Welcome back to this series of lecture on
postcolonial literature. Today we will be
continuing with our discussion on decolonisation
from the Indian perspective and we will be
doing so with special reference to the poetry
of Henry Louis Vivian Derozio. But before
we start exploring the poems of Derozio, let
us dwell a little longer on the English educated
middle class which emerged in India during
the 19th century and the nationalist discourse
that they forged.
Now as I have already said in my previous
lecture, that one of the characteristic features
of this national discourse that the middle
class came up with was an underlying cyclical
pattern. And this pattern looks something
like this:
This is already a known slide. I am using
it from the previous lecture. And we can see
that according to this pattern, India was
once a land of high civilisation which represented
its golden age. But the people of this subcontinent
had subsequently fallen from that superior
position and the golden age was now lost.
So the present India therefore represented
a kind of a degenerate state of being which
was confirmed by the fact that Indians had
now become a colonised race who were subjugated
by the Europeans.
Now the present India as I said is an India
of decay and degeneration. But this pattern
which talks about a fall from the golden age,
also talks about a regeneration. So the fall
from the golden age of the past, according
to this pattern, is to be remedied in the
future which will be marked by a reversion
back to the golden age.
Now as I have said earlier, if you study the
development of the middle class nationalist
discourse we will observe various differences
regarding, say for instance, what constitutes
this Indian golden age, when did it come to
an end, what are the reasons for its coming
to an end and things like that.
But the underlying cyclical pattern which
you can see in this slide remain the same
till say the Gandhian era of the 20th century.
And as we shall see today, this cyclical pattern
already started emerging quite early during
the 19th century. So this pattern can clearly
be traced in the discourse of the middle class
from as far back as the early 19th century
down to the Gandhian era of the 20th century.
And the text where this cyclical pattern of
the Indian nationalist discourse is most explicitly
evident is perhaps in the Bengali novel Anandamath
written by the 19th century Bengali novelist
Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay.
Bankimchandra’s dates are 1838 to 1894 and
his career is typically that of an individual
belonging to the new Indian middle class that
started emerging from the 19th century. Indeed,
Bankim, typical of the middle class, he was
also an English educated person and was in
fact one of the first students to graduate
from the Calcutta University which was set
up in 1857 along with the universities of
Bombay and Madras to promote western style
education in India.
Bankimchandra served the British government
first as a Deputy Collector and then as a
Deputy Magistrate and near the end of his
life he was awarded by the colonial government
with the title of CIE or the Companion of
the Order of the Indian Empire. So in one
sense Bankimchandra was quite thoroughly integrated
as part of the colonial authority, he was
part of the colonial system itself.
But this is only one side of his career which
is in fact almost forgotten today. Today Bankimchandra
is remembered, almost exclusively, as one
of the first, and here I quote the words of
the historian Partha Chatterjee, he is remembered
as “one of the first systematic expounders
in India of the principles of nationalism”.
And indeed, his novel Anandamath can easily
be regarded as one of the founding texts of
Indian middle class nationalist discourse.
And as most of us will know, the song Vande
Mataram, which is contained in this novel
Anandamath, was inextricably associated with
the middle class led nationalist movement
throughout the 20th century. And of course,
later in independent India, it became the
national song. So as I was saying, it is in
this novel Anandamath, that we most clearly
encounter the cyclical pattern of a glorious
past, a fall from it, and a future promise
of reverting back to it.
In this novel which tells the story of the
sanyasi rebellion that erupted in Bengal during
the late 18th century, the hero Mahendra is,
at one point in the novel, shown three different
images of the Mother Goddess by the sanyasis
to explain to him the reason for which the
rebellion was organised by them. And the three
different images of Mother Goddess that Mahendra
sees are variously described as, the first
one is described as the Mother as she was.
The second one is described as the Mother
as she is at present. And the third one is
a depiction of the Mother as she will become
or as she will be in the future. And each
of these images they represent in the novel
different states of the country India in past,
present, and future. And the first, which
depicts the Mother Goddess as the resplendent
Jagatdhatri, “perfectly formed and decorated
with every ornament”, represents the glorious
past of India. The second depicting her as
Kali, who “has been robbed of everything”,
represents the state of misery which the country
has fallen into in the present. And the third
depicting her as Durga, “glistening and
smiling in the early morning rays”, and
these are words from the novel, holds out
the promise of a future regeneration of the
ancient glories. And it is for this future
regeneration that the sanyasis are apparently
working.
Now according to Bankimchandra the transformation
of the Motherland from the first image, that
of the resplendent Jagatdhatri, to the second
image, that of Kali, who has been robbed of
everything, was manifested by the lack of
independence. And it was the third image therefore
was an attempt to regain back that resplendent
earliest stature which the Mother enjoyed.
