Payel Mondal & Desh Vikas ISSN 2394 -1782

Sushanta Debnath RNI: APENG/2014/57359

Impact Factor: 2.2376
Volume: 7 Issue:2 July - September 2020

Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay’s
Conception of Equality
1 2
Payel Mondal and Sushanta Debnath
1
M.A. & SET in Political Science, University of Kalyani, Nadia,
West Bengal, India.
2
M.A. in History, University of Kalyani, Nadia, West Bengal, India.
Email: sushanta92ku@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
The proposed article on Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay is an attempt to
know and understand it properly in the context of the present. As
academics are mainly familiar with his works nationalist thought, hence
it is directed towards revisiting his other ideas specially samya (equality).
A very few attempts are so far made to bring Bankimchandra’s
conception of samya in the forefront. Therefore, how he wanted to ensure
equality in society with the hope of an egalitarian society is studied.
Key words: Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay, equality, nationalist thought,
samya

Introduction
Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay is one of the greatest novelists of Bengal. He
had contributed immensely in the literary renaissance of Bengal as well as
India. He inspired many intellectuals, novelists and common mass to India’s
nationalist aspirations and movement. The western philosophy and thought
especially the writings of John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham, Jean-Jacques
Rousseau and some utopian socialists like Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Robert
Owen have influenced Bankim’s life and philosophy. He is well known to
academics for his nationalist thought. But his contribution has gone beyond
the idea of nationalist thought. In this article, an attempt is made to explore
that least discussed contribution. In his various writings, some ideas of
equality can be found. In our modern civilization, equality is an important
concept to ensure a just society. The concept of equality has many

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interpretations and different views. Generally, equality is the state of being

equal, especially in status, rights, or opportunities. Due to the lack of equal
rights and opportunities society becomes divided and emerges a conflict
between have and haven’t. For this, it cannot advance towards an egalitarian
society.

Objectives
How Bankimchandra saw equality and inequality in society is tried to
understand in this article. Why is his idea of equality relevant in the 21st
century explored in the study? Besides, we take this study because
Bankimchandra’s idea of equality is not much recognized and studied in the
academic arena. Henceforth, his views especially in the essay Samya
(equality), Bangadesher Krishak (peasant of Bengal) and Bahubal and
Bakyabal (muscle power and intellectual power) are tried to understand.

Early life
Before we enter into the main discussion let us give a brief sketch of his early
life. Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay was born on 26 June 1838 and passed
away on 8 April 1894. His father was Yadavchandra Chattopadhyay and
mother was Durgadevi Chattopadhyay. He was born in an orthodox Bengali
Brahmin family in the village Kanthalpara in a small town of Naihati, now
locates in present North 24 Parganas district, 30 km away from metropolitan
Calcutta (Kolkata). His father was a government official. Bankimchandra had
his schooling from Hooghly Collegiate School. His college education
completed from Hooghly Mohsin College and later at Presidency College,
Kolkata. He was graduated in 1858 in Arts. Later, took admission at the
University of Calcutta. In 1858, he was appointed as a Deputy Collector of
Jessore (now in Bangladesh). Later, he became a Deputy Magistrate.
Bankimchandra obtained a degree in Law in 1869. He was successful to earn
reputation throughout his 33 years of long service as an administrator, yet the
British government did not promote him from deputy magistrate to full status
magistrate post. Perhaps since then, his thought about the British started to
change and conception of inequality developed (Basu, 2013).

Bankimchandra’s idea of equality

According to Bankimchandra “differences are a basic principle of the world.
There is inequality in everything. There are real differences between people.
The real differences are differences created by rules of nature. But just as there

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are real differences, there are artificial differences as well. Artificial

differences are not created by rules of nature. The difference
between brahmins and shudras is an artificial one (Chattopadhyay, 2002).”
However, his idea of equality is found mainly in his essay Samya published in
1879. Apart from that, some ideas can be found in another essay Bangadesher
Krishak. The essay Samya was first published in Bengali in Bangadarshan, a
periodical brought out by Chattopadhyay between 1872 and 1876. What he
expressed in his essay Samya is the influence of both western philosophy and
his personal life experience. It was his early day’s writing.

The essay Samya includes five chapters. It discussed different issues like
zamindary system, women education, property right etc. In this case, French
philosopher Rousseau influenced him. Rousseau in his famous book Discourse
on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men (1755) supported the
existence of natural inequality. To him “people may have established civil
society and that leads him to conclude that private property is the original
source and basis of all inequality”. Rousseau was willing to permit two sorts
of inequality. The first was the natural inequality between the young and old,
the weak and strong, the wise and stupid; the second was the inequality that
resulted from rewarding those who rendered special service to the community
(Mukherjee & Ramaswamy, 2014). But he was against artificial inequality.
However, in the essay Samya, he was sympathetic towards common people
and peasants (Sarkar, 2004).

Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay believed cast system was the main reason why
India deteriorated. He realized that human progress couldn’t be achieved
unless people acquire knowledge. He observed “the shudra has no right to
knowledge; the brahmin has this sole right. As most people in India are
not brahmins. Therefore, most Indians remained ignorant”. He in his essay had
mentioned that Buddha, Jesus Christ, and Rousseau were the preachers of
social equality.

When and how is a society established? Bankimchandra says it is public

property that helped in building our society. The people in society made their
property by possessing the land. With land, some people became influential
and then the process of deprivation of the weaker sections in the society starts.
Such deprivation is further institutionalized through legal institutions. In
society, the people who possessed a plot of land Bankimchandra had called

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them ‘cheat’. Here, anarchist Joseph Proudhon’s influence was on him.

Proudhon in his book Property is Theft! carried out such a view. According to
Proudhon “everyone has an equal claim, either alone or as part of a small
cooperative, to possess and use land and other resources as need to make a
living”. He further opposes to obey them because on the planet everyone has
equal right. Over every crop and grain, all have equal entitlement.
Bankimchandra was also concerned about poverty. He raises several questions
in his essay Samya. He says thief has danda (punishment) why is no
punishment for unkindness? He also observed that in society there are two
different types of punishment for the same offence. For example, he says if a
brahmin is killed by a shudra is a higher offence, but if a shudra is killed by a
brahmin it is considered as a lower offence. No doubt, this is against natural law.

Why an individual takes away meal by depriving five hundred poor? If he

does then why doesn’t he offer surplus meal/food to the poor? If he does not
give then obviously poor will snatch meal from him as nobody is born to die
of starvation on earth. So in his writings, the socialistic outlook is manifested.
Kamalakanta criticizes his views on poverty as ‘too socialist’. Here,
Kamalakanta, an imagined character is a representative of the capitalist class
whom Bankimchandra criticized as a “cat” (Sehanavis, 2017). He expresses
that socialistic views are responsible for social disorder and backwardness. If
people are not encouraged to acquire more wealth or savings, nobody will
work hard and concentrate on acquiring property. Therefore, society will not
progress. Or if people do not enjoy their possession and savings due to the
activities of the thief, no one will earn or save wealth. Hence, the wealth of
society will not grow. In response to Kamalakanta, Bankimchandra says,
increase in wealth of the society is meant the increase of the property of the
rich. If rich's wealth does not increase what is the problem for the poor. If I
don't have a meal to eat then what is the benefit of society's progress. In his
another essay Bahubal and Bakyabal he says, “People who were involved in
eradicating social poverty are known as socialist and communist in Europe.”
However, here, Bankimchandra was influenced by Rousseau. To him, the
property is not for an individual, but for people. Whatever we have on the
planet cannot be of any individual or ten or fifteen landlords. Each individual
in society has an equal right to land.
While Bankimchandra expresses his concern over social poverty constructs a
character Paran Mondal, a landless peasant who was exploited and deprived in

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the hand of landlord and moneylender. Even he did not get justice to court and
from constable. He depicts that growing indebtedness and poverty had made
his life miserable. In Bangadesher Krishak, he says law and court do not
provide justice to the poor peasant because the peasants are not able to carry
the expenditure for running cases in the court. Besides, the British-made legal
system is complicated and fails to offer justice.
In order to ensure progress in education, he felt the need for education for all.
In this case, Bankim was influenced by British philosopher Henry Thomas
Buckle. Bankimchandra once said without education society’s progress and
development cannot be attained. For education, people need leisure time. But
peasants do not get that required time for learning. Without leisure time,
acquiring knowledge or discussion is not possible. Here, one can relate
Bankimchandra’s views with modern economist and social activist Jean
Dreaze. He in his book Sense and Solidarity: Jholawala Economics for
Everyone (2017) has expressed a similar concern. Dreze has brought examples
from Jharkhand, one of the backward states in India. He observes due to acute
poverty poor people are forced to smuggle coal and sell out in the urban
market for livelihoods. He calls them “koilawalas or coal guys”. In fact, there
is nothing as “jholawala economics” that he himself confirmed. He wanted to
denote the actual conditions of the poor. Dreze thinks these coal guys are in
this dire situation because of either they born in a poor family of the wrong
caste or did not get a chance to study. In a different environment, they might
have become geologists, engineers, artists or hockey champions (Dreze, 2017).

