Nirad C. Chaudhuri: The last Englishman after decolonized India

Continued from yesterday

Nirad's early life was full of joy because of his enormity of learning. This list of learning was surprising big ranging from politics to literature; mythology to adventure. Perhaps there were very few in history which remained untouched by Mr. Chaudhuri at his early age. He was deeply immersed in English rule and paragon of their virtue.

His mother was self-educated woman had a deep faith on Hindu mythology and was an uncompromising puritan. She never takes dishonesty and falsehood in her life which virtually transmigrated to her off springs.  Nirad's early teaching comes from his mother as she began to tell story about great Hindu epic Ramayana and Mahabharata at his tender age.

As a result, he could understand similarities and dissimilarities between Eastern and Western epic; for example, the character of Sita and Helen, Rama-Lakishmana and Menelaus-Agamemnon etc. He says, 'all these similarities made us think of the spirit of the Ramayana and of the Iliad as comparable'  English literary works were read by Nirad avidly. Shakespeare's King Lear was remarkably influenced on his fresh mind which was told by his mother during schooling.

Later on, he learnt about Merchant of Venice, Julius Caesar in succession. Milton becomes very important to him as he was thought to be the model of Michael Madhusudan Dutt. Nirad's father was very fond of Milton's very striking line: "better to reign in hell than serve in haven". He writes, "The idea of Milton as a stern, unbending and powerful champion of liberty was confronted in our mind by a picture of him we saw in an edition of Macaulay's essay on Milton, which was in the cupboard." 

Besides, some of the major English works including Wordsworth's "Lucy Gray", "Daffodils", Webster's "Call for the Robin-red Bread and the Wren", Campbell's "Ye Mariners of England", Rupert Brook's "Soldier" along with number of English poems gave him boundless pleasure from where he learnt various aspects of English life and attitude.
Education in Kolkata

Nirad's family left Purbabangla in 1910 and started living in Kolkata and stayed there till 1942. This is obviously an important period of his entire life because he began to be educated from Kolkata. As an ordinary country boy he came to Kolkata in June 1910 but the cultural suavity of this city polished him up. In Kolkata he had different opportunities to meet with many national leaders including Gokhale, Surendranath Bannerjea C.R. Das, Subhas Bose, Sarat Chandra Bose, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Rabindranath Tagore. And, this is the perfect time when he developed his intellectual, religious, and moral ideas. Indian Renaissance in a very broad sense took place after English rule, Nirad believes. And, the last hundred years he thinks reaches its apogee but decline immediately after First World War.

The movement of Bengali humanism, religious reform, cultural and moral freedom got to work with a synthesis between east and west. Bengali humanism he claims starts with the founding of Hindu College in 1817 where large number of students had broken down so-called religious injunction. The first and for most pioneer of modern Bengal was no doubt Michael Madhusudan Dutt who became Christian by leaving wealth and worldly prosperity. It is often criticized that Madhusudan accepts Christianity from ulterior motive but Nirad defends him as saying that he accepts to be a sincere Christian.

He also claims, "the significance of Dutt's life as the first Bengali humanist, has, however, passed almost unnoticed."  Madhusudan's blighted life concerning Bengali literature is a shadow history of Indian humanism which cast down the culture of Bengal. Again, he mentions Bankim Chandra Chatterji who also had a difficult role to enlighten Bengali literature and Hindu nationalism but, he never disowns English influence on modern India. 

In1936, he got a temporary job at Calcutta Municipal Corporation but lost immediately after observing serious corruption and nepotism inside the administration that causes him anticipating India's past and ensuing history. His economic disability became endurable when he took a part-time job as a literary assistant to the Sheriff of Calcutta and a private secretary to the Bengal Congress leader Sarat Chandra Bose. This had given him an opportunity to look into the greenroom behind the lighted stage. All these incidents subsequently compelled him leaving Kolkata to Delhi.

