Gurusaday Dutt

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Gurusaday Dutt
Gurusaday Dutt photo.png
Gurusaday Dutt
Born10 May 1882 (1882-05-10)
Birasri, Karimganj, Assam Province, British India
Died25 June 1941 (1941-06-26) (aged 59)
Calcutta, India
OccupationCivilian, folklorist
Spouse(s)Saroj Nalini Dutt (nee Dé)[1]
Children1

Gurusaday Dutt (Bengali: গুরুসদয় দত্ত) (1882–1941) (Bengali: ১২৮৭-১৩৪৮)[2] was a civil servant, folklorist, and writer. He was the founder of the Bratachari Movement in the 1930s.

Early life and education

Dutt, born to Ramkrishna Dutta Chaudhuri and Anandamayee Debi, was a member of the zamindari family of Birasri (বীরশ্রি) village in Karimganj (করিমগঞ্জ) sub-division of Sylhet district, in eastern Bengal (present day Bangladesh). Members of his family were followers of the Vaishnavite sect.

After completing his Entrance examination at Government College, Sylhet, in 1898, Dutt completed his F.A. examination from Presidency College, Calcutta in 1901. He obtained a scholarship raised by the Sylhet Union to study in Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He passed the Open Competitive Service examination in 1905. Subsequently, he was called to the Bar by the Honourable Society of Gray's Inn.

He was married to Saroj Nalini Dutt and they had one son.

Career

He was the district magistrate of Mymensingh, director of Industries, chief whip in the Bengal Legislative Council, member of the Council of States and of the Central Legislative Assembly (1930-1933) and secretary, Local Self Government and Public Health, Government of Bengal,

Contributions to social work

Dutt's social work for the development of villages and improvement of agriculture led to the foundation of the first Rural Reconstruction Movement in India in Birbhum in 1918, extending the movement to several districts, such as Bankura, Howrah and Mymensingh. In 1922, he started a society for co-operative irrigation in Bankura, which he later extended to Mymensingh and Birbhum. In 1924, he headed an Indian delegation to a meeting of the Agricultural Institute in Rome. In December, 1929, he started Gramer Daak ('গ্রামের ডাক')that dealt with agrarian and rural matters.

His contribution to the empowerment of mostly rural women was evident in the establishment of the Saroj Nalini Dutt Memorial Association, as a Central Training Institute for training women, deprived of formal education, in the crafts and basic education in February, 1925. In October 1925, he started a monthly magazine entitled, Bangalakshmi ('বঙ্গলক্ষী') to give voice to village women.

Dutt contributed immensely to the development of rural dance forms. In Mymensingh he started a Folk Dance Revival Society, which revived the secular Jaari ('জারি') dance. In 1930, he discovered the Raibeshe ('রায়বেশে') folk dance, a martial dance of un-divided Bengal, in Birbhum. Subsequently, he also revived the Kaathi (কাঠি), Dhamail (ধামায়েল), Baul (বাউল), Jhumur (ঝুমুর), Brata (ব্রত) and Dhali (ঢালি) dances from different parts of undivided Bengal. In 1931, after meeting Cecil Sharp, who had revived Morris dancing in England, he set up the Bangiya Palli Sampad Raksha Samiti (বঙ্গিয় পল্লি রক্ষা সমিতি) (Cultural Heritage Protection Society of Bengal).

All these efforts culminated in the founding of the Bratachari movement in 1932. In 1934, the Bangiya Palli Sampad Raksha Samiti was renamed as The Bengal Bratachari Society. In 1936, he started Banglar Shakti ('বাংলার শক্তি'), a journal on behalf of the Bengal Bratachari Society.

Contributions to art and culture

Gurusaday Dutt was mostly known for his interest and contributions to Bengal's folk art, folk dance and folk music. He spent a lifetime collecting and studying art objects and handiwork from the remotest corners of undivided rural Bengal collecting items of folk art such as Kalighat paintings, patuas ('পটুয়া') scrolls, embroidered kanthas ('কাঁথা'), terracotta panels, stone sculptures, wooden carvings, dolls and toys, moulds used for making patterns on sweets or mango-paste etc. Gurusaday Dutt also wrote extensively on folk culture. Rabindranath Tagore and C.F. Andrews wrote in the foreword of the biography of his wife, Saroj Nalini Dutt, which he wrote. Gurusaday Dutt also wrote a good deal about the Bratachari movement.

Controversies

In 1928, at Howrah, in connection with the Bamangachi Firing case, he condemned the firing on a crowd of protesters by the police led by a British officer. The matter was raised in the House of Lords in London and as a punitive measure he was transferred to Mymensingh. In Mymensingh he refused to take against those who were protesting against the government's Salt Act. Which led to his transfer to Birbhum.

