Remembering Shankha Ghosh, the literary giant who spared no political party from his criticism

Bengali poet and scholar Shankha Ghosh, a towering literary figure loved in West Bengal and Bangladesh, passed away in Kolkata on April 21 due to COVID-19. The 89-year-old, who had been honoured with the Padma Bhushan, Jnanpith Award, Sahitya Akademi Award, Saraswati Samman and the Rabindra Award during his lifetime, had tested positive on April 14.

Novelist Saikat Majumdar, professor at Ashoka University, Sonepat, calls this moment “the end of an era in Bengal and Bangla literature”. When Majumdar was growing up in Kolkata, Ghosh was an icon whose poetry was taught in schools. He says, “I heard his name in the same breath as Subhash Mukhopadhyay, Nirendranath Chakraborty, Sunil Gangopadhyay, and in the legacy of slightly older poets like Bishnu Dey and Samar Sen.”

In an oral history interview recorded with Kris K. Manjapra, associate professor of history at Tufts University in the United States, in 2010, Ghosh mentioned that he was born in 1932 at his maternal grandparents’ home in Chandpur in present-day Bangladesh. He saw himself as a child of Barisal, where his father’s family lived. He grew up mostly in Pakhshi, which is also in Bangladesh. He moved to (then) Calcutta at the time of Partition in 1947. He was 15.

Amitangshu Acharya, a Ph.D. scholar at the University of Edinburgh, recalls that the earliest children’s books he read were written by Ghosh; they dealt with the Partition. He says, “I used to call him Jethu. He was a close friend to my father Anil Acharya. His books Sakalbelar Aalo and Supuriboner Saari gave me insights into his memories of Bangladesh, particularly his experience of walking along the riverbank and the sight of arecanut trees.”

Ghosh, whose official name was Chittopriyo, had a lot of his poetry appear in Anustup, a quarterly journal. The publishing house, also named Anustup, is run by Anil Acharya. He published Kobitar Muhurto, Sober Upor Shamiana, Lineii Chilam Baba – all books by Ghosh, who taught at Jadavpur University with writer Nabaneeta Dev Sen.

Ghosh has many books to his credit, including Babur-er Prarthona, Mookh Dheke Jaye Bigyaponey, Dinguli Raatguli and Murkha Baro Samajik Nay. Arkajyoti Bharadwaj, a poet who also works in advertising in Kolkata, says, “Shankha da was a humanist and a fine literary critic who wrote academic papers and newspaper columns. Apart from his attention to matters of aesthetics such as metre and rhyme, he was acutely aware of the political environment.”

Ghosh is remembered for being a public intellectual with great moral integrity. He was often seen at rallies protesting human rights violations and state-sponsored violence. Swati Moitra, assistant professor at Gurudas College in Kolkata calls him “a politically upright figure with unflinching honesty, who never shied away from taking a stance.” She says, “He upset every single regime, be it the CPM (Communist Party of India [Marxist]), the Trinamool Congress or the BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party).”

He spoke out against the violence in Singur-Nandigram, the demolition of the Babri Masjid, the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens. “His was a strong voice against totalitarianism and communalism. Some of his political poetry is very direct; not elliptical or elusive,” says translator Arunava Sinha, professor at Ashoka University, who has translated Ghosh’s poems, and wants to work on a chapbook of Ghosh’s political poetry.

Ghosh also nurtured young poets, and invited them to gatherings at his house in Ulta Danga, Kolkata. Poet Anita Agnihotri, a former IAS officer, says, “Shankha da took an active interest in reading the work of younger writers. He was a guiding light, not just a writer but someone who supported people in their difficult times. Now that he is gone, it is time for us to collectively grow up and keep his values alive.”

Sebanti Ghosh, who now teaches Bangla at Delhi Public School, Siliguri, is among the poets he mentored. As a young woman who spent her formative years at Santiniketan, she was wary of “the big city life” in Kolkata but Ghosh helped her gain confidence. He offered feedback on her poetry. She says, “He was a stalwart but he was also my husband Joydeb Basu’s teacher. When we got married under the Special Marriage Act, he was our witness.”

People from far and wide used to attend the Kolkata Boimela, the annual book fair, to meet Ghosh. In 2015, when the Oxford Bookstore conceptualized a new festival, the Apeejay Bangla Sahitya Utsob, they roped him in to bless their initiative. Swagat Sengupta, who is the CEO of the bookstore and director of the festival, says, “A Rabindranath Tagore expert himself, Ghosh was the binding figure between the past and the future of Bangla literature.”

In 2018 and 2019, when the festival was hosted at Tagore’s ancestral house, Jorasanko Thakurbari, the humble Ghosh – despite being unwell – served as the guest of honour. Sengupta says, “That we will miss Shankha Ghosh doesn’t need to be said, but we draw strength from his belief in us and will continue to keep working on celebrating and promoting the language and literature that he wrote and loved in.”