Adhunik Hindi Kavya and Bharatendu Harishchandra

A nation finds a common identity. She gets united by the common interests of war against colonial exploitation. Because despite the diversity India is one at heart and that unity rose to its peak in 1857. This revolution was too hard to suppress. And even suppression could be temporary. This revolution would sow the seeds of nationalism in India. Anti-colonial activities would see a massive rise. It would not stop or slow down until the abolition of colonial rule in India.

The emergence of 'Adhunik Hindi Kavya'

The colonial rulers called it ‘sepoy mutiny’ to try and reduce its significance. But, it was a revolution that led to the emergence of ‘Adhunik Hindi Kavya’. Poetry no longer confined itself to entertaining the rich. Poetry was now a medium to sympathize with the nation and her exploited people. It was a nation where spirituality and progress had always walked hand in hand. The stories of bravery of Indian heroines have inspired the Indian teenage girl to date.

Bharatendu Harishchandra was the greatest of poets for the ‘Adhunik Hindi Kavya’ genre. India has an unbroken tradition. Bharatendu soaked the best out of his predecessors but what he produced was fresh and young. Let us explore what came before the great Bharatendu Harishchandra. It will help us understand how it changed for the better.

‘Adhunik Hindi Kavya’ roughly translates to ‘modern Hindi poetry’. Indian history has no demarcation between mediaeval times and modern times. No one can give an exact century that was the last century of mediaeval history. No one can name an exact century that was the start of modern history. ‘Adhunik Hindi Kavya’ came from the ‘First war of Indian Independence’ of 1857. But, nothing gets lost in Indian art. So, this poetry was replete with medieval glories. Also, it came to serve the Indians crushed under British rule.

Bharatnedu’s predecessors were the poets of ‘Reetikaal’. These poems had nothing to do with the common people. They were only meant for entertainment or the rajas and the nawabs of India. The poems of ‘Reetikaal’ did not have any great impact on Indian history. But, these poems had a rich use of ‘almakaras’. Alamkaras are embellishments in the language given to poetry that make it pleasing.

Indian poetry and spirituality

Indian poetry and spirituality are inseparable. Indian spirituality is very different from its western counterpart. There were many ways of worshipping the same ‘God’ in India. Every person had their own personal faith. People had a multitude of philosophies to choose from and worship God. This made people true to their own faith while respecting those of others as well.

Bharatendu drew from the tradition of ‘Bhakti’ and ‘Sufi’. These movements took place around the same time in India. They had the same message and similar means of worshipping the Divine. Many great poets came out of these traditions with many new songs. India is replete with the glorious stories of these Saints. Their poems have always been popular in India to date.

Here’s more if you are curious about what the Bhakti and Sufi movements were all about in India.

Every Indian poet finds a treasure trove of exemplary poetry from these poems. Bharatendu did the same. So, his devotional poems are worth getting a special mention. But, what is devotion in India? What is religion in India? Let us have an authentic look from the real Indian girl.

‘Dharma’ does not mean what ‘religion’ means in the Western context. ‘Secular’ in India and the west have very different meanings. ‘Dharma’ means to do the right thing, adhering to the intention of doing good to fellow beings. ‘Dharma’ is not a rigid set of rules in India. Different spiritual gurus have formulated different practices.

A person is free to choose which guru they want to follow and which rules they want to adhere to. Thus, secular in India does not mean adhering to no religion. It means a person can follow their personal faith without any fear of persecution. Even atheism was acceptable.

This does not mean one cannot criticise a religious philosophy. Yet, this criticism remains logical, intellectual, and respectful. Bharatendu Harishchandra’s personal devotion showed in his poetry. He adhered to the Vaishnava philosophy. This means he described the beauty of the beautiful Sri Krishna. He also criticised the ‘Advaita philosophy’.

If you are curious about different schools of philosophy in Hinduism then click here. If you want to know what Bharatendu believed in then keep reading.

Bharatendu and the Bhakti tradition

Vaishnava poets have sometimes described God’s beauty with attributes that are unseen. They have sometimes given mellifluous descriptions of their footprints. Some have given a beautiful description of the beauty of God using metaphors. These were the ‘Sa-guna’ poets. Bharatendu adhered to this school of thought. He has given the most mellow descriptions. He has explained how Krishna, the cowherd God, met his Gopi girlfriends and Radha Rani. Bharatendu has described the beauty of the footprints of Radha Rani too.

If you are curious about ‘sa-guna’ and ‘nir-guna’ forms of poetry then click here.

But remember that believers in Radha-Krishna are what the western philosophers call ‘theists’. They believe that God is the creator of the universe. God also preserves and maintains it with utmost affection and care. Bharatendu could see how his faith was like the Muslim faith. He described a Muslim woman bowing down to worship as if she were his own sister. Then Bharatendu attracted the disapproval of society for visiting a Jain temple.

Jainism is different from the Vaishnav faith. The Jains are ‘agnostics’ or ‘atheists’ according to some western scholars. But ‘Bhakti’ in India roughly translates to ‘adoration of the Creator’. Bharatendu has adored the Creator in his own way and that reflects in his poems. The exact term for Bhakti poems of Bharatendu is ‘Bhakti-parak Kavya’.

The most revolutionary form of poems of Bharatendu Harishchandra was his love poems. He has taken inspiration from the poetic embellishment of his ‘reetikaal’ predecessors. But, he has breathed freedom into it. Bharatendu added Punjabi and Gujarati words to Hindi poetry. Poetry and song are inseparable. So, he introduced elements of folk music and tribal melodies into his love poems. He could never detach himself from the masses.

