Abstract
The English satirical magazine Punch, or the London Charivari (1841–1992) was the source of inspiration and imitation for many vernacular magazines and periodicals in colonial India. Late nineteenth century Bengal experienced a particularly intense flourishing in the production of satirical magazines, two of which will be the focus of this paper’s investigation: Basantak (1874–1875) and Pañcā-nanda (1878–1883).
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Notes
- 1.
The word kathak means a speaker, or a professional narrator of scriptural and mythological stories (Subhas Bhattacharya, Saṁsad Bengali English Dictionary, third edition (Kolkata: Sahitya Samsad, 2008), 172). The word originates from the Bengali noun kathā, which means words spoken or mode of speaking (ibid.).
- 2.
See Richard D. Altick, Punch: The Lively Youth Of A British Institution 1841–1851 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1997), 17.
- 3.
See Marion H. Spielmann, The History of ‘Punch’ (London: Cassel & Co. Ltd., (1895)) (e-book by Project Gutenberg, 2007) and Altick, Punch.
- 4.
See Brian Maidment’s article “The Presence of Punch in the Nineteenth Century,” Chap. 2 in this volume.
- 5.
In the nineteenth century Sepoy (from the Hindustani word sipāh¯ī) was a designation given to an Indian soldier engaged in the service of a European power. In the national armies of many countries in modern South Asia, it denotes the rank of private soldier.
- 6.
Victoria’s proclamation of November 1858 stated that ‘We hold ourselves bound to the natives of our Indian territories by the same obligations of duty which bind us to all our other subjects […] We declare it to be our royal will and pleasure that none be in any wise favoured, none molested or disquieted, by reason of their religious faith or observances, but that all shall alike enjoy the equal and impartial protection of the law; and we do strictly charge and enjoin all those who may be in authority under it that they abstain from all interference with the religious belief or worship of any of our subjects on pain of our highest displeasure. And it is our further will that, so far as maybe, our subjects, of whatever race or creed, be freely and impartially admitted to office in our service, the duties of which they may be qualified by their education, ability, and integrity duly to discharge’. In I. Arthur B. Keith, ed., Speeches and Documents on Indian Policy, 1750–1921, vol. 1 (London: Humphrey Milford, 1922), 382–386.
- 7.
“[…] byaṅga, bidrūp esab racanā khub Original—smart—to the point nā haïle effective haẏ nā. Eṭā śudhu gālāgāli baṭe.” In Saumendranāth Basu, Kācher mānuṣ baṅkimˡcandra (s.l., n.d.), 141–145. Quoted by Yuthikā Basu, Bāṃlā sāhitye byaṅga racanā (uniś śatak) (Bardhamān: Bardhamān Biśvabidyālaẏ, 1982), 44 (my translation, italics for original English words used in the book).
- 8.
It has been self-introduced as ‘an imitation of Punch in England’. Cf. Svapan Basu, Sāhitya-pariṣat·-patrikā, 113 barṣa (113rd year), 4tha saṃkhyā (4th issue) (Kalˡkātā: Baṅg¯īẏa Sāhitya Pariṣat. Māgh-Caitra 1413/2006), 102.
- 9.
Ibid., 102–103.
- 10.
‘pratham bāiśˡṭi saṃkhyā hari siṃher sampādanāẏ prakāśita haleo teiś o cabbiś naṃ saṃkhyāˡduṭir sampādak hisābe “beṅgal lāibreri kyāṭālage” rāmˡdās bandyopādhyāẏer nām pāi. Inio chilen prāṇanāther betanˡbhogī karmī’ (Though the first 20 issues were published under the editorship of Hari Sinha, in ‘Bengali Library Catalogue’ we get the name of Ramdas Bandyopadhyay as the editor. He was also a paid employee of Prananath). Basu, Sāhitya-pariṣat·-patrikā, 111.
- 11.
Ibid., 107.
- 12.
Ibid., 111 and Lāhiṛ¯ī, Basantak, 1m barṣa, 234–136; 2ẏa barṣa, 177–178.
- 13.
