Vidyasagar: The Traditional Moderniser

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, :^OYASAGAR: i HE TRADITIONAL MODERNISER

By the same author: T H E EXTREMIST C H A L L E N G E

ViJyasagar The Traditional Moderniser

Amales Tripathi M . A . , L L . B . (Cal.), A . M . (Columbia), Ph. D . (London) Asutosh Professor & Head of History Department, Calcutta University

Orient Longman Bombay . Calcutta . Madras . New Delhi Bangalore . Hyderabad

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ORIENT LONGMAN LIMITED

1974

Published by: N . V . Iyer, Regional Manager, Orient Longman L t d . , 17, Chittaranjan Avenue, Calcutta 700 013

Printed in India at: Prabortak Printing & Halftone Ltd. 52/3, Bipin Bihari Ganguli Street, Calcutta-700012

To Shrimati Indira Gandhi The most distinguished daughter of the tradition

that Vidyasagar

modernised

C O N T E N T S

,

Introduction I T H E MODERNITY OF TRADITION II T H E CHILD PRODIGY

...

III T H E TEACHER A N D T H E ADMINISTRATOR I V VIDYASAGAR A N D POPULAR EDUCATION V VIDYASAGAR A N D FEMALE EDUCATION V I T H E SOCIAL REFORMER V I I VIDYASAGAR A N D BENGALI LITERATURE V I I I T H E LONELY PROMETHEUS . . .

Footnotes Index

I N T R O D U C T I O N I wrote this book in. 1970 to commemorate the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar's birth. I had been reading Thomas S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (second edn.) and had been thinking i f Kuhn's notions of "paradigm" and "paradigm-shift" could enrich the cultural and intellectual history of India i n the nineteenth century, confused for some time by the blind application of Burchardt's more than a century old view of the Renaissance i n Italy. Kuhn's notion of 'paradigm' embodies the sense that human activities are defined and controlled by tradition. Tradition is a set of devices and principles that have proven their ability to order the experience of a given social constituency. It is socially grounded and its function is that of organization. It is not a passive entity, capable only of adapting to an externally defined challenge. It helps to define a given contingent experience and in responding to it. Organization may be achieved through a number of modes or devices, ranging from formal institutions to informal habits and from abstract principles to concrete examples of problem-solution in the past. K u h n puts some emphasis on the latter. Change is possible within the terms of an operative tradition in so far as its elements are able to expand their implications enough to deal with new experiences while not losing their identity. But, however tenacious, a tradition it may yet fail to control an experience (1) when another great culture offers a challenge next door, thereby creating a constant source of novel stimuli too immediate to be ignored even by those who would prefer to shut their eyes to its existence, (2) when a political upheaval replaces one governing elite by another and (3) when dynamism within the tradition itself asserts. In such cases a crisis occurs, a community is disorganized and attempts to refurbish the old tradition are replaced by the conscious search for new and fundamental devices of organization. The search may lead to alternative proposals, which may be called candidates for problem solving. The community's entire store of cultural resources may be iransacked before a consensus begins to emerge that certain proposals are superior to others.

X

INTRODUCTION

The more complete the consensus, the more likely that the new organizing devices will become traditional. A s David A . Hollinger puts it, communities may, during this "paradigmshift", go through a full cycle of (1) secure tradition, (2) novelty and confusion, (3) disagreement over whether to resist innovation or encourage it, and i f the latter, i n what direction, and (4) coalescence around a candidate that might become another secure tradition. Unanimity may not be found, however, for this full cycle and confusion and conflict may continue after the third stage. It may not be fruitful to apply the above thesis to a vast and pluralist society like the Indian, but it can yield good results i f applied to a more or less culturally homogeneous area like Bengal. I have found i n it a more historical approach than the so-called Renaissance model. The most pertinent question that can be raised is whether India, even Bengal, had a secure tradition in the eighteenth century. But the presence of a novel culture next door, a political upheaval replacing the governing elite and an inner dynamism within the tradition itself cannot be controverted. The crisis has been corroborated by all sorts of evidence. The conscioiis search for new devices i n the store of indigenous cultural resources is obvious in the cases of Rammohun, Vidyasagar, Bankimchandra and Vivekananda. Alternative proposals came from the Orientalists as well as the Derozians and Many others. Only what we can call a consensus eluded us. I have put Vidyasagar in this milieu as his life itself was a grand model, and the work, mainly analytical i n character, is now open to the judgment of my compeers. F o r details of Vidyasagar's life one cannot hope for more than what has been offered by Indramitrain Karunasagar Vidyasagar. I must thank Professor S. Gopal of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, for seeing the book through i n M S S . and Sri Vembu Iyer of Orient Longman L t d . for the arduous job of a contemporary publisher he has so cheerfully performed. M y wife," Professor D i p t i Tripathi of Bethune College, Calcutta, has always been a constant source of inspiration with her acute insight into the nineteenth century literature and culture of Bengal. AMALES TRIPATHI

I THE

MODERNITY O F TRADITION

Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar was one of those few worthy Indians who emerged whole and enriched from the clash of cultures that engulfed their land i n the nineteenth century. The dis­ covery of the Western, thought and value system was still a novel experience but it attracted much notice because it remained superficial. The recovery of the ancient Indian civilization ran deep and disturbing, but, being familiar, was often overlooked. The educated Indian elite were confronted with a challenge from within which was perhaps more severe than the challenge from without. Rammohun R o y and Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar were the first to make the right response to both. Having the wisdom to discriminate, they would not borrow from the dazzling panoply o f the West but what had perennial relevance for man and what could be adapted to suit the national genius of India. Having the knowledge to judge, they re-examined the indigenous tradition and retained what was genuine and what could still be utilised to meet the changed needs of the day. Out of both they sought to fashion an integrated character, strong enough and supple enough to bear the burden of modernisation. Modernity and tradition have usually been placed i n a dichotomous rather than a dialectical relationship. The model of the former has always been taken from the West. Actually, however, these two concepts are not totally divorced, and traditional features persist i n a modern society as modern potentialities exist i n a traditional one. Social change arises not merely from the impact of external revolutionary forces but also from alter­ native possibilities inherent i n the established system. The corelation between 'a geographical or cultural concept (the West) and a social process (modernization)' was an historical accident. Vidyasagar perceived creative possibilities within the Indian context, only i f some correctives were applied from the Western experience. Let us take an example—the use Vidyasagar made of his profound Sanskrit learning. Here there is a fundamental difference between the European and Indian Orientalist on the one hand and Vidyasagar, on the other. The former wanted

2

VIDYASAGAR : T H E TRADITIONAL MODERNISER

to- revive the glories o f Vedic or Gupta India on the basis of a renewal of studies of Vedic or classical Sanskrit texts. T h i s attitude to classics ran through Petrach's reading o f Cicero and C o l a Rienzi's attempt to revive the R o m a n Republic. Vidyasagar did not befool himself with such a patrician dream. H e wanted to develop a vernacular language out of Sanskrit and spread useful Western knowledge through an enriched vernacular literature. H e cut out from the syllabus all scholastic deadwood, streamlined the courses,, wrote aids to teach grammar without tears and firmly established Sanskrit as the mother of the verna­ cular language. When the child was mature enough on fare furnished by his own excellent text books, it drew new ideas and sensibilities from English literature and science. Where the educational model o f Macaulay and Trevelyan had split the per­ sonality of the elite and failed to filtrate to the masses, Bengali, now armed with a form from Sanskrit and a world-vision from English, succeeded i n giving the elite a creative outlet and themasses a taste of knowledge. A traditional institution had been imaginatively channelised into a modernising role and made to contribute to national regeneration. N o t all of the past of a nation is significant for a moderniser,. and the true one chooses only the most rational, universal, dynamic and humane segments of it. F o r the Derozians the past was an anathema ; everything had to be built anew on a priori ideas of Enlightenment. F o r the orthodox, the Puranic and the provincial past alone counted ;. they were ignorant o f any richer and fuller past and their interests as well as emotions were involved i n defending what they held dear, even though it might be dying. Vidyasagar declined to accept either of these positions. Rationalist he certainly was, and perhaps even a bit of a sceptic i n his philosophical attitude. Born a commoner amidst abject poverty, he need not have learnt to rebel from the pages of T o m Paine, like his afiluent H i n d u College contem­ poraries. Though highly emotional and easily moved to pity, utilitarian calculation was not alien to him. But he had an inherent sense of proportion that rebuked exaggerated poses and exhibitionist petulance, an integrity of character which brook­ ed no discrepancy between intellectual conviction and conformist inaction. While his strong roots rejected any doctrinaire im­ position of foreign grafting, the orthodox attempt to fossilize

THE MODBRNTTY OF TRADITION

5

the immediate past repelled him by its intellectual obscurantism and moral obtuseness. They had made the wrong choice o f tradition, he felt, and confused the local and regional rites {desachar) of a decadent age with the eternal religion {sanatan dharmd) of ancient India. H e would appeal to shastras like any of them, but because he knew a lot more about the shastras than they, he could distinguish between the genuine and the fake, the rele­ vant and the archaic, the perennial and the parochial. The skilful use of tradition for social reforms is best exem­ plified i n the issue of widow-remarriage. Strangely enough, it was the Derozians who had first come across the sloka o f Parasara Samhitd, a variant of which Vidyasagar later used to bolster the case for widow-remarriage. But they did not know what to do with i t ; nor did they care, for the irrationality o f forced celibacy o f widows was self-evident and utilitarian cal­ culus demanded its instant abolition. They did not move out of their academic groves to translate the precept into practice. They did not pressurize the Government by mass action to sanction it by a declaratory law. The orthodox pundits quoted any number of texts i n defence of the evil (as they had done once in the case of the Suttee), again caring little about their historical value or present relevance. Vidyasagar took great pains to discover the injunction i n the original texts and, once sure o f its genuineness, moved into battle position. Entirely modern methods of publicity and mass petition were geared to the reestablishment of an historical link with the great H i n d u tradition, and the intellectual resistance of the conservative was as siuely overborne as the apathy of a neutrally inclined Government. Vidyasagar modernised the traditional role of the Brahmin, The Brahmin had not always been the contemptible beggar or the intellectual charlatan who sold his half-baked knowledge for a mess of pottage. A t many stages of Indian history he had come to hold responsible positions of secular authority and dis­ charged them with skill and vigour. A link between the political organization and the ethical ideal of society, he had informed the former with a higher purpose and the latter with a practical content. W i s d o m had been the hall-mark of the Brahmin, not scholastic acumen or ritualistic proficiency ; sila (conduct), not kula (lineage, often concocted) ; self-imposed poverty, not importunate patronage-hunting; spiritual detachment, not

