Nation and Imagination

Studies in History

Volumn 15, Issue 2, 1999, Pages 177-207

  Chakrabarty, Dipesh ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 61049094828     PISSN: 02576430     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/025764309901500201     Document Type: Article

References (130)

1. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, London, 1983, p. 15.
2. Rabindranath Tagore, ‘Bhagini Nibedita’ in Rabindrarachanabali (hereafter RR), Calcutta, 1961, Vol. 13, p. 198. Unless otherwise stated, all references to RR will be to the centenary edition bearing the publication date of 1961.
3. Dr Robin Pal, Kolloler kolahol o onnanno probondho, Calcutta, 1980, p. 9, 13.
4. Ujjval Majumdar's essay ‘Galpaguchher nari: abarodh theke mukti’ in his Rabindrashanga, Calcutta, 1977, pp. 10–14, contains a short but informative discussion about how Tagore's short stories insistently discuss the question of women's oppression in the family.
5. Tagore, Galpaguchha, Calcutta, 1973, p. 1004.
6. Tagore, ‘Sahityabichar’, in RR, Vol. 14, pp. 531–32.
7. Tagore, ‘Grambashider proti’ (c. 1930), in Palliprakriti in RR, Vol. 13, p. 524.
8. Tagore, ‘Abhibhasan’, in Palliprakriti, p. 532. Cf. Tagore's hisotricism and nostalgia in the following two quotes; ‘The villagers live in the distant middle ages while the city—people live in the twentieth century.’ ‘In the past there was a time when our villages were complete with the wealth of life. Every village had arrangements for the digging of ponds, for the establishment of resting places for visitors, for education and for many joyous festivals. All of these were there. Why has the water become contaminated today? Why has it dried up? Why this hunger, ignorance and epidemics?’
9. Tagore, ‘Protibhashan’ (1926), and
10. Tagore, ‘Pallisheba’ (1940), in Palliprakriti, p. 540.
11. Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay's novel Pather panchali published in 1927 clearly occupied a middle ground between these two extreme images of the generic Bengali village. Part of the appeal of this novel was that it could sustain the image of the village as the home for tender sentiments without denying either the grinding poverty under which people laboured or the petty conflicts of their lives.
12. I have touched on some of these questions in ‘Remembered Villages: Representations of Hindu-Bengali Memories in the Aftermath of the Partition’, South Asia, Vol. XVIII, 1995, Special issue on ‘North India: Partition and Independence’ (guest edited by D.A. Low), pp. 109–29.
13. See Tagore's essays on ‘Loka-sahitya’ (Folk literature) in RR, Vol. 13, pp. 663–734.
14. Translation by Clinton Seely in A Poet Apart: A Literary Biography of the Bengali Poet Jibanananda Das (1899–1954). London and Toronto, 1990, p. 15.
15. This poem ‘Dui bigha jami’ was written in 1895.
16. Prasanta Pal, Rabijibani, Calcutta, 1989, Vol. 4, p. 67.
17. For a background to the poem that, in effect, claims a specific historical reference for it, see Sachindranath Adhikari, Shilaidaha o Rabindranath, Calcutta, 1974, pp. 317–21.
18. Srikumar Bandyopadhyay, Bangasahitya upanshyer dhara, Calcutta, 1988 (first pub. 1939). See the preface to the first edition, p. 1, 3, 13.
19. Humayun Kabir, The Novel in India, Calcutta, 1968, p. 2, 3, 4, 5.
20. Hari Ram Mishra, The Theory of Rasa, Chhattarpur (M.R). 1964, p. 10.
21. Sukanta Bhattacharya, ‘He mahajibon’ in Chharpatra, Calcutta, 1967 (first pub. 1948). In his preface to this book which was published after Bhattacharya's death, Subhash Mukhopdhyay says that all the poems of this book were written between 1943 and 1947. It is my guess that the famine of 1943 would have provided the immediate context for this particular poem.
22. See Budhhadev Bose's discussion on Sukanta Bhattacharya in the contemporary journal Kabita in Minakshi Datta ed., Budhhadev Bosu shampadita kabita, Calcutta, 1989, Vol. 2, p. 104.
