Unforgetting Chaitanya is an exploration of the rise of middle-class bhadralok Bengali Vaishnavism through the process of cultural remembering and reconstruction—what Varuni Bhatia calls “unforgetting”—of the Vaishnava saint Chaitanya. This book is a fantastic study of the formation of new identities and subjectivities during the colonial period in Bengal. It carefully addresses the role of new media (periodicals and journals), socioeconomic classes (salaried middle-class bureaucrats), and the changing perceptions of caste and religion as both causes and results of the period's shifting landscape to provide a refreshing new discussion of religion and colonialism.
The introduction effectively situates the book in both the reception history of Chaitanya and the history of religion in colonial Bengal. The introduction also connects the theoretical framework of “unforgetting” with loss (viraha) within Indian aesthetics of bhakti (devotion). However, it is also evident from the introduction that the book seeks to constrain its study within the limits of the topic at hand, focusing only on colonial Bengali Vaishnavism and its promotion of the saint Chaitanya. While the introduction is very well executed, Bhatia misses the opportunity to connect the material to broader trends throughout South Asia during the colonial period, particularly the elevation of vernacular traditions of bhakti that helped shape various regional identities. Bhatia briefly gestures in this direction in the epilogue's concluding reflections on the complex, competing, and coexisting perceptions of Chaitanya (pp. 203–4); however, a more sustained and thorough discussion in the introduction would have extended the scope and reach of the book significantly.
After charting the context for the historical emergence of Vaishnavism in Bengal (1486–1800) in chapter 1, Bhatia uses chapter 2 to lay the groundwork for the subsequent chapters by exploring the “Untidy Realms” of precolonial Bengali Vaishnavism. In this chapter, Bhatia selectively curates several aspects of the period between 1700 and 1900 to show the plurality of practices and institutions that fit under the rubric of Vaishnavism during the period while foreshadowing the nineteenth-century bhadralok reformist arguments of two of the book's bhadralok protagonists, Kedarnath Datta (also randomly spelled Dutta throughout the book) Bhaktivinoda and Sishir Kumar Ghosh, who are introduced accordingly. Particularly, the chapter focuses on shifting patronage, the religious authority of the shripat, ecstatic kirtan performance, and women's authority in precolonial sects. Through the context built by Bhatia, the chapter effectively demonstrates a diverse set of extant traditions that were united through several key practices and institutions that lacked a centralizing and/or authoritative body that sought to systematize Vaishnava identity. Instead, authority was vested in lineages of (mostly) Brahmin gosvamis, ascetics, and temple caretakers and priests, giving rise to a multiplicity of Vaishnava identities that Bhaktivinoda and Ghosh would seek to reform and distill.
It is in this context that Bhatia makes a brief but striking point about the spatiality and its significance for the ambiguation of Vaishnava identity: “For one of the most remarkable features of precolonial Vaishnavism in Bengal was the lack of a central governing authority—monastery or church—to which the laity could turn to in periods of uncertainty. Instead, Bengali Vaishnavism weaved together charismatic gurus, sacred sites such as the shripat, and a willing population” (p. 72). While Bhatia's presentation focuses on the human authorities in the shripats, this reviewer was struck by the importance of the place itself. Indeed, throughout the book, we find that authority was often claimed through association with some place, particularly Chaitanya's birthplace of Navadwip. So, it begs a question unanswered in the book about the significance of proximity and space in the construction of premodern Vaishnava identities in Bengal and how this prepares the groundwork from a broader Bengali Vaishnava and national identity in the colonial period. This would have been particularly helpful in foreshadowing the discussion of Navadwip as a recovered sacred place in chapter 5, “Utopia and a Birthplace.”
Bengali national identity is the subject of the third chapter. In this chapter, the idea of space is again elided in favor of the “territorial belonging” (p. 92) and “mapping” (p. 113) of identity onto the vernacular literary history of Bengali/Bangla, specifically through the writings of Dinesh Chandra Sen. In this chapter, Bhatia effectively constructs a global context of romanticism in which folk culture is viewed as a return to purer forms of production and expression. It is in this context that Sen articulates a literary history of Bangla and Bengali identity, from which Chaitanya emerges as an icon of Bengali national and historical identity. Through this process, the reputations of Chaitanya and Bengali Vaishnavism, more generally, underwent radical transformations from their association with the uneducated masses to becoming an integral foundation of Bengali Swadeshi history and culture.
This transformation is central to chapter 4, which discusses the journal Shri Bishnupriya Patrika, edited by Kedarnath Datta, its associated collective the Gauranga Samaj, and the formation of a salaried middle-class Bengali Vaishnavism. In line with many of the themes in the previous chapter, Bhatia demonstrates that the emergent presentation of Vaishnavism romantically clings to the idea of the rural, ascetic ideal while using that to reconstruct the popular conception of Vaishnavism for the babu, the educated literate bureaucrats who made up its readership.
Unforgetting Chaitanya is well written and researched, and it is a significant contribution to scholarship on religion in Bengal and the reception history of bhakti figures. Because of its pointed focus, it is in-class use might be limited, but it would be extremely useful in graduate courses on religion and colonialism in India, modern Bengali history, or bhakti.
