A Tremendous Comet’: Positing Michael Madhusudan Dutt in Indian Literature

 

‘A Tremendous Comet’: Positing Michael Madhusudan Dutt in Indian Literature

 

Jawhar Sircar

 In Namita Gokhale & Malashri Lal: Betrayed By Hope

Harper Collins (2020)

 

 

 

         To appreciate a meteoric writer like Michael Madhusudan Dutt and estimate his contribution to Indian literature and culture, we need to first take him from the confines of Bengal, where he is stuck, quite unwittingly. In his home ‘province’, he is remembered forever for introducing lasting innovations that enriched a language that was struggling to move out of its archaic mould. Dutt gave Bangla, and other Indian languages that loved constructive experimentation, a breath of new life and blazed new paths for generations of writers to follow, all the way up to Rabindranath Tagore and beyond. Born into an upper-class, upper-caste Hindu family in 1824, Dutt was a perennial rebel and iconoclast, who renounced the religion of his forefathers, for Christianity rather effortlessly and early in life. Yet, in his early teens, his classmate believed that he ‘was a genius (and) even his foibles and eccentricities had a touch of romance, a taste of the attic salt that made them savoury and sweet’ It would be interesting to see how the boy of only eleven years who pined be in the ‘bosom (of) England’s glorious shore’ would be so dejected later on, and returned to his mother tongue—to do it really proud. His maverick ways, however, disturbed all but they also helped develop and foster a very forward-looking weltanschauung for modern India.

 

         But then, Dutt can hardly be understood in isolation and it may be useful to recall very briefly the contribution of two great social revolutionaries who preceded him: Raja Rammohun Roy and Henry Louis Vivan Derozio. Though they differed in their philosophies, both men were extremely courageous and determined to battle the deeply-entrenched practices of their societies that they believed were blocking progress. Derozio’s mission was to inculcate the spirit of interrogation among his young and eager students at India’s first English college, the Hindoo College, later renamed as Presidency. He joined at seventeen, but he died much too early, in 1831, at the age of twenty-two. In this short span, he had managed to kindle a relentless thirst for knowledge. His senior, and a more respected reformer, Raja Rammohun Roy had challenged the very might and wrath of Hindu obscurantism, as he campaigned tirelessly to end fiercely-guarded, age-old barbarities practised in the name of religion, including the custom of burning widows alive on the pyres of husbands.

 

           To posit a very anglophile Michael Madhusudan Dutt in the context of India, we have also to appreciate that never had Indian culture and civilization been impacted in so comprehensive a manner by a foreign way of life. Its impact was especially palpable in the colonial capital at Calcutta and in Bengal. The overriding hegemony of an alien culture has been summed up quite aptly by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, who wrote: ‘The stamp of the Anglo-Saxon foreigner is upon our houses, our furniture, our carriages, our food, our drink, our dress, our very familiar letters and conversation … in every inch of our outward life’. The Bangla language, which had emerged out of Sanskrit, Prakrit and Apabhransh in approximately the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, underwent its first major overhaul in the nineteenth century thanks to the impact of European cultures. When the East India Company set up its Fort William College in Calcutta in 1800 to train its young cadets, little did anyone realize how its instructors would reconstruct the Bangla language so thoroughly. The College naturally gave emphasis on the Indian link language, ‘Hindustanee’, but it also gave immense importance to Bangla as it was understood by a large part of the eastern population. The immediate result of this inter-civilizational encounter was the evolution of Bangla prose, as an alternate and acceptable mode of communication. This prose, inspired by the contact with English, greatly benefitted Rammohun Roy, who used it most adroitly to speak directly with the people and to campaign against the burning of widows and other social evils. This new language naturally became a weapon of literary reform too and four decades later, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay composed the first novel in an Indian language.

 

       It was in this context that the next two crusaders, Vidyasagar and Madhusudan Dutt arrived on the Indian scene, some twenty years later. Movements like Derozio’s ‘Young Bengal’ and Roy’s ‘Brahmo Samaj’ had lived long after them, questioning every retrograde belief and ritual, but the next generation picked up the baton and took the pulsating, creative energies they had inherited to greater heights. Dutt, Vidyasagar and their contemporaries produced a veritable flood of literature, philosophy, and injected the scientific temper among Indians. Despite suffering the deep pain of the backlash of tradition, Dutt and Vidyasagar held out against all adversities. Sadly, Dutt did not live to see his fiftieth year.

