INDIA TOLERANT

India has always been and will always be a land of diversity and harmony. A strange unanimity is firmly embedded in the ethos itself. The culmination of multifarious colours, the variants of our customs, the differences in our food, the disparate choices of our attires, the wide ranging and often grossly dissimilar customs may bedazzle the alien onlooker but it does give rise to the unique phenomena of Indianness. Having said this, we must admit that our history is tainted with blood and sorrow. We have endured wrath on pretexts of every artificial distinction we could have possibly conceived. The country has been a painfully silent witness to many evils inflicted on its hapless countrymen. Remember Edgar Poe? - While I weep, While I weep. 

First it was the gruesome British Raj, arguably for the major part, if not in entirety. The Imperialism ended with the final sting of amputation of the country drawing fences and the task of breeding perpetual hatred and animosity across the newly formed “Independent” clans ensued henceforth. This vicious “Divide and Rule” policy have also crept deep in our psyche as a fatal parasite. It goes without saying that religion is the most threatening excuse of mass killing or propagating widespread hatred. This parasite transforms into an adder and spits venom quite often and we have endured numerous communal clashes. 

Muzzafarnagar, Bhagalpur, Gujarat, Graham Staines incident, Dadri lynching or the exodus of the Kashmiri Pundits have been some of the wounds which we have have swallowed. But these fringe incidents do not shape up the nation as a whole. India is the birthplace of nearly half the World’s major religions. But in today’s India where nearly eighty percent of the population are Hindus, there is a rousing propaganda that it is gradually turning unsafe for the Non-Hindu populace. This myth stands substantiated to a certain extent owing to the action of certain raving fanatics like Rajeshwar Singh of the Dharm Jagran Samiti who initiates “Ghar-Wapsi”(Returning Back Home) Programmes and swears audaciously to ‘cleanse’ India of Muslims and Christians by 2021. There are others too who are a part of the bandwagon. Mohan Bhagwat, The RSS Chief, stated that “Mother Teresa’s service would have been good. But it used to have one objective, to convert the person who was being served , into a Christian”.Kailash Vijayvargiya of BJP and Sadhvi Prachi of the Sangh Parivar labeled movie star Shahrukh Khan as a traitor and forbade Hindus to watch the movies of the Khans. The star had apparently ruffled a few feathers when he said in a TV interview on his 50th birthday that he was perturbed by the growing intolerance in the country. 

I am a Hindu Brahmin by birth but the way in which I was reared did not make me a devout Hindu by nature. I am neither a believer nor an atheist despite possessing a keen interests in the epics and other religious books and Scriptures. For the need of the hour, let me reassert my Hindu identity and try to observe everything with a clear vision and a sharper analytic prowess. It’s quite an irony that religion was formed to express solidarity among humans. Instead of acting as a solidifying factor or a unifying spirit, religion has acted as a catalyst accentuating rage, untold misery and utter destruction. The question is, is Hinduism gradually morphing into the effusing toxic now? Let’s no be enraged. Let’s not feel happy either.  Let’s not be idle. Let us introspect.

India is a secular country. Yes “Secular”, the second most used term after the word “Democracy” in the context of our constitution. But why  Secular? What does secular mean? Dictionary describes it as “not connected with religious or spiritual matters”. That clearly looks like a synonym for atheist. The Constitution of India in 1950 or in 1976 when it was made a part of the preamble never really defined or explained secularism. But going by the “Doctrine of Harmonious Construction’, it can be inferred that the Secular State means the one that protects all religions equally and does not uphold any religion as the state religion. Secularism clearly eliminates God from the matters of the state. Although the Indian Constitution has been an admixture in terms of influence of England and Irish constitutions, unlike in England, where the Queen is the Head of the Protestant Church, in India there is no provision to make any religion the ‘established one’. Now why do you think that we Indians have been so liberal? This is because Hindus are innately liberal. Of the World’s major religions, Hinduism is the only one without a Prophet or a guarding or guiding figure. No one really founded Hinduism - unlike Christ, Mohammad, Zoroaster, Abraham, Confucius, Mahavira, Buddha and Guru Nanak.

Hinduism or Sanatan Dharma has a history of organic revolution. The Vedas (circa 1800 B.C) predate the second oldest religious text, Judaism’s Torah (circa 1300 B.C) by several hundred years. It is the World’s oldest organized religious philosophy. It was followed by Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and then in quick intervals by Jainism, Buddhism, Confucianism and Christianity. Islam and Sikhism are relatively new religions. All these 9 religions or faiths germinated in Asia - four were born in South Asia (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism), four in West Asia (Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Christianity and Islam) and one in North Asia (Confucianism). 

Every religion has an Asian origin although Christianity blossomed initially mostly in Europe through Rome. Jesus Christ was a brown-skinned, dark haired Semitic Jew born in Bethlehem. His ancestry was Middle Eastern. However the Western World was rather keen to portray him as Caucasian with European features and fair hair. The debate still goes on.

