi Ganga. Chetla was
famous for trade on grains. Boats from different parts of Bangladesh used to unload their paddy in
Chetla. Photographs have shown that various types of boats were unloaded in Chetla. Balam a
typological boat used to come in Chetla from Bakharganj and Barisal of present Bangladesh. Rice they
carry in those boats termed as Balam.
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Figure 20: Grain boats of Kolkata near Chetla on River Adi Ganga. Boat structures suggests Balam
boat variety (Old Photograph)
Figure 21: Pilgrim boats on February 8, 1891

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Figure 22: Chhot: A boat of Howrah District in Kalighat. ‘V’ shaped such boats are no more visible in
Kolkata. But one can find it in Junput, Soula, Khejuri as fishing boat. (Old Photograph)
Figure 23: Chhot of Ghatal

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Figure 24: Pilgrim boats along with other boat variety in Kalighat. Two bigger boats of the right side
thatched with gol pata (Nipa frutican) (Old Photograph)
Figure 25: Mahajani Nouka (Old Photograph)

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Figure 26: The Pansi (Cargo) carrying sand. Old photograph of figure 25 and this boat are practically unchanged
over the century.
Figure 27: Mahajani Nouka with 10 rowers (Old Photograph)

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Figure 28: Mahajani Nouka unloading grains. The boat variety has extinct (Old Photograph)
Figure 29: Straw carrier, no more available in Bengal. (Old Photograph)

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Figure 30: Khoro Kisti another typological variety replaced the round hulled variety of straw carrier
depicted in figure 29.
Figure 31: Bhanr: a cargo with 3000-5000 mounds capacity. Such boats are now extinct (Old
Photograph)
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Figure 32: Mahajani Nouka carrying timbers (Old Photograph)
Figure 33: unloading banana in Jagannath Ghat (Old Photograph)

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Figure 34: Mahajani Nouka equipped with sail unloading vegetables (Old Photograph)
Figure 35: Mahajani Nouka carrying bricks (Old Photographs)