 

        To understand Dutt, we may require to understand the role of Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Dutt’s greatest patron and supporter. Many, who are used to seeing Vidyasagar’s standard image in the very simple chador may be surprised to know that he was well versed and fluent in the English language, it’s culture and nuances.. Like Mahatma Gandhi, his apparel was his life’s statement. Vidyasagar re-examined the existing Bangla script and standardized its alphabet, structure and composition. Even though he was one of the finest Sanskrit pandits of his day, he decided to focus on Bangla, a language which was not favoured by serious academics and scholars. As historian R.C. Majumdar observed, ‘Isvarchandra Vidyasagar rescued the Bengali style from the pedantry of the Pandits and the vulgarity of the realists … and may be called the father of literary Bengali prose’. He was a great communicator, yet he decided to court controversy and enrage many. He took upon himself the task of completing Roy’s historic, social and religious reforms. The public imagination was fired once again in the 1850s, when Vidyasagar battled against Hindu obscurantism to steer the ‘Widow Remarriage Act’ with Governor General Dalhousie, who ultimately passed it in 1856.

 

            The controversial and yet charismatic Dutt, was only nineteen years old when he converted to Christianity in 1843. The Hindu society was naturally aghast at his decision and that he reportedly took to avoid a child marriage fixed by his parents. As an unapologetic Anglophile, however, Dutt felt that he had moved closer to the god of Englishmen, for he described his own feelings with wonder and hope.

    ‘But now, at length thy grace, O Lord!

     Birds all around me shine;

     I drink thy sweet, thy precious word,

     I kneel before thy shrine!’

 

          According to Reverend Krishna Mohan Banerjee, Dutt was prompted not by conviction for Christian ideals but by his unapologetic worship of England and things English. Christians, therefore, accepted him with reservations.To understand the compulsions of the times, we may turn to Ashis Nandy’s brilliant encapsulation: “In the colonial culture, identification with the aggressor bound the rulers and the ruled in an uunbreakable dyadic relationship. The Raj saw Indians as crypto-barbarians who needed to further civilize themselves. Others saw British rule as an agent of progress and as a mission. Many Indians, in turn, saw their salvation in becoming more like the British, in friendship or in enmity.’ It was this spirit that lured, if one may use the term, Dutt to think, dream and breathe as a member of the British ruling class, until both the class and his own epiphany destroyed this mirage ever so rudely before his death. As a Christian, he was not allowed to continue studies at Hindoo College and was compelled to leave not only his beloved institution but also his dear friend and supporter, Gour Das Bysack. He continued, however, to share his deepest thoughts with Bysack. Much of our records of Dutt’s life are reconstructed based on his correspondence with Bysack.

 

         Dutt continued his graduate studies at Bishop’s College but left for Madras in 1847, without earning his degree, but after picking up quite substantial amounts of Greek and Latin linguistics and lore. He worked for a Christian establishment in Madras and wrote in newspapers and periodicals, but what is more interesting is that he married Rebecca Thompson. This must have created quite a stir, for while European men had freely married ‘native women’ till then, the reverse was not common at all. The couple had four children but, for reasons we have not yet understood, Madhusudan abandoned Rebecca and his children. It was, of course, quite possible that he was thrown out by her, for we hear no more of this marriage, nor even of any formal divorce. When he left Madras for Calcutta in February 1856, Dutt was alone and since we are on this sensitive subject, we may as well mention that he was attached henceforth to another English lady of French blood, Emilia Henrietta Sophie from 1858 till her death. This was, quite tragically, just three days before his own. This ‘common law’ couple had two sons and a daughter.

 

         What matters most to us is the legacy he left behind in Indian literature, but we need to note that like his role model, Derozio, he wrote profusely in English but was hardly accepted by the colonial masters. Among his early English works were his rambling poems, King Porus (1843) and The Captive Ladie (1849) as well as an excessively ornate essay The Anglo-Saxon and the Hindu (1854) which he stuffed with innumerable references and quotations from many, many European books. Both Wordsworth and Milton deeply influenced Dutt, and he was so obsessed with European culture that, other than English, he had learnt French, Italian, Greek and Latin. Among the Indian languages, he knew Sanskrit and had also picked up Tamil and Telugu. Michael Madhusudan tried writing under the pseudonym, Timothy Penpoem, but the English world refused to acknowledge Dutt. It was at this stage that Dutt accepted the well-meaning advice of John Drinkwater Bethune, the President of the Council of Education, who had, in fact, praised his dexterity with the octosyllabic verses. Bethune suggested that he could better ‘employ the taste and talents... cultivated by the study of English, in improving the standard, and adding to the stock of the poetry of his own language’. This reached the inner recesses of Dutt’s heart and the prodigal began his homeward journey.

