Benoy Kumar Sarkar

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Benoy Kumar Sarkar
বিনয় কুমার সরকার
File:Benoy Kumar Sarkar.jpg
Photo of Sarkar from the March–April 1917 issue of The Hindusthanee Student.
Born26 December 1887
Malda, British India
Died24 November 1949(1949-11-24) (aged 61)
Washington D.C., United States
OccupationSocial scientist
SpouseIda Sarkar
FatherSudhyanya Kumar Sarkar

Benoy Kumar Sarkar (sometimes Binoy Kumar Sarkar) (1887–1949) was an Indian social scientist, professor, and nationalist. He founded several institutes in Calcutta, including the Bengali Institute of Sociology, Bengali Asia Academy, Bengali Dante Society, and Bengali Institute of American Culture.

Early life and education

[edit | edit source]

Binoy Kumar Sarkar was born in Malda Town of Malda, West Bengal, in Bengal Presidency. He started his early education in Malda Zilla School. Sarkar entered the University of Calcutta at the age of 13 after standing first at the entrance examination from Malda Zilla School,[1] while he graduated in 1905, at 18, with dual degrees in English and history. The following year he received his master's degree.

Career

[edit | edit source]

In 1925 Sarkar started as a lecturer at the Department of Economics of University of Calcutta. He praised Nazism as "form of benevolent dictatorship", and advocated the establishment of a fascist dictatorship in India.[2] In 1947 he became a professor and head of the department. In 1949, Sarkar went on a lecture tour in America, visiting 25 universities.[3] During his trip to America, he interacted with scholars such as John Dewey, Talcott Parsons, Carle Zimmerman, and Raymond Leslie Buell.[3]

Closely involved with the national education movement of India, Professor Sarkar was highly influenced by the Nationalist action of Sister Nivedita.[4]

Sugata Bose writes of Sarkar's cosmopolitan visions for Asia, and his celebration of many Asian polities, "Far from harboring Hindu nationalist sentiments of the sort later propagated by V. D. Savarkar ... Sarkar was an eloquent and passionate proponent of Hindu-Muslim equality and unity.[5] Sarkar warned Asians not to trust Western powers.[6] Sarkar challenged the West's racial privileging of democracy:

The New Asia wants the New Europe and the New America to admit, as principle, that their peoples must not by any means command greater privileges in the Orient than the oriental peoples can possibly possess within the bounds of the Occident. ... The doctrine of international reciprocity is the first article of faith in the gospel of Young Asia. ... Young Asia wants Eur-America to realize that democratic emotions and ideals are not the monopoly of occidental race- psychology.

[7]

Selected publications

[edit | edit source]

Sarkar wrote in five languages, his native Bengali, English, German, French and Italian,[8] publishing a large volume of work on a variety of topics, including 53 books and booklets in English alone, his written production amounting in all to some 30 000 pages.[9] A complete list of his publications is contained in Bandyopadhyay's book The Political Ideas of Benoy Kumar Sarkar.[10]

  • 1914/1921 The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology[11]
  • 1916 The Beginning of Hindu Culture as World-Power (A.D. 300-600)[12]
  • 1916 Chinese Religion Through Hindu Eyes[13]
  • 1918 Hindu Achievements in Exact Science: A Study in the History of Scientific Development[14][15]
  • 1918 "The Influence of India on Western Civilization in Modern Times" (in The Journal of Race Development)[16]

In 1919, he authored a study in the American Political Science Review presenting a "Hindu theory of international relations" which drew on thinkers such as Kautilya, Manu and Shookra, and the text of the Mahabharata.[17][18] In 1921, he authored a Political Science Quarterly study presenting a "Hindu Theory of the State."[18] According to Barry Buzan and Amitav Acharya, Sarkar's works "may be the first major IR contributions by an Indian, and one of the first modern efforts to develop an indigenous Non-Western theory of IR."[18]

Death

[edit | edit source]

Sarkar died on a trip to the United States in Washington, DC, in November 1949.

Notes

[edit | edit source]
  1. ^ Suhrita Saha, "Benoy Kumar Sarkar (1887-1949): A Tryst with Destiny" in Sociological Bulletin, 62 (1), January–April 2013, p. 5
  2. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  3. ^ a b Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  4. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  5. ^ Bose, Sugata. 2024. “In Search of Young Asia.” In Asia after Europe. United States: Harvard University Press,. p. 75
  6. ^ Bose, p. 85
  7. ^ As cited in Bose, p. 86
  8. ^ Andrew Sartori, "Beyond Culture-Contact and Colonial Discourse: "Germanism" in Colonial Bengal" in Shruti Kapila (ed.), An Intellectual History for India, Cambridge University Press (2010), p. 82
  9. ^ Suhrita Saha, "Benoy Kumar Sarkar (1887-1949): A Tryst with Destiny" in Sociological Bulletin, 62 (1), January–April 2013, p. 4
  10. ^ Bandyopadhyay, B. (1984) The Political Ideas of Benoy Kumar Sarkar K. P. Bagchi, Calcutta, Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value)., OCLC 12419520
  11. ^ published in two parts, the first in 1914 and the later in 1921: Sarkar, Benoy Kumar (1914) The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology (Part 1) Pânini Office, Allahabad, OCLC 2005865; and Sarkar, Benoy Kumar (1914) The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology (Part 2, with appendices by Brajendranáth Seal) Sudhindra Natha Vasu, Allahabad, OCLC 48121776
  12. ^ Sarkar, Benoy Kumar (1916) The beginning of Hindu culture as world-power (A.D. 300-600) Commercial Press, Shanghai, OCLC 5732399
  13. ^ Sarkar, Benoy Kumar (1916) Chinese Religion Through Hindu Eyes: a study in the tendencies of Asiatic mentality Commercial Press, Shanghai, OCLC 82020
  14. ^ Sarkar, Benoy Kumar (1918) Hindu achievements in exact science a study in the history of scientific development Longmans, Green and Co., New York, OCLC 1193853
  15. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  16. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  17. ^ Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  18. ^ a b c Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).

References

[edit | edit source]
  • Behn, Wolfgang (2004) "Benoy Kumar Sarkar: 1887-1949" Concise Biographical Companion to Index Islamicus, 1665-1980: An international who's who in Islamic studies from its beginnings down to the twentieth century (Volume Three (N-Z)) Koninklijke Brill: Leiden, Netherlands. Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  • Bose, Sugata. 2024. “In Search of Young Asia.” In Asia after Europe. United States: Harvard University Press.
  • Sen, Satadru (2015) "Benoy Kumar Sarkar. Restoring the nation to the world", Taylor and Francis: London. Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  • Sinha, Vineeta (2007) "Sarkar, Benoy Kumar (1887–1949)" in Ritzer, George (ed.) (2007) Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology Blackwell Publishing: Malden, MA. Lua error in Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration at line 2172: attempt to index field '?' (a nil value).
  • Sarkar, Ida (1977) "My life with Prof. Benoy Kumar Sarkar", compiled and translated from the German text by Indira Palit. Prabhat: Calcutta. (BEPI, 1994. The Natl. bibliogr. of Indian literature / gen. ed. B.S. Kesavan; V.Y. Kulkarni, 1962, vol. I, p. 246. NUC pre-1956)
[edit | edit source]

Lua error in Module:Authority_control at line 153: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).

Retrieved from "http://70.231.62.181/index.php?title=Benoy_Kumar_Sarkar&oldid=11683155"