famine in the novel of bhabani...
TRANSCRIPT
Chapter - 1
INTRODUCTION
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Indian novel in English is popularly known as “twice-born fiction”
as it is derived from two parent traditions, the Indian and the British.
The novel in India originates in Bengal which happens to be the first
province to launch social reforms and to attain political awakening in
the last quarter of the nineteenth century. P. P. Mehta says, “Bengal
brought to the Indo-Anglian novels the finished products, through
English translation . . . of her great masters of the art of fiction” [1].
Bankim Chandra Chatterjee is the first writer to establish the
novel as a major literary form in Bengal. He succeeds in showing that
the life of an ordinary middle-class Bengali could be the subject of a
prominent novel. He published the first Indian novel in English, Raj
Mohan’s Wife, in 1864. The themes of the English novels written in
India before it attained Independence are either romantic or historical.
Apparently, the novelists of the time have deliberately chosen these two
kinds of themes for their fiction in order to steer clear of controversies.
The works of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, Ramesh Chandra Dutt
Sarat Chandra Chatterjee and Rabindranath Tagore are prominent
among the early works of Indo-English fiction. Bankim’s Raj Mohan’s
Wife is a tale of domestic life in a Bengal village. He is considered the
master of the romantic as well as the historical novel. Bankim reigned
as the literary dictator of the renascent Bengal in his own life-time.
Bankim Chandra is well-known for his sense of humour. In his
other novels, The Poison Tree (1884) and Krishna Kanta’s Will (1895),
he presents the stark realities of life as he sees them in the society of
his time. He depicts the plight of a widow in the Hindu society of that
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time. He seems to have the influence of the earlier writers on his
historical novels. His historical romances reveal the inspiration of Sir
Walter Scott. Though Rabindranth Tagore received the Nobel Prize for
Literature for his poetical work, Gitanjali, he is also a famous novelist.
He achieves his first success with Choker Bali (1902), which is later
translated into English as Binodini. It is the tale of a young widow. Gora,
The Wreck and The Home and the World are his other Bengali novels
translated into English by himself. Gora is his political novel in which
he depicts a fusion of the East and the West.
Ramesh Chandra Dutt also writes in Bengali and later translates
his works into English. His Bengali novels, The Lake of Palms (1902)
and The Slave Girl of Agra (1909) are among them. He encourages
widow-remarriage through his hero, Sarat, in his novel, The Lake of
Palms. In his historical romance, The Slave Girl of Agra, he reveals
intrigue, love and jealousy in the Mughal times.
Sarat Chandra Chatterjee writes for the lowly and the lost.
Through his novels, he presents their trials and tribulations. The plight
of destitute widows, Abhaya and Kiranmayi, is presented in his novels.
He lays greater emphasis on the realities of life than his predecessors.
Rabindranath Tagore, Ramesh Chandra Dutt, Sarat Chandra
Chatterjee and Bankim Chandra Chatterjee are considered the fore-
runners of the Indo-English fiction. Apart from them, some other
novelists have also presented the everyday life of Bengal. The themes of
Bengali novels are more or less similar to those of the novels written
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elsewhere in the country. They reveal the Western influence both
covertly and overtly.
During the twenties and thirties of the present century, the Indo-
English fiction has entrenched itself firmly. The themes of the novels
become more realistic rather than romantic. They may be classified as
themes of sociological upsurge, themes relating to the freedom struggle,
Gandhian ideas and ideals, the horrors of partition, the East-West
conflicts, the modern existential dilemma and the quest for meaning in
life. The Freudian psychology has prompted some of the novelists to try
and achieve a kind of realism, that is psychologically authentic, and
adopt the stream-of-conscience technique.
A careful study of all the novels written by Indians in English
since 1864 reveals those Indian writers have successfully achieved their
desired results. K. S. Ramamurthy remarks:
The earliest writers in the field like Bankim Chandra, Toru
Dutt and Ramesh Chandra Dutt were by no means
‘imitators’ but conscious experimenters who adapted an
alien form and medium to a socio-cultural situations and
sensibility which were specifically Indian [2].
Mulk Raj Anand makes the middle-distance realism popular. It is
rightly observed by P. P. Mehta that the Indo-Anglian novel before
Anand was still not fully developed [3]. Anand presents the oppressed
and downtrodden people who are insulted and humiliated by the
members of the high castes, the white Sahibs, the Zamindars, the
money-lenders and the caste-conscious priests. He changes himself
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into a mouthpiece of the underdog. He protests against casteism and
the tyranny of landlords, the greed of money-lenders and the caste-
consciousness and superstitious attitudes of the priests, who oppose
all kinds of change. His famous novels, Untouchable, Coolie, Two Leaves
and a Bud, The Village, Across the Black Waters, and The Sword and
the Sickle testified to his deep interest in the eradication of social evils
and social reformation. Meenakshi Mukherjee aptly says, “Anand was
at the height of his power in the thirties and early forties when a
sociological approach to literature was very much in vogue . . . in India
as well as outside” [4].
In Untouchable, Anand picturizes the activities of a day in the life
of a low-caste boy, Bakha. He works as a scavenger. He is a son of
Lakha, Jamedar of the sweepers of the town. Bakha appears
comparatively clean though he does the dirtiest work of scavenging. In
spite of his dreams, he is a sincere worker.
Bakha’s sister, Sohini, does the household work. She carries
water for the house. She is not allowed to draw water from the well-
used by upper caste people. She has to wait for some kind-hearted
person to draw water for her. One day, when nobody comes forward and
to help her, Kalinath, the temple priest, agrees to draw water for her. In
return for his favour, he asks her to clean his court-yard. When she
goes there, he tries to molest her. Out of fear, she screams and he
shouts, “Polluted”. The crowd that gathered there misunderstands her.
They think that she has polluted the priest by touching him. They abuse
her severely. When Bakha comes to know the truth of the matter, his
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blood boils with fury. But he feels dejected when he realizes that he
cannot avenge himself on the priest.
