& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

essay

Some Aspects of Nationalism of the Bengalis

By Serajul Islam Choudhury
IT IS TEMPTING TO COMPARE THE nationalism of the Bengalis with the mother's struggle against the father. The father represents the state, the mother society. Between and within the two are, of course, different shades and attributes. The metaphorical father is an outsider, the mother a native. The Bengalis are a mixed race, but prepon derately they are local, receiving elements and influences from outside which came in the not-too-well definable shape of the father. The father has succeeded in gaining control over the mind erf" a section of the people, but has failed to win the love of many. The locals are Indigenous, they existed before the state as an institution emerged, and they were denied the right to govern their country. But they refused to give in, and wanted to be a nation, desiring power and authority. That has been the mother's struggle. •
But like other metaphors, the one of the mother's struggle representing the Bengalis' struggle for nationalism cannot be stretched too far. Indeed it Is flawed at the very basis. For whereas nationalism is essentially local and primarily political, the mother's struggle tends to be non-temporal and non-pollt-ical. Patently, mother-celebration in Bengal has been a defiance of the occupying powers of the state; but it has also been, at the same time, a way to escape from the arena of political control to that of social freedom, giving the whole exercise the character of a politically-motivated non-political action.
But an even greater inadequacy of the metaphor lies in the upsetting fact that the father has not always been identified as the enemy. In fact, the state as the lather, not unlike the one in the family, has often been seen as the provider and the protector. For he was perceived to be capable of giving the people what they lacked in terms of power and honour and could. simoUs-
neously, be expected to protect against the very perils that he himself has created. As a method of procuring power and honour flattery has been felt to be even more efficacious and much less painful than revolt. And it was also known that despite her kindness what the mother could offer was nothing more than shelter. A part of this hypo-statlzation of the father couRT be traced back to the culture of Bengal In which there is the urge to surrender and pray to an almighty who Is a man as distinguished from a woman. The acceptance of the father as the provider and protector extends, within the family, to the mother herself even when there is no love lost between the two. The truth in the family cannot be prevented from entering the field of politics.
In the political struggle against the monstrous authority of the state it is essential to have a leader, who, quite easily, takes on the role of a father. When Rabindranath Tagore said, "Our first duty should be to decide, by whatever means we can, upon a man, subject ourselves to him, and slowly and gradually build up a system, around him" he was voicing a sentiment not untypical of the Bengali middle-class in colonial India. The leader as well as a social system was desired. The East In-
>dia Company, at its early stage of occupancy, was seen by many as the father. And later, as the nationalist movement gained In strength, there has been the turning to the father-figure of Suren-dranath, Gandhi, Jinnah and, for the East Bengalis, Sheikh Mujlb.
Behind all these lay a cruel necessity bred In helplessness. The helplessness that made the people develop nationalistic feeHngs and conin’iftmrrrt' also
obliged a section of them to turn to the state power for provision and protection. The protection varied as the nationalist movement progressed.
That the father is given a greater degree of importance is also symptomatic of the running truth of gender-discrimination, which has been one of the potent enemies of nationalism. The nationalistic movement was weakened by Its failure to draw women in.
And one of the many ironies in the movements was that the very celebration of the mother as a figure of worship was perceived as idolatrous, and therefore unacceptable, by the Muslims. Instead of uniting, it added to the divisive pull. It is very much a matter of history that the nationalist war cry of Bande Matarom (Hail to the Mother) which the British found infuriating was also Instrumental In driving the wedge of separation between the Hindus and the Muslims still deeper. And ultimately it was this communal separation which was responsible, more than anything else, for preventing nationalism of the Bengalis from becoming comprehensive of the entire people.
To turn to yet another side of the comparison. The insulted mother was not without a quiet revenge wreaked, not on the guilty father, but on the very progeny she loved and fostered, making them withdraw still further within the shell of conservatism and exclusiveness, qualities which by their very nature are counterproductive of nationalism. Thus for many the caste, the village, the home and even the kitchen became the world.
The basic fact of the matter Is that nationalism of the entire people is different from that of a section, and has Jo