4

VIDYASAGAR : T H E TRADITIONAL MODERNISER

egregious mixing with the worldly ; righteous indignation against moral wrong, not timid or selfish temporisation ; generosity and charity as the material o f mind and rule of life, not social sadism, born of complex. This archetypal Brahmin had become an U t o p i a for centuries and most of his qualities had suffered eclipse during the time of troubles. Vidyasagar recultivated them i n himself and reinforced them by some of the qualities of the arche­ typal protestant of the West—rationality, individuality, enter­ prise, devotion to worthy causes, capacity for leadership i n criti­ cal situations, obstinacy of principle and courage of conviction, innate sense of justice that put the public over the private interest, hatred for solemn cant and preference for work to words, and, finally, a concern for life here below. Tagore summed these up i n two precious phrases—"invincible manliness and indelible humanity" {ajeya paurusha o akshaya manushyatvd). The comliination of the ancient Brahminical ethic and the modern pro­ testant ethic was not easy ; some of the elements, like the postC a l v i n acquisitiveness and the Brahminical non-attachment, would never mix. But Vidyasagar knew what was germane to the development of his personal character and necessary to the execution of his public programmes. H e had a good head for business and was perhaps the inost successful publisher of his time. He might have minted money at the bar, like his friend Justice Dwarkanath Mitter, had he so desired. H e might have invested his savings and profits i n landed estates, like his prede­ cessor, Rammohun R o y . H e might have even led a moderate political party, like his Maharastrian counterpart, M . G . Ranade. But he deliberately chose a different role for himself—the new Brahmin as an educationist and social reformer—and confined himself to that, disregarding blandishment of prestige, status, money and power that other careers laid open before him. H e took the gravest possible risk and was actually ruined by his choice. This was quite unlike the middle class. East or West, who would calculate the risk and avoid the ruin under the cover o f verbiage. A l l but one portrait of Vidyasagar show a rugged exterior. A s a young student, he has a thick-set figure—short and burly. The brave cliin seems to possess nature's own power. The thin lips are closed with a firmness of purpose that is matched by the compact energy of the lofty brow. The brow distinguishes

THE MODERNITY OF TRADITION

5

him as a lion among men. But the lion has no mane. He is. not actually bald but gives his hair a peculiar cut (fashionable among Oriya palanquin-bearers) which leaves a patch at the centre and back of the scalp. He has deep, penetrating eyes which, moved to pity (as is often the case), become soft as a dove's. His nose is longish and straight. He always appears clean­ shaven. H i s normal dress is simple and minimal—a coarse dhoti, a plain chadar and a pair of native slippers (which borrow his name). H e frankly shows repugnance for formal dress and fights shy of formal occasions. The Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal gracefully allows him to attend these i n his habitual costu­ me. H i s slippers form a chapter i n the history of race-relations. They appear off and on—to teach an arrogant Principal of the Presidency College good manners or the hide-bound Council of the Asiatic Society how to honour scholarship. This ungainly exterior contains, i n the memorable language of Michael Madhusudan Dutt, "the heart o f a Bengali mother". It is not, however, that of the usual Bengali mother who pampers her child to develop either into a disreputable brute or a dis­ graceful imbecile. The example of his own mother, Bhagavati Devi, is a corrective. He imbibes from her not only sweetness but strength, and this is why he runs to her, whenever bafiled by problems or buffeted by fortune. It is more akin to Sakti, the female principle, that readily sheds tears i n human distress but rises with full power to lend it timely Succour with a selfless abandon. His plain habit conceals an aristocrat of virtue whom the Queen's highest oflScers value more than bejewelled Maharajahs, and unlettered Santhals adore more than their gods. While the educated elite crave for honours and cringe for jobs, Vidyasagar shuns the former like the devil and resigns the latter with con­ tempt. Through a l l the vicissitudes of life he holds his head high. In a fettered land his soul is free. A classical scholar par excellence, he is not an arid systembuilder or uninspired commentator. He is the ablest of our educational administrators, the creator of Bengali prose, the most successful text-book publisher of his day, the most active organiser of primary and, secondary instruction, both male and female, and the most dedicated social reformer. This man of Protean gifts becomes a legend in his own lifetime. Some call

6

VTOYASAGAR : T H E TRADITIONAL MODERNISER

him the ocean of learning, some the ocean of compassion. I n h i m St, Francis meets and mingles with St. Bernard. I n h i m the demoralised imitator gets back his dignity, the scholar his measure, the teacher his calling, the rich his charity, the widow the touch of a healer and the young the meaning of a new life through education. L i k e thunder he speaks over a dead land—"Give and it shall be given unto y o u " . Like rain he gives his all.

II THE

CHILD

PRODIGY

Iswar Chandra Bandyopadhyaya was born on 26 Semptember, 1820 i n the village of Birsingha i n the Hooghli district of Bengal. He is widely known as hailing from Midnapore as this village has been incorporated i n Midnapore district since 1872. Coming o f a destitute family, he knew the pangs of real poverty, which perhaps gave him the elemental energy to overcome it. H i s ascetically inclined paternal grandfather had suddenly renounced worldly life and his ancestral home i n Banamalipur, leaving his wife and six children to fate. The deserted wife took refuge at her father's place i n Birsingha. Given a separate hut and an occa­ sional allowance by her father, she had to earn an extra, though meagre, income from spinning. A l l this had an unsettling effect on Iswar Chandra's father, Thakurdas, who seldom had two square meals a day and no proper schooling: Forced to seek employment i n his early teens, he felt himself lost i n Calcutta, then expanding rapidly into the chief centre of trade and industry i n India. H e often starved till he picked up a smattering of English and landed a job worth two rupees a month. H e was earning the princely sum of ten rupees as a collection agent when Iswar Chandra was born. Iswar's mother, Bhagavati Devi, had no less pathetic a history. Her father went mad after dabbl­ ing in esoteric cults, and her mother, like Thakurda's mother, took refuge i n her parental home with her two daughters. Thakurdas dared to marry and raise a family as he got free board and lodging at his patron's house i n Calcutta. Iswar was the eldest among ten children—seven boys and three girls. A l l accounts tell of a turbulent child, who actually did not know how to channelise an inexhaustible fund of energy in an uncreative environment. Iswar writes in glowing terms of his grandfather, who had returned to the world, meanwhile, to upset it by unconventional acts. He would not suffer fools and hypocrites gladly, and Iswar imbibed this trait. Thakurdas was away most of the time, earning bread f o r ^ ^ f a m i l y , and the boy felt a little awed i n his presence. The only oasis i n this drab desert of life was the mother whom he adored till the last breath.

8

VIDYASAGAR : T H E TRADITIONAL MODERNISER

After Iswar had wasted some time at the village school, his father thought of taking him to the city for a better education. O n his way he is said to have picked up the English numerals by looking at the milestones. The uprooted boy of eight would have died heart-broken had he not come across a relative o f Thakurdas's patron, Raimani, who lavished on him a l l the pentup affection of a mother. H i s sympathy for women owes a good deal to this experience. Thakurdas wanted his son to learn Sanskrit and open a tol at Birsingha i n the traditional way o f a pundit. Iswar was admitted into Sanskrit College i n 1829 i n the hope that he would win a scholarship and thus pay his way through. If he cared to opt for a different career, that, too, was open to him ; he would have to pass a special law examination to get the prized olBce of judge-pundit. The period between 1813 and .1835, the latter part of which covers Iswar's school and college life, has been described as the "time of controversies". The more important of the contro­ versies relate to the respective roles of state and private (at this time, predominantly missionary) enterprise i n education, reli­ gious versus secular education and Anglicism versus Orientalism. The Anglicists wished to substitute for the indigenous system of education i n the vernaculars a modern western education in; European arts and sciences through English medium. The Orientalists encouraged the indigenous system of elementary and higher education, the former through the vernaculars -and the latter through Sanskrit or Arabic. I f the Asiatic Society of Bengal had fired the first salvo for Orientalism, Charles Grant had fljred it for Anglicism. Unable to do much during the discussions on the Charter of 1793, the evangelical group, led by Grant and Wilberforce, renewed the pressure during the discussions on the Charter of 1813, and partially succeeded i n forcing the East India Company to declare a policy on education, however halting and ambiguous it might be. By the Charter of 1813 the East India Company had to pro­ vide " a sum of no less than a lakh of rupees each year" for "revival and improvement of literature and the encouragement of the learned natives of India, and for the introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the sciences among the inhabitants of the British territories i n India. . . . " There were two distinct

THE CHILD PRODIGY

9

objectives—(a) encouragement of learned natives and improve­ ment of Indian literature and (b) promotion of western knowledgeand sciences. Three plans were put forward. John Shakes­ peare recommended the establishment of primary schools—on& native school master at each of 846 police stations of Bengal, two at each of 39 district stations and six at each of the six seats of the Provincial Courts of Appeal and Circuit. The C i v i l Surgeon was to supervise at the district and higher levels and there was to be at Calcutta a Board of Correspondence and General Control. William Carey proposed a system of national education for the masses through vernaculars. If the Govern­ ment thought it too costly, Carey recommended either establish­ ment of schools and lectures i n the principal towns of India or a new department to be attached to the F o r t William College for teaching Indians mathematics, biology, mechanical philospohy and natural philosophy. Following the suggestions of Colebrooke, contained i n the minute of the Governor-General i n Council o f 6 March, 1811, J . H . Harrington advocated reform o f the H i n d u College at Benares and foundation of similar colleges at Nadia and Tirhoot ; reform of the Calcutta Madrassah and foundation of similar Madrassahs at Bhagalpur and Jaunpur ; and public libraries to be attached to each of these institutions. F o r imparting European knowledge he neither supported English schools to instruct through English medium nor instruction through the vernacular languages but promotion of both, which could be done by engrafting English science and literature upon traditional methods of scientific and literary instruction. He was, i n fact, anticipating the modified orientalist position o f H . H . Wilson and the General Committee of Public Instruc­ tion which would be applied to the Sanskrit College. He also asked knowledgeable Europeans to translate useful European works into Arabic, Sanskrit and popular dialects.^ These plans ran into diflBculties. If mass education i n English was impracticable for lack of teachers and books, that i n verna­ culars was impossible for a further difiiculty—lack of funds. It was not, i n fact, possible to set aside the prescribed amount until 1823, although i n that year the surplus was such that the allotment was back-dated to the financial year 1821-22 i n order to have a working balance. Before the Government could decide on a policy, some Bengali gentlemen of wealth and position,.

