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         Bankimchandra Chatterjee's immortal place in our national history is inseparably linked with the Indian national anthem 'Bande Mataram'. Throughout the country he is known chiefly as a political visionary and as a man whose passionate concern was the emancipation of his country. In more senses than one, he is the founding father of Indian nationalism.

        Though Bankimchandra Chatterjee's name is almost a household word in Bengal, yet the available materials for his biography are rather sketchy and meagre. The history of his early life is almost unknown. His father Jadavchandra Chatterjee was born in 1794.
 

Bankimchandra Chatterjee (1838 - 1894)

        Though Bengal was then under the control of the East India Company, traces of Mohammedan administration still continued in the province. Jadavchandra Chatterjee learnt Persian which was considered as a passport to office in his time. But he could read the signs of the times and soon took to the study of English. As a young man he is said to have walked the whole distance of more than 500 kilometres from Calcutta, now called Kolkata, where his elder brother was an officer in the Salt Tax Department of the government.

        Jadavchandra Chatterjee was appointed treasurer in the Public Treasury at Midnapore in 1836. In 1838 he was appointed a Deputy Collector at Hoogly.

        Bankimchandra Chatterjee was born on 27 June, 1838 in the village of Kantalpura in the district of 24-Parganas. The same year also witnessed the birth of three other great sons of Bengal, viz. Keshubchandra Sen, the theistic reformer; Hemchandra Banerjee, the poet; and Krishnadas Pal, the public man and statesman. His school life was partly spent at Midnapore where his father was a Deputy Collector. In 1854 he joined the Hoogly College which was a noted educational centre in those days. It was here that his outstanding merit was noticed by all who came into contact with him. This college produced many distinguished scholars but it was believed that none of them could stand comparison with Bankimchandra Chatterjee except Dwarakanath Misra, who distinguished himself later as a very brilliant judge of the Calcutta High Court. In 1857, he joined Presidency College, Calcutta, where Keshubchandra Sen was one of his classmates.

        In 1857, the sepoy mutiny broke out with far reaching consequences. It led to the transfer of the government of the country from the East India Company directly to the British crown. This step made for stable and efficient administration stamping it with its British character.

        An acquaintance with Western ideas and culture became an essential qualification for those who were seeking public offices in the country. The University of Calcutta, modelled on that of London University, was founded in 1857 for the spread of western culture.

        This movement for English education and Western culture received the full support of Lord Macaulay and Raja Rammohan Rai. Bankimchandra Chatterjee sat for the examination for the B.A degree held by the new University of Calcutta in 1858 and passed with fair credit along with another student. He was thus one of the first two graduates of Calcutta University.

        Soon thereafter Bankimchandra Chatterjee was appointed to the Bengal Civil Service and was posted as a Deputy Magistrate and Deputy Collector at Jessore in August 1858. His official career lasted for 33 years. It brought him rich and varied experiences of various kinds and he earned the reputation of being a good administrator and a firm dispenser of justice. He cared nothing for popularity or applause.

        Apart from being totally involved in his official work, Bankimchandra Chatterjee also took interest in arts, letters and literature right from the beginning phase of his official career. Bankimchandra Chatterjee was actively associated with the Literary Society at Berhampur and it was here that his plan of starting a Bengali periodical materialised in 1872, with the publication of the Bangadarshan. His father died in 1881. Bankimchandra Chatterjee retired in 1891 when he was only 53. The same year the government conferred on him the title of Rai Bahadur as a personal distinction and in 1894 he was made a Companion of the Most Eminent Order of the Indian Empire (CIE). He died prematurely on 8 April, 1894, at the age of 56.

        Bankimchandra Chatterjee's literary career began with his youthful contribution to the Bengali periodical Sambad-Prabakar in the early 1850s and continued till 1893. What is surprising is that this earlier work, published long before his graduation in 1858, should have given no promise of his future greatness as a writer of immortal Bengali fiction. His early work comprised articles and poems in Bengali like 'Lalitha' and 'Manas' and stories in English like 'The Adventures of a Young Hindu' and 'Rajmohan's Wife'.