Besides Indranath, many of the ‘conservative’ leaders of the ‘neo-Hindu’ faction of Bengali literati such as the proprietor of Baṅgabās¯ī, Yogendra Chandra Basu (1854–1905), Shashadhar Tarkacurmani (1851–1928), and editor Krishna Candra Mitra (1851–1911), began their literary journey in Sādhāraṇi.
- 14.
‘rasapradhān patra o samālocanā’. (Basu, Sāhitya-pariṣat·-patrikā, 115).
- 15.
Ibid.
- 16.
Ibid., 116.
- 17.
Ibid.
- 18.
Brajendranāth Bandyopādhyāẏ, Sāhitya sādhak caritˡmālā, vol. 34, Indranāth bandyopādhyāẏ (Kalikātā: Baṅgīẏa Sāhitya Pariṣat·, 1386/1980), 14.
- 19.
Basu, Sāhitya pariṣat· patrikā, 121. Also see Indranāth’s own account on its circulation in Rañjan Bandyopādhyāẏ, ed., Indranāth granthābalī, vol. 2 (Kalˡkātā: Dīp Prakāśan, 2007), 373.
- 20.
“Prakāśaker nibedan,” [publisher’s note], in Indranāth granthābal¯ī (Kalˡkātā: Baṅgabās¯ī Press, 1925); 33–34.
- 21.
“Basantaker paricaẏ,” in Lāhiṛ¯ī, Basantak, ṅa-ca; ṅa.
- 22.
Besides being one of the key figures of Bengal’s ‘Revival’, Rajendralal Mitra was the first Indian to become a modern Indologist. He was associated with the Asiatic Society from 1847 until his death and became its first Indian president in 1885. In different phases of his life he was associated with the leading educative journals of his times, Tattvabodhin¯ī patrikā (1848/1850), Bibidhārtha saṃgraha (editor 1852–1859) and Rahasya sandarbha (editor from 1863 to 1869). Incidentally, Prananath himself was a sub-editor of Bibidhārtha saṃgraha and later became the editor when Rajendralal retired.
- 23.
In 1847 the electoral system was introduced for the first time in the Municipal Corporation of Kolkata and the Justices of the Peace, who had shouldered the administrative responsibility until then, were replaced by a board of seven paid members, four of whom were elected by the taxpayers. After several new experimental systems, in 1876, a new Corporation (the current Municipal Corporation of Kolkata) was set up with 72 Commissioners; 48 of them were elected by the taxpayers and 24 were appointed by the government. See Parmanand N. Parashar, History and Problems of Municipal Administration in India, vol. 2, Comparative Perspectives on Municipal Administration (New Delhi: Sarup & Sons, 2003), 37–39.
- 24.
Basu and Māmun, Dui śataker bāṃlā saṃbād sāmaẏikˡpatra, 237.
- 25.
This widely used term denotes the part of the city of Kolkata where mostly European foreigners used to live.
- 26.
Babu is generally an address for Bengali males. A suffix is added to a person’s name to show respect. In the nineteenth century it became synonymous with the emerging middle class in Bengal and became the butt of ridicule in literature, especially in social satires depicting their immorality, debauchery, hypocrisy and other vices. Hans Harder describes him as ‘the lecherous, alcoholic, imitative, pompous, pretentious and anti-traditionalist Babu, a cultural stereotype of nineteenth-century Bengal that had already been codified to a certain extent. He had therefore arguably become a piece of exaggerated literary imagination which was perceived as such, rather than any kind of description of any concrete human being’ (Hans Harder, Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay’s ‘Śrīmadbhagabadgītā’ (New Delhi: Manohar, 2001), 210).
- 27.
The State Prosecution of the Baṅgabās¯ī in 1891 was highlighted not only in Baṅgabāsī, but in all the contemporary newspapers. For a detailed account of this case, see Mahendra Kumār Basu, “Yogendra smaraṇ¯ī,” part 2, in Yogendra candra basu racanābal¯ī, vol. 2 (Kalikātā: Granthamelā, 1976), 25–37 and J. Ghosal, Celebrated Trials in India, vol. 1 (Bhowanipore: M. Banerjee, 1902), 165–233.
