India in Bengali Travel Writing on Russia in the Twentieth Century: Travelling The World,Writing about Home

Abstract

This article examines the discourse on India in Bengali travelogues on Russia/the USSR. In the first half of the twentieth century, Russia attracted a particular type of Indian travellers, politically engaged individuals interested in the ongoing transformations in Russia, to learn potential lessons for India. Later, during the Cold War era, many members of India’s intellectual elite travelled to the Soviet Union at the invitation of Soviet institutions and some wrote their accounts after these visits. A distinctive feature of these travelogues is the strong focus on providing readers with information regarding Soviet social and economic developments, together with frequent comments on the contrasts between the USSR and India. The article demonstrates how Bengali travel narratives on Russia are constructed around similarities and differences between the two countries, but ultimately concentrate on the challenges for India in fields such as education, poverty, agriculture, gender equality and housing. Seven travelogues were selected for this analysis. The earliest, on Revolutionary Russia, is Soumyendranath Tagore’s Biplabð Rå›iy˙å (Tagore, 1930), while the most recent sample is Sunil Gangopadhyay’s Rå›iy˙å Bhramaµ (Gangopadhyay, 2012 [1985]).

Introduction

Ever since travel writing emerged as a genre in Bengali literature, reflection on India became a significant element of Bengali travel narratives. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, most travellers headed to England, as they yearned to observe and learn from what they considered the most advanced country in the world, the heart of the Empire. However, an equally crucial mission for them, as they encountered the outside world, was to contemplate their own national identity and the possibilities for the formation of a modern nation-state in India (Sen, 2005: 7). Amid growing anti-colonial sentiment in the early twentieth century, Bengali travellers sought alternative routes and destinations that would satisfy their thirst for knowledge and political awareness. Some found it in the east, where Japan had been emerging as a world power (Gooptu, 2018). Others looked to Russia, which experienced profound political, social and economic transformation after the revolution of 1917. Some members of the Indian elite, especially Bengalis, started to perceive Russia as a country that had defeated imperialism and provided an admirable example of successful eradication of poverty, an image deliberately cultivated by the Soviet government after World War II (Thakur & Thayer, 1992: 3), particularly through the Indo-Soviet Cultural Society from 1952 onwards.

Venturing to Russia provided Bengali travellers with a fresh opportunity to reflect on their own homeland, in contrast with a country which had no relationship of dominance and dependence with theirs. This article examines the discourse on India in seven selected Bengali travel narratives on Russia during the twentieth century. The earliest travelogue on Russia in Bengali is most probably Biplabð Rå›iy˙å [Revolutionary Russia] by Soumyendranath Tagore (1930). This was published just a few months before his famous grand-uncle Rabindranath’s Rå›iy˙å Ci»hi [Letters from Russia] (Tagore, 1977 [1931]). The most recent book examined in this article is the 1985 travelogue titled Rå›iy˙å Bhramaµ [Travel to Russia] by Sunil Gangopadhyay (2012 [1985]).

All these travel accounts were written by Hindu middle or upper-class men, members of the Bengali intellectual elite. All authors use the terms ‘Russia’, ‘Soviet Russia’ and ‘Soviet Union’ interchangeably as substitutes for the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics or USSR. Most of them actually visited only the Russian Soviet Republic of the USSR, mainly Moscow and Leningrad, but some travellers also went to Estonia, Georgia, Armenia or Uzbekistan. All translations from the Bengali originals are made by the author.

Narrating Self and Other in European and Indian Travel Writing

Travel literature by definition aims at reporting parts of the world which are some kind of ‘other’ to writers and their readership. In this process, a writer acts as a mediator between societies or cultures (Blanton, 2002: 2). The presence of Self in travel narratives is a phenomenon that emerged in the sixteenth century and has been gaining importance ever since. In its most extreme form, the inner world of the traveller and the act of wandering take the centre stage in a travelogue (Blanton, 2002: 17–8). Two elements of this evolution are of great significance for the Bengali travel writing discussed here, namely the rising perception of travel as an act of learning, and the development of imperial discourse in Western travel literature.

