This article seeks to examine the persistence, in Indian and specifically Bengali literature of the twentieth century, of a contradiction: the myth of an ideal or utopian village set against actual experiences of suffering, inequality, and deprivation. It traces some elements of this contradiction to Thomas More’s foundational text, Utopia (1516), and continues by examining the idealization of the self-sufficient and unchanging Indian village community in the social thought of the nineteenth-century British jurist Sir Henry Maine. Subsequently, the village becomes a focal concern for Indian nationalists, producing a strain of idealized ‘pastoralism’ as well as utopian dreams, countered by equally important critiques of rural obscurantism and decay. Both idealization and critique find their place in the literature and art of early twentieth century Bengal, but the category of the village Utopia proves impossible to sustain. The title of the article gestures towards this failure by citing the name (Nishchindipur, meaning ‘place of contentment’) of the village setting for Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay’s Bengali novel Pather Panchali (1928), made into an iconic film (1955) by the director Satyajit Ray. The film generated a curious conjunction of the epithets ‘idyllic’ and ‘impoverished’, and was criticized for its unsparing depiction of rural suffering.

中文翻译：

---

Nishchindipur：村庄乌托邦的不可能

本文力图研究一种矛盾，在印度，尤其是二十世纪的孟加拉语文学中，这种矛盾的持久性：一个理想的或乌托邦式的村庄的神话，以苦难，不平等和剥夺的实际经历为背景。它追溯到托马斯·莫尔（Thomas More）的基础著作《乌托邦》（Utopia）（1516）的某些矛盾之处，并继续研究了十九世纪英国法学家亨利·缅因爵士的社会思想中自给自足且不变的印度乡村社区的理想化。随后，该村庄成为印度民族主义者关注的焦点，产生了一系列理想化的“田园主义”以及乌托邦式的梦想，而农村的愚昧主义和腐朽同样重要地遭到了批评。理想化和批判都在二十世纪初孟加拉的文学和艺术中找到了自己的位置，但乌托邦村庄的类别却证明无法维持。本文的标题通过引用Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay的孟加拉小说Pather Panchali（1928）的村庄环境名称（Nishchindipur，意为“满足的地方”）来表示这种失败，导演Satyajit将其制作成标志性电影（1955）。射线。这部电影对“田园”和“贫困”这两个词进行了奇怪的结合，并因其对农村苦难的朴素描绘而受到批评。的意义是Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay的孟加拉小说《 Pather Panchali》（1928年）的乡村背景，由导演Satyajit Ray制作成标志性电影（1955年）。这部电影对“田园”和“贫困”这两个词进行了奇怪的结合，并因其对农村苦难的朴素描绘而受到批评。的意义是Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay的孟加拉小说《 Pather Panchali》（1928年）的乡村背景，由导演Satyajit Ray制作成标志性电影（1955年）。这部电影对“田园”和“贫困”这两个词进行了奇怪的结合，并因其对农村苦难的朴素描绘而受到批评。