An
Intimate History of Bengal
BOOK VI
[Everything ends in a Book ]
It is after a long spell of
discontinuity that I start writing again about the Intimate History. A feeling
of unrest and writer's guilt pervaded my psyche for not able to add anything
more. In the meantime, I read some of the standard works, visited some more
places and dedicated some time in simply mapping the ideas. I also agree with
Mr. Nirad C Chaudhri that any learning experience in its essence is a
cartographical experience. So in this narration will include more milestones
and patched and half-legible maps, of stories told and untold, feelings that
cross time and chronology and in short, I am writing not history but a
cartographic version of my own way of intimate history.
Last fifty years have not been
kinder to Bengal. In these years, politically it went for two divisions, its
urban centers and notably Calcutta slowly diminished in overall vitality and
prestige, the population suffered on all fronts. These fifty years, however
point to some historical symptoms which are all the more relevant to point to
the elusive and complex future course. For ease of discussion and avoiding some
clutter, let us keep in front of us some facts which professional historians
have thankfully forwarded to us after painstaking research :
Bengal's cultural
genius was an altogether different domain, virtually not connected with its
political master. This strange land produced her greatest poets, scientists,
writers, religious leaders all during the period when it was either fully or
partially ruled by foreign element. Bengal need not fear Globalisation or its
variants. This noble and emotional land has seen vissictudes of history, in no
age it has failed to respond to the proverbial Call of history. Men and women
of this land has fought against all obstacles, in two hundred years, they have
forged a whole new Language and Consciousness -Modern Indian Consciousness. In suffering
and experience, it qualifies to share brotherhood with any community of past
and present.
The greatest loss
that the land suffered was its unnatural divide and the loss of its landscape.
Landscape of Bengal, notably her waterways and rivers is integral to the
wholeness. The partition has made this colossal cultural loss and as time is
passing this loss will be overwhelming all other losses. Policy Planners are
already pointing to the fact water will be the most prized commodity by 2020.
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There is happening a
very interesting phenomena in Contemporary Bengal and any historian worth his
name should have the nose of a sniffer. There is something rotten in the state of Denmark. Recently we have been witnessing a great necromanic
affinity among the ruling elite`. The greatest names of the land are being used
to raise subscriptions. We listen to thy great voice, Nirad - There is a word "ghoul" in Arab where people exhume the corpse and after sufficient
rituals cannibalise those mortal
remains. Similar ghoul-necromaniancs are ruling the roost and the unfortunate loners watch
in horror who are condemned by love or due to circumstances to be in the land.
But this phenomena, how ugly or unbecoming it may seem confirms certain issues
and if followed closely opens up into an alley whose far end we see light,
Light that purifies, Light whose yearning is immortalized in the prayer - Tamoso ma Jyotirgomaya.
But the clouds are
lifting. International equations which mysteriously accounted Bengal in all
ages are becoming favourable. The grand endurance of these people will be a
core competence in the new world Order. Empirical observation confirms that in
Calcutta and outskirts, there are more older people than youngmen. With these
generations [ born between 1950-1965 ] fading out from the cityscape, a new
generation is emerging which abhors the ghoulism of negation, whose
Calcutta-centricity has been pulverized forver
while trying to secure a seat in a college of Bangalore, Chennai or Pune
The greatest beneficiaries of the Permanent Settlement ver 2.0 of Bengal now
recline in their mansions and buildings
built on government given lands and
the Scythe of the Great Reaper will take them all. For a long time, this class
enjoyed something which they knew how precious it was : a low-cost metropolitan
living with an assurance of being double locked from external exigencies. Hence,
they started living in a dual world of xenophobia and hubris. The mixture was
lethal. Between themselves, they read in each other's eye of the same grim
symptom - where to think is to be
full of sorrow. But the moment they
drank the river of forgetfulness, they started to air something totally
different and lapsed into necromanic
delight of reveling in the past. Education
- the greatest asset of the land dating back from Nabadeep School of Logic lost
its complete brand-value and its best teachers left or were suppressed.
Literature became crude and turned populist and the manipulators who tried to
change Swarasti's Veena into more audible trumpet shared the fate of a strumpet - used and
forgotten. Mr. Asoke Mitra's Collection of Essays written between
1940 - 1992 is a highly suggestive document. Also read is Nirad C Chaudhri's
Collection of Essays in Bengali. [Collected and Published by his son Mr. Dhruva
Narayan Choudhry posthumously ]. Though they were poles apart in identifying
the cause, but both mourn a colossal loss in the Life of Bengal as an effect.
The Last Leftist and the Last Imperialist of Bengal stood finally at a cultural
altar and that had to be so. This circularity where poles twist under the
inexplicable gravitation to meet at a point is the event mirrabilis for a
cultural historian. On this singularity, historial narration becomes
hyper-compressed and convoluted like human brain or chromosomes and if you
hover over that singularity, she denies you exact knowledge but gifts with visions
of things to come.
