# Ramtanu Lahiri, Brahman and Reformer: A History of the Renaissance in Bengal/Chapter 4

CHAPTER IV. THE INTRODUCTION OF ENGLISH EDUCATION INTO BENGAL; AND THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE HINDU COLLEGE
In 1828 Ramtanu left the Society’s School with a scholarship, and was admitted to the Hindu College. Before we describe his college career we propose here to dwell on the points noted at the head of the present chapter.
After the civil administration of the country had come into the hands of the East India Company, every English judge, supposed to be ignorant of the people, their manners, and the spirit of the law which had so long been administered to them, had a Maulvi in his court to assist him in his work. But it was difficult to get a clever Maulvi. To supply this want, and partly to reconcile the Muhammadans to the British rule, Warren Hastings established, in 1781, the Calcutta Madrasah for the education of their children in Arabic and Persian. He took so great an interest in the matter that, without consulting the authorities in England, he gave a large sum for founding the institution. The money was afterwards refunded by the Court of Directors. Besides this the Madrasah had a grant of a landed property producing annually 30,000 rupees.
Sir John Phear
Photo. J. R. Browning, Exeter.
​the first year; and the next year it sanctioned 30,000 rupees as the annual expenditure. It was made a rule that the teachers should all be Brahmans, except the Professor of the Science of Medicine, and the students received instruction in the way prescribed by the Shastras.
The attitude of the Government at that time towards the religion of the Hindus and the Muhammadans was very friendly. It did not in the least interfere with their religious institutions and customs, but rather countenanced them. It is said that on the occasion of festivals, guns were fired from English forts in their honour, and British soldiers, and even magistrates, were found at the scenes of these festivals, not only to keep the peace, but to make a respectful recognition of their sacred and solemn character. The East India Company was supposed to be the guardian of the big temples in the country, and made a large income by imposing a tax called “The Pilgrim’s Tax.” This amounted to a very large sum. In 1840 it was found that the tax had brought three lakhs of rupees annually into the Government’s treasury. It was abolished in that year, and we hope it will ever remain a thing only of the past. There was another freak of the Government which should be noticed here, and which, even after so many years, has not lost its interest. The Governor-General, in the event of the Company’s success in war, or in any other serious undertaking, made valuable offerings to the gods in their temples through their priests. This was regarded as un-Christian, and Lord Auckland abolished all such taxes and pujas. From the reports which Englishmen at home received of the people of India, most of them believed that these people were deficient in intellect, depraved in morals, and ignorant of their spiritual concerns. The “Gentoo” was, in the estimation of the average Englishman, almost a being of ​the same class with the Red Indian of America. The opinions of those who had lived in the country, and observed the people, were more flattering. To this class belonged Charles Grant. He was a real friend of India, and he laid its claims before Parliament. He moved “that a thorough education be given to the different races inhabiting the country, that the Gospel be preached to them, and that the conduct of no servant of the East India Company be such as to throw a stumbling-block in their way.” He also wrote a pamphlet on the last of these points and placed it in the hands of the Board of Control. Wilberforce, the great philanthropist, promised to support him. The Chairman of the Board at first showed an inclination to support Grant’s views, and to see that practical measures be taken to carry them out; but afterwards, influenced by the Court of Directors, he changed his mind; and so Mr Grant’s endeavours were fruitless.
Pandit Iswara Chandra Vidyasagara.
​Vedas, the Vedantas, the Gita, and the Puranas were unknown to the pandits of the time.
However, people, especially the inhabitants of Calcutta, soon felt the necessity of giving their sons some education in English. They were sharp enough to see that familiarity with this language would shortly be the only passport to respectable positions; and the establishment of English schools was eagerly desired by them. But who was to respond to their wishes? Not the Government at first, but the Christian missionaries, Carey, Marshman, and Ward, who, under the auspices of the Danish Governor at Serampur, had there begun their labour of love. They started English schools among the people with whom they came into contact.
We should here allude to the encouragement given by Lord Wellesley to the improvement of Bengali literature. In 1800, with the object of giving to young civilians from Haileybury College a tolerable knowledge of Bengali, so essential to them, he established the College of Fort William. But there were then no good text-books in the language. This he felt, and requested some of the Sanskrit scholars of the day to remove the want; and at his instance Dr Carey wrote his Bengali Grammar and Mritanjoy Vidyalankar, Ramram Bose, Haraprosad Rai, Rajib Lochan, and Chandi Charan Munshi, several works in Bengali prose. These works were studied from 1800 to 1818. But they were not specimens of chaste Bengali; for, the language not having a copious vocabulary then, there were too many Persian words in them.
