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Bengal Renaissance It is claimed by many modern scholars that the early nineteenth century, and by some that the whole of the nineteenth century, had witnessed an intellectual awakening that deserves to be called a Renaissance in the European style. They believe that under the impact of British rule the Bengali intellect learned to raise questions about life and beliefs. The new outlook is said to have affected contemporary life very materially. The various protest movements, formation of societies and associations, religious reform movements,
coming of new styles in Bengali literature, political consciousness, and other emergent socio-political phenomena have been argued to be the positive symptoms of a Renaissance. The advocates of the Renaissance theory trace the origin of this phenomenon in the newly acquired European knowledge (especially philosophy, history, science and literature) through education in English. Although it immediately affected a small portion of the upper stratum of Bengal Hindu society only, it eventually spread to Muslims (rather partially) and others as well as to other parts of the subcontinent before the century closed. Renaissance minds included
Raja rammohun roy (1774-1833), Henry Luies vivian derozio (1809-31) and his radical disciples, debendranath tagore (1817-1905) and his followers, akshay kumar datta (1820-86), iswar chandra vidyasagar (1820-91), michael madhusudan
dutt (1824-73), bankimchandra chattopadhyay (1838-94), and swami vivekananda (1863-1902). Western ideas influencing renaissance thinkers and activists included rationalism, humanism, utilitarianism, scientism, individualism, positivism, Darwinism, socialism, and nationalism. Francis Bacon (1561-1626), Isaac Newton (1642-1727), Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), Thomas Paine (1737-1809), August Comte (1798-1857), Charles Darwin (1809-82) and John Stuart Mill (1606-73) are only a few among modern western thinkers who found followers and admirers among the thinkers of renascent Bengal. Institutions such as the asiatic society
of Bengal (est.1784), Baptist Mission of Serampore (1800), fort william college (1800), hindu college (1817), calcutta school-book society (1817), calcutta medical college (1835), university of calcutta (1857) contributed significantly to the Renaissance. Two of the expressions of the Renaissance were (1) the appearance of a large number of newspapers and periodicals and (2) the growth of numerous societies, associations and organisations. These in turn served as so many forums for different dialogues and exchanges that the Renaissance produced. However, the most spectacular expression of the Renaissance was a number of reform movements, both religious and social. The other major expression was a secular struggle for rational freethinking.
Growth of modern Bengali literature, spread of Western education and ideas, fervent and diverse intellectual inquiry were the results of the Renaissance. The Bengal Renaissance produced an engagement with nationalism, and nationalism in turn questioned the foreign subjugation of the country. Rammohun Roy, who was well versed in Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian and Western learning, started with a rationalist tract (Tuhfat-ul-Muwahhidin [Gift for Monotheists] 1803-04) to protest dogmatic religiosity. Later on, he would combine rationalism with utilitarianism to fashion Semitic-type monotheism and develop a programme for removal of social injustice and intellectual stupor. In a fifteen-year (1815-30) controversy with Hindus and Christians he apparently defeated polytheism and Trinitarianism to establish his Brahmo monotheism. He also opened a century-long fight for social justice, particularly the emancipation of Hindu women. The colonial government, led by
Governor General william bentinck, abolished the practice of Sati (custom of burning Hindu widows on their husbands' funeral pyres) in 1829 and Rammohun supported the enactment. Roy also fought for freedom of press, and advocated a secular and scientific education policy with Western curricula. Henry Derozio, a free thinker, taught European history and literature at the
Hindu College (1826-31) and inspired about a dozen disciples to think rationally and independently. Eager readers as they were of Tom Paine's Age of Reason and Rights of Man these young men, known collectively as young bengal, propagated their radical ideas for some fifteen years (1828-43) in a society called the Academic Association (1828). They were associated with at least six periodicals - Parthenon (1830), East India (1831), Enquirer (1831-34), Jnananvesan (1831-40), Hindu Pioneer (1835-40) and bengal spectator (1842-43). For the first few years their chief target of attack was traditional Hinduism. Laterly, they concentrated on the failings of the colonial Government. Unlike Rammohun and his followers, the Derozians depended on pure reason and no spirituality. They described the Rammohunites as 'half-liberals'. This conflict became more spectacular when in the late forties Brahmo leader Debendranath Tagore and the exponent of science Akshay Kumar Datta fell out on the question of infallibility of scripture. In fact, Tagore inherited Rammohun's spiritualism while his rationalism and scientism inspired Datta. Akshay Kumar attempted to transform Brahmoism into Deism and replace revelation with the scientific exploration of nature. In the 1850s the conflict assumed a triangular shape with humanist
Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar serving as the third arm. Vidyasagar's humanism got on well with Datta's scientific rationalism, but both met in Tagore's spiritualism a most formidable enemy. This very significant conflict ended in the expulsion of Datta from the Brahmo fold. Turning agnostic, Akshay Kumar Datta would drive into the history of Indian religion and philosophy with rationalism, objectivity, and critical spirit. This is a syndrome that marks the lives of many renascent intellectuals in nineteenth century Bengal. Vidyasagar, on the other hand, remained an agnostic (sort of atheist even) and, after the successful completion of his Hindu Widow Remarriage Movement (1855-56), an act that legalised such remarriage in 1856 led another movement in the sixties against hyperpolygamy of kulin Brahmans. In this case and also in his efforts to spread female education success was thwarted not only by orthodox reaction but also by the colonial Government's refusal to cooperate. The sceptic-agnostic-atheist tradition developed by Derozio, his disciples, Akshay Kumar, and Vidyasagar reached a finale in the positivist Krishna Kamal Bhattacharya (1840-1932), who professed atheism. Historically, this development is immensely significant because, long after the seventh-century nastika (atheist) thinker Jayarashi Bhatta, these deniers were the first to revive the tradition of Indian materialism. Vidyasagar and Akshay K Datta together created modern Bengali prose on the foundations laid by the Pandits of Fort William College, by certain missionaries of the Serampore Baptist Church, as well as by Rammohun Roy and his opponents. The prose would then be flourishing in different forms through the works of peary chand mitra (1814-83), Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, and rabindranath tagore (1861-1941). In poetry and drama the iconoclast Michael Madhusudan
Dutt, a 'Derozian' in spirit, broke conventions to introduce blank verse, sonnet, individualism, worldliness, patriotism, prominence of female characters, and sharper conflicts in drama. A host of playwrights and poets of inferior abilities quickly followed him. Apart from literature, the fields of science, history and philosophy were cultivated by scholars such as Madhusudan Gupta (1800-56, the first Hindu to dissect a human dead body), Mahendra Lal Sarkar (1833-1904), jagadish chandra bose (1858-1937), Prafulla Chandra Roy (1861-1944), rajendralal mitra (1822-91), romesh
chunder dutt (1848-1909), dwijendranath tagore (1840-1926), and Krishna Kamal Bhattacharya. Bhai girish chandra sen (1835-1910) concentrated on Islamic studies and authored numerous books and biographies to illustrate the Islamic tradition. He crowned his life's work with an annotated translation of the Quran (1886), the first such work in Bangla. Akshay Kumar Datta illustrates yet another characteristic of the Renaissance. Like the philosophers of the French Enlightenment, he and other intellectuals of the Bengal Renaissance also, in most cases, were amateur explorers in various fields rather than steadfast specialists concentrating on one specific area. Rajendra Lal Mitra's Bibidhartha-Sanggraha (1850s) and Rahasya-Sandarbha (1860s) and Bankim Chandra's Bangadarshan (1870s) along with many others bear testimony to this observation. The Bengal Renaissance proper covered the first six decades of the nineteenth century during which the driving principle was rationalism, the chief purpose was reform, and the reformers' general target was some aspect of Hinduism. The last four decades were dominated by nationalism, the purpose being regeneration, and the targeted opponent being the British colonial establishment. Rationalists could not long remain blind to the fact of the country's subjugation by foreigners. Then such fateful events as the 'Black Act' (a proposed law to end the racist practice of not enabling Indian judges to try cases against White defendants) controversy, the Great Revolt of 1857-58, and the Indigo Uprising (1859-60) goaded thoughtful Bengalis to take the nationalist path. The idea caught their imagination in the sixties and a number of Brahmos including Nabagopal Mitra (1841-94), Rajnarayan Bose (1826-99), Debendranath Tagore and his children inaugurated a 'Hindu' nationalism through the Hindu Mela (1867-81) and a seminar on Hindu Dharmer Shresthatva (1872). These efforts led to an intellectual movement known as Neo-Hinduism that sought to rejuvenate Hinduism with the help of a critical reappreciation of Hindu classics as well as the sciences of Europe. Among exponents of Neo-Hinduism were bhudev mukhopadhyay (1825-94), Bankim C Chattopadhyay, Swami Vivekandanda, and Brahma Bandhab Upadhyay (1861-1907). Offering a pantheistic rejoinder to the challenge of monotheism from Brahmos and Christians the Neo-Hindu ideologues set aside social reformism in favour of the idea of conservation/ regeneration/ growth through education, social service, political and economic activities, as well as intellectual pursuits. They, in general, also promoted the idea of political freedom through armed struggle and adored the motherland as the Mother Goddess. Hindu nationalism gave way to more rational secular Indian nationalism that took shape through such organisations as the India League (1857), indian association (1876), National Conference (1883), and the indian national congress (1885). Despite the prevalence of Neo-Hindu and nationalist sentiments, the spirit of the Renaissance did not die out. It rather found new ground in such Muslim pioneers as delawar hosaen (1840-1913), a rationalist thinker on Muslim socioeconomic problems, mir mosharraf hossain (1847-1912), novelist, playwright, social critic; and roquiah sakhawat hossain (1880-1932), writer, educationist, crusader for the emancipation of Muslim women. And by the end of the century the renascent spirit started spreading to many parts of the subcontinent.
According to many post-modernist scholars, the term 'Renaissance'
for Bengal context is a mislabelling in the sense that it was a phenomenon
occasioned by the colonial government's administrative and educational
measures consciously intended to produce a class of the kind we find in
the nineteenth century. The class was very tiny and limited to a section
of the upper class urban Hindus and its thinking and activities had little
or no effect on Bengal society in general. Muslim society remained unaffected
by it and so was non-urban Hindu society. [Priti Kumar Mitra]
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