10

VIDYASAGAR : T H E TRADITIONAL MODERNISER

mostly banians and zamindars but including several well-known Brahmin scholars, i n cooperation with a few progressive officers o f the Company, headed by the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, accepted the suggestion of a Scottish rationalist (David Hare) to establish the H i n d u College. Hitherto the five letters of Sir Edward Hyde East, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Calcutta, supposedly written to Sir John Harrington i n England, have been accepted as the primary source of evidence on the foundation of the H i n d u College, In the first letter, dated 18 M a y 1816, Sir Edward states that " a Brahmin of Calcutta, whom I knew and who is well-known for his intelligence and active interference among the principal native inhabitants . . . " came to him at the beginning of M a y and conveyed the desire of many of the leading Hindus of Calcutta to found an institution of liberal education for their children i n the European manner. Hyde East, who believed with Harring­ ton, Carey, Marshman and others that moral and useful education was the best calculated to lead to the knowledge o f G o d , wel­ comed the idea and called a meeting at his house with prior appro­ val of the Government. M o r e than fifty respectable Hindus of rank and wealth, including some principal pandits, attended the meeting on 14 M a y , 1816, and a sum of nearly half-a-lakh of rupees was subscribed, while many more subscriptions were promised. H e does not mention the name of this Brahmin, but we know •now that he was Baidyanath Mukherjee. Since he does not also mention David Hare's name as the originator of the plan or otherwise and clearly states that he is neither acquainted nor had communication with Rammohun R o y , it is evident that neither Hare nor Rammohun was present at the meeting. S. D . Collet, i n her biography of the Rajah, writes that, "fearing that his presence at the preliminary meeting might embarass its deli­ berations", Rammohun "had generously abstained from attending it". What is more, we learn of objections raised by one of the orthodox Hindus present to any subscription being taken from Rammohun as he had publicly reviled orthodox Hindus and had written against H i n d u religion. The twenty Bengalis, who wrote the original 34 articles of the Charter of the college and then approved them finally at another meeting i n the same place on 27 August, were all conservative upper caste Hindus who were

THE CHILD PRODIGY

11

far from wanting to anglicize the Hindu youth. Knowledge of English and useful subjects were their objective. In fact, the head pundit present rejoiced to see the day when Indian (i. e. Sanskrit) literature was about to be revived "with greater lustre and prospect of success than ever". D r . R . C . Majumdar concludes from these letters that neither Hare nor Rammohun had anything to do with the original plan, that Hare did not send Baidyanath Mukherjee to Hyde East with any, nor is Collet's story of Rammohun's voluntary deci­ sion to stay away from the College (on Hare's report that Hyde East was facing difficulties with the orthodox on this account) believable. H e brushes aside the references i n Peary Chand Mitra's A Biographical Sketch of David Hare and the Calcutta Christian Observer of June and July 1832 and Alexander Duff's testimony before the Parliamentary Committee of 1853, which emphasize the role of Hare as the originator and that of Rammohun as his supporter. O n the contrary, Majumdar cites two other letters, one written by a Director of the Hindu College on 24 June 1830 and the other written by Radhakanta Deb on 4 September 1847, i n both of which the credit for found­ ing the H i n d u College is given to Sir Edward, while Hare's association is denied. O n 19 January 1822 the Samachar Darpan published a report of a farewell meeting i n honour of the Chief Justice i n which he was acclaimed as the founder. Sir Edward R y a n paid the same compliment i n a speech of 3 December •1827. There is no reason to doubt, however, that the proposal for the foundation of a higher institution for dissemination of English • education was first made by Hare at a meeting of Atmiya Sabha in Rammohun's house and it was supported by everybody present. Dewan Badidyanath Mukherjee, who started the ball rolling, . according to Hyde East, was a close associate of Rammohun and a member of Atmiya Sabha. It is easy to agree with Brajendra N a t h Banerjee's conclusion that the Rajah "very wisely withdrew from the movement lest the objects of the institution be frustrated i n consequence of his name appearing on the committee of management';. The authenticity of the Hyde East letters has also been very recently challenged by Subarna and Asokelal Ghosh i n the Calcutta weekly. Desk. They suggest that the Hyde East letters, supposedly written between 1816 and 1818,

12

VIDYASAGAR : T H E TRADITIONAL MODERNISER

Vi'ere not really letters, that they were not written at the time to Harrington i n England for the simple reason that Harrington was i n Calcutta till the end of 1818, that they were written some­ time between 1828 (year of Harrington's death) and 1847 (year of Hyde East's death; i n fact, as Bird says, the correspondence was given to Charles Trevelyan a short time before his death) ; and, finally, they were a plain falsification of facts to glorify his own role as the sole founder of the H i n d u College. If he were that important, ask the authors, why had he to resign, along with other Europeans, the membership of the Executive Committee within twenty one days of its constitution? He was only toeing the line in the educational policy set by the Government of Moira, Stuart, Bailey and others^. Founded on 20 January 1817, the H i n d u College taught English as the principal language, Bengali, Sanskrit and Persian as subsidiary languages, History, Geography, Chronology, Astro­ nomy, Chemistry and other sciences through the English medium. It had a school branch, named Pathsala. Two follow-up institu­ tions came next—the Calcutta School Book Society (4 July 1817) for "preparation, publication and cheap or gratuitory supply of works useful i n schools and seminaries of learning", and Calcutta School Society (24 July 1818), "to assist and improve existing schools and to establish and support any further schools and seminaries which may be requisite," and "to select pupils of distinguished talents...from elementary and other schools'-', who would be trained i n higher seminaries to form a body of qualified teachers and translators. A s i n everything i n India, enthusiasm ebbed pretty soon; income of the School Society dwindled and its five model schools were abandoned. O f 190 pathsalas in 1819, 166 survived i n 1825 and only 81 up to 1829.* The Baptist Missionaries had, mean­ while, started a college at Serampore (1818) and the Anglicans, the Bishop's College at Calcutta (1820). A t the former, Carey, Marshman and Ward (the Trio) sought to apply both oriental and European systems—"the one as the form, the other as the substance to evangelize and civiliz:e the people through their mother tongue". Though oriental researches were being carried on in the rarefied atmosphere of the Asiatic Society of Bengal and the Fort W i l l i a m College,* Sanskrit education continued to be i n

THE CHILD PRODIGY

13

doldrums, i n spite of Minto's report on its "progressive state of decay".* In 1801 Buchanan-Hamilton found 190 tols i n 24 Parganas, 150 tols teaching only H i n d u law i n Hooghly, 34 professors i n Rangpur, LI9 tols i n Purnea and 16 tols i n Dinajpur (7 thanas). In 1818 W i l l i a m Ward came across 28 tols i n Calcutta, about 30 more i n its vicinity and 31 i n Nadia, the classic centre of Sanskrit learning. W a r d has also given us an idea of the curiculum content of the first decade i n his Account of the Writings, Religion and Manners of the Hindoos (1811). " A t Benares, the meamangsu, shankhyu, vadantu, patunjulu voishashiku shastrus and the Vadus are taught more or less, but the Bengal pundits know only scraps of these things." O f one thousand Brahmins, who had learnt the Sanskrit grammar, four or five hundred went i n for K a v y a (literature), four hundred for Smriti (law), three hundred for Nyaya (logic) and fifty for Alamkara (aesthetics) but five or six only took up Mimamsa, Samkhya, Vedanta, Yoga, Vaisheshika and the Vedas. W i l l i a m Adam's account of 1838 does not differ substantially from Ward's. The amount of authorship still gave an index to intellectual activity among the Sanskrit pundits. But the studies were becoming one-sided, with greater emphasis o n Alamkara, Tantras and astronomy (did he mean Jyotisha?). W i t h fall i n benefactions the number of tols declined. Where W a r d found 31 tols with 747 scholars i n Nadia i n 1818, Wilson found 25 with 600 scholars. The full moral and intellectual potential of the classical curriculum was not realized or had been forgotten. While the texts had been frozen, commentaries and digests continued to be multiplied with a fatal ease. The insti­ tution was exclusive, mainly catering to the Brahmin caste. But only a small number of Brahmins knew Sanskrit i n the real sense of the term. W . J . Deer, one of the German missionaries of the Church Missionary Society, wrote i n 1829, " A m o n g the Brahmins, sunscrit learning is very scarce i n Burdwan and its vicinity, the learned pundits can easily be numbered, many of the expounders of the law are scarcely capable of reading a line". The traditional culture continued i n a petrified form.® In his minute of 2 October 1815 M o i r a decried the idea that any bounty to the existing native colleges would encourage inculcation of European sciences. " I do not believe", wrote he, ^'that i n those retreats there remain any embers capable of being

14

VIDYASAGAR : T H E TRADITIONAL MODERNISER

fanned into life." Revival of liberal sciences among the natives could only be effected by a reformed school system, beginning; with elementary stage, to the building of which the sum set apart for advancement of science should be more expediently applied. Minto's (and, later, Harrington's) proposals for two new Sanskrit seminaries at Nadia and Tirhoot, besides reorganization of the existing institution at Benares, were finally abandoned by M o i r a (Lord Hastings) on the advice of H . H . Wilson, who proposed instead the establishment of a Central SanskritJCoUege at Calcutta on the model of Benares. The Governor-General i n Council stated i n a resolution of 21 August 1821, " . . . the immediate object of the institution is the cultivation of H i n d u literature. Yet it is i n the judgement of His Lordship i n Council, a purpose of much deeper interest to seek every practicable means of effecting the gradual diffusion of European knowledge. It seems indeed no unreasonable anticipation to hope that i f the higher and educated classes among the Hindus shall, through the medium of their sacred language, be imbued with a taste for the European literature and science, general acquaintance with these and with the language, whence they are drawn, will be as surely and as extensively communicated as by any attempt at direct instruction by other and humbler seminaries."' Orientalism was at its height i n Calcutta literary and govern­ ment circles. Its distaste for English education was manifest i n the reply to the Court's letter deprecating delay i n introducing European literature and science. The Indians, argued the Orientalists, cared little for it. A knowledge of English was required only for gaining a livelihood. ... "the Maulavi and Pundit, satisfied with their own learning, are little inquisitive as to anything beyond it. . . . " The Company's directive of 1813 had not been implemented as prejudices of the natives had not fully abated, "and might very easily be roused by any abrupt and injudicious attempts at innovation." The Orientalists made an uncertain gesture towards the Court's desire to spread Western education through English by appointing H . H . Wilson, Visitor and Vice-President of the Hindu College, which received a liberal grant through his efforts. The General Committee of Public Instruction, established i n July 1823 with J. H . Harrington as Chairman and H . H . Wilson as Secretary, however, concentrated on building a Sanskrit College to give

