Nirad C. Chaudhuri
Nirad Chandra Chaudhuri CBE (23 November 1897 – 1 August 1999) was an Indian writer. In 1990, Oxford University awarded Chaudhuri, by then a long-time resident of the city of Oxford, an Honorary Degree in Letters. In 1992, he was made an honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).
Also recorded as Balahak Nandi · Sonibarer Cithi · Outsider · Now
Nirad C. Chaudhuri
- Name
- Nirad C.
- Born
- 23 November 1897
- Birthplace
- Kishoreganj, Bengal Presidency, British India
- Died
- 1 August 1999
- Place of death
- Lathbury Road, Oxford, England
- Occupation
- writer and commentator on culture
- Education
- University of Calcutta
- Nationality
- India · British Raj · Dominion of India
- Fields
- non-fiction
- Known for
- Scholar Extraordinary
- Honours
- Commander of the Order of the British Empire · Sahitya Akademi Award
- Languages
- English · Bangla
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Nirad Chandra Chaudhuri CBE (23 November 1897 – 1 August 1999) was an Indian writer. In 1990, Oxford University awarded Chaudhuri, by then a long-time resident of the city of Oxford, an Honorary Degree in Letters. In 1992, he was made an honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).
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bnf · gnd · loc · wikidata · Q982828 · wikipedia · Nirad C. Chaudhuri
In this article
Biography
Biography
Chaudhuri worked between 1897 and 1999 across historian, autobiographer, writer, literary critic and biographer. The registers place that work in non-fiction. Every statement below returns to a source shown in the evidence panel; where the record is silent or divided, the article says so instead of resolving it.
Chaudhuri studied at University of Calcutta, Surendranath College and Scottish Church College. The recorded working language is English and Bangla. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are non-fiction. Works named in the authority record are Scholar Extraordinary. Distinctions recorded are Commander of the Order of the British Empire and Sahitya Akademi Award.
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Nirad C. Chaudhuri • Pen Name — Balahak Nandi, Sonibarer Cithi, Outsider, Now • Born — 23 November 1897 • Birthplace — Kishoreganj, Bengal Presidency, British India • Died — 1 August 1999 • Place of death — Lathbury Road, Oxford, England • Occupation — writer and commentator on culture • Education — University of Calcutta • Period — 1925–1999 • Genre — non-fiction • Children — Kirti N. Chaudhuri
Biography
Biography
• Illustration — 20 Lathbury Road, the former home of Nirad Chaudhuri, with its blue plaque. Chaudhuri was born in Kishoreganj, Mymensingh, East Bengal, British India (now Bangladesh), the second of eight children of Upendra Narayan Chaudhuri, a lawyer, and of Sushila Sundarani Chaudhurani. His parents were liberal middle-class Hindus who belonged to the Brahmo Samaj movement. After passing the FA examination, he was admitted to Ripon College (now Surendranath College) in Calcutta along with eminent Bengali writer, Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay. After that, Neerad got admission in history department in Scottish Church College in Calcutta. As a student of Scottish Church College under Calcutta University in 1918, he graduated with honors in history and earned his place in the merit list. He participated in the Scottish Church College seminar with renowned Indian personality and historian Professor Kalidas Nager. After obtaining his bachelor's degree, he was admitted to Calcutta University for his master's degree. But he could not get the postgraduate degree because he did not appear in the examination. This is where his formal education ended. Meanwhile, in 1917, he wrote a theoretical article titled Objective Methods in History. During the final days of British rule in India, Nirad Chaudhuri—who celebrated the fusion of Indian and British cultures—faced hostility from a man on Burn Bastion Road. Western attire, such as ties and hats, had become symbols of loyalty to the British Raj and often drew public anger; Chaudhuri himself was confronted and even avoided passing through a city to prevent violence. Chaudhuri moved to England in the 1959s, and settled in Oxford in the 1979s. Chaudhuri was a prolific writer even in the last years of his life, publishing his last work at the age of 99. His wife Amiya Chaudhuri died in 1994 in Oxford, England. He too died in Oxford, three months short of his 102nd birthday, in 1999. He lived at 20 Lathbury Road from 1982 until his death and a blue plaque was installed by the Oxfordshire Blue Plaques Board in 2008. Dr. Sumantra Maitra named him the forgotten visionary of British India, in a review essay for The Spectator.