India has always been an abode for intermingling of various religions. The first Jews arrived in India in 542 B.C and comprise of one of the World’s oldest Jewish communities which exists till date. India unlike Europe has never evidenced an Anti-Semitic Jewish massacre. Christianity came to India through St. Thomas in Kerela in 52 A.D, before it had knocked the doors of Europe. The massive departure of Zoroastrians in Persia (modern day Iran) owing to vehement Islamic persecutions entailed a massive refuge in Gujarat in 720 A.D leading to the formation of one of the most culturally gifted communities of modern day India, the Parsis.

The evolution of Islam in India has a different backdrop. Europe was tormented with wars and the Islamic armies were involved in Crusades with Christian fighters. The Islamic forces reached the gates of Vienna before gulping a defeat in 1529. It then narrowed its focus on India. The Mughals who were the first to invade were in fact Chagtai Turkish Warlords from Central Asia. Unlike the Jews, Christians or the Zoroastrians, they came to India for conquering it, not to seek shelter.

The last invaders were the Britishers. This lot was cunning.Unlike the Islamic invaders, their motive was not to expand the religious fraternity but to exploit India financially. They had the bitter experience of losing the American empire in 1776 and a land of diverse resources like India gave them the perfect substitute. Disguised initially as businessmen,the East India Company gradually took control of the land of the sub-continent officially by emerging victorious in the Battle of Plassey in 1757. They were scheming enough to deduce that forced conversions would only dilute their motives of making money, usurp Indian raw materials to fuel the Industrial revival back in England and expand the Empire through guns and warships. No doubt, India became the prime colony for the Britishers. 

Britain, a protestant nation, rarely carried out the task of converting Indians during its 190 years regime. Although, enactments like the Dalhousie Act prompted such intentions but mostly these were passive. This is why one would not find many protestant Christians in India. The bulk of Indian Christians are Catholics converted by the Portugese, Irish and the Spanish Jesuits who both preceded and followed the British into India (Goa, Puducherry, the Deccan and elsewhere).

Islam was different in their modus-operandi of conversions too. The Mughals converted Hindus in mostly three ways; by luring them to occupy a pivotal post in the administration, by imposing Jizya Tax on Hindus alone and in certain cases for the low caste Hindus, the Islamic religion appeared more egalitarian than the dehumanizing caste system of  Hinduism.

The historical backdrop is necessary to comprehend the modern day situations of these distinctive religious groups in India. If we take a look at some of the Countries of the World, the image would be further clear. Pakistan’s minority population (Hindus, Christians and others) have drastically declined over the last few decades and is almost on the verge of extinction, Bangladesh although a bit slow is catching up with Pakistan is following the same route. In the Middle-East, minorities (including Hindus) do not enjoy a lot of the basic civil rights. In Europe , Muslims live under strict diktats (no Hijab in France and Belgium, No minarets in Mosques in Switzerland). In the US, there have been incidents where cartoons and caricatures of Prophet Mohammad have been drawn in defiance of Islam’s tenets. Copies of the Holy Quran have been burnt during street rallies in Washington D.C. 

India is truly an exception in this regard. The share of Hindus in India’s total population has shown a marginal decline between 2001 and 2011, while that of Muslims has increased slightly in the same period, according to census data on the country’s religious profile released by the government on August, 25 2015. The percentage of the other religious groups have not increased much but they have not declined either. 

Hindus now make up 79.8% of India, a slight decline of 0.7 percentage points, while Muslims, the largest minority, make up 14.2% of the country, up by 0.8 percentage points. India has more than 3 Lakhs active mosques, which is probably more than any country including those of the Muslim countries.Historically, Hindus and Christians have lived in relative peace since the arrival of Christianity in India from the early part of the first millennium. In areas where Christianity existed in pre-European times like Kerala, land to build churches were often donated by Hindu kings and Hindu landlords. Apart from marginal incidents like the arson of 19 churches in Kandhamal districts in Odisha in 2007 or the the murder of the Hindu Monk, Swami Lakshmananada in 2007 which flared tensions across both the communities in certain parts, there is an overall amity. 

India is a land of festivals and here festivals of all religions are celebrated with all bask and glory. My own city, Kolkata gets exuberant during the onset of Durga Puja, Ramdan is celebrated with huge pump and galore and the city rejoices triumphantly during Christmas. Here in India, one may perform his or her religious rituals freely, a freedom denied to the minority in various parts of the World. 

Onam, the State Festival of Kerala, is essentially a festival of harvest and is celebrated by all the religious groups shunning their individual prejudices and differences. This assimilation of all cultures and religions does symbolize India and for that the majority group i.e; the Hindus have to be given credit. Islam never teaches violence. Had it been so, the entire 2.08 billion Muslim population of the World would have butchered the rest. Likewise had the group who constitute 80% of the population of this country been radicals, religious harmony would have never existed. 

Instead there is a strange connect with nature which fumes sparks of tolerance. As Ruskin Bond puts it ““Hinduism comes closest to being a nature religion. Rivers, rocks, trees, plants, animals, and birds all play their part, both in mythology and everyday worship. This harmony is most evident in remote places like this, and I hope it does not loose its unique character in the ruthless urban advance.”

  

   JAI HIND.

