th

20 European Conference on Modern South Asian Studies

Panel 9

Bengal Studies
Convenors: William Radice and Kerstin Andersson
List of Abstracts (total papers: 14)
1. Christina Nygren, Stockholm University
Yatra Popular Theatre Moving with the Wind
The theatre life in India and Bangladesh show a great variety of examples of the significance of
performances for a public at large, in everyday life as well as in religious or secular festivals and
holidays. The popular and commercial performances play a part both as aesthetic experience and
as entertainment. In Indian West Bengal and Bangladesh yatra has been the most popular and
wide spread theatre form for centuries but the original yatra is now often deprived of its full value,
not only by religious fundamentalists but also by intellectuals, the high educated and
representatives for highbrow performing arts. In my paper I shall elaborate on my experiences of
the situation of yatra as travelling theatre, primarily looking at the context, letting the stage art
come second, and emphasize the common rather than the unique.
2. Mark Maclean, Cambridge
Hindu Christmas and the Paradox of Bengali Secularism
Against the oft-cited argument that secularism is an alien imposition, discordant with Indian
spirituality, this paper suggests that the rhetoric of secularism is now an integral part of the religiocultural landscape of Bhadralok Hinduism. Focusing on a case study of the Christmas
celebrations at Belur Math and intensive interviews with devotees and monks, I show how Sri
Ramakrishna is construed as a secular saint, characterizing the distinctive power and paradox of
secularism in West Bengal. By investigating secularism in its actually existing forms beyond the
formal framework of the state, I demonstrate the complex ways in which this European concept
has been indigenised in postcolonial Bengal.
3. Afsar Ahmad, Jahangirnagar University, Bangladesh
The Oraons in Bangladesh: Identity Crisis and Decaying Culture
Apart from the Bangalis, diverse ethnic groups have been living in Bangladesh for a long time.
These groups, generally known as tribes, are distinct from each other in ethnological, racial,
religious, and cultural aspects. The Oraons are one of these groups. Scholars hold that the
Oraons living in Bangladesh are descendents of the Proto-Australian race. Their migration from
India to Bangladesh took place much later. They are animist and believers of totem. The ritualistic
activities, festivals and ceremonies of the Oraons are related to agricultural activities. Karama
Fagua, Sarhul, Sohrai are their main festivals. Karama is the most prestigious and grandest
festival for the Oraons. In Bangladesh, this ethnic group has been preserving their thousand-yearold culture up to recent times. In this paper, I will focus Identity Crisis and Culture of the Oraons in
the light of the brought spectrum of the state of the ethnic minorities living in Bangladesh.

