Tarakeswar affair
Encyclopedia
The Tarakeswar affair refers to the public scandal in 19th century Calcutta (Kolkata) – then the capital of the British Raj
– resulting from the affair of the beautiful Elokeshi, wife of Nobin Chandra (Nobinchandra/Nabinchandra/Nobin Chandra) Banerjee, with the mahant
(mohant) – the Brahmin
head priest – of Tarakeswar
(Tarakeshwar) Shiva temple. The affair led to the decapitation of Elokeshi by her husband Nobin, followed by a "well-publicized" trial of the Tarakeswar murder case of 1873, resulting to the conviction of both the husband as well as the mahant. The scandal became a popular subject of numerous Bengali
plays as well as Kalighat painting
s in that era.
government employee Nobin Chandra, lived in the village of Tarakeswar with her parents, while Nobin was away for work in a military press in Calcutta. She approached Madhavchandra Giri, the "powerful" mahant of the popular and prosperous Tarakeswar temple, seeking childbirth medication, however the mahant allegedly seduced and raped her. Despite the rape, the affair continued with the "connivance
" of Elokeshi's parents. When Nobin returned to the village, he learned about the affair from village gossip. Nobin was publicly humiliated following the discovery of the affair. He confronted Elokeshi, who confessed and begged him for forgiveness. Not only did Nobin forgive her but also he decided to run away with her from Tarakeswar. However, the mahant did not allow the couple to escape; his goons blocked their way. Overcome with anger and jealousy, Nobin slit his wife's throat with a fish knife, decapitating her, on 27 May 1873. Full of remorse, Nobin surrendered to the local police station and confessed his crime.
The Tarakeswar murder case of 1873 first stood in the Hoogly Sessions Court at Serampore
in south-west Benagal. The Indian jury acquitted Nobin, accepting his plea of insanity, but the European judge Field overruled the jury's decision and forwarded the matter to the Calcutta High Court. However, Judge Field accepted that there was an adulterous relationship between Elokeshi and the mahant, with whom she was seen "joking and flirting". Judge Markby, who presided over the case in the High Court, also accepted the evidence proving adultery. The High Court convicted both Nobin and the mahant. Nobin was sentenced to life imprisonment; the mahant was also punished and got 3 years "rigorous imprisonment" and a fine of 2000 rupees.
being performed". The courtroom drama became a public spectacle. Authorities had to charge an entrance fee to control the crowds at the sessions court. The right of admission was also restricted to those literate in English, citing that the mahant's British lawyer and the judge only spoke in English.
The overruling of the Indian jury's decision by the Sessions Court judge was heavily debated. The court proceedings were disturbed several times by crowds demanding "clemency" for Nobin or stringency for the mahant. The mahant and his English lawyer were often attacked outside the court. While the mahant's punishment was termed lenient by the Bengali public, Nobin was released in 1875, following several public petitions for pardon. Such pleas came from members of the Calcutta elite and district town notables, local royals and "acknowledged leaders of native society", as well as from the lower social hierarchy – from whom a 10,000-signature plea for mercy was received.
The 1873 mahant-Elokeshi incident was not the first incident against a mahant of Tarakeswar. Mahant Shrimanta Giri was executed in 1824 for the murder of his mistress's lover. However, according to Sarkar (author of Hindu wife, Hindu nation), while the 1824 scandal hardly created any public outrage and faded quickly from public memory, the 1873 affair was embedded in public memory and created a huge sensation in contemporary Bengal. When a satyagraha
was organized against the reigning mahant of Tarakeswar, Satish Giri, in 1974 in respect of his sexual and financial misconduct, the 1873 affair was alluded to several times.
A regional daily reported that the mahant's affair with Elokeshi was still discussed by the common people of Bengal, who did not know of recent events, even six months after the murder. Bengali newspapers followed the court trial on a day-to-day basis, often reporting it verbatim and capturing the responses of all parties involved: judges, jury, lawyers and the common man. The "culpability
" of each of the characters of the scandal was debated, and British justice and Hindu norms were analysed, especially by British-owned newspapers. While Missionaries interpreted the public outcry against the mahant as the "disenchantment" of the Hindus, British-owned newspapers also pondered over the question of asserting more control on Hindu temples and organizations. In an era when Hindu reform movements
were blossoming in Bengal, the scandal led the reformist as well as orthodox society to re-examine "the relationship between Hindu norms, leaders and women".