The Enlightenment brought a major shift in patterns of travelling and in travel narratives. Contact with the outer world contributing to one’s intellectual enrichment acquired recognition and ‘the world itself, its plants, animals, and people also become a source of knowledge for their own sake’ (Blanton, 2002: 12). What emerges as a result is a new model of information-based travel writing, often with scientific aspirations. Later in the romantic period, the focus shifted towards the inner world and discovery of Self, but learning remained the ultimate aim of travel (Thompson, 2011: 118). Travel and travel writing embraced their educational purpose in the Victorian period when travel was supposed to benefit the personal progress of an individual, while travel books aimed to provide the society with valuable advice and knowledge (Blanton, 2002: 20). In nineteenth-century India, amid growing colonial influence, travel was recognised as a transformative and educational experience. Western-educated Indians believed that the physical encounter with the West would enable them to work towards ‘advancement’ and ‘modernisation’ of their homeland (Sen, 2005: 6). This sense of educational purpose led many to write their travel accounts. Travelogues became popular as recordings of ‘first-hand experience, embodying a “true” and “authentic” depiction of England/Europe as it was’ (Sen, 2005: 7), hailed for ‘providing information about cultural, economic, and political developments in other regions of the world’ (Bhattacharji, 2016: 130).

As journeys from Europe to newly conquered lands intensified, the production of Western travel writing rose exponentially and also contributed significantly to the expansion of imperial discourse (Thompson, 2011: 137). What matters most for the present study is that this discourse ‘was based upon differences, oppositions between those who have and have not: urban/rural, Christian/pagan, literate/illiterate, civilized/savage’ (Helmers & Mazzeo, 2007: 2). Such discourse played also an important role in the construction of European and national identities, as Mary Louise Pratt (2008 [1993]: 4) has pointed out. Although from the eighteenth century onwards, travel itself has been perceived as a transformative practice and experience, ‘the travel writer enacts and performs national identity while abroad, and it is typically a national identity that remains unaltered by foreign experience’ (Helmers & Mazzeo, 2007: 9).

Indian travellers appropriated some aspects of European travel discourse. Narratives based on binaries are common in Bengali travel writing on England in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the most important being the opposition of ‘traditional’ and ‘modern’ (Sen, 2005: 4). For these travel writers, England remained the reference point to judge their country’s modernity and advancement, and they felt the need to evaluate their country against an ideal throughout their journeys (Mukhopadhyay, 2002; Raychaudhuri, 1988). One may argue, though, that all travellers see and report the world through lenses provided by their culture at a particular point in time, and focus on differences is a natural phenomenon.

In that regard, the term ‘Occidentalism’ is not well defined and open for further exploration, but although many Asian travellers express ethnocentric views or share oversimplified opinions on the Western countries they visited, they rarely indulge in ‘dreaming of colonial adventures’ (Butler, 2017: 4–5). Of course, as colonised subjects, their gaze is directed at the Occident more in terms of seeking guidance for developmental challenges. Further, Indians travelling to Russia did not speak and write in a manner that Inden (1990: 36) identified as ‘hegemonic agents’. The recently introduced term ‘Auto-Orientalism’ might be more useful to analyse Indian travellers’ narrative on their homeland in writings on Europe. The auto-Orientalist discourse is the way colonial or former colonial subjects define themselves based on the pre-existing Orientalist narrative (Nazari & Nazari, 2022: 64). It is evident that some Bengali authors found it necessary to find their own voice to depict England and reflect on Western culture, but their main concern was not really Orientalism, but the scope for possibilities of formation of a modern Indian identity, in opposition to the European Other and also to the ‘unmodern’ Indian of the past (Sen, 2005: 7–8).