THE “LONG” INDIGO REBELLION

How it would have been if roads and other landmarks like stations had voices? The state heaps a name to a particular road or any other site and the thought process and rationale involved behind such nomenclature often turns out inexplicable. I still look at some of the important landmarks of the city of Kolkata and ponder why is it named so? What connection has the Kudghat metro station with Netaji Subha Chandra Bose? Why is the sports academy in Behala named after Satyajit Ray? Previously there was a trend to obliterate all the anglicized names and to rename the places or sites after the Indian heroes. Octherlony monument was named Sahid Minar, Dalhousie became B.B.D Bag, Russell Street became Anandilal Poddar Sarani, Amherst street became Raja Rammohan Sarani, Albert Road became Uttam Kumar Sarani and many more. I live in a place called Behala which is quite often in the news either on account of pitiable conditions of the roads and water logging problems or on account of its most famous inhabitant - Sourav Ganguly. Behala actually includes the extended area of Thakurpukur (although the latter is in the jurisdiction of a separate police station) and the main road which runs through the entire domain is coined Diamond Harbour Road. The entire DH Road connects Khiderpore to Diamond Harbour, which is in the Southern suburbs of Kolkata, on the eastern banks of the Hooghly river where the river meets the Bay of Bengal.

But apart from this road, there is a by-pass or a thoroughfare running through Thakurpukur up to Taratala named James Long Sarani. On a lazy evening when I was taking a stroll on this thoroughfare puffing the smoke, a thought flickered in my mind that why did such a name which bears a strong Anglican scent escaped unscathed from the hands of the reformists?My school is on this very road. So many times I have used this address while writing, directing someone but never did it previously occur to me that who is this person who has lend the name. I grew inquisitive and did a bit of a research to find out.

                                     A part of James Long Sarani with my school in the background

There is also a statue of this person - Reverend James Long, placed in one of the corners of the road. A bearded priest like look, typical to many Englishmen in the Victorian era. I studied and found out that he was an Irish by birth (Ireland was a part of UK then), having born in Bandon, County Cork in 1814. At the age of 12 he was enrolled at the then newly opened Bandon Endowed School by his parents. Long was a child prodigy who took a keen interest in Theology and Classics from a tender age. He learnt Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French along with English languages in school. He fared well in a variety of subjects ; Euclid, Algebra, Logic, Arithmetic, Book-Keeping, Reading, Writing, History and Geography.

                                            Bust of James Long on the road named after him 

CALCUTTA

From 1840 to 1848, the bachelor Long taught at the CMS mission school in Amherst Street. Returning to India as a married man in 1848, he was placed in the charge of the CMS mission in Thakurpukur which at that time was a hamlet, a day’s journey out of Calcutta in the Bengal Presidency. Apart from his identity as an Anglo-Irish Priest of the Church, Long became a humanist, educator, evangelist, essayist, philanthropist and a missionary. By 1851, he had set up a vernacular school for boys in Thakurpukur, while his wife Emily ran a corresponding school for girls. In a letter to F.J Haliday, the registrar of Council of Education, he boasted a roll-call of around 100 boys which included Hindus, Mohammedans and Christians. Long did learn Bengali and wrote a book titled “Bengali Proverbs” which was a sort of an extensive catalogue of Bengali proverbs, dialects and idioms and is considered to be one of the significant additions to Bengali literature. He studied Bengali and folk literature for another two decades , publishing a catalogue of Bengali newspapers and periodicals from 1818 to 1855. He also created a “Descriptive catalogue of vernacular books and pamphlets” forwarded by the Government of India to the Paris expo of 1867.

INDIGO IN INDIA

Indigo is a rich blue coloured dye which is used to colour cotton-yarn. Dye-Indigo is obtained from a genus of flowering plants named Indigofera belonging to the family Febaceae. Two varieties of this plantae namely Indigofera Tinctoria and Indigofera Suffruticosa is used to produce this dye. These varieties mostly in the nature of shrubs thrive well in the tropical regions. Italy, France and England were its major purchasers then. India was a haven to this cultivation especially on account of three conditions - tropical climate, fertile land and access to water bodies. Bengal in particular became the ideal location. India supplied around 30% of the world’s total dye-indigo produce in the early 18th century. But the price of the Indian indigo was high entailing the western world to use an inferior substitute called Woad. However the cloth dyers preferred indigo and there was a huge demand in the European markets for this dye-indigo. The industrious Britishers saw a glimmering prospect.

INDIGO PLANTING IN BENGAL 

Indigo planting in Bengal dated back as early as 1777. Louis Bonard was probably the first Indigo planter. With the expansion of British power in India, particularly in the Nawabate of Bengal coupled with the increasing demand of dye indigo, Indigo planting increased in leaps and bounds. The planting was carried under NIJ or RYOTI system both of which had its inherent set of disadvantages. The main problem was indigo plantation prospered in those areas where rice grows best and indigo takes a toll on the soil by causing significant top-soil erosion. On account of the fear of being bequeathed with an exhausted agricultural land,the farmers expressed their unwillingness to cultivate Indigo. However the British planters left no stones unturned to make money out of this profitable avenue. They mercilessly forced the peasants to plant indigo instead of food crops. They also provided loans which were in the nature of cash advances to cultivate the crops. The loans, called Dadon, bore a very high rate of interest and once a farmer took such a loan, he fell in a pit of perpetual debt throughout his life before passing it to his successors. The reward they got from the planters was meager grossing around 2.5 % on an average on the market price. The farmers suffered terrible losses growing Indigo. The farmers were totally unprotected from the clutches of the ruthless and greedy planters. With the law backing them up, the planters resorted to evil practices like mortgage or destruction of peasant’s property if the latter disobeyed them or failed to repay Dadon. Even the Zamindars, money lenders and other influential persons sided with the planters. India’s contribution to world’s indigo produce rose from 30% to 95%. There was a bit of a support from the Bengali middle class intelligentsia for the hapless farmers from the likes of Harish Chandra Mukhopadhyay who described the plight of the poor peasants in his column in the Hindu Patriot regularly.