- 28.
According to Canḍ¯ī Lāhiṛ¯ī, Girindranath is also the illustrator of the first two books of Michal Madhusudan Datta. Lāhiṛ¯ī, “Raṅgaraser patrikā,” in Basu and Māmun, Dui śataker bāṃlā saṃbād sāmaẏikˡpatra, 237.
- 29.
Basu, Sāhitya pariṣat· patrikā, 107, 110.
- 30.
Martin J. Medhurst, “Political Cartoons as Rhetorical Form: A Taxonomy of Graphic Discourse,” Communication Monographs 48, no. 3 (September 1981): 197–236; 204–205.
- 31.
Ibid.
- 32.
In the same article as above, Medhurst justifies this specific mechanism: ‘The artist must know and utilize the beliefs, values, and attitudes of his audience if he or she is to be an effective persuader’ (ibid.)
- 33.
Partha Mitter, Art and Nationalism in Colonial India 1850–1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 161.
- 34.
Ibid.
- 35.
Ibid., 162.
- 36.
Ibid., 163.
- 37.
The second highest caste in the traditional Hindu hierarchy of castes in Bengal; second to the priest caste of Brahmins. In the nineteenth century the most flourishing economic class in Bengal belonged to this caste. They received modern education, thereby securing well-paid jobs in the colonial offices or in mercantile ventures in association with the Europeans.
- 38.
Sukumār Sen labeled Basantak as ‘Kalˡkātār kāẏetˡder gālāgāli ār kisti-kheuṛer kāgaj’ (“Basantaker paricaẏ”, ca).
- 39.
‘Pyañc-āmˡrā prakāś kariba’ (Lāhiṛ¯ī, Basantak, 27).
- 40.
As by Canḍ¯ī Lāhiṛ¯ī, Svapan Basu and Partha Mitter in their respective books mentioned earlier in this paper.
- 41.
‘Āmār āgaman bārtā peẏei “mirar” tā̃r dastur-matābek ekˡbār cakˡmakiẏe uṭhe likhe phelecen, ye, amr˚ta bājār patrikā sampādak ekˡkhani pyaṅc bāhir kariben; kintu yena jel bā̃cˡẏe karen!’ (Receiving the news of my arrival, The Mirror, as per rule, wrote that the editor of Amr˚ta bājār patrikā will publish a Punch; but he must do it by avoiding the jail.) and again ‘Mirar […] likhiẏācen ye “amr˚ta bājār patrikā sampādak ek khāni pyaṅc prakāś kariben”. Pyaṅc—āmrā prakāś kariba! Amr˚ta bājār patrikā sampādaker sāthe uhār kono sambandha nāi’. (The Mirror […] wrote that Amr˚ta bājār patrikā will publish a Punch. Punch—we will publish! It has nothing to do with the editor of Amr˚ta bājār patrikā) (Lāhiṛ¯ī, Basantak, 1 m barṣa, 3, 17).
- 42.
Akshaychandra Sarkar (Sādhāraṇ¯ī, 1873), Kaliprasanna Kabyabisharad etc.
- 43.
Vol. 1, issue 1 from Cū̃cuṛā, 26 October 1878; republished from Bhabanipur (Kolkata), 29 January 1880. Until vol. 1, issue 10, (31 October 1880), were published from here. Vol. 1, issue 11 (19 January 1881) and issue 12 (8 February 1881), vol. 2, issue 1 (April 1881), issue 4 (30 August 1881) and issues 5 and 6 together (20 June 1881) were published from Bardhaman before the merger with ‘Baṅgabāsī’ in 1883. Bandyopādhyāẏ, Sāhitya sādhak charitˡmālā, no. 34.
- 44.
For details of its publication, see Baṅgabās¯ī edition of Indranāth granthābal¯ī, 1925, reprinted in Indranāth granthābal¯ī, vol. 2, ed. Rañjan Bandyopādhyāẏ, (Kalˡkātā: D¯īp Prakāśan, 2007), 318–28; 328.
- 45.
Basu, Sāhitya-pariṣat·-patrikā, 116.