Indo-Russian Relations and Bengali Travel Writing on Soviet Russia

There may have been much earlier traffic and exchange, but we know for sure that Indian merchants travelled to Russia through Iran and the Caucasus as early as the seventeenth century, establishing a small trading centre in the southern Russian city of Astrakhan (Banerji, 2011: 188–9). They left no written accounts of these journeys and the trading route lost its significance because of the increasing British influence in India (Banerji, 2011: 228–9).

Until 1947, India had no official diplomatic relations with Russia and British foreign policy affected and dominated the Indian elite’s perception of Russia (Mohanty, 2019). Some British officials disseminated a conspiracy theory about a possible Russian invasion of India, which resulted in Russia being perceived as fearsome (Yapp, 1987). Very few Indians knew the Russian language at the time and most had to rely on media reports and books written in English, which inevitably influenced their knowledge and worldview. However, direct relations between the two countries were re-established in the nineteenth century at the cultural level. Russian Indologists started visiting India and soon Indian scholars began to teach Sanskrit at Russian academic institutions. One of them, as recorded by Gnatyuk-Danil’chuk (1986: 195), was Nishikanta Chattopadhyay, a Bengali who later wrote the first Bengali book on Russian literature.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, a few Indian intellectuals and political activists went to Russia. Travellers like Manabendra Nath Roy hoped for organising a Russian-style revolution back home, while others craved to witness the socio-economic transformation of the country (Bhattacharya, 2017; Haithcox, 1971). Among the latter was Jawaharlal Nehru, who in 1927 wanted to travel to the USSR to attend the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution. He later published a panegyric to the Soviet system, a collection of essays referred to by Haithcox (1971: 90). Soon after that, Rabindranath Tagore and a few less prominent Bengalis visited the country, including Rabindranath’s grandnephew Soumyendranath Tagore, as well as Nityanarayan Bandyopadhyay, whose travel accounts are examined in this article.

After India’s independence in 1947, the relationship between Delhi and Moscow remained strained, as India was a capitalist country where communist activists faced persecution. The death of Stalin in 1953 marked an important turning point. The new Soviet leadership changed direction, attempting to bring India into its sphere of influence, despite the fact that India led the non-alignment movement (Mastny, 2010: 53). Globally, the USSR wanted to act as an ally of Asian and African states, supporting their struggle against imperialism and contributing to their socio-economic development (Thakur & Thayer, 1992: 3, 24). Political, economic and military cooperation between the two countries was strengthened under the governments of Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi, who paid multiple visits to Moscow. This ultimately led to a major bilateral agreement, the India–USSR Friendship Treaty of 1971.

During the Cold War era, cultural and academic Indo-Russian relations flourished. Writers, journalists and researchers travelled to the USSR at the invitation of Soviet institutions and associations. Indian artists received a warm welcome in the USSR and Moscow allowed the screening of Indian movies, which turned out to be box-office hits (Rajagopalan, 2008: 3). The Indo-Soviet Cultural Society was inaugurated in 1952, followed by the Society for Soviet-Indian Cultural Relations in 1958. The USSR published special literary and cultural journals for an overseas readership. Some were even available in Indian languages, including Bengali, apart from English, for example, Soviet Land and Soviet Women, as reported by Chakrabarti (2019: 243–4). These Soviet efforts paid off. As one opinion poll from 1980 suggests, 93% of literate Indians from big cities considered the USSR as India’s most important ally in the world (Thakur & Thayer, 1992: 84).

A by-product of the Indo-Soviet cooperation in the Cold War era was a growing number of travelogues written in various Indian languages: Bengali, Hindi, Malayalam, Marathi and others. In 1952, Rahul Sankrityayan, the pioneer of Hindi travel writing, published his Rus me¶ pacchis mås (25 Months in Russia), as Das (2006: 253) reports. Many Bengali-speaking Indians were particularly attracted to Soviet Russia and communist parties attained popularity in the state of West Bengal during the 1960s. A left-wing coalition won state assembly elections in 1967, 1969 and later from 1977 to 2011 (Basu, 2006). But Bengalis saw the USSR also as an interesting travel destination, partly because of Rabindranath Tagore’s admiration of the country and the relatively long history of travel writing on Russia in the Bengali language.

