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Redefining Humanism: Selected Essays of D. P. Mukerji IT is commendable that Srobana Munshi, a former Professor of English, Calcutta University, and some of her colleagues have produced a 109-page slender volume of D. P. Mukerji’s eight Bengali essays translated into English, especially for the benefit of the non-Bengali reading intelligentsia.
Mukerji’s favourite and one of his ablest pupils T. N. Madan, a leading social scientist of the country, has written a foreword in which he cryptically highlighted the superior quality of Mukerji’s intellectual calibre. He shares equally with condour Mukerji’s deep and abiding anxiety of safeguarding traditional cultural values, and arousing among the intellectual elite a true public spirit (virtue) and moral fibre for the social, political and economic regeneration of India. Such esprit, in turn, depends on the right foundation—a citizen has to be free economically! In the introduction, Srobona Munshi has given a broad survey of Mukerji’s contribution as a short story writer, a novelist and a music expert who had the unique distinction of co-writing with Rabindranath Tagore a joint work entitled Sur o Sungati (1935). The book is divided into two parts: the first, Reflections on Humanism, contains five essays, which deal with man’s place in the universe, humanism and Marxism, and the role of intellectuals in society. The second part focuses on the meaning and method of history, and the driving force of the class struggle in history. Theoretically, the essays are separate, but their unity is conceptual and methodological. Disenchanted with the prevailing ideology of Gandhism, which tended to generate an ascetic spirit, the Left’s socialism that was too materialistic, and perpetual faith in God, the ‘President of the Immortals’, Mukerji in the first three essays suggests a dire need of building up a strong faith in man, "who will have to be purusha" to be a person (a knower of the field). He emphasises that Personalism possessing an integral sense is a dynamic, growing concept. To put it differently, Personalism is the absolute Self, limitless, energetic and unbending. He makes a distinction between Roussau’s Individualism and his own concept of Personalism. He asserts that Roussau’s Individualism, devoid of moral principles, led to the ruin of European civilisation and the rise of Nazism. Ironically, he wrote that in India the formula for success was "flattery, hypocrisy and faith in God". Asserting that "our faith in man" can take the place of faith in God, Mukerji emphasied that the first response to the new situation ought to be diligence, experience and experimentation. Personalism meant for Mukerji an onwards march of intellect and progress. Marxism, he thought, was a modern version of old Humanism, distinct from scientific Humanism. Elaborating on the need for economic leadership to tackle the ills from which Indian society suffered, Mukerji thought it necessary to mobilise and rally the workers and peasants to exert pressure on the government to discharge their moral responsibility of ameliorating the condition of the people. In his interpretation of the meaning and method of history, he is akin to R. G. Collingwood, Michael Oakshott and C. H. Carr who believed that all history is contemporary. Mukerji thought that in no case could the subjective element be ruled out in the writing of history. He also maintained that there could not be a scientific history—only the interpretation of history could be scientific. Surveying the state of history, writing in the 1930s, he thought that the historians were inspired by a spirit of patriotism, but, regrettably, they wrote little of social history which was the real need. He also stressed the need for an evaluation of historical events. It is clear from Mukerji’s writings that wherever any object of study engaged him, a train of thought awakened in him, and the upshot was the working out of a system of ideas. His mind was active but not accumulative. He was more persuasive negatively. Generally, he preferred to write essays with a "loose sally of mind’. With his acuteness of perception, he was too much of a disturbing intellect, a deviant, and an outsider in campus phrase, like a F. R. Leavis or A. J. P. Taylor, ever a questioner of things established, a loner, lacking passion and fervour, but cultivating his own garden unobtrusively. He thought in brilliant flashes, but his restlessness disabled him from producing a sustained creative work of a wider and higher range of originality. He fluttered in many ways, but never flew in one direction. As a teacher, Mukerji
was remarkable. He left a profound impact on his pupils some of whom
won distinctions in their professional life such as P. C. Joshi, T. N.
Madan, Ashok Mitra, Khalid and Shafiq Naqvi, A. K. Saran, V. B. Singh,
C. K. Puri, Inderjeet Singh, M. M. Kohli and Kusum Dhar, etc. These
ably edited essays have a distinct voice of their own, personal,
low-keyed and sharp spoken, softly and firmly in a style, which is the
best for essay writing. I strongly recommend this study of high
intellectual range and well-grained sensibility which is scarce in our
social science writings.
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Mukerji was easily one
of the leading intellectuals of his times. He was Professor of
Economics and Sociology, Lucknow University (1949-1959), and Professor
of Economics, Aligarh Muslim University (1954-59). As a teacher,
Mukerji served at Lucknow University for 32 years. He worked for the
UP government as Director of Information in 1938 and was also a member
of the UP Government Labour Enquiry Committee (1944). He went to the
Soviet Union and Europe in 1952. At The Hague, he was instrumental in
building up the Institute of Social Sciences, and at Oxford and
Cambridge universities, he delivered lectures.