Dhan Gopal Mukerji: Trailblazer cosmopolitan Indian modernist author
In the modern world, the boundaries between displacement and migration are blurred -- climate change that destroys livelihoods, environmental pollution, natural disasters, persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations as well as the widening gap between winners and losers of globalization. The global intent on closing borders has inspired the proliferation of diaspora fiction and for the last couple of decades, this genre has become a rage worldwide. However, Dhan Gopal Mukerji, one of the earliest iconic cosmopolitan Indian modernists who travelled abroad in the first decade of the 20th century, had already made a name for himself with his writings in the 1920s. He was a trend-setter long before the concept of displacement and migration became fashionable.
Eminent Stanford critic Gordon H. Chang describes Mukerji as a person who “holds the distinction of being the first author of Asian-Indian ancestry who successfully wrote for American audiences about Indian life.” His stories, rooted in Indian myths and folklore, brought his native world view to a culture that was still very insular and steeped in tradition. Mukerji was the recipient of the prestigious John Newbery Medal, a literary award given annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the author of ‘the most distinguished contributions to American literature for children.’ Named after 18th century English bookseller, John Newbery, the Newbery Award was instituted in 1922 and is the first Children’s Book Award in the world.
In the 1920s and 1930s Mukerji published a number of works about India and Hinduism, including My Brother's Face (1924), the novel, The Secret Listeners of the East (1926), A Son of Mother India Answers, (1928), and The Path of Prayer (1934). In 1923 he released his second children's book, Jungle Beasts and Men, a series of short stories that give a realistic view of the jungle and its inhabitants.
Mukerji was born to Kissori and Bhuban (Goswami) Mukerji on 6 July 1890 on the outskirts of Calcutta, in a village bordering a forest called Kajangal. His father, a former lawyer, was a music enthusiast and officiated as priest at the village temple. Dhan Gopal was inducted into the Brahminical tradition after performing the holy thread ceremony ritual at the age of 14. After the ritual, he followed family tradition and wandered as a roving minstrel for a year. Upon returning home, he began his priestly duties. However, Mukerji was disillusioned and decided to give up his family's traditional occupation and go to school. He studied at Duff School (now known as Scottish Church Collegiate School), and at Duff College, both under University of Calcutta.
Dhan Gopal describes his childhood and adolescence in his autobiography, Caste and Outcast (1923). He writes, “I went to the Christian school, and studied the New Testament carefully. It was hardly a year before I gave up being a priest, because I realized that I was not in my right place. This may seem very strange to a Westerner after all I had experienced, but to a Hindu it was not strange. A Brahmin boy often fulfills the duties of a priest for a time, but if he finds it is not his vocation he is expected to resign and to seek the Lord in other ways. We think the end is holiness, not a profession.”
He was immensely influenced by his elder sibling Jadu Gopal and his friends, who were armed revolutionaries in British India. Jadu Gopal was subsequently jailed without trial from 1923 to 1927. Dhan Gopal wrote a memoir on him, titled, ‘My Brother’s Face.’ Dhan Gopal’s family sent him to Japan in 1910 to study industrial machinery and textiles at the University of Tokyo. In Japan, he witnessed the assembly line method of production and proclivity towards sheer efficiency which he viewed as dehumanizing, degrading and debasing. A sensitive soul, Dhan Gopal became deeply disillusioned and after a brief stay in Japan, he boarded a ship for San Francisco. In the US, he attended the University of California, Berkeley from 1910 to 1013. He earned his graduate degree from Stanford University in 1914 and then taught there briefly as lecturer in comparative literature.
Over the next few years, Dhan Gopal published plays and collections of poetry. A person of rare talent and broad appeal, he gained fame as the author of two dozen published volumes of poetry, drama, fiction, social commentary, philosophy, translations, and children's stories which were published in prestigious journals such as The Century Magazine and The Atlantic. He co-authored with Mary Caroline Davies, Chintamoni: A symbolic Drama (1914), an adaptation of Girish Chandra Ghosh’s play in Bengali, another play, ‘Layla Majnu (1916), a collection of poetry titled, ‘Rajani: Songs of the Night’ (1916) and ‘Sandhya: Songs of Twilight (1917) and the play, ‘The Judgment of India’(1922). In 1918, he married Ethel Ray Dugan, an American artist and teacher. The couple had a son, Dhan Gopal II aka Dan
Following World War I, Dhan Gopal returned to India. He wrote the first book for children, ‘Kari: The Elephant’ in 1922. The story is set in the jungle adjacent to his village where he was born and spent his childhood. He paints vivid pictures of the jungles and wildlife with amazing words. His books for children were mainly his own versions of tales he had heard in India, filled with nostalgia for a life he had left behind.
In the 1920s and 1930s Mukerji published a number of works about India and Hinduism, including My Brother's Face (1924), the novel, The Secret Listeners of the East (1926), A Son of Mother India Answers, (1928), and The Path of Prayer (1934). In 1923 he released his second children's book, Jungle Beasts and Men, a series of short stories that give a realistic view of the jungle and its inhabitants. His ‘Hari, the Jungle Lad’, published in 1924, is about a young Indian boy who goes with his father on hunting expeditions and encounters wild buffalo, a panther, and other jungle creatures. In 1928, Gay-Neck: The Story of a Pigeon, was published and Dhan Gopal won the 1928 Newbery Medal, awarded for the best children’s literature of the year.
In 1928 Mukerji published Ghond, the Hunter, a sequel to Gay-Neck, in which the lad meets up with a tiger, cobra, python, and other animals. In his introduction to Bunny, Hound, and Clown, Mukherje called ‘Ghond, the Hunter’ "the most valuable juvenile book that I have written. … In it I have sought to render the inmost things of Hindu life into English."
Mukerji was the recipient of the prestigious John Newbery Medal, a literary award given annually by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association, to the author of ‘the most distinguished contributions to American literature for children.’ Named after 18th century English bookseller, John Newbery, the Newbery Award was instituted in 1922 and is the first Children’s Book Award in the world. .
Mukerji continued to write children's books for the rest of his career, publishing ‘Hindu Fables for Little Children’, a collection of 10 stories with jungle creatures as the main characters, and ‘The Chief of the Herd’, about elephants, in 1929. Three years later he published ‘The Master Monkey’, about the monkey god, Hanuman. ‘Fierce-Face: The Story of a Tiger,’ published in 1936, was Mukerji's last work for children.
As Dhan Gopal’s publishing fortune declined and he had to struggle against personal difficulties, he sought refuge in the Ramakrishna Mission Order. However, after a severe bout of nervous breakdown for six months, Mukerji committed suicide by hanging himself in his New York City apartment on July 14,1936 at the age of 46.
In his life and letters, Dhan Gopal emerges as a sparkling example of an intellectual who combined tradition and modernity. As the vulnerability of the contemporary world is palpable trying to balance the state of flux and fix the global strife and fragmentation, Dhan Gopal reminds us of that once cherished ideal of cosmopolitanism.