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Figure 36: Mahajani Nouka carrying all sorts of household items
The Sangor, Khoro Kisti, Chhot, Balam, Salti, Bhaulia, Bhanr, and many other variety of boat we have
lost. But still we have Mahajani Nouka, Pansi (pleasure boat), Pansi (cargo), Talai, various variety of
fishing Dingi which can illuminate us about the past glorious history, heritage and craftsmanship.
Swarup Bhattacharya, Curator, Maulana Azad Museum, Kolkata, India is a renowned specialist on
Bengali boats and the ancient naval and maritime history of Bengal. He has worked for the
Anthropological Survey of India. His expertise in ancient marine and naval technology is highly valued
by the central government as well as different state governments of India.
Traditional Sanskrit Learning in Kolkata
Somnath Sarkar
When a retrospective journey is done through the corridors of history to refresh our memories of the
origin, evolution and development of Sanskrit studies in Bengal, specially in Kolkata, then we come
across vicissitudes of Images. References about Bengal are drawn from various ancient sources.
Baudhāyanadharmasūtra (1.1.25), the epics (Rāmāyaṇa and Mahābhārata), Pāṇini’s Aṣṭādhyāyī
(6.2.100) etc. In course of time, especially during Gupta and Pāla period, concrete literary sources came
into existence. The Gupta period also saw the emergence of certain new dimension of technical shastras
like the Elephantlore called Hastyāyurveda. Chandragomin developed the Gondea school of non-
pāṇinian Sanskrit grammar. During the pāla period, Nyāya and Vedānta developed new degrees of
maturity. Dharmaśāstra of Bengal, especially with its proposition of Dāyabhāga of Jīmūtavāhana, was
a new milestone and became a treatise par excellence.
The evolution and development of Sanskrit studies in Bengal, especially in Kolkata in British and
post-British period witnessed the parallel currents of University system as well as the traditional system
represented by ṭols also known as catuṣpāṭhis : On one hand the University of Calcutta, with a rich
department of Sanskrit, established by Sir Asutosh Mookherjee, who was the first Vice-chancellor of
the University, fondled the saplings of Sanskrit, and on the other hand, Government Sanskrit College,
Calcutta, developed on the fertile ground prepared by the great academician and philosopher Ishwar
Chandra Vidyasagar. At this juncture it becomes pertinent to acknowledge the efforts made by Bangiya
Sanskrit Shiksha Parishat and various voluntary Sanskrit institutions running on traditional lines.
Bangiya Sanskrit Shiksha Parishat, as we know, was established by Government of West Bengal as a
department under the directorate of education. The role assigned to Bangiya Sanskrit Shiksha Parishat
was to supervise the activities of the ṭols also called catuṣpāṭhis, to conduct examination in traditional
Sanskrit and award degrees of ādya, madhya and upādhī also called tīrtha.
There are more than 600 catuṣpāṭhis or the centers of traditional Sanskrit learning in the state.
Amongst them there are certain catuṣpāṭhis which have grown in terms of activities. The activities of
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some of the ṭols are divergent enough like publications, holding international seminars, taking up and
completing the academic projects of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Govt. of
India and identifying, catalogueing their manuscript holdings. Example could be given of the Sanskrit
Sahitya Parishat, Kolkata, an organization which is more than 100 years old and can boast of a very
rich library and large number of manuscripts. Another example—Sri Sitaramdas Omkarnath Sanskrita
Siksha Samsad and Sri Sitaramdas Vaidik Adarsh Sanskrit Mahavidyalaya and many others are equally
involved in promotion of Sanskrit. These institutions publishes books, journals and also undertake the
tasks of free traditional Sanskrit teachings. It holds seminars and Sanskrit dramas also.
When we talk of traditional Sanskrit learning and catuṣpāṭhis system, we cannot afford
to forget the contribution of scholars, like Pandit Nityananda Smrititiratha, Mahamahopadhyaya
Vidhusekhar Shastri, Kalipda Tarkacharya, Siddheswar Chattopadhyay, Pandit Dinanath Tripathi and so
many others.
Traditional learning of Sanskrit language was based on Manuscript-traditions. The collection of
manuscripts in Kolkata includes various media like handmade paper, Palm leaf, palmyra leaf,
parchment, Assamese paper, different languages such as Sanskrit, Prakrit, Mediaeval Bengali, Arabic,
Persian, Oriya and addresses more than eighty four subjects. The range of subjects is very wide and
includes medicine, astronomy, astrology, music, history, philosophy, literature, Dramaturgy, prosody,
Grammar, cosmology, ethics, Purāṇa, Geography, cosmography, lexicon etc. These manuscripts are
well preserved in the different repositories of Kolkata till date. Such as—
Government Sanskrit College library, The Asiatic Society, Indian Museum, Sanskrit Sahitya
Parishat, Bangiya Sahitya Parishat, Howrah Sanskrit Sahitya Samaj, Baranagar Path Bari library,
Rabindra Bharati University central library, School of Vedic Studies, Rabindra Bharati University,
Calcutta Unicrsity Manuscript library etc.
Heads of all ṭola and catuṣpāṭhis taught their disciples with the help of those manuscripts. The
learned scholars transcribed each and every letters or graphs from the manuscript and collated with
other source materials. In this very way the traditional learning was procseding.
Now, I would like to furnish same important manuscripts in the repositories of Kolkata—
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Name of the No. of Manuscripts Important Manuscripts

repository in possession
Calcutta University More than Śivāgamatantra ;
Manuscript library 80,00 (Eighty Aṣṭasāhasrikā-
Thousand) Prajñāpāramitā ;
Rāmāyaṇa of
Kŗttivāsa ;
Jaimīyabhārata ;
Some Buddhist-
Sanskrit texts.
The Asiatic Society More than Maitreyavyākaraṇa ;
one lakh Ṣaṇmukhakalpa ;
Illustrated
Śrīmadbhāgavata ;
Prayogaratnamālā ;
Bhāṣāratna ;
Kubjikāmata;
Kālacakrāvatāra,
Samputaṭikā etc.
Sansjrut Sahitya More than Śunyapurāṇa,
Parishat 50,000 (Fifty Saubhāgyaratnākara,
thousand) Cikitsāmañjarī,
Arṣarāmāyaṇa ;
Śaiva-āgama,
Government More than Kālacakratantra,
Sanskrit College 30,00 (Thirty Subodhikāṭīkā of
thousand) Mugdhabodhavyākaraṇa.
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All above those manuscripts are hitherto unpublished. Learned scholars of Kolkata and other
areas may edit these texts critically. In this very way the traditional Sanskrit learning and also the
Manuscript studies are flourished day by day in Kolkata.
References:
1. Indian Grammars, ed. George Kardona and Deshpande, Motilal banarsidass, Delhi; 2006.
2. Kriti Rakshana (vol.7, no. 3)-A bi monthly publication of the National Mission for
Manuscripts. Gen. ed. Mrinmoy Chakraborty, National Mission for Manuscripts ; New Delhi, 2012.
3. Sanskrit for Human Survival, ed. kalian Kumar Chakravarty, Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan ;
New Delhi, 2012.
4. Sixty Years of Sanskrit Studies (vol.1), ed. Radhavallab Tripathi, Rashtriya Sanskrit
Sansthan ; New Delhi, 2012.
Somnath Sarkar, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Sanskrit at Kanchrapara College, 24 PGS(N), West
Bengal, India. He has published many scholarly articles and previously held a fellowship of Asiatic
Society, Kolkata.
Read us, reach us, post your comments and find the
Call for Papers at
http://bengalistudies.blogspot.in/
Contact us at
editjbs@gmail.com and shoptodina@gmail.com