4. Ana Jelnikar, SOAS, London

At Home in the World: Rabindranath Tagore and Sreko Kosovel
When Tagore received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913 he became a world celebrity
overnight. Slovenes too participated in the Tagoreana from the early days of the poets
international reputation. This paper explores the impact of Tagores ideas on Slovenes, who
derived a strong sense of identification with the Indian poet out of their own historical predicament
of cultural and political subjugation. Tagores answer to the problem of colonization and
imperialism resonated particularly strongly with Slovenias foremost modernist poet of the
interwar years, Sreko Kosovel (1904-1926). Kosovel integrated much of Tagores thinking
available to him in translation into his own poetic and intellectual horizon. Both poets-intellectuals
to this day challenge us to think about national identity along more inclusive and dynamic lines,
whereby our local and specific allegiances become a non-conflictual base for reaching out to the
world, surrendering neither, while enriching both.
5. Hanne-Ruth Thompson, SOAS, London
Intuition versus Analysis Tagores Linguistic Thinking
From Tagores two books Shobdotottvo and Bangla bhasha poricoy we gain a thorough insight
into his thinking about language. From a linguists point of view, much of what he says appears at
first somewhat unstructured and intuitive, but on closer inspection we begin to see his point.
Bengali, more so perhaps than many other languages, lends itself to a more fluid interpretation,
and rigid grammatical analysis will not give us the understanding we seek. In this paper I want to
show how Tagore's thinking can point us to a broader approach and, with examples from his
books, how intuition and analysis can work together to open up the essence of the Bengali
language.
6. William Radice, SOAS, London
Painting the Dust and the Sunlight: Rabindranath Tagore and the Two Gitnjalis
Was Tagore essentially dvaitavdi (dualist) or advaitavdi (non-dualist)? The paper compares
Tagores own repeated claims that he was a dualist with the capacity that he also had for mystical
or non-dualist religious experience. It then considers the poems and songs of Gitnjali,
distinguishing between the English Gitanjali for which he won the Nobel Prize from the songs
from which many of its poems were derived. In these songs, the melody is as important as the
words. A proposal is made for a new method of translating Tagores songs: one which preserves
the repetitions when the songs are sung and brings out the four-part musical structure. The
words of the songs are generally dualist in mood and content, but the music reaches out for the
transcendental in a way that is distinctly non-dualist. By combining dualism with non-dualism, his
songs paint both the dust and the sunlight.
7. Soumyajit Samanta, North Bengal University
The Bengal Renaissance: an East-West Cultural Symbiosis
Nineteenth century Bengal witnessed an intellectual & cultural revival called Renaissance.
Western critical & historical thinking, European knowledge (esp. philosophy, history, science &
literature), British empiricism, rationalism & education in English language affected an important
segment of Bengali Hindu society & under the impact of British rule the Bengali intellectual
learned to raise questions about life & beliefs. Renaissance minds included Raja Rammohun
Roy, Henry Luies Vivian Derozio & his radical disciples, Debendranath Tagore, Akshay Kumar
Datta, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay
and Swami Vivekananda. The Bengal Renaissance led to the proliferation of modern Bengali
literature, fervent & diverse intellectual enquiry & ultimately fostered an engagement with
rationalism & nationalism & alternately questioned the foreign subjugation of the country. The aim
of this paper will be to illustrate how the Bengal Renaissance can be interpreted as a cultural
symbiosis between the East & the West.
8. Rosinka Chaudhuri, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Kolkata
Literary Language and the Figuration of Modernity in Bengal (1822-1858)

The formation of a modern literature in Bengal in the first half of the nineteenth century saw
English literary conventions supplant the indigenous inheritance in native literature that is best
epitomised by Bharatchandra. The tradition of Bharatchandra was located in the popular, the
urban, the folk, and the local; a native heritage, often conceived of as immoral, it constituted a
subterranean presence in the high-minded literary/ethical formation of a national culture in the
nineteenth century. This paper explores the tension between English literary practices and
authentic Bengali convention located in the work of Bharatchandra, whose legacy was the most
contested legacy in literary critical terms, right through to the early twentieth century.
9. Srilata Chatterjee, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata
Satyagraha and the Ethics of Political Protest in Bengal
Anti colonial popular protest and resistance in India took various forms ranging from pre modern
traditional forms of conflicts to the more modern forms of opposition marked by boycott and
passive resistance. But the brutal state repression of these resistances proved the need for a new
concept of ethical activism, which would remain rooted to the traditions of non-violent political
virtue. Gandhi gave this kind of protest the name Satyagraha. Bengal, a province, where since
the days of Aurobindo the nationalist agitation was rooted to the concept of Passive Resistance
and the ideologies of revolution and boycott, was perhaps rather sceptic about the accepting this
new concept. But as the all India mass Satyagraha movements were launched, Bengal became
one of the storm centres of political action.
10. Parimal Ghosh, University of Calcutta
Laughing Out Loud: Sibram Chakraborty (1905-80) and a Critique of the Bhadralok
The paper considers three works of the noted Bengali writer Sibram Chakraborti, his two-volume
autobiography, Iswar Prithivi Bhalobasa and Bhalobasa Prithivi Iswar, and a lesser known work
written in the early 1920s, - Chheleboyeshay, and argues that behind his flippant style Sibram
composed a critique of his contemporary Bhadralok society.
For more than a hundred years Bengali politics, culture and social norms have been determined
by a certain understanding of bhadrolokiana. The socially established and the upwardly mobile
decided the code by which life should be lived by this understanding of bhadrolokiana. A certain
image of the Bhadralok helped them to take lifes decisions, an image which is now, of late,
increasingly coming under pressure as a consequence of the assertion of the chhotolok, the
people down under, the historical counterpart of the Bhadralok.
11. W. L. Smith, Uppsala University, Sweden
Tunnel of Love, The Origins of the Kalika Mangal
Themes in the genre of Mangal Kavya or Mangal Literature are usually based on the myths of
regional deities like Manasa or Dharma. The Kalika Mangal, in contrast, is a love story which tells
the story of prince Sundar who falls in love with the princess Vidya, digs a tunnel to her quarters,
and enjoys an illicit love affair with her. The goddess Kali herself plays only an offstage role in the
story. Odder still is the fact that this story is based upon a Sanskrit biography of the Kashmiri poet
Bilhana. The paper will discuss the origins of the Kalika Mangal and the remarkable
transformation of a poets biography into a eulogy of the goddess Kali.
12. Monjita Palit, SOAS, London
Amar Apon Ghorer Chabi Porer Hathey: Criminality, Colonialism and the Home in EarlyColonial Rural Bengal
In the Baul songs of early colonial rural Bengal, the metaphor of the bhanga ghor emerges as one
of the most frequently deployed metaphors of the human body. Baul scholars have long sought to
understand the metaphor in terms of the complex religious beliefs and rituals of the Bauls, and
have thus located the Bauls' notion of physical and/or spiritual immortality as the point of
similitude in the metaphor. However, this paper argues that the same metaphor could also be
read as being socio-culturally produced and deployed in a crucial phase of the social history of
Bengal. A closer look at the image of the threat implicit in the metaphor would enable us to read
the metaphor of the bhanga ghor as shaped by the Bauls' specific perceptions of and responses