                                               A sketch of an Indigo factory in Bengal

THE REVOLT

The upsurge started from Nadia in 1859 where Bishnu Charan Biswas and Digambar Biswas first led the rebellion against the planters. It spread like a forest fire in Murshidabad, Birbhum, Burdwan, Pabna, Khulna, Narail etc. Some indigo planters were given a public trial and executed. A large number of indigo depots were burned down by the agitators. Many planters fled to avoid being caught. The Zamindars were also the targets of the rebellious peasants. The revolt was however dealt with an iron fist. The police and the military literally butchered a number of revolting peasants, imprisoned a number of those who were involved in stirring the mutiny without trial and the insurgency was suppressed. In spite of the curbing of the revolt, the upheaval became popular in the whole of Bengal and beyond. The Biswas brothers of Nadia, Kader Molla of Pabna, Rafique Mondal of Malda were popular leaders. Some of the Zamindars too supported the movement, the most important of whom was Ramratan Mullick of Narail.

NIL DARPAN (THE INDIGO PLANTATION MIRROR)

                                                                Dinabandhu Mitra

A postal department employee by designation and a writer by choice named Dinabandhu Mitra wrote a play and got it published in Dhaka in 1859. The play titled “Nil Darpan” depicted the sad plight of the Indigo farmers and their consequential protest against the British Raj on account of such exploitative farming.

They play caused an immense stir in the social circles. Mitra himself wrote later 

“I PRESENT The Indigo Planting Mirror to the Indigo planter’s hands, now, let everyone of them having observed his face, erase the freckle of the stain of selfishness from his forehead, and, in its stead, place on it the sandal powder of beneficence, then shall I think my labour success”.

It was evident from this wish that it was a piece meant to raise a voice among the elite intellectuals of Kolkata so that the farmers revolt can be integrated with the urban minds.

AND THEN CAME LONG

James Long believed that the British mercantile community and even the Government treated the cultivators unjustly and oppressively. His views concurred with Mitra and Mitra sent him a copy of the play. Long brought it to the notice of W.S Seaton - Karr, Secretary to The Governor of Bengal and former President of the Indigo Commission. Karr having sensed its importance discussed the issue with the Lieutenant Governor,Grant.Grant demanded a translation of it and wished to see the translated copies being circulated in closed circles. Long first decided to translate it himself but upon a friend’s advice took help from the famous poet Michael Madhusudhan Dutt.

                                                        

                                                           Michael Madhusudhan Dutt 

Dutt did it overnight. Long supervised the whole night and for the next three days acted as the editor striking off some of the coarse passages and writing a short prefatory note for the play. Seaton Karr ordered printing of 500 copies to suffice Grant’s wish for a few copies. Then Long sent the translated manuscripts to Clement Henry Manuel, the proprietor of the Calcutta Printing and Publishing Press. It was finally published in May, 1861.

                                                 The translated Nil Darpan - The Indigo Planting Mirror

Unknown to Lieutenant Governor Grant, Long began to sent the copies in official government envelopes that had the heading “On Her Majesty’s Service”. The translation revealed the savagery committed on the poor indigo peasants and cited the agricultural hazards this mode of cultivation created. This attracted much attention in England where the people were shocked by the vile treatment meted out to Indian farmers by their own countrymen. The response was tumultuous in England and across the entire Europe. Even the British Parliament condemned such oppression.

LONG’S LEGAL STRUGGLE

This act of revelation naturally enraged the oppressors and they pounced on Long like an injured beast. A razing propaganda was initiated by the Anglo-Indian press against the publisher and the translator. One of the leading newspapers named The Englishmen and some Indigo planters filed a libel lawsuit against Long and the publisher C.H Manuel. The technical weapon for the plaintiffs was Long’s robust disclaimer at the beginning of the play that the incidents mentioned in the literary piece was “plain but true”. Long boldly took the prosecution charges on himself by declaring that Manuel acted on Long’s advice and he is the one responsible for the publication thereby relieving the publisher of the defamation charges.

The planters filed for only nominal damages even as they had decided to prosecute Long for libel in a criminal suit.

Friday, 19 July, 1861 was fixed as the first date for the trial and it lasted from then to 24 July, at the Calcutta Supreme Court. It was regarded as the first of the "state trial of India under the Empire". Mr. Peterson and Mr. Cowie were prosecuted. Mr. Eglinton and Mr. Newmarch appeared on behalf of the defendant. Sir Mordunt Wells presided as the Judge.