be driven forward by a spirit more than that of the mother's struggle against the lather.
| | ISTO RIC ALLY BENGAL HAS NEVER been one. Apart from the
I I cleavages of community, class and gender there has been the geographical separation as well. At one time there was as many as six Bengals. But ultimately two divisions emerged — Gaur and Bengal, corresponding roughly to East Bengal and West Bengal. The process of nation-building has been hindered, among other factors, by disparity between the two Bengals. East Bengal has been poorer and more populous. It was startlingly revealed In 1872 that the majority of the Bengal population were Muslims, and that most of them lived in East Bengal. The middle class, the most important element in the effort to weld the nation into a whole, was overwhelmingly Hindu; but population-wise the Hindus were the minority. The problem of relationship between a minority which was powerful and a majority which wanted power led to conflicts, resulting, ultimately. In the partition of Bengal — an event regretted by all Bengali nationalists but accepted by most as the only possible solution in the menacing circumstances prevailing at the time of its happening.
The foundation of the nationalism of the Bengalis has lain in the mother tongue. This is, of course, true of many other nationalisms as well. The Aryans and the Dravidians were linguistically identified, so are the Arabs, today. Right In 1948. after Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the father' of the putative Pakistani nationalism. had declared that Urdu alone shall be the state language of Pakistan. Mohammad Shahldullah had said:
cor crj
ansn । 4ft
। w annwi
* W *
fan vrsn?
cwffi Pi? I
(That we are Bengalis is even more true than the truth that we are Hindus or Muslims. This is not an expectation, it is a fact. With her own hands, mother nature has put such an imprint of Ben-gallsm on our appearance which It is Impossible for either beads-headmark-halrknots or caps-clothes-beards to cover it up.]
That Is how the Bengalis should have seen themselves, but were unable to, because of the Interference of communalism. which had elements of class interest inside and was manipulated by the state. These three — class, communalism and the state — have been persistent enemies of Bengali nationalisms; the fourth enemy being gender-discrimination.
Nationalism has often been viewed with suspicion and rightly so. In its aggressive form nationalism has done much mischief. Writing In 1917, years before the rise of Fascism as a political ideology, Rabindranath Tagore had called nationalism a predatory evil. He saw nothing mother-like in nationalism. Nations, moreover, are usually divided. Nor did Lenin mince words in noting that, "In every modem nation, there are two nations. In every national culture there are two cultures." The Marxist proposition that the workers have no country of their own is not untrue, either. Nevertheless, that the workers need a place to settle their account with the local bourgeoisie is also true. And that place is the nation. There is a progressive, indeed democratic, nationalism which struggles against aggressive nationalism and seeks to give the individual a home address, an identity, a place to fight imperialism within and without, and also a unity to bring out his creative potentials, ft tries to create a nationhood, as Annada Banker Roy > h^s put it succinctly, "through a strug-
gle, for the sake of a struggle." This nationalism has a socialist content, for It considers the entire people as a nation. In a colonial context a nationalist movement can be part of a larger national struggle for liberation, moving toward the emancipation of the masses. That is precisely how the nationalist movement in Bengal should have developed itself. That it has failed to do so is a measure of the failure of the socialists, and of the success of the vested interests — both local and foreign.
Even the bitterest critics of nationalism, Rudolf Recker for example, admit that language is the true homeland of a people. Rocker argues that "In nothing else does the national character, the imprint of the mental and spiritual powers of a people, express Itself as clearly as In language." and that "of all the evidences which have been cited for the existence of a national Ideology, community of a language is by far the most important." With Rocker's view most Bengalis will readily agree; for them “community of language" has been a fond objective. Unfortunately, this objective has been, and still is, difficult to achieve, because of class and communal differences. The nationalism Rabindranath hated was aggressive. The poet, however, was a very strong believer in the national identity of the Bengalis. He wrote, ct pi icw wi
wn «nfai wnwera utt
wi faCTcit-i, fax wfS wtom
(That we have been called Bengalis over such a long period is because we speak Bengali. The rulers have joined parts and border areas of Bengal with other provinces, but they have, beyond the government offices, failed to scissor the language.) fb be contSusat
„About the writer: Serajul Islam Choudhury is Professor of English at Dhaka Untversltut.\iwy) V' Z.'riv. ririm