KHUDIRAM BOSE CENTRAL COLLEGE

NAME – Gyan Kiran

I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to my teacher as well as our H.O.D.
who gave me the golden opportunity to do this wonderful project, which also helped me in
doing a lot of Research and I came to know about so many new things. I am really thankful
to them.
Secondly, I would also like to thank my parents and friends who helped me a lot in finishing
this project with in the limited time. I am making this project not only for marks but to also
increase my knowledge.
Thank you again. 
ABSTRACT

“After Death: Twenty Years” is written by modern Bengali poet Birendra Chattopadhyay. It
was originally written in Bangla as ‘Martyr Por: Kuri Bucher’. In this poem, Chattopadhyay
addresses Rabindranath Tagore who died somewhere around 20 years down the lane at the
time of writing this poem. He talks about Tagore’s humanitarian dream. His dream would
prove wrong if he was alive till 1947 when India got its coveted independence and at the
same time witnessed the tragic partition. Throughout this poem, Chattopadhyay ironically
describes the nationwide catastrophes during 1946-47.

KEYWORDS
Independence, freedom, famine, poet, poem, experience, dreams
THE “FATE” OF FREE NATION IN THE POEM “AFTER
DEATH: TWENTY YEARS”

The title of the poem “After Death: Twenty Years” alludes to the death of Rabindranath
Tagore in 1941. Chattopadhyay’s persona addresses Tagore and portrays the massacre in
Calcutta on 19 August 1946 in the very first stanza. He says that all the catastrophes
happening around this period have escaped his eyes. Bengal became a living hell where
thousands of people died each day.
He did not have to see the Partition of India. More than 20 years had passed after his death,
but his dream of a humanitarian nation was still a far cry. The dream Indians saw collectively
had turned into nightmarish thoughts. Amidst this tremulous situation, Chattopadhyay’s
voice relapsed into hopelessness. It was a moment of disillusionment for the nation.
The title of the poem “After Death: Twenty Years” is an allusion to the death of Tagore in
1941. In the first few lines, Chattopadhyay evokes the spirit of Tagore and addresses him in
several instances. This piece can also be appreciated as an imaginary conversation between
the two poets, Chattopadhyay and Tagore. Only the former speaks throughout the piece
while the latter remains muted. This scheme makes this poem an ideal example of a
dramatic monologue.
Chattopadhyay’s person addresses Tagore to make him aware of the happenings around
1946, just before independence. The terrible calamities happening on the streets of Calcutta
around 1946 allude here. On 19 August, violence between Muslims and Hindus resulted in
3000 deaths. Not only that, 1946 was the year of the Royal Air Force Mutiny that also
resulted in ferocity and bloodshed.
Tagore was not alive to witness these bloody scenes. The raging fires that tortured
thousands on the streets escaped his eyes. There was an outbreak of famine and epidemic.
Alongside that, the golden lands of Bengal turned into a “living hell”. Several of Bengal’s
sons killed each other during the communal riots. Their mothers were also killed at the
same time. In this hurly-burly, the poet ironically comments on the brutality of men that
transformed the glorious land of Bengal as well as India into a hellish ground of bloodbath.
In the following section, Chattopadhyay similarly addresses Tagore. He alludes to the
Partition of 1947. According to him, his fellow poet did not have to see the madness of
people just after independence. It was worse than madness in Lumbini. Here,
Chattopadhyay is referring to the Lumbini Park Mental Hospital.
In contrast to the scenes, Tagore dreamed of a nation where brotherhood and compassion
flourished. The light of humanity was there in his thoughts. But, the worsened scenes of
Partition is not what the poet dreamed of. However, at the end of this section,
Chattopadhyay sadly says that he too learned the art of dreaming positively from Tagore.
But reality tells him otherwise.
The experiences of the past twenty years after Tagore’s death had made him rethink his
dreams. Chattopadhyay describes the bloody past as the “history of sewage”. The pages of
history seem to be surfacing the “sewage” of the past in his mind. The more he looks the
more the haunting imagery troubles his heart.
He can visualize thirsty millions, bathed in blood. The inhumane scenes of the partition still
make him fearful. He compares the history to an old hag who runs the brothels at
Shonagachi. The comparison is bleak and disturbing yet it reveals the harsh fact, difficult to
take in.
Chattopadhyay uses an anti-climax with ideas are arranged in descending order of
importance. His persona refers to ministers, political leaders, teachers, writers, and
students. They are all panting like “Dogs on heat”. After this tremulous journey from the
partition, everyone seems to be running away from their past. The poet ironically says that
the independent nation still joins them together. Their dreams regarding the future of India
are compared to “drunken jokes”. What they dreamed of, is nothing but a recreation of the
intoxicated mind. After the partition, they were all disillusioned. Their dreams are played on
the reeds of an obsolete harmonium. It means their vision had become a long-lost tune of
one popular rustic song.
In the last few lines, the poet addresses his fellow poet again. He says that Tagore might not
have thought of this day in the worst of nightmares. He had not ever thought such a
calamity would befall this “free” nation.
The last lines take another ironic turn. Here, the poet tells Tagore’s spirit that he had
remained true to his dreams of humanity as he did not have to witness the worst side of it.
Through this reference, the poet contrasts optimism with pessimism, humanity with
inhumanity. After reading these lines, it becomes clear that the tragedies happening before
and after independence had made Chattopadhyay disillusioned. It also made him a bit
cynical regarding the future of the “free” nation.
The poet has referred to the great Bengal famine of 1943 which belongs to the same period,
just preceding the great wave of 1946. It resulted in the widespread death of Bengalis,
making Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy highly unpopular amongst large sections of the Hindu
population due to his alleged responsibility in causing it. It is this same minister whose
speech on the morning of 16th August 1946 incited the outbreak of the Great Calcutta
Killing. Through the phrase “tortuous fire of ’46”, the poet refers to this notorious Calcutta
riot, also known as Direct Action Day in the pages of history (B. Chattopadhyay). The
peaceful nationwide protest for a separate Muslim homeland announced by Mohammad Ali
Jinnah took an unruly form when the Indian Muslim gangs, influenced by Suhrawardy,
unleashed large-scale violence on the Hindus. This led to incessant counter attacks between
Hindus and Muslims, “sons” of the same “land”, in the city of Calcutta. The bloodthirst took
the horrendous form of “epidemic”, culminating in a cycle of barbarity. The vicious ferocity
was not confined to the public sphere alone. Homes were entered, destroyed, and women
and children attacked, to unmask the terror of “a living hell” (B. Chattopadhyay). As
historians Ian Talbot and Gur Harpal Singh write: There are numerous eyewitness accounts
of the maiming and mutilation of victims. The catalogue of horrors includes the
disembowelling of pregnant women, the slamming of babies' heads against brick walls, the
cutting off of victims’ limbs and genitalia, and the displaying of heads and corpses. While
previous communal riots had been deadly, the scale and level of brutality during the
Partition massacres were unprecedented (67). It is about all these insanities and many more
atrocities encompassing the 1947 partition that the poet refers to in this poem and in many
other pieces. The “madness”, as he depicts, is “Worse” than what one may witness at the
Lumbini Park Mental Hospital of Kolkata (B. Chattopadhyay). It was infused with the selfish
politicians’ greed and hunger for power and position which was being fed by some perfectly
healthy yet unmindful blind followers. Tagore’s experiences, by contrast, were markedly
different, living in a world where he could be humane enough and enjoy the innocent
leisure of indulging in versification, romanticism and daydreaming, something that Birendra
Chattopadhyay confesses about having learnt from him. He says, "We too had learnt to
dream from you", drawing attention to a generation of emotive and enthusiast budding
poets and their thorps of dreams of revolution (B. Chattopadhyay). Birendra
Chattopadhyay's 14 Station Road Dhak Uria residence is, in fact, remembered as "the
fireplace of the dreamers of dreams" (A. Chattopadhyay). However, as Chattopadhyay