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ISSN 2277-9426

Journal of Bengali Studies

Jogoddhatri Pujo, 14 Kartik 1421 Autumn Issue, 1 November 2014

Journal of Bengali Studies

Jogoddhatri Pujo, 14 Kartik 1421

Editor: Tamal Dasgupta

Editorial Team: Subrata Nandi (Issue Editor)

Mousumi Biswas Dasgupta

Journal of Bengali Studies (JBS) is

Shoptodina Media Initiative

79.1, Gouripur Road, P.O. Birati, Kolkata-700051, India

CoordiNation and Deferral of Bengali Nation-Consciousness: Ishwarchandra Gupta in Nineteenth

Kolkata Corporation and Subhas Chandra Bose: Death of a Dream

Echoes from the Past: Revisiting ‘Old Kolkata’ in Gorosthane Sabdhan

Kallol Gangopadhyay 126

Zenith Roy 147

Demographic and Behavioral Profile of Street Children in Kolkata

Atanu Ghosh 164

Subrata Nandi 176

Kolkata's Intellectual Response to Shakespeare: Academia, Stage and Little Magazines

Arindam Mukherjee 191

Tracing the Historical Roots of Kolkata's North-South Divide

Madhusree Chattopadhyay 229

Sourav Gupta 247

Love and Kolkata: Six Poems

Tamal Dasgupta 251

Sister Nivedita in Kolkata: A Nation Awakens

Mousumi Bandyopadhyay 267

Living Heritage: Boats of Kolkata

Swarup Bhattacharyya 278

Traditional Sanskrit Learning in Kolkata

Somnath Sarkar 298

Ognijug (Vol.1, No.1)

Armenian Church, Kolkata

Basu, Ajitkumar. Kolikatar Rajpoth. Kolkata: Ananda, 2008.

Keywords: Ishwar Gupta, Nineteenth Century Kolkata, Bengali Nation-Consciousness, Nationalism,

The only available image of Ishwar Gupta on the internet

A still from the movie Jatishshor

Chitpur, neighbouring Bagbajar. Painting by James Baillie Fraser, 1826

Dinabandhu Mitra Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay

Lalbajar, Kolkata. James Baillie Fraser, 1826

A Nineteenth Century Bot-tola imprint of Goddess Saraswati

fact, there was a coordinated attempt to dissociate Sanskrit from science.

The cover of Gupta's Life of Bharatchandra, 1855

A deflection of our own heritage of Shakto worship is thus consciously or unconsciously

Durgapujo at the residence of a wealthy Bengali. James Prinsep, 1840.

Chandpal Ghat on the Ganges. James Baillie Fraser, 1814.

Shodesh (Swadesh/One's Own Country)

Turn to a worship of the nature And all cheerfully hail her

Bow down to the earth's loving feet

Particularly for your own land Send a congenial errand

Lives are enchanted whom she'd charm to meet

Feeling fraternity among you Ye countrymen purview

(Collected Works 2: 439-440)

2. It is tempting to quote from that supposedly anti-feminist poem by Gupta.

এক ছ থন এবস ছশষ কবরব

তখন এ. ন . নশবখ ন ন ছসবজ

language survived the onslaught of Turk-Afghan-Persian-Arabic influences because of the

crucial roles in celebrating cultural expressions of identity

("Motherhood/Maidenhood in Revolutionary Nationalism", JBS 1.1, 2012, p 151-52)

3. <http://onushilon.org/geography/bangladesh/khudro-nrigosthi/orao/orao.htm>. Accessed on 17 Sep

4. <http://greaterfaridpur.info/index.php?option=content&value=347>. Accessed on 17 Sep 2014.

ণন বট সসনন ণ ধনন ছদও ত ।