Bharatendu and the Indian-style romance

Bharatendu only experimented with love poems. He did not stretch it further. But, the love poems of Bharatendu were about the true meaning of love. His ‘Reetikaal’ predecessors often used romance as a form of poetic entertainment. Bharatendu’s inspiration must have been his own romantic experiences. It is true that Bharatendu died young at the age of 35 years. But, he lived his life to the fullest and set an example to remain unique and express himself with boldness. A devout man at heart, even his love poetries often glorify the Divine love of Sri Sri Radha Krishna. In Hindi, we call these poems, ‘Sringara-parak Kavya’.

But was religion free from superstition in India when Bharatendu lived? No. So, Bharatendu the devout poet criticised these superstitions. He believed in education for women and talked about the oneness of Radha and Krishna. Citing this example, Bharatendu said that women’s rights should be nothing less than a man’s right. He had travelled a lot in India. Bengal became the hub for introducing reforms in society and religion. So, Bharatendu became a great supporter of Bengali reformers. Many of his poems praise them.

Did Bharatendu support English education or vernacular?

Both. Here's how...

Bharatendu believed that English education could open the doors of knowledge to Indians. India has a rich repository of knowledge. Still, India believes in accepting the knowledge of the world. English could make that happen. Still, Bharatendu believed in knowledge of the vernaculars. He believed that education is incomplete without knowledge of one’s own language.

But, people have often blamed Bharatendu for favouring the British. These allegations are due to incomplete knowledge of the history of colonial India. The revolt of 1857 made the colonial leaders wary of losing India. So, Queen Victoria of England came up with a bunch of promises to please the Indians.

There were reforms to favour the Indian peasants facing exploitation by the British. To some extent, these pretences were successful in appeasing the gullible Indians. Never in history has India plundered or devastated a foreign land. Nor has she treated a friendly foreigner with disrespect. A gullible man like Bharatendu could not understand these disgusting ways of manipulation.

Besides, Bharatendu criticised those British officials who came to India and plundered her. Bharatendu believed that the Princes of England loved India. So, Bharatendu wanted them to know how much poverty and disease had taken root in the country. Bharatendu showed respect for the British only when they pretended to love India. But the British did it only to prevent any further revolution like in 1857.

This allowed the colonial rulers to bid their time and sow seeds of communal disharmony in India. But, of course, Bharatendu was not aware of these immoral ways. Thus, a form of his poems is ‘Rajbhakt’. ‘Raj’ refers to the British Raj or the colonial rule in India. ‘Rajbhakti’ means being a supporter of colonial rule in India. Bharatendu was loyal only to Indian interests.

But how long could they fool a gullible lover of the masses? Not for much longer. So, Bharatendu realised the fallacy and pretences of the British crown after a decade or two. The colonial government had some real supporters. But, these real supporters were greedy and dishonest. They were misleading gullible people to believe that the British had good intentions.

So, Bharatendu decided to promote nationalism among Indians. His poems like ‘Vijay Vallari’ and ‘Vijayani Vijay Baijayanti’ are its finest examples. At a superficial level, these were ‘Rajbhakt’ but it was Bharatendu’s pretence. Had he criticised the British, they would not allow him to circulate his poems. So, he took this underground measure to promote the valour of the Indians. He again described the plight of the Indians in these poems. But, he did not express any desire to communicate these plights to Queen Victoria of England.

‘Vijay Vaijayanti’ is about the valour of Indian soldiers in a war against Afghanistan. But, the British had led this war for British interests. And, the British had used the money and resources from India to fund this Kabul war.

It was not to promote Indian interests. But rather exploit the Indians to fulfil British interests. This war was an eye-opener to all the gullible Indians like Bharatendu. So, this great poet expressed his sympathy towards the exploited Indians. Again, he criticised the British for leading this war. And, he did not request the Queen of Britain to understand the Indian plight. Bharatendu further expressed how manipulations of the British crown were worse than force. The ultimate aim of violent and barbaric plunderers and the British rule in India remained common. It was to exploit the fabulous Indian wealth. So, we can say that Bharatednu was a ‘Dehsbhakt’ or lover of India.

Bharatendu wrote ‘Vijayini Vijay Baijyanti’ to celebrate the victory of Britain in Egypt. But, the soldiers who fought for the British crown were the exploited Indians. So, Bharatendu has celebrated the valour of this ancient land of heroism. He made a mention of the heroism shown in the Mahabharat. And, he compared it to the valour of contemporary Indians. Then he weeps to express the poverty and pain in India through his poems. But, these poems do not want to communicate it to Queen Victoria or the Prince of Wales any longer.

Bharatendu has described that 1857 was a tough revolution. The British were so scared of losing their control in India that they spread waves after waves of terror. There are stories in India of how the British used terror to crush this revolution. They would often hang the entire village by tree branches to spread terror among Indians. All this only to keep draining the Indian wealth and I am familiar with these stories. Because I am an Indian and grew up listening to them as a part of my upbringing.

So, Bharatendu criticised the Indians for their fear of the British. He has lamented how India no longer takes interest in her art forms, how the glorious land is full of callous people who care for nothing but food. Such was the curse of British rule in India and Bharatendu tried to motivate the Indians to preserve their past glory and throw out the foreign plunderers.

If you want to know about the cruel ways in which the British drained the Indian wealth then here is a link for you.

Bharatendu was so great that many poets formed a team and called themselves ‘Bharatendu Mandala’. This team kept propagating poetry in the way that Bharatendu had been doing all his life

To get the best idea about who Bharatendu Harishchandra was, read his poems. But, if you want a formal biography of this poet then click here.

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