THE CHILD PRODIGY

15

instruction i n the sacred literature of the Hindus as it was con­ tained i n the Sanskrit language. When the British India Society sent an elaborate scientific appartus to the Committee and asked for its views on introducing science courses at Sanskrit College, the reply was equivocal. They admitted that the experiments, would be instructive as well as amusing but contented themselves with providing for a very small number of pupils on the science side and pleaded incovenience i n teaching chemistry for lack o f space for a laboratory. The strange-looking apparatus had probab­ ly caused consternation among the pundits and the Orientalists! Rammohun R o y realised the folly and sent his famous protest of 11 December 1823 to L o r d Amherst through Bishop Heber. When the Court o f Directors had sanctioned a lakh of rupees, the protest read, " W e were filled with sanguine hopes that this sum would be laid out i n employing European Gentlemen of talents and education to instruct the natives of India in Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry, Anatomy and other useful Sciences, . . . " The dream was shattered with the proposal for a Sanskrit school under H i n d u Pundits, "similar i n character to those which existed i n Europe before the time of L o r d Bacon",, which could be expected "to load the minds of youth with gram­ matical niceties and metaphysical distinctions of little or no practicable use to the possessors or to society". O l d knowledge of two thousand years ago "with the addition of vain and empty subtleties", of which Rammohun gave-a few examples from grammar, Vedanta, Mimamsa and Nyaya, would not serve the purpose of modern life or contribute to the improvement of the native population; it would, on the contrary, "be best calculated to keep this country i n darkness." He wanted something like the Baconian revolution displacing the system of medieval schoolmen, i n fact, a science-oriented curriculum, firmly based on practical training. In the context of the letter Rammohum was not really indict­ ing the Vedanta as such. H e was only contrasting two curricula of knowledge and two systems of teaching. He was against perpetuating the old corpus and the old method of discourse—the overemphasis on grammar and logic, the corrupt texts and the sectarian commentaries, the origin of which was often suspected. In his own Vedanta College he provided for instruction i n Sanskrit literature along with that in European sciences and arts, taught

i6

VIDYASAGAR : T H E TRADITIONAL MODERNISER

by a comparative method and i n vernacular or Sanskrit language. Wilson's view of Sanskrit education appeared to the utilitarian i n him to be an institutionalised form of outmoded education for propagation of obscurantism, all the more baneful as it had the patronage of the Government.* Rammohun's arguments were, however, rejected i n an off­ hand manner by the General Committee and the GovernorGeneral i n Council.* But the Court of Directors was alive to the anomaly. "The great end", it wrote, "should not have been to teach Hindoo learning, but useful learning.... I n professing... to establish seminaries for the purpose of teaching mere Hindoo, •or mere Muhamedan literature, you bound yourself to teach a great deal of what was frivolous, not a little o f what was purely mischievous. . . . " i " H i n d u or Mahomedan media would be proper only i f effectual. Finance was limited. Adequate supply o f trained teachers and text books was lacking. Quality rather than quantity, utility rather than continuity of tradition for its own sake, were the norms set by James M i l l . But the General Committee pleaded caution till "prejudices of the natives against European interference with their education i n any shape are considerably abated. ..."^^ O n 1 January, 1824 the Sanskrit College was opened for the bhadralok^ yih.o meant Brahmins and Vaidyas i n this context. The courses were patterned on the old style. They were to continue for twelve years-Grammar for 4, Literature for 2, Alamkara for 2, Nyaya for 4 and Smriti for 3. Wilson initiated a science curriculum, including anatomy and medicine. T o placate the Coutt of Directors English classes were opened i n 1827. O f ninety-one students, enrolled that year, forty were studying English. In 1828 D r . Tytler introduced anatomical dissection to his class, and by the end of the year, "the students not only handled the bones of the human skeleton without reluctance, but i n some instances themselves performed the dissection of the softer part of the animals."^^ In 1833 the teachers of the non-traditional subjects testified to the warm response of H i n d u students to Western courses. In 1831 their competence i n dissection led to the establishment of a small hospital at the college and Madhusudan Gupta was doing quite well as its apothecary. I n 1834 Tytler wrote impassionedly on the natural science program at the Sanskrit College, when he feared an Anglicist onslaught on it.

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The Report of the General Committee of Public Instruction for 1838-39 (1840) states that a Bengali teacher was appointed to impart instruction in arithmetic, natural philosophy, geography and history i n Bengali medium but according to European principles. Instead of the period at College being reduced to eight years, as A . Troyer had suggested i n the secretary's report of 31 Jantiary 1835, it was raised in 1846 to 15 years. English was dropped i n 1835 but was revived i n 1842, to remain optional as " . . . it is expedient to leave it so". Compul­ sory English might be misinterpreted as a political or reUgious design and might induce the non-paid students to leave. Even the most exacting guru of ancient India would have shuddered to think of this incubus imposed by the Orientahsts on the young. The objects of inculcation of western knowledge, both literary and scientific, and filtration to the masses, who knew neither English nor Sanskrit, had gone by the board. The new building, where Sanskrit College came to be housed from 1 M a y 1826, had one wing reserved for the H i n d u College and School. The ingenious Wilson had put up a railing to separate the Babus from the pundits. Iswar Chandra, who was admitted into the former on 1 June 1829, must have felt the tremor of disturbing Derozian ideas that were being bruited across the railing. H e had not much time, though, to spend on academic debates and epistolary exchanges on Locke and Hume, Rousseau and Paine, which engaged the ample leisure of his more affluent neighbours. It was very hard grinding for twelve years and five months, enlivened occasionally by the attainment of distinctions, prizes and scholarships. He drew them like a magnet and drew them galore. But the efforts might have killed a less sturdy physique and crushed a less determined will. Even his marriage at the tender age of fourteen did not offer a welcome romantic distraction from the course which he had set for himself Household chores had to be performed, condiments ground, marketing done and cooking for family members as well as guests got through i n one of the most unhealthy garrets that unhealthy Calcutta provided. He read while he cooked, he read from midnight onwards, he read at any spare time he could call his own. He had to absorb the vast and varied courses of the college, which left little energy for indulging i n alien modes of thought, and he had too little English to understand the Dero2

18

VIDYASAGAR : T H E TRADITIONAL MODERNISER

zians bandying thrusts and counterthrusts on social contract o r rights of man. - H e began at the third standard of Grammar class with Mugdhabodh, Amarkosh and Bhattikavya. I n the second (1830) he started taking English lessons. H e was promoted to literature class i n 1833. But sometime after he had finished with it (1835), English classes were unaccountably dropped at the whim of the authorities.^* Rhetoric (Alamkara), Vedanta, Smriti and Nyaya followed i n succession. It seems that he took lessons i n Jyotisha for a while. A s a student of Nyaya class he joined others i n petitioning G . J . Marshall for the reestablishment of the English, course at Sanskrit College.^* Before he got his final Collegelea:ving certificate on 4 December 1841, he had passed the H i n d u L a w Committee examination. The certificate he obtained for passing the latter (16 M a y 1839) mentions for the first time the title Vidyasagar, which has almost replaced his name today. His proficiency i n different branches of Sanskrit was beyond dispute. H e could turn out Sanskrit verses i n impeccable classical style. H e could beat seasoned logicians i n dialectical contests. H e had even taught the second year grammar class while yet a student of Nyaya. The teachers paid ungrudging tribute to this enfant terrible when time came for him to bid good-bye to the sacred fane of scholarship. So far life had been hard but satisfy­ ing. It was not entirely cloistered. W e see him grappling manfully with the misery, squalor and disease around him. Iswar Chandra was always to be found tending the sick and succouring the poor. Cholera, the curse of the tropics, held little terror for him. The two most prominent traits of his life—learning and compassion—had blossomed together.

Ill THE

TEACHER A N D T H E ADMENISTRATOR

Iswar was offered the post of a judge-pundit at Tripura, but his father objected to sending the eldest and the most promising son so far away. H e applied, therefore, for the post of the Sherishtadar of the Bengali department at Fort William College. H e had only " a moderate knowledge of English", admitted G . T . Marshall, Secretary o f the College, i n recommending his candidature, and no doubt it was a pig lacuna i n an ambitious young man out to make good i n an utilitarian administration dominated by Macaulay's ideas. H e got the post i n December 1841, but remembered the defect and utilised his spare time i n acquiring as much of this key to professional success as possible. By 1846 the same Marshall was testifying to his "very considerable degree o f knowledge of the English language."^ Vidyasagar did not cease his labour, for it had now become a labour of love. We find him taking English lessons from Rajnarayan Bose as late as 1849. Once again, Shakespeare stormed the Hindu heart where the Company's power and prizes had failed. The Fort WiUiam College was Wellesley's dream-child. H e wanted to raise an "Oxford of the East", which, according to Article X V of the Regulations, would teach six vernacular languages, besides Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit; law—Hindu, M u s l i m , EngUsh, as well as that of the Company; poHtical economy, geography and mathematics; natural sciences; classical and modern European languages; general history, ancient and modern, and the History and Antiquities of Hindustan and the Deccan. F o r the last he drew upon the resources of the Aisatic Society of Bengal, the dream-child of his greatest predecessor. Warren Hastings, which, having grown into a lusty child under the care of Sir William Jones and H . J . Colebrooke, was languish­ ing of late. The Fort William College was a shot in the arm for the Asiatic Society. It supplied the second generation of Orienta­ lists— Leyden, Wilson, Prinsep, Hodgson, etc.—from among its teachers, examiners and civilian students. Secondly, the crucial need for linguistic research i n the Indian tongues forced the College to become the chief patron of an indigenous cultural revival. A n Asian faculty cooperated with an European under its r o o f Mrtyunjay Vidyalankar and Ramram Basu, the former,.

20

VIDYASAGAR : T H E TRADITIONAL MODERNISER

an inheritor of the Brahminical H i n d u tradition, and the latter, an inheritor of the Persianized H i n d u tradition, helped W i l l i a m Carey the Baptist to create a Bengali prose. The linguistic expertise o f Tarinicharan M i t r a and the European method o f J. Gilchrist systematized and simplified U r d u . The College made publication i n vernacular tongues possible on a large scale. The Hindoostanee Press of Gilchrist owed as much to Ramcomul Sen as to H . H . Wilson; the Sanskrit Press as much to Babooram Pandit as to Colebrooke. Carey muflOied the Serampore Mission Press as a medium for pijpselytization, and joined the game of publishing vernacular literature. He wrote a Bengali Grammar and Kathopakathan or Dialogues, which descended from the hieghts of H i n d u patrician culture to talk in the language of the common man and woman of the street. Altogether an exhilarating experiment, but first, Dundas, and, then the anti-Hindu evangelicals threw cold water on it. The faculty was divided between the Persian-Hindusthani group and the Sanskrit-Bengali group. Roebuck wanted H i n d i to become the paramount vernacular at the College i n 1818, when the British empire i n India became the British empire of India. Wilson tugged i n the Orientalist direction, although his empahsis was on the classical Sanskrit and medieval history rather than on the Vedic one. The Hindu College had blown the first blast on the Anglicist note which gathered strength as utilitarianism took possession of the administration. Rammohun's protest at the foundation of Sanskrit College (1824) heralded the unqualified attack of Holt Mackenzie (1825). The model of heterogenetic transformation of the indigenous tradition fought a losing battle with the model of orthogenetic transformation of the alien import till Macaulay dealt the coup de grace. Bentinck's axe fell on the Fort William College in 1830.^ Professorships were abolished and lectures to students dis­ continued. The College Council was dissolved on 1 M a r c h 1831. Even the dormitory of the Writers' Building was closed to the students in 1835. When Vidyasagar went to the College as the Sherishtadar i n Bengali department, it was a "phantom College" which the Secretary, G . T. Marshall, was trying to reactivate. Its expenditure had fallen from Rs. 135,460 in 1828 to Rs. 32,350 in 1840. Its literary patronage had dwindled to nil since 1831.*

