Freedom in the river: Bengali bhadralok consciousness in Manik Bandopadhyay’s Padmanadir majhi

In the mid-1930s, when the ascendancy of Bengali nationalist leadership at the all-India level was by and large over, a new generation of writers took up the task of radically transforming Indian society from the bottom. By pointing to a living dimension of freedom by the side of the marginalized communities, they carved out a new arena of uncompromising practice for themselves. Manik Bandopadhyay’s (1908-1955) novel Padmanadir majhi played a pioneering role in this respect. By showing how Bengali literature could become a most effective instrument of a systemic cultural reorientation, it provided Bengali bhadralok intellectuals with a new sense of purpose on the frontline of contemporary India’s quest for social justice. This was done by turning a specific element of the natural environment in Bengal, the river Padma, into a timeless domain where the ‘unhappy consciousness’ of the colonized mind could regain its freedom.