Many products were specially manufactured to commemorate the event. Sari
s, fish knives, betel-leaf boxes and other memorabilia with Elokeshi's name printed or inscribed on them were made. A balm for headache was advertised as using the oil made by the mahant in the jail oil press. Such commemorative items were still in sale in as late as 1894. These items were unique in the sense that they were the only such commemorative items modelled on an event.
Numerous Kalighat painting
s and Battala woodwork prints – created in the decade after the scandal – depicted the "immoral" affair, the gruesome murder and the resultant trial. According to Chattopadhyay (author of Representing Calcutta: modernity, nationalism, and the colonial uncanny), it was the popularity of the plays combined with "the rhetoric of sin and morality" that inspired Kalighat painters to present this "tragedy as a spectacle". Kalighat painters often chose to paint mythological themes and Bengali day-to-day life; however the paintings on the Tarakeswar affair were an unique exception.
Often painted as a series, the Kalighat paintings depict various scenes related to the affair: the mahant riding on an elephant Howdah
; The Meeting of Elokeshi and the mahant – Elokeshi goes to meet the temple with her sister and meets the mahant; The Seduction – Elokeshi offering paan
(betel nut leaf), the mahant fans Elokeshi and/or the mahant offering her childbirth medicine in order to drug her before raping her; Elokeshi embracing Nobin and asking his forgiveness; the three stages of the murder including – The Fatal/First Blow (Nobin about to decapitate Elokeshi with a fish knife) and After the murder (Nobin with the decapitated body of Elokeshi). The Kalighat paintings also depict a courtroom scene of the trail of the mahant followed by the mahant in jail, enduring rigorous labour turning an oil press or working as a jail gardener, while jail guards or the superintendent watch over him.
Most of the plays were named to suggest the main crime was not Elokeshi's murder by Nobin, but the immoral activities of the Brahmin mahant. The mahant is portrayed as the root cause of Elokeshi's death, which was an "inevitable conclusion" of the mahant's activities. Elokeshi, "the object of desire", had to be killed by Nobin to restore his honour.
The Kalighat paintings and Battala woodcuts often depict the mahant as a womaniser and the temple "a haven for pimps". He was also described as "a vile seducer". The Tarakeswar shrine was a famed cure for barren women. The mahant was rumoured to seduce women like Elokeshi who came to him for childbirth medicine and appropriate them with the help of his goons. After being raped, the women could not return to their family and languished in the brothels of Tarakeswar. In most plays, the mahant is described as drugging Elokeshi - by offering fake childbirth medicine - and then raping her. In a rare exception to the general theme of immorality in plays where the mahant misuses Elokeshi, his love is portrayed to be genuine and her seduction by him a resultant after-effect. However, later he is repentant.
The Bengalee, a reformist newspaper, presents a rare view that the true victim Elokeshi was forgotten in the debate of the trial and sympathy towards Nobin. In the First Meeting scene, Elokeshi is sometimes depicted as a courtesan, indicating that she is the one who seduces the mahant. She is often described as unchaste and to have developed the adulterous affair and even lived with him for some time despite the fact that he first rapes her. In one play, Elokeshi's character is debated by village wives and prostitutes. The wives condemn her as unchaste, question her love for Nobin and express the belief that a woman cannot be raped without her consent. They feel elevated to a higher level of morality due to Elokeshi's conduct. The prostitutes empathize with Elokeshi, another victim of male lust. They bemoan Elokeshi's fall to the status of a prostitute, which for them illustrates the fragile status of a wife. Some plays depict Elokeshi as having no choice but to surrender to the mahant's lust on her father's command. Such plays concentrate more on scenes where Elokeshi gives in to her father's orders than on the depiction of rape.
One farce depicts a divine trail of not only Elokeshi and the mahant, but also of her parents, who are portrayed as equally guilty. Elokeshi is condemned for seducing the mahant and tarnishing the name of the holy shrine of Tarakeswar. The mahant is punished for misusing the authority and money of the temple. One newspaper describes Elokeshi's father as "... the still worse scoundrel (worse than the mahant) who bartered his daughter's virtue". In many plays; driven by the greed of Elokeshi's young stepmother and now sexually incompetent, Elokeshi's father resorts to pleasing his wife by giving gifts like jewellery, for which he sells off his daughter to the mahant. Elokeshi's staying at her parents' home and not with her husband is also blamed for their excessive control over her.
British Raj
British Raj was the British rule in the Indian subcontinent between 1858 and 1947; The term can also refer to the period of dominion...