Back to the
Generation Tracking. The new generation
grew in an environment of dreamlessness. It's previous generation dared
to say that it has already dreamt the noblest dream of all and there is nothing
else to dream or yearn for. A hundred years back, Tagore warned of the tragic
consequences of such cock-sureness of dream that defies universal laws. A god
that at the expense of incense, food and sacrifice makes minor or major
adjustment of universal order is venal. But Bengal has this strange habbit. This great
affinity to dreams and visions gave these people rare and sensual imagination
in one hand and in its degenerate form - addiction to miracles and
superstitions. This dreamer
generation got involved with their
dream so much that they put all collective dreams subsurvient to it. They read
the text of the dream acutely forgetting the simple wisdom that dream in its
final analysis is a meta-text. Dream minus its meta-text is an mechanistic
assemblage and without the power of potency. Few poets and writers were aware
of this grand shift in tectonics but the trumpet was too high in decibel and
hence the soft tunes of a flute went un-noticed. But not fully. Jibananda Das
endured.
The common folk were
deliberately denied the meta-text. In its physical mapping, this meta-text was
the English Language. A grand historical development dating back when
Shakespeare was called Seksha-peer to
Taru Dutt was suddenly seized by the throat, asphyxiated and then reviled. This
collar-catching culture caught Bengal like wildfire and the main dramatis persoane of this culture-drama was ghearo, bandh, dharna and
dholai. One of the softest, soft-spoken and delicate
communities of the entire world were turned into a mass of mob which incites as
much as distaste and fear. But why this transformation was so successful and
pervasive ? Because the ruling elite`, thanks to the radioactive renessaince of
nineteenth century, mastered the art and craft of meta-text and due to the very
nature of rennessaince, its greatest fruits never went to the masses. They were
vulnerable. The world-at-large was changing rapidly and the ruling elite closed
the doors and windows and that brought a temporary sense of relief, however
deceiving it was. But like all relief, not obtained without a price demands a
price along with a formidable historical surcharge and that came too.
This mob culture has
destroyed cultures more solid and more tenacious than Bengal. At the outset,
they seem like mere disturbance as Romans might have found those barabarian
hordes. As time passes, the mob graduates from mere Brownian random motion to
collected lump of groups with a networked communication system. Next stage,
these networked groups are fed from within and without and they also feed on themselves.
At the final stage when they become the instrument of history, they cultivate a
semblance of order and continuous osmosis takes place. But these mob-groups
need a cultural lebensraum. Wherefrom they would get it ? Here, a cultural
historian finds a phenomenon which is routine for a biologist - cannibalism in
microorganism. The Cultural Lebensraum was sucked from the preiphery of the
established culture first and if the centre cannot hold and the best lacks all conviction, with passionate intensity they move to the centre.
If this mob-culture is generated from within, a reverse flow is observed. In
Bengal, the mob-culture grew from centre and first it enmeshed in the centre
and later moved to the periphery. Major Civilizations of the world stand in the
balance of this centre and a potential mob grown at the centre or breeding at
the periphery. Geography also plays a major role in defining the topography of
this phenomenon which for lack of coined term we will tell as Mobiscosity.
Mobiscosity is to
Culture what an Echo is for sound. It has all the characterics of a Culture and
analysing its pattern we may easily find the culture that gave birth to it. For
a civilization at the height of its power and confident of itself , mobiscosity
manifests in the form of normal but
tolerable degradation of taste. For a civililization which is tired or suffered
repeated shocks from outside, mobiscosity
attains more meta-content and the chaos tells that it is the order of
the day. In time, depending on a complex and inter-layered set of issues, the
final fate will be decided. It is not to be forgotten that mobiscosity is
something bad or undesirable. Just as I said that it is like an echo, it is generated by the social process
itself. Reign of Terror and post-Palassey
Loot of Bengal are representative examples. Any culture gets
a clean-up through mobiscosity just like
every Turk, Goth or Frank held hammer that was falling on Roman Marble was
trumpetting the onset of another age when the same marble will tell that it has
hidden a Pieta within it.
Let us bless the new
generation of Bengal. Most of These Young Bengal are non-resident since their
adolescence. For next ten years, a considerable part of them are not destinned to come and settle back here again.
A part of them will be out of the country altogether and we will hear them
after a longer period perhaps. And some will gather the strength and their
choice's trajectory will make them leave the cultural orbit forever
They are missing the sweets and perhaps bored with sambar, aviol, dosa, pao-vhaji. They may also be fishing those rohus in
their dreams in the hot and sultry South. They have the music and language
thanks to TV channels and CDs but something will be always missing. Lots of
them will find Puja missing in their calendar and almost all of them, through
their necessary exile will be undergoing a purification process which previous
generation's karma-fal has accrued
for them as a heirloom. Last fifty years has seen up-rooting of this extremely
homely and home-loving race and the present is witnessing the same up-rooting
in mental phase for a considerable demographic part falling in the age group of
18-25 and beyond.