Chaudhuri turned away in horror as both Hindu and Muslim began to wage ferocious riots after partisan in 1947. He observed so many massacres from both the sides that only remind him the ugly fruits of so-called independence. The untold misery and unbound sufferings to the independent nation make him serious gloomy as nothing was running squarely. New India after independence lost its fervent love to the nation because of its imprudent leadership. He compared Jawaharlal Nehru, first primer of India, with little Dauphin Louis XVI of France who became tyrant like his father brings unbearable misdeed for his countrymen.

At the same time, on a midsummer night, Nirad Chaudhuri decided to write down the history of India happened before his eyes in the form of autobiography. But, he halted to proceed to do as autobiography is always written by famous people in history as he was supposed to be unknown to his province. 

However, finally, he accomplished the task bravely in short time in spite of refusal and reluctance in publishing by Hamilton and Faber and Faber-two famous publishers-- because of its big volume and its content too. It is thought to be a simple and insignificant as other Indians do hence the publishers could hardly understand the importance of Indian history as Mr. Chaudhuri intended to explain. Macmillan a famous British publisher at last comes to take the responsibility. The result was very expected - unusual repercussion comes from both the points-east and west.

He began to be reprimanded by some Indians including All India Radio (AIR) as a result he was sacked immediately after its publication without any gratuity and benefits. This causes him an extreme despair for his future professional and family life. Meanwhile, French Ambassador in India extends hand to rescue him and offered editorship of English bulletin published from the embassy. In 1955, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) made their choice to offer sponsored tour to England with a view to give a series of talk on that country.

He accepted the offer and became excited to pay his maiden visit to his dreamlands - England and French. He was more than a European and very familiar to the geographical locations both in England and French in spite of not having a physical experience to those lands. This happens for his enormity of knowledge acquired through reading of the books only. Surprisingly, he made the direction to the taxi driver who had never been there. Meanwhile, he writes A Passage to England after his tour to England that contains a wonderful testament his anglophile character. 

Nirad had never been there before the age of fifty-seven and a sudden opportunity came after 1955 to pay an 8-week visit in England, France and Italy. It was exciting and rather dreamy for all purposes as he explains, "I that short space of time I saw more paintings, statues, and works of art in general, more plays, fine buildings, garden and beautiful landscapes, heard more poetry and music, ate and drank better, and altogether had a more exciting and interesting time than in all the rest of time."   Before going to express his commentary under a jacket, he writes his experiences in Indian press in advance at full length. Accordingly, he was throttled again by the countrymen and reproached with foul words.

A Passage to England is of course a fair description of European life and pride and also how does it take a different shape in contrast to Eastern mode of life. To understand a certain difference between east and west he says, "It would seem that climate and weather have shaped different modes of exercising individual liberty in the east and the west. Living in the tropics we like to relax, lose control of our appearance and behavior, and thus create differences through our failure to keep to the track.

The people of the west braced up by the cold to exercise greater will-power in casting themselves in a uniform mould."  The basic difference, he observed, between the nations is English people are very uniform in nature, in shape and manner and also have 'a middle-class pattern of behavior' unlike India. Indian people on the other hand are mostly divided into two kinds; ordinary people speak their own dialects, behave in their own way without sophistication and aristocratic Hindu and Muslim follow the standard form of Indian languages and wear the clean dress. This distinction had been compared with a ship having a white superstructure with black hull but English life has no hull only but a superstructure. The people "seemed to be all superstructure, all saloon, upper-deck and bridge."  

Nirad Chaudhuri's iconoclastic approach to the Indian history provokes some key-issues of traditional belief preserved in Indian mind. This is fairly described in his famous book The Continent of Circe that brings him a wonderful appreciation from Duff Cupper Memorial committee. The Circe is written on the basis of his historical analysis about socio-psychological mind of Indian. Indian history which was attempted to trace out partially in his Autobiography was something half-done at the concluding chapter but this was described in full length in Circe. Indian long historical process had been narrated with critical analysis by many scholars in both India and outside. But, Nirad is quite different to that of historians living inside the homeland. He describes human situation in India.
(To be continued)


The writer is Professor and Chairman of Department of Philosophy,  Jagannath University, Dhaka