The novel stresses the problems of untouchability, squalor,
backwardness, ignorance and superstitions. K. R. S. Iyengar has
pointed out how “the problem with blunted edges, perhaps also with
some relieving features here and there, still defies a firm and final
solution” [5].
Anand mentions three types of solutions to Bakha’s problems.
First of all, Colonel Hutchinson, the Salvationist, urges Bakha to get
converted to Christianity and put a full stop to the problem with caste.
Secondly, the speech of Gandhiji, stressing the need for the removal of
untouchability, gives some relief to Bakha. Thirdly, the poet Iqbal Nath’s
consoling speeches about the introduction of a modern sanitary system,
which does the work of the scavengers, hold out the promise of solution.
He hopes that they could live with dignity in a classless and casteless
society. The very thought of the Mahatma and the machine gives him a
ray of hope. Untouchable presents an unforgettable picture of society,
“a picture that is also an indictment of the evils of a decadent and
perverted orthodoxy” [6], according to K. R. S. Iyengar.
Mulk Raj Anand’s Coolie is the story of a hill boy, namely, Munoo.
He goes from place to place for earning a livelihood. He works at several
places. In the end, he dies of consumption. ‘Coolie’ (a derogatory term
in India) reveals an indictment of a society which finds a cruel pleasure
in exploiting the helpless labourer. K. R. S. Iyengar rightly observes, “In
Untouchable the evil is isolated as caste; in Coolie the evil is more
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widespread, and appears as greed, selfishness and inhumanity in their
hundred different forms” [7].
The heroes of Anand suffer because they refuse to protest against
the raw deal meted out to them by the society. They remain silent
sufferers. They look out for a change for the better in the society and
social equality without any effort on their part. Meenakshi Mukherjee
considers the heroes of Mulk Raj Anand ruggedly individualistic [8]. Her
view, that their refusal to conform to the customers and conventions of
the society, accounts for their sufferings may be suggestive of her own
conservative moorings. According to her, the protagonists of his novels
are persecuted by the society for their non-conformity. But she has been
gracious enough to concede that all of them are indomitable in spirit
[9].
Mulk Raj Anand’s Two Leaves and a Bud also presents the
exploitation of the helpless coolies by self-centered foreigners. The
exploiters include a few Indians too – the Sardars, the Mistris, the
Babas etc. The coolies work in a tea-estate. The estate is just like a
prison without gates. The chowkidars bring back those who try to
escape from the estate. The people living are, by and large, callous,
though there are a few sympathetic persons among them such as the
boss of the plantation and his wife.
Anand does not feel shy of siding with the untouchables who
include the downtrodden. He favours the introduction of the Western
science in India. He believes in the idea that the existing social evils can
be eradicated with the help of science.
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Thus, the first phase of Indo-English fiction deals with social
inequalities. The novelists of the time reveal a keen desire for social
reformation for improving the lot of the socially oppressed classes.
Manohar Malgonkar is widely known for his historical novels. A
cordial relationship between Hindus and Muslims forms the main
theme of his first novel, Distant Drums. Two friends, who work together
in the British army, meet later on the Kashmir border. Through the
novel, Malgonkar seems to stress the cordiality that should prevail in
the relations between the people of India and Pakistan.
Malgonkar’s novel A Bend in the Ganges portrays the freedom
struggle and its consequences. It focuses attention on the Civil
Disobedience Movement and the problem of Partition. It deals with
several historical events that took place during the independence
struggle, like the boycott of foreign goods, the secret activities of the
terrorists and the horrors of the Second World War. The novel closes
with the bifurcation of the country. Places and episodes are given
greater prominence in it than individual characters.
In Malgonkar’s novels, the clash is not between the East and the
West, but between the sense of justice, fair play and integrity
(exemplified by the British in India), on the one side, and inefficiency,
dishonesty and a sense of inferiority (which he considers typically
Indian), on the other. In A Bend in the Ganges, he highlights the fairness
of the British and petty mindedness of the Indian officials. He treats
with contempt all those who do not measure up to the British public
school values.
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His primary objective seems to be to amuse his readers.
Consequently, he seems to lack a seriousness of purpose and reveals a
relative immaturity in the choice of his themes. And he lacks an abiding
concern for the common man. Indeed, he evinces a great deal of interest
in human convictions of the partisan kind which tend to vitiate the air
of objectivity he has been trying to lend to his imaginative perceptions.
B. Rajan’s The Dark Dancer (1959) deals with the problems and
chaotic conditions that defaced India after the partition. In the novel,
he presents an ideal character, Kamla, who sacrifices herself in her
attempt to protect a Muslim woman from an attack by two Hindu
hooligans.
Khushwant Singh presents the chaotic conditions, which
prevailed in the country during the partition that preceeded India’s
Independence, in his novel, Train to Pakistan. The horrors of the
partition-period and the atrocities suffered by the people are vividly
described in the novel. The main theme is woven around the love
between a Sikh ruffian and a Muslim girl.
Attia Hosain’s novel Sunlight on a Broken Column presents a
romantic quest that prompts a woman to break loose from her family
fold and her return to it later on the death of her husband. It reflects
the influence of the Western culture on the heroine, Laila. Laila
questions the traditional values of the family and rebels against the
family by marrying one of her choice. But her initial triumph is short-
lived as the person she marries dies. Her return to the parental
household may suggest a triumph of the traditional values. She comes
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to know the fact that her cousin has been waiting for her all his life.
Indeed, the Western culture would not have favoured a marriage
between close relatives of the kind.
Nayanatara Sahgal’s novel, A Time to be Happy also picturizes the
conflict between the East and the West. The hero of the novel is from
the upper class society. He faces the problem of finding his roots. His
education, upbringing and sense of values do not allow him to mingle
freely with his fellow-countrymen. He labours under a sense of
rootlessness as well as alienation, which is a common theme for the
contemporary Indo-English novelist including Arun Joshi. She focuses
her attention on the woman living as a prisoner in her own house
consequent on a loveless marriage. A Time to be happy, This Time of
Morning, Storm in Chandigarh and The Day in Shadow are among her
novels.
