‘Bengal Renaissance’

In his Notes on the Bengal Renaissance (1946), Bengali Marxist historian Sushobhan Sarkar characterised the social and cultural awakening in 19th-century Bengal as the “Bengal Renaissance.” However, he pointed out serious limitations of this renaissance in Conflict within the Bengal Renaissance (1967): “it did move on the axis of the upper stratum alone of society, the ‘bhadraloks’; it could not draw in the Muslim community and the masses of the backward Hindus.”

Recently, the cult figure of the Bengal Renaissance and eminent Bengali novelist, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, has come under public scrutiny. While delivering the first Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay Memorial Lecture, organised by the Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee Research Foundation in Kolkata, the Bharatiya Janata Party national president Amit Shah said: “The Congress never respected the
national song ‘Vande Mataram’ and had neglected the ideals of Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay. It had also censored the national song to two stanzas instead of accepting the whole song to suit its appeasement politics. This led to the Partition.”