23. Marshall Berman, All That is Solid Melts Into Air, New York, 1988.
24. Walter Benjamin, Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism, London, 1985, p. 36.
25. Quoted in Aditya Wahdcdar, Rabindra-bidushan itibritta, Calcutta, 1986, p. 10, 28, 27, 52. See also pp. 54, 59.
26. These texts are also discussed in Dipan Chattopadhyay, Rabindrabirodhi shomalochona, Calcutta, 1994.
27. Wahdedar, Rabindra-bidushan, pp. 108–9, 112.
28. Achintyakumar Sengupta, Kallolyug, Calcutta, 1988, p. 47.
29. Cited and discussed in Ujjvalkumar Majumdar, ‘Rabindranath, shamashamay o jibanananda’ in Rabindrashanga, pp. 25–26.
30. See also Sutapa Bhattacharya, Kabir chokhe kabi, Calcutta, 1987, p. 69, 2–3.
31. Edward Thompson, Rabindranath Tagore: Poet and Dramatist, Calcutta, 1979 (first pub. 1929), pp. 315–16.
32. E.P. Thompson, ‘Alien Homage’: Edward Thompson and Rabindranath Tagore, Delhi, 1993, p. 53.
33. Quoted in Wahdedar, Rabindra-bidushan, pp. 123, 125.
34. Benjamin, Baudlaire: A Lyric Poet.
35. Tagore, ‘Chhander artha’ (1917), in RR, Vol. 14, p. 153.
36. Tagore, ‘Gadyachhanda’, quoted in Uijvalkumar Majumdar, Emonihar, Calcutta, 1981, p. 64.
37. Tagore, ‘Sristi’ (1924), in Emonihar, p. 319.
38. Tagore, ‘Alashya o sahitya’ (1887), in RR, Vol. 13, p. 835.
39. Tagore, ‘Shahityadharma’ (1927), in RR, p. 327.
40. Bhattacharya, Kabir chokhe kabi, p. 147.
41. For Tagore's reply to this letter, see Chithipatra, Calcutta, 1974, Vol. 11, pp. 41–43.
42. Bhattacharya, Kabir chokhe kabi, p. 163, 78.
43. Majumdar, Emonihar, p. 223.
44. For a direct statement by Jibanananda Das on the question of ‘Tagore and modem Bengali poetry’, see his ‘Rabindranath o adhunik bangla kabita’, in Faizul Latif Chaudhuri, ed., Jibanananda daser prabandha shamagra, Dhaka, 1990, pp. 24–29.
45. Bhattacharya, Kabir chokhe kabi, p. 102.
46. Samar Sen, ‘Shvarga hote biday’ (1937), Sabyasachi Deb, ed., Kayekti kabita, Calcutta, 1989, p. 31.
47. The title of the poem, ‘Banishment from Heaven’ ironically copies the title of a poem by Tagore. For Shesher kabita, see RR, Vol. 9, pp. 713–93.
48. Tagore to Chakravarty (1937), in Chithipaira, Vol. 11, p. 201.
49. Quoted in Majumdar, Emonihar, p. 243.
50. Cited in Bhattacharya, Kabir chokhe kabi, p. 40.
51. For a good historical account of the Bengal countryside in this period see Sugata Bose, Agrarian Bengal: Economy, Social Structure and Politics, Cambridge, 1986.
52. Seely's translation in A Poet Apart, p. 35.
53. Subhash Mukhopadhyay, ‘Joto durei jai’ in Subhash mukhopdhyayer sreshtha kabita. Calcutta, 1976, pp. 71–72.
54. See Sushilkumar Gupta, Rabindrakabya prashanga: gadyakabita, Calcutta, 1966, pp. 52, 108.
55. See also Sisir Kumar Ghosh, The Later Poems of Tagore, Calcutta, 1961.
56. Majumdar, Emonihar, p. 65.
57. These debates are famous in the history of modem Bengali literature. See Sengupta, Kallolyug;
58. Shonamoni Chakrabarty, Shanibarer chithi o adhunik bangla sahitya, Calcutta, 1992;
59. Jibendra Singha Ray, Kalloler kal, Calcutta, 1987;
60. see also Tagore's essay ‘Sahitye Nabatva’ (1927) in RR, Vol. 14, p. 334.
61. There was some debate at the time about the status of this poem as gadyakabita. Budhhadev Bose contended that it was in the traditional Bengali metre payar, while the noted poet and literary critic Mohitlal Mojumdar argued that so were many of Tagore's prose poems. But Tagore included it in one of his collections of prose poems and we will treat it as such. For Budhhadev Bose's remarks see Minakshi Datta, ed., Bodhhadev Bosu shompadito kabita, Vol. 1, p. 165;
62. for Mohitlal Mojumdar's critical opinions, see his essay ‘Rabindranather gadyakabita’ in his Sahityabitan, Calcutta, 1962 (first published 1942), pp. 53–63.