- 46.
Bandyopādhyāẏ, Indranāth granthābal¯ī, vol. 2, 134.
- 47.
Bandyopādhyāy, Sāhitya sādhak charitˡmālā, vol. 34, 23–24.
- 48.
Ibid, and Bandyopādhẏ, Indranāth granthābal¯ī, vol. 1, xx.
- 49.
Ibid.
- 50.
Basu, Sāhitya-pariṣat·-patrikā, 116.
- 51.
The Hitopadeśa is a classical Sanskrit compilation of fables. The present lines are of course a fake quote, and such fake quoting from scriptures and classics was a common practice for many satirists of the time.
- 52.
Vidyasagar reconstructed the system of Bengali alphabets in his Barṇa paricaẏ as well as introduced the modern form of Bengali prose.
- 53.
The oral language of the popular forms of entertainment such as kabiẏāl, pā̃cāl¯ī, saṅ, kheuṛ, and yātrā, were much loved by common people both in rural areas and in the city.
- 54.
Medhurst, “Political Cartoons as Rhetorical Form,” 202.
- 55.
“Cuṭˡki” and “Kautukˡbindu”. (Lāhiṛ¯ī, Basantak, 131, 214); and various jokes in Bandyopādhyāẏ, Indranāth granthābal¯ī, vol. 2, 200–203.
- 56.
“Brāhmikār bāhire gaman” (a Brahmo women goes out), “Rāmˡśaraṇ pāler jaẏ” (hail, Ramsharan Pal), and “Peṭuk brāhmaṇ” (gluttonous Brahmin) etc. (Lāhiṛ¯ī, Basantak, 1m barṣa, 36–37). “Praśnottar 1–4” (Bandyopādhyāẏ, Indranāth granthābal¯ī, vol. 2, 199–200).
- 57.
The columns are titled “Saṃbād” (Lāhiṛ¯ī, Basantak, 1m barṣa, 17, 27, 109–113), “Ṭ¯īkā ṭippani”, and “Khabar” (in Bandyopādhyāẏ, Indranāth Granthābal¯ī, vol. 2, 270–271, 274.276).
- 58.
Medhurst, “Political Cartoons as Rhetorical Form,” 202.
- 59.
For the origin of Mr Punch, see D.S. Maurice et al., Punch and Judy, With Illustration Designed and Engraved by George Cruikshank, Accompanied by the Dialogue of the Puppet-Show, an Account of Its Origin, and of Puppet-Plays in England. (London: Printed for S. Prowett, 1828).
- 60.
Pulcino (day-old chick); citrulo (half-wit, stupid).
- 61.
Pierre Loius Ducharte, The Italian Comedy (New York: Dover Publication, 1966), 210.
- 62.
George Sand, quoted by John Rudin in: John Rudin, Commedia dell’Arte: An Actor’s Handbook. (London: Routledge, 1994), 13.
- 63.
Maccus, a character of the Atellan farce of Campagna, is believed to be the predecessor of Pulcinella. The character reached the Roman stage around the fourth century BC. Maurice Sand says ‘Pulcinella had never ceased to exist from the days of the Atellanae, in which he went by the name of Maccus, the mimus albus’ (Maurice Sand, The History of the Harlequinade (London: Martin Secker, 1959), 26).
- 64.
Ibid. 111–112.
- 65.
Ducharte, The Italian Comedy, 210–212.
- 66.
Ibid.
- 67.
Spielmann, The History of ‘Punch’, 2.
- 68.
Ibid.
- 69.
Ibid., 3.
- 70.
Ibid., 2.
- 71.
Ibid., 3.
- 72.
Ibid., 2.
- 73.
In the first editorial he apologises profusely for offending the sentiments, dictated by Victorian social, moral, and behavioural codes, of the ‘enlightened’ people and reflects on his appearance as that of an ‘old fool’. He expresses his readiness to change into more ‘civilised’ clothes of ‘half-socks, flannel shirt, glasses, double spring shoes and a walking stick’ and cover the holy scriptures of Hinduism as a book and even cut off his śikhā, the tuft of hair at the back of the head, a symbol of Brahmanism (Lāhiṛ¯ī, Basantak, 1m barṣa, 2).
