In the year 2002 the University Grants Commission accepted as one of its five-year Special Assistance Programmes (SAP), our Department's proposal to conduct in-depth research on the literary and cultural interface between Bengal and Britain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Department qualified as a Department of Research Support (DRS Phase I). The main aspects of the thrust area as outlined by the UGC were:
1. Production of source materials in the area
2. Preparation of comprehensive annotated bibliography for this area
3. Organisation of seminars/workshops about foundational theory in this area of research and produce materials
4. Collection of little-known narratives/manuscripts
5. Undertaking the study of the interface between the Bengali and English languages
The current volume, one of several published under the Project, aims at the 'production of source materials in the area."
In carrying out the SAP projects we have been generously supported by the authorities of our university. On behalf of the Department I would like to extend our grateful thanks to administrative officials who held office during the tenure of DRS in English Phase I (i.e. April 2002 March 2007) the Vice Chancellor, the Pro-Vice Chancellors for Academic and Financial Affairs, the Registrar, the Dean of the Faculties of Arts and Social Sciences, the DPO, the Accounts and Finance Officer, the Secretary (UCAC), and numerous other officials, for their unstinting cooperation and encouragement. I also thank our UGC advisors for their guidance, and our Project Fellows who have always given of their best.
Several of our greatest historians whose names are far too well known to be enumerated have dealt with that glorious chapter in the social, cultural and intellectual history of Bengal in the nineteenth century, generally known as the 'Bengal Renaissance. This was the period when the quick-silver Bengali mind engaged most productively in the creative endeavour of blending the best in the native traditions with the best in the new fields of knowledge filtering in from the West. The litany of great names whose works are reproduced in the present volume actually constitutes only a small percentage of the great minds illuminating the firmament of Bengal in that century. Quite apart from the better known areas of politics, society, culture and education, it has been the endeavour in this collection to focus one other major development of those times in Bengal, namely science and industry.
All pieces reprinted here were originally written in English, none are in translation, and perhaps one of the things to note besides the incisive thought is the ease and power in the use of the English language - the bombastic 'babu English' of Hurree Babu in Kipling's Kim is exposed for the myth that it always was. The introductory notes to the annotations to each essay do the work of setting the piece and its arguments in context. One cannot add any significant insights to the exhaustive research already in place on nineteenth century Bengal in a brief Preface - the essays themselves will serve as the best guides to the many currents and cross-currents playing across Bengal - the scene of what was undoubtedly one of the major periods and locations of the advancement of human thought in the history of India's culture.
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