There may not be any 'Other' like you
Professor Sumit Sarkar: A tribute to the intellect infinite, or as they say in simple Latin, intellectus infinitus.
By Raju Mansukhani in Delhi
It was bound to happen.
At a time when the word ‘Sarkar’ was being bandied about on the streets of New Delhi, and a real Sarkar was expected to be hanging its head in shame, there was another Sarkar who made thousands stand up in silent respect, paying their homage to a scholar-researcher-teacher whose ‘intellect infinite’ had defined him.
It had to happen.
Just as Jorge Luis Borges, the great Argentinian philosopher-writer-poet, had experienced in 'The Other', when he was strolling along the Seine on a cold evening in Paris. The ageing philosopher thought had he had come face-to-face with his younger self: the older Borges found himself arguing, testing the younger one who seemed to have all the spark, spunk and dynamism.
During the memorial service for Professor Sumit Sarkar in New Delhi, Kolkata, and several other cities, where students-researchers-professors gathered to honour the soft-spoken professor, there were some who silently wondered how the young Sumit Sarkar would have reacted, questioned, watching the proceedings of the solemn service. In fact there were others who thought they spotted a thirty-something Sumit-da, dressed in baggy pants and a loose shirt, with a jhola on his shoulder for papers, books and files, wearing those not-to- forget leather sandals that had weathered but were yet to wither away.
“Has he finished his doctorate? Wasn’t he working on the Swadeshi Movement?” whispered a grey-haired academic. “I have seen him here before.”
The young Sumit was the quintessential jhola-wala, as typical a Bhadralok as one could find on a campus, whether in Delhi or Calcutta.
"Kothai?
Where, where are the professor's books, his works?"
He questioned the History Department staff busy organizing the service. "You see that framed photograph with flowers around it...it is such a clichéd typically Sarkari way to honour Professor Sarkar," he added, with a soft chuckle.
Another senior teacher sitting nearby glared at the youngster, "Ssshhhhhh, be quiet! Learn to be respectful. Keep your comments to yourself, do you understand that young man?"
Young Sumit was never one to confront authority in such a sombre situation. He simply ducked his head, smiled weakly, "I am here to pay my homage. I am a Sarkar too, and believe it or not, I am very curious about how this octogenarian professor shaped up all his academic life in New Delhi, faraway from Calcutta that he obviously loved. And must have missed."
Calcutta and Bengal, the united province, was dear to both of them, the older and younger Sarkar who had pitted their intellect against the machinations of the British Sarkar. In fact, the young Sumit had made his presence felt, way back at the Indian History Congress in 1970, when he was still associated with the Presidency College and Calcutta University, just as his illustrious father, Professor Susobhan Sarkar, had been for decades. His address sought a deeper understanding of the nature and working of imperialism, both in India and on a world scale. It was titled 'Imperialism and Nationalist Thought'; focussed on Bengal, while acknowledging equally significant political and social developments in Maharashtra and Punjab.
The Swadeshi movement, for the readers who may not be aware, had gained momentum ostensibly as a reaction to what seemed as a territorial reorganization of the Bengal Presidency. As Professor Sarkar often explained in his lectures, “The undivided province had an area of 189,000 square miles and a population (in 1901) of 78.50 million. The plan of the British Raj was to separate the largely Muslim areas of the eastern areas from the predominantly Hindu areas in the west. Lord Curzon, then the Viceroy of India, forged this imperial plan to make West Bengal for Hindus and East Bengal for Muslims. What it triggered was an upsurge of different movements against the British Raj: Swadeshi had multiple strands, different voices and diverse trajectories -- all adding up to anti-colonial, anti-imperial struggles which took the British Raj by surprise.”
Sumit Sarkar pointed out, "Continuities at first sight seem more noticeable than breaks when we look at Swadeshi Bengal from the 'moderate nationalism' point of view, and more specifically its political aspects which had crystallized around concrete grievances like government jobs and Council seats, issues directly affecting only a handful... Partition was an affront to the growing sense of unity among the Bengali-speaking people, a sense by no means all-pervasive but still certainly affecting many others besides zamindars, Calcutta lawyers or Congress politicians; the high-handed redrawing of maps by foreigners without any consultation with the inhabitants was resented as a peculiar gross kind of White arrogance and racial discrimination, was the theme which could unite the proudest zamindar or 'bhadralok' with the meanest of plebians.”
The young academician referred to a spectrum of Indian newspapers continually focusing on cases of assault and judicial partiality, and the depth of bitterness amongst the people.
The original Risley Scheme, explained Sumit Sarkar, would lead to the transferred East Bengal districts getting submerged in 'backward' Assam and losing several privileges including its Legislative Council and a Board of Revenue; the enlarged Partition plan would restrict employment opportunities for its people, reduce educational facilities by cutting off Calcutta from East Bengal. It would also curtail the jurisdiction of the Calcutta High Court, at the same time upsetting the Permanent Settlement as the new province of East Bengal would require new taxes. Civil servants like Risley had convinced themselves that the whole Swadeshi movement was being engineered by interest groups led by the ‘bhadralok’, and were consequently supremely confident that "the native will quickly become accustomed to the new conditions".
Professor Sarkar, as he settled down in the Department of History, University of Delhi, in the mid-1970s, ensured that the ambit of his studies grew well beyond Bengal, even though his publication 'The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal 1903-1908' had been hailed as an epic scholarly work to emerge from India. Published in 1973, it was in many ways a challenge to the ongoing scholarship on India in the universities of United Kingdom and the US.
"When did you begin teaching Modern India courses in Delhi University?" The ageing Professor Sarkar grilled the young Sumit, once again testing his memory, demanding the accuracy of dates, places and events.
"Academic research, I have come to believe, has to be a collective effort. Do you get what I am driving at?"
Such questions were irritants, and have always made scholars and intellectuals feel uncomfortable. "I have always been focused on larger issues concerning the sub-continent as a whole," replied the young Sumit. "By the way, you may have forgotten, or not believed that I was capable, but I will bring together a generation of historians together for projects that will be acknowledged for their unique trajectory of scholarly thought."
Before the Professor could settle his spectacles, the young Sumit pulled out a slim publication titled 'Khaki Shorts and Saffron Flags: A Critique of the Hindu Right'. "I salute you for the clarity of thoughts and research in this work. But were you, dear Sir, able to see the India of 2000, with the rising tide of the Hindu Right in the 1990’s?"
"Let's not get argumentative of what happened thirty years ago. Or, if you please, twenty years ahead of your time, young man" retorted the professor who had always maintained that history was not about forecasting the future. "Has your generation grasped what is happening in that small village of Naxalbari? It may be too early but there's an upsurge, a social-political movement which has the power to shape, distort and divide our region's politics for several decades," he said. “It is a huge challenge for the Sarkar to understand.” He was of course referring to the State Sarkar, the bhadralok in the Writer’s Building, Calcutta.
The conversation, this banter seemed to be getting confusing as the ‘Sarkar’ was now no longer the ‘Goron ki Sarkar’ and here one Sarkar was clearly brow-beating another Sarkar about events yet to happen. And those that were occurring with the heavy-handedness of the West Bengal Sarkar in Naxalbari which no one even in the national Sarkar could find on the map.
The young Sumit nodded, more to appease the professor than to agree with him.
"The next time I will meet you, I shall share more on The Swadeshi Movement with you. I know you will disagree. But that is fine by me. I know our dear father -- the Other Sarkar, the Big Sarkar himself -- would also have found enough reasons to put me in my place."
He smiled, softly and quietly, bowed his head and made his way out of the Sarkar memorial.
Way to go, Professor Sarkar!
There may not be any 'Other' like you.
Or, come to think of it, another Jorge Luis Borges who gave us ‘The Other’.
End-note.
Some of the Sarkar works that would make several generations of Sarkars feel proud, honoured and humbled and inspired by the intellectus infinitus…
Popular Movements and Middle Class Leadership in Late Conolial India (1983/2015)
Modern Times (2014)
Towards Freedom: Documents on the Movement for Independence in India, 1946 (2007)
A Critique of Colonial India (2000)
Beyond Nationalist Frames: Post-Modernism, Hindu Fundamentalism, History (2002)
Writing Social History (1998)
Khaki Shorts and Saffron Flags: A Critique of the Hindu Right, (with Tapan Basu, Pradip Datta, Tanika Sarkar and Sambuddha Sen; 1993).
Modern India: 1885-1947, (1989)
The Swadeshi Movement in Bengal, 1903-1908 (1973)
Women and Social Reform in Modern India: A Reader, edited with Tanika Sarkar (2008)
Women and Social Reform in Modern India, edited with Tanika Sarkar (2011)
Caste in Modern India, edited with Tanika Sarkar (2015)
Essays Of A Lifetime: Reformers, Nationalists, Subalterns (2017)
Uncollected Writings, Compiled by Tanika Sarkar (2025)
Raju Mansukhani is a researcher-writer on history and heritage issues, and a former student of Professor Sumit Sarkar at the University of Delhi.
Photo-credit: Wikipedia Commons.