Raja Rao’s Serpent and the Rope (1960) also presents the theme
of alienation. It presents a conflict between the East and The West. It is
a study of the marriage between Ramaswamy and his French wife,
Madeline, who represent two contrary world-cultures. It presents the
encounter of orthodox Brahmanism with the liberal French views. The
novel highlights a profound spiritual conflict of the East and the West.
K. R. S. Iyengar considers it “an ambitious and meritorious effort at
achieving a total projection of India in vivid fictional terms” [10].
In his novels, R. K. Narayan tries to present India and Indians as
they are, with an air of detachment that is productive of a great deal of
irony and humour. He seldom makes any effort to whitewash their
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faults and follies. For that reasons, his heroes often tend to be anti-
heroes, who have hardly anything admirable about them. Margayya,
the hero of The Financial Expert, for instance, is a comic figure, thanks
to his mighty pretensions to being a financial expert. He believes that
his expertise in financial dealings has made him rich. The irony lies in
the fact that he ends up as a pauper.
In his other novels, R. K. Narayan introduces half-hearted
dreamers, financiers, speculators, twisters, adventurers, cinema stars,
ascetics etc. Several of them are not from Malgudi but imported from
outside.
In R. K. Narayan’s The Guide, an air of suspense and anticipation
is created by jumbling the present and the past. In Waiting for the
Mahatma, irony is produced through its hero, Sriram. He is pampered
and spoiled by his grandmother. He inherits a lot of property. He is
hardly a lovable man. His aimless life gains a purpose when the
Mahatma and his followers come to their town. He is fascinated not by
the Mahatma, but by the girls who is one of his ardent followers. Sriram
comes near the Mahatma without any knowledge of the freedom-
struggle. In the beginning his interest is only in the girl. But later,
thanks to the impact of Gandhi as well as the girl, he turns a new leaf
in his life. R. K. Narayan’s patriotism does not seem to come in the way
of his ridiculing some persons and events that are typically Indian.
In Ruth Parwer Jhabwala’s novels, social background is given
greater stress than the characters that enact various comedies,
tragicomedies and farces. Her novels include To whom She Will, The
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Nature of Passion, Esmond in India, The Householder, Get Ready for
Battle and A Backward Place. She writes about the society of Delhi. She
is able to present the Indian attitudes and oddities with a detached
outlook, reminiscent of Jane Austen’s, and reveals a European
sensibility. She has a keen eye for details and is able to combine the
comic and the ironic in the Indian life with a rare skill. She seems to
have made a conscious bid to avoid the tragic element in her novels.
She comes close to a tragic theme only in her later novel, A Backward
Place. It is a tragicomedy presenting some expatriate women whose
expectations from India are different. None of them is able to realize
those expectations. The author’s attitude towards them appears
ambivalent. Her first novel, To Whom She Will, deals with romantic love
versus arranged marriages. The author seems to be in favour of
conformity with the customs and conventions prevailing in the Indian
society. Two of her novels The Nature of Passion and Get Ready for Battle
are satires. The titles, she has chosen for them, show the influence of
The Bhagawad Gita on her. The Householder is perhaps the most
delightful novel written by her. Esmond in India has a sadist as its hero.
He is an English man. His dealings with an innocent Indian girl make
the theme of the novel.
Kamala Markandaya’s novels give importance to the principal
characters and their backgrounds – economic, social, cultural and
political. In them, she refers to the heart of South India where there is
no change in life-style for more than a thousand years. Some of her
well-known novels are Nectar in a Sieve, Some Inner Fury, A Silence of
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Desire, Possession and A Handful of Rice. Nectar in a Sieve presents the
rural economics, while A Handful of Rice deals with the urban
economics. A Silence of Desire gives an account of an imponderable
realm of spiritual realities. Possession is said to be the continuation of
A Silence of Desire. The Swami who appears in A Silence of Desire again
reappears in Possession as a mellowed person with a modern outlook.
Modern Indian novelists are influenced by the new techniques in
plot construction, narration and characterization. The narration by
means of the stream-of-consciousness technique is used by Mulk Raj
Anand and Anita Desai in many of their novels. Both Arun Joshi and
Anita Desai have been able to achieve a rare degree of psychological
realism in their works under the influence of Freud.
Arun Joshi introduces autobiographical element in his novels.
His real-life experiences as a student in the United States and his
accumulation of knowledge in the mental hospital are utilized in his
novels, particularly in The Foreigner and The Strange Case of Billy
Biswas. The Apprentice shows the influence of Mahatma Gandhi on
him. His novels reveal the influence of existential philosophers like
Albert Camus, Kierke Guard and Sartre. The Foreigner, The Strange
Case of Billy Biswas, The Apprentice and The Last Labyrinth portray the
existential predicament of his protagonists in an indifferent and hostile
world. In his fifth novel, The City and The River he portrays a different
theme introducing political satire.
Anita Desai’s novels have added a new dimension to the
achievement of Indian women writers in English. In her two novels, Cry,
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the Peacock and Voices in the City the inner climate of sensibility is more
compelling than the outer weather of the visible action. Her aim seems
to be the exploration of the particular kind of modern Indian sensibility
caught in the midst of barbarians and philistines. Her interest is with
the inner world sensibility rather than the outer world of action. She
tries to bring out the fret and fever of the consciousness of her principal
character. Cry, the Peacock gives an account of the recollection of the
events of the past by Maya. She tells us of her married life with
Gautama. Voices in the City lays stress on the inner landscape. The
heroine of the novel, Manisha, commits suicide when her married life
with Jiban becomes an unending struggle.
The suffering during the Second World War, the Quit India
Movement and the Bengal Famine had great influence on the novelists
of the time. There was large scale destruction of shops and houses;
millions of people were made homeless; children were brutally killed;
women were abducted, raped and humiliated in different ways. The
majority of the poor preferred to die in honour and, therefore,
committed suicide. All these had a great deal of influence on the writers
of the time. The themes of the novels thus became more and more
realistic rather than romantic.