ruminates, these young poets could not relish the pleasures of dreaming, living in a country
which has endured a series of adversities in the years after Tagore's demise, ranging from
the famous Bengal famine and partition atrocities in the pre-independence period to ghastly
incidents like The India-China War of 1962, the Naxalite peasant uprisings of the 60s and
70s, assassinations of poets and Naxalites like Ashu Majumder, Murari Mukhopadhyay and
Saroj Dutta by the police, the Emergency of 1975, anti-Sikh riots of 1984, followed by Indira
Gandhi's assassination on 31st October 1984. It is the “history” of India’s partition which has
led to the occurrence of all these mishaps. As such, these are no less than abhorrent
“sewage” which is continuously surfacing, rendering everything toxic and “inhuman”, from
mere “thirst” and “bath” to entire “life” in general (B. Chattopadhyay).
The poet further says that this inhumanity is of an unprecedented scale— something that
surpasses the brutality of the elderly brothel keeper of Shonagachi who forces the
prostitutes into repeated exploitative sexual encounters with varied customers, purely for
materialistic interests. He also severely condemns the insensitivity of ministers, especially
the chief minister of his time, and all other poets, artists and intelligentsia who prefer to
keep silent amidst the tyrannies of the police and of the administration of the then Congress
Government in power. This cold silence even provokes the unintimidated poet to go beyond
the ranks of civility, comparing these hollow men to “Dogs on heat” who are intoxicated in
their own world’s pleasures and concerns, keeping their “conscience mortgaged to the
ruling class interest” and “pursuing research of their home affairs” . He further mentions
how an independent nation, bereft of the traditional caste system, has indeed brought
everything on the same pedestal so that such comparison is absolutely justified.
Thus, though the poets of his generation have inherited the “dreams” of a bright future in
an independent homeland, they have been unable to realise the same (B. Chattopadhyay). It
was, indeed, a question about how one should “hold one’s head high even in the midst of
hell” (qtd. in Dutta). The monumental dreams have descended to be mere “drunken jokes
played on the reeds of an oft-used harmonium”, allowing the drunk to break into irregular
feats of heightened potency, challenge established social conditions, present alternative
views— all of which is, nonetheless, just an illusion, devoid of any real sense of social
responsibility. As such, the poet finally challenges Tagore’s idealism who neither lived
amidst such turbulence nor could foresee such ‘dehumanising genocides’ while wishing for a
“free country”. However, the poet does not negate the optimism and the earnest leadership
spirit of Tagore who sought refuge in not mere identity politics or petty religious
segregation, in the name of patriotism, but in “humanity” at large (B. Chattopadhyay).
CONCLUSION

Independence, in the history of mankind, has never come alone. It is often preceded by
relentless struggles, sacrifices, shattered dreams and, of course, the hope of a bright future
in its aftermath. Indian independence from colonial rule in 1947 is no exception, especially
with the unforgettable trauma of partition that keeps lurking from the dark recesses of its
gory history. It is in the light of this statement that this paper attempts to analyse the post-
independent Bengal scenario for the obvious fact that Bengal, along with Punjab, were the
worst hit victims of the blow. This paper particularly focuses on one of the poems of
Birendra Chattopadhyay who had been a witness to the events. His poem seems special
because it is not simply about the dehumanising atrocities and genocide. It also points out
the fallacy of one of the most influential philosophers and thinkers of India, Rabindranath
Tagore. It is this cross-border communication that allows the poet to bring out the
discrepancy between expectation and reality.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
https://www.exoticindiaart.com/book/details/selected-poems-of-birendra-chattopadhyay-
bilingual-edition-with-originals-in-bengali-nam884/
https://peoplesreview.in/society/2020/09/birendra-chattopadhyay-a-poet-in-a-centenary-
year/
https://www.poemotopia.com/birendra-chattopadhyay/after-death-twenty-years/
#:~:text=Summary,period%20have%20escaped%20his%20eyes