Reality is truth (prāma),
and what is true is so,
irrespective of whether we know it is,
or are aware of that truth.
— Akṣapada Gautama's Nyaya Sutra cited by Jeaneane Fowler, Perspectives of Reality: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Hinduism (2002), Sussex Academic Press, p. 130
The tale of a library and a club on the bank of Ganga in Bankipur has lessons which are yet to be decoded.
The Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library, Bankipur was opened for public in October 1891 by Khan Bahadur Khuda Bakhsh, a native of Chhapra. Khan Bahadur Khuda Bakhsh (2 August 1842–3 August 1908) was an Indian advocate, judge, philosopher and scholar. He was the Chief Justice of Nizam's Supreme Court of Hyderabad from 1895 to 1898. The library was inaugurated in 1891 by the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, Charles Alfred Elliot. Khuda Bakhsh was approached by the British Museum with offer to purchase his collection, but he had declined because for him "the collection is for Patna and the gift shall be laid at the feet of the Patna public."
The library was declared an institution of national importance by an act of Parliament in 1969. The library has been compared with Bodleian Library of the University of Oxford. which was founded in 1602. It s one of the oldest libraries in Europe. The Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library was run by Sachchidanand Sinha as it's secretary from 1894 to 1898. Inspired by Khudabakhsh Library, Sinha laid the foundation of the Sinha Library in 1924 in memory of Radhika Sinha, his wife.
Bankipur Club was founded in 1865 by James Patrick Willoughby Johnston, a British colonial police and intelligence officer who served extensively in the Indian Police within the Bihar and Orissa cadre.
The library culture arrived after the arrival of club culture.
From the earliest times, there is an unending conflict between library culture and club culture is an eternal conflict. It is the conflict between the pleasurable (preyas) and the preferable (shreyas), which is one of the subjects of the Katha Upanishad. It is the constant struggle between The Pleasant and The Good.
In the immortal Nachileta-Yama dialogue Katha Upanishad reads:
अन्यत् श्रेयः उत अन्यत् एव प्रेयः। ते उभे नानार्थे सती पुरुषं सिनीतः।
तयोः श्रेयः आददानस्य साधु भवति उ सः अर्थात् हीयते यः प्रेयः वृणीते ॥
श्रेयश्च प्रेयश्च मनुष्यमेतः तौ सम्परीत्य विविनक्ति धीरः ।
श्रेयो हि धीरोऽभि प्रेयसो वृणीते प्रेयो मन्दो योगक्षेमाद्वृणीते ॥
("The joy of the preferable ever abides, but not what seems pleasant to the senses. Both these, differing in their purpose, prompt humans to action. All is well for those who choose the joy of the preferable, but they miss the goal of life who prefer the pleasant. Perennial joy or passing pleasure? This is the choice one is to make always. The wise recognize these two, but not the ignorant. The first welcome what leads to abiding joy, though painful at the time. The latter run, goaded by their senses, after what seems immediate pleasure.")
The defeat of the natives in the 1757 and 1764, paved the way for the beneficial owners of British East India Company which entered India through Surat, Gujarat in the early 17th century to set up a rubber factory. The rubber was very elastic, it reached Bengal and Bihar in mid 18th century before reaching Allahabad and Delhi. In early 19th century, the beneficial owners of the erstwhile company made Bankipur, a strategic location for the colonial State besides Danapur. The British settlement used to be in Bankipur although till the late 19th century, it was like a village.
Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy, the legendary physician and former Chief Minister of West Bengal, was born in Bankipore, Patna, on 1 July 1882 before Bihar’s separation from Bengal in 1912. On June 30,1917, The Bihar Herald had published a satirical article criticizing the renaming of railway stations in the newly created Bihar. The fact remains renaming creates cognitive dissonance and has undecipherable cognitive costs.
Out of five chapters, in at least two chapters of the book Provincial Metropolis: Intellectuals and The Hinterland in Colonial India (2025), published by Cambridge University Press, David Boyk dwells on the significance of Bankipur.
The elite residents of Bankipur had played a significant role in the separation of Bihar from Bengal. The facts remains that the communities of Bengal and Bihar are communities of the same fate.
The colonial state had developed Bankipur region, away from Patna city. Modern Patna developed around Bankipur. It emerged as one of the most educated constituencies of Bihar with a cosmopolitan outlook beyond sectarian considerations. Although these beneficial owners ruled India for some 200 years, the natives of Bankipur and elsewhere are yet to comprehend that all history is contemporary history and are yet to decode how narratives are weaponised.
Have lessons been learnt from the defeat of 1757, 1764 and 1857?
Will Bankipur residents arrive at nirnaya (final ascertainment) to pass the age-old test enunciated in the first verse of 2,200 years old Nyaya Sutra, the foundational text of the Nyaya school of philosophy by Akṣapāda Gautama by factoring in tarka (argument), jalpa (debating maneuver), vitanda (destructive criticism), hetväbhäsa (fallacy or error), chala (purposive distortion of the opponent), jäti (futile rejoinder based on mere similarity or dissimilarity), and vada (discussion for the final ascertainment)? The first verse reads:
प्रमाण-प्रमेय-संशय-प्रयोजन-दृष्टान्त-सिद्धान्तावयव-तर्क-निर्णय-वाद-जल्प-वितण्डाहेत्वाभास-च्छल-जाति-निग्रहस्थानानाम्तत्त्वज्ञानात् निःश्रेयसाधिगमः
(Supreme felicity is attained by the knowledge about the true nature of sixteen categories, viz., means of right knowledge (pramana), object of right knowledge (prameya), doubt (samsaya), purpose (prayojana), familiar instance (drishtanta), established tenet (siddhanta), members (avayava), confutation (tarka), ascertainment (nirnaya), discussion (vada), wrangling (jalpa), cavil (vitanda), fallacy or error (hetvabhasa), quibble (chala), futility (jati), and occasion for rebuke (nigrahasthana).) The knowledge about the true, nature of sixteen categories means true knowledge of the “ enunciation,” “ definition ” and “ critical examination ” of the categories. Nyāya Sūtra declares it's goal to be attainment of liberation of soul from wrong knowledge, faults and sorrow by four reliable means of obtaining knowledge (pramāṇa): Perception (Pratyaksha), Inference (Anuman), Comparison (Upman) and Reliable Testimony (Shabd).
The error is knowledge, an opinion or a conclusion about something that is different from what it really is. The error is always in the process of cognition itself, or the "subjective self", and not in the object.
In Perceptual Error: The Indian Theories (1998), S. Rao states that it is the duty of the knowledge-seeker to "test the validity of his knowledge", both in assumptions or through practice (experience), but neither the object of knowledge nor the knowledge itself is responsible for errors; only the knowledge-seeker and his process of cognition is. The Nyaya theory shares ideas on the theory of errors with Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism and Mimamsa schools of Indian philosophies.
If communities of Bankipur have to teach philosophical lessons to their children and grand children, will they not teach them the art of segregating the preferable from the pleasurable? For long unwise common sense club has been chosen disregarding library of good sense?
Will the library get preference over the club to establish the culture of vada, the dialogue in pursuit if reality and truth to ensure that democracy remains a government by dialogue?
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