Major works
Major works
His masterpiece, The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian, published in 1951, put him on the long list of great Indian writers. Chaudhari had said that The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian is 'more of an exercise in descriptive ethnology than autobiography'. He is concerned with describing the conditions in which an Indian grew to manhood in the early decades of the century, and as he feels that the basic principle of book is that environment shall have precedence over its product; he describes in affectionate and sensuous detail the three places that had the greatest influence on him: Kishoreganj, the country town in which he lived till he was twelve; Bangram; his ancestral village; and Kalikutch, his mother's village. A fourth chapter is devoted to England, which occupied a large place in his imagination. Later in the book he talks about Calcutta, the Bengali Renaissance, the beginnings of the nationalist movement, and his experience of the Englishmen in India as opposed to the idyllic pictures of a civilization he considered perhaps the greatest in the world. These themes recur in most of Chaudhari's work, as does his deterministic view of culture and politics. He courted controversy in the newly independent India due to the dedication of the book, which ran thus: To the memory of the British Empire in India, Which conferred subjecthood upon us, But withheld citizenship. To which yet every one of us threw out the challenge: "Civis Britannicus sum" Because all that was good and living within us Was made, shaped and quickened By the same British rule. It is sometimes stated that 'Chaudhuri was hounded out of government service, deprived of his pension, blacklisted as a writer in India and forced to live a life of penury'. However, as sociologist Edward Shils, who helped Chaudhuri immigrate to the UK, stated in his article 'Citizen of the World' (American Scholar, 1988), Chaudhuri retired at the compulsory age of 55 but was not eligible for a pension because he had not completed sufficient years of service. It is also stated that - 'Furthermore, he had to give up his job as a political commentator on All India Radio as the Government of India promulgated a law that prohibited employees from publishing memoirs.' This is not the case. There was a pre-existing rule that employees must get clearance before publishing anything. Chadhuri was refused an extension of service. He was not asked to prepare any more talks on a free-lance basis because of severe criticism directed at him by senior figures - like Krishna Menon. However, he did publish in non-Government magazines. Chaudhuri argued that his critics were not careful-enough readers; "the dedication was really a condemnation of the British rulers for not treating us as equals", he wrote in a 1997 special edition of Granta. Typically, to demonstrate his perceptions he drew on a parallel with Ancient Rome. The book's dedication, Chaudhuri observed, "was an imitation of what Cicero said about the conduct of Verres, a Roman proconsul of Sicily who oppressed Sicilian Roman citizens, who in their desperation cried out: "Civis romanus sum". At the age of 57, in 1955 for the first time Chaudhuri went abroad. After coming back he wrote A Passage to England (1959). In this book he talked about his visit of five weeks to England, and more briefly about his two weeks in Paris and one week in Rome. During this time away from his home in Delhi, he visited museums, galleries, cathedrals, country houses, and attended plays and concerts. Chaudhuri reflects on his experiences from the perspective of a man who had grown up in the British Empire and was now the citizen of an independent India. His later works include personal essays, biographies and historical studies.
Contemporary discussions of Chaudhuri's works
Contemporary discussions of Chaudhuri's works
• R. K. Dhawan's Nirad C. Chaudhuri: The Scholar Extra Ordinary (Prestige Books, India, 2001) • Hemant Kumar Jha's Nirad C. Chaudhuri: His Mind and Art (LAP Lambert Academic Publishing, 2014) • Ian Almond's The Thought of Nirad C. Chaudhuri: Islam, Empire and Loss (Cambridge University Press, 2015) • Shakti Batra's critical study of Chaudhuri's Autobiography of an Unknown Indian (Surjeet Publications, India, 2019). • Alastair Niven provides a fresh view of Chaudhuri and his work, Knowing the Unknown Nirad C. Chaudhuri, which is due to be published for the 25th anniversary of his death (2024).
Life and work
Life and work
Chaudhuri was born on 23 November 1897 in Bengal. Chaudhuri held the nationality of India, British Raj and Dominion of India. Chaudhuri was educated at University of Calcutta, Surendranath College and Scottish Church College. Chaudhuri worked as historian, autobiographer, writer and literary critic, and the authority record catalogues a further 1 occupations under the same name, among them biographer. The fields Chaudhuri worked in include non-fiction. Chaudhuri worked in English and Bangla.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Bengal.
Birth place
Oxford.
Death place
Catalogued output
Works
These are texts written by the subject, distinct both from writings about the subject and from printed editions of other people's work. 4 works carry dates between 1951 and 1987.
The run opens with The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian and closes with Thy Hand, Great Anarch!
The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian
1951
The Continent of Circe
1965
Scholar Extraordinary
1974
Thy Hand, Great Anarch!
1987
Books
Books
• The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian (1951) • A Passage to England (1959) • The Continent of Circe (1965) • The Intellectual in India (1967) • To Live or Not to Live (1971) • Scholar Extraordinary, The Life of Professor the Right Honourable Friedrich Max Muller, P.C. (1974) • Culture in the Vanity Bag (1976) • Clive of India (1975) • Hinduism: A Religion to Live by (1979) • Thy Hand, Great Anarch! (1987) • Three Horsemen of the New Apocalypse (1997) • The East is East and West is West (collection of pre-published essays) • From the Archives of a Centenarian (collection of pre-published essays) • Why I Mourn for England (collection of pre-published essays)
Books and published writings, 1944–2003
Catalogued output
Books and published writings, 1944–2003
These are catalogued publications carrying the name — editions and printings, distinct from the works they contain and from writing about the subject. The 1990s are the densest part of the run, with 13 titles, and that concentration is a fact about what the registers have catalogued rather than a judgement on the work itself. They belong to a run of 35 titles in all, from 1944 to 2003. A selection is set out below and the complete run may be opened beneath it. Hon FRIEDRICH MAXMULLER, P.C. dated 1974.