But an attempt to regain back the state of
glory in the future, Bankimchandra’s novel
seems to suggest, would require superhuman
efforts by what is referred to as the “santans”
or the children of the motherland. But interestingly,
if we read the novel through, we will realise
that this effort to relieve the Mother of
its present miseries and to revert her back
to the past glories is not an effort that
is to be automatically directed against the
British colonial rule.
Now this might sound somewhat counter-intuitive
to us today, but as a long monologue near
the end of the novel argues, without the help
of the colonial rule the Hindus will not be
able to regain their earlier glory which was
characterised by a way of life which is referred
to in the novel as “Sanatan Dharma”. Now
here it is important to note that in Bankimchandra’s
writings we find a problematic merging of
terms like Indian, Hindu, and Bengali.
And here also in the novel there is this very
problematic overlapping of these terms and
when we read Bankimchandra we need to keep
this in mind. Because the novelist seems to
use these terms almost as synonymous, though
they are evidently not. But coming back to
the monologue, we find the monologue stating
this:
Unless the English rule, it will not be possible
for the Eternal Code or the sanatan dharma
to be reinstated. The true Hindu rule of life
is based on knowledge, not on action. And,
this knowledge is of two kinds - outward and
inward. The inward knowledge is the chief
part of the Eternal Code (sanatan dharma),
but unless the outward knowledge arises first,
the inward cannot arise. For a long time now
the outward knowledge has been lost in this
land, and so the true Eternal Code has been
lost too. The English are very good in the
outward knowledge, and they are very good
at instructing people. Therefore, we will
make the English king.
So the argument in this section of the monologue
is that though the subjugation of the Indians/Hindus
by a foreign power is symptomatic of their
fall from the golden age, colonial rule is
nevertheless necessary to regain that position
of power. This is because the Western knowledge,
that the European colonisers bring with them,
is essential for the reestablishment of the
sanatan dharma which, according to Bankim
at least, is the true Hindu/Indian way of
life. So the colonial rule therefore becomes
the very means of overcoming the state of
subjugation and the western knowledge system
becomes the very template on which Bankim
scripts the discourse of decolonisation.
Therefore, in this early phase of nationalist
discourse as encountered in the works of Bankimchandra
for instance we are finding a unique mixture
of respect towards the Western civilisation
and Western knowledge system of the coloniser
and an attempt to move towards a decolonised
future when India will be restored to its
past glory. We should remember this unique
composition of the nationalist discourse,
because later, when we will study the Gandhian
discourse of the 20th century when we are
doing Raja Rao’s Kanthapura, we will see
it that this early respect for the coloniser
civilisation becomes one of the main targets
of Gandhi’s attack. Right.
But today we will not proceed to Gandhi and
the 20th century modification of this nationalist
discourse. Rather we are going to move back.
We are going to go back to the early 19th
century and see how the thought patterns that
we have identified in Bankimchandra’s nationalist
discourse is found in a nascent state in the
poetry of Henry Louis Vivian Derozio.
Now Derozio, whose image you can see here,
was born in 1809 in Calcutta and he died at
a rather young age in 1831. But in spite of
this very short lifespan, Derozio had a profound
impact on the contemporary Indian society.
Indeed, as a popular teacher in the Hindu
College of Calcutta, which was incidentally
the first major institute of Western higher
learning to be set up anywhere in India, Derozio
is credited for introducing a whole generation
of Indians to the merits of English education
or Western style education. In that regard,
Derozio can be regarded as one of the founding
fathers of the Indian middle class which started
emerging in India during the 19th century.
But today, Derozio is best remembered for
his poetry which represents one of the earliest
instances of the middle class attempt to forge
a nationalist discourse in India.
But interestingly however, the body of poem
through which Derozio articulated his nationalist
thoughts, borrowed heavily from European literary
traditions. And to understand this melange
of European literary traditions and Indian
nationalist thought in Derozio’s work, let
us look at this particular instance of his
poetry. And this particular poem is titled
“The Harp of India”.
Now before we go on to the content of these
fourteen lines, I would like you to note that
the form of the poem is that of a sonnet.
And the sonnet form is of course well known
as one of the main forms of poetry in European
literature. And it had its origin in Italy
somewhere around the 13th century, but became
very popular in England from the 16th century
onwards.
And which is why one of the tallest literary
figures of Britain at that point of time,
William Shakespeare is also known as a great
sonneteer who produced more than 150 Sonnets.