to the hazardous impacts of the changing social, economic and political forces in late 18thearly
th
19 century Bengal.
13. Abu Musa Mohammad Arif Billah, SOAS, London
Syncretism, Mysticism and Artistry in Alaols and Jayasis Padmvat: a Comparative
Study
Alaol contributed a lot in the promotion of the late medieval Bengali literature. His narrative Sufi
romance Padmvat written in Bengali is, originally, a transformation of a Hindi poem of the same
title by Malik Muhammad Jayasi. As a Sufi, Jayasi embellishes his Padmvat by Persian Sufi
tradition, especially by Attars -TairMantiq ut, the speech of birds. Alaols transfigures the
structure, symbolism, metaphor and exemplification of the poem immensely by his creative
imagination and by, to some extend, his own way of Sufi interpretations well reflected in the
final part of his poem. He demonstrates his prolific Sufi idea, extending Jayasis fan, i.e.
annihilation, to his baq, i.e. subsistence, concept by illustrating an imaginary relationship
between the two child princesses of Ratan Sen and Sultan Alauddin of Delhi. This paper attempts
to draw the quality, significance, syncretism, and mysticism of Alaols Padmvat with necessary
citations and textual evaluation.
14. Kerstin Andersson, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Navya Nyaya and its Social Implications in Bengal
This paper will deal with the Navya-Nyaya philosophy, one of the orthodox Indian philosophical
th
systems. The Navya-Nyaya proliferated in Bengal in the 11 century with the reintroduction
orthodox Hinduism by the Sena kings. The Navya-Nyaya is an elaboration of the NyayaVaisesika system, related to the Upanishads, and focused on epistemology and the pramana
theory. Logical argumentation and rational thinking comprise the correct device to obtain true
knowledge and moksha. This paper concerns the position of the Navya-Nyaya philosophy in the
wider context of Bengali history, tradition, culture and its possible expressions in contemporary
society. I will suggest that the doctrine dont constitute a hermetically closed system separated
from the wider society. It is formed in the society and in interaction with social, cultural, political
and economic factors. I will take use of the concept of tradition put forward in anthropological
theories to frame the problem.