Human suffering has become a common theme of Indian novels
including the works of Mulk Raj Anand, R. K. Narayan, Raja Rao,
Kamala Markandaya, Khuswannt Singh and Bhabani Bhattacharya.
The ways in which they deal with suffering have been different. R. K.
Narayan, for instance, presents the human predicament using an
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indirect, subtle and ironic method, without losing touch with the
realities found in the society. While one finds him at one extreme, Mulk
Raj Anand places himself above the other. He reveals a frank, forthright
and uncompromising attitude in his criticism of the society through his
novels. Meanwhile, Bhabani Bhatttacharya, for one, favours a via
media. The extremist stance of Mulk Raj Anand does not find favour
with him. Nor does he adopt the much-too-subtle approach of R. K.
Narayan.
India’s struggle for freedom inspired a great number of Indian
novelists. In the twenties, it created a national consciousness which
begins to find a larger meaning in disparate social activities in different
parts of the country. The Gandhian thought democratizes the social and
political activities in India by encompassing the commonest and lowliest
people in the freedom struggle. Gandhi’s impact on novelists like Mulk
Raj Anand and R. K. Narayan is worth mentioning in this context. In
most of his novels, Bhabani Bhattacharya also draws inspiration from
the Gandhian thought. After Independence, there has been increasing
corruption, inefficiency, poverty and superstitions in the country. The
novelists have turned their attention to such problems too. Bhabani
Bhattacharya is among them.
Bhabani Bhattacharya was born on 10th of November in 1906 at
Bhagalpur in Bihar. His father Promothnath Bhattacharya was a Judge
by profession. Bhattacharya received his early education at various
places as his father was holding a transferable post in the judicial
service in British India and had to move from place to place as a result
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of his transfer and posting to different stations. At an early age of twelve,
he began to compose poems. He wrote his first article in a Bengali
magazine, Mouchak!
He did B.A. (Honours) from Patna College, Patna, in 1927 and left
for London for higher education. He studied History and Literature at
King’s college, London. He obtained Honours and Doctorate degrees in
History from the University of London. His education in London proved
very significant in his career as a writer. It is in England that
Bhattacharya met Tagore and sought his permission to translate his
stories into English which appeared under the title The Golden Boat in
1930.
During his college days, Bhabani was attracted and influenced by
the works of Tagore and John Steinbeck, W. B. Yeats, Edward Fitzerald
and Romain Rolland. Bhabani himself submitted the idea:
I think by real intellectual awakening when I was a
freshman at the university, for the first time, I discovered
Tagore . . . Also, about the time, I began to delve deeper in
English literature . . . The names must be obvious; one that
is not obvious was Edward Fitzerald. His translation
of Omar Khayyám continued to stir my adolescent fancy
and retained its power even after I had graduated. I should
add that W. B. Yeats was another great favorite. My
horizons started to widen in my senior year in college. I
discovered the plays of Ibsen and Bernard Shaw and novels
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of Romain Rolland, Knut Hamsun and several other
continental [11].
After a distinguished academic career in London University, he
returned to India. In 1935, Bhattacharya married Salila Mukherji. She
was not merely a mate; she was entire fate. She had chosen to use her
talents to collaborate with Bhabani in the creation of his fictional
worlds. She touched each idea with a glow. Bhabani and Salila were
blessed with a son and two daughters.
He held several distinguished positions in America and in India.
He was appointed as press attaché to the embassy of India, Washington,
D.C. in 1949. In 1950, he became Assistant Editor, Illustrated Weekly
of India, Bombay. In 1961, he was appointed Consultant, Ministry of
Education New Delhi. In 1969, he joined East-West centre, Honolulu as
a Senior Specialist. In 1970 he was appointed Visiting Professor,
University of Hawaii. In September 1973, he joined the University of
Washington, Seattle as Walker Ames Professor.
Bhattacharya travelled extensively, and attended various
International Seminars at different universities and shared his views
and opinions with wise men all over the world. The name and fame of
Bhabani Bhattacharya was not only limited to India but also reached
the other countries. Malta Grover writes about his global reputation as:
Bhabani Bhattacharya is a much translated Indo-Anglian
writer who has won global fame. Though his literary output
is scanty, just six novels and a collection of short stories,
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his novels have been translated into twenty six languages
including fourteen European languages [12].
Bhabani was a prolific writer. During his significant literary
career as a novelist and short story writer, he produced six novels, in
addition to many short stories and translations. In terms of
achievement, he stands next to that of Mulk Raj Anand and R. K.
Narayan. His achievement does not lie in the portrayal of life alone, it
lies in the vision of life, which he conveys through it. Harcharn Singh
Boparai remarks:
Bhabani Bhattacharya’s achievement as a novelist can best
be assessed on the basis of his whole work. On this
account, he has emerged as a world-class novelist who has
presented the birth-pangs of a nation’s freedom, and its
agonies and aspirations in a historical perspective; who has
shown concern for man’s physical, mental and spiritual
needs; and who has depicted the human drama at
microcosmic as well as epic scale [13].
His profound literal output shows a versatile writer in him. His
famous works are:
1. The Golden Boat (Translations from Tagore, 1932)
2. Indian Cavalcades (1944)
3. So Many Hungers (Novel, 1947)
4. Music for Mohini (Novel, 1952)
5. He Who Rides a Tiger (Novel, 1954)
6. A Goddess Named Gold (Novel, 1960)
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7. Shadow from Ladakh (Novel, 1966)
8. Gandhi the Writer (1967)
9. Steel Hawk And Other Stories (1968)
10. A Dream in Hawaii (Novel, 1973)
Different kinds of literary influences paved the way for Bhabani
Bhattacharya to become a successful literary artist. First of all, his
higher education in London helped him to use English in an effective
manner. His study of History may be responsible for the influence of
the historical events of his time on almost all his novels. The historical
events like the Second World War, the Quit India movement, The Bengal
Famine and the Chinese aggression have a place in his novels like So
Many Hungers, He Who Rides a Tiger and Shadow from Ladakh.
He also read the popular works of Western writers like
Shakespeare, Shaw, Ibsen, Walt Whitman and John Steinbeck.