63. Tagore. ‘Bansi’ (1932) in RR. Vol. 3, pp. 63–65.
64. See Tagore's essays ‘Chhander artha’ in RR, Vol. 14. pp. 153, 155–56;
65. ‘Bastab’ in RR, p. 295;
66. ‘Kabir kaifiyat’, RR, pp. 302, 305;
67. ‘Sahitya’, RR, pp. 308–9;
68. ‘Tathya o Satya’, RR, pp. 312–16. As many commentators have noticed. Tagore's particular aesthetic theories remained his own amalgam and did not persuade everybody. His younger contemporaries found the invocation of Keats romantic in an archaic manner; while their own theoretical efforts were much less tied to the ancient Indian theories of enjoyment than to the works of the contemporary European poets. Tagore's use and exposition of the ancient aesthetic theories has also been criticised by later critics. Dr Subodhchandra Sen Gupta took the poet to task for using the theory of rasa as a theory of the ineffable, an interpretation rejected by the ancient theoretician Anandavardhana. Tagore was also criticised for quoting from Visvanatha's Sathityadarpana (fourteenth century) in defining kavya as this text was comparatively recent and hence less authoritative.
69. On these points, and also for a defence of Tagore, see Bhabanigopal Sanyal, Rahindranather sahityatattva. Calcutta. 1974, Pt 2. pp. 38–40.
70. See also Bimalkumar Mukhopadhyay. Rabindranandantattva, Calcutta. 1991, p, 296;
71. Asitkumar Bandyopadhyay, Sahityajijnashay Rabindranath, Calcutta, 1980. Vol. 2; and
72. Satyendranath Ray, Sahityatatve Rabindranath. Calcutta, 1972 contain informative and comparative discussions of Tagore's aesthetic theories.
73. See Tagore's essay, ‘Kabir kaifiyat’ (1915) in RR, Vol. 14. p. 301: ‘The phenomenon that we call jiban—leela (lit. life-play; leela = play) is called “struggle for existence” across the Western seas. But the difficulty is that we feel ashamed to use this expression these days. Life is leela (play) and nothing else! What would the tough peoples of the world say [of us] if they heard [us say this]…! I confess that I have no sense of shame. It is possible that at this my English teacher will hurl his sound-seeking arrow at me. He may say, “Look here, you are simply Oriental” but that will not kill me. “Leela” expresses the whole of the concept, “struggle” truncates it.’
74. ‘Kabir kaifiyat’, in RR, Vol. 14, p. 301.
75. For an extended discussion of some of these points see Abu Sayeed Ayyub, Tagore and Modernism, trans. Amitava Ray, Delhi, 1995. The original Bengali book uses in its title the word ‘adhunikata’ which can be read as both ‘modernity’ and ‘modernism’.
76. See his 1937 essay explaining the prose poetry form, ‘Gadyachhander prakriti’ in RR, Vol. 14, p. 284.
77. Tagore's letter to Dhurjatiprasad Mukherjee, 17 May 1935, in RR, p. 280, 312–13.
78. The tensions between romanticism and the eighteenth-century political-economic ideas of ‘utility’ receives attention in James Chandler, England in 1819: The Politics of Literary Culture and the Case of Romantic Historicism, Chicago, 1998, pp. 188–89, 231, 478.
79. See Eric Stokes, The English Utilitarians and India, Delhi, 1989 (first pub. 1959). It is perhaps a strand of the romantic critique of Bentham that continues into writings of Marx and Engels.
80. Cf. ‘The complete subordination of all existing relations to the relation of utility, and its unconditional elevation to the sole content of all other relations, occurs for the first time in Bentham's work…’ K. Marx and F. Engels, The German Ideology, Moscow, 1976, pp. 436–37.
81. See John M. Robson, ‘J.S. Mill's Theory of Poetry’, in J.B. Schneewind, ed., Mill: A Collection of Critical Essays, London, 1969, pp. 251–79;
82. Jeremy Bentham, ‘Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation’ (1789), in Mary Warnock, ed., Utilitarianism, London, 1969, p. 34.
83. Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay, ‘Kamalakanta’ in Jogeshchandra Bagal, ed., Bankimrachanabali, Calcutta, 1974, Vol. 2. p. 54. Bankim then goes on to gloss ‘stomach’ thus; ‘A certain big hollow in the body is called stomach; to fill it up is the goal of life; it is better filled with luchi (a Bengali savoury preparation made with flour) than with ideas or sentiments; that there were six ways of achieving this aim of life but in none of them Bengalis seemed particularly adept (while presumable the European excelled)–they were: knowledge, intelligence, labour, prayer, force and deception’ (p. 55).
84. For an illuminating discussion of Bankim's writings in the context of colonialism, see Sudipta Kaviraj, The Unhappy Consciousness, Delhi, 1995.