The Fort William College is no longer in existence, but it has still a sacred place in our memory, being associated with Iswara Chandra Vidyasagara, who was a teacher there for some time, and who wrote for its use the ​“Vetala-panchabinsati,” in 1847. This was the first work in pure Bengali.
Along with the impetus that was given in the city to the study of Bengali, English schools were established by several Eurasians, of whom Sherbourne, Martin Bowles, and Arathoon Petras were the chief. Many of those who distinguished themselves in after years received their education in these schools; such as the great Dwarka Nath Tagore in Sherbourne’s, Mati Lal Seal in Martin Bowles’, and blind Nitya Sen and lame Adaitya Sen in Arathoon’s. As soon as the young men of the time got a smattering of English they commonly abandoned their national costume, and substituted for it loose trousers, chapkans, and laced shoes. As to their attainments in English, there was neither grammar nor idiom in what they wrote or spoke; but they enjoyed greater credit as masters of the language than any distinguished English scholar of the present day. According to the system then followed, English grammar and composition were totally neglected. The boys were taught only words and their meanings; and one who could learn by heart most of these carried off the palm. It is said that the Serampur missionaries, in giving certificates to men, stated how many English words they knew. It was the custom in the schools we have mentioned to make the pupils learn by heart a certain number of words every day. Committing an English dictionary to memory was the most laudable feat that a student could achieve.
We may be asked how such a poor and imperfect knowledge of English could be of any use. How could people, supplied only with this knowledge, make themselves intelligible to those whose language they had learnt? There are many stories on the point, and we notice one. A sircar used to lunch every day on some of the grain kept for his master’s horses. It soon came to the notice of the sahib, and ​kept for his master’s horses. It soon came to the notice of the sahib, and on his asking the sircar why he had meddled with the grain, the latter tried to justify himself, saying, “Yesh, Shir, my house morning and ebening too, twenty libesh full, litteel litteel pay, how manage?” This oration in correct English means, “Yes, sir, I have to feed the members of my family, twenty in number; the salary I get is too small to enable me to do so; how can I manage to buy my lunch?” It is said that this magnificent speech secured the sircar an increase of pay. Englishmen were greatly amused at hearing the Bengalis’ ridiculous attempts to speak their language. It supplied them with an inexhaustible fund of mirth at their tables.
The Government, as we have said before, did nothing at first for the spread of English education in the country, because it feared lest by doing so it should incur public disfavour. One of its chief weaknesses, though amiable in motive, was the apprehension that the introduction of anything new, or the least criticism made on anything dear to the people, would be dangerous. As an instance, we may refer to the high-handed proceedings of the Governor-General in 1807, to stop the circulation of a Persian pamphlet written and published by Dr Carey to show the superiority of Christianity over Muhammadism. A letter was at once sent to the Danish Governor at Serampur asking him to take possession of his house in Calcutta; and Carey was deprived of the only means he then had of approaching the followers of Islam with the truths so dear to him. Owing to the same timidity, also, the East India Company strictly enjoined the Governor-General not to take any direct steps towards giving English education to their subjects.
But in 1811, Lord Minto, being impressed with the backward condition of the people under his rule, ​made the following representation to the authorities in England:—
“It is a common remark that science and literature are in a progressive state of decay among the natives of India. From every inquiry I have been enabled to make on this interesting subject, that remark appears to me but too well founded. The number of the learned is not only diminished, but the circle of learning, even among those who still devote themselves to it, appears to be considerably constricted. The abstract sciences are abandoned, polite literature neglected, and no branch of learning cultivated but what is connected with the peculiar religious doctrines of the people. The immediate consequence of this state of things is the disuse, and even actual loss, of many books; and it is to be apprehended that, unless Government takes action in the matter, the revival of letters may shortly become hopeless, from the want of books or of persons capable of explaining them. I would accordingly recommend that in addition to the college at Benares (to be subjected, of course, to the reform already suggested), colleges be established at Nadia, and at Bhowi in the district of Tirhoot.”
The question may here arise, what made Lord Minto take up the matter. His predecessors had slept over the wretched condition of learning among the people of India; and the same lethargy might have kept him inactive, but for a certain new force that was made to act on him. Since the time of Sir William Jones, Englishmen in India had been possessed by a mania for learning Sanskrit; and at the time of which we are speaking every educated Englishman took a pride in knowing, more or less, this classical language. The great Sanskrit scholars, Colebrooke. Dr H. H. Wilson, Messrs James and Thoby Prinsep, Hay MacNaghten, Sutherland, and Shakespear, ​originated the movement; and, acting in accordance with their wishes, Lord Minto took this step. These illustrious scholars had come to know the shallowness of the pandits’ knowledge of Sanskrit, and, in their anxiety for the revival of its ancient literature, they moved the Governor-General to make the appeal to the home authorities. And his appeal was partially listened to by them, for the next despatch of the Court of Directors contained the instruction, “That a sum, of not less than a lakh of rupees in each year, shall be set apart and applied to the revival and improvement of literature, and to the encouragement of the learned natives of India, and for the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the sciences in the British territories of India.”
The Court of Directors did not of their own accord undertake to spend so large a sum of money for the education of their subjects in India, but they did so under Parliamentary pressure, at the renewal of the Company’s charter in 1813. Nothing material was done to carry out the instruction of the directors till the 17th of July 1823, when the Committee of Public Instruction was formed. The annual grant of a lakh of rupees made by the directors was utilised by the Committee in having ancient Arabic and Sanskrit works printed, and in awarding scholarships to distinguished pandits and students desirous of studying those works. We will deal more particularly with this afterwards.
We have already said how, at the commencement of the past century, some of the people of Calcutta felt the necessity of giving an English education to the rising generation of their time. And we have indicated the imperfect attempts that were made to supply the need. We now propose to follow the chain of events that led to the establishment of the Hindu College in Calcutta, ​and of the Missionary College at Serampur. Schools also were founded at Chinsurah and Benares.
The reader has already been told that the Hindu College was established under the joint exertions of David Hare, Raja Rammohan Roy and Baidyanath Mukerjee, backed by the Chief Justice, Sir Hyde East. After these four gentlemen had come to the conclusion that there should be in Calcutta an English College for the education of Hindus, one of them, Baidyanath Babu, went round collecting the opinions of the public. They gladly embraced the project; and on the 14th of May 1816 a meeting of the chief Hindus of the city was convened in Sir Hyde’s house. At this meeting, matters went smoothly for some time; when, someone having mentioned that Raja Rammohan Roy was one of the chief projectors of the college, and suggested that he should be a member of the Managing Board, all the Hindu gentlemen present passionately exclaimed, “Then we will have nothing to do with the proposed college!” — so greatly was the Raja hated for obeying the voice of his conscience rather than man. Sir Hyde did not know what to do. He was in a dilemma. To offend these magnates was to aim a death-blow at the project, while to exclude Rammohan from the Managing Committee would be discourteous in the extreme. At a loss to decide his course, he consulted Mr David Hare, who extricated him from the difficulty, saying, “Sir Hyde, there is no cause for anxiety. Rammohan will, on learning the feelings of these gentlemen, withdraw his name from the Committee.” Mr Hare was right in his conjecture; for no sooner had he told his friend what had happened than the latter said, “What, shall I insist on my name being in the Committee and thus jeopardise the noble scheme?” And immediately after this, he ​wrote to the Chief Justice to strike out his name. Another meeting was held on the 21st of the same month, at which it was finally resolved that the Hindu College should be established; and a new Committee was formed, with ten Englishmen and twenty Hindus. Lieutenant Irving and Babu Baidyanath Mukerjee were its joint-secretaries. The Hindu College began its work on 20th January 1817. Another school was founded at Chinsurah, by Rev. Robert May, of the London Missionary Society, in 1814, with only sixteen boys. But the number soon increased. At length Mr Forbes, Commissioner of Hughli, gave to the school a part of the Dutch fort at Chinsurah. There was soon such a large influx of students that Mr May was compelled to open several branch schools. The total number of pupils in all these institutions was 951, and Mr Forbes, satisfied with their efficiency, secured for them Government aid amounting to 600 rupees a month.
The Serampur College was founded by the Baptist Missionaries in 1815. Besides this they, with the help of Rammohan Rai and Dwarkanath Tagore, opened many schools here and there in other parts of Bengal. The former had a great dread of purely secular education. He knew the wholesome influence of religious training, and that was the reason why he helped the missionaries so much in their educational work. It was for this reason too that Alexander Duff afterwards found a friend and coadjutor in him.
In 1814 a rich Hindu of Benares, Jagatnarain Ghoshal by name, at his death bequeathed to the London Missionary Society 20,000 rupees, with the condition that it should support an English school. The London Missionary Society accepted the trust. The school has now been raised to the status of a college, but it is no longer ​in the hands of this body, but under the Church Missionary Society.
But amidst all these efforts in the cause of English education, the Governor-General and his Council remained quite inactive in the matter. They thought only of the revival of classic learning. The project of establishing a Sanskrit College in Tirhoot was given up, because the distance of the place from the metropolis did not admit of proper inspection or superintendence, and with the funds originally intended for it the Calcutta Sanskrit college was founded.
Finding that the claims of English education were entirely ignored by Government, Rammohan Rai, in a letter to Lord Amherst, urged the necessity of giving young India a thorough knowledge of the Occidental sciences through the medium of English. We quote the last paragraph of the letter, which shows how the writer’s master mind was possessed of such broad and exalted ideas as have developed, even in European minds, only in modern times, and such as no Indian intellect, save his, has yet been able to grasp.
The paragraph runs thus:
“If it had been intended to keep the British nation from real knowledge, the Baconian philosophy would not have been allowed to displace the system of the Schoolmen, which was the best calculated to perpetuate ignorance. In the same manner the Sanskrit system of education would be the best calculated to keep this country in darkness, if such had been the policy of British legislature. But as the improvement of the native population is the object of the Government, it will subsequently promote a more liberal and enlightened system of instruction, embracing mathematics, natural philosophy, chemistry, anatomy, with other useful sciences, which may be accomplished ​with the sums proposed by employing a few gentlemen of talent and learning, educated in Europe, and providing a college furnished with necessary books, instruments, and other apparatus.”
Bishop Heber kindly put the letter into the Governor-General’s hands; and though it failed to gain its object it did some good in another way. Lord Amherst promised to have a house built for the Hindu College, contiguous to that intended for the new Sanskrit College; and the foundations of the two buildings were laid on the 25th of February 1824.
In this very year circumstances soon happened to bring the Government into a closer relation with the Hindu College. An Italian merchant in Calcutta, named Berretta, to whose keeping the college funds had been committed, became a bankrupt, and involved the college in his ruin. Of the sum of 113,179 rupees which had belonged to the college, there remained only 23,000 rupees. The Committee were thunderstruck when this was discovered; and, having no other alternative, applied for Government aid. The Governor-General and his Council promised the help solicited, on condition that the college should be placed under the inspection of an officer appointed by them. The Committee gladly availed themselves of this arrangement; and Mr H. H. Wilson, secretary to the Committee of Public Instruction, was the first inspector, and 900 rupees was the grant for the first month. In 1830 the grant was raised to 1250 rupees.
The reader has already been informed that Ramtanu was admitted into the college in 1828. It was customary then to send to the Hindu College such boys from the Society’s school as had creditably completed their course there. The Society paid the fees of those among them who were poor. Ramtanu was one of these. He and ​Digambar Mitra (on whom the title of Raja was afterwards conferred) were admitted on the same day into the fourth class. The well-known Mr Henry Vivian Derozio was the master of this class. This young man was gifted with extraordinary talents, and we intend giving a short history of his career in the Appendix. This much we say now, that he introduced a new epoch in the intellectual and moral history of Bengal, and moulded, when they were boys, the character of men like Ramtanu Lahiri, Krishnamohan Banerji, Ram Krishna Mullick, Dakhinaranjan Mukerji and Ram Gopal Ghosh. Though he taught the fourth class alone, he was friendly with almost all the students of the college.
Every day after school he helped them to get up the next day’s lessons, and entertained them with his amusing and instructive conversation. His house again was the favourite resort of many among them, who, when there, received every courteous attention as guests. Ram Gopal Ghosh, Dakhinaranjan Mukerji, Mahes Chandra Ghosh, and a few others who afterwards distinguished themselves as men of deep erudition and great ability, received their early training from him not only while in the college but also when in his own home.
H. L. V. Derozio. 1809-1831.
​who ate it to the lowest depths of hell, broke asunder the shackles of caste, and freely ate with their Eurasian friend. Ramtanu was at first backward in taking his rank among the reformed, and he used to narrate the following incidents:—
Once when on a visit to Mr Derozio in company with Dakhinaranjan and Ram Gopal, he was asked by them to drink a cup of tea with them. Request and even urgent solicitation failing, Dakhinaranjan attempted to use force; but Ramtanu’s reply was, “I am a Kulin Brahman’s son; how can I join you? If you actually use force, I will so cry out as to bring the whole house, nay, the whole neighbourhood, here.”
A similar incident happened a few days afterwards; and in it Ramtanu showed less repugnance to the reforming proclivities of his associates. The Rev. Mr Hough of Howrah had an “At Home” one evening for the English-speaking youth of Calcutta and its neighbourhood. Nearly all the advanced students of the Hindu College were there. Dakhinaranjan asked Miss Hough to offer Ramtanu a glass of sherry; and to persuade him to drink it, said in his ear, “It is a custom in English society, never to refuse any food or drink proffered by a lady; so take a sip of it, if you cannot drink it all.” And Ramtanu touched the glass with his lips, though very reluctantly.
Such offers of wine were often made to the educated young men of the time; and drinking in parties became a fashion with them. It was regarded as one of the chief indications of the superiority of a young Bengali to old-fashioned Hindu prejudices, and one of the chief characteristics of an enlightened mind. Raja Rammohan Roy recommended the use of wine. It was his daily custom to eat food prepared and cooked in accordance with Hindu prejudices in the morning, and in the evening to regale ​himself on English dishes and to drink a moderate quantity of liquor. He never took a drop too much. Once a pupil of his tricked him into drinking an extra glass, to see how he could bear it; and it is said that the Raja, coming to know this afterwards, was so annoyed with the man, as to shut him out of his presence for the next six months.
Raja Rammohan Roy did not know that he was leaving an evil example behind him; and that it was not so easy for others to be moderate like himself. Alas! the abuse of wine has been the cause of the untimely death of many promising sons of Bengal, and of the ruin of many families.
Here is an anecdote, showing how innocent moderate drinking was held to be in English-educated Hindu families. Babu Rajaram Bose, afterwards one of the leading members of the Adi Brahmo Samaj, had got into the habit of drinking at the age of fifteen or sixteen years. Once it came to the knowledge of his father Nanda Kisor Bose, a disciple of Rammohan Roy’s, that his son had drunk too much and had showed signs of intoxication. The young man being called into his father’s presence and asked if the report were correct said it was. On this the father, taking from his almira a full bottle and a glass, poured out a little wine, drank it himself and then offered an equal quantity to his son saying, “Whenever you drink, drink with me in this way.” This was one of the many instances showing how drinking was countenanced by men who had come into touch with the English, and it is not a matter of surprise that the pupils of Derozio progressed in it as rapidly as in other matters. Mr Derozio’s influence produced a mighty revolution in Hindu society. With his pupils he founded an association, named the “Academic Association,” of which he himself was the president. It was something like a debating ​club, and we shall give a description of its work in the next chapter. It was at this time that some pf the senior students of the Hindu College started The Athenaeum, a journal in which they mercilessly attacked the orthodox institutions of Hinduism. One of the students, Madhab Chandra Mullick, once wrote thus of the religion of his forefathers: “If there is anything that we hate from the bottom of our hearts, it is Hinduism.”
This Madhab Chandra Mullick in time became a deputy-collector; and Kartik Chandra Roy thus writes of him in his Memoirs: “Madhab Chandra Mullick, one of the alumni of the Hindu College, and friend of Ramtanu Babu, was Deputy-Collector of Nadia. He was, when here, very kind to us, and we respected him much. He did much ;h to improve Sriprasad’s school, and to carry out our schemes of social reform.”
There is another passage in Kartik Babu’s Autobiography which runs thus: “That wine is an abomination, and that drinking it is a great sin, has been the belief of this country, but we cannot but condemn this belief as erroneous. Can the practice, so common among the most intelligent and civilised nations of the world, be anything but highly salutary, and therefore commendable? How shall we Indians be civilised, and how will our country be free from the tyrannical sway of error and superstition, if we abstain from wine? The alumni of the Hindu College, who set themselves up as reformers, all drank. When one of them, Babu Madhab Chandra Mullick, was here, we now and then went to his house of an evening and drank each a glass or two of the best liquor.”
Ramtanu, as said above, was admitted into the fourth class of the Hindu College. He studied with so much success that he was soon known as one of the cleverest boys. In time he reached the first class; and having read ​a year in it, applied for a scholarship to Mr David Hare, who recommended him to Mr Wilson, Secretary to the “Committee of Public Instruction.” Being examined, and found worthy of encouragement, he was awarded a scholarship of sixteen rupees a month.
Having now means of his own, in addition to what his eldest brother Kesava gave him, he had his younger brothers, Radhabilash and Kalicharan, brought to Calcutta for their education. The three brothers lodged in a house near the college; and having no cook or menial servant of their own they themselves had to work as such. Trouble of another nature soon crossed their path. Unexpected calls on Kesava’s purse having drained it, he could no longer send them any money. Ramtanu, therefore, was thrown upon his own resources, and was sometimes so hard pressed as to have to run about in quest of loans.
We cannot conclude this chapter without mentioning two instances showing Mr David Hare’s love for the youth of his acquaintance. Once our hero was seized with cholera, and Mr Hare nursed him at great personal risk. On another occasion this noble-minded Englishman, at an advanced hour of the night, escorted a young lad, named Chandra Sikhar Deb, who had called on him at Mr Gray’s house in the street now called Hare Street, and had been detained there by a storm, almost to the lad’s house at Puttoatola, for fear lest the latter should be molested on the way by some bad character.