This Sonnet tradition which originated in
Italy and then move to England, came to India
via the British literature and Derozio was
one of one of the first Indian practitioners
of this sonnet form. So though the sonnet
tradition was thoroughly indigenised later
by poets like Michael Madhusudan Dutta for
instance who produced sonnets in Bengali,
when Derozio was writing during the first
decades of the 19th century, sonnets were
still considered primarily to be a European
mode of poetic expression.
Now let us come to the inner dynamics of the
sonnet form because as we will see it directly
influences the nationalistic content of the
poem “Harp of India”. So the fourteen
lines of a sonnet, and sonnets are usually
composed of fourteen lines, are usually divided
into two parts.
The first eight lines form a separate segment
by itself and is referred to as the octave
and the last six lines form a separate segment
which is referred to as sestet. So octave
and sestet. And octave and sestet are separated
from one another by some differences in the
rhyme scheme but I will not be focusing on
the rhyme difference in today’s lecture.
What I am going to focus on is the difference
in the thought pattern which separates the
octave and the sestet.
So whatever, actually whatever thought is
put forward in the first eight lines of a
traditional sonnet, whatever thought is put
forward in the octave, is reversed in the
sestet. A very different thought, a contradictory
thought is put forward in the sestet. And
this change within the octave and sestet,
this reversal is technically referred to as
the Volta. V O L T A. Now so this octave sestet
separated by a Volta was how the sonnet was
divided in the conventional Italian form.
But when it came to England we see a slight
change in the position of the Volta. So, for
instance, in many of Shakespeare’s sonnets
we notice that the Volta rather than occurring
at the beginning of the sestet is delayed
till the very last two lines of the poem where
the central thought put forward by the first
twelve lines are reversed.
And when we focus on Derozio’s “Harp of
India” it is important to keep in mind these
two possible positions of the Volta because,
as I will show, Derozio applies the Volta
in both these places. So, and he does that
in order to thematically divide the poem into
three segments rather than two. So we will
discuss this when we come to the content and
in fact let us come to the content right now.
If you read the first eight lines of this
poem “The Harp of India”, you will see
Derozio is using a broken harp as a metaphoric
representation of India. So the first eight
lines, it starts from “Why hang’st thou
lonely on yon withered bough”, and it continues
till here. So in these first eight lines we
see that Derozio is talking about a broken
harp which is used as a metaphorical representation
of the land of India and he is lamenting about
its present state of decay. The harp whose
music was once so sweet has now fallen into
disrepair and as the poem says, “Silence
hath bound thee with her fatal chain”. Now
please note that throughout this section of
the poem Derozio uses present tense which
signifies that this pitiable silence is representative
of the present condition of the harp and by
extension of India as a whole.
Now if you compare this to the first four
lines of the sestet, which starts with here,
“Once thy harmonious chords to sweetness
gave”, and which continues till here, “Those
hands are cold”, you will see that here
the poem predominantly uses the past tense
and it speaks of the glory that was associated
with the harp/India of the past. So the Volta
that separates the octave from the sestet
reverses the pitiable condition of the present
by introducing us to how the harp was in the
golden past.
But if you note the last two lines or rather
I should say the last two and a half lines
because it starts from these words “but
if thy notes divine” which actually occurs
in line number twelve, we will see that here
Derozio introduces another Volta and he introduces
another temporal schema. So here the poem
is speaking about the future in which the
poet will try and restore the harp, and by
breaking its silence make it sing again. It
is this recovery and reversion back to the
golden age that is indicated by the action
stated in the last line “Harp of my country,
let me strike the strain” and therefore
break the chains of silence which has kept
it under bondage and subjugation.
So you will see there is a cyclical pattern
of the golden past followed by a fall and
a present state of decay giving way to a future
course of action which will help revert back
to the golden past is already identifiable
in this poem by Derozio. And the cyclical
pattern which was to become so prominent in
the national discourse of Bankimchandra for
instance later in the 19th century, is found
repeated in a number of sonnets by Derozio.
For instance, if you place Derozio’s poem
“To India - My Native Land” next to his
“The Harp of India” you will find the
same cyclical pattern in that sonnet also.
But what is also important to note, especially
with respect to “The Harp of India”, is
the use of a Western template to articulate
Indian nationalist thought. This we have identified
in the writings of Bankimchandra, but here
we see it foreshadowed in the poem of Derozio
where the Western form of a sonnet is used
as a vehicle to present what might be regarded
as a proto-nationalist discourse.
In the next lecture we will see how this form
of nationalist discourse which was initiated
by Derozio and which finally flourished in
the writings of Bankimchandra during in the
late 19th century is transformed by M.K. Gandhi,
and how this transformation wrought by Gandhi
find its way in the novel of Raja Rao titled
Kanthapura. We will do that in the next Lecture.
Thank you.
