The Unhappy Consciousness: Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay and the Formation of Discourse in India (Soas Studies on South Asia)

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SOAS Srudics in South Asia

The Unhappy Consciousness BANKlMCHANDRA CHATIOPADHYA Y AND THE FORMATION OF NATIONALIST DISCOURSE IN INDIA

SUDIPTA KAVIR.\]

DELHI

OXFORD BOMBhY

UNIVERSITY' Chl.CUTTh 1995

PRESS

MhDR.hS

Oxford UniVury and her ~ron ~f the exact kind that Batters him, and particularly the fact that thas potcntJ>I was not olready exploited by ony pr~ccding cook in his life. Ycot it is difficult $omehow to say that Indira is entirely unrealistic. One finds pleasure in Bankim's characteristic observation of the snull thin~ of domestic life. The realism of a story is, after all, a rather complex alfaar. It is not just a matter of the plot, the sequence of even~ which constitute the movement of the story from one point of equahbnum to the next. If we use Todorov's distinction, the story is unrealistic. in its 'verb' asp~ct, but ~ntirely credible in its '•djectives'. All thOSVels of action this is a novel which explores relationships, m which acnons are neglig\bJe 2nd exter=l. Wlut luppens goes on in the kitchen o r its ~ viciniry. At any rate, it rarely moves out of the andatmaha~ the women s sanctuuy within the Bengali household, except for some forays to moc.k at that lugubrious symbol of the ·formal, w~emized outside world, the perennial object ofBank:im's ridicule-coloma! cou~. . Some interesting allegories could ~ fou~d o.n .this. level. There •s at play a caricatured version of the phil~sop~1c dis~ncno~ berwe.en male and female principles, a serious enough 1dea m ongmal ~mdu ph•losophy but adapted by the imitative Victorianism o.f the babu mto one between an all-!mportant outside world and an uru~porta~t home. The bab~ version, the rationaliry of the male and ~~nnm~ntalJSm of the fc~e, JS of course a caricature of the original rradJOona!Jdea; and there IS eVIdent justice in its being caricatured in rum. It shows up the world-consurrung pretensions and delusions ofthe babu, the ineffectualiry of the subordination he wishes to impose on Others who live around ~· Men repr~ent, in this very masculine of myths, the outside_ world ~f we1ghry and mrncate decisions, women the uncomplicated sentunental•ty of th~ ho~seh~ld. It is men who bold the world in order, and stop it fro":' dissolVIng mto a confusion of indulgence and tears, a stereotype tlut nu~SJons, that even somethmg which is not ordinarily justifiable is right for the sake ofsdf-preservationn She is driven to do this to win her way back into h