Reflections on India in Bengali Travel Writing on Russia/USSR

From a relatively rich collection of Bengali travelogues on Soviet Russia in the Cold War era, four books were selected for the present closer analysis. The earliest is Åmår dekhå Rå›iy˙å by Satyendranath Majumdar (1952), an editor of the popular Bengali daily Ånanda Båjår Patrikå. The others are Åmår ru› bhramaµ by Deben Sen (1959), a trade union activist, Åjker Rå›iy˙å by the journalist Dilip Malakar (1972), and lastly Rå›iy˙å bhramaµ by the prominent Bengali writer Gangopadhyay (2012 [1985]).

All authors visited the USSR at the invitation of Soviet organisations, and they seem to have been very impressed. After his visit to Moscow in 1930, Tagore (1977 [1931]: 86) noted [italics added]:

Having come to Soviet Russia, I saw that their clock of progress like ours had stopped, at any rate in the houses of common people, but even this clock after centuries of disuse had begun to function again and perfectly after ten years’ winding.

The short addition ‘like ours’ is found in several passages of Tagore’s Letters from Russia (Tagore, 1977 [1931]) as well as in all subsequent Bengali travelogues on Russia by various authors, throughout the decades until the dissolution of the USSR. One may easily get the impression that in these narratives the rapidly developing Soviet state acted like a backdrop to the story of challenges faced by India. Direct comparisons of the two countries are common, but equally important is the selection of certain issues raised by travel writers. They discuss a wide range of topics, from education, industrialisation and peasants’ rights to public housing, healthcare, access to culture, women’s rights and childcare. All seven authors selected for this analysis cover largely the same issues, but while five authors attempted to cover every issue, two limited themselves to four key topics.

Making socio-economic development the central theme of a travelogue may seem unusual. Therefore, it is worth noting that these narratives are not completely devoid of elements typical of this genre, such as descriptions of weather, city life or tourist attractions visited. One traveller, for example, praised the Moscow metro (Majumdar, 1952: 69–70):

Stations are illuminated with soft light, no trace of dust or dirt. On both sides wide balconies and platforms. Every two minutes a train comes and goes, people get on and off in order. Those who have seen the metro in Paris, London or New York will be stunned by Moscow metro’s architecture and ornaments.

Almost all authors comment on the weather, especially if they visited in colder months: ‘Today is the last day of April, but the signs of winter are still visible. Here and there, I can see puddles of melted snow’ (Gangopadhyay, 2012 [1985]: 50). However, such trivial issues do not dominate the narratives. Below, we examine in more depth education, the situation of workers and peasants, as well as gender equality.

Education

Tagore (1977 [1931]) declared several times in Letters from Russia that the sole purpose of his travel was to investigate the newly created Soviet education system with the aim of replicating some of its features in India. Access to education for all, regardless of socio-economic condition, impressed him the most: ‘Having grown up in the modern Indian atmosphere, I had been firmly convinced that it was well-nigh impossible to educate our 330 million people: nothing but ill fate was to blame for it’ (Tagore, 1977 [1931]: 22). Tagore (1930: 50) noted with great admiration the rising numbers of schools established after 1917:

Before the Great Revolution, so before 1917, they had merely 206 education institutions for children. Afterwards, amid the revolutionary storm, this number grew to 247 in 1918–19. In 1919–20, a total of 2,436 schools were established. 4,254 in 1920–21, 1,197 in 1922–23, 941 in 1923–24, and 4,834 in 1924–25.

