ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the claims of politics, and morality intertwine from the late 19th century, and shows how this intertwining, albeit with modifications and developments, persists over time in the Bengali novelistic canon. In tracing the origins of a self-reflective anti-colonialism in Bengal, it is possible to go back at least as far as Bankim's Anand Math. This significance of Bankim's understanding of anti-colonialism lay in his insight that beyond the basic fact of present-day colonial administration, British rule invoked fundamental questions about the very nature and justifications of governance in the South Asian polity. Sarat's Pather Dabi was originally serialized in the Bengali monthly journal Bangabani, published by Ramaprasad Mukerjee, between February 1922 and May 1926. On seeing the journal's provocative anti-colonial contents, the British government decided to proscribe it. This leadership set priorities without consultation because it alone can discern the trajectory of history and take the long view.