Bhattacharya himself said thus:
The influences on my thinking in those days came entirely
from the writers in my mother tongue . . . It was a period of
Romanticism in Bengali fiction. The age of naturalism, not
to speak of realism, had not dawned yet. A foreign
influence, strangely was Shakespeare . . . The bookshelves
at home contained a set of Shakespeare’s collected works.
My father, a judge, had no time for literature. But in his
younger days, he had loved Shakespeare. With my poor
knowledge of the English language, I managed somehow to
go through all those big volumes. I do not know how much
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of Shakespeare I understood and how much I absorbed
[14].
Mahatma Gandhi’s influence on Bhabani Bhattacharya is found
in almost every one of his novels. So Many Hungers deals with Gandhi’s
impact on the freedom struggle. It presents the Gandhian ideals of non-
violence and passive resistance. Music for Mohini attempts rural uplift,
social reconstruction and adult education as preached and practised by
Gandhi. In He Who Rides a Tiger, he fights for the cause of the poor and
downtrodden for whom Gandhi struggled undauntedly and untiringly.
A Goddess Named Gold describes the Gandhian vision of economic
development in free India. In Shadow from Ladakh Bhattacharya
presents a case for the synthesis of the Gandhian values of moral
regeneration and modernism born in the wake of scientific and
technological developments. His novels are rooted in Gandhian
philosophy and deal predominantly with the common man in a simple,
direct and natural manner.
Bhabani Bhattacharya’s study of Tagore’s works perhaps
prompts him introduce some of Tagore’s philosophical ideas, such as
the idea of the integration of diverse elements in human life and his
aesthetic views, in his novels like Music for Mohini and Shadow from
Ladakh. John Steinbeck’s works also seem to have influenced the art
and ideas of Bhattacharya. He is inspired by Steinbeck’s concern for
social justice, interest in the common man, and the fusion of moral
earnestness with a sardonic humour and ironic detachment.
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The social conditions of the time have had a great deal of
influence on the mind of Bhattacharya. And he has been able to make
use of them in his novels without allowing his writings to degenerate
into mere journalism, drawing lessons from Steinbeck. He confessed
how the events of his day moved him so deeply and prompted him to
have a creative out-let for his feelings. He has been averse to putting
those feelings in cold storage. He also drew attention to the manner in
which Steinbeck has depicted an immediate and acute problem of his
time successfully in his The Grapes of Wrath. He added that, among the
many English and American authors he has read, John Steinbeck
attracted him most [15].
Bhattacharya believes that a novel should have a social purpose.
But he insists that it should not be imposed on him by anyone else. The
choice must be his own. In other words, he is in favour of the literary
artist being left absolutely free to decide on the subject of his work.
Indeed such a view casts a heavy responsibility on the artist, as he
cannot afford to blame others if his choice of subject happens to be
either improper or frivolous. In fact, Bhabani Bhattacharya himself
tends to have a low opinion on his contemporaries on that score.
Bhattacharya says:
The so-called romantic writer of today seems to woo
actuality by depicting in detail and with sharp
photographic accuracy the sex convolutions of his
Cinderella and his prince, thus giving them roots,
apparently, in the common earth of life and time. Here is
21
an adolescent determined to be an adult. It is indeed
amazing that literature today is so full of adolescence,
preening itself in adult form but being betrayed by
disorders of which it is a victim [16].
Such a charge of adolescence may well be leveled against all
writers who believe that art has to be for art’s sake. And it is bound to
be less than fair to suggest that an artist must invariably be a servant
of the society. Surely, the Keatsian aversion to the artist having a
palpable design on the reader is not entirely devoid of merit.
Bhabani Bhattacharya, however, makes amends for his extremist
stance in this regard, when he says that art need not necessarily be for
art’s sake. For the view suggests that art could also be for art’s sake at
times.
Bhabani Bhattacharya maintains that the creative writer’s final
business is to reveal the truth. In his novels, he deals with various forms
of struggle. He is against hunger, superstition, ignorance, injustice,
forces of tradition, casteism, base desires of man, corruption, sin etc.
The situation in his novels arises as a conflict between good and evil. It
cannot be concluded that good will emerge victorious and evil will totally
be eliminated. According to him, the eternal conflict between good and
evil goes on forever irrespective of the occasional victory of either.
Syed Ameeruddin has pointed out how Bhabani Bhattacharya’s
writings quiver with an outraged social conscience and deep concern
for humanity. Ameeruddin has also stated that Bhattacharya’s novels
22
on the whole are a protest against the deep-rooted social evils of our
country [17].
Bhattacharya says:
Real life is the earth out of which my stories and people
grow. I should add, though, that sometimes life follows art.
To be more specific, I have conceived characters and then
discovered that they have a flesh-and-blood existence. Not
exact copies but basically alike [18].
Bhattacharya’s themes are close to social reality and are based
on real-life experiences. The achievement of verisimilitude in his
portraits was apparently uppermost in his mind. He also shows interest
in the social problems that afflicted the oppressed classes of Indian
society. Thus he touches almost every aspect of the present day India
for weaving a pattern for the stories of his novels. C. Paul Verghese
points out that Bhabani Bhattacharya has a vision of a welfare society
at heart. Verghese says, “His concerns are clear and unambiguous; they
are political, economic, and social. In other words, the dignity of man
both in national and international contexts is uppermost in his mind”
[19].
Bhabani Bhattacharya has been widely acclaimed as realist with
an affirmative vision. K. K. Sharma, for one, seems to have done a
commendable job in highlighting that aspect of the author’s work. In
fact, Bhabani Bhattacharya himself has acknowledged his contribution
in the matter. Bhattacharya holds a mirror to the Indian society. He
23
deals with the social, religious, economic, political and even
psychological aspects of Indian life.
Bhattacharya’s attempt to portray the truth in terms of reality
results in the simultaneous presence of two strains in his novels.
