India Wins Freedom - pg. 194

Besides, the choice of his nominee caused both amusement and anger. When Mr. Suharwardy had formed a Moslem League Ministry in Bengal, the only non-Moslem included in his Ministry was Mr. Jogendra Nath Mandal. He was then almost unknown in Bengal and had no position whatever in all-India politics. Since he was a nominee of the Moslem League and had to be given a portfolio, he was appointed Law Member. Most of the secretaries to the Government of India were British. Mr. Mandal also had a British secretary who complained almost daily that it was difficult to work with a member like Mr. Mandal.

India Wins Freedom - pg. 187

However, with great difficulty I got to Dum Dum just a few minutes before the plane was due to leave. I found there a large military contingent waiting in trucks. When I asked why they were not helping to restore order, they replied that their orders were to stand ready but not to take any action. Throughout Calcutta, the military and the police were standing by but remained inactive while innocent men and women were being killed.



The Calcutta airport situated near the ancient munitions factory where Dum Dum bullets were first produced.

Legacy of a Divided Nation - pg. 9

Consider Kashmir. In the valley, where most muslims live, Islam absorbed many social and cultural practices of pre-Islamic origin, which are today attacked by the Ahl-i Hadith and the Jamaat-i Islami. And in the neighboring Punjab, a territory divided into two unequal halves in 1947, it provided a repertoire of concepts and styles of authority which served to encompass potentially competing values, including the values of tribal kinship, within a common Islamic idiom. In Bengal, an area far removed from the centre of imperial power, Islam took many forms and assimilated values and symbols which were not always in conformity with the Quranic ideals and precepts. The religio-cultural idioms underwent a rapid change, giving birth to a set of popular beliefs and practices which in essence represented the popular culture of rural Bengal rooted in the pre-Islamic past. The local syncretic beliefs and practices, predating the advent of Islam in the region, thus formed the popular culture in Bengali Islam from the beginning.

The Bengal Renaissance - Closing

In fine, it need to be stated that Marxist analysts, no less than others, ought to pay respectful homge to the historical process towards socio-economic advance of the country.

The Bengal Renaissance - pg. 246

The question that British rulers were pursuing the class interest of mercantile capitalists of Britain was a fact but also not very significant for such estimation. The role that deserves most of all to be kept in mind is that they were destroying successfully the socio-economic structure of the village economy and drawing various sections of the Indian people into the vortex of cash nexus and that the indigenous productive system was being increasingly governed by the market.

The Bengal Renaissance - pg. 237

Marx emphasised the following characteristics of the village system: these villages were 'stereotype form of social organism'; in them there was the domestic union of agricultural and manufacturing pursuits; the domestic industry combined 'hand-weaving, hand-spnning and hand-tilling agriculture'; this village system was 'the solid foundation of oriental despotism'; this village system was 'the solid foundation of oriental despotism'; they restrained the human mind within the smallest possible compass, making it the unresisting tool of superstition, enslaving it beneath traditional rules, depriving it of all grandeur and historical energies; these villages took all calamities, like the ruin of empires, cruelties perpetrated in society, the massacre of populaations in towns etc., as nothing more than 'natural events'; human life in these village systems was 'undignified, stagnatory, and vegetative'; the passivity of life in the village systems 'evoked on the other part, in contradistinction, wild aimless, unbounded forces of destruction, and rendered murder itself a religious rite in Hindustan.' Caste and slavery were contaminating distinctions to mark life in the villages; man living in them surrendered to nature and external circumstances without ever seeking to master them for his own good; and these village systems 'transformed a self-developing social state into neverchanging natural destiny.'

The Bengal Renaissance - pg. 235

"England haas broken down the entire framework of Indian society, without any symptoms of reconstitution yet appearing. This loos of his old word, with no gain of new one, imparts a particular kind of melancholy to the present misery of the Hindu, and separates Hindustan, ruled by Britain, from all its ancient traditions and from the whole of its past history."

--Karl Marx

The Bengal Renaissance - pg. 212

We may conclude that Rammohun and Iswarchandra are
the two terminal thinkers of the first phase of the nineteenth
century reawakening of Bengal, the former initiating it and
in the latter it having reached its culmination. This phase of
reawakening stressed the universalist conception of man
and society, the rationalist disposition to examine all aspects
of life and thought, the repudiation of ascriptive authorities,
a search for new authorities in cultural, social and intellectual
spheres, an inducement to the individual to assert the claims
of his newly awakened conscience, and above all, a humanist
appreciation of man himself.

