With reference to the book Desher Kather written by Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar during the freedom strug

Question

With reference to the book Desher Kather written by Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar during the freedom struggle, consider the following statement:It warned against the Colonial States hypnotic conquest of the mind.It inspired the performance of swadeshi street plays and folk songs.The use of desh by Deuskar was in the specific context of the region of Bengal.Which of the statements given above are curt?

Accepted Answer

Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar (1869-1912) was a close associate of Sri Aurobindo. A Marathi Brahmin who had settled in Bengal, Sakharam was born in Deoghar. He published a book entitled Desher Katha describing in exhaustive detail the British commercial and industrial exploitation of India. This book had an immense repercussion in Bengal, captured the mind of young Bengal and assisted more than anything else in the preparation of the Swadeshi movement.Published first in June 1904, Desher Katha sold ten thousand copies in four editions within the year. The fifth edition came out in 1905. The government of Bengal banned the book in 1910 and confiscated all the copies. Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar popularized the ideas of Naoroji and Ranade and promoted swadeshi in a popular idiom.His text, titled Desher Katha (Story of the Nation/Country), written in 1904, warned against the colonial state’s hypnotic conquest of the mind. By the time Desher Katha was banned by the colonial state in 1910, it had sold over 15,000 copies, inspired swadeshi street plays and folk songs, and had become a mandatory text for an entire generation of swadeshi activists.It is remarkable that in spite of this general growth of national and regional awakening and national consciousness, there was no word in Bengali for nation, a fact noted by Rabindranath Tagore. Tagore would become an outspoken critique of nationalism, arguing that India had never had a real sense of nationalism and it would do India no good to compete with Western civilization in its own field. Earlier, he had described nationalism as a bhougalik apadevata, a geographical demon, towards the exorcism of which he had dedicated his Visva-Bharati.Deuskar used desh to mean nation. The overlap of place of origin and nation, as well as jati (literally birth, family or caste) and nationality inflected understandings of the nation/country in distinct ways. Moreover, the constant overlap and conflation of Bengal and India, and Bengalis and Indians in the use of desh and jati, added further twists to notions of nationalism.It is worth quoting part of an article Amader Desher Katha [About our Country], that appeared in the children’s periodical Prakriti [Nature] in 1907: Though we constantly reiterate the phrase ‘our country’ do we have any exact idea of the actual constituents of that territory? What are the boundaries of our land? Steering clear of political debates, let us see what Mother Nature has to say in this regard: her fingers point to a huge expanse - far greater than Bengal - as our nation. Following her directions we recognize the glorious Bharatbarsha as our majestic land. With walls of the highest mountains and the deepest caverns of the seas, Nature has carved out the contours of Bharat and made it distinct from the rest of the world. This great expanse called Bharatbarsha is our nation.Source Citation: A History of Modern India: Ishita Banerjee-Dube