It is true that it becomes difficult to censor any literary work when it becomes so available in the public domain. That is why it became very urgent to find out the list of people who had the books after its printing. The issue of finding out the list was the concern for the first day of trial on 19 July, 1861. The list given in at the trial contained the number of copies that had been issued was said to be two hundred and two.

The agenda for the days of 20 to 24 July was to substantiate the two counts brought against James Long. The first count referred to a libel or the supposed libel against the two leading newspapers named the Englishman and Hurkaru published from the city of Kolkata. These two papers were alluded to in the preface of the play, Nil Durpan:

“The Editors of two daily newspapers are filling their columns with your praises; and whatever other people may think, you never enjoy pleasure from it, since you know fully the reason of their so doing. What surprising power of attraction silver has! The detestable Judas gave the great preacher of the Christian religion, Jesus and others, into the hands of Odious Pilate for the sake of thirty rupees; what wonder then, if the proprietors of two newspapers, becoming enslaved by the hope of gaining one thousand rupees, throw the poor helpless of this land into the terrible grasp of your mouths.”

Being enraged, Mr. Brett, the managing proprietor and formerly joint editor of the Englishman, brought a criminal prosecution against James Long. He claimed that the implied meanings of the allusions were defamatory because the extract symbolizes, they wrote for monetary gains from the indigo planters and not otherwise. Even the numismatic reference to rupee was a severe taunt.

The second count which concerned the interests of the society at large was the alleged libel against that portion of the community called as the indigo planters of Lower Bengal.

Sir Mordunt Wells accused Long of slandering the European women in the Nil Durpan the question of shame was brought up through the episode of a woman riding on horseback with Magistrate of Zillah through the village as well as injuring the reputation of every European in the country by calling Planter or Civilian or Soldier.The fictitious characters named Mr. Wood and Mr. Rose in the play represent the indigo planters. This also became a reason for prosecuting Long.

The case was concluded and Wells pronounced the judgement on the final day - 24th July, 1861. Long was declared guilty of libel and was slammed with a dual punishment of 1 month’s imprisonment and a fine of Rs 1,000. An Englishman was accused for espousing a cause against his own government. The judgement was not well received and there were glowing protests all around. The most significant was the one which took place on that very day in the court-room. A young boy hailing from the aristocratic Singho family of Jorasanko of North Kolkata was attending the sessions regularly. The boy at the age of 14 founded the famous Vidyotsahini Sabha and later he became the famed translator of Mahabharata. The author of “Hutum Pyachar Naksha”, Kaliprassanna Sinha, who was only 19 at that time, threw a bag of coins in the judge’s table paying off Long’s fine and despising the partial judgement. Long served the jail sentence for a month but his incarceration further fuelled the revolution with added impunity.

                                                          Kaliprassanna Sinha 

SUCCESS

Long’s struggle created a furore in the Indian as well as British media. The British Government reconstituted the Indigo Commission which was supposed to oversee the state of affairs in respect of indigo cultivation in India. A technical committee was called for to investigate the veracity of the allegations. After a month’s enquiry, E.W.L Tower specifically mentioned in his report “not a chest of indigo reached England without being stained with human blood”. Evidently, the British Government banned Indigo export from India.

SIGNIFICANCE

The Indigo Revolution was a major triumph of the peasants to incite such emotion in European minds. It was an unprecedented instance of east and west solidarity amidst a terrible atmosphere of hostility. Unlike the Sepoy mutiny, “Nilbidroho” is effectively an uprising which integrated the whole population of Bengalis with no distance kept between the different layers of the society. The famous historian Jogesh Chandra Bagal describes the revolt as a non-violent revolution and cites this as the reason behind its success. R.C Majumder in “History of Bengal” clearly mentions it as the forerunner of the non-violent passive resistance later successfully adopted by Gandhi. Nil Darpan, the book, showed the World once again that the pen is mightier than the sword. It was also essential to the development of theatre in Bengal and influenced the iconic Girish Chandra Ghose, who in 1872, established The National Theatre in Kolkata where the first ever play commercially staged was Nil-Darpan.

AND LONG WENT ON

Long resumed his teaching work and got associated with Calcutta School Book Society, The Bethune Society, The Bengal Social Science Association and The Asiatic Society. He then left with Emily for England for 3 years. But Reverend came back to Calcutta. Mrs. Long died of amoebic dysentery while on a voyage back to England in February, 1867. After her death, Long shared a house in Kolkata with long time aide Reverend Krishna Mohun Banerjee. The house bore a witness to a lot of Indo-British soiree, something which was very rare in those days and Long earned a lot of ostracism for that in the European community for mingling intricately with the natives. He probably didn’t mind all that and the guest list generally included names of repute like Bishop Cotton and Keshab Chunder Sen among others.

In 1872, Reverend James Long retired from the Church Mission Society and left India forever. He lived for the rest of his life in London, where he continued to write and publish until his death on March, 23, 1887. An unceremonious retreat from a life which itself was a paradigm of nobility. The real life Atticus Finch rests in peace and a thoroughfare bears a silent witness in the midst of a ruffling commotion.   

