Professor Bose and "The Great Bengal Circus"

The period from late eighteenth century to the early twentieth century which is known by the name of Bengal Renaissance has given us practically all the names who have collectively created the very entity of Bengal.

- SUMANTRA CHATTOPADHYAY

The person we are talking about now appeared in the last phase of the glorious Bengal Renaissance and probably that is one of the reasons his contributions got overshadowed.

We tend to associate certain qualities with particular races of people.

Bengalis have never been considered to be much of a martial race like the people of Punjab or Rajputana.

The hero of our story Priyanath Bose was a stalwart figure around the end of nineteenth century and beginning of twentieth century who established without a doubt that Bengalis were not only capable of doing acts of courage but that they could do so in areas which were considered till then to be belonging totally to the men from the west.

Priyanath Bose established and successfully ran a circus company named The Great Bengal Circus.

There had been attempts made by other Bengali gentlemen to come into the circus business but most of them dwindled before long and more importantly they were 'Bengali' only in as much as they were Bengali investors.

The performers were all Europeans who had travelled to India to try their lucks.

Towards the end of the nineteenth century Bengal intelligentsia became aware of the need to arouse in people the sense of nationalism.

In 1867, the National Paper published the Prospectus of a Society for the Promotion of National Feeling among the Educated Natives of Bengal by Rajnarayan Basu.

Inspired by this booklet, Nabagopal Mitra and Debendranath Tagore collaborated with Rajnarayan Basu and Manomohan Bose to start the Hindu mela in 1867.

In 1877, Priyanath, then a boy of twelve first visited Hindu Mela and was mesmerized by the show of gymnastics.

At the same time gymnasiums or 'akhras' were sprouting in various parts of Calcutta moved by the idea of Nationalism.