What Makes a Man?

A Peek into the Idea of Bengali Masculinity in Satyajit Ray’s Mahanagar

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, masculine stands for, “having qualities
associated with men”. This definition portrays masculinity as a social and cultural construct
rather than a biological one. Thus, any person who poses typical qualities or characteristics
associated with men can be called masculine. What are these characteristics? Collins’
Thesaurus has a list of equivalent words for masculine which includes, ‘manful, male,
manlike, mannish, manly, bold, virile, brave, gallant, butch, hardy, macho, red-blooded,
muscular, powerful, robust, resolute, strapping, stout-hearted, strong, strapping, well-built,
vigorous. Etc.’ This list provides an ample idea of what traits are traditionally associated with
men and what society expects from people identifying as men. 
Curiously women who display these traits are often praised for being masculine (exceptions
exist) however, men who do not display these traits are often looked down upon and are
mocked as feminine. As masculinity happens to be a socio-cultural construct it controls and
defines the way a man is supposed to dress, behave, appear, and what traits, attitudes, and
qualities the man is supposed to possess. It is used to define the relationship between the
sexes.
Masculinity is an umbrella term that encompasses a multitude of different sub-varieties of
masculinities. One such sub-variety is the Colonial Masculinity.  
Colonial masculinity refers to the ideas of masculinity of the coloniser and the colonised
subjects- particularly men. Colonialism as an idea was always gendered. R.W. Connell in his
text Gender and Power writes,
“Empire was a gendered enterprise from the start, initially an outcome of the segregated
men’s occupations of soldering and sea trading.”1
Colonial masculinity as an identity underwent changes and was constructed in the context of
social formation majorly in Britain and India. 
With the creation of colonial masculinity, a binary was formed over a large period of time.
This binary constituted the masculinity of the colonisers who were often portrayed as
traditionally masculine and macho, and the Indian upper-class ‘babu’ masculinity, which was
often rendered as effeminate, meek, and feeble. This formation of identity began and
predominantly developed in Bengal, thus creating a well-established and oft-repeated
stereotype of effeminate Bengali bhadralok men.
Many colonialists have referred to Indian, especially Bengali masculinity, or the lack of it.
For instance, in History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan, writer
Richard Orme says, 
“…all natives showed ‘effeminacy of character’ but that the Bengalis were ‘still of weaker
frame and more enervated character.”2
Along with this, Macaulay writes,
“The physical organization of the Bengalee is feeble even to effeminacy. He lives in a
constant vapour bath. His pursuits are sedentary, his limbs delicate, his movements languid.
During many ages, he has been trampled upon by men of bolder and more hardy breeds.
Courage, independence, veracity are qualities to which his constitution and his situation are
equally unfavourable.”3
These blatantly racist and sexist remarks lead to the emergence of a common discourse,
where the Bengali man became synonymous with a weak, lazy, feminine, and slavish
individual. This image, however, was limited to a particular class of Bengali men- English-
educated babus. The babus thus became a representation of weakness over the British image
of machismo. They were also compared and ridiculed against the martial races of India such
as the Sikhs, Marathas, and Rajputs.  
The Need to Create the Image of an Effeminate Native
It was impossible for a massive endeavour such as colonialism to become and stay successful
for such a long period of history with mere physical subjugation. Rather majorly, colonialists
used ideology, manipulation, and gaslighting to keep a diverse and largely populated
subcontinent under control. By creating a sense of shame, guilt, and weakness in the mind of
the natives, especially the Bengali men, the colonisers were able to break the spirit of the
people without physical force. Bengali intellectuals too formed a self-perception of
effeminacy and tried to provide various explanations for the same. But why did Bengali
bhadralok men serve as guinea pigs in this experiment? The answer to this question perhaps
lies at the beginning of the babu culture. The population of Bengal was on the rise in the
nineteenth century and many men sought western education in hopes of getting clerical or
similar jobs. These men were educated to create a class of brown English men- as per
Macaulay’s essay. 
The new class of these educated men however began to seek privileges on par with their
white counterparts. They tried to climb up the career ladder often with sycophancy and
similar tactics. It is perhaps to crush this desire and to keep the men under their thumb, the
colonisers began to propagate the idea of effeminate Bengali men. 
The colonisers sought to establish the legitimacy of their rule. This was done on multiple
levels- by treating the natives as savages, by treating them as infantile, and by emasculating
them. By proving that the natives were weaker not just mentally but physically and
socioculturally too, the colonisers were safe to justify their rule. 

Over the years, changing facades of masculinity blurred the effeminate image of Bengali
men. However, certain factors of colonial- coloniser and colonised masculinities managed to
seep into the Bengali men even after the political independence. It is possible to make a case
for this in Satyajit Ray’s Mahanagar (1963).