        Bankimchandra Chatterjee wrote all his novels during the days of his laborious official life. The first two novels, Durgeshnandini and Kapalkundala, were published in 1865 and 1866 respectively when he was a Deputy Magistrate at Baruipur in the district of 24-Parganas. From this moment, his virile and energetic pen had no rest during the remaining years of his life. Many more novels were published in quick succession and by 1887 he had published 14 novels along with other prose works. He produced very little after 1887. Krishnakanter Will was brought out in 1878. His most famous and immortal novel Ananda Math which contained the immortal 'Bande Mataram' song was published in 1882.

        To quote the appropriate words of Dr M M Bhattacharjee: 'Bankimchandra Chatterjee's place in the history of Bengali fiction may be called unique. The novel as a work of literary art really owes its existence in Bengal to him. Before Bankimchandra Chatterjee, fiction was represented only by Bengali translation of a few Sanskrit dramas and stories as well as of some Persian and Arabic Tales'.

        The style of previous writers like Rajram Mohan Roy, Easwar Chandra Vidyasagar and Akshaykumar Dutt, bore traces of Sanskrit influence and compound words and verbose expressions were far too common in their compositions. There was no likelihood of ordinary common people being attracted by it.

        In Bankimchandra Chatterjee's hands the novel ceased to be a mere didactic story, and became a work of art with an aesthetic appeal. His language has the stamp of his genius and possesses a rare charm. It combines the strength, dignity and soft beauty of Sanskrit with the nerve and vigour of the vernacular Bengali language.

        Soon after his death Bankimchandra Chatterjee was hailed as a classicist. His work was marked by lucidity of thought, clarity of vision and judgement, and sense of proportion. As a government servant and as a man of affairs, he had to mix with all sorts of people like bureaucrats, lawyers, police officers, landlords, traders and peasants. And in the midst of multifarious work, he had to collect his energies for serious study and literary work. The observations of Lord Bacon are fully relevant in the case of Bankimchandra Chatterjee: 'Whoever hath his mind fraught with many thoughts, his wits and understanding do clarify and break up in the communicating and discoursing with another; he tosseth his thoughts more easily, he marshalleth them more orderly, seeth how they look when they are turned into words. '

        They perfect nature, and are perfected by experience, for natural abilities are like natural plants that need pruning by study and studies themselves do give directions too much at large, except they are bound by experience.

        Though he dreamt golden dreams of the future of his fatherland, Bankimchandra Chatterjee was neither a Mazzini nor a Milton. He was somewhat of a social reformer, a pugnacious controversialist in defence of Hindu culture, a stern mentor of aspirants to literary fame but not a politician or a statesman. A farsighted thinker, he knew that nations by themselves are made, that political systems and institutions have their roots far deep in man's inner work. He was convinced that it is this which gives birth to nations and sustains them. 'Nothing counts but strength - moral, intellectual and spiritual - which is another name for virtue. Without it, liberty, howsoever won, cannot long be enjoyed. Its absence means sure decadence and wasting away.

        Bankimchandra Chatterjee had an unerring vision of the moral strength which must be at the back of the physical force. He perceived that the first element of the moral strength must be complete self-sacrifice. Bankimchandra Chatterjee sublimated patriotism into an ethereal virtue. The quintessence of all these emotions and sentiments were packed into his 'Bande Mataram' song which became the song of millions in the days of our struggle for freedom. It became the life breath of our Maha Kavi Bharathi as well who sang in Tamil: 'Vande Mataram Enbom!'

        Let me offer my prayers to Mother India in the words of Bankimchandra Chatterjee in his 'Bande Mataram':

        Rich with thy hurrying streams,

        Bright with thy orchard gleams,

        Cool with thy winds of delight,

        Dark fields waving, Mother of Might,

        Glory of Moonlight Dreams,

        Over thy branches and lordly streams,

        Clad in thy blossoming trees,

        Mother, giver of ease.

        The Mother, giver of boons,

        Giver of bliss,

        I bow to Her who saves,

        To her who drives from her

        The armies of her foremen

        The glorious Mother!

        Thou art knowledge

        Thou art conduct

        Thou art heart, thou art soul!

        For thou art the life in our body!