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Perhaps this explains why Iswar Chandra's first Bengali book, Basudeva Charit, was never published. But he got some leisure to continue further Sanskrit studies— "to acquire proficiency i n the system of Sankhya philosophy and the Puranahs, branches which do not fall within the regular course of education afforded by your (Sanskrit) College."* H e learnt H i n d i which helped him later to write Betdl Panchavimsati after the H i n d i original, Baital Pacchisi.* H e had to teach Bharatchandra's Annada Mangal to the civilians, some of the more erotic verses of which he would try to evade till his students set his mind at rest with reference to Shakespeare's Rape of Lucrece and Pope's January and M a y . Iswsr Chandra must have been picking up English from the students with whom he was friendly, for one of whom he wrote a couple of Sanskrit verses. H e left the Fort W i l l i a m College to join his A l m a Mater as Assistant Secretary on 6 A p r i l 1846. He was twenty five and bubbling with ideas and vigour. H e reintroduced discipline among the teachers and students, which was i n a very sad state. H e prepared, "at a great sacrifice of time and labour", a plan of study, which was considered by Marshall, his patron and now the Secretary of the General Committee of Public Instruction, to be "well adapted to produce order, to save time, and to secure to each subject ... the degree of attention which it deserves"." While still at the Fort William College, he had been shocked by the results of the Scholarship examination offered by the Sanskrit College Junior Class in 1845. O n joining the Sanskrit College he found that grammar was being neglected in the Junior Department, arithmetic was being treated as an adjunct of Jyotish class reserved for the seniors, exercises in translation from Sanskirt into vernacular and vice versa were not properly provided, and Kavya was being taught by a sick man or his inefficient substitute. Courses i n general literature, essay and translation for the Senior Scholarships were in no better shape. A l l this necessitated a thorough workmanlike revision of the system. He set to with a zest, taking classes himself whenever he could and borrowing books from the Fort William College Library. The results of the 1846 examinations showed a remarkable improvement. But it drew no commendation from the College Secretary, Russomoy Dutt, who, a busy judge of the Small Causes Court, found little time to spare for his part-time supervision of the College.

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VIDYASAGAR : T H E TRADITIONAL MODERNISER

Vidyasagar's long-term plan for improvement, prepared with the help of the faculties and approved by Marshall, was given short shrift by the Secretary, who argued that " i t was no use sending up so many subjects for consideration as they would not be attended to, not even read." Only part of one proposal was sent up to the Council. After a l l this, the Secretary had the temerity to claim that it was he who had supplied Vidyasagar with the data for his report! Vidyasagar, who had hopped to utilise his acquirements i n Sanskrit literature and long experience for the benefit of the College, felt cheated and spoke out.' Every one of the charges he had levelled at the Secretary was . borne out later.* But Russomoy considered them to be a lesemajeste. His marginal notes to the plan bear the marks of ir r i­ tation with a subordinate who did not care to go through the 'proper channel'. A s the Secretary sent only a few minor proposals for the consideration of the Council of Education, Vidyasagar, constitutionally incapable of taking any snubbing from whatever quarters it came, tendered his resignation directly to the Council on 7 A p r i l 1847. A memorial of thirteen eminent teachers of the College tried to stay the hands of authority so that he might "continue his services to the college i f not for his own, at least for the interest of the instituttion which he was appointed to look over." When the Council directed him as well as the Memorialists to forward letters through the Secretary of the College, Vidyasagar did so on the twentieth. " M y reason for resigning", he explained, "is that I do not find those opportunities o f being useful i n anticipation of which I applied for the appoint­ ment." When Russomoy Dutt ironically asked what he would live by, Iswar's nonchalant answer was, "by selling potatoes, i f necessary, but never by a job that would not preserve my selfrespect." He broke new ground for a Bengalee intellectual by going into business. H e set up a printing press on loan i n partenership with Madanmohan Tarkalankar. The Sanskrita yantra secured an immediate contract from the Fort W i l l i a m College for a reliable edition of Annadd Mangal of Bharat Chandra,^ followed by another for Betdlpanchavimsati, mentioned earlier. H i s patron, G . T . Marshall, loyally stood by him and ultimately secured for him the job of Head Writer and Treasurer at the Fort W i l l i a m College, which he joined on 1 M a r c h 1849.1"

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(2) The post of the Professor o f Literature at Sanskrit College fell vacant with the appointment of Madanmohan Tarkalankar (his partner i n the publication business) as judge-pundit of Murshidabad. F . J . j ^ o u a t , Secretary o f the Council of Educa­ tion, who had backeaf'Vidyasagar during his differences with Russomoy Dutt, wanted justice done, however belatedly, by offering him the post. H e was unwilling to go back unless the executive powers of a Principal were also given to him. H e was persuaded to join on a verbal assurance of this nature.^^ It was 5 December 1850 when his great career at the Sanskrit College really began. He submitted soon a detailed report on the working of the College togetI;er with suggestions for reform. This report of 16 December 1850^^ and his "Notes on the Sanskrit College" o f 12 A p r i l 1852 form his considered opinion on the role of Sanskrit i n the scheme of modern education i n Bengal. It was akeady a much debated issue. The Orientalists, like Sir W i l l i a m Jones and H . T. Colebrooke, inherited the humanist's conviction of the fundamental unity of mankind's religious beliefso f the possibility, therefore, of universal religious concord. "Does Paul teach anything more than was taught by P l a t o ? " asked Leonardo Bruni. Pico della Mirandola i n Oratio de Dignitate Hominis proposed to lay the foundations of a universal pea6e by showing the fundamental accord between Platonism, Aristotelianism, the Kabbala, magic and scholasticism. Eusebius, i n The Godly Feast of Erasmus, considered Cicero's books divinely inspired, and Nephalius could not help calling Socrates a saint. G o d , said Ficino, "prefers to be worshipped i n any manner and however unfittingly so long as it is human, than not to be worshipped at all through pride." Jones and Colebroobe were enamoured of Sanskrit in the same way as the Renaissance humanists had been of the Greek and Latin classics. Their attitudes were further shaped by the eighteenth century enlightenment which was cosmopolitan rather than Europecentred. The intellectual challenge of non-European societies was a more direct and fundamental challenge to traditional Christianity than any from science. Comparative travel literature led to the assertion of a natural religion and morality, which

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VTOYASAGAR : T H E TRADITIONAL MODERNISER

existed above and beyond the particular liabits and customs of a. particular faith. Pascal had said, "three degrees of latitude reverse the v^rhole of jurisprudence, a meridian decides about truth." Voltaire reposted, "Even though that which i n one religion is called virtue, is precisely that w:hi^h i n another is called vice, even though most rules regarding?;;^pd and bad are as variable as the languages one speaks and tnb-clothing one wears; nevertheless it seems to me certain that there are natural laws with respect to which human beings in all parts of the world must agree." Similarly, a natural religion existed, common to all men everywhere, of which the Catholic Church was only one mani­ festation (and a corrupt one at that, intolerant instead of being Catholic, parochial instead of being universal). The apostles o f natural religion found it easier than the missionaries had done to accept unfamiliar values and exotic outward trappings as legiti­ mate in their local milieu, x They were concerned not so mu6h to criticize as to assimilate strange cultures within a universal framework. " M a n k i n d are so much the same, in all times and places", declared Hume i n his Inquiry Concerning Human Under­ standing (1748), "that history informs us of nothing new o r strange i n this particular. Its chief use is only to discover the constant and universal principles of human nature". This belief i n unity of process and diversity of pattern caused Voltaire's admiration for Confucianism and Gibbon's for puritanical Islam. It has its counterpart i n Jones's rapture over Vedic culture and Colebrooke's rhapsody over the A r y a n golden age. Post-Vedic thought, especially that drawing on the Puranas and the Tantras, was denigrated, as the medieval Catholic thought had been deni­ grated by the sixteenth century Reformer. By enlisting the support of qualified Orientalists to improve its educational programme, the Fort William College inspired the budding civilians with this Weltanschauung. They argued that Indian civilization, healthy and vigorous once, had some how degenerated. It might be revived under the congenial influence of a milder government and a primarily classical education. There was a second strain at the College, introduced by William Carey of Serampore, which may be termed vernacularist. Carey and Marshman, being missionaries, did not share the enthusiasm of the Orientalists for the basic values of the H i n d u golden age dominated by the Brahmin elite. They would rather

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see India re-shaped i n the image of post-Reformation EuropeYet they differed from the unqualified Anglicism of the Evangelicals—Grant and Wilberforce—which catered for another kind of elite, the westernised one. They preferred a scheme that would reacli the masses chiefly through the vernacular languages. It is also interesting that i n a plan of 1814 Carey emphasized science courses far more than any other subject, including religion." This was followed by another Baptist blast—J. Marshman's Hints Relative to Native Schools (1816). The key to revitalization of India, said Marshman, was not the revival of classics a la Renaissance, but the integration of useful knowledge into the vernacular, so that common people could not only express new learning i n colloquial social intercourse but put i t to use i n an effort to imporve their lot and their environment. This book contained the seeds of a national program of com­ pulsory education. J. H . Harrington, then a judge of the Sudder Diwani Adaulat, had offered a dual educational system i n which European knowledge would be taught i n English as well as i n the classical Indian languages and dialects.^* It was this scheme that H . H . Wilson introduced at Sanskrit College, when it was founded in 1824. Wilson looked beyond Jones's and Colebrooke's India and cast his net of research wide enough to catch the history of the Maurya and Gupta periods, the post-Vedic literature,, especially the Puranas, H i n d u drama, medicine, law and philo­ sophy. H e even started regional studies of medieval Orissa, Nepal, Rajputana and Kashmir. Wilson's group of Orientalists (which included James Prinsep) argued that it was neither necessary nor desirable to eliminate traits i n Hindus which had developed i n the later ages and now become deeply ingrained i n H i n d u culture. Instead of imposing an alien language as at the H i n d u College, they advocated gradual assimilation of western knowledge by engrafting the English system upon the indigenous one. A s H . T. Prinsep wrote in his note of 15 February 1835, in reply to Macaulay's famous minute of 2 February 1835 (liken­ ing the role of English to that of Latin and Greek during the European Renaissance), " L a t i n and Greek were to the nations of Europe what Arabic and Persian are to the Moslims and Sanskrit to the Hindoos of the present population of Hindostan and i f a native literature is to be created it must be through the i m p r o -