Mahanagar (1963), set in the 1950s is an exploration of the changing city of Kolkata where a
Bhadra woman has to go out and work to support her family. It is a portrait of this lady, Arati,
and her interactions with her friends, family, and employer. This paper will focus on the
masculine identity of the three major male characters from the film and will try to analyse the
varied nature of their masculinity and will try to see if any reference to the colonial
masculinities can be found. 
Along with Arati, her husband, Subrata Mazumdar occupies an important space in the
narrative. A post-independence version of a ‘babu’, Subrata is a clerk working in a private
bank. While the Mazumdar’s do not have a hand-to-mouth existence, still it is shown that
they are under an utter financial strain, as Subrata’s parents and sister have moved in with
them. This strain and perhaps a desire to work in the public enables Arati to seek permission
from her husband to take up a job. While Subrata doesn’t care for the suggestion initially, he
soon comes around and helps her to apply for a job. He supports through this journey, only to
change his mind again later- taking away his support. 
Subrata is portrayed as an educated man who has read English classics, smokes cigarettes,
reads English newspapers, works in a bank, and is shown to enjoy certain upper-class ideas.
This typical notion of a Bhadralok babu is quite similar to the image of the colonial babu.
While the babu is not being physically governed by the coloniser, he is still mentally
subjugated. When Subrata loses his job, we find him utterly helpless. He tries to find other
jobs but fails in the endeavour. But instead of doing anything else while searching for a new
job, he is shown to slack around the house. He becomes lazy and dependant- two more
stereotypes associated with the colonial image of a babu. He sees his wife being more
successful than him which brings out his envy. He finds the act emasculating and thus tries to
stop Arati from working. Psychological emasculation, as mentioned earlier, was used by the
colonisers to break the spirit of Indians, especially Bengali men. However, it should be noted
that the feeling of emasculation that Subrata feels is universal and continues even today. 
Subrata’s anxiety about her wife’s work, her earning a decent sum, and her display of agency
drives the movie forward. 
The other important male character in the film is Priyagopal Mazumdar, Subrata’s father.
Priyagopal is a retired teacher with deteriorating health. He enjoys solving crosswords and
leads a leisurely life. We see Subrata complaining to Arati about how he has stopped teaching
students at home. 
Priyagopal is seen visiting his past students and asking them for money, disguised as ‘guru
dakshina’ or fees for his teaching. This servile-begging attitude depicts his helplessness and
weakness. Yet again, it is possible to connect these traits with the stereotypical image of a
colonial babu.
The third prominent male character in the movie is Himangshu Mukherjee, Arati’s boss.
Himangshu too is a typical Bengali babu, however, we see that he has developed and climbed
up the ladder. It is possible to say that Himangshu has appropriated the role of a coloniser
master. His overall attitude, his love for expensive things, his patronizing point of view
towards Arati and Subrata, his polarised views about Edith- his Anglo-Indian employee- all
point towards a change in narrative for him. While he is still a babu, he is no longer a Bengali
babu, instead, he is a master who has others in his control. 

The three male characters in the film show a mixed view of the colonial babu. A colonial
babu was enterprising, he was weak, often feeble, a coward, a sycophant, a lazy man who still
desired to grow in his career. He was caricatured as henpecked. These various traits are
represented in all the three men in the movie. But why do they show these traits even after
independence? It is possible to argue that these might be circumstantial- i.e. their
circumstances force them to act in certain ways. However, this is a fairly reductionist
viewpoint. 
While the political colonization of India ended officially in 1947, the cultural colonisation did
not. The colonial complex continued to dominate the mindset of the people for a long time-
perhaps even now. While Vivekananda, Arya Samaj, and various other people and
movements tried to construct a new, more robust masculinity for the Bengali men, it is
difficult to what effect were they able to do so. Thus, we see a certain hangover of the pre-
colonial Bengali masculinity in the three men in the film. However, it is not an exact replica
of the then masculinity, rather, it is a hybrid. Masculinity, along with various other social
constructs evolve-devolve-change continuously, thus the portrayal of Bengali masculinity in
the Mahanagar too is a construct undergoing change. Yet, the traces of the bygone era are still
visible.  

1. Connell, Gender and Power (Cambridge, Polity Press, 1987), pp. 126-128.
2. Orme, Robert. A History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan: From
the Year 1745, in 2 Vols. - Vol. 2. Hansebooks, 2020.
3. Macaulay, T.B. (1835, Feb 2). Minute by the Hon’ble T.B. Macaulay, dated 2nd February
1835.

References 

Connell, R.W. Masculinities. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. (1995)

Khazan, Olga. “Men Do Less Housework When Their Wives Earn More.” The Atlantic, 27
Oct. 2016, www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/10/the-only-chore-men-will-do-is-
cook/505067.

Macaulay, T.B. Minute by the Hon’ble T.B. Macaulay, (1835, Feb 2)

Retrieved from http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett
/00generallinks/Macaulay/txt_minute_educati on_1835.html

“Masculine.” Collin’s Thesaurus.

“Masculine_1 Adjective - Definition, Pictures, Pronunciation and Usage Notes | Oxford

Advanced Learner’s Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.Com.” Oxford Learners’
Dictionary, www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/definition/english/masculine_1?
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Orme, Robert. A History of the Military Transactions of the British Nation in Indostan: From
the Year 1745, in 2 Vols. - Vol. 2. Hansebooks, 2020.

Nandy, Ashish. The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self Under Colonialism (Oxford
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Sen, Sudipta  Colonial Aversions and Domestic Desire: Blood, Race, Sex and the Decline of
Intimacy in Early British India  (2004)

Sinha, Mrinalini. Colonial Masculinity: The “manly Englishman” and the “Effeminate
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