Jnananjan Niyogi - Magic Lantern Lectures

Magic Lantern Lectures

He extensively toured the rural areas of Bengal and started using the magic lantern for spreading consciousness amongst the poor and uneducated sections of the population. He was a pioneer in this matter and acquired fame for adopting this method of mass communication in India. It proved to be highly effective and soon attracted the wrath of the administration.

The popular Bengali writer Bimal Mitra has given a vivid description of one of his magic lantern lectures in Kolkata, in his Bengali novel Kori Diye Kinlam. Kiran and Dipankar (Dipu) are two characters of the novel, which had the first half of the twentieth century Kolkata as its backdrop. It was initially serialised in the leading literary magazine Desh and then published in book form. It sold like hot cake. The incident involving Jnananjan Niyogi is quoted below.

Even on that day, Kiran had gone to school. After the classes were over, Dipankar asked, “Won’t we go to the sadhu?”

Kiran replied, “We will go to the sadhu only at dusk. Let us go and attend a meeting before that.”

“Where?”

“In Harish Park.”

There was a big meeting in Harish Park that evening. The place was full of police personnel. Dipankar felt a bit frightened, but many people had collected.

Kiran was used to those places as he went to sell sacred thread in such places. He was not afraid and said, “Let’s go inside.”

By then, many people were sitting on the floor. It was a Congress meeting. Two small tables were there. There was a carbide gas lamp, waiting to be lit up once it was dark. Two gentlemen were occupying two chairs. Half the park was occupied with people. Two or three chairs were there by the side. Newspaper people, as well as police reporters, were waiting with pencils and paper.

Dipankar did not know anybody. He did not know who was Pratap Guha Roy, who was Jnanjan Niyogi or who was Subhas Bose. He did not know any one of them.

He asked, “Which one is Subhas Bose?”

Kiran replied, “Subhas Bose hasn’t come. Jnananjan Niyogi has come. Just wait and see. He will deliver such a speech that tears will roll down your cheeks. There will be a magic lantern show.”

It was not just an ordinary lecture; it was a lantern lecture. The pictures started appearing on a white screen. It seemed that movie pictures had come to a stand still. The images were not moving but once the lecture started everything could be understood. How English soldiers came and occupied India, how the Englishmen cut off the fingers of the weavers, the oppression at Char Minor, the barbarous tyranny against the Sikhs at Budge Budge. The pictures were being shown on the screen and Jnananjan Niyogi was delivering the lecture. What a lecture! Everybody was listening in silence. The English occupied India with one tyranny after another, Picture after picture there were displays about how bad the English were, how tyrannous they were, picture after picture it was that.

Jnananjan Niyogi said, “Are we human beings or animals? Are we trees or stones? What are we? We are neither human beings nor animals. Even if we were animals we would have stood up against them, we would have protested, we would have taken revenge. They have shot us but what have we done? You say what have we done?

Somebody said, “We have flattered them.”

Jnananjan Niyogi said, “No, we have licked their feet.”

A man sitting beside said, “Correct, correct.”

Jnananjan Niyogi continued with his speech. It was the month of Aswina. Mr Catel was walking down the road at Madaripur. The Englishman was manager of a jute mill. A college boy was walking alongside; his umbrella spread open over his head. On seeing it, the blue blood started boiling inside the Englishman. What, such impertinence! Black nigger, you have so much of courage?

The Englishman said, “Close your umbrella.”

The boy said, “Why, why should I close my umbrella?”

The Englishman said, “It’s my order.”

The boy queried, “Who are you to order?”

The Englishman said, “You want to see who I am? See…”

He gave the boy a good beating. The boy lay there, half dead. The Englishman went away.

The matter went to court. The case was put up. The judge delivered the judgement. The boy was at fault. He had incited the Englishman. Mr Catel was not at fault. Then, Mr Templeton himself came for an investigation. After weighing all the arguments, he passed a judgement that Ananga Mohan Das and his three associates would be caned twenty-five times in front of the magistrate. Friend, if we were human beings, then there would have been cane marks even on my back. We are trees and stones and so we lick the feet of those Englishmen. And these people? These people who are sitting beside me and writing reports for Illisheum Row, what will I say about them….

He thumped the ground with his shoes.

Suddenly, where nothing was there, some policemen came running into the meeting from somewhere, waving their sticks. There was chaos all around. People who were listening quietly until then, started running…

Kiran said, “Dipu run, run away quickly…”

Thereafter, where was Kiran, where was Dipu, where was Harish Park…