Benoy Kumar Sarkar

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Benoy Kumar Sarkar
Benoy Kumar Sarkar
Photo of Sarkar from the March–April 1917 issue of The Hindusthanee Student.
Born
26 December 1887
Malda, British India


Occupation
Social scientist


Parents
Sudhyanya Kumar Sarkar


Benoy Kumar Sarkar (sometimes Binoy Kumar Sarkar) (December 26, 1887, Malda, British India – November 23, 1949, Washington D.C., United States) was an Indian social scientist, professor, and nationalist.[1] 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

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,[2] while he graduated in 1905, at 18, with dual degrees in English and history. The following year he received his master's degree.

Career

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.[3] In 1947, he became a professor and head of the department. In 1949, Sarkar went on a lecture tour in America, visiting 25 universities.[4] During his trip to America, he interacted with scholars such as John Dewey, Talcott Parsons, Carle Zimmerman, and Raymond Leslie Buell.[4]

Closely involved with the national education movement of India, Professor Sarkar was highly influenced by the Nationalist action of Sister Nivedita.[5]

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.[6] Sarkar warned Asians not to trust Western powers.[7] Sarkar challenged the West's racial privileging of democracy:

Template:Blockquote [8]

Selected publications

Sarkar wrote in five languages, his native Bengali, English, German, French and Italian,[9] 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.[10] A complete list of his publications is contained in Bandyopadhyay's book The Political Ideas of Benoy Kumar Sarkar.[11]

  • 1914/1921 The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology[12]
  • 1916 The Beginning of Hindu Culture as World-Power (A.D. 300-600)[13]
  • 1916 Chinese Religion Through Hindu Eyes[14]
  • 1918 Hindu Achievements in Exact Science: A Study in the History of Scientific Development[15][16]
  • 1918 "The Influence of India on Western Civilization in Modern Times" (in The Journal of Race Development)[17]
  • 1943 The Equations of World-Economy in Their Bearing on Post-War Reconstruction[18]

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.[19][20] In 1921, he authored a Political Science Quarterly study presenting a "Hindu Theory of the State."[20] 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."[20]

Death

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

Notes

  1. ↑ Benoy Kumar Sarkar (1887–1949). Palgrave Macmillan(2017).
  2. ↑ Suhrita Saha, "Benoy Kumar Sarkar (1887-1949): A Tryst with Destiny" in Sociological Bulletin, 62 (1), January–April 2013, p. 5
  3. ↑ [{{{url}}} Age of Entanglement]. Harvard University Press.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Global intellectual history in International Relations: Hierarchy, empire, and the case of late colonial Indian international thought. Review of International Studies({Template:Date).
  5. ↑ Need to end the national culture of selective forgetfulness.
  6. ↑ Bose, Sugata. 2024. “In Search of Young Asia.” In Asia after Europe. United States: Harvard University Press,. p. 75
  7. ↑ Bose, p. 85
  8. ↑ As cited in Bose, p. 86
  9. ↑ 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
  10. ↑ Suhrita Saha, "Benoy Kumar Sarkar (1887-1949): A Tryst with Destiny" in Sociological Bulletin, 62 (1), January–April 2013, p. 4
  11. ↑ Bandyopadhyay, B. (1984) The Political Ideas of Benoy Kumar Sarkar K. P. Bagchi, Calcutta, Template:ISBN, Template:OCLC
  12. ↑ 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, Template:OCLC; and Sarkar, Benoy Kumar (1914) The Positive Background of Hindu Sociology (Part 2, with appendices by Brajendranáth Seal) Sudhindra Natha Vasu, Allahabad, Template:OCLC
  13. ↑ Sarkar, Benoy Kumar (1916) The beginning of Hindu culture as world-power (A.D. 300-600) Commercial Press, Shanghai, Template:OCLC
  14. ↑ Sarkar, Benoy Kumar (1916) Chinese Religion Through Hindu Eyes: a study in the tendencies of Asiatic mentality Commercial Press, Shanghai, Template:OCLC
  15. ↑ Sarkar, Benoy Kumar (1918) Hindu achievements in exact science a study in the history of scientific development Longmans, Green and Co., New York, Template:OCLC
  16. ↑ Review of Hindu Achievements in Exact Science.. American Journal of Sociology({Template:Date).
  17. ↑ The Influence of India on Western Civilization in Modern Times. The Journal of Race Development({Template:Date).
  18. ↑ Review of The Equations of World-Economy in Their Bearing on Post-War Reconstruction. The American Economic Review({Template:Date).
  19. ↑ Hindu Theory of International Relations. American Political Science Review({Template:Date).
  20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 The Making of Global International Relations: Origins and Evolution of IR at its Centenary{{#if:|, {{{last}}}}. Cambridge University Press(2019). ISBN 978-1-108-48017-8

References

  • 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. Template:ISBN
  • 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. Template:ISBN
  • Sinha, Vineeta (2007) "Sarkar, Benoy Kumar (1887–1949)" in Ritzer, George (ed.) (2007) Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology Blackwell Publishing: Malden, MA. Template:ISBN
  • 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)

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