Untold Facts

BANGALNAMA: A HISTORIAN’S ACCOUNT OF HIS OWN LIFE EXPERIENCE

Not a Review

This item is not intended to do anything of book review that one might presume to be for it is likely to appear about the book under the title, BANGALNAMA (Memoirs of a Bangalee of East Bengal origin- BANGAL is a term used in pejorative sense, particularly by the English system educationally grown Calcutta based elites or by the so called BANGALEE BHADROLOK or Bengali gentlemen somewhat like the model of English Gentlemen) in Bengali version. It is not a review for two reasons, one, that the book I am taking on is not the first edition but of the second, May 2009, the first edition was published in 2007, both from Ananda, Kolkata; two, that I am honestly incapable for my limitations of making review of any worth of the highly scholarly historian’s memoirs, and, in fact, recollection of issues from the writer’s early memory intermixed with historical truths, many painful and vexing social realities, often very unpalatable even for many scholars in the field area.

Eminent Bangal

Professor Dr. Tapan Roychoudhury started his professional working career in the Delhi Archive in early 1950, he taught in the Delhi School of Economics and Delhi University after having had a Doctorate from the premier English University of Oxford. Though he also taught in the USA, Australia, but mainly for 20 years (1973 -93) in of the University of Oxford, England, the world renowned historian and author of many books on Indian History, now an octogenarian, enlightened me in many useful things and further broadened my mind, no matter even though at times my full comprehension failed me by reading through the book in somewhat colloquial Bengali language of his own style and of Barisal region. May be that was why for one reason he claimed himself as the ‘seventh generation Bangal’, and termed the memoirs BANGALNAMA, 419 printed pages plus 56 pages of historic multiple photographs, I finished reading through in the first week of January 2010, my first one in the year beginning in my bed ridden condition of illness but even so certainly enjoyed for a number of reasons that I wish to note below.

Not Autobiography

Just as the author has himself stated that the materials in the book and the facts he very much attractively presented were in no way his autobiography but illustration, not all, but significant events that he could recall decades after their occurrence at his late age at about eighty. To me the events and issues he cited well portrayed in depth historical and sociological aspects that he was highly qualified to do in his typical scholarly way.

Barisal’s Pride

Born in a few generation landlord family of Barisal (now southern Bangladesh) in 1926 he was fortunate in many ways not only in pecuniary terms having multi-storied homes at the Kirtipasha rural location, in Barisal town and also of some family members in the then undivided Bengal capital city of Calcutta. As a brilliant student that he marked his position in the Matriculation Examination in 1941 from the Barisal Zilla School under the Calcutta University. He was also fortunate to study at the Calcutta Scottish Church College and Presidency College, Calcutta, both being the most renowned and quality institutions for higher education. It was somewhat unusual to know from his description that despite being from well to do landlord family background it was not only he but his ancestors had as well been left leaning, anti- British and atheists but even so had icons/deities of Hindu religious belief in the decorated permanent structure of Chandi Mandop or home for deity worship. Of course, that was a time in Bengal, in particular, of SWADESHI Movement that was essentially anti-imperialist and anti-British. The climax was the1940s when the two major communities Hindus represented by the Indian Congress Party and the Muslims by the Muslim League came to head on collision for the Pakistan Movement not only in his locality Barisal but also in Calcutta and in the British India as a whole.

1943 Famine & 1946 Riots

Professor Roychoudhury recalled the 1943 Famine in Bengal in which nearly 3 million people died of hunger and the vicious Hindu- Muslim riots of Calcutta of August 1946 wherein thousands were killed on both sides. The frenzied killing of one poor mango hawker Usman, the only earning member of his family of disabled and widowed mother living in a shanty town, by Hindu mobs in front of him touched his heart so much that he mentioned it with heavy heart in the Bangalnama (p.153). In riotous killings and counter-killings he found no frenzied attitudinal difference between the uneducated illiterate lots and the highly educated Bengalis.

Communalism

His specific frank mention from his own experience about extreme Hindu communalism (p. 143) in Bengal in 1940s is an interesting fact that one would find in research findings of two other Calcutta based scholars, Dr. Shila Sen (1976) and Dr. Joya Chatterjee (2002), as well.

After 1947 Partition

On and after the partition of Bengal and British India in mid August 1947, they abandoned their ancestral home in Barisal and estate of Kirtipasha as that fell in the dominion of Pakistan and moved to settle in Calcutta; some stayed though in Calcutta from before as most of the Hindu Landlords of East Bengal would normally do as their second city home away from their land holding big Estates, but some stayed in Barisal, as well. For years initially in Calcutta, they bore hardships but their fortune improved as time went on in Calcutta away from Barisal. They would still get revenue earnings from the estate they left behind under the care of their employees and officers to look after the estate until in 1950 when all big estates in land holdings had been taken over by the government, not alone of the Hindu landlords but also of the Muslims in the same order of the Government of East Bengal (East Pakistan).

Taboos

There are many interesting events he recalled in the book. One is about his marriage with a widow older than his age, and all social taboos linked with widow remarriage that not only constantly bothered them in Calcutta and Delhi but also 6000 miles far away at Oxford in England during his life and job there.

Other Scholars

Very much in keeping with the acumen of a great historian he has brought and introduced in brief other contemporary renowned historians and other scholars in the essay.
Possibly quite likely being a left sympathetic historian, he was somewhat aversely critical about another renowned historian Romesh Chandra Majumder for his anti-Muslim attitude and yet belief in the TWO NATION THEORY ( p. 333), the theory that turned in 1940s a powerful tool and popular slogan among the Muslims of British India for the founding of Pakistan in 1947.
Nirod Chandra Choudhury has obviously come in there not only for both lived in the Oxford University city but also for many common issues they shared in despise, one being the BANGAL’s low ethical and moral standards. They were averse to the educated Bengalis of the Macaulay curriculum being selfish like the Macaulay’s own British people (pp.285-86 and 336).
The brilliance and some eccentricity of the renowned historian Jadunath Sarker has found place there in the work (pp. 185-88).
Many other scholars like Nobel Laureate Economist Amartya Sen and historians of repute not only of India but also of other advanced countries have found useful but brief spaces in the book that made it interestingly worth reading by inquisitive even non-historians.

History and Geography in gist

Another interesting aspect of the book include tidbits of history and geography that he noted down with the insight of a historian from his long traveling experience through many European cities and towns, in the USA, Latin America and Australia.

Author: H B Khair