Organisations founded

  • Mymensingh Folk Dance and Folk Music Society (1929)
  • Pallisampad Raksha Samiti (1931)
  • Bratachari Lokanritya Samiti (1932)
  • South India Bratachari Society (1932)
  • Sarbabharatiya Bratachari Society etc.
  • In 1941 he also set up the Bratachari village(Bratacharigram) near Calcutta, and the Bratachari Janashiksha Pratishthan. The Bratachari movement founded by Gurusaday Dutt (from vrata, vow) was a movement for spiritual and social improvement. The movement aimed at creating a sense of world citizenship as well as national awareness among people, irrespective of caste, religion, sex and age. The movement aimed to nurture the mind and the body and to encourage people to work for national and individual improvement through encouraging traditional and folk culture, especially folk dance and folk song. The bratacharis, or followers of the movement, pledged themselves to build their moral fibre and serve the country on the five principles of knowledge, labour, truth, unity and joy. They aimed at developing the mind and body through dance as well as by undertaking to perform good deeds. The Bratachari movement did not catch on all over India and slowly died away after the death of its founder. In 2011, the Mamata Banerjee Government again made Bratachari education compulsory in Primary schools in West Bengal, after the Marxist Communist Government withdrew it from the School curriculum in 1984.
  • Gurusaday Museum (1961).

Publications

Gurusaday Dutt wrote many books and articles, which are listed below. The latest book to be published is "Banglar Lokashilpa o Lokanritya" (in Bengali), which is a collection of his essays and articles on Folk Art and Folk Dances of Bengal in various magazines between 1928 and 1941(his death), that were painstakingly obtained from the old magazines at Bangiya Sahitya Parishad's library by his grandson Devsaday Dutt and granddaughter-in-law Priyadarshini Dutt. The book has been published by Subhromani De and Subhadra De of Chhatim Books in 2008.

  • Bhajar Banshi (1922) (in Bengali) (A book of rhymes for children)
  • Palli Sangskar (in Bengali) (1925)
  • Village Reconstruction (1925)
  • Agricultural Organisation and Rural Reconstruction in Bengal (1919)
  • Ganer Saji (in Bengali) (1932)
  • Indian Folk Dance and Folklore Movement (in Bengali) (1933)
  • Bratachari Synthesis (in Bengali) (1937)
  • Patuya Sangit (in Bengali) (1939)
  • Bratacharir Marmakatha (in Bengali) (1940)
  • A Woman of India] (1941)
  • Bratachari: Its Aim and Meaning (1942)
  • The Folk Dances of Bengal (1954)
  • Shrihatter Lokasangit (in Bengali) (1966)
  • Folk Arts and Crafts of Bengal (1990)[3]
  • Art of Kantha (1995)
  • Banglar Lokashilpa o Lokanritya (in Bengali) (Calcutta: Chatim Books, 2008)
  • Goraey Golod (in Bengali)
  • Gramer Kaajer ka kha Ga (in Bengali)
  • Saroj Nalini
  • Palli Sanskar O Sangathan (in Bengali)
  • Paaglamir Puthi (in Bengali)
  • Purir Mahathwa (in Bengali)
  • Gaaner Saaji (in Bengali)
  • Banglar Samrik Krira (in Bengali)
  • Chaander Buri(in Bengali)
  • Bratachari Shakhaa (in Bengali)
  • Bratachari Marmakatha (in Bengali)
  • Patua Sangeet (in Bengali)
  • Bratachari Parichoy (in Bengali)
  • Srihotter Lokageeti (in Bengali)
  • Banglar Bir Jodha Raebeshe (in Bengali)

Death and commemoration

He died at the age of 59 of cancer. After he died, his son, Birendrasaday Dutt, took the initiative in renaming Ballygunge Store Road, where he had built himself a house, after him.

His portrait adorns the walls of Mahajati Sadan, Calcutta.

Biographies have been written on his life and works in Bangladesh by Shankar Prasad De, Amitabha Chowdhury, Shaikat Azgar and Naresh Banerjee.

A Medal in his honour, known as "The Gurusaday Dutt Medal" along with a Cash prize, was endowed by his grandson, Devsaday Dutt, at the University of Calcutta, which is given to the student who stands First in the Post-Graduate Examination in Geography, from 2008 onwards.

Gurusaday Dutt Scholarships are also being awarded by the Sylhet Union(Srihatta Sammilani), Kolkata for brilliant students pursuing post-graduate studies.

His articles initially published in the 1930s in journals such as Prabashi, Banglar Shakti, Bangalakshmi and Aloka (in Bengali), have been republished in a book entitled Banglar Lokashipla o Lokanritya in August 2008.

Family

His daughter-in-law, Aroti Dutt, was an eminent social worker, and was the World President of the Associated Countrywomen of the World for two terms and President of the Saroj Nalini Dutt Memorial Association, Calcutta. His grandson is Devsaday Dutt,FCA(England & Wales)and his great-grandsons are Rajsaday Dutt FCA, MBA (Darden School) and Shivsaday Dutt MBA (Kelley School).[citation needed]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Tapati Das Gupta, Social Thought of Rabindranath Tagore: A Historical Analysis, (Calcutta, 1993), p. 138
  2. ↑ Tapati Dasgupta (1 January 1993). Social Thought of Rabindranath Tagore: A Historical Analysis. Abhinav Publications. pp. 138–. ISBN 978-81-7017-302-1. Retrieved 11 July 2012.
  3. ↑ Publications of G.S.Dutt

External links

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