 

        Dutt started writing in Bangla with the same boundless energy and optimism, and wrote to his friend, Rajnarain Basu in July 1861: ‘You may take my word for it, friend Raj, I shall come out like a tremendous comet and no mistake’. He kept his word even as he grappled to master and seek recognition in a language he had spurned and neglected, and wrestled with his lifelong companion, poverty. This unknown writer earned his living in Calcutta, first, as a head clerk in a police court, and then became its chief interpreter. By 1858, after the British had successfully crushed the First War of Indian Independence with unspeakable brutality, the Crown unseated the Company and decided to rule its huge empire on the subcontinent directly from Calcutta. For some reason, these momentous happenings do not appear to have stirred Dutt, who was busy translating Ramnarayan Tarkaratna’s play Ratnavali (1858) into English. It was then that he realized that Bangla and other Indian languages direly lacked good plays of European standards. ‘The genius of Drama has not yet received even a moderate degree of development in this country.’

 

           Dutt then got involved with the Belgachhia Theatre set up in northern Calcutta by the Rajas of Paikpara. Dutt produced his first dramatic composition, Sermistha (Sharmistha) in 1859, based on the story of Yayati. It was not a great success, but he brought in both fresh air and controversy. Dutt wrote four more plays in quick succession, two of which were impressive ‘histories’, Padmavati (1859) and Krishna Kumari (1860), while Ekei Ki Boley Sabhyata (1860) and Buro Shaliker Ghare Ron (1860) were scathing satires on contemporary society. These started bringing in recognition, but the restless Madhusudan had by then moved on to composing narrative and balladic poems: Tilottama Sambhava Kavya (1861), Meghnad Badh Kavya (1861), Brajagana Kavya (1861) and Veerangana Kavya (1861).

 

      It was, however with Meghnad Badh Kavya or The Slaying of Meghnad, that Dutt finally gained recognition. He was then seen as a distinguished composer of a completely new breed of heroic poetry that had strong shades of Homer and Dante but was intrinsically Indian. Dutt has aptly been acknowledged as the first great genius who infused a new life into Bangla dramatic literature. He introduced a new form of drama that was more European in its literary structure — quite different from the Sanskrit tradition of verse and, of course, had little to do with the rustic poetic performance style of the Mangal Kavyas. Michael also composed sonnets in an Indian language for the first time, proving quite convincingly that these languages could be experimented with and ornamented well beyond the confines of orthodoxy. He went on to unshackle poetry further and started writing in his free form of non-rhyming ‘blank verse’. Both these innovations were taken up later by Hindi and several other languages and it was Dutt who inspired fresh poetic protocols.              

 

        Before we end, we must narrate how he was bitterly disappointed by the country that he had held in highest esteem all his life. In 1862, he reached the land of his dreams, ostensibly to secure a degree in law. This was so typical of Dutt and he was not practical enough to appreciate that he was close to the peak of his literary career, with an ever growing following, and also that he had finally started making his presence felt in Bangla literature. In England, on the other hand, he appeared to be severely hurt by the land its people. As expected, he had not made firm arrangements to finance his overseas stay, and soon found London to be expensive. In 1863, he moved to France, along with Henrietta. They stayed in Versailles for about two years and within this time Dutt became throughly disillusioned with England and Europe. The couple took to excessive drinking to tide over the deep regret and bitterness. His friends and admirers in India appeared to have either forgotten him or given up on his mercurial, intemperate spending habits. He fell gravely into debt and, had it not been for Vidyasagar, who ensured that he received his dues from his father’s estate, he would have been wrecked altogether.

 

        Dutt returned to England in 1865, was accorded the honour of a Barrister, but was no more enamoured with the land of his dreams. He returned to Calcutta in January 1867, when Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay’s early romantic novels had appeared and as a language, Bangla, was now poised to fly even higher. Michael Madhusudan Dutt did utilize his degree to practice law in Calcutta for about three years, but with little success. He obviously spent more than he earned and soon gave up practice and opted for a lower paid but secure clerical job. He kept on writing, however, and in 1871, he published Hectar-Badh or The Killing of Hector based on an episode in after Homer’s Iliad. His last composition was Mayakanan that came out in 1873. His final days were, indeed, very painful and he died in a charity hospital. His extravagant lifestyle and uncontrolled spending combined with chronic alcoholism to destroy him, his health and his partner, Henrietta. She died, sick and alcoholic, on the 26June 1873 and he died, in abject poverty and in terrible health, just three days later.

 

       But, the Renaissance in Bangla literature and the arts was back in full form and dozens of luminaries had arrived on the stage in the years that followed. Language and literature changed forever in Bengal. Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Sarat Chandra Chattopadhyay, Swami Vivekananda, Rabindranath Tagore and Sri Aurobindo followed this trail that had been lit up brightly with those like Madhusudan who fought to establish reason above the mandates of religion and tradition. Yet, like him, they never abjured or forsook the rich heritage of India’s ageless civilization, that had endless treasures to offer.