Who Do You Think You Are - Sunetra Sarker 22nd Feb

[kiterunner]

At 8 p.m. on BBC1, and repeated at 12:20 a.m. next Tuesday night / Wednesday morning.

[Guinevere]

Really enjoyed that. Lovely to see Sunetra discover her history. I got a bit weepy.

[Janet in Yorkshire]

I wept buckets.

Jay

[Ann from Sussex]

The story of the atrocities in Bangladesh was appalling. I felt quite ashamed at not remembering anything about that from the time it happened. It was only in 1971 after all so I feel I ought to have known.

Apart from feeling shocked at that, this episode of the series didn't really engage me at all I'm afraid.

[kiterunner]

Episode summary:

Sunetra Sarker grew up in Liverpool, but her parents came to England from Kolkata (aka Calcutta) a few years before she was born. She knew that she had an important great-grandfather who was a lawyer and writer, and wanted to find out more about him.

Sunetra went to visit her parents. Her mother, Bisakha Gupta Roy, told her that her mother (Sunetra's grandmother) Pratima Sengupta's father, Naresh Chandra Sengupta, was the famous great-grandfather, and that his younger sister Sita Charuprobha Sengupta, was sent to prison for nationalist activism. He also had a younger brother. (Sunetra later mentioned that Pratima, her grandmother, died when her sari caught fire while she was cooking.) Sunetra's mother showed her a letter from Rabindranath Tagore to Naresh, apparently making up after a disagreement.

Sunetra went to Kolkata and visited Tagore's family home, now a museum, where she met a literary historian who told her that Tagore and Naresh had had a debate (via letters) about what subjects were unfit to be included in literature, e.g. sex. Sunetra was shown one of Naresh's short stories which was quite risque for the time, and an essay about women's rights.

Sunetra went to visit the Lake School for Girls, which was set up by one of Naresh's daughters and where Sunetra's mother was a pupil. Sunetra learned about the 1905 partition of Bengal into East and West Bengal (reunited in 1911.) At this time, Naresh translated a book into English which included a song, "Bande Mataram", which became the anthem of Indian nationalists, and was banned by the authorities. The song is now the national song of India and is sung at assembly in schools.
Sunetra read a biography of Chanuprobha, which described her first meeting with Gandhi, in 1931. Sunetra met an expert on Indian women's history, who told her that Chanuprobha and Gandhi exchanged many letters (now held in the National Archives of India), and that they met a couple more times after 1931. She showed Sunetra a photo of the two together, and a newspaper report of Chanuprobha's first arrest for "inciting treason". Her second arrest, in 1932, led to her being sent to prison for 16 months. Sunetra was shown a photo of her taken after India gained independence.

Sunetra then went to meet a relative (her mother's cousin) whose mother, one of Naresh's daughters, had kept a lot of family memorabilia. They went to the mother's house, north of Kalkota, which has been empty for eight years, since the mother's death. There was a cupboard full of books, folders, documents, etc, including Naresh's passport which had photos of himself and his wife, Labanya Bakshi. The passport showed that he was born in Bashi (? sp) and she was born in Katalyia, both of which places are now in Bangladesh. There were letters between the couple, and Labanya's school certificate from 1895, which stated that she was the daughter of Bipin Bihan Guphta Bakshi.

Sunetra went to Kanthalia in Bangladesh, which was known as East Bengal when Labanya was born. She met an historian who said that most girls didn't go to school in those days, and that Gupta Bakshi in the name showed that they were an aristocratic family. Records showed that they had several houses and a large estate and were the landlords of the village. There was a list of Bipin's five sons, Labanya's brothers, the eldest being Jagadish Bakshi. Sunetra read an article written by Labanya in 1920 about her childhood memories.

Sunetra met one of the oldest inhabitants of Kanthalia, age 92, who could remember the Bakshi family. Jagadish Bakshi had been his family's landlord. He showed Sunetra Jagadish Bakshi's house, which is now in ruins, and said that the Bakshi family had all left when Bangladesh became independent.
In the 1947 partition of India and Pakistan, Bangladesh was called "East Pakistan", with what is Pakistan today being known as "West Pakistan". But in 1971 (before Sunetra was born), a war for Bangladesh's independence was fought between the two. Sunetra went to Bangladesh's National Martyr's Memorial to find out about the war, read an article about what it was like, met one of the freedom fighters, and read a book by a female survivor of the atrocities.

Sunetra went back to Kanthalia and met a man who had been a boy in 1971, the son of the local Hindu priest. He said that his father and Jagadish Bakshi had been taken away in May 1971 with many other village men, and that his father eventually came home and said that they had been beaten and tortured, and all the other men had been killed, including Jagadish. The priest's son didn't know what happened to the rest of the Bakshi family, but Sunetra met one of their former maids, who said that the family all left for India after the war, and although she got a letter from them, none of them ever came back to visit. She showed Sunetra an idol which they left behind.

[kiterunner]

I don't know whether everyone is aware of this already, but we have to wait till the week after next for the Sophie Raworth episode, because of football.

[Ann from Sussex]

I don't know whether everyone is aware of this already, but we have to wait till the week after next for the Sophie Raworth episode, because of football.

They have messed us fans about with this series, haven't they?