Predicting future is
the job of a prophet. A historian is not paid for it. But we all are
over-worked by our mind and our aspirations. So for me too. Hence I will
attempt to visualise this new generation, a part of Bengal shuttling in
holidays between Howrah and everywhere. Those who are from Calcutta or its
outskirts will be having the dubious distinction of a Calcuttan. They will
remain loyal finally to three things of homeland : food, memory and Puja. The
most refined and sensitive among them will continue to read Bengali Literature
but the majority will first forget writing the alphabets, followed by
difficulty in reading smoothly and finally their speech will be a hybrid of
Hindi, Bengali and English and depending on their geographical location in the
country, the content of Hindi and English will vary. Cross-ethnic marriages
will increase.
The gulf between
those who will remain in homeland and the non-residents will increase first in
terms of purchasing power and consumption levels and then in world-view. Ethnic
bonding will push some Capital in the homeland, catalyzed by the economically
realistic ruling elite` but this inflow will ask for counter-guarantee becasue
Money has no colour. They will be valuing light, air, swimmimg pool more than
that hole in the revered and too familiar Beniatola, Pataldanga or Kartik Singha Lane and hence while they become the masters of those
properties, they will sell them at a premium and shift themselves to NRI
Colonies. Cityscape will change and barring a few pockets, for many of them, this
will be a city within a city.
Slowly, but following
a logical chain, Bengal is rising to be a investment destination. This is not
only the present initiative that is responsible but is in the nature of capital
and its movement. Indian Capital, in reality may be small but it is in direct
contact with a formidable market teeming with desire and urge to consume. IT
and Knowledge based indstries are encountering high real estate and subsistence
prices in Bombay-Bangalore-Gurgaon-Noida-Chennai-Hyderbad-Pune-Cochin circuit.
Calcutta has everything minus two factors to make the boom happen -
Infrastructure and LinguaFranca. Infrastructure, if Capital finds it necessary,
it will build but the Communication level in English cannot be brought to
certain level overnight. Hence the boom will wait. But once caught, residents
will find tremendous competition from the non-residents who will find it
attractive to come back and work. This clash of interests will lead to high
social strain and as Capital, eternally vigilant of profit but equally ignorant
of social forces concentrating behind the arithmetical figures will make the
decision it always makes so well - to fly for better pastures.
But one thing is
clear. The residents and non-residents alike will try to drink to the fountain
of English Language. They will not do with the passion their grandfathers did
in College Street but will be more utilitarian in approach. In this collective
enterprise is lurking the possibility of a great cultural return of memory.
Learning of English for better career opportunities is not unknown to Bengal.
Everything is same : the same language, the same objective and the power centre
is now at the other side of the Atlantic and in addition a stronger Indian
Economy that is more closely tied-up with the Transatlantic hegemony. If the
Cultural Return of Memory happens and I hope it will, Bengal will move towards
leadership position and will be able to mainatin it. Present Ruling elite of Bengal suffers from a fatal
inertia and unfortunate are the young
men who are not even being told what
momentous instrument of history they potentially are !
In its immediate
wake, Bengal will renew its ties with its immediate West and East. From a
miasmic ideological swamp of distant geographies, it will move to its immediate
neighbourhood. The Young Bengal, by the whipping of history will lose almost
all egoistic flab of high-brow and superiority. They will not consider the
previous generation even worthy of criticism. One
of the symptoms of this cross-over generation will manifest as closer
ideological ties with the generation of 1880s and 1920s than its immediate
ones. The great goodwill the land has accumulated through her teachers,
doctors, musicians, revolutionaries and poets will be market-tested. Bihar,
Orrisa and North-East, due to factors strengthened for last two hundred years
will be rallying around for co-operation.
Central Leadership at Delhi has crossed the Rubicon – Capital and its movement
is somewhat like karmic law – gahono karmana gati. Hark, Young Bengal, listen to the words of one of your greatest yet
crooked genius – Nirad speaking – There are certain areas of culture in which for
other communities of India it is not even possible to match Bengal. At this
last days of my life, I feel no hesitation in proclaiming this faith.
Let us bless them. We
will not recgnize them perhaps or they will be too distant but they are like
comets. This young generation has chosen a new orbit, out of the gravitation
that we exert. They will carry a part of us nevertheless but the most refined part
of ours and not our degenerate homilies. The pavillion of History is clear and
shining. India, after long years is showing signs of activity and though lots
of dusk and smoke will come in its wake but a new India is forged in the
crucible. This ancient landmass has seen Civilizations and in no time in
recorded history, no significant cultural movement has failed to touch her. So cannot
the United States. In the grand Cultural Return of Memory for Bengal, she will
make a unique contribution of history which her noblest sons and daughters
always dreamt.
Now what about us ?
Our generation ? Who were second Midnight’s Chidlren, born in the cusp and condemned to live under dual gravitation. Our orbit relates to the new historical goddess is like another
unforgettable Bengali - Srikanta and to this samay-lakshmi, we might say with a sigh : Etakal
jibanta katila up-graher moto ; jahake kendra karia ghuri na
pailam tar kache jai-bar adhikar, na dure jai-bar anumati
[ So long Life has been like a satellite. The centre by which I rotate
neither gives permission to come close nor allows to go away ]