HVK Archives: The Elitist reformer - Ambivalent views on Rammohun Roy
The Elitist reformer - Ambivalent views on Rammohun Roy - The Times of India
Rajesh Kochhar
()
6 August 1997
Title: The Elitist reformer - Ambivalent views on Rammohun Roy
Author: Rajesh Kochhar
Publication: The Times of India
Date: August 6, 1997
Rabindranath Tagore hailed Rammohun Roy as the inaugurator of modem India.
Mahatma Gandhi was not quite sure whether what Rammohun Roy inaugurated was
worthwhile. Gandhi's first reference to Rammohun Roy was laudatory. In
1905, in a lecture delivered at the invitation of the Theosophical Society
of Johannesburg, Gandhi referred to him as one of the great teachers who
"began to teach the Hindus what was good in Christianity and appealed to
them to remove these defects (i.e. defects of their religion)."
However, six months later, when Gandhi wrote in Indian Opinion a series of
"brief biographical sketches of a few good men and women" Rammohun Roy was
not included. Fifteen years later, in 1920 during the non-cooperation
movement, Gandhi came out openly against Rammohun Roy for his advocacy of
the English language. He elaborated on this point in a public speech
delivered the next year in Cuttack. He declared "Tilak and Rammohun would
have been far greater men if they had not had the contagion of English
learning."
Many Contradictions
If Gandhi were to present his views on Rammohun Roy at a research seminar,
it is unlikely that he would be able to carry the audience with him. As
Krishna Kripalani put it, Gandhi's "utterances relating to Rammohun have
many contradictions and half-truths". But then Gandhi was intuitive rather
than analytical. His assessment of Rammohun Roy boils down to this. As a
religious reformer, when Rammohun Roy coped with Christianity's threat to
Hinduism, his constituency was the common man; Gandhi approved of it. As an
advocate of English education, he was being elitist; Gandhi did not approve
of it.
Rammohun Roy's birth more or less coincided with the establishment of the
East India Company's administration under British parliamentary control,
and his coming of age with the permanent settlement which created new
zamindars like him. It is noteworthy that Rammohun Roy and Dwarkanath
Tagore, the early native leaders of British Bengal, both have surnames
given by the Muslims. In the earlier dispensation they were bhanga kulinas
(tainted Brahmins). The British association removed that stigma and handed
them the native intellectual and social leadership.
Owing to his family's connection with the administration and his own
genuine interest in the philosophical context and practices of Hinduism and
Islam, Rammohun Roy was well equipped to meet the challenge of
trader-supported Christianity. When Charles Grant and others of the Clapham
sect clamoured for the improvement of the natives through conversions, he
met them halfway.
Hindus undoubtedly needed to be improved but their own religion equipped
them for this, he felt, and to this end he selectively utilised the
Upanishads. He pleaded against sati, citing Manu in his favour while
discounting Angira and Gotama who held contrary views. It is this aspect
of his activity which Gandhi approved of.
Rammohun Roy was a beneficiary of the post-Plassey administration. He
earned about Rs 1,000 a month from his zamindari and from high-interest
loans to company officials. Still, he took up a low-paid job with an
official, not for the salary but for the opportunity of learning English,
reading English newspapers, and perhaps building contacts. Those were the
days when the relations between the company officials and the native
leadership were cordial and mutually beneficial. His perception of the
opportunities for "the sons of respectable Hindoos" fitted in well with the
new administrative requirements of the British rule. In 1792, when England
felt the need to impart English education to the natives, a company
director bluntly declared that "we had lost America for our folly in having
allowed the establishment of schools and colleges ... and that if the
natives required anything in the way of education, they must come to
England for it".
Twenty-five years later, things were different. There was no threat,
internal or external, to the British in India. It is no wonder then that
in the establishment of the Hindu College at Calcutta, native enthusiasm
was matched by support from the British.
Radical Views
It has often been -stated that Rammohun Roy met with opposition from his
family and traditional quarters for his radical views. This cannot be
wholly true. The Roy family had an implacable foe in the powerful Maharaja
of Burdwan, who involved the Roys in prolonged litigation. While Rammohun
Roy's father and brother even went to jail and suffered ruination, he kept
aloof. His mother probably held this against him more than his reformatory
zeal.
The Maharaja was also one of the biggest donors to the Hindu College and,
consequently, one of its two hereditary governors. Rammohun Roy's absence
from the college's management was probably more a result of this
circumstance than of his being far ahead of his times. Incidentally, his
famous letter of 1823 seeking government support for English education came
at a time when the commercial firm holding the Hindu College funds went
bankrupt.
The 19th century was one of Indian defensiveness. The agenda was laid down
by the British and the natives reacted to it. Thus echoing the views of
European historians and commentators, Rammohun Roy believed that the "heat
of the climate of India ... debilitates the constitution" and that the
meat-eating Muslims were "distinguished by greater bodily activity and
capacity for exertion" than the vegetarian Hindus.
Gandhi's Opinion
Rammohun Roy would have appreciated young Gandhi's erudition. In an open
letter written in 1894 to the members of the South African legislature
protesting against the ill-treatment of Indians, Gandhi dwelt at length on
the question: "What are they?" He pointed out that "both the English and
the Indians spring from a common stock, called the Indo-Aryan". He then
went on to quote verbatim from European scholars on the accomplishment "of
the Brahmins" in various fields. Interestingly, Gandhi's praise extended to
"the institutes of Manu (which) have always been noted for their justice
and precision".
This was the Gandhi who was a product of English education in India and
England, had barely been a year in South Africa and was yet to be thrown
out of a first-class train compartment. It would have been interesting to
know what this Gandhi would have had to say on Rammohun Roy.
The recorded criticism of Rammohun Roy comes from the later Gandhi, the
Mahatma in the making, conscientiously trying to create a nationwide agenda
that would place British rule and ideology on the defensive. Gandhi was
not merely objecting to Rammohun Roy's founding of the middle class
conversant in English a century ago. He was probably also trying to make a
personal break from the past, purging himself of the mindset that was so
natural in the 19th century, but which he now found abhorrent.
The face of racism that Gandhi could see in South Africa was that which no
upper-class, upper-caste Indian could have seen in India. For this India,
Rammohun Roy remains the inaugurator, Mahatma Gandhi's reservations
notwith-standing.
(Shri Kochhar is an astrophysicist and is (or was) at the Indian Institute
of science, Bangalore. This is a reputed institute funded by the society.
In an earlier article, he had speculated that Lord Rama's Ayodhya is
actually in Iran. Given this crackpot scholarship, the present article
should not come as a surprise. What is surprising is the tolerance in our
society that we tolerate such people and actually fund their refarious
activity.)
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