Basanta Kumar Mallik

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Basanta Kumar Mallik
Born27 May 1879
Jamalpur, Bihar, India
Died9 December 1958
Polstead Road, Oxford, United Kingdom
Alma materExeter College, Oxford
Occupations
  • Bengali tutor
  • author
  • philosopher
Known forInfluence on the poet Robert Graves in the 1920s
Parent
  • Srihari Kumar Mallik (father)

Basanta Kumar Mallik (1879–1958) was a Bengali tutor, author and philosopher. He spent two extended periods in England, and is known for his influence in the 1920s on the poet

Moghul Empire, and he preferred not to use it.[1]

Early life

He was the son of Srihari Kumar Mallik, an

Hindu dietary practices, wrecking his health.[3]

After attending the Meherpur high school, Basanta Kumar Mallik went to the

Chitpur Road, Calcutta and Hazaribagh.[6] He took on posts as warden of student hostels, befriended Kali Nath Roy and visited Varanasi in 1907.[7]

In 1908 a recommendation by a friend gained Mallik a position as tutor to

Gokarna reserve.[11] He shortly took on responsibility for another of the sons, and started to work under the Foreign Secretary. He was involved in preliminary discussion of what became the Nepal–Britain Treaty of 1923, the long-term goal of Chandra Shumsher's diplomacy.[12]

Life in Kathmandu near the

Lord Curzon, to read law.[13]

Oxford 1912–1923

Mallik arrived in Oxford in 1912, and was admitted to Lincoln's Inn on 20 November.[14] He took a law degree as an undergraduate at Exeter College, graduating B.A. in Jurisprudence in 1916.[15] The original intention that he should return to Nepal in 1915 was made impractical by World War I.[16]

In Michaelmas Term 1917 Mallick began a diploma course in anthropology.[17] It led to certificates in anthropology in 1918, and a diploma in 1919. He then started on doctoral study, producing a dissertation on "The Problem of Freedom", but leaving Oxford in 1923 before his examination.[18]

Associations

Mallik was involved in the Oxford Majlis, a student group, and had contact with the literary circle around

Boar's Hill.[19][20] Friends who were Indian expatriates among the students were John Matthai, Kiron Mukherji and K. M. Panikkar.[21]

After World War I Mallik had a large social circle in Oxford.

Balliol College with Communist inclinations, Sydney Lewis of Exeter College who died shortly after leaving Oxford, the Serbian Alexander Vidaković who went on to be a journalist with Politika.[23][24]

In 1919 Mallik was elected a member of the

Rhodes Scholar. He recalled a dominant role for Mallik among students who regarded him as a "wise man". At the Oxford Lotus Club, a student society with a focus on the Indian subcontinent, Elliott, Stringfellow Barr and Scott Buchanan, with others, attempted to debate with him in "Platonic dialogues". Elliott wrote that Mallik was cast as Socrates. His compressed, over-simplified version of Mallik's position was that "in every clash both sides are wrong".[26]

Relationship with Robert Graves

Mallik first met Graves in 1922 at the Oxford Lotus Club, where Graves was giving a talk, a draft on "What is Bad Poetry?".

Diccon Hughes, another friend. He was working on a B.Litt. dissertation but his supervisor for it at the university, Walter Raleigh, had died a few weeks before Rivers.[28]

Subsequently, Mallik brought some of his followers, including Sam Harries, to Graves's home in Islip, to talk.[29] Alan Collingridge, counted as a disciple, left an account of discussions between Graves and Mallik there.[30] These intense encounters with Graves were also held around Oxford at Mallik's home on Farndon Road, at Garsington and elsewhere, and involved Collingridge, Wilfrid Roberts of Balliol College who became a good friend of Mallik, and Mary Neighbour.[31]

racial prejudice.[3] Graves dedicated The Marmosite's Miscellany (1925), a long pseudonymous poetical satire for the Hogarth Press published under the name John Doyle, to Mallik in India.[33]

India

Mallik returned to India in October 1923.[32] He made a visit to Nepal at the end of the year and saw Kaiser Shumsher in his library, but was no longer in favour at court there: Kaiser had supported his post-war period in Oxford, but he was not to expect a post from Chandra Shumsher.[16] He found lodgings in Raja Nava Kissen Street, Calcutta, through the Sen family for whom he had worked as a tutor.[34]

Around 1924

cerebral malaria.[36]

Taking on legal work, Mallik was able to afford a home of his own, Palashi in the district of Kanchrapara. He was also engaged once more in Nepal, as adviser, at a time when Juddha Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana was faced with some serious family issues. In 1933 Mallik encountered numerous problems, with the finances of Palashi, with the death in the family of a brother involved with the Congress Party and independence politics, and an uncomfortable exit from Kathmandu via a journey on foot before he could find adequate transport to Raxaul on the Indian border. He suffered a breakdown of his physical health.[37]

At a low point, Mallik was contacted by Lilian Huss, a Swedish slight acquaintance from his early years in Oxford. In 1936 he voyaged from

Harald Axel Huss. He stayed with them, writing to Mary Neighbour from his old Oxford circle.[38]

Oxford from 1937

Mallik returned to Oxford in February 1937, with the support of Lilian Huss in Stockholm, on what was intended to be a visit. He had few resources and no job, but began renewing old relationships, and stayed on.[39]

Robert Graves was living on

Majorca, but arrived in London in the summer of 1937, escaping the Spanish Civil War with Laura Riding.[40] Riding vetoed further contact with Mallik.[41] Mallik sent as intermediary Ethel Reeves, sister of James Reeves. She made a verbose appeal to Graves which changed nothing.[42] Graves concluded that under the influence of philosophy, an interest that came with his friendship with Mallik, he had written bad poetry.[43] In the first edition of Good-Bye to All That, he expressed the thought that the intense discussions he had had with Mallik and Sam Harries, in particular, had almost led to metaphysics for him driving out poetry. The revision of 1957 omitted this passage and the other mentions of Mallik.[44]

Mallik did meet Radhakrishnan with Kaiser Shumser in London that year, 1937.