85. See Tagore's essays ‘Sahitya’ (1924) and
86. ‘tathya o satya’ (1925) in RR, Vol. 14, in particular pp. 308–9 and 312–13.
87. See his books on Bengali language, Shabdatattva and on metre, Chhanda included in RR, Vol. 14.
88. Loka-sahitya, his book on folk-literature, is included in RR, Vol. 13.
89. Cf. ‘As it is, Bengali words have no weight, no accent like it is customary with English, and no tradition, as in Sanskrit, of maintaining the long and short (vowel sounds)’: Tagore, ‘Bangla chhande anuprash’ in RR, Vol. 14, p. 130.
90. See, for instance, Tagore's ‘Phuljani’ in RR, Vol. 13, p. 943.
91. In an interesting essay on Tagore's music, Satyajit Ray mentions how Tagore was opposed to the use of the percussion instrument tabla with his songs for it tended to drown the words and give prominence to the rhythm and the raga. Satyajit Ray, ‘Rabindrasangite bhabbar katha’ in Abdul Ahad and Sanjida Khatun, eds, Roilo tahar bani, roilo bhara shure. Dhaka, 1983, p. 157.s
92. A handy source for discussions between Tagore and his interlocutors on his theories of music is Rabindranath Thakur, Sangitchinta, Calcutta, 1966.
93. Shankha Ghosh, Kabitar muhurta, Calcutta, 1991, p. 14.
94. Binodbehari Mukhopadhyay, ‘Chitrakar’, Ekshan, annual number, 1978, pp. 201–2.
95. Prabhatkumar Mukhopadhyay, Gitabitan: kalanukramik shuchi, Calcutta, 1992, gives 1905 as the date of composition of this song.
96. For a comprehensive history of the Swadeshi movement, see Sumit Sarkar, The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, 1903–1908, Delhi, 1973.
97. Edward Thompson, Rabindranath Tagore, p. 24. The poem was written about 1898.
98. See Prabhatkumar Mukhopadhyay, Rabindrajibani o sahityaprabeshak, Calcutta, 1960, Vol. 1, p. 428.
99. Thompson, Rabindranath, p. 151.
100. Diana Eck's short book on Darśan: Seeing the Divine in India, Chambersburg, 1985, is a useful introduction to the subject of darshan except that she writes from a position that is deep rationalist and the text apologetically tries to explain all literal claims of ‘seeing’ divinity in India as so many instances of metaphoric or non-literal use of language. My point is that this literalism of ‘seeing’ in the experience of ‘visonary beholding’ has to be taken seriously, or else we stay with the misleading category of ‘imagination’. For instance, when Ramakrishna claimed to Narendranath (later Vivekananda) that he had indeed seen and even talked to God, he meant his words literally and not metaphorically, for he was engaging in an argument about the sensory accessibility of divinity. We may not agree with Ramakrishna's claim but it does not make matters any clearer to make all religious experiences ‘rational’ by appealing to anthropology.
101. Raniero Gnoli, The Aesthetic Experience According to Abhinavagupta, Varanasi, 1968, revised version of the 1956 edition published from Rome, p. xlvi.
102. See also the discussion in K. K. Chari, Sanskrit Criticism, Honolulu, 1990, pp. 44, 59–63; and
103. Hari Ram Mishra, The Theory of Rasa, Chattarpur(M.P.), 1964, pp. 412, 415.
104. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origins and Spread of Nationalism, London, 1983, p. 15.
105. V.K. Chari. Sanskrit Criticism, Honolulu, 1990, p. 32: ‘In fact, it may be safely concluded that Sanskrit poetics does not offer a systematic doctrine of the imagination; there is in it to match the speculations of Coleridge. But this, I think, is hardly a matter to be regretted because imagination is at best a dubious concept, and its usefulness for criticism has not been proved.’
106. Bimal Krishna Matilal, Perception: An Essay on Classical Indian Theories of Knowledge, Oxford, 1986, pp. 286–91, 311–12, draws attention to similarities between Hume's and Kant's use of the word ‘imagination’ and the use of words like kalpana or vikalpa in Indian logic. In both cases, says Matilal, ‘imagination’ distinguishes between conception—free and conception-loaded perception in the work of memory. On Coleridge's ‘desynonimization’ of ‘fancy’ and ‘imagination’
107. see Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, Nigel Leask, ed., London and Vermont, 1997, Chapter 4, pp. 55–56.