Primarily, a commitment to a social restructuring is found. Secondly,
Bhattacharya believes that for writing a novel with a definite social
purpose, the writer must be aware of his environment and the behavior
of the people around him. These two characteristics seem to have
contributed to the success and popularity of most of his novels.
So Many Hungers and He who Rides a Tiger predominantly deal
with the theme of hunger. Music for Mohini takes up the theme of
cultural synthesis and social regeneration of the country. Shadow from
Ladakh portrays the integration of rural simplicity and urban
sophistication. A Goddess Named Gold focuses attention on
superstition and lust for gold. It is a struggle between man and society.
A Dream in Hawaii marks a variation in theme as it picturizes the East-
West encounters by juxtaposing Indian spiritualism with Western
materialism and uses both India and island of Hawaii for its setting.
Bhattacharya’s altruistic learning and interest in bringing about
a wholesome change in the pattern and structure of the society seem to
have contributed to his positive vision of life in a large measure. But
sadly enough, his hope of bringing about a change in the attitudes of
men as well as the society does not appear to have been realized,
inasmuch as the undesirable aspects of the social behavior and the
contemptible practices of individuals have, by and large, survived in our
24
midst. The practice of using huge quantities of milk for bathing idols,
for instance, is still being continued in many temples.
Bhattacharya has been alive to the existence of diabolic and
angelic aspects in every one of us. He believes that hunger has a
corruptive influence on man. Obviously, he is against blaming hungry
men for their moral aberrations. As pointed out by C. Paul Verghese,
“He believes in the essential dignity of man both in national and
international contexts” [20].
Bhabani Bhattacharya seems to have had a perennial interest in
contrary views and forces. Their juxtaposition in his novels, has, in fact,
been much commented on. B. Shyamla Rao, for one, has drawn
attention to several of them – the present and the past, orthodox and
modernity, mysticism and materialism, science and superstition, myth
and reality as also individual and society [21].
The juxtaposition of various characters, situations and forces has
certainly helped highlight them in several cases. But he does not
usually rest content with the presentation of contraries. While revealing
the conflicts between them, he also tries to evolve some compromises.
His interest in such compromises testifies his awareness of the
problems posed by inimical forces in the society. His attempt, obviously,
has been to blunt the edges of their conflicting claims by means of
syntheses, wherever feasible. Some of the readers may be inclined to
think that the synthesis thus affected often tends to be wishful and
artificial. Yet the sincerity of his compassion and the relevance of his
vision have always been beyond doubt.
25
Commenting on the humanistic concern revealed in the novels of
Bhabani Bhattacharya, K. S. Jha aptly says:
The various types of freedom which man necessarily
requires in order to realize his full potential for a complete
life as envisaged by Bhabani Bhattacharya are – freedom
from hunger, freedom from slavery, freedom from
orthodoxy, freedom from ignorance, freedom from
superstition, freedom from the degradation of caste
barriers and untouchability, freedom from economic
exploitation, freedom from greed and other social evils and
freedom from hatred and other narrow considerations.
There is another kind which the novelist strongly
emphasizes in some of his novels and that is ‘freedom to be
free’, or what may be called freedom of the mind and the
spirit [22].
Bhabani Bhattacharya gives an account of the Indian way of life
in each of his novels. He refers to the various customs, conventions,
superstitions and oddities present in the Indian society usually without
commenting on their merits. Notwithstanding his zeal as a reformist,
Bhabani Bhattacharya fought shy of assuming the role of a
propagandist. All that he did was presenting the stark realities of life,
as he found them, through his artistic creations, with scrupulous
regard for their authenticity and veracity. Indeed he also sought to
synthesize the divergent and inimical tendencies of the society by
26
means of his affirmative vision. Nonetheless, his novels provide a flood
of information on India and Indians.
Like Mulk Raj Anand, Bhattacharya tries to expose the suffering
and humiliation inflicted on the lower strata of society. Humanism
literally means devotion to human interest and concern for the welfare
of society. It proposes to improve the conditions of human beings.
Bhabani Bhattacharya is a humanist, a novelist with a message for his
countrymen. G. Rai rightly points out, “The novels of Bhabani
Bhattacharya embody a positive vision of life which is obviously
humanistic. He seriously concerned with the plight of the destitute and
low-caste people” [23].
Bhattacharya has his own theory on the purpose and method of
writing a novel. On more than one occasion, he has expressed in clear
terms what ‘novel’ has meant for him and what he has tried to do and
succeeded in achieving through this form. A novelist, for Bhattacharya,
is a creative writer, possessing a special gift for such creation and
differing from other ordinary men and women in that he is endowed
with more than usual sensitivity. In an article in The Aryan Path,
Bhattacharya observes:
The creative writer has a well-developed sensitivity though
this does not mean that he understands or shares all
emotions. The things he witnesses, the things he
experiences, are likely to move him more intensely than
what may be called recollection at second hand [24].
27
To him reality is the soul of art. According to him, the creative
writer’s final business is to reveal the truth. This unusual sensitivity
must be stirred by his power of observation. A true artist cannot exist
in an ivory tower of his own and revel in fancies which have no relevance
to human life on our earth. On the other hand his observant eyes are
keen on noting what is happening around him. Bhattacharya says:
I have not missed a single opportunity of observing
incidents, happenings where I can gain something for the
writer in me. Most of my characters have shaped
themselves from real earth [25].
Again all truly creative writers are driven by an urge from within
them to write. It almost becomes an obsession with them. With
Bhattacharya, it is not merely a question of writing for money or to
order. On the other hand, it is a compulsion to find an outlet for the
living images in him. This inevitability of an artist’s craving for
expression is at the root of all art.
A novelist, then for Bhattacharya is a man among men, gifted
with an extra measure of sensitivity and keen powers of observation.
What he sees around him creates an inner urge, a compelling need to
express himself. Then and only then a novel is born. Speaking about
how he became a novelist, Bhattacharya observes:
Then the great famine swept down upon Bengal. The
emotional stirrings I felt (more than two million men and
women and children died of slow starvation amid a man-
28
made scarcity) were a sheer compulsion to creativity. The
result was the novel So Many Hungers [26].
