India at the end of the British Raj: Autobiographical perceptions of Nirad C Chaudhuri

Abstract

The decades before the Partition of India and Pakistan in 1947 are specifically significant in the history of the subcontinent as this period shaped the future political, cultural and economic course of the region the legacy of which we are still in presence. The period though has been analyzed from historical, political, sociological and purely literary and cultural viewpoints; there is still need to further reconstruct and understand this vibrating time, in a more comprehensive manner, through other approaches. In the present Thesis an attempt has been made to apprehend some of the complex interactions of the sociopolitical and cultural elements which led to the partition, with its accompanying devastations, through the analysis of an autobiographical book written by Nirad C. Chaudhuri – Thy Hand Great Anarch! India: 1921-52. I used neo-historicism as my Research Methodology here in pursuing my research work. The span of my work covered the social life in Calcutta, Bengal Renaissance and Indian Nationalism, political movements like the Bengali resistance movements and other crises, literature and culture of Bengal, and the human devastation at the aftermath of the partition. In the present Thesis, in each of these areas, a background along with observations of other major authors has been given. It followed the perceptions of Nirad C. Chaudhuri on those issues. In the third section of each chapter I have communicated my own reflections on the perceptions of Chaudhuri. Though the general notion about Nirad C. Chaudhuri lies in depicting his deep antagonistic feeling about his own race Bengalee and also Bengal but analyzing his autobiography we sense in him a deep feeling for his motherland East Bengal. He never liked the disorganized, relatively self-centered, and unclean way of life of the Calcutta based people. He has equally appreciated many things of the Bengali life like their habit of reading books and also their trying to elevate the library culture. About literary areas Chaudhuri was little conservative and he thought that the peak of the Bengali literature has been reached by writers like Rabindranath Tagore and Sharatchandra Chattopadhyay. Chaudhuri never appreciated the importance of Modernism in Bengali literature. In fact he considered it as a symbol of decadence. Chaudhuri could not support the spirit of Indian Nationalism and hence he could not see eye to eye with Gandhi also because he believed that the change of the Master would not only make everything ok rather the inefficient administrators would make things worse. He was also correct in his evaluation of the time because in the aftermath of the Partition we see the serious crises of humanity during the migration and displacement of the Hindus and the Muslims. Actually the western educated political leaders became enriched in their human values and longed for the liberty of their land at the end of the colonial rule. But to tell the truth no proper plan no systematic approach were undertaken till then by them. We perceive it immediately in the events that occurred after the Partition. According to him a large part of the responsibility for these catastrophy lie with the narrow minded and mostly communal political leaders of the subcontinent. However, Chaudhuri equally blames the British Rulers in India for committing criminal activities and inciting atrocities in their own interest of power and exploitation. He is by heart a liberal democrat in the tradition of European Renaissance and thus he is undoubtedly a fan of British tradition and culture which, in fact, is a torch bearer of liberal democracy in their own country. But, at the same time, Chaudhuri points out their double standard in the context of the colonies like India. To conclude we can say that Nirad C. Chaudhuri is a controversial writer particularly among the people of the subcontinent, and in most cases he is blindly thought to side with the British people and ideas. However, a deeper reading of his autobiography may reveal a sensitive person with nostalgic emotion and also a person who speaks what he feels with strong conviction. Through his humanistic but sometimes conservative approach he has observed his time and he has specially focused on India during 1921-1952. Many people may disagree with his perceptions, but those are undoubtedly invaluable elements in reconstructing the inner dynamics of that time and society.