– resulting from the affair of the beautiful Elokeshi, wife of Nobin Chandra (Nobinchandra/Nabinchandra/Nobin Chandra) Banerjee, with the mahant
Mahant
A mahant is a religious superior, in particular the chief priest of a temple or the head of a monastery. The Hindi word mahant is from Prakrit mahanta-, from Sanskrit mahat "great". The priest, pundit, gyani, or pastor of any well-known religious place would be a mahant...
(mohant) – the Brahmin
Brahmin
Brahmin Brahman, Brahma and Brahmin.Brahman, Brahmin and Brahma have different meanings. Brahman refers to the Supreme Self...
head priest – of Tarakeswar
Tarakeswar
Tarakeswar is a town and a municipality in Hooghly District in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is a police station in Chandannagar subdivision. Tarakeswar is a renowned place of pilgrimage and the greatest centre of the Shiva sect in West Bengal. 58 km away from Kolkata, Tarakeswar can be...
(Tarakeshwar) Shiva temple. The affair led to the decapitation of Elokeshi by her husband Nobin, followed by a "well-publicized" trial of the Tarakeswar murder case of 1873, resulting to the conviction of both the husband as well as the mahant. The scandal became a popular subject of numerous Bengali
Bengali language
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script...
plays as well as Kalighat painting
Kalighat painting
Kalighat painting originated in the 19th century Bengal, in the vicinity of Kalighat Kali Temple, Kalighat, Kolkata, India, and from being items of souvenir taken by the visitors to the Kali temple, the paintings over a period of time developed as a distinct school of Indian painting...
s in that era.
Summary
Elokeshi, the sixteen-year-old housewife of the BengaliBengali people
The Bengali people are an ethnic community native to the historic region of Bengal in South Asia. They speak Bengali , which is an Indo-Aryan language of the eastern Indian subcontinent, evolved from the Magadhi Prakrit and Sanskrit languages. In their native language, they are referred to as বাঙালী...
government employee Nobin Chandra, lived in the village of Tarakeswar with her parents, while Nobin was away for work in a military press in Calcutta. She approached Madhavchandra Giri, the "powerful" mahant of the popular and prosperous Tarakeswar temple, seeking childbirth medication, however the mahant allegedly seduced and raped her. Despite the rape, the affair continued with the "connivance
Connivance
A legal finding of connivance may be made when an accuser has assisted in the act about which they are complaining. In some legal jurisdictions, and for certain behaviors, it may prevent the accuser from prevailing....
" of Elokeshi's parents. When Nobin returned to the village, he learned about the affair from village gossip. Nobin was publicly humiliated following the discovery of the affair. He confronted Elokeshi, who confessed and begged him for forgiveness. Not only did Nobin forgive her but also he decided to run away with her from Tarakeswar. However, the mahant did not allow the couple to escape; his goons blocked their way. Overcome with anger and jealousy, Nobin slit his wife's throat with a fish knife, decapitating her, on 27 May 1873. Full of remorse, Nobin surrendered to the local police station and confessed his crime.
The Tarakeswar murder case of 1873 first stood in the Hoogly Sessions Court at Serampore
Serampore
Serampore is a city and a municipality in Hooghly district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is a part of the area covered by Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority. It is a pre-colonial town on the right bank of the Hoogli River...
in south-west Benagal. The Indian jury acquitted Nobin, accepting his plea of insanity, but the European judge Field overruled the jury's decision and forwarded the matter to the Calcutta High Court. However, Judge Field accepted that there was an adulterous relationship between Elokeshi and the mahant, with whom she was seen "joking and flirting". Judge Markby, who presided over the case in the High Court, also accepted the evidence proving adultery. The High Court convicted both Nobin and the mahant. Nobin was sentenced to life imprisonment; the mahant was also punished and got 3 years "rigorous imprisonment" and a fine of 2000 rupees.
Public reaction
A newspaper remarked: "People flock to the Sessions Court as they would flock to the Lewis Theatre to watch OthelloOthello
The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written in approximately 1603, and based on the Italian short story "Un Capitano Moro" by Cinthio, a disciple of Boccaccio, first published in 1565...
being performed". The courtroom drama became a public spectacle. Authorities had to charge an entrance fee to control the crowds at the sessions court. The right of admission was also restricted to those literate in English, citing that the mahant's British lawyer and the judge only spoke in English.
The overruling of the Indian jury's decision by the Sessions Court judge was heavily debated. The court proceedings were disturbed several times by crowds demanding "clemency" for Nobin or stringency for the mahant. The mahant and his English lawyer were often attacked outside the court. While the mahant's punishment was termed lenient by the Bengali public, Nobin was released in 1875, following several public petitions for pardon. Such pleas came from members of the Calcutta elite and district town notables, local royals and "acknowledged leaders of native society", as well as from the lower social hierarchy – from whom a 10,000-signature plea for mercy was received.
