From: bhattach@quip.eecs.umich.edu (sayan bhattacharyya)
Subject: Re: Shaping of Bengali Culture
Organization: University of Michigan EECS Dept., Ann Arbor, MI
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 06:47:26 GMT

In article <1he3u9INNr14@aludra.usc.edu> banerjee@usc.edu (Samit Banerjee) writes:
>In article <1992Dec25.010627.25388@zip.eecs.umich.edu> bhattach@quip.eecs.umich.edu (sayan bhattacharyya) writes:
>
>>I think Arindam is taking a very narrow and elitist view of Bengali 
>>culture by claiming that the Bengali language and culture is solely
>>a product of the so-called Bengal Renaissance. Of course, the view 
>>he espouses is widely held in upper-class Bengali circles.
>
>Why is it that you must create classes amongst people in order to proselytize
>your narrow and often sectarian political beliefs that leads to your
>appreciation of one facet of our culture, often at the expense of the other?
>


First of all, let me make it clear that I was not "proselytising". I 
was expressing a personal opinion with which anyone is free to disagree
(or agree). I fail to understand why some people have an incurable habit
of looking for hidden agendas and reading ulterior motives into an
honest statement of personal views. I can well understand now why 
someone else on the net has recently called the author of the post
I am responding to, a demagogue.


I have little desire of responding to this post, which consisted mainly
of a string of motivated ad hominem attacks  based on an erroneous 
ascription to me of a certain ideological position. I will say only 
this : in the neo-colonial and exploitative framework of contemporary
Bengali society, as well as the rest of Indian society, (or for that
matter elsewhere in the third world) class does play an important role.
Class distinctions are unfortunately very much a part of socially lived      
reality in the part of the world we originated from. There is no point
pretending they do not exist. 

Since literature and culture are linked to social structure
and organisation, inalienably and ineliminably so, class distinctions
are important to analyse in any analysis of culture. This is why I
believe that class has to be a necessary parameter of any
honest attempt at literary or cultural criticism. 

>
>It is my belief that given the feudal state of our economy then and now,
>the abysmal poverty and the continued struggle for existence, it is naive 
>to expect the rural inhabitants to be the repository of any culture, let
>alone have the final word in that area. Now for some people that may be
>an elitist view and it probably is, but it has to be recognised that
>intellectual creativity does not go very well on an empty stomach, much
>as Lenin would have as believe.
>

You are dead wrong. History has shown that the materially dispossessed
hang on to their cultural identity with a surprising tenacity because
it is the only means of self-expression left to them. Think of the 
impoverishment of Ireland under British colonialism, and reflect on 
what a surprising number of major British writers hailed from that 
impoverished but culturally enriched part of the British Isles. Similarly,
think about the incomparable richness of Latin American poetry, music 
and culture vis-a`-vis North American culture even though material 
conditions in Latin America are far worse than in North America. 




-- 
Sayan Bhattacharyya          |   Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.
Graduate student             |
Artificial Intelligence Lab  |
The University of Michigan   |