Critical appreciation of the poem "To India my Native land" by H.L Derozio

 

Critical Appreciation of the poem To India My Native land: 

                Henry Lewis Vivian Derozio was born on April 18, 1809 in India.  He was a poet and Assistant Headmaster at Hindu college, Culcutta.  He was a radical thinker and one of the first Indian Educators to disseminate western leaving and science among the young men of Bengal.  He was the son of a Portuguese father and Indian mother.  Derozio was influenced by the Romantic poets.  He started publishing patriotic poems when  he was 17.  His writings brought him to the attemtion of the intellectual elite of Calcutta.  In the spirit of English Rationalism, Derozio criticized the social practices and religious belief of orthodox Hinduism.  Accused of irreverence b his student’s orthodox Hindu Parents he was forced to resign.  He died on December 23^rd 1831, due to Cholera.  His influence lived on among his former students who came to be known as “Young Bengal”.  This poem  “To India My Native Land” is one of the patriotic poems written by him. 

                In this poem Derozio presents India, which is his mother land as “deity” he looks back to ancient history when India was glorious in every field, for eg.  In arts, science and in architecture.  It was a period when India was famous for advanced civilizations and rich cultural traditions.  Learned men from all over the world visited India to enrich themselves and also their cultures.  The poet refers to that time.  When India was worshipped worldwide, like a goddess.  When the poet was writing this poem, India was under British rule.  English East India Company and the British Government ransacked India for their country’s benefits.  Hence the condition of India worsened day by day.  At the time of Derozio, her state of affairs was so poor, that he could not find anything plausible in her.  It made the poet sad.  So he asks himself, “Where is that glory, where’s that reverence not?”

                In the second section of the “Octave” i.e from lines 5 to 8 , the poet sees India as an eagle, the monarch of birds.  In the previous section, he has compared it to a goddess, having a beautiful halo or aura circling her forehead.  Such a shift in comparison signifies that the poet is now focussing on the worldly aspects of his country.  The poet visualises that the country’s wings are clopped.  That is why it is grovelling in the dust.  It signifies that the British rulers had closed all the channels of improvement in India.  By “Thy Minstrel” the poet refers to himself.  He says that he has no flowers to weave a “wreath” or “garland” for her motherland.  It is a reference to the scarcity of resources in his country due to the “drainage of wealth”.  He has only the “sad story” condolence. 

                In the sestet, Derozio voices his resolution to save the country from all kinds of deprivation and deterioration.  He wants to dive in to the depths of history.  There he can find the long-lost, history of the country.  The glorious past of the countru contains the aterials for future improvement.  The British rulers tried to demean it for colonizing the minds of the Indians.  Destroying confidence in native culture and history, the colonizers can control colonized for a long time.  The poet stands strongly against that.  Through this poem, Derozio expresses his aim to spread historical consciousness among Indian.  He resorts to his motherland  to wish him luck.  If he succeeds, he wants nothing in return from his country. 

                This poem was published in 1938.  It appeared in his poetry collection, “The Faker of Jungheera:  A metrical tale and other poems”.  Derozio was the fountain head of the Young Bengal Movement”  in Bengal, a part of undivided India.  The members of that group aimed to rigger the youth.  Hence the poet thought to educate the younger generation, so that they would spread the message to others.  This poem might have been written for them to alert them of the need of the hour.  Apart from that, it also touched the hearts of intellectual gentleman in India.  This poem reflects Derozio’s radical thinking and is inclination towards western ideas.  At that time, the essence of nationalism was in a nasant stage.  The contribution of Derozio like others was commendable at that time when India was struggling under the colonizer’s selfish policies.  In this poem Derozio personifies India as a woman and talks to her in a monologue.  He talks about the glorious past of India.  He tells her that in her days of glory, she used to be regarded and was highly worshipped and was considered sacrosanct.  But now ( at the time of writing the poem ) all the past glory and grandeur is lost. 

                Derozio is unhappy with the British rule in India and refers to the same in the line “The eagle pinion is chained down at east”, in which “eagle” refers to India.  It is believed that in the early days of British rule, foreigners referred to India as the Golden Eagle or Golden Bird as it was very rich and one of the largest producers of gold and diamonds.  Visitors were awed by the riches and hospitality that India offered.  However, the British rule and internal weaknesses brought the country to “slavery”  and this demolished its pride and identity.  This thought as clearly conveyed in the following line by Derozio:   “And grovelling in the lowly dust art thou”. 

                There was an acute sense of hopelessness due to lack of freedom and stagnation in the standards of living.  Derozio says that there in nothing more to write.  He throws light on the current situation of the country as:

                “no wreath to weave for thee

                Save the sad story of thy misery”

Hence Derozio wishes to write about the past of India by “dividing in to the depths of time” and bringing back its glory.  As a reward of his labour, Derozio prays to his country to grant his wish i.e, return of the poet glory and pride. 

Structure and form:

                It is a Petrarchan Sonnet.  The poem contains two sections.  The first section is an “octave or Octet”, containing 8 lines.  The poet presents a problem which is the condition of his motherland under British rule.  The “sestet” having 6 lines voices the poet’s resolution.  The rhyme of the first 8 lines is AB AB AB CC  and the next six lines are DE DE FF.

                The poem is composed in iambic five feet.  The stress falls on the second syllable of each foot.  There is only on variation in the first line of the poem.  It is in iambic tetrameter.  The metrical composition of the poem suggests its inclination to the conventions of the European Renaissance in arts.  It is also suggestive of the poet’s intention at the time of writing this poem. 

                This poem is rich in the use of literary devices.  It being a sonnet, it encompasses several figurative techniques.  It the first line of the poem Derozio, uses an “exclamatory mark” as he invokes the spirit of his motherland.  It is the use of synecdoche.  It also makes another point clear.  The poet uses “personification” to compare India to a “goddess”.  Likewise, in the third line, there is an inversion.  In the fourth line, the poet asks the rhetorical question.  The poet resorts to the metaphor of “eagle”.  He compares India to an eagle chained down by the colonial rulers.  There is another metaphor of the sea in the phrase “depths of time” , “small fragments” of the “wrecks” in another instance where Derozio uses Metaphor.  In the lost line also he again uses an exclamatory mark.  By using several devices, he has made the poem very beautiful.