L. A. G. Strong, a friend of Sydney Lewis from undergraduate days, renewed his acquaintance with Mallik through Winifred Lewis, Sydney's elder sister who became Mallik's biographer.[49] Winifred had heard about Mallik's return from Alexander Vidaković, who had met Mallik by chance on The Broad.[50]

In rooms on Iffley Road, Mallik wrote his first book, which he had begun in Stockholm. He consulted Radhakrishnan, and drew on discussions in which he had been involved, with the Parichay circle around Sudhindranath Dutta, on Hindu–Islamic relations. Through Radhakrishnan's influence, it was published in 1939 by Allen & Unwin as The Individual and the Group: An Indian Study in Conflict.[51]

From 1942 Mallik lived in a household at 16 Polstead Road, in north Oxford, with supporters including Winifred Lewis, Nora Bolton and Hilda Alden;

Modern Greats (PPE). For two academic years he covered history, and then in 1944/5 logic and theory of knowledge.[54]

Death

In autumn 1958 Winifred Lewis, Mallik's long-term companion, took him for a holiday on

River Ganges.[55]

Works

Interchange of Selves, a "dramatic treatise on stoicism" by Mallik, was rewritten by Robert Graves for publication in his

Symbolist theatre from a generation earlier. The intellectual content concerns conflict, endurance and history.[61]

Notes

  1. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. p. 3.
  2. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. pp. 3–5.
  3. ^ a b Graves, Robert (1929). Good-Bye to All That, an autobiography. London: Jonathan Cape. p. 402.
  4. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. pp. 7–8.
  5. ^ Rao, C. Hayavadana (ed.). "Urquhart, Rev. William Spence" . The Indian Biographical Dictionary . Madras: Pillar & Co.
  6. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. p. 11.
  7. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. pp. 13–14.
  8. ISBN 978-81-89963-03-3
    .
  9. ^ "Kaiser Library, About Us". klib.gov.np. Archived from the original on 2023-03-28. Retrieved 2022-11-23.
  10. ^ Who's Who India. Calcutta: Tyson & Co. 1927. p. 131.
  11. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. p. 149.
  12. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. pp. 14–15.
  13. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. p. 17.
  14. ^ The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn (1981). Admissions Registers. Vol. 3 1894-1956.
  15. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. p. 23.
  16. ^ a b Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. p. 150.
  17. ^ "Oxford Diploma Students 1907-1920". web.prm.ox.ac.uk.
  18. ^ Madhuri, Sondhi (1985). The Making of Peace: A Logical and Societal Framework According to Basanta Kumar Mallik. Selectbook Service Syndicate. p. 309.
  19. ISBN 978-93-89449-19-8
    .
  20. ISBN 978-81-89963-03-3
    .
  21. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. pp. 25–26, 29.
  22. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. pp. 24–25.
  23. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. pp. 25–26, 29.
  24. ^ Martin, James Joseph (1964). American Liberalism and World Politics, 1931-1941: Liberalism's Press and Spokesmen on the Road Back to War Between Mukden and Pearl Harbor. Vol. 2. Devin-Adair. p. 662.
  25. ^ Aristotelian Society (Great Britain) (1922). Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. Vol. XXII. London: Williams & Norgate. p. 239.
  26. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. pp. 25–26, 29.
  27. ISBN 978-1-4729-2915-0
    .
  28. ISBN 978-0-670-81326-1
    .
  29. ISBN 978-1-4729-2915-0
    .
  30. ISBN 978-1-4729-2914-3
    .
  31. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. pp. 24–28.
  32. ^
    ISBN 978-1-4729-2914-3
    .
  33. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. p. 81.
  34. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. p. 29i.
  35. ISBN 978-0-19-562999-6
    .
  36. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. pp. 31–32.
  37. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. pp. 35–39.
  38. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. pp. 40–43.
  39. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. pp. 43–45.
  40. ISBN 0670813273.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  41. ISBN 0670813273.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  42. ISBN 0670813273.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link
    )
  43. ISBN 978-0-333-44742-0
    .
  44. ISBN 978-0-945636-49-6
    .
  45. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. p. 151.
  46. ^ Education Today: Journal of the College of Preceptors. College of Preceptors. 1972. p. 32.
  47. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. p. 44.
  48. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. p. 55.
  49. ^ Strong, Leonard Alfred George (1961). Green Memory. Methuen. pp. 292–293.
  50. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. p. 48.
  51. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. pp. 44–46.
  52. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. p. 51.
  53. ISBN 978-1-57181-713-6
    .
  54. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. p. 55.
  55. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. pp. 76–77.
  56. ISBN 978-0-313-37462-3
    .
  57. ^ Mallik, Basanta Kumar (1940). The Real and the Negative. G. Allen & Unwin Limited.
  58. ^ Mallik, Basanta Kumar (1948). Gandhi: A Prophesy. Hall.
  59. ^ "Modernist Journals, The Owl: An Introduction". modjourn.org.
  60. ISBN 0313243360
    .
  61. ^
    ISBN 978-0-292-74343-4
    .
  62. ^ Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli; Winifred, Lewis (1961). Basanta Kumar Mallik: A Garland of Homage from Some who Knew Him Well, with a Biography. V. Stuart. p. 24.
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