The 1873 mahant-Elokeshi incident was not the first incident against a mahant of Tarakeswar. Mahant Shrimanta Giri was executed in 1824 for the murder of his mistress's lover. However, according to Sarkar (author of Hindu wife, Hindu nation), while the 1824 scandal hardly created any public outrage and faded quickly from public memory, the 1873 affair was embedded in public memory and created a huge sensation in contemporary Bengal. When a satyagraha
Satyagraha
Satyagraha , loosely translated as "insistence on truth satya agraha soul force" or "truth force" is a particular philosophy and practice within the broader overall category generally known as nonviolent resistance or civil resistance. The term "satyagraha" was conceived and developed by Mahatma...
was organized against the reigning mahant of Tarakeswar, Satish Giri, in 1974 in respect of his sexual and financial misconduct, the 1873 affair was alluded to several times.
A regional daily reported that the mahant's affair with Elokeshi was still discussed by the common people of Bengal, who did not know of recent events, even six months after the murder. Bengali newspapers followed the court trial on a day-to-day basis, often reporting it verbatim and capturing the responses of all parties involved: judges, jury, lawyers and the common man. The "culpability
Culpability
Culpability descends from the Latin concept of fault . The concept of culpability is intimately tied up with notions of agency, freedom and free will...
" of each of the characters of the scandal was debated, and British justice and Hindu norms were analysed, especially by British-owned newspapers. While Missionaries interpreted the public outcry against the mahant as the "disenchantment" of the Hindus, British-owned newspapers also pondered over the question of asserting more control on Hindu temples and organizations. In an era when Hindu reform movements
Hindu reform movements
Several contemporary groups, collectively termed Hindu reform movements, strive to introduce regeneration and reform to Hinduism. Although these movements are very individual in their exact philosophies they generally stress the spiritual, secular and logical and scientific aspects of the Vedic...
were blossoming in Bengal, the scandal led the reformist as well as orthodox society to re-examine "the relationship between Hindu norms, leaders and women".
Many products were specially manufactured to commemorate the event. Sari
Sari
A sari or sareeThe name of the garment in various regional languages include: , , , , , , , , , , , , , is a strip of unstitched cloth, worn by females, ranging from four to nine metres in length that is draped over the body in various styles. It is popular in India, Bangladesh, Nepal,...
s, fish knives, betel-leaf boxes and other memorabilia with Elokeshi's name printed or inscribed on them were made. A balm for headache was advertised as using the oil made by the mahant in the jail oil press. Such commemorative items were still in sale in as late as 1894. These items were unique in the sense that they were the only such commemorative items modelled on an event.
In the arts
At least 34 farces were published by the "popular press" on the subject of the events of the Tarakeswar affair – the rape, the murder and the trial. At least four of these were reprinted several times and Mohanter Ei ki Kaj! became a money-spinning play on stage. This is the largest number of 19th-century farces created in response to a contemporary event. Farces and plays of the era were often inspired by the real courtroom drama. At least 19 plays were also based on the scandal, all of which became very popular and big money-makers. Plays written as late as 1924 referred to the affair as if it was common public knowledge.Numerous Kalighat painting
Kalighat painting
Kalighat painting originated in the 19th century Bengal, in the vicinity of Kalighat Kali Temple, Kalighat, Kolkata, India, and from being items of souvenir taken by the visitors to the Kali temple, the paintings over a period of time developed as a distinct school of Indian painting...
s and Battala woodwork prints – created in the decade after the scandal – depicted the "immoral" affair, the gruesome murder and the resultant trial. According to Chattopadhyay (author of Representing Calcutta: modernity, nationalism, and the colonial uncanny), it was the popularity of the plays combined with "the rhetoric of sin and morality" that inspired Kalighat painters to present this "tragedy as a spectacle". Kalighat painters often chose to paint mythological themes and Bengali day-to-day life; however the paintings on the Tarakeswar affair were an unique exception.
Often painted as a series, the Kalighat paintings depict various scenes related to the affair: the mahant riding on an elephant Howdah
Howdah
A howdah, or houdah, also known as hathi howdah, is a carriage which is positioned on the back of an elephant, or occasionally some other animal, used most often in the past to carry wealthy people or for use in hunting or warfare...