The Bengal Renaissance - pg. 188

Iswarchandra became a legend for his munificence to people in
distress for which he was regarded by common people as 'Dayar
sagar' (ocean of mercifulness) by which description no less than
'Vidyasagar' (ocean of learning) he is remembered by posterity.

The Bengal Renaissance - pg. 181

In political ideas, his unambiguous condemnation of the British
occupation of India and accusing Indian dependence under alien
rule in unmistakable terms place him far ahead of others his time.

The Bengal Renaissance - pg. 172

Akshay Kumar believed in the essential needs of education
for all and in the obligation of the government and the rich
and educated public to ensure universal education. He would
not have children even of the poorest strata employed in
parental profession or other kinds of vocation before they
received compulsory education upto fourteen or fifteen years
of age - a social target that has not been achieved even after a
century and a quarter in this country.

The Bengal Renaissance - pg. 166

It is Akshay Kumar's rationalist understanding of religion
that tended him to examine a prevalent claim among his
co-religionist Brahmas that the Vedas were infallible because
the contents thereof, emanated from God Himself. He ultimately
opposed this view. He insisted that the Vedas were "Paurusheya'
or man-made and also not infallible. There was a prolonged
controversy with Debendranath Tagore who from the beginning
maintained the doctrines of God-given (Apaurusheya) and
infallible (Abhranta) Vedas.

The Bengal Renaissance - pg. 136

They constitute the group about whom Karl Marx
might have observed: "From the Indian natives;
reluctantly and sparingly educated at Calcutta,
under English superintendence, a fresh class is
springing up, endowed with the requirements for
government and imbued with European science."

The Bengal Renaissance - pg. 135

They(Young Bengal) identified the orthodox Hindus as the
principal opponent of their movement. They were not too
happy with the British rulers who were cautious. Yet, the
Young Bengal generally expected that in the pursuit of their
aims they could get help from the rulers.

The Bengal Renaissance - pg. 128

In the inaugural meeting of the British Indian Society in 1843
Ramgopal observed that the erstwhile Muslim rulers were more
liberal than the British in the distribution of high offices of the state.

The Bengal Renaissance - pg. 116

In 1840 Krishnamohan Banerjee in his prize-winning paper on
"Native Female Education" urged the prime necessity of liberally
imparting education to Indian women. Female education was
considered necessary for emancipating women from their enslavement
of ignorance and prejudices. He held that the true genius of the
country could not be liberated so long as its women folk would
suffer the tyranny of antiquated customs.

The Bengal Renaissance - pg. 110

The Enquirer was started in May, 1831. Krishna Mohan Banerjee
was its editor, who in its first issue explained the aims of the
paper and concluded: "Having thus launched our bark under
the denomination of Enquirer, we set sail in quest of truth and
happiness." Its pre-occupation was with religions and social matters.

The Bengal Renaissance - pg. 100

Let us conclude that Prasanna Coomar was a moderate
in his political ideas. While wichsing some wholesome
changes in the administration of thecountry and the
grant of those liberal conditions which were likely to
contribute to the proper development of Indian people,
he took care to forestall misapprehensions about any
design or intention to undo the British Indian administration.
As we know already Dr. Allexander Duff suspected that
Prasanna Coomar was indulging in rebellious nonsense
directed against British rule. On a careful reading of his
writings, we are unable to bear out the truth of such a charge.

The Bengal Renaissance - pg. 95

Prasanna Coomar Tagore wrote, "Superstition, which was
the prolific source of despotism and the stronghold of priestcraft,
contributed not a little to deprive the people of their just rights,
by adding undue authority to the privileges of the Crown. The
ministers of religion who were also the legislators, easily discovered
the weakness of a people, who, from ignorance, were credulous of
the most absurd doctrines, which were offered for their belief, and
to place their power on a firm basis, they connived with the rulers
of the l and to increase their powers by sacrificing the rights of the
people, which were in a matter entrusted too their charge, by the
credulous mob.

The Bengal Renaissance - pg. 93

Prasanna Coomar was one of those early nineteenth century
leaders of thought who desired earnestly social and economic
uplift of the people and wanted government to adjust its
policies, programmes and activities to this purpose. He had profound
faith that the East India'a Government in India was aware
of their responsibility in this respect. This is possibly what
inspired him to write: "If we were to be asked, what Government
we would prefer, English or any other, we would, one and all,
reply, English by all means, ay, even in preference to a Hindu
Government. But it is a truism, which need not be urges, that
no human institution is perfect, and they all admit of improvement.
We accordingly take the liberty of pointing out the defects which we
perceive in the existing institutions of the country, with a sincere
desire for their improvement."