THE CLOUD CAPPED STAR

Probably no other auteur in the history of cinema has garnered such a tremendous influence by churning out only eight movies and one script in his entire career span, which Ritwik Ghatak did. Having led a life which had witnessed the wrath of partition, in a state of penury supplemented by the habit of binge drinking; Ghatak remains a controversial, yet a pivotal figure in the history of the New-Wave of Indian cinema. Speaking about the 'New-Wave' or 'Alternate cinema', one cannot afford to give a miss to the famous trio of Satyajit-Ritwik-Mrinal, who pioneered the movement. Ray, without even a shade of doubt has been the most prolific and colossal figure and received immense accolades both in India and throughout the World. Mrinal Sen's artistic description of social reality and constant experimentation with parallel cinema made him an award winner in almost all the major film festivals; Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Moscow, Karlovy Vary, Montreal, Chicago and Cairo. Retrospectives of his films have been shown in almost all the major cities of the World. Ray, who has directed 36 films, including feature films, documentaries and shorts earned numerous awards, which comprised of 32 National Film Awards, a number of awards at International Film festivals and other ceremonies, a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award in 1992. The Government of India honored him with the Bharat Ratna in 1992, which is the highest civilian award granted by the Republic of India in any field of human endeavor.

I often wondered what made people to place Ghatak in the same row of these stalwarts. A man, who did not receive an Oscar, whose films with the lone exception of Meghe Dhaka Tara, failed miserably at the box-office, who was never a Jury in a prestigious film festival, is so much talked about till date. He was a cutthroat speaker, a perceived iconoclast of nihilism, had a profound alcoholic addiction, a conformist to communist ideologies. Did these attributes added feathers to his colorful public image, so much so that he became a topic of discussion, an issue of debate especially among the Bengali intelligentsia. Why has he always been a subject of comparison with his much-revered contemporaries, in particular with Ray?

I have once read in a novel (can't remember its name), life is a marathon race where each one of us is running with a flamed torch. It is not possible for us to reach the finish line. What we can do at the utmost is to ensure that the BURNING TORCH gets passed on to someone with fresh vigor and unexhausted vitality before we stop permanently. The true success does not lie in the wealth we accumulate, the laurels we procure. It is our capability to inspire generations in future that really counts.

WHAT WE CAN GIVE TO THIS WORLD THAT IS THE QUESTION.
Treading by this line of thought, let us take a glimpse of some of the accomplishments of the Maestro that can serve as BEACON LIGHTS for the ages to come and have already served many.

1. His first movie Nagarik (The Citizen) was completed in 1952 was released 24 years later, even after the demise of Ghatak. Nagarik was the first instance of an art film in Bengali Cinema. Renowned critics like Derek Malcolm, Safder Hasmi, Someswar Bhowmick and many others regarded it as the maiden attempt to explore the inner-essence of realistic situations in Indian cinema. Satyajit Ray himself opined that had Nagarik been released before Panther Panchali (Song of the Road), it would have been the initiation point or emergence of Indian Alternate Cinema.

2. Ajantrik (The Unmechanical), a comedy-drama film with science fiction themes, was one of the earliest Indian films to portray a relationship between a cab-driver Bimal and an inanimate object, his old modeled car, Jagaddal. The movie was considered for a special entry in the Venice Film Festival in 1959. Based on a short story by Subodh Ghosh, the movie deals with the themes of artificial civilization and fallacy of the changes rendering the society mechanized thereby yielding to internal inconsistencies within its multifarious strata. Georges Sadoul, the noted film critic remarked, "What does 'Ajantrik' mean? I don't know and I believe no one in the Venice Film Festival knew. I can't tell the whole story of the film... There was no subtitle for the film. But I saw the film spellbound till the very end". The protagonist Bimal (played by Kali Banerjee) was clearly an influence for the cynical cab driver Narasingh (played by Soumitra Chatterjee) in Satyajit Ray's Abhijan (1962), which in turn aided to create the character of Travis Bickle (played by Robert De Niro) in Martin Scorsese's epic movie Taxi Driver (1976).

3. Legendary French Director Francois Truffaut's most successful film in his home country, The 400 Blows, depicting the tale of a runaway kid was clearly inspired from Ghatak's masterpiece Bari Theke Paliye (The Runaway). The film, based on a short story by Shibram Chakroborty,depicted literary tools of metaphor, abstract symbolism with great elan. Ritwik handled issues of a child's visualization of Utopia and his ultimate realization, which resulted in a compromise to perfection. The film served as a reference point, which culminated, to the NEW-WAVE in cinematic history, The French-Wave.

4. Subornorekha (The Golden Thread), my favorite of all the gems he created, vividly described the stark reality of the aftermath of the Partition of Bengal. Ray's unique feature was his eye for detail, Mrinal's was the ability to stir a realistic situation to such an extent that the audience became an integral faction of plot development; Ghatak's specialty was BOLDNESS. Many Directors have displayed the aftermath of a political mishap in terms of sufferings inflicted, tortures tolerated and fragmentation of the society- Polanski in Pianist, Spielberg in Schindler's list have all portrayed such instances. Ritwik plied a distinct route. He canvassed the scenario with poignant pictures of human distress- not just the pangs of separation that caused so much hardship but also the long term effects on mind. Erin O Donnell rightly points out; the majority of Ghatak's films are narratives that focus on post-independence Bengali family and community, with a sustained critique of the emerging petit bourgeois in Bengal, specifically in the urban-environment of Kolkata. The story revolves around the tragic fate of a family separated and shattered owing to a turn of events following the event of partition. The Asian Film Magazine CINEMAYA ranked the movie starring Abhi Bhattacharya, Bijon Bhattacharya, Satindra Bhattacharya and Madhabi Mukherjee in key roles as the 11th greatest movie of all time.

5. Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud Capped Star), which many regard to be his Magnum Opus and his solitary successful commercial venture is a landmark in the history of Indian films. The story revolves around the struggle of a young woman named Neeta, who sweats her blood to provide for the basic amenities of her family. Her brother does not accept any sort of a responsibility to run the family and chases his aspirations to become a singer. Neeta carries the entire burden on her shoulders. Her family thrived on her income. However, what she got in turn was exploitation; everybody took advantage of her goodness. She was the embodiment of self-sacrifice who suffers immense personal losses. First she loses her fiancé, then her job and finally succumbs to chronic tuberculosis. Her brother is the only person who cares for her at the end. She expresses her deep-rooted agony, her screams "DADA AMI BACHTE CHAI"(Brother, I want to live) ends up in vain and provides the enormous sense of loss to the viewer. Meghe Dhaka Tara is strongly melodramatic in tone, especially in respect of pains heaped on the protagonist. There is also an ample use of surrealistic sound effects.

Regarding this Ritwik said, "Melodrama is a much criticized narrative form. But from that alone, the truly national film will emerge. I am not afraid of melodrama. Using it as a device is the birthright of an artiste".

In 2002, the movie was ranked #231 on the Sight and Sound Critic and Director's poll for all-time greatest films. In a confirmation of the popularity of Meghe Dhaka Tara, a recent survey by a leading Indian news group reported that the concluding line of the film "DADA AMI BACHTE CHAI" was the most well known line of any film.

6. TITAS EKTI NADIR NAAM (A River named Titash) Ghatak's only Bangladeshi movie, based on a novel of the same name, by Advaita Malla Burman, was one of the earliest films along with Ray's Kanchenjunga and Mrinal Sen's Calcutta 71 to resemble hyperlink cinema, featuring multiple characters in a set of interconnected stories. This was attained before Robert Altman could conceptualize Nashville (1975) in Hollywood. The movie TOPPED the list of ten best Bangladeshi films, as chosen in the audience and critics poll conducted by the British Film Institute.

7. Madhumati (1958) Produced and Directed by Bimal Roy, Madhumati was scripted by Ritwik Ghatak with dialogues by Rajinder Singh Bedi. The film, which included an ensemble, star-cast of Dilip Kumar, Vyjayanthimala, Pran, Johhny Walker with soulful music by Salil Chowdhury. Madhumati was the record-holder for the most awards received by a film at the Filmfare Awards (9) for 37 years until the release of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge, which won ten awards. Ghatak won his only Filmfare Award for the Best Story. What makes it really special is the fact that it was one of the earliest films to deal with reincarnation and had a gothic-noir element to it. The movie has been a source of inspiration for the American Film "The Reincarnation of Peter Proud" and Hindi movie "Karz". Many films Indian as well as foreign have captured similar themes in their plots; Chances Are, Sooryavanshi, Karan-Arjun, Om-Shanti-Om etc.

8. Jukti, Takko ar Gappo (Reason, Debate and a Story)- The Swan song of the maverick was his only movie to bag a National Award for Best Story. It is one of the rarer films to receive astounding critical success where the lead actor, scriptwriter and the director are one and the same person. The film is considered to be technically superior to other films of that era due to its camera work and is placed in the league of Jean Cocteau's Testament of Orpheus and the Nicholas Ray and Wim Wender's noted documentary film, lightning over water. In the movie Ghatak portrays his alter ego, Nilkantha Bagchi, a disillusioned intellectual who has drowned himself in the ills of alcoholism. The film deals with multiple themes. Nilkantha, having been deserted by his wife and child owing to his excessive drinking habits, wanders through the countryside and meets unusual folks along the way. He meets a young woman who is driven away from Bangladesh and seeks shelter in Kolkata, a schoolteacher who is in the lookout for a new job as his school is closed on account of political unrest, a group of naxalites whom he describes as misguided. The film does not preach or protest any political ideology in particular but paints the pitiful state of affairs on account of fading moral values, decant attitudes and exploitation all-around. In an interview, Ghatak mentioned "The Great Mother Image" exists in its duality in every aspect of our existence. This is what he has attempted to show through Neeta and Bangobala. Hence, Keno cheye acho go Ma mukhopane, era chahena tomare chahena re,apono ma ere nahi jane ( Why are looking at their face Mother? They don't want you, they don't even know you.)

Ghatak lived with a sharp intellect bent on breaking establishments, an inquiring mind and a very restless honesty. He always argued against the well-established premises. Ray and Mrinal openly conveyed their love for the cinematic medium. Ritwik gave a damn to it. In an interview he declared " After quitting the tax department job, I tried writing poetry but found myself singularly incapable of it. I shifted my interest to writing short stories and won a bit of fame. More than a hundred of them were published in "Desh", "Parichay", "Shonibarer chithi" and other leading magazines of Bengal.That was when I found that literature delves deep in the soul of man, but it works slowly. It takes a long time to grow roots inside. With typical adolescent impatience, I wanted to make an immediate impact, because I felt people should be roused immediately".

