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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, rise 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 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), lshwar Chandra Vidyasagar (1820-
91), Michael Madhusudan Datta (1824-73), Bankim Chandra 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) arc 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. Rise 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.
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Rammohun Roy, who was well versed in Sanskrit, Arabic, Persian and Western
learning, started with a rationalist tract (Tuhfat-ul-Muwahhidin [Gift for
Monotheist] 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 lshwar 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 legalized such remarriage in 1856 led another
movement in the sixties against hyperpolygamy Kulin Brahmans. In this case and
also in his efforts to spread female education success was thwarted not only by
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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 Kama!
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 Datta, a
'Derozian' in sprit, 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), Rajendra
Lal Mitra (1822-91), Ramesh Chandra Datta (1848-1909), Debendranath Tagore
(1840-1926), and Krishna Karnal 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-Samgraha (1850s) and Rahasya-Sandarbha (1860s) and
Bankim Chandra's Bangadarsan (1870s) along with runny 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 sonic 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), Devendranath Tagore and his children inaugurated a 'Hindu'
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nationalism through the Hindu Mela (1867-81) and a seminar on Hindu Dharmer
Sresthatva (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 Bhudeb
Mukhopadhyay (1825- 94), Bankim Chandra 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 mislabeling in the sense that it was a phenomenon occasioned by the
colonial government's administrative and educational measures consciously
intended to produce a class oldie 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.