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Concept
Bengali Renaissance
Summary
The Bengal Renaissance (Bengali: বাংলার নবজাগরণ – Banglar Navajagaran), also known as the Bengali Renaissance, was a cultural, social, intellectual, and artistic movement that took place in the Bengal region of the British Raj, from the late 18th century to the early 20th century. Historians have traced the beginnings of the movement to the victory of the British East India Company at the 1757 Battle of Plassey, as well as the works of reformer Raja Rammohan Roy, considered the "Father of the Bengal Renaissance," born in 1772. Nitish Sengupta stated that the movement "can be said to have ... ended with Rabindranath Tagore," Asia's first Nobel laureate.
For almost two centuries, the Bengal renaissance saw the radical transformation of Indian society, and its ideas have been attributed to the rise of Indian anticolonialist and nationalist thought and activity during this period. The philosophical basis of the movement was its unique version of liberalism and modernity. According to Sumit Sarkar, the pioneers and works of this period were revered and regarded with nostalgia throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, however, due to a new focus on its colonialist origins, a more critical view emerged in the 1970s.
The Bengali renaissance was predominantly led by Bengali Hindus, who at the time were socially and economically more affluent in colonial Bengal, and therefore better placed for higher education as a community. Well-known figures include the social reformer Raja Rammohan Roy, writer Rabindranath Tagore, and the physicist Satyendra Nath Bose. The main Muslim figures in the movement include members of the Suhrawardy family, poet and musician Kazi Nazrul Islam and writer Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain.
The Bengal Renaissance was a movement characterised by a sociopolitical awakening in the arts, literature, music, philosophy, religion, science, and other fields of intellectual inquiry. The movement questioned the existing customs and rituals in Indian society – most notably, the caste system, and the practice of sati, idolatry – as well as the role of religion and colonial governance.
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