Retrieving Bengal's Past: Society and Culture in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries (An Old and Rare Book)

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Introduction The ancients knew well the use of words. Genesis tells us that after the Lord fashioned the creatures of heaven the first order of priority was to bring them to Adam, to see what he would call them; each one was to bear the name the man would give it. The man gave names to all that came to him. Naming things is thus of vital importance. Naming this volume has also been a difficult task. Suggestions poured in one after another but none expressed the idea we (the members of the Department) wanted convey. There was however, unanimity about the general theme, Bengal-but what aspects, we were as yet, undecided. As the editor, I was in a quandary. Prof. B. B. Chaudhuri, my teacher, rescued me from this imbroglio. Finally, the title for this volume emerged-Retrieving Bengal's Past: Society and Culture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Thus, like every happening in life, this volume too has a history behind it.

It now devolves upon us to explain the significance of the title-or at least what we understand by it. Society and Culture are not two mutually exclusive terms-one does not exist without the other. While society may be defined as the sum of human conditions and activity _taken as a whole and functioning interdependently, culture is a collective word for the symbolic and learned aspects of human society ( of a particular time) by which human behaviour can be distinguished. Thus, if culture emanates from society, society is the receptacle of those manifestations of human achievement which we collectively call culture. To put it flatly, where there is society, there is culture-whether primal, folk or modern. The idea of progression is implicit in culture. Each age, it is said, is a culture that is dying or one that is being born. With the change in the texture of the complex web of society, ideas too move and change helping the growth of new philosophies to wear the new society well; ideas do often square with the new and novel situation. But each age is not to be seen in isolation-the culture of a particular age is never entirely cut off from the one preceding or succeeding it. Therefore, an element of continuity is always present and often we find two diverse cultural trends existing side by side. This may either lead to a position where their occurs a symbiosis or to a situation where two cultural trends resist fusion.

Here, we have used the concept of culture interchangeably with society but in sociology and anthropology important distinctions are made between the two. Tylor, the nineteenth century anthropologist describes culture as 'that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, art, morals, law, custom and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man [sic] as a member of society.' So, it is always the society which gains precedence over the individual or the group when defining culture. Mathew Arnold's concern for (primarily) the individual and the 'perfection' at which he should aim or T. S. Eliot's undue importance to social elite in the preservation and transmission of culture are essentially narrow ways of looking at the issue. Infact, a good deal of confusion can be avoided if we refrain from setting before the group what is the aim only of the individual; and before the society as a whole, what is the aim only of a group. Kluckhohn, following the Durkheimian tradition stresses the shared nature of culture. He emphasises that although some aspects of culture are relevant only to particular groups, all aspects are interrelated and form a whole. In general, culture serves an overall integrative function in society. People behave in a particular manner in a given situation because they have internalized the norms and values-the culture of the society. Thus, culture is something which overarches, reflects and ultimately has its own effect on society. This pervasiveness of culture makes it ultimately, a way of life.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages