# Ramtanu Lahiri, Brahman and Reformer: A History of the Renaissance in Bengal/Chapter 5

CHAPTER V. THE BEGINNING OF THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION IN BENGAL
We propose in this chapter to illustrate the processes by which a new epoch in the political, social, and educational history of Bengal was introduced during the twenty years following 1825.
It is known to every reader of history that the English had come to this country as merchants, and that as merchants they had conquered it. Even when they had virtually become the masters of India, they were governed and guided by the purely mercenary spirit, the spirit of making money by hook or by crook; and it took some time to obliterate this stain.
In the early history of British India there was a class of officers under the East India Company called factors, whose business it was to superintend the Company’s factories, and the purchases and sales made in its name, to keep accounts, and in general promote to its mercantile interests. When, in 1765, the Company was entrusted with the civil administration of the country, these factors became the collectors of revenue; and the chief feature that marked them was their desire to enrich themselves in every way they could. Having no love for the people, they screwed money out of them by fair means or foul; and did nothing for the benefit of the millions over whom it had pleased Providence to place them, because it never entered their minds that they were responsible for the comforts or discomforts of those under them. Their ​conduct in connection with the great famine that devastated the whole province of Bengal in 1770-1771 may be cited as an illustration. One-third of the inhabitants were carried off, yet the collection of the revenue was made unremittingly, and even with greater rigour than before. To convince the reader of this, let us draw his attention to a portion of Warren Hastings’ letter to his masters in England, in regard to this famine:
“It was naturally to be expected that the diminution of the revenue should have kept pace with the other consequences of so great a calamity. That it did not was owing to its being violently kept up to its former standard. To ascertain all the means by which this was effected is not easy.. . . One tax, however, we will endeavour to describe, as it may serve to account for the equality which has been preserved in the past collections, and to which it has principally contributed. It is called Najay, and it is an assessment upon the actual inhabitants of every inferior description of land to make up for the loss sustained in the rents of their neighbours, who are either dead or have fled the country.”
The following statement showing the collections made during the year of the famine and the years immediately preceding and following it may interest the reader:—
| 1768-69 | . . | 15,254,856 |
| 1769-70 | . . | 13,149,148 |
| 1770-71 | . . | 14,006,030 |
| 1771-72 | . . | 15,726,576 |
We can, from the passage just quoted from Hastings’ letter, see that diminution in the revenue on account of the death of so many as one-third of the population of Bengal was made up by enormously increased demands upon the remaining two-thirds. Hastings, in justification of this, ​said that the method adopted was in accordance with the practice previously in vogue during the civil administration of the Mughuls, and that the English Government had not directly enjoined this mode of procedure. But this is not a sound plea. Government may not directly have told the revenue officers to be so relentless; but it virtually did so when it ordered its subordinates to see that the rents collected did not fall short even by a kauri.
The East India Company, and their myrmidons in the country, remained quite indifferent to the interests of their subjects. These, again, did not regard them in any other light than that of foreigners who had come to enrich themselves at their expense. The people also doubted the stability of their rule; for it was a matter of doubt if they could get the better of the mighty opposition received from different sides. There were the Nawabs, the Mahrattas, the Burmese, all arrayed to contend for supremacy with the English. There were bands of rebels, too, in Bishnupur and Birbhum, places close to Calcutta. But this state of things soon passed away; and the English at last became the undisputed masters of the country. The people on this became more mindful of their duties to their new rulers; and the latter, in their turn, came to understand their new responsibilities. There grew up a sympathy between conquerors and the conquered, who now desired to win the good will of each other; and in this state of mind, the important question that the rulers were called upon to decide was whether, in governing the country, they should follow the plan of administration still extant, or introduce a new and reformed system. The ruled also had to work out the problem whether it was expedient for them to remain staunch Conservatives, or to hail the changes the new Government might effect. It took the parties twenty years, the period between 1825 and 1845, to come to a decision ​on these points; and at last both the English and their subjects arrived at the conclusion that radical reforms were essential.
The local English authorities before this had carefully avoided introducing the least change in the administration of the country. They had first entrusted intelligent Indians with the responsible duty of collecting the revenue. But these men soon betrayed the trust by robbing the ryot right and left; and it was found necessary to abolish the posts they filled. These revenue collectors were called Naibs or Dewans; and two of them, Govinda Ram and Ganga Gobindo Singh, who were respectively the Dewans of Clive and Hastings, are notorious in history as speculators of the first class. There were several others of the same stamp; and Government thought it best to do away with them all. Their conduct had served so much to disgrace the native character, that Lord Cornwallis, on taking into his hands the reins of government, dismissed the Hindus and the Muhammadans from all responsible posts, and appointed Europeans in their stead.
The English Government had at first, as we have already said, a predilection for Oriental learning. It did much for the culture of Sanskrit, Persian, and Arabic, while English was carefully excluded. But circumstances soon made it necessary for the Government to act otherwise, and to give the natives of India means of obtaining some insight into the treasures of literature and science amassed by the Western intellect. And in this way a new epoch in the intellectual history of Bengal, if not in that of all India, was inaugurated — an epoch rendered especially illustrious by its association with such men as Bentinck, Macaulay and Raja Rammohan Roy. The last of these three not only drew Lord Amherst’s attention to the expediency of giving English education to the people of India, but also ​opened the eyes of his countrymen to the benefits of such education. He, as it were, turned their faces from the East towards the West. In spite of his great regard for everything Oriental, he held up the Occidental’s love of science, of moral excellence, and his desire to promote the welfare of all, as worthy of imitation. In time he drew many to his side, and a movement was soon organised, the object of which was to cultivate the knowledge of English literature and science, and to introduce such social and moral reforms as were deemed necessary. The end of these reformers was noble, but the means used by them were not always prudent. They had a strong orthodox party to oppose them, and in their contest with it they at times ran to extremes; and the collision between these classes was, as we will show hereafter, productive of great evil.
Most of those who had received their education in the Hindu College, and the other seminaries in Calcutta, were fired with the desire to do away with everything that was old and embrace everything that was new. “Cast off your prejudices, and be free in your thoughts and actions,” was their watchward; and there was at the time a new force at work to foster this independent spirit.
Stirring reports of the French Revolution reached their ears. Some of their English friends expressed sympathy with the movement; and such works in English literature as advocated its course were placed within their reach. No wonder then that they soon became thorough revolutionists, and were resolved to lay the axe at the root of everything that savoured of ignorance and superstition. The orthodox customs of the country were run down wholesale by them; and the cry they raised was: “Break down everything old, and rear in its stead what is new.”
It was at this crisis that Lord William Bentinck came to ​India as its ruler. His keen preception, sedate judgment, and firm resolution have immortalised him in history. With a strong hand he put down the cruel and barbarous custom of the self-immolation of Hindu widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands, and rid the country of those murderous fiends in human shape, the Thugs. He was no less zealous in the cause of education. The Calcutta Medical College owed its birth to him; and it seemed that he had come to India with the firm resolution of giving it a place among countries noted for intellectual and moral progress. Rammohan Roy felt a new stimulus for work at this time of general excitement. He openly and courageously attacked Puranic Hinduism; neither did he hesitate to use his rationalistic weapons against Christianity. He wrote his “Precepts of Jesus,” “Appeals to the Christian Public,” and The Brahmanical Magazine, and thereby brought upon himself the displeasure of the Serampur missionaries. On their refusal thenceforth to publish his works, he managed to get a press of his own, and named it the “Unitarian Press.” He also inaugurated a Unitarian prayer meeting, which was held in the upper storey of the house whence the Harkaru, an English journal of the time, was published.
Tarachand Chakravartti.
​in the name of religion; while others, more wary, recommended that the experiment be first made in the non-regulation provinces. At length, in the early part of 1828, Lord Amherst, fearing to interfere with this custom of the Hindus, enjoined, as he saw, by the Shastras, left the custom to die a natural death, as the following extract from his writings will show:—
“I think there is reason to believe and expect that, except on the occurrence of some general sickness, such as that which prevailed in the lower parts of Bengal in 1825, the progress of general instruction, and the unostentatious exertions of our local officers, will produce the happy effect of a gradual diminution, and at no distant period the final extinction, of the barbarous rite of sati.”
When the Governor-General thus shelved this important question the dissatisfaction of Rammohan Roy and his party knew no bounds. They bound themselves by solemn pledges to trace, whenever the cruel rite was performed, all the monstrous circumstances attending it, and then to lay these before Government.
In the month of Bhadra, 1828, Rammohan Roy established the Brahmo Samaj in Chitpore Road. Hitherto he had attended for worship the Unitarian prayer meeting where his friend Mr Adam officiated as minister. One Sunday evening, as he was returning home from prayers with his friends, Tarachand Chakravartti and Chandra Sikhar Deb, the latter, in course of conversation, said to him, “Dewanjee, we now go to a house of worship where a foreigner officiates. Should we not have a place where we might meet and worship God in our own way?” This appeal touched the heart of Rammohan, and he hired the parlour of one Kamal Bose, in the Chitpore Road, that he and his friends might assemble there for worship.
They first met in this place on the 6th of Bhadra, ​with Babu Tarachand Chakravartti as their secretary. The service was held every Saturday evening, and conducted in a way to show that Rammohan Roy’s “Brahmism” was Hinduism in a more refined form, and something quite different from the religion of modern Brahmos. The Vedas and Upanishadas were honoured as revelations of the Divine will, and read with as much reverence as the Bible receives from Christians. But still the new form of religious thought was very much hated by almost all the Hindus of the old school; and Bengal became the scene of a continual warfare between these and the party under Rammohan Roy’s leadership.
The general excitement attending the conflict between the old and the new school soon got within the academic portals of the Hindu College. There many young minds, under Mr Derozio’s instruction, acquired the inspiration requisite for a successful conflict with whatever might interfere with the cause of reformation. Mr Derozio’s connection with the Hindu College lasted only for three years; but in that short period he implanted such noble principles in the minds of his pupils as stood them in good stead all through life. Many of them in after years filled distinguished positions in the world, and stood unrivalled in their many qualifications. We here give an account of one of these, as recited in the story of one of the members of the “Prayer Society” in Bombay, the well-known Mahadevan Paramananda: “In my youth I met in the city of Bombay an ascetic with an assumed name, which I do not now remember, who was well educated in English. In a short time I got acquainted with him. He did not long remain with us, but left for Kathiawar. Shortly after this there appeared in one of the leading journals in Bombay a series of articles in English on the misgovernment of Kathiawar. They were so well written ​ as to create a great sensation. They attracted the notice of the Raja of the Kathiawar State that was referred to, who, after some inquiry, discovered that the writer was a certain Sanyasi. The Raja had the Sanyasi brought before him, and heard from him that, moved by the ryots’ sad account of their grievances, and their entreaties for help, he had taken up their cause in the hope that their Raja would adopt a better and more considerate policy. The tyrant at first threw the Sanyasi into prison, where he remained for a year. But the agitation was continued; and the Raja, to follow a conciliatory policy, set him free, and offered him the post of Prime Minister. On this, the answer he gave was, ‘I have no such desire, otherwise I should not have taken the vows of asceticism. I can, however, give you the necessary instruction.’ That day, virtually, commenced the Sanyasi’s administration. His first order was, that the existing corrupt body of officials should be dismissed, and that English-speaking men with some knowledge of the principles of British administration should be appointed in their places. To secure the services of such men he himself came to Bombay. We had, in the meantime, heard everything concerning the Sanyasi’s doings; and great was our surprise when we found that the champion for the oppressed people of Kathiawar was no other than the Sanyasi who had previously been with us. He took a body of men with him to serve in the Kathiawar raj, and I was one of them. We had worked for about a year when the old officers, whose places we had taken, and who had ever since been plotting against us, at last succeeded in getting us dismissed, at forty-eight hours’ notice, and we all returned to Bombay. During our intercourse with the Sanyasi he, when asked his past history, among other things, talked highly of the teacher of his youth, Mr Derozio.” ​We now resume the thread of our narrative. In a year Mr Derozio gained so great an ascendancy over the minds of his pupils that its effects were visible on all their thoughts and actions. Babu Hara Mohan Chatterjee, at that time clerk of the Hindu College, writes on this point, and we quote his very words without altering them in. the least:
The Rev. Krishna Mohan Banerji, C.I.E. 1813-1885
With such materials did Mr Derozio form his “Academic Association.” He was its president, and a young man, Umacharan Bose by name, its first secretary. Krishna Mohan Banerji, Rupi Krishna Mullick, Ram Gopal Ghosh, Radhanath Sirkar, Dakhinaranjan Mukerji, Hara Chandra Ghosh, and other senior students addressed the meetings. Ramtanu Lahiri, with Sibchandra Deb, Peari Chand Mitra, and others formed the audience. The proceedings of the association in time attracted so much public attention that men like David Hare, Colonel Benson, Lord William Bentick’s private secretary, Colonel Beaton, afterwards Adjutant-General, Dr Mills, Principal of Bishop’s College, used to attend the meetings and watch the discussions with keen interest and admiration. Moral and social questions were fearlessly discussed there, and the result was that the pupils of Derozio learnt to appreciate freedom of thought and action. The boldness with which they attacked the religious and social institutions of their country was thus set forth by the same Hara Mohan Chatterjee whom we have just quoted:
“The principles and practices of Hindu religion were openly ridiculed and condemned, and angry disputes were held on moral subjects. The sentiments of Hume had been widely diffused and warmly patronised. The most glowing harangues were delivered at debating clubs, which were then numerous. The Hindu religion was denounced as vile and corrupt, and unworthy the regard of rational beings. The degraded state of the Hindus formed the topic of many debates; their ignorance and superstitions were declared to be the causes of such a state, and it was then resolved that nothing but a liberal education could enfranchise the minds of the people. The degradation of the female mind was viewed with indignation. The resolution, at a very large meeting, was carried ​ unanimously that Hindu women should be taught; and we are assured of the fact that the wife of one of the leaders of the movement was a most accomplished lady, who included, amongst the subjects with which she was acquainted, moral philosophy and mathematics.”
War was thus declared between the orthodox and the reformers among the students of the Hindu College; and the question of religion was threshed out, not only in the college, but also within their own homes. Old grandmothers were shocked to hear their grandsons vilifying the gods; and fathers were dismayed to find that their sons, expected to offer cakes and balls of overboiled rice to their ancestors’ manes, had turned traitors to their ancient faith. There are many instances on record in which guardians, failing to gain their wards over by argument or persuasion, had recourse to bitter persecution; and the latter had often to leave their homes and seek shelter elsewhere. In these family dissensions the young Bengali never lost his temper, but had often recourse to tricks showing how sprightly and humorous he was. Peari Chand Mitra, in his “Life of David Hare,” refers to the many shifts to which some of the students were put. He says: “Many a Brahman lad who had lost faith in the idols, and refused to worship them, was often thrust into the room of the tutelary god of the family, and left there with the hope that his obstinacy would soon yield to the august and awe-inspiring presence of the deity.” But far from that being the case, the young student would utilise the period of his incarceration by reciting selected portions from Homer’s Iliad. Some there were again whose aversion to the orthodox Hindu was so great, and whose desire to make themselves merry at his expense so strong, that, whenever they met a Chanshould Brahman with the sacerdotal mark on his forehead, they danced round ​him, bawling in his ears, “We eat beef, listen, we eat beef.”
There was at this time a Brahman in Calcutta named Brindaban Ghosal, whose favourite practice was, every morning, after a bath in the river, to visit the houses of the rich and carry reports — often exaggerated — of the young men’s attacks on Hinduism. He represented them as atheistic in their beliefs, disrespectful to their parents, and capable of committing the most heinous sins; and he abused Derozio as the root of all this. He even went so far as to insinuate that among the educated class the question of marrying one’s sister was being mooted, and that Dakhinaranjan’s sister was soon to be given in marriage to his Eurasian Guru. Rumours like this created immense excitement throughout the city. They at length reached the ears of the College Committee, which directed the headmaster, Mr Anselmnot, to forbid any master engaging in conversation with the boys, either in or out of study hours, on religious subjects — also to forbid their eating any food while in the college.
While Hindu society was in this excited state another circumstance happened, on the 4th of December 1829, to add fuel to the fire. Lord William Bentinck issued his edict against Sati in the following terms:—
“It is hereby declared that after the promulgation of this regulation all persons convicted of aiding and abetting in the sacrifice of a Hindu widow by burning or burying her alive, whether the service be voluntary on her part or not, shall be deemed guilty of culpable homicide, and shall be liable to punishment by fine or imprisonment, or both.”
A few days after this — i.e. on the 11th day of the month Magh, 1830 — Rammohan Roy’s Brahmo Samaj first met in the house newly built for its use. At the ​time of inauguration the following words from its trust deed were read out:— “Men of all classes, without distinction of caste, colour, or creed, shall have access to this building, only on condition that they worship the one true God alone, and know no god save Him.” Both these events maddened the orthodox Hindus of Calcutta. Raja Radhakanta Deb, at that time leader of their society, inaugurated the “Religious Association,” a branch of which was established by Mati Lal at Colootola. Bhavani Charan Banerji, editor of the Bengali paper Chandrika, went about preaching Hinduism with zeal. Almost all the rich people of Calcutta were admitted into the “Religious Association,” and innumerable carriages were to be seen at the gate of the house where it was held on the days of meeting. Its members had a great spite against Rammohan, and it was to crush him, they said, that they had combined. They resolved to excommunicate his party.
