Les intellectuels bengalis et I'imperialisme britannique. Bengali Intellectuals and British Imperialism.

• Author: Rocher, Rosane
• Position: Book review

Les intellectuels bengalis et I'imperialisme britannique. Bengali Intellectuals and British Imperialism. By France Bhattacharya. College de France Publications de I'Institut de Civilisation Indienne, ser. in-8 [degrees], vol. 78. Paris: de boccard, 2010. Pp. 399.

In this descriptive and analytical, more than theoretically inflected, volume, France Bhattacharya retraces the lives and works of three Bengali intellectuals who wrestled in distinct ways, not only with the political and economic, but also and preeminently, the cultural weight of the colonial regime from the late eighteenth century to the end of the nineteenth. However much has already been written about Rammohan Roy, he remained an indispensable part of this study, as the standard bearer for social and religious reform. Bankim Chandra Chatterji is renowned as a man of letters whose words inspired the nationalist movement. Wedged between those two Bengali intellectual stalwarts in Bhattacharya's book is the more conservative Bhudev Mukherji, who remained little known outside Bengal. From the juxtaposition of these three personalities emerges an interesting map of paths in which Bengali intellectuals chose to confront the colonial mode.

After a brief introduction that sets the social stage of Calcutta and Bengal at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the volume reviews in three parts of slightly increasing length the three protagonists in chronological order. The ambient world Rammohan (1772-1833) knew was considerably different from that of the other two. It was that of the Company Raj, when what had been a mercantile enterprise was transformed into a territorial power. It was a time when a wealthy Bengali intellectual could take the lead in achieving religious and social reforms, and arouse intense interest when he traveled abroad. The imperial yoke was heavier on Bhudev (1827-1894) and Bankim (1838-1894). By then the British in India had succumbed to the illusion of permanence. Both Bengali thinkers, who were employees of the colonial government as a teacher and as a civil servant respectively avoided voicing direct opposition to the political power of their masters. They could even consider that, in the...