Yes... PEOPLE- that was the word. He wanted to reach out to his audience. He further added by saying, "I just want to convey whatever I feel about the reality around me and I want to shout. Cinema still seems to be the ideal medium for this because it can reach umpteen billions once the work is done. That is why I produced films- not for their own sake but for the sake of my people. They say that Television may soon take its place. It may reach out to millions more. Then I will kick the cinema over and turn to T.V".

He never believed in the production of tales depicting the clinically disinfected state of poverty, a tale where poetic justice is restored with a dramatic turn of events, a story where everything is unscathed and the background music rings "TA RA RA TAA TAA, TA RA RA TAA TAA, TA RA RA, TA TARARA". Barring Komolgandhar, all of his films have a doleful ending.

The enigma still remains why did an inborn genius like him completely destroyed himself? Why the real life Nilkantha did drank poison and embraced a ruin? Probably there are two possible explanations to this, which I have tried to explain to the best of my knowledge.

HIS VIEWS ON PARTITION

He could never accept the partition of India in 1947 that divided Bengal in two countries. The drudgery of people owing to the phenomenon of partition has been a recurrent theme in almost all his movies. To deprive someone of his land, to snatch away his nationality is to deny his very existence. It is the greatest crime of all. He could never live with the fact that such a heinous deed was carried out in the name of religion, ordained with the concept of Independence. It is like cutting the head off in order to remedy a headache. He once remarked,

"Being a Bengali from East Bengal, I have seen untold miseries inflicted on my people in the name of independence- which is fake and sham. I have reacted violently towards this and have tried to portray different aspects of this". While the films "Refugee"(1959) directed by Shantipriya Mukherjee or Rajen Tarafdar's "Palanka"(1976) have now faded into oblivion, Ritwik Ghatak is the only director whose films and worldview have become synonymous with partition. While depicting this cruel saga, Ghatak was not satisfied with a form that exalts the historical flow; but sought to turn history itself into an object of investigation. It is Nilkantha's dictum "Chinta korte sekho" (learn to think), what he tried to make the audience do. Was partition a ploy for the benefit of the nation or a platter for the power mongers? It is an issue, which he made us to think over and over again.

THE PEOPLE

His people meant everything for him. He stated his by quoting, "I do not believe in the label entertainment, nor do I accept sloganeering. I would like to deeply meditate on this universe, this World, International situation, my country and my own people. I would like to make films for them. I might have failed in today. But time and people alone have to decide". His livelihood in a state of abject poverty induced him to do a TVC for the Imperial Tobacco Company. The money helped him to complete his film "Subornorekha" after its producer left. Ghatak shot a film based on a novel by Shankar - Koto Ajanare. A day's shoot was left when the film got shelved. Many opine that Koto Ajanare could have made history in Indian Cinema, as the novel was a widely celebrated one. Despite all this, he continued making films. The people were his sole motivation. His films had a unique Indian feel to it. Unlike Mrinal Sen's dig at Victorian nitty-gritties, Ray's fascination towards Italian Neo-realism, Ghatak followed the Indian way, which was something his very own - Astute, Hard and full of melodrama. Although Ghatak credited Eisenstien and Bertolt Brecht for his dramatic display of scenes, yet they seemed to have been deep engrafted in the Indian psyche. It is when most of his works ran to empty theatres in Bengal, he sank deep into depression. He did not do films for money, for awards. Had he pursued such a path, he would not have left Mumbai after the phenomenal success of Madhumati. He left because he could not adapt himself to the market governed Mumbai film industry. He was lacking creative freedom there. He could not reach out his own people in his very own way. The audience was his God and the follower's prayers remained unanswered for the major part. It was this set back which gave place to dejection. His apparently scornful remark "My films did not flop. The audience flopped" is an outcome of the widespread rejection he received. It is quite astonishing to know that the filmmaker was a tea-totaller before turning 35. Once, he issued a notice against alcohol consumption for studio technicians during work hours. It is this man who surrendered himself to this vice out of misery, frustration and remorse out of a life that he considered WASTED.
The perfect tale of an unrewarded genius.

During his teaching stint at the FTII, Pune he has been a mentor to personalities like Mani Kaul, John Abraham, Kumar Sahani, Saeed Akhtar Mirza and the legendary Adoor Gopalakrishnan. He also made two short films with the students in Pune - Rendezvous and Fear.

John Abraham, known as one of the first eminences of the Alternate Malayalam Cinema, was one who followed Ghatak to the hilt, from his nihilism to his drunken ways. This is what he wrote of his Guru:

Ritwik Ghatak
Refugee
Alien
Unwanted
Insufferable
For him life was holier,
Than his holy worship.
Death of Ritwik Ghatak,
Is a happening very unusual.
I rise in pride to reminisce on my Ghatak da.
He will live eternally.
In my thoughts,
In my senses and in my soul.