- 74.
A battle between crows and owls is said to have inspired the final bloody night of the Mahābhārata war. Also, Hindus believe that crows will take food and offerings to the dead.
- 75.
Mitter, Art and Nationalism, 159.
- 76.
Ibid., 160.
- 77.
Lāhiṛ¯ī, Basantak, 1m barṣa, 3.
- 78.
Their names are significant. The first wife was Cirahāsin¯ī (‘One Who Always Laughs’). She epitomises humour, but proved to have a very short life-span. His second wife was Kaṭubhāṣiṇ¯ī (‘One Who Talks Bitterly’), who symbolises harsh criticism. She died to save her husband, because her bitter tone evoked general wrath towards Basantak. Metaphorically, the narrator warns about the negative effects of these two modes of expression, i.e., humour and harsh criticism, and adopts a subdued but more effective one—the mirth of satire (Lāhiṛ¯ī, Basantak, 1m barṣa, 15).
- 79.
Ibid., 144.
- 80.
Ibid., 13–16.
- 81.
‘bilāte ādisan, iṣṭil prabhr˚ti lekhakˡgaṇ deś¯īẏa r¯ītyādir dūṣaṇ¯īẏa bhāg sakalˡke byaṅga pūrbbak barṇan karite ārambha karen ebaṃ pare pyaṅc haiẏā sei sakal kārya karitece; tā tomāro seirūp karā karttabya; ho ho kare bhaṇḍāmi nā kare deśer r¯īti n¯ītir nakal dekhāẏo’ (in England, authors like Addison and Steele had started showing people the evil sides of unjust social rituals and customs and Punch later took that over; it is your duty also; reflect the social realty instead of making light-hearted fun) (Ibid., 15).
- 82.
‘āmi basantaker yamaj bhrātā; āmār kārya timir parihār karā’ (I am Basantak’s twin brother; my duty is to destroy the darkness [of mind]) (Ibid., 5).
- 83.
“Pā̃cu-purāṇe śib-nārad saṃbād,” (Bandyopādhyāẏ, Indranāth granthābal¯ī, vol. 2, 111–118).
- 84.
Bandyopādhyāẏ, Indranāth granthābal¯ī, vol. 2, 243–246.
- 85.
The vidūṣaka holds a major place in Sanskrit theatre, especially in prakaraṇa, prahasana, and bhāṇa. Although he shows mirth by allowing himself to be made the butt of ridicule, he is not a buffoon or fool. In spite of his clownish nature, he is intelligent and poses as the social critic. He frequently sounds a note of caution whenever he notices something wrong. In many of such dramas there appears a similar character who is also sometimes named Basantak (Vasantaka), as in Śr¯ī Harṣa’s (606–647 AD) Ratnāval¯ī. This role of a social critic is also asserted in Basantak when Basantak tries to determine his role and in this respect, Bāsantikā speaks the function of a bidūṣak as a fearless critic and moral guide. (Lāhiṛ¯ī, Basantak, 1 m barṣa, 144).
- 86.
Bandyopādhyāẏ, Indranāth Granthābal¯ī, vol. 2, 243–246.
- 87.
Ibid., 361.
- 88.
‘The root of social philosophy in respect of the Bangabasi writers especially so in the case of Jogendra Chandra Basu and Indranath lies in their unflinching belief in the rigid, hierarchical ordering of Hindu society in which obviously the supremacy of the Brahman assumes a pivotal importance’. (Amiya P. Sen, Hindu Revivalism in Bengal 1872–1905: Some Essays in Interpretation (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993), 257).
- 89.
Altick, Punch, 4.
- 90.
From “Yakhan yeman takhan teman,” in Lāhiṛ¯ī, Basantak, 2ẏa barṣa, 29–30 (my translation).
- 91.
