In the year 1993, when I attended the Warangal session of the Indian History Congress to present my paper on sister Nivedita's role on women's education in Bengal, I was in for a surprise. I found that Nivedita, the dedicated disciple of Swami Vivekananda, who is almost a household name in Bengal was not at all known to the scholars and students of history in other parts of our country. Scholars have studied and analysed the contribution of Dr. Annie Besant, the renowned Theosophist and a great social activist, who spent the last phase of her colourful public life in India. But the name of Miss Margaret Noble draws a blank! Dr. R. K. Dasgupta, in his illuminating review of Annie Besant's biography by Anne Taylor, once commented: 'In Bengal her (Besant's) image is dimmed by the image of sister Nivedita, another Irish woman who made India her home." (The Statesman Literary Supplement: July 24, 1993) How true it is!
Since then, I nurtured a desire to evaluate sister Nivedita; her contribution in different fields of Indian life religion, education, art, politics and last but not the least, Ramakrishna-Vivekananda Movement. Awakening Indian Youth, Indian women and Indian mind on Vivekananda's ideals were the primary aims of her short but very eventful life which has a definite historical value. I may quote here few lines by Cambridge historian E.H. Carr-"The main work of the historian is not to record, but to evaluate for if he does not evaluate, how can he know what is worth recording?" (What is History: Penguin Paper back edition; 1964; p. 21).
It is almost impossible to portray the multifaceted personality of sister Nivedita or Miss Margaret Noble in a few articles. But I have attempted to elucidate some fragments of her vast work in a historical context.
The second half of my book deals with few well-known and not so well-known personalities of the late 19th and early 20th Century Bengal. But all of them were in some point of their life connected with Bihar. Sakharam Ganesh Deuskar, Aghore Kamini Debi, Pandita Ramabai and the great humanist author Saratchandra Chatterjee, had very intimate connection with Bihar towns. In a way they were both symbols and catalysts of change in their chosen fields during a turning phase of Indian history and of our social awakening. In my study of the socio-cultural role of the Bengali linguistic minority in Bhiar, these names occupy significant place. Articles based on them were published in the English journals of Patna. These articles are reproduced here after minor changes. If they rekindle the readers' memory of the onetime historical bond between the provinces of Bengal and Bihar my objective will be fulfilled and I shall feel personally rewarded.
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