Some travel writers stressed that in an underdeveloped country like India (and the USSR before the revolution) apart from expanding the infrastructure, much more was needed to bring people into the system of education. Sen (1959: 37) observed that university entry exams were very difficult and many young people failed, ‘just like in our country. But those who passed receive a stipend from 200-800 Rubles. Room rent is 1 Ruble and food is not more than 7 Rubles per day. Books, paper, notebooks etc. are for free’.

According to these authors, accessibility of education in Russia manifests itself also in the way the state manages multilingualism, a common challenge for both large countries. Tagore (1977 [1931]: 29) noted that providing education in the USSR ‘was no easy task, as their political dominion spreads over Europe and Asia. Even India does not contain as many races as they have’. This opinion is echoed by other travellers. Four decades later, Malakar (1972: 53) informs his readers that the Soviet Union is a very diverse country: ‘With 15 states of different size, number of people, language and culture, diversity is its distinctive feature’.

Most authors concentrate on solutions implemented in the USSR and do not discuss much about India by comparison. Tagore (1930: 79) claimed that since 1923, the Soviet government had been using all means to educate their 144 ethnic groups: ‘Children’s books are published in 62 languages. Primary education in 70 languages was introduced. And higher education institutions provide education in 25 languages’. Gangopadhyay (1985: 57) talked to the president of the Writers’ Association and found that the Russians ‘had exactly the same problem with languages as we have in India. They solved it by promoting translations. They have 77 languages in the Soviet Union, and each language has its own literature’. Thus, notable works written in any of the languages are translated into regional languages and Russian literature is translated into regional languages. Majumdar (1952: 112) enthusiastically proclaimed: ‘I sincerely hope that multilingual India will follow Russia’s example’.

Similarly, glowing appraisals are found in articles by Indian authors that were published in the Journal of the Indo-Soviet Cultural Society, named ISCUS, particularly its 50th Anniversary Issue of the 1917 Revolution in 1967. Having visited Russia as a member of a cultural delegation sent by India’s University Grants Commission to study Russian university education, Professor Wadia in a brief article of four pages on ‘Education in the USSR – A Multi-Lingual State’ observed that ‘[h]ow this miracle of so rapid a liquidation of illiteracy has been achieved will remain a conundrum to most of us’. He went on to characterise Russians as voracious readers, familiar with numerous translations of Indian literature, most prominently the works of Tagore. He was also impressed with Russia’s language policy at the time, found that ‘every Soviet citizen is a bilingualist’, and compared the position of Russian and Hindi as envisaged national languages.

Highlighting India’s problems with access to education, the Bengali travel writers take particular note of the long-term effects of India’s failures in this field. Nityanarayan Bandyopadhyay (1935: 11) writes after visiting Soviet schools and cultural institutions: ‘In this country common people have acquired the sense of dignity and their horizon has broadened so quickly. A few years back Russia, like India, remained blinded by superstitions, deeply conservative and divided along linguistic and religious lines’. Over time, some authors note, the situation in India had improved, but some grievances remain long after India’s independence. Malakar (1972: 34) observed that Russians love to read and that ‘some refinement of the mind of common people has been achieved. Common people of our country are exactly opposite of that’.

The Situation of Workers and Peasants ditto

Bandyopadhyay (1935: 3) sarcastically commented that ‘India can compete with other countries in the world only in such fields as diseases, poverty, and mortality rate’. The fate of the Indian poor and peasants was a matter of great concern for the Bengali travel writers. Visiting Soviet factories and collective farms (kolkhozes) they reflected on the huge discrepancies between Russia and India. Tagore (1977 [1931]: 41) remarked: ‘On that day in the Peasants’ House, I saw with my own eyes how the Russian peasants have left the Indian peasantry behind in less than a decade’. The travellers tried to identify reasons for India’s backwardness and often blamed limited agricultural mechanisation: ‘In just 30 years, agriculture here was brought from the primitive state to the new age of machine and science. While in our country peasants use a plough like in ancient times’ (Majumdar, 1952: 58). Others added the need for collectivisation that along with machines could contribute to poverty alleviation in the countryside. Sen (1959: 37) observed that earlier, there had been ‘poverty, starvation, hunger, just like in our country. What brought salvation was the system of collective farming. Science also played a role. Tractors, electric machines. Huge joint farms, similar to large factories’. Strikingly similar opinions were repeated much later by Malakar (1972: 30):