Bankimchandra was also worried about social discrimination between men

and women. He desires to ensure equality between the rights of both men and
women category. During his time, young girls often used to become a widow
that was considered normal. He questioned such system and argued in his
writings that if a man has right to remarry after the death of his first wife then
according to the principle of equality every woman has also similar right to
marry another man after the death of her previous husband. He further says to
improve the situation of the women we need to spread education among them.
If we are able to do so all the constraints to women progress within the
households would be curbed out. Spreading women education in society
would enhance their skill and effectiveness in their way of life.
How will equality be ensured in society? According to Bankimchandra it can
be achieved by Bahubal (muscle power) as well as Bakyabal (argument/

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debate). In this regard, he mentions the role of the French Revolution (1789)
where liberty, equality and fraternity were the main ideals that changed that
society. On the other, he did not forget to mention the contribution of Gautama
Buddha and Jesus Christ to make an egalitarian society. He recalls Buddha’s
fight against racial discrimination who was committed in his whole life to
upgrade shudra to the higher status in society. Jesus was the preacher of the
principle of equality and fraternity who fought for the emancipation of the slave.

Overall, Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay was against of inequality created in

the society by human beings. But he never said that there will exist no
inequality in society. To him natural inequality is the rule of nature; therefore,
it will exist. For the misery and ill fate of India and its people, he made
artificial inequality responsible. He opposed any sort of artificial inequality,
injustice and poverty to the people. He rightly observed that social
stratification based on caste (brahmin, kshatriya, vaishya and shudra) has
created artificial inequality and discrimination. He viewed equality from a
socio-economic point of view. This was reflected in his early essay and
novels. Initially, he understood that equality in the society cannot be ensured
unless we remove caste barriers, exploitation, discrimination and spread
education among the neglected and powerless people in the society. But later
on, his realization was that for complete egalitarian society political rights and
liberty are important. Such an assumption is found in his two important
political novels i.e. Anandamath and Devi Chaudhurani. In Annandamath, he
imagined how untrained sannyasi (saints) fought against mighty British force.
Further, he imagined that even saints have defeated the British army. In Devi
Chaudhurani, he talked about resurgent India where face to face fight against
the British army is the only way to end colonial oppression and exploitation.
Interestingly, in this freedom struggle, he imagined a woman will lead the
anti-British movement. Thus, Bankimchandra wanted to say that at first
inequality and discrimination among native Indian should be curbed out, and
ultimate equality will be established after uprooting British colonial
government from India. When the British came to India, they started to
consider Indian natives inferior to them. Bankim Chandra challenged such
kind of perception through his essay and novels.

Concluding remarks
Why should Bankimchandra be studied in the 21st century? It is because for a
simple reason. Even after 73 years of country's independence, we experience

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ample incidents of discrimination, inequality and violent incidents of Dalit

oppression by the higher caste community members especially in the north,
middle and western parts of India. Recently, we have seen in the newspaper
that two police officials in Visakhapatnam (Andhra Pradesh) made a Dalit
youth’s head bald and removed moustache. His guilty was he was involved in
an argument with a local leader. To teach him a lesson, that political leader
used police officials. Such incidents are against the value of civilized society.
Still in India, there are around 15% of the gap of literacy between male and
female. In rural India, this picture is more pathetic. Therefore,
Bankimchandra’s conception of equality is still relevant today. We always
remember his contribution to Bengal and India’s renaissance and freedom
struggle especially his song “Vande Mataram” that motivated many
intellectuals, freedom fighters and mass. Apart from that, academics need to
study and know his contribution to social equality. Social inequality is a
barrier to human progress, the nation's progress. If a large section of the
society remains downtrodden, hungry and powerless, no nation can be strong
and complete.

REFERENCES

Basu, S. (2013). Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay: Jatiyotabad o Rastro Gothon

(Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay: Nationalism and State Building. In A. K.
Mukhopadhyay, Bharotiyo Rastrachinta (Indian Political Thought) (pp.
127-144). Kolkata: Paschimbanga Rajya Pustak Parshod (West Bengal State
Book Board).
Chattopadhyay, B. (2002). Samya (Equality). (B. Debroy, Trans.) Delhi: Liberty
Institute.
Dreze, J. (2017). Sense and Solidarity: jholawala economics for everyone. New
Delhi: Permanent Black.
Ramaswamy, S. M. (2014). A History of Political Thought: Plato to Marx (Second
Edition). Delhi: PHI Learning Private Limited.
Sarkar, S. (2004). Banglar Renaissance (Renaissance of Bengal). Kolkata: Dipayan.
Sehanavis, C. (2017). Samajtantra o Bharat (Socialism and India). Kolkata: Chirayoto
Prakashan.

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