As regard to the medium of expression, Bhattacharya has an
open mind. He feels that the creative writer must have full freedom to
use the language of his choice for any coercion, direct or indirect, in the
choice of medium by an artist, will only hamper the realisation of the
purpose he is struggling to achieve. Meenakshi Mukherjee rightly
comments:
There seems to be an increasing awareness that English is
a plain language which each writer has to fashion anew to
serve his particular purpose, that for an Indian writer this
fashioning will have to be different from what a British or
American writer does, and that the definition of good
English varies not only from century to century but also
from place to place [27].
He writes in English and has two valid reasons for choosing
English as his medium. Bhattacharya remarks, “The English language
is a bridge that carries our cultural values to the world–not only to the
English-speaking countries but to most of the other countries as well
in translation” [28].
Secondly, in English he meets a challenge. Thanks to W. B. Yeats
who suggested and encouraged Bhattacharya to write in English in
order to gain and be assured of a world audience. And this was not a
misguided or misplaced hope, for the novelist has attained world-wide
29
renown and his books have been translated into twenty-six languages,
sixteen of which are European.
It has been a subject of unending debate if art should have a
purpose or not. There are people who declare that all art is recreational;
others who maintain that art is primarily didactic; yet others who
preach art for art’s sake. Bhattacharya can never accept the concept of
novel without a purpose.
For Bhattacharya an artist has a responsibility to society, to the
world in which he lives. He has to work and plead for a better world.
Bhattacharya interprets in artistic medium people’s hunger for food and
freedom, condemns social evils such as prostitution, exploitation,
superstitious beliefs, all anti-life tendencies, stresses the need for mass
literacy, attempts to destroy false faith and liberates men’s minds, and
makes them self-reliant and self-respecting individuals, pleads for
intelligent exercising of franchise and reconciliation of conflicting
ideologies, advocates widow remarriage, rebels against child marriage
and unfurls his banner against untouchability and barriers of caste.
For Bhabani Bhattacharya social realism means the perception
of the essential truth of a situation or incident. He expects a novelist to
give true descriptions with keen observation. He has made the following
observations, “Unless a writer has keen observation and an eye for
noting the details of general behavior of folks, he cannot write a social
novel” [29].
The modern novel has taken on itself such protean forms that it
seems anything under the sun could be safely expressed in that form.
30
Being very meticulous about his own choice of subject, Bhattacharya
feels that the subject matter for a novel must be concrete. Writers of
this generation have had the fortune of living at a period when their
country faces some turning points of national life and a gifted writer
could make use of this turning point as a fit subject matter for his
novels. In other words contemporary events lend powerful and fit
subjects to expatiate on. To set an example, he deals with the
contemporary problems in India as the themes of his novels.
He thought about a novelist as an individual giving descriptions
of life. According to him, realism gives an insight into the essential truth
of a situation or an age. In all his novels, Bhattacharya touched upon
the social and political realities of his period. A novel, according to him,
is to evoke man’s mind from oblivion to a perfect communion between
man and society. Hence, the object of a novelist is to aim at achieving
unity of the man with the society. He observes that novel has an
ennobling purpose to liberate man’s mind from fantasy and aim at
creating a perfect synchronization between man and reality.
Bhattacharya believes that a work of art comes from subconscious mind
of the writer.
The Quit India Movement of 1942 and the Bengali famine which
had swept his own province Bengal in 1943, form the backdrop for his
first novel So Many Hungers, which was published in 1947.
Commenting upon the theme of the novel, Bhattacharya observes, “The
novel is concerned with all the intensified hungers of the historic years
31
1942-43, not food alone: the money hunger, the sex hunger, the hunger
to achieve India’s political freedom” [30].
There are two main strands in the plot of the novel: the story of a
young scientist, Rahoul, which is a representation in miniature of the
struggle for political freedom and the story of a peasant girl, Kajoli,
whose sad moving tale is a pathetic record of what happened to more
than two million men and women who became victims of a famine,
engineered by one man with a selfish motive but aggravated by the
indifferent attitude and neglect of an alien Government and also by the
unprincipled Indians who tried to exploit the situation to mint money.
The novel describes a factual and vivid account of one of the most
shocking disasters in history.
Viewed as a story, his second novel Music for Mohini (1952),
portrays the intellectual and emotional development of the heroine,
Mohini, from a care-free and much protected girlhood to the position of
a housewife and a mistress of a prominent and very influential house
with great tradition. But the novelist’s main concern seems to be of
building a new order in India–an evolution of new culture for the masses
of a big nation. By the time he came to write this novel, India had
become free and it had to evolve her own policy and establish her
identity in the fast-growing world. Mohini’s husband Jayadev, a
thoughtful idealist, ponders over the implications of the coming change.
To him, much more to Bhattacharya himself, political liberty is worth
nothing to common man, if it is not a part of general social renascence.
His only desire is to extract the essence and best of our deep-rooted
32
tradition and fuse it with the spirit of modern time. When he takes on
himself the task of building a new society much through integration, he
has to fight with many antagonistic forces, especially his mother who
stands for old order and tradition. He does succeed. His vision of the
new generation in India is recorded thus, “The new man of his vision,
growing to his full stature, was not to be a hollow incarnation, not a
spiritless copy of ancient Hindu man. That was as stupid as Hindu
moulded in a Western pattern” [31].
Bhattacharya’s third novel He Who Rides a Tiger (1954), is a novel
of protest–protest not only against a political and economic system
which degrades human beings but also against an established social
order which stamps on men as superior and inferior by virtue of
accidence of birth. Though the backdrop for this novel is the same as
his first novel So Many Hungers, the emphasis rests on protest and
rebellion and so naturally the accent shifts from mute, helpless and
passive sufferings to protest and rebellion. And this is worked out
through Kalo, a humble village blacksmith, who takes his revenge on a
rigid caste-ridden society by faking a miracle—a miracle that begins as
a fraud but truly ends as a legend—and passing himself as a Brahmin
priest. At the end of the novel, when his fraud is detected, while the
high-caste Hindus fret and fume, other low caste people hail him as a
brother and a champion of their cause. His story becomes a legend of
freedom, a legend to inspire and awaken.
