Paper Details

This paper examines the critical intellectual history of Bankimchandra Chattopadhayay’s nationalist thought. It argues that Chattopadhayay’s nationalist thought did not originate solely as a reaction against colonial domination of the British Empire in India. Instead, it's a complex synthesis of various ideological strands such as indigenous socio-religious culture and colonial knowledge system, especially Orientalism and Utilitarianism. While placing Chattopadhay in the context of the socio-political and cultural milieu of the so-called ‘Bengal Renaissance’, this paper explores various intellectual and cultural underpinnings of the advent of a unified national consciousness embedded in communal historical narratives constructed by Bankimchandra Chattopadhay. This paper, while utilising a historical-analytical and textual method, critically explores how Chattopadhayay provided an epistemological foundation to construct a unified and monolithic national identity of India and its communalistic implications in the intellectual history of Indian nationhood. This paper also examines Chattopadhayay's epistemological project of unifying Indian identity by utilising his literary works on historical fiction and its implications on vulnerable social intersections, such as women and non-Indic religious minorities, especially Muslims.

Cultural Nationalism, Intellectual History, Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay, Nationalist Thought, Colonial Knowledge Production