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The Brahmo Samaj and the SHAPING of the Modern Indian Mind

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The Brahmo Samaj and the SHAPING of the Modern Indian Mind The Brahmo Samaj AND THE SHAPING OF THE Modern Indian Mind The Brahmo Samaj AND THE SHAPING OF THE Modern Indian Mind David Kopf PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY Copyright © 1979 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, Princeton, NewJersey In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Guildford, Surrey All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will be found on the last printed page of this book Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation This book has been composed in V.I.P. Baskerville Clothbound editions of Princeton University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and binding materials are chosen for strength and durability Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey To Calcutta EX ORIENTE LUX To have paced out the whole circumference of modern consciousness, to have explored every one of its recesses—this is my ambition, my torture, my bliss. NIETZSCHE Contents List of Tables ix List of Illustrations ix Abbreviations xi Preface xiii Chronology xxi Part I. Reformist Modernism 1. Unitarian Social Gospel and the Foundations of Hindu Modernism 3 2. The Deification of Science, Humanity, and Reason: Brahmo Secularism 42 3. Identity, Achievement, Conscience: The Human Development of the Bhadralok Reformer 86 4. Family, Faction, and the Dilemmas of Political Reform under Colonialism 129 Part II. Nationalist Ambivalence 5. The Confrontation between Trinitarian Christianity and Reformed Hinduism 157 6. The Issue of Brahmo National Identity and the Rise of Cultural Nationalism 176 7. The Frustration of the Bhadralok and the Making of a Revolutionary Nationalist: The West Desanctified 187 Part III. Synthesis 8. Western-Inspired Brahmo Evangelism and the Vaishnav Spirit in the Mofussil 217 9. World Crisis and the Quest for an Ideology of Salvation: Keshub, Prophet of Harmony 249 10. Rabindranath Tagore as Reformer: Hindu Brahmoism and Universal Humanism 287 viii CONTENTS Part IV. Conclusion 11. The Brahmo Reformation Diffused: Bengal's Legacy to 3J3 Twentieth-Century India Notes 336 Bibliography 357 Index 387 List of Tables 1. Principal Members of the Progressive Faction of the 28 Brahmo Samaj Who Were Founders of the Sadharan Samaj 2. Most Outstanding Brahmos in Arts, Sciences, and 115 Professions circa 1900 3. Principal Ascetic Missionaries of the Sri Durbar 230 4. Report of Brahmo Samajes in India by 1872 325 List of Illustrations 1. Keshub Chandra Sen and his wife 256 2. P. C. Majumdar, 1917 285 3. Maharani Suniti Devi of Cooch Behar (eldest 328 daughter of Keshub Chandra Sen) 4. Maharaja Nripendra Narain Bhupa Bahadur of 328 Cooch Behar Abbreviations BI Bose Institute, Calcutta, D. M. Bose Collection BSPA Bangiya Sahitya-Parisat, Archives, Calcutta BSP-PCRP Bangiya Sahitya-Parisat, Calcutta, Prafulla Chan­ dra Ray Papers DACB District Archives, Cooch Behar GLA-UC Goethels Library and Archives, St. Xavier's Col­ lege, Calcutta, Upadhyay Collection KL Sati Kumar Collection, Calcutta1J. Koar Letters RBM Rabindra Bharati Museum, Calcutta RBMA Rabindra Bhaban Museum and Archives, Santi- niketan, West Bengal RBMA-TFP Rabindra Bhaban Museum, Santiniketan, Tagore Family Papers RBM-KTC Rabindra Bharati Museum, Calcutta, Khitin- dranath Tagore Collection SBSL-ARSBS Sadharan Brahmo Samaj Library, Annual Report of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj SBSL-BSC Sadharan Brahmo Samaj Library, Calcutta, Brahmo Samaj Chronicles SBSL-SDCC Sadharan Brahmo Samaj Library, Calcutta, Sophia Dobson Collet Collection SCAC-GRC Sanskrit College Archives, Calcutta, General Re­ cords and Correspondence of Sanskrit College Preface This book is a detailed history of the Bengali forerunners of Indian modernization. It is an analysis of the lives, the consciousness, and the ideas of early rebels against the Hindu tradition whose com­ munity has come to be known as the Brahmo Samaj. Originally the Calcutta Unitarian Committee in 1823, the Brahmo Sabha in 1829, and finally the Brahmo Samaj in 1843, this community played a crucial role in the genesis and development of every major reli­ gious, social, and political movement in India from 1820 to 1930. Brahmos were the first Hindus to defy the taboo about crossing the seas to the West. They were the first social reformers, and the first to extend full equality to their women. Brahmos were the pioneers of liberal political consciousness and Indian nationalism, and they introduced ethical and professional standards into Indian law, medicine, natural sciences, teaching, journalism, and civil adminis­ tration. Significantly, the man often known as the "Father of Mod­ ern India," Rammohun Roy, was also the founder of the Brahmo Samaj. My study of individual Brahmos, out of whose minds the ideas of modernization emerged, has convinced me of the critical need to study their ideas in relation to their consciousness, and their con­ sciousness in relation to their life. Within the ideological frame­ work of most chapters, then, I have included relevant biographical data to establish causal relationships between the ideas and the ac­ tual life situations of the men who conceived them. When one examines such ideas as Rabindranath's Hindu Brahmoism, or Keshub Sen's New Dispensation, or Brahmoband- hab Upadhyay's desanctification of the West against the conscious­ ness and life style of each of these individuals, then one is struck immediately with the intricate problem of identity that underlies the human participation in the process of modernization. From a variety of biographical sources, many in Bengali and never before used in research, I have been able to trace the question of identity to the preadult lives of the intelligentsia. The data reveal patterns of what Erik Erikson has called identity crisis. Though I have made use of Erikson's basic notions of identity in human development, I have restrained myself from trespassing into the mysterious land of xiv PREFACE psychiatric research. Also, whereas Erikson worked with well- documented, well-researched charismatic heroes from Martin Luther to Thomas Jefferson, I had often to work with scanty sources of lesser-known persons; but my own objective as a histo­ rian has been to illuminate the special problem of identity among the Bengali intelligentsia from a great number of cases, and to ar­ range these subsequent patterns in appropriate categories. I do not believe that identity crisis among the modernizing Brahmo intel­ ligentsia can be understood deeply through a study of only one of its conspicuous leaders, even Keshub Sen or Rabindranath Tagore. Not only should the historian study the group portrait, but he must study the problem over generations, to achieve the advantage of diachronic perspective. Finally, the shifting identities of the Ben­ gali intelligentsia were so integral a part of India's encounter with the West that identity crisis appears to be as much a social as a psy­ chological process. I do not want to leave the reader with the impression that I have given undue emphasis to the psychohistory of ideas at the expense of the social history of the Brahmo Samaj. My focus on the Brahmo community has given me the opportunity to pursue further the origins and growth of the bhadralok, or new urban Hindu elite of Bengal. John Broomfield's study of this class in the twentieth cen­ tury and his concept of bhadralok have been well appreciated among Bengali historians. As Broomfield himself intimated, the Brahmos were so characteristically bhadralok that they repre­ sented the group as its ideal type.1 The new material I have col­ lected on Brahmo factionalism opens up new vistas on the relation­ ship between the movement as a whole and the pragmatic conflict resolution of social interests and ideological issues among the vari­ ous factions. Brahmo factionalism also raises questions about the relative importance of dominant families in bhadralok society, and about common origins in caste, religious orientation (Shakto or Vaishnava), and birthplace (village, district, and whether from East or West Bengal). My framework is explicit in the divisions of the book. Part I deals with the relatively modernist or reformist intelligentsia, who were favorably disposed to the progressive ideas and values of the West. Part II presents the counter group of Brahmos, whose ambivalence to reform stemmed from their sensitivity to Western dominance and their own idea of nationalism. Part III discusses three attempts to bring together modernistic reform and national identity without the one violating the other. Then Part IV explores the Brahmo .
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