Bankim Chandra Chatterji

Author

• Born: June 26, 1838
• Birthplace: Kanthalpara, West Bengal, India
• Died: April 8, 1894

Biography

Bankim Chandra Chatterji was the youngest of three sons in a distinguished Brahmin family, born on June 26, 1838, in Kanthalpara, a village in West Bengal, India. His father was Jadabchandra Chatterji, a government servant and deputy collector, and his mother was named Durgadebi. Following local custom, Chatterji was married at age eleven to a girl just five years old. He was educated for six years at Mahasin College in Hoogly and Presidency College, Calcutta (these institutions were equivalent to high schools), and was one of the first graduates of the University of Calcutta in 1857.

From 1858 until he retired in 1891, Chatterji served as a deputy magistrate in the Indian Civil Service. His first wife died in 1860, shortly after his initial appointment at Jessore. After a time, he remarried. His second wife, Rajlakshmi Devi, bore him three daughters; the youngest, Utpala Kumari, purportedly committed suicide. Throughout his governmental career, Chatterji was transferred often for failing to show proper respect to his British masters.

Possessed of a brilliant, inquisitive mind, Chatterji began writing during his schooling. Early compositions appeared in the newspaper Sambad Prabhakar. In 1856, he published a volume of verse, Lalita, Purakalik galpa, Tatha manas. Within a few years, inspired by the stories of Sir Walter Scott, he turned to fiction, for which he became noted. His first novel, written in English, was Rajmohan’s Wife. In 1865, he published Durgeshnandini, his first romance, written in Bengali. One of his best and most popular novels, Kapalkunala—with lyrical prose, a gripping, melodramatic plot, and a heroine partially modeled on the character of Miranda in William Shakespeare’s The Tempest—appeared in 1866.

Determined to be a positive force in stimulating the intellect of the Bengali people, Chatterji founded a monthly journal, Bangadarshan, in 1872. The magazine featured a variety of his writings, including stories, humorous sketches, historical essays, articles, religious discourses, literary criticisms, and book reviews. Chatterji’s novel Vishavriksha was first serialized in the magazine’s pages in 1873.

For the rest of his writing life, Chatterji alternated between essays (such as the collection Lokarahasya, which criticized Bengali customs), humorous sketches (such as Kamalakanter daptar), and historical, romance, and/or adventure fiction (including Rajasingha, a story set against Muslim oppression; Anandarmath, a patriotic tale of revolt against the Muslim forces of the East India Company; Devi chaudhurani, a domestic novel; and Sitaram, involving a marital triangle amidst the struggle between Hindus and Muslims). His novels in particular, often introduced in his magazine, helped establish prose as a viable literary vehicle for the Bengali language and helped create in India a school of fiction that gave a unique Asian spin to the European novel form that inspired it.

One of Chatterji’s most significant and longest-lasting contributions to Indian culture was the song “Bande Mataram” (“hail to thee, mother”), which became the rallying cry of Indian nationalism, gave impetus to numerous patriotic and terrorist movements in the early twentieth century, and eventually was adopted as the national song.

For his widespread influence in Bengali literature, the British government recognized Bankim Chandra Chatterji after his retirement with the honorific title Ray Bahadur in 1892, and named him a Champion of the Indian Empire (CIE) shortly before his death on April 8, 1894.