By the time Bhattacharya came to write his fourth novel, A
Goddess Named Gold, thirteen years vain expectation had passed and
33
independence and freedom had brought no miracle. Here the novelist’s
primary concern is to explain the meaning and significance of political
freedom–the way in which a country should use freedom and what
benefits may be derived if it is rightly used and utilized. A wandering
minstrel presents a taveez to his grand-daughter Meera, with a note
that it will acquire the power to turn the base metal into gold if she does
an act of real kindness. But the taveez fails to act as she enters into a
business deal with a Seth on fifty-fifty basis.
At the end of the novel, disgusted with the taveez, Meera throws
it into the river. Now the minstrel explains the symbolism of the taveez.
And herein lies Bhattacharya’s message: political freedom is not a
‘panacea’ for all ills; freedom alone will not and cannot lead a country
to prosperity. At best it can create suitable environment and provide
splendid opportunity in which men could show forth the best in them
and work for their prosperity by living on terms of equality with their
fellowmen, practising virtues like love, compassion, etc. Freedom is the
beginning of the road where there is no road and no miracle can happen
without effort. To quote Bhattacharya’s words:
Brothers, now that we have freedom, we need acts of faith.
Then only will there be a transmutation. Friends, then only
will our lives turn into gold. Without acts of faith, freedom
is a dead pebble tied to the arm with a bit of string, fit only
to be cast into the river [32].
What matters much is freedom of mind–man becoming self-
reliant and self-respecting individual.
34
Shadow from Ladakh (1966), which won the Sahitya Akadami
award for 1967, sets against the menacing background of the Chinese
aggression against India started in October, 1962, the novel is a study
of Gandhian ethics, reassessing their validity and relevance in the post-
independent India—an India faced with problems and challenges of the
changing times. It preaches by implication that India needs a blending
of divergent sets of values if she is to cope with the challenge of new
times—a plea for a meeting point between Gandhian social ethics and
the tremendous forces of science and technology.
Satyajit and Bhashkar represent the contrasting contemporary
attitudes to life in India. While Satyajit, the exponent of Gandhian
philosophy and the guiding spirit of Gandhigram, a model of rural India
as envisaged by Gandhi, regards Indian village life as an ideal life,
Bhashkar, the Westernized American-trained engineer in a steel plant
stands for modern industrialism. In such a situation when different
points of views and attitudes are adhered to and practiced by persons,
with a strong belief of their being in the right, the only possible solution
is synthesis–choosing the path of sympathetic understanding, of
reconciliation of readjustment.
At the end of the novel, one finds synthesis on three planes:
Synthesis of turbine and spinning-wheel on the economic plane, of
Gandhian asceticism and Tagorean aestheticism on the physical plane
and of violence and non-violence on the plane of international
understanding. Such and only such type of synthesis–finding a suitable
meeting ground–alone would ensure the maximum happiness of the
35
maximum. Bhattacharya records the type of synthesis, he envisages
thus, “Let there be a meeting ground of the two extremes: let each one
shed some of its contents and yet remain true to itself” [33].
Bhabani Bhattacharya’s last novel, A Dream in Hawaii is a novel
that portrays the conflicting principles of the East and the West.
Aestheticism and spiritualism of the East always attracted the West.
Spiritualism and human civilization are said to be closely connected.
Bhattacharya attempted to reveal this perspective through A Dream in
Hawaii. Neeloy Mukherjee aka Swami Yogananda, is a man who left
India to teach the Westerners Indian aestheticism in Hawaii. He meets
his former student Devjani, and falls in love. He grows restless when
Devjani leaves for India. He comes back to India for her.
The novel represents the conflict of values through the characters
such as Yogananda, Gregson and Swift. Swami Yogananda represents
Indian Aestheticism while characters like Walt Gregson, Dr. Vincent
Swift, represent the Western ideology. Bhattacharya also attempted to
expose the various social events in India and the West. The way the
Americans treat Indians living in America is also touched upon the
novel. It is ironical that the Americans are passionate to know more
about Indian Aestheticism, yet they have tendency to mock at them.
Bhattacharya is a visionary—an optimist. His novels end on a
happy note–human forces getting upper hand against dark urges and
social corruption. He believes in the richness of human soul and the
rich spirit sustains him against the evil forces of civilization. If man is
against man it is because the economic and social forces compel him to
36
be so. He is not completely bereft of goodness and life-force propels him
on. And so he has better morrow.
As a realistic novelist, Bhabani Bhattacharya has a keen eye for
situations and characters. He takes up varied aspects and themes in
his novels and presents them realistically. He is not just satisfied with
presenting a superficial view of life, but goes into the depths of realities
of life. He is not confined with the history of one man but he is
concerned with the destiny of the whole society and relationship among
the individuals in the society. He has a broader outlook towards the
issues in the society.
About Bhabani Bhattacharya’s varied themes in his novels,
Sudhakar Joshi rightly remarks:
Bhattacharya’s novels have a penetrating and sympathetic
analysis of the simple but insurmountable problems of
Indian life. His themes generally revolve around poverty,
hunger, pestilence, traditionalism, caste, India’s struggle
against poverty, industrialization and the resulting
controversy of Gandhian panacea versus rapid
industrialization [34].
The proposed research work makes an attempt to explore the
novels of Bhattacharya for the themes of hunger and poverty, feminine
consciousness, Gandhian sensibilities and cultural integration. The
research not only examines the ills and anomalies, such as poverty,
class relationship and decadent values eating into vitals of society, but
also discovers the philosophy, suggested by the novelist, to mitigate
37
social tension and restore harmony. It analyses and comments
competently on Bhattacharya’s promotion of universal brotherhood,
humanism and the richness of human spirit to help others at the cost
of one’s own life and judicious synthesis of divergent values of life as an
effective social panacea. The thesis depicts contemporary social,
political, economic and religious realities of India before and after
independence in Bhattacharya’s six novels.