108. The famous Chapter 13 of Biographia Literaria defines thus the ‘primary’ and the ‘secondary’ modes of imagination (p. 175): ‘The primary IMAGINATION I hold to be the living power and prime Agent of all human Perception, and as a repetition in the finite mind of the eternal act of creation in the infinite I AM. The secondary I consider as an echo of the former,… identical with the primary in the kind of its agency, and differing only in degree and the mode of its operation. It dissolves, diffuses, dissipates, in order to recreate.…It is essentially vital, even as all objects (as objects) are essentially fixed and dated.’ Coleridge's theories have spawned a huge literature. In attempting to understand the nature of the category ‘imagination’ as used in discussions of European romanticism, I have benefited from looking at the following: Geoffrey Hartman, The Unmediated Vision: An Interpretation of Wordsworth, Hopkins, Rilke and Valery, New York, 1966;
109. Geoffrey Hartman, ‘Reflections on the Evening Star: Akenside to Coleridge’
110. Angus Fletcher, ‘Positive Negation’: Threshold, Sequence and Personification in Coleridge’
111. Thomas McFarland, ‘The Origin and Significance of Coleridge's Theory of Secondary Imagination’, in Geoffrey Hartman, ed., New Perspectives on Coleridge and Wordsworth: Selected Papers from the English Institute, New York, 1972;
112. James K. Chandler, Wordsworth's Second Nature: A Study of the Poetry and Politics, Chicago, 1984;
113. John Spencer Hill, ed., Imagination in Coleridge, London, 1978;
114. Nigel Leask, The Politics of Imagination in Coleridge's Critical Thought, London, 1988; and
115. Thomas McFarland, Coleridge and the Pantheist Tradition, Oxford, 1969. I am deeply grateful to David Lloyd, James Chandler and Jonathan Mee for discussions and references which have helped me to clarify my understanding of the romantic category of ‘imagination’.
116. See the discussion in Thomas McFarland, Coleridge, pp. 308–9. McFarland, quoting Geoffrey Hartman, draws an interesting contrast between Wordsworth and Coleridge on this point.
117. Coleridge, Biographia Literaria, p. 57 n 1. Coleridge, of course, classifies this moment under eighteenth—century philosophies of ‘common sense’. 1 do not mean to subscribe to such philosophies.
118. As Brian Massumi says in discussing the everyday example of throwing a brick: ‘What is the subject of the brick? The arm that throws it? The body connected to the arm? The brain encased in the body? The situation that brought brain and body to such a juncture? All and none of the above. What is its object? The window? The edifice? The laws the edifice shelters? The class and other power relations encrusted in the laws? All and none of the above.’ Brian Massumi, A User's Guide to Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Deviations from Deleuze and Guattari, Cambridge, Mass., 1992, p. 5.
119. See also Massumi's essay, ‘Which came first? The individual or society? Which is the chicken and which is the egg? The Political Economy of Belonging and the Logic of Relation’ in Cynthia C. Davidson, ed., Anybody. Cambridge, Mass., 1997, pp. 175–88. I gratefully acknowledge here the benefits 1 have accrued from my discussions with Massumi and from reading some of his recent work.
120. See Sigmund Freud, ‘The Uncanny’, Sigmund Freud, Art and Literature, Harmondsworth, 1985, pp. 335–76.
121. S. Wajed Ali, ‘Bharatbarsha’ in Matriculation Bengali Selections. Calcutta University, 1938, p. 322.
122. The episode is discussed in Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse, London, 1986, pp. 146–47.
123. Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India, New York, 1946, pp. 48–49
124. cited in Partha Chatterjee, Nationalist Thought, p. 146.
125. See Homi Bhabha, ‘Nation and DissemiNation’ in Homi Bhabha, ed., Nation and Narration.
126. See the discussion in my afterword to Stephen Vlastos ed., Mirrors of Modernity, Berkeley, 1998.
127. See Hegel, Introductory Lectures on Aesthetics, ed., and introduced by Michael Inwood and trans. Bernard Bosanquet, Harmondsworth, 1993, p. 3.
128. A good discussion of this point is available in R.K. Sen, Aesthetic Enjoyment: Its Background in Philosophy and Medicine, Calcutta, 1966. S.K. De also describes Anandavardhana as ‘applying the Rasa-theory to Poetics’, suggesting thereby that the province of the theory was larger than just ‘poetics’.
129. See Sushil Kumar Dey, Sanskrit Poetics, Calcutta, 1960, Vol. 2, p. 19.
130. Thus Fredric Jameson: ‘Always historicize! This slogan—the one absolute and we may even say “transhistorical” imperative of all dialectical thought—will unsurprisingly turn out to be the moral of The Political Unconscious as well.’ ‘Preface’ to his The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act, New York, 1981, p. 9.