Many houses here look like those in regions of north India, but there are numerous differences. Here in every village there is a school and a brick building of polyclinic. Collective farms are huge. They have tractors, barns and buildings to accommodate cattle. Farmers look hefty. No trace of poverty in their looks. Children’s faces beam with happiness.

Although the narratives focused more on the conditions in the countryside than in the cities, reflection on the situation of factory workers was not missing. Tagore (1930: 118) dedicated long passages to reports from factories he visited and at one point quoted a labourer named Petrov:

During the Tsarist period, small children were dying working in factories just like they do in your country. And now I work seven hours a day and get paid twice that much as under the previous regime. I also get two weeks off per year. Older workers or those doing tougher jobs get even a month.… In every factory there are facilities for our education and education of our children. A club was established for us. If you want, I can tell you how many schools we have, how many various events are organised in our sewing factory.

More than half a century later, Gangopadhyay (1985: 103) also complained about persistent poverty in India and hailed the living conditions of the Soviet working class:

In our country when we say words like peasant, labourer, fisherman, shoemaker or potter, the image of a poor man in torn clothes and with bare body emerges immediately. But in fact, in many countries of the world, the minimal standard of living has improved much more than in ours. In all these countries peasants, labourers and shoemakers live in flats, have TV at home and it is not unusual for some of them to even have their own cars.

The authors also envied the accessibility and quality of public services that benefitted workers and peasants in the USSR. The Bengali word byabasthå (‘arrangement’, ‘facility’) often appears in these passages. Tagore (1977[1931]: 93), for example, praised Soviet sanatoriums, saying that ‘every individual may stay here for a fortnight. Food and comfort are adequate and medical assistance is arranged’. Elaborating on Soviet social policies, writers focused again on India’s underdevelopment. Majumdar (1952: 73) wrote:

‘In the country where I live, we do not have such a hospital even in the capital or a major city like Calcutta. I had heard before that rich countries like the USA did not have such healthcare facilities’. Malakar (1972: 58) went even further in his comparison between India and the USSR. While visiting a newly constructed sanatorium complex, he insisted that ‘it is difficult to find a difference between this health centre and Intercontinental Hotel in Delhi. Like in a modern hotel, you have all the luxury, mechanised equipment, resting areas, sitting rooms, radio in every room, bathtubs and many rooms have TV’.

The deplorable state of healthcare in India upset the travellers, as did the poor quality of other public services, especially housing. While Bandyopadhyay (1935: 80) merely noted briefly that Soviet workers lived in good conditions in ‘community houses’, for writers visiting Russia after 1947, public housing became a major area of interest. Describing standards of living in the Russian countryside, Sen (1959: 38) mentioned details such as access to electricity and water, which obviously impressed him: ‘Everyone has a home. Small, decorated, tidy. A married couple lives in one. Just got married, no kids, but the home is adorned with dolls and flowers. There is a kitchen, a bedroom, a drawing room, electric light, plenty of water’. From the 1970s onwards, the construction of huge apartment buildings in Russian cities drew the attention of travellers, both as an exotic example of city architecture and an important social policy. Gangopadhyay (1985: 69) claimed with apparent admiration that ‘according to the constitution of the USSR it is the state’s responsibility to provide housing to every citizen. Therefore a new flat is built here every five minutes’. Similarly, glowing reports are provided in the travel notes by Balawalli (1955), who was a member of the Bombay branch of the ISCUS delegation that visited the USSR in the autumn of 1954.

