Author Subrata Dasgupta and Professor Sukanta Chaudhuri at the interactive session. Picture by Pabitra Das

The Bengal renaissance, a literary, philosophical, social and cultural re-awakening, has been studied, debated and argued by historians, social scientists and literary scholars.

But to explain it in terms of scientific cognition is a rather unconventional attempt that author Subrata Dasgupta undertakes in his new book The Bengal Renaissance, Identity and Creativity from Rammohun Roy to Rabindranath Tagore.

Dasgupta in his book has tried to understand the renaissance and the workings of the brilliant minds that went into making it in terms of psycho-analysis and from the perspective of philosophy of science.

“It is not an attempt to dehumanise the entire phenomena but to empirically study the creative minds and see how the creators drew upon their knowledge,” he explains.

Dasgupta’s abiding interest is in the life and life history of the creative minds and in that he adds a new perspective to the study of the Bengal renaissance, commented Professor Sukanta Chaudhuri in an interactive session on the newly-launched book at Oxford Bookstore on Thursday. Lauding Dasgupta’s thesis, Chaudhuri wondered: “If a certain number of creative individuals brought about a renaissance, then why didn’t every age have one?”

While there are arguments about whether the intellectual endeavours in 19th Century Bengal can at all be called a renaissance, Dasgupta says: “There can be no doubt that a small community of outstanding individuals existed during that era.”

Chaudhuri, too, acknowledged “there is such a renaissance period of notable cultural era.”

And while there are various definitions of renaissance, “it will be intriguing to know whether renaissance can take place in different cities and in different cultures or what were the common factors among renaissance periods,” said Chaudhuri.

The book outlines the core work of Raja Rammohun Roy, Henry Derozio, Michael Madhusudan Datta, Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda and others. A notable omission in this pantheon of luminaries was Vidyasagar, pointed out Prof Chaudhuri.