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VIDYASAGAR : T H E TRADITIONAL MODERNISER

vements of which these are capable. T o the great body of the people of India English is as strange as Arabic was to the knights •of the dark ages". This dual system was anathema to the Anglicists who tried to p u l l down the Sanskrit College along with the F o r t William College. L o r d William Bentinck was an utilitarian i n educational matters. The Deputy-Governor and President of the Council, Sir Charles Metcalfe, threw the full force of his Indian experience behind the Governor-General. Bentinck's favourite political of&•cer, Charles Trevelyan, was an uncompromising Anglicist.^® The Committee of Public Instruction was reconstituted, and Anglicists, like Trevelyan, Bird and Colvin, swarmed in. The Orientalists fought back. Both parties to the controversy agreed that the ulti­ mate medium of instruction must be the vernaculars. But as the latter were barren of any literature, the issue was what language was to be the classical language i n the meantime, and from what source vernaculars were to be enriched and improved. T o both the questions the Anglicists replied by recommending English, while the Orientalists stubbornly stuck to the traditional classical languages of India. B y 1835 the Committee was evenly divided.^' O n Macaulay's advice, Bentinck almost decided to abolish the 'Calcutta Madrassa and the Sanskrit College.^* T o Wilson, now i n England, went a cri du coeur from two pundits of the doomed College. Jayagopal Tarkalamkara wrote: Asmin samskritapathasadmasarasi tvatsthapita ye sudhi— Hamsah kalabasena paksarahita duraih gate te tvayi. Tattire nibasanti samprati punarbyadhastaducchittaye Tevyastan yadi pasi palaka tada kirtischiram sthasyati. [This Sanskrit Seminary is like a pond; the scholars you have placed (as teachers) here are like swans, whose wings have been •clipped when you went away. Some hunters are now living on its bank and preparing to destroy the flock. If you could save them from the hunters, your achievement would last for ever.] The second, from Premchandra Tarkabagish, mentioned Macaulay as the king of the hunters (Mekale-vyadharajah). Wilson repeated the anguish i n a letter to Ramcomul Sen: " U p o n its (Sanskrit's) cultivation depends the means of native dialects to embody European learning and science. It is a visionary .absurdity to think of making English the language of India. It

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•should be extensively studied, no doubt, but the improvement •of the native dialects emiching them with Sanskrit terms for English ideas, [must be continued] and to effect this, Sanskrit must be cultivated as well as English. "^^ The Orientalist would never accept the Anglicist premise that modernization was organically related to the British cultural pattern. He was too .good a child of the eighteenth century thought to countenance a n y ethno-centric version of cultural evolution. The Calcutta intelligentsia was roused when John Colvin, a young Anglicist, leaked out the news of Bentinck's approval of "Macaulay's plan to abolish the Sanskrit College.^" Petitions "signed by no less than 10,000 people" were circulated within a fortnight. The Asiatic Society of Bengal drew up a memorial protesting against that part of the order which suspended the printing of oriental works by the Committee of Public Instruc­ tion. Bentinck remained unmoved as to the main principle "that a l l funds appropriated to pmposes of education would be best •employed on English education alone." But the College was saved by the joint efforts of the public and the Orientalists, who were now led by Prinsep and Macnaghten. " O u r object," the latter wrote, "is to impart ideas, not words, and it must be much more easy to acquire these through the medium of the mother tongue than by a foreign one., They who assert that the oriental languages are incapable of being made the medium of conveying new ideas must have but a superficial knowledge of those tongues."2i Carey was dead, but his brilliant pupil, Brian Hodgson, suggested a via media—a popular education program through vernaculars. H e would neither accept the Western value system of the Anglicists nor the Brahmin value system o f the Orientalists, which neglected the masses. Soundness of knowledge, he asserted, depended on its "free and equal, and large communication." Macaulay's parting kick was to stop granting stipends to pupils henceforth admitted to the Sanskrit College. Senior and Junior scholarships were, however, introduc­ ed in 1840. Vidyasagar was a young student of the Sanskrit College—only fifteen, to be precise—when the storm was raging over its head. H e mused long over the system as prevalent before and as surviv­ ing after the Anglicist onslaught. Wilson was no doubt right, ibut, with English classes suspended i n 1835 and only nominally

28

VIDYASAGAR : THE TRADITIONAL MODERNISER

revived in 1842, how was the dual system to operate? H o w would the process of grafting work, i f the English graft was sosickly? That Sanskrit should remain the parent stock Iswar Chandra agreed; he was too inimately involved i n it from the age of eight. But his own experience as a student had revealed its anachronism and unsoundness. The courses were redundant; the teaching, perfunctory'; and the pupils, caught between the two, resembled the Rugbians before Tom Brown's School Days, forced to memorise the rules of Latin grammar which they detested. "Mugdhabodh, with all its voluminous commentaries .. .is an imperfect grammar". "Naisadha charita from the beginn­ ing to the end is bombastic and hyperbolical". "The Sahitya Darpana only dilates in very diffuse style what Kavya Prakasa contains i n essence." The twenty eight tattvas (of Smriti) o f Raghunandan "are of use to the Brahmans as a class of priests". Anumanachintdmani is what Bacon would call a 'cobweb of learning'. " . . . Most parts of the Hindu system of philosophy do not tally with the advanced ideas of modern times." These are some of the selected comments of Vidyasagar on the current syllabus of the Sanskrit College. There was too much of old humanitas to teach conduct to a useful citizen of modern times. There was too much of the medieval method of pedagogy. He realised also the imperative necessity of Hodgson's popular education program through vernacular. The solution to these problems became germane to his task as the Principal, to which rank he was promoted on 22 January, 1851. In a report on the Sanskrit College (16 December 1850) he had suggested certain changes of practical nature in the light of three main objectives—(a) a real Sanskrit education, (b) encouragement to vernacular literature, and (e) a business­ like course of English study. Five years, wasted on Mugdha­ bodh, Dhatupdth, and Amarkosh, should be cut down to four. The grammar class should start with fundamental rules (in Bengali) and continue with the help of easy Sanskrit Readers, so that pupils would learn the basic things without strain before they went up for really tough matter. Some of the texts for the Sahitya class might be easily done here. The time saved might better be employed in writing essays i n Sanskrit and Bengali. Sahitya Darpan should be dropped from Alamkara course as it was too difficult. Sanskrit texts on

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Mathematics were useless and treatises on it must be compiled i n Bengali from the best English works on the subject. This would, inter alia, help teaching of Mathematics at vernacular schools. Throughout grammar, Sahitya and Alamkara classes, which comprised the Junior Department, Bengali was to be taught, begining with fables and ending i n elements of natural philosophy. Vidyasagar himself took the responsibility!of writing most of the Bengali items, besides a Bengali introduction to Sanskrit grammar and a compilation of Sanskrit selections. The students' views would thus be expanded before they com­ menced English studies i n the Alamkara class. English would be made compulsory and given due importance which it had lacked so long. T o make time for English, certain dead wood from higher Sajiskrit courses must be lopped off—viz. twenty-eight tattvas from Smriti and four works from Nyaya. Nyaya class would be renamed Darsana (Philosophy) where European systems o f philosophy would be introduced. Mature i n age and equipped with the necessary linguistic apparatus by seven to eight years o f schooling i n English, the students of this class would be much better able to compare Eastern and Western systems freely and to arrive at truth by their own consequently developed rational faculties. " Y o u n g men thus educated will be better able to expose the errors of ancient H i n d u Philosophy than i f they were to derive their knowledge of Philosophy simply from European sources."^^ Students, he added in 1852, "wishing to transfer the Philosophy of the West into a native dress will possess a stock of technical words already i n some degree familiar to intelligent natives." In "Notes on the Sanskrit College" of 12 A p r i l 1851,2* drawn up after several consultations with F . J. Halliday, then President of the Council of Education, he elaborated the above proposals. "The creation of an enlightened Bengali Literature should be the first object of those who are entrusted with the superintendence of education i n Bengal." Such a literature would come forth only by collection of materials from European sources, which called for a good knowledge of English, and by dressing these up i n elegant, expressive and idiomatic Bengali, which could only be developed by a command over Sanskrit. The house of Bengali literature would stand on the twin pillars of English and Sanskrit. "Experience proves that mere English scholars are altogether

30

VIDYASAGAR : THE TRADITIONAL MODERNISER

incapable of expressing their ideas in elegant and idiomatic Bengali. ... It is very clear then that i f the students of the Sanskrit College be made familiar with English literature, they will prove the best and ablest contributors to an englightened Bengali Literature." Vidyasagar did not say so, but the Derozians' failure in this matter was certainly i n his mind. He proposed that the students of Grammar and Literature classes should devote one-third of their time at College to English and when i n Rhetoric, L a w and Philosophy classes, at least twothirds of their time. W i t h money saved by the abolition o f Mathematical classes (through Sanskrit medium), the English department was to be strengthened. Instead of two teachers o f English as at present, there should be four, and they should be sufficiently familiar with Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, which was not the case. The subjects for the Senior Scholarship examination should provide for History, Mathematics, Natural Philosophy (on a comparative basis). Mental and M o r a l Philo­ sophy, Logic and Political Economy. This emphasis on modern subjects indicated a novel orienta­ tion i n higher education. New horizons of useful knowledge, especially those i n which the West had made spectacular advance on the East, were to be opened up, and all this would be logically linked to the program of popular education. The subject for the vernacular essay set by Vidyasagar for the scholarship examination of 1852 was— "Describe the advantages that have resulted from the cultivation of the physical sciences." Here he was following the Carey line. The Council of Education invited D r . J . R . Ballantyne, Principal of Benares Government Sanskrit College, to inspect the new system i n operation at Calcutta under Vidyasagar's guidance. Ballantyne approved the commencement of com­ pulsory English at an early stage, though he would not impose this on his own college, pleading local circumstances. H e com­ mended the introduction of class system. " O n the advantage of the class system, in enabling the same teacher to take charge of a very much greater number of pupils, it is unnecessary to dwell." But he apprehended that prosecution of simultaneous studies i n Sanskrit and English might "end i n persuading the learner that 'truth is double'. ... A s the Sanskrit College at present stands,, there is a good Sanskrit course, and a good English course, but

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the pupil is left to determine for himself whether the principlesinculcated i n these correspond to one another, or altogether conflict, or correspond partly and i f so how far." They would neither grasp themselves nor be able to communicate to their fellow countrymen that English sciences were really development and expansion of truths, the germs of which the Sanskrit systems, contained. T o point out real agreement where there was a seem­ ing discordance and to conciliate acceptance of European sciencesby showing that they recognised elementary truths already reached by H i n d u speculators—these two objects might be; frustrated. Ballantyne proposed to oviate the danger of 'double truth' by introducing some of his own books i n the curriculum—^viz. Synopsis of Sciences, an abstract of M i l l ' s Logic, or Commentary on Berkeley's Inquiry. He had taken pains to show i n these works correspondence between N y a y a and European logic or between Vedanta and European idealist philosophy. They would help the pupils to "bridge the charm" between Sanskrit and English value systems and "to interpret the mind of Europe to

that of India".2*

The Council of Education asked Vidyasagar to avail himself of these compilations of Ballantyne and to continue exchanging ideas with him for improvement of the courses and establishment of a common terminology. Vidyasagar strongly reacted to this suggestion and unwittingly revealed a little of his own philosophic position. He was not prepared to talk big, like Ballantyne, of "bridging the charm between the learning of India and the science of England." He would confine himself to the much more humble and practical task of spreading good education by the most effective means at his disposal. Secondly, the Indian idealistic and philosophical systems were bad enough; he considered Samkhya and Vedanta to be erroneous, and he would not augment the evil by introducing Berkeley. Samkhya and Vedanta he would retain only to be refuted by the empiricist English philo­ sophy, but Berkeley would increase the misplaced reverence for the Indian brand of idealism which he wanted to counteract.^^ Thirdly, Sanskrit and English courses, i f given properly, would not persuade the learner that truth was double. "Truth is truth i f properly perceived. T o believe that 'truth is double' is but the imperfect perception of truth itself—an effect which I am sure to-

.32

'

VIDYASAGAR : T H E TRADITIONAL MODERNISER

-see removed by the improved courses of studies we have adopted at this institution". Fourthly, he would not agree about the inevitability o f correspondence between Indian and European philosophies or between H i n d u shastras and European sciences. Even i f there were, " i t appears to me to be a hopeless task to conciliate the learned of India to the acceptance of the advancing science of Europe. They are a body of men whose longstanding prejudices are unshakable. ... Lately a feeling is manifesting itself among the learned of this part of India, especially in Calcutta •and its neighbourhood, that when they hear of a scientific truth, the germs of which may be traced out in their Shastras, instead of showing any regard for that truth, they triumph and the superstititious regard for their own Shastras is redoubled." Vidyasagar was already bitter about the unteachability of the pundits of his day. They had become irrelevant in his scheme of education. Their opposition he took for granted but disregarded, for their reputation was declining and voice getting feebler. There was little time to waste i n reconciling these irreconcilables. A l l energy was to be spent "to extend the benefit of education to the mass o f people" through vernacular schools, vernacular text books and a band of teachers trained by himself at the Sanskrit College. They would be masters of Bengali language, considerably proficient i n English (and thereby possessed of a large amount of useful information) and free from the prejudices o f the past generation. The Sanskrit College would not only be a seat of pure Sanskrit learning but a nursery of improved vernacular literature. More, when the elitist Anglicist education of the H i n d u College and the equally elitist Orientalist education o f the Sanskrit College before his time had failed to produce competent teachers, the Sanskrit College under him would succeed. ' T o enable me to carry out this great—this darling object of my wishes—I must (excuse the strong word) to a considerable extent be left unfettered."26

Vidyasagar had already launched the much-needed reforms i n anticipation of the Government approval. H e wrote introduc­ tions to Sanskrit grammar i n Bengali (Upakramanika, 1851 and Vyakarankaumudi, parts I and II, 1853, part III, 1864) which •created an instant enthusiasm among the beginners, so long baflied by Bopadeva. H i s selection o f Sanskrit Prose and Verse {Rjupdth, parts I & II, 1851 and part III, 1852) enriched the

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aesthetic taste of the Sophomores which the dry Bhattikavya never did. English was made compulsory for the first five classes. Five teachers were requisitioned for the subject and Prasanna K u m a r Sarvadhikari was appointed Professor of EngUsh i n 1853. The students of the first class read M i l t o n , Pope, Addison, Cowper and Campbell. Mathematics was now taught i n English instead of Sanskrit and Srinath Das was appointed Professor of that subject. The EngUsh department was further strengthened and salaries of posts i n that department were raised very soon. The portals of the College were opened to the Kayasthas and, later, to Nabasakhs. Vidyasagar was not very wiUing to admit Hindus of lower castes, whose presence would not only shock the orthodox pundits and injure the popularity and respectablility o f the College but whose cultural lag might create problems of maladjustment.^' Vidyasagar bears some resemblance to the great humanist teacher of Venice, Vittorino da Feltre. " H e allowed his pupils", vsrites Vespasiano da Bisticci of the latter, "to play fitting games..., permitting them these recreations after they had learnt and repeat­ ed their lessons. He made an accurate time-table and never allowed an hour to be wasted.... H e taught gratuitously the needy youths who came to him and supplied a l l their wants. ... A l l teachers should be fashioned after this model, not merely to teach Latin and Greek, but also good[ conduct, which is the most i m ­ portant thing i n life. . . . " Vittorino first of all gave his pupils the classics, Virgil, Homer, Cicero and Demosthenes, and then the historians and other poets. H e explained grammar accurately with reference to the texts. He went on to dialectic and rhetoric and followed up with arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music. The courses culminated with Plato and Aristotle. The playing down of grammar, the emphasis given to English, Bengali and Sanskrit texts, the new view of the. Mathematics and Philosophy classes underline Vidyasagar's luunanist approach, although music was wanting i n his curricu­ l u m . One essential goal was to re-unite heart and mind, separated by Smriti and Nabya nyaya. Another was to stress relevance for a cultured man's moral development. The third was to give an idea that truth was no exclusive property of the Hindus and that ideaUst Philosophy was a hindrance, not help, to life in the modern world. The fourth was the cry "back to the sources." 3

34

VIDYASAGAR : T H E TRADITIONAL MODERNISER

A l l accounts agree on his role as a stern disciplinarian who stood no nonsense either from teachers or from students. The former had to learn punctuality and regularity (irksome for the easy-going old pundits) as they invariably found the principal waiting at the entrance or going on rounds. The class system was introduced—there being eight classes altogether. The College closed on Sundays only instead of on every Astami and Pratipad. A n admission fee and a re-admission fee were introduced i n 1852 to prevent frequent dropouts and to ensure regularity of atten­ dance. The schooling was no longer free—a fee of one rupee per month was introduced i n 1854.^* He would never allow idle talk or rowdy brawls witliin the campus but would not mind a freefor-all between his students and those of the neighbouring H i n d u College. He would never permit beating or caning and frowned upon silly punishments like 'stand up on the bench'. But he would expel a whole class when it refused to confess to the ragging of a young teacher who taught well. He would mix with them like friends after College hours and he intervened for them i n matters of employment. It was due to his efforts that students o f the Sanskrit College began to be appointed to the post of Deputy Magistrate. Strange but true, he did not like the teachers and the students to be a dull lot, like Gopala of his primer. A n hour was fixed for compulsory games and he himself engaged in wrestling bouts in an impromptu gymnasium i n one corner of the campus.. The College was run like a big joint family but the kartd ran it o n Western, business-like lines which always kept the examinationschedule and the result-chart in view. Himself a prodigy o f learning, he could never tolerate anything less than the best efforts which were to be rewarded by scholarships from 1853.^* Frequent examinations were held.*" Nihil Ultra was the motto~ of this College when it had the good fortune to have him as its Principal. The advance on Russomoy Dutt's slack, sluggish days was a testimony to his administrative genius. "The learned Pundits of the Sanscrit College", commented Henry Woodrow, Inspector of Schools, East Bengal, i n 1859, "have as a body, been seized with a love of publishing books. They have at last consented to cast away their Sesquipedalia Verba, compounded words a line and a half long, and to write a language that ordinary people may read. Simplicity of diction is now their great object. ... The Pundits of that College then despised E u r o -

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pean Science and Literature as utterly as the Madrussa Moulavies do now. Yet' during theselast fifteen years they have awoke from the slumber of hundreds, or rather thousands o f years, and now again are appearing as the instructors of their countrymen."*^

IV VIDYASAGAR

AND

POPULAR

EDUCATION

The state of popular education was sadly remiss at the beginn­ ing of the nineteenth century. It was not, however, for dearth o f elementary schools. In 1803 Ward found that i n Bengal, "almost all villages possessed schools for teaching reading, writing and •elementary arithmetic".^ I n 1835 A d a m computed one lakh schools in about a lakh and half of villages.^ L o r d M o i r a alluded to "the humble but valuable class of village school masters" teaching "the first rudiments ... for a trifling stipend which is within reach of any man's means."* This was considered to be suflacient for the needs of the village zamindar, the village accountant and the village shop-keeper. Improvement of the standard and diffusion of such education to places and persons, out of its reach, could be the two objects of government. The former was "positively incumbent", especially as the village school masters, themselves devoid of moral principles, were incapable of imparting them. The missionaries thought likewise. In his Hints Relative to Native Schools (1816), Joshua Marshman observed that they contributed little to character-building, which was so necessary because of the native "disregard of justice, and all good faith." Reverend J . Long, i n his preface to the 1868 edition of Adam's Reports, and A d a m himself had left a harrowing picture of the Adllage school and its teacher. The schools were housed i n Chandimandaps or shabby huts and were even held i n the open air. "Little respected and poorly rewarded", the Guru Mahdsayas taught from memory or tattered manuscripts of a dubious nature, and kept discipline literally with an iron hand. A faulty ortho­ graphy made spelling chaotic; antiquated texts, culled from an odd assortment of hymns, epic stories and didactic verses, were neither interesting nor instructive. Arithmetic was memorised from verses of Subhankarl, There was no relation between elementary and higher education. F o r lack of follow-up the pupils regained their primitive ignorance i n little time. While the Government's limited financial resources precluded i t from embarking upon schemes of elementary education, the iield was taken over by the missionaries whom the Marquis o f

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37

Hastings lent some ad hoc support. It is impossible, however, to maintain with Kenneth Ingham that the object of missionary education was "to make the Indians themselves desire reform."* In their original constitution the Baptist Missionary Society thought of the establishment of schools "as one of the means t o be adopted for the introduction of Christianity in India."* A Bengali school was started at Serampore in 1800 with fifty to sixty pupils but they were removed by their parents when Krishna P a l was converted.* Owen Leonard's attempts to open schools at Dacca were resisted. Fear of loss of caste was dissipated after many years when a general desire t o learn English could be fully exploited by the missionaries. B y 1818 the Baptists had founded 92 schools i n or near Serampore, 11 at Katwa, 3 near Murshidabad and 5 at Dacca, with about 10,000 pupils i n a l l . ' By 1831, how­ ever, the Serampore Mission controlled 21 schools only (with. 1,195 pupils), though it had started female schools i n 1823. The London Missionary Society (L.M.S.), the Church Missionary Society (C.M.S.), the Society for the Propagation of the Gospels (S.P.G.), the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge (S.P.C. K . ) and the Established Churches of Scotland (E.C.S.I.) were a l l active i n spreading education among the masses with roughly the same object of proselytization. Robert M a y of L . M . S. was helped by Government grants and, at the time of his death i n 1818, had founded 36 schools in and near Chinsurah with about 3,000 students. The General Comrnittee of Public Instruction took up May's schools i n 1824 but turned them over to S. P. G . i n 1832. The C . M . S . (Calcutta) was active i n Burdwan area, controlling 9 schools by 1834. F r o m Adam's First Report (1835) and other missionary accounts we can compute the position in 1833. There were altogether 134 boys' and girls' schools of all types run by the missionaries and about 8,000 pupils on their rolls.' J. Marshman planned for quick expansion on the Bell and Lancastrian method and opened a normal school for training teachers. M a y had a method of his own. Everywhere the emphasis was placed on vernacular medium, as a foreign language was considered ill-adapted "for conveying ideas which shall raise and renovate a whole country."' The efforts of the Calcutta School Society, already mentioned, were doomed to failure by the collapse of their bankers i n 1825 and 1833. It continued to survive for sometime on government

38

VIDYASAGAR : T H E TRADITIONAL MODERNISER

grant of five hundred rupees a month, Hare's charity and Bentinck's "private gifts till it was forced to discontinue aid to native schools. The Government had followed a policy of drift since 1813. Although L o r d M o i r a had proposed two experi­ mental schools (one for the Hindus and the other for the Muslims) at each of the district headquarters and John Shakespeare had proposed a native school master at each thana, two at the district headquarters and six at each of the sites of the Provincial Court of Appeal and Circuit, nothing was done for popular education. O n the contrary. Holt Mackenzie declared in 1823 that support and establishment of colleges for the educated and influential classes, who would themselves' be teachers and translators from the European into native languages, should be the more immediate objects- of the care of the Government than providing elementary education for the masses. " T o pro-vide for the education of the great body of the people seems to be impossible, at least, i n the present state of things. ... Further, the natural course of things i n all countries seems to be that knowledge introduced from abroad should descend from the higher, or educated classes and gradually spread through their example." After the Anglicists had won the battle in 1835, the newly constituted Committee of Public Instruction reiterated this famous filtration theory with two prime objects—to widen the foundations of the system and to consolidate and improve it. "It would be our aim, did the funds at our command admit of it, to carry the former process on, until an elementary school for instruction in the vernacular language should be established in every village in the country, and the latter, until a college for Western learning should be endowed at the principal town of every commissionership or circle of two or three zillahs, and ultimately in every zillah.''^" T i l l a vernacular literature was developed, however, the emphasis in education must fall on English. "The natives must learn before they can teach. The best educated among them must be placed in possession of our knowledge before they can transfer it into their own language:" The Committee proposed to con­ fine its efforts to encouraging translations i n vernacular, adopting vernacular books, appointment of vernacular language-teachers and awarding prizes for translation after each annual examination. Its field of activity was concentrated i n the chief towns and sudder stations of districts and among the upper and middle

I VroYASAGAR A N D POPULAR EDUCATION

39

classes, in the expectation that through these scholars educational reform would percolate downwards to rural vernacular schools. John Adam showed clearly the falsity of this theory i n his last report subinitted on 28 A p r i l 1839. Brian Hodgson poured unmixed scorn on the fantastic unreality of the project of "the training of a promiscuous crowd of English smatterers". But the failure of the plan of vernacular education at Chinsurah, Dacca, Bhagaipore, Saugor and Ajmere weighed heavily with Auckland. His personal preference for English apart,^^ scarcity of funds remained a stumbling block. "There are more villages at the Presidency than we have rupees annually at our disposal." Though education got more in 1840 than i n 1836, the Council of Education, which replaced the General Committee i n 1842, clung tenaciously to the latter's filtration theory. Improvement of village schools was postponed but preparation of class books in vernacular was taken in hand, although they were really transla­ tions from original English texts. The Bengali Pathsala, founded by Radhakanta Deb and the Tagores (1840), and the Tattvabodhini Pathsala, founded by Debendranath Tagore (1843),^^ kept the idea of vernacular schools dimly burning till, at the end of 1844, the Bengal Government decided to set up 101 vernacular schools (known as Hardinge schools or Banga Vidyalaya) i n the rural areas of the Bengal Presidency. The administrative indiscretion of the Board of Revenue, to which was committed the care and control of these infant seminaries, smothered these i n the bud although Vidyasagar took great pains i n selecting teachers for them. A s the Inspector, "who knew nothing of Bengali", reported on these schools, and "was even requested to draw up a scheme of school-books for them", while the over-worked Collector was instructed to supervise, tlie students thurst their books in their masters' hands and brawled for English education, which, by India .Government's resolution of 10 October 1844, had become a passport to service.^* Rajnarayan Bose commented on the deplorable state of popular education at a Hare Memorial Meeting in 1848. That only eight per cent of boys i n Bengal and Bihar had any schooling and only 6 per cent of the adults were literate clearly showed the utter futility of the Anglicist plan. In twenty five years since the •establishment of the General Committee of Public Instruction, about two thousand i n all had learnt English. Yet how many of

40

VIDYASAGAR : T H E TRADITIONAL MODERNISER

these could write i n that language with conviction and without blemish? Little learning proved a dangerous thing. It led to woeful neglect of the Indian languages and culture and high brow contempt for the masses. Enamoured of Newton, the Bengalis had forgotten Aryabhatta; carried away by Homer and V i r g i l , they had abandoned the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. I f European languages should be learnt for their richness, Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian had no lesser claims on that count. Bacon and Locke could be best understood when explained i n vernacular, Hardinge schools had failed for lack of books, teachers and regular inspection. This stepmotherly attitude must go and elementary schools be founded all over the country to teach through vernacular tongue." John Drinkwater Bethune, the new President of the Council o f Education, echoed the same sentiments when he exhorted the young aspirants for fame as English poets and essayists to turn to Bengali.^* The Council's report on the schools i n 1851-52 told the same tale: " M o s t ... (of the Hardinge schools) appear to be i n a knguishing state, and not to have fulfilled the expecta­ tions formed on their establishment". A s desired by the India Government, the Council of Education (to which the vernacular schools had been transferred in A p r i l 1852) was asked to draft a plan for vernacular education. One of the Minutes of the ' Council, written by F . J. Halliday (dated 24 M a r c h 1854), came to have the greatest impact, for its author was appointed the first Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal on 1 M a y the same year. Behind this Minute the mind of Vidyasagar worked.^* Halliday wanted to draw upon Thomason's successful experi­ ments in N o r t h West Provinces to establish a system of model schools with a regular plan of visitation. This was to be confined at first to four or five zillahs near Calcutta and two zillahs i n Bihar, and to consist of five schools in each district, with two teachers to each school. Though admission to such schools would be gratui­ tous in the beginning, they were expected to be self-supporting, which meant that extension of the system would involve a less proportionate expenditure. He was also prepared to aid missio­ nary schools and other approved vernacular schools, provided they were open to visitation by the Government superintendents. In his Memorandum (7 Feburary 1854) Vidyasagar unambi­ guously opted for education through vernacular, and expressed

VIDYASAGAR A N D POPULAR EDUCATION

41

his willingness to help as Chief Inspector of the model schools,, in addition to his duties as Principal, though for this extra exertion he wanted nothing more than a travelling allowance of three hundred rupees per year. Halliday was too eager to accept the suggestion. "Pundit Ishwar Chunder Surma is an uncommon m a n , . . . and I should be well pleased to let h i m try an experiment,, in the result of which he is greatly interested, and which I really think will succeed i n his hands." H e generously proposed to grant him two hundred rupees a month, travelling allowance included. Meanwhile, Sir Charles Wood's Education Despatch (no. 49 of 19 July 1854) arrived i n India. R . J . M o o r e has recently laid bare the contributions made by James Marshman, Charles Trevelyan, C . H . Cameron and Alexander Duff to the framing o f this " M a g n a Charta of English Education i n I n d i a . " " W o o d departed from the policy of encoiuraging higher humanistic educa­ tion only among the upper classes in society and repudiated the filtration theory i n its extreme form. H e wanted to create opportunities for "the acquisition of such an improved education a s . . . (would) make those who possess (ed) it more useful members of society i n every condition of life". The higher classes were called upon to bear a considerable part of their own educational expenses, so that the funds thus released could be devoted to the hitherto neglected task of spreading "useful and practical knowledge, suited to every station of life, to the great mass of the people." The practice in Bengal had been so far to direct students' ambitions to distinctions i n European literature and philosophy. This reflected the Anglicist dream of providing a. class of interpreters between the rulers and the ruled. W o o d turned away from it, as suitable careers could not be provided for those who distinguished themselves. India needed "good clerks, good judges, perhaps, good railroad servants, good civil engineers for oridinary works, good policemen and village accountants and measurers".^* Para 4 of the Despatch clearly stresses that the energies of the students should be channelised into regenerating: [ a backward economy. Scholarships should provide a path from the lowest school to the highest, and ultimately into technical and ' professional careers.'-* t ! Para 14 of the Despatch reads, " . . . while the English language continues to be made use of as by far the most perfect medium for

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VIDYASAGAR : THE TRADITIONAL MODERNISER

the education of those persons who have acquired a sufficient knowledge of it to receive general instruction through it, the vernacular languages must be employed to teach the far larger classes who are ignorant of, or imperfectly acquainted with, English." Duff spoke of two sets of schools, the lower, teaching the great mass through the vernaculars and the higher, through English. Wood refused to grade schools on a linguistic basis. EngUsh and vernacular were to be done together as, otherwise, there would be "no chance of having the means of imparting generally European knowledge." The cornerstone of the charter was the grant-in-aid system, taken from Kay-Shuttleworth's theory and the English and Irish •experience. Paragraph 52 of the Despatch commended the grantin-aid system as "fostering a spirit of reUance upon local exer­ tions", while paragraph 61 remarked that the government would "supply the wants of particular parts of India by the estabUshment, temporary support, and management of places of education •of every class. . . . " Wood looked forward to a time "when any general system of education entirely provided by Government may be discontinued ... and when many of the existing Government institutions ... may be safely closed, or transferred to the mana­ gement of local bodies." A m o n g other recommendations of the Despatch were the abolition of the Council of Education and the creation of a separate Education Department. A Director of Public Instruction was to be appointed to supervise the new system in operation with the help of a body of Inspectors. Universities were foreshadowed—on the model of London University. Impor­ tance was given to training of school-masters and compilation and composition of original vernacular texts—not to translation from European works. The Government of India informed the Bengal Government that funds were available for grants-in-aid to vernacular schools under Wood's Despatch. Halliday's scheme of model schools was approved, "but the terms of the Court's Despatch will not allow of his (Iswar Chunder Surma's) being made a Superinten­ dent of Vernacular education—the function of such an oflBce, having now to be performed by the Director and by the Inspectors whom it is intended to employ. ..."^o O n a verbal communica­ tion from Halliday, