A "Moderately" Bengali Alice: Tracing Moderate Nationalism in Trailokyanath Mukhopadhyay's Kankabati

We have all heard the Kankabati tale as children. Kankabati's brother bought a mango. Keeping the fruit in the safety of his room, he warned one and all—"Let no one touch my mango. Remember, I will marry the one who consumes it." A mere child, Kankabati couldn't gauge the implications, and ended up eating that very fruit! So her brother declared: "I will marry Kankabati!" Parents and acquaintances went blue in the face trying to convince them that this was not the proper thing to do! … The brother, however, refused to pay heed. … Kankabati was abashed beyond measure! She made a boat and set herself afloat on a river, winding away just behind her house, left with no other recourse. She was out of her brother's reach, and beyond his determination to marry her.

—Trailokyanath Mukhopadhyay, Kankabati, translated by Nandini Bhattacharya

This pracheen kawtha, or ancient tale, at the beginning of nineteenth-century Bengali writer Trailokyanath Mukhopadhyay's most well-known novel, Kankabati, foreshadows many of the concerns of female identity and agency that dog his eponymous heroine, while simultaneously establishing a difference between old folklore and contemporary colonial reality. He ends this little prologue with the words, "is it possible to believe such a tale? Is it probable that a brother would insist on marrying his sister for the sake of a mere fruit? This is patently impossible! I will narrate a tale that lies within the realm of probability" (Mukhopadhyay 3). While the story of Mukhopadhyay's Kankabati might not contain the incestuous and phallic overtones of a brother and his mango, it does have similarly arbitrary and superstitious authority figures and speaks of a world where women continue to be oppressed by irrational patriarchal codes. Further, the tale he goes on to narrate is a fantastic one that recalls Lewis Carroll's Alice stories: a central female protagonist slips into a dreamscape where she encounters the strange and the wondrous; has adventures in unfamiliar and somewhat exotic settings; meets a variety of curious and fantastic anthropomorphic creatures and finally, returns to the realm of reality. If Mukhopadhyay seeks to highlight the contrast between the ancient tale and his own modern tale, why call our attention to similarities through his prologue? If he did want a probable tale (as opposed to the patently impossible ancient folktale that he recounts), why would he adapt Lewis Carroll's fantastic setting? By turning to the temporal and geographical intersection of the text's publication, i.e., late-nineteenth-century colonial Bengal, which was permeated by increasing literacy and the rise of early anticolonial political events, we can answer both questions. As a text of a very particular historical moment, Kankabati portrays the early stirrings of nationalism (also known as Moderate Nationalism) and a social discourse best represented by a fluid movement between the old and the new, reality and fantasy, between the possibilities and improbabilities of contemporary Bengali society. By framing his novel in the context of both an ancient Bengali fairy tale and Carroll's Alice stories, Mukhopadhyay calls attention to the changing political time and advocates for necessary domestic social reforms, while simultaneously voicing anticolonial sentiments.

The world of textuality in nineteenth-century Bengal was chaotic and colorful. In the aftermath of the introduction of the colonial education system and the rise in literacy, education, and professional aspirations among the Indians, educators, both Indian and foreign, felt the increasing need for textual material more suited to the needs of the Indian population.¹ The resulting rise in the import of European books took place simultaneously with the growth and formation of the domestic publishing industry. Although a variety of nonfiction materials were popular for the benefits of knowledge and social mobility they conferred upon their possessors, a large part of readerly attention was occupied by the delights of more imaginative forms of literature. This article explores the symbolic and functional advantages of imaginative fiction, especially the genre of children's fantasy, presented to authors in colonial Bengal. I argue that the ideological and formal conveniences offered by...