BLiterature-Apratim

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Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay (1838-’94)
Bankim is at the same time, one of the greatest and one of the most
controversial writers of Bangla literature. In his life-time, he was hailed as ‘Sahitya-
Samrat’ (i.e. Emperor of Literature). After death, some canonized him as a ‘Rishi’
(i.e. sage). Some others, annoyed with his political and social views, have
questioned his greatness.
The first and foremost allegation against Bankim in this country is that he was
from top to bottom an anti-Muslim, therefore communal and fundamentalist, a
conservative and reactionary about social norms and also an implicit contributor to
imperialism. But a careful scrutiny of his works does not definitely vindicate such
ideas. He was a humanist, patriot, rationalist and progressive writer. It is true that he
was religious and like Tolstoy, a strict believer in a deity but he was never a
communal man, let alone fundamentalist. Such accusations are made by those who
do not read his works thoroughly and hold superficial ideas about his mind. In this
context it can be said that in his historical novels, he depicted the splendid
aristocracy of feudal Moslem India alongside its dark sides.
The severest accusations are usually made against his Anandamath (The
Abbey of Bliss). In this novel, as I have already said, he actually condemned the
contemporary British rulers considering them as a replacement of their predecessor
Muslims who too had been invaders and assaulters of India’s own culture and
civilization. Here he wished the success of a Hindu Revival which he saw had
already begun. This novel celebrates a great puja of the motherland incarnated in
the shape of Goddess Durga. The emulsion of the goddess is done leaving a dream
of resurrection which predicts a recurrence of the rebellion that he narrates.
However, this novel is definitely not his masterpiece. This honor is deserved
by Kopalkundala, a highly Romantic fiction in which Bankim depicts the contradiction
between social and alienated human beings – the inadaptability of an outsider
heroine in social stream. An orphan girl, who was brought up by a hermit, elopes
with a gentleman, later marries him and then finds social life bitter for her. She
admits the hermit’s (who comes to the town in search for her) call to make her a
sacrifice for the deity. That moment never comes, but she drowns in the river along
with her husband. Thus the author gives a glory to man’s predestined fate. The
heroine, after whose name the novel is entitled, lacks social competence and is
devoid of love which is a product of only civilized and cultivated mind.
Even his first attempt of Bangla fiction, Durges-Nandini (The Daughter of the
Fort-Lord) bears his deep consciousness of medieval Indian society and its
fabrication by communal divide. Here a Rajput prince and a Bengali princess fall in
love with each other. A Pathan princess later does have a crush on him. And finally
the prince marries the first one because of their religious commonness.
His Chandrashekhar, despite having a historical background, is exuberant in
psychological revelation of socially deprived lovers. Lovers denying social barrier
suffer from guilt-complex and Shaivalini’s vision of hell is the result of her remorse for
committing such a ‘sin’. In this novel, Bankim depicts sexual perverts along with true