; The Meeting of Elokeshi and the mahant – Elokeshi goes to meet the temple with her sister and meets the mahant; The Seduction – Elokeshi offering paan
Paan
Paan, from the word pān is an Indian, Pakistani, Uttarvarshi and Southeast Asian tradition of chewing betel leaf with areca nut and slaked lime paste, and katha brown powder paste, with many regional and local variations...
(betel nut leaf), the mahant fans Elokeshi and/or the mahant offering her childbirth medicine in order to drug her before raping her; Elokeshi embracing Nobin and asking his forgiveness; the three stages of the murder including – The Fatal/First Blow (Nobin about to decapitate Elokeshi with a fish knife) and After the murder (Nobin with the decapitated body of Elokeshi). The Kalighat paintings also depict a courtroom scene of the trail of the mahant followed by the mahant in jail, enduring rigorous labour turning an oil press or working as a jail gardener, while jail guards or the superintendent watch over him.
Assessment and portrayal of the characters
Most accounts agree that Nobin loved his wife dearly, evidenced by the fact that he was ready to accept his wife at first and run away with her, even after knowledge of the scandal. In an era where the chastity of a wife was highly valued, Nobin's blind love and acceptance of a guilty wife was deemed inappropriate by a large section of society, reported some newspapers. Her abandonment and even murder were considered justifiable. Some songs criticize Nobin's stupidity of trying to rescue a guilty wife and thereby putting his own life in danger. Police reports, confirming Nobin's love, read that after the murder, Nobin rushed to the police saying: "Hang me quick. This world is wilderness to me. I am impatient to join my wife in the next [world/life]", a line reported verbatim in newspapers as well as used in plays and songs. Some public petitions argued that given a choice to leave Elokeshi in arms of the mahant to live a life of dishonour – which was worst than death – and to kill her, like a true husband, Nobin chose the latter to end her misery. However, some plays portray that Nobin has a mistress in town so leaves his wife in the village.Most of the plays were named to suggest the main crime was not Elokeshi's murder by Nobin, but the immoral activities of the Brahmin mahant. The mahant is portrayed as the root cause of Elokeshi's death, which was an "inevitable conclusion" of the mahant's activities. Elokeshi, "the object of desire", had to be killed by Nobin to restore his honour.
The Kalighat paintings and Battala woodcuts often depict the mahant as a womaniser and the temple "a haven for pimps". He was also described as "a vile seducer". The Tarakeswar shrine was a famed cure for barren women. The mahant was rumoured to seduce women like Elokeshi who came to him for childbirth medicine and appropriate them with the help of his goons. After being raped, the women could not return to their family and languished in the brothels of Tarakeswar. In most plays, the mahant is described as drugging Elokeshi - by offering fake childbirth medicine - and then raping her. In a rare exception to the general theme of immorality in plays where the mahant misuses Elokeshi, his love is portrayed to be genuine and her seduction by him a resultant after-effect. However, later he is repentant.
The Bengalee, a reformist newspaper, presents a rare view that the true victim Elokeshi was forgotten in the debate of the trial and sympathy towards Nobin. In the First Meeting scene, Elokeshi is sometimes depicted as a courtesan, indicating that she is the one who seduces the mahant. She is often described as unchaste and to have developed the adulterous affair and even lived with him for some time despite the fact that he first rapes her. In one play, Elokeshi's character is debated by village wives and prostitutes. The wives condemn her as unchaste, question her love for Nobin and express the belief that a woman cannot be raped without her consent. They feel elevated to a higher level of morality due to Elokeshi's conduct. The prostitutes empathize with Elokeshi, another victim of male lust. They bemoan Elokeshi's fall to the status of a prostitute, which for them illustrates the fragile status of a wife. Some plays depict Elokeshi as having no choice but to surrender to the mahant's lust on her father's command. Such plays concentrate more on scenes where Elokeshi gives in to her father's orders than on the depiction of rape.
One farce depicts a divine trail of not only Elokeshi and the mahant, but also of her parents, who are portrayed as equally guilty. Elokeshi is condemned for seducing the mahant and tarnishing the name of the holy shrine of Tarakeswar. The mahant is punished for misusing the authority and money of the temple. One newspaper describes Elokeshi's father as "... the still worse scoundrel (worse than the mahant) who bartered his daughter's virtue". In many plays; driven by the greed of Elokeshi's young stepmother and now sexually incompetent, Elokeshi's father resorts to pleasing his wife by giving gifts like jewellery, for which he sells off his daughter to the mahant. Elokeshi's staying at her parents' home and not with her husband is also blamed for their excessive control over her.