Bankimchandra's Religious Thinking
Efforts to deconstruct Orientalist essentialisms and reifications of the Other often threaten to become an exercise in stripping that Other posthumously of a sort of 'colonial straight-jacket' and afterwards leaving it exposed to the elements. Such 'vulgar deconstructionism' is insufficient when, for instance, it comes to forming an accurate picture of the Bengali nineteenth century.By Hans Harder
Especially at the beginning of the nineteenth century, agency and reaction cannot simply be assigned to the colonizers and the colonized respectively. Both the reformist and the revivalist trend were fuelled by various factions which all, in one way or the other, had their share in the construction of essentialisms and intercultural perceptive patterns. When, in the latter half of that century, Indian nationalism evolved, those interconnections between colonial and native discourse added to turning nationalist self-delineation into a complicated, multidimensional affair, which a study of Bankimchandra's writings, for instance, can teach us.The present thesis, Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay's 'Shrimadbhagabadgita' : Translation and Analysis (accepted in 1997, to be published in 1999), is an attempt to re-examine Bankimchandra's religious thinking in the context of this period of colonialism and cultural contact. Written in instalments between 1886-88, his little known commentary on the first four chapters of the 'Bhagavadgita' is a key text of nascent modern (or neo-) Hinduism. The mediation between East and West, science and religion etc., and the implicitly nationalist assertion of a Gita-based Hinduism as a universal and superior religion are its most important features.
The analysis of the conceptual dimension of the commentary demonstrates the way in which Bankimchandra employs paradigms of nineteenth century Biblical criticism in order to legitimize an eclectic reading of the BhG. Besides this, it shows how his use of central terms oscillates between broad and narrow or 'normative' and 'empirical' definitions. Dharma, which had by then become the established equivalent for 'religion', is thus, with the aid of Seeley and Max M_ller, interpreted as the most universal formulation of religion, and its development is attributed exclusively to the Hindu tradition. Bankimchandra's apology for image-worship is constructed in a similar way: its existence, along with 'higher' forms of worship and its sanction in the BhG, gives Hinduism the bonus of being the most complete plus the most tolerant of all religions.
The nationalist intention of the commentary is equally evident in its communicative set-up, as the second part of the analysis tries to demonstrate. The different treatment mated out by Bankimchandra to the ancient Indian commentators of the BhG and to the modern Western ones is especially telling. The former are mostly irrelevant to his interpretation, but quoted extensively; in cases of incompatibility with his opinions, they are 'politely dismissed'. Western Indologists, however, are treated very ambiguously: either as an endorsement to his own reading of the BhG, or, whenever possible, as instances of utter incompetence. In-group formation is at work here; Bankimchandra's aim is to take the authoritative discussion about Indian culture out of Orientalist hands and back to India. At the conclusion of the thesis, the interplay of intentions and constraints in Bankimchandra's thinking to integrated into a larger-scale assessment of his concept of Hindu-Indian identity and cultural self-assertion; and these, again, are set in relation to his personal, colonized life.
Historically, Bankimchandra must indeed be regarded as one of the founders of 'Hindu nationalism' and an influential 'essentializer', despite the fact that the complexity of his thought would have allowed quite a different reception. Many of his interpretations (popularized by Vivekananda, Aurobindo and others) have evolved into standard neo-Hindu positions.
The term 'neo-Hindu', by the way, was apparently first used by Bengali authors of Bankimchandra's time. Bankimchandra himself uses it (along with 'modern Hindu') in his 'Debtattva o hindudharmma', and it reappears later as a technical term in the Bengali discussion. The term has met with criticism because of its alleged implication of unauthenticity and external (Indological) provenance. It seems, however, that the term can justly claim the status of an 'indigenous category', and if used in a value-neutral way, may not be as ill-suited for what it denotes as is usually assumed.
Hans Harder. Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay's 'Shrimadbhagabadgita': Translation and Analysis; PhD thesis in English, Halle 1997; main supervisor: R.P. Das. Awarded the 'Forschungspreis der DMG 1998'.
Hans Harder
Institut für Indologie, Martin Luther Universität,
Emile Abderhaiden Str. 9
06099 Halle (Saale), BRD
harder@indologie.uni-halle.de