This term is not used here in a typical Habermatian sense. Habermas uses the German term Öffentlichkeit (public sphere) in the context of eighteenth-century France and Great Britain. ‘The bourgeois public sphere may be conceived above all as the sphere of private people coming together as a public; they soon claimed the public sphere regulated from above against the public authorities themselves, to engage them in a debate over the general rules governing relations in the basically privatized but publicly relevant sphere of commodity exchange and social labor. The medium of this political confrontation was peculiar and without historical precedent: people’s public use of their reason (öffentliches Räsonnement)’. Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, originally titled Der Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft, trans. Thomas Burger (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1989, 27). With regard to this view of a rather homogeneous European society and the presence of a rational public, I contest that it is mainly due to the heterogeneous character of the various public(s) and the public sphere formations in India, that his argument is not suitable here.
- 92.
Lāhiṛ¯ī, Basantak, 2ẏa barṣa, 134.
- 93.
Ibid., 177.
- 94.
Ibid., 187–189.
- 95.
Ujjval Gaṅgopādhyāy, [foreword], in Indranāth granthābalī, vol. 2, ed. Rañjan Bandyopādhyāẏ, (Kalˡkātā: Dīp Prakāśan, 2007), xi–xxi; xi.
- 96.
Indira Chowdhury, The Frail Hero, Virile History: Gender and the Politics of Culture in Colonial Bengal (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 2.
- 97.
Chowdhury, The Frail Hero, 2.
- 98.
Ibid. 67.
- 99.
Subho Basu and Sikata Banerjee, “The Quest For Manhood: Masculine Hinduism and Nation in Bengal,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 26, no. 3: 476–490; 478.
- 100.
Chowdhury, The Frail Hero, 67.
- 101.
Mrinalini Sinha, Colonial Masculinity: The ‘Manly Englishman’ and the ‘Effeminate’ Bengali in the Late Nineteenth Century (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), 14.
- 102.
This project was predominantly a metropolitan middle-class one, which defied the aggressive image of rustic Indian males. Citing John Rosselli’s study, Subho Basu and Sikata Banerjee argue that ‘by claiming the loss of manhood under colonial rule and by initiating a project to reclaim masculinity through political action, Bengali elites could distinguish their political project from the already existing rustic culture of violence and brute physical force exercised by landlords and their retainers. Such exclusive political focus actually transformed elites into sole actors losing and gaining manliness in Bengal divorced from a wider rustic but robust physical culture’. (Basu and Banerjee, “The Quest for Manhood,” 477).
- 103.
The Ilbert Bill was introduced in 1883 for British India by Viceroy Ripon (1827–1909). It proposed an amendment to existing laws in the country that allowed Indian judges and magistrates the jurisdiction to try British offenders in criminal cases at the district level, something not allowed until that time.
- 104.
The Bengali proverb goes ‘parbater mūṣik prasab’, quite similar to ‘much ado about nothing’.
- 105.
Bandyopādhyāẏ, Indranāth granthābal¯ī, vol. 2, 106–111.
- 106.
The Second Anglo-Afghan War (1878–1880).
- 107.
The biggest argument supporting the claim of ‘effeminacy’ of Bengali males was their preference for clerical jobs in the colonial administration as, ‘clerical pursuits implies a lack of heroism’. (Chowdhury, The Frail Hero, 53).
- 108.
Bandyopādhyāẏ, Indranāth granthābalī, vol. 2, 279.
- 109.
Sumanta Bandyopādhyāẏ, Ūniś śataker kalˡkātā ebaṃ sarasvat¯īr itar santān (Kalˡkātā: Anuṣṭup, 2008), 98.
- 110.
This supports Benita Parry’s observation: ‘Anticolonialist writings did challenge, subvert and undermine the ruling ideologies, and nowhere more so than in overthrowing the hierarchy of colonizer/colonized, the speech and stance of the colonized refusing a position of subjugation and dispensing with the terms of the coloniser’s definitions’. (Benita Parry, “Resistance theory/theorizing resistance, or two cheers for nativism,” in Colonial Discourse/Postcolonial Theory, eds. Francis Barker and Peter Hulme and Margaret Iverson (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1994), 172–196; 176).
- 111.
Chowdhury, The Frail Hero, 72.
- 112.
Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” in Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, eds. Cary Nelson and Larry Grossberg (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988), 66–111; 75.
- 113.
Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (Cornwall: Routledge, 1994), 2.
- 114.
Lāhiṛī, Basantak, 2ẏa barṣa, 145–152.
- 115.
See Fig. 3 in Partha Mitter, chapter Punch and Indian Cartoons: The Reception of a Transnational Phenomenon in this volume, 64. The wife: ‘Can’t you close the door while blowing the fire?’ (Basantak, vol. 2, issue 9).
- 116.
Ibid., 167–171.
- 117.
Bandyopādhyāẏ, Indranāth granthābal¯ī, vol. 2, 187–189.
- 118.
Bhairav means ‘terrible’ or ‘tremendous’. (Bhattacharya, Saṁsad Bengali English Dictionary, 720).
- 119.
Bandyopādhyāẏ, Indranāth granthābal¯ī, vol. 2, 189 (my translation). For the original and a German translation, cf. also Hans Harder, Verkehrte Welten: Bengalische Satiren aus dem kolonialen Kalkutta (Heidelberg: Draupadi, 2011), 208–215.
- 120.
Ibid., 159 (my translation).
- 121.
Kevin G. Barnhurst and John Nerone, The Form of News: A History (New York: Guilford Press, 2001), 16.
- 122.
Written by Akshay Kumar Datta (1820–1886) in 1855–1859, it was once the mandatory primary school text book in Bengal for almost three generations in the nineteenth century.
- 123.
From “Kābulastha saṃbādˡdātār patra-3 (Letters of Kabul Correspondence-3),” in Bandyopādhyāẏ, Indranāth granthābal¯ī, vol. 2, 154 (my translation).
- 124.
Pseudonym of Bengali satirist Rajsekhar Basu (1880–1960).
- 125.
Bandyopādhyāẏ, Indranāth granthābal¯ī, vol. 2, 193–199.
- 126.
Bhabha, Location of Culture, 66.
- 127.
Ibid. 194.
- 128.
Ibid. 195.
- 129.
Ibid. 196.
- 130.
Lāhiṛ¯ī, Basantak, 1m barṣa, 105, 131 (my translation).
- 131.
Ibid. (my translation).
- 132.
Ibid., 49 (my translation).
- 133.
See Fig. 2 in Partha Mitter, chapter Punch and Indian Cartoons: The Reception of a Transnational Phenomenon in this volume, 12; adjust page after typesetting ‘What changes are taking place after the establishment of the Society for the Prevention of Obscenity’ (Goddess Kāl¯ī in the house of a member of the Society for the Prevention of Obscenity) (Basantak, vol. 1, issue 3).
- 134.
Criticism of contemporary periodicals also find a place on Pañcā-nanda’s pages; first, it criticises itself, and then two other Bengali periodicals—Sadānanda, a periodical with satire and criticism, published in Dhaka, and Rasikˡrāj, an illustrated satirical magazine published from Kolkata. Pañcā-nanda, vol. 2, issues 5, 6, 1288/1882, 97–10.
- 135.
For more detail about this incident see Basu, Sāhitya-pariṣat·-patrikā, 120–122.
- 136.
Medhurst, “Political Cartoons as Rhetorical Form,” 223.
- 137.
Bandyopādhyāẏ, Indranāth granthābalī, vol. 2, 276 (my translation).
- 138.
Ibid. (my translation).
- 139.
Basu, Sāhitya-pariṣat·-patrikā, 107 (my translation).
- 140.
Ibid., (my translation).
- 141.
Ibid., (my translation).
- 142.
Ibid., 110 (my translation).
- 143.
Ibid., 116 (my translation).
- 144.
Ibid., 117 (my translation).
- 145.
Ibid., (my translation).
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Basu, C. (2013). The Punch Tradition in Late Nineteenth Century Bengal: From Pulcinella to Basantak and P\(\tilde{\bar{\rm a}}\)cu. In: Harder, H., Mittler, B. (eds) Asian Punches. Transcultural Research – Heidelberg Studies on Asia and Europe in a Global Context. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-28607-0_6
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