34 editions carry dates between 1944 and 2003
The run opens with Defence of India and closes with The Hinduism omnibus
The entries follow Open Library
Defence of India
1944
The finest story about India - in English
1957
A passage to England
1959
No Royalty A/C Continent of Circe
1965
The intellectual in India
1967
Bāṅālī jībane ramaṇī
1968
Biography of an Unknown Indian
1968
To Live or Not to Live
1970
SCHOLAR EXTRAORDINARY The Life of PRofessor the Rt
The complete catalogue · 32
34 editions carry dates between 1944 and 2003
The run opens with Defence of India and closes with The Hinduism omnibus
The entries follow Open Library
Defence of India
1944
The finest story about India - in English
1957
A passage to England
1959
No Royalty A/C Continent of Circe
1965
The intellectual in India
1967
Bāṅālī jībane ramaṇī
1968
Biography of an Unknown Indian
1968
To Live or Not to Live
1970
SCHOLAR EXTRAORDINARY The Life of PRofessor the Rt
Clive of India
1975
Robert Clive of India
1975
Culture in the vanity bag
1976
Culture in the vanity bag, being an essay on clothing and adornment in passing and abiding India
1976
Hinduism
1979
Hinduism, a religion to live
1979
Atmayhati Bangali, dated 1988. Ātmaghātī Bāṅālī
1988
Bangali jibane ramani
1994
Āmāra debottara sampatti
1994
The East is East and the West is West
1996
Āmāra deśa, āmāra śataka
1996
Robert Clive of India; A Political and Psychological Essay
1996
Scholar Extraordinary, The Life of Friedrich Max Muller
1996
The Vintage Book of Indian Writing 1947-1997
1997
India
1997
From the archives of a centenarian
1997
Nirbācita prabandha
1997
Three Horsemen of the New Apocalypse
1998
Why I mourn for England
1998
The Hinduism omnibus
2003
Books and published writings without a settled date
Catalogued output
Books and published writings without a settled date
1 further edition are catalogued under Chaudhuri's name without a date the collections agree on, which is why they are set apart from the dated run rather than placed in it.
Autobiography of an Uknown Indian
Primary material
Documents and archives
institutional register
- Bibliothèque nationale de France authority file 12086851n
Unverified · Bibliothèque nationale de France
- FAST authority file 27508
Unverified · FAST
- GND (German National Library) authority file 121240975
Unverified · GND (German National Library)
- IdRef (French universities) authority file 029190274
Unverified · IdRef (French universities)
- ISNI authority file 0000000110472309
Unverified · ISNI
- Library of Congress authority file n78078744
Unverified · Library of Congress
reference work
- “Nirad C. Chaudhuri”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
Honours
Honours
• Duff Cooper Memorial Award in 1967 • Ananda Purashkar in 1988 • DLitt from Oxford University in 1990. • Vidyasagar Purashkar in 1997 by the Govt. of West Bengal • Desikottama in 1997 by Viswabharati
Honours and awards
Where the work is held
Honours and awards
2 honours stand against the name
Commander of the Order of the British Empire
Sahitya Akademi Award
1975
Authority records
References
Citations
References
Each reference names the institution holding it, so a reader may go to the document itself.
institutional register
Bibliothèque nationale de France authority file 12086851nBibliothèque nationale de France
Partially resolvedinstitutional register
Partially resolvedinstitutional register
GND (German National Library) authority file 121240975GND (German National Library)
Partially resolvedinstitutional register
IdRef (French universities) authority file 029190274IdRef (French universities)
Partially resolvedinstitutional register
Partially resolvedinstitutional register
Library of Congress authority file n78078744Library of Congress
Partially resolvedinstitutional register
National Library of Australia authority file 36327376National Library of Australia
Partially resolvedinstitutional register
Partially resolved
Every cited source · 10
- 01
Bibliothèque nationale de France authority file 12086851n
institutional register · Unverified · Bibliothèque nationale de France
Consult the source - 02
- 03
GND (German National Library) authority file 121240975
institutional register · Unverified · GND (German National Library)
Consult the source - 04
IdRef (French universities) authority file 029190274
institutional register · Unverified · IdRef (French universities)
Consult the source - 05
- 06
Library of Congress authority file n78078744
institutional register · Unverified · Library of Congress
Consult the source - 07
National Library of Australia authority file 36327376
institutional register · Unverified · National Library of Australia
Consult the source - 08
- 09
Wikidata, structured authority record Q982828: Nirad C. Chaudhuri
institutional register · Unverified · Wikimedia Foundation
Consult the source - 10
“Nirad C. Chaudhuri”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
reference work · Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
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