But the founder of the Brahmo Samaj remained unmoved. He, with his few adherents, went to the Samaj for worship as if nothing had happened. On many occasions, while returning from there in his carriage, he was waylaid by the mob, instigated by his opponents, abused and pelted, but he bore all with calmness. The regulation against Sati, and the establishment of the Brahmo Samaj, had so infuriated the minds of the citizens of Calcutta that Rammohan Roy could get only a very limited number — consisting of his personal friends alone — to sign their name to the letter of thanks to Lord William Bentinck for the humane measure he had taken to stop the self-murder of the widows.
It was a few months after these events that the noted missionary, Dr Duff, came to Calcutta, and with Rammohan Roy’s help established an English School with the ​purpose of educating the native mind so that it might grasp the truths of the Gospel. He began at first with six boys. There was, however, a number of young men who had received, or were receiving, instruction from Derozio, whom he could approach with Christian truths; and it was in the hope of acquiring a closer acquaintance with them that he took his lodgings in a house near the Hindu College, and commenced delivering lectures to them. That Hindu boys, who had already to some extent broken with their religion, should have an opportunity of hearing Christian doctrines, was a cause of great grief to the College Committee, which went so far as to interdict the students of the college from attending the lectures. The Committee did not stop there; it caused the dismissal of Mr Derozio from his post in the college.
Babu Ram Kamal Sen, grandfather of the late Keshub Chandra Sen, acting as their mouthpiece, called a Committee meeting, and moved that Mr Derozio’s manners and conduct were such as to injure the morals of the boys in touch with him, and that he should be removed from the staff of masters. David Hare and Dr Wilson took Mr Derozio’s side, and the majority of the members did not dare to oppose them. The proposal had to be given up. But the young man’s enemies did not give up their hostile intentions. They objected to his being retained in service on the ground that, in the present state of the country, the continuance of his connection with the college would be detrimental to its interests. Here Mr Hare and Dr Wilson were compelled to remain silent. They did not know fully what the state of the country was, and therefore felt themselves unable to give their opinion. Having insured their silence, the majority of the Committee passed the resolution that Mr Derozio be dismissed. ​
But he was not the man to be thus downtrodden. Having been informed by Dr Wilson of the Committee’s resolution, he sent in his resignation, together with a letter refuting the charges against him, and protesting against the unjust treatment he had received. He said he had never preached Atheism, never recommended marriages between brothers and sisters, and never inculcated disobedience to parents. On leaving the college, in April 1831, Mr Derozio started a daily paper, under the name of The East Indian, which in a short time obtained a considerable prestige. He became, by dint of his intellectual gifts, the leader of the Eurasian society in Calcutta. But Providence willed that he should soon leave this world of trial. It was only for a few months, after which he was called away to his final rest. On the 17th of December 1831 he was seized with cholera, and died six days after. On his sick-bed he received the kindest attentions from Krishna Mohan Banerji, Dakhinaranjan Mukerji, Ram Gopal Ghosh, and other Indian admirers.
Ramgopal Ghosh.
​fled. The neighbours in a body then interviewed Krishna Mohan’s grandfather, and threatened to excommunicate him if he did not then and there expel his grandson from the house. Poor Krishna, having been absent from home the whole day, was quite ignorant of all this; and was on his return quite thunderstruck to find the forces in array against him. He was forced to leave his maternal roof at once, and having no place to lay his head during the night he sought shelter with his friend Dakhinaranjan.
This incident made him and his friends more unsparing in their criticisms on Hinduism. Since the previous May he had been editing a paper called The Inquirer, and now, when an outcast, he assumed a very bitter tone against his persecutors. It was as if the trumpet of war had, been sounded; and the phalanx of Bengali reformers now advanced to throw down the castles of error and superstition.
Mr Duff had in the meantime been doing his work as a Christian missionary. He had been busy sowing the seeds of truth; and.these at length fell on good soil. Mahes Chandra Ghosh, an old pupil of Mr Derozio, accepted Christ as his Saviour on 28th August 1832; and on the 17th of October the same year Krishna Mohan was admitted into the Christian Church.
After this long digression, we at length come to our hero. Having completed his education in the Hindu College, he became a teacher in it in 1833. We will conclude this chapter by noticing how the door to high offices under Government was thrown open to Indian gentlemen. The efforts of Rammohan, backed by the advice of Lord William Bentinck, succeeded in moving the British Parliament to legislate, at the renewal of the East India Company’s charter in 1833, that no native of British India ​be by reason of his creed or colour excluded from high offices under Government. We quote verbatim the 87th Section of the Act:
“And be it enacted that no native of the said territories, nor any natural born subject of his Majesty, resident therein, shall by reason only of his religion, place of birth, descent, colour, or any of them, be disabled from holding any place, office, or employment, under the said Company.”