Other public services and state policies discussed in the Bengali travelogues range from public transportation, pension system to childcare and access to culture. Most narratives contain direct comparisons between India and the USSR. Malakar (1972: 54) reports from the Soviet Republic of Estonia: ‘Seeing Tallinn’s public transport, I felt jealous. It is such a small city in comparison with Calcutta, but they have more trams and buses. All so clean. No one travels hanging on the side’. Another traveller praised the conditions in prisons: ‘I saw many impressive things in Russia, but I was most fascinated and amazed by the organisation of the prison system. Our prisons cannot compare to the Russian ones’ (Bandyopadhyay, 1935: 3).

Gender Equality ditto

One cross-cutting issue all these male authors raise in their narratives is the situation of women. During their visits to schools, factories, libraries, or hospitals, they interacted with female workers and students. In various public spaces, women even outnumbered men, which gave rise to positive reactions: ‘Visiting a university in Moscow I noticed that 70% of students were women and 30% men. It gives you a sense to what extent women enjoy recently gained freedom’ (Bandyopadhyay, 1935: 14). Observing the Soviet example, the travel writers discussed restrictions limiting Indian women’s choices in family matters and professional life. S. Tagore (1930: 55) noted that ‘in Soviet Russia we can see that in almost every workplace women work alongside men. In our country, if a woman wants to work outside of home, we find countless reasons not to allow her to do that’. In the second half of the twentieth century, the focus of the writers’ criticism slightly shifted. As a journalist, Majumdar (1952: 67) reflected on why so many educated women engage in writing and reporting, yet so few become professional journalists. Indian culture and Indian men’s mentality come under scrutiny in such comments and such criticism persisted in the following decades. Malakar (1972: 67–8) claimed that in the field of gender equality, it is impossible to compare the Soviet Union to India: ‘Even in Western Europe’s developed countries, not so many women work as engineers, doctors or surgeons… Here all social or economic barriers to mingling and taking decisions on marriage and family were removed, while they still exist in our country’.

Conclusions

Travel narratives that focus on evaluating India against an ideal are not new to Bengali travel writing. In this way, accounts from the USSR correspond with earlier travel narratives on England. As demonstrated above, the perception of India as ‘unmodern’, ‘traditional’ and in need of change haunted Bengalis travelling far away from the Empire and long after independence. Throughout six decades, Bengali travellers toured Russia, visiting schools, cultural centres, factories, collective farms and sanatoriums. For many the Soviet Union epitomised a promised land, a country that left behind its imperial past and successfully introduced a new social and economic system. Here was a country similar to India, but which had succeeded in overcoming its challenges to build a fair society and effective governance. Bengali travel writers were clearly intrigued by the similarities and differences between the two countries. Whether any resemblances were real or illusory, their narratives are built around comparisons and concerns about India’s present and future.

It is unsurprising, therefore, that most of the travelogues examined in this article contained a strong educational message for Indian readers. Some authors, like S. Tagore (1930: 97–8), expressed this openly:

We must change life in villages and cities, we must eradicate today’s moral norms and through education introduce a new way of life in the future. Such progressive work has already started in one country. There is a need to spread information about it because eventually similar work will start in every corner of the world. It is becoming more and more obvious. This book was written so that India would not lose her chance.

Majumdar (1952: 174) quoted himself speaking to his Russian counterparts at the end of the journey: ‘We will inform the people of our country about what we have seen here. We have a lot to learn, especially from what you have done here for the education and upbringing of children and adolescents’. Clearly, the primary purpose of these writings was not to provide entertainment or amusement but to disseminate information on how the Soviet system worked in practice. Some authors, if not all, certainly hoped that their accounts might contribute to India’s transformation towards development and modernity. Although most of them were not formally involved in politics, deliberately or not, they amplified the message of the Soviet propaganda. They left the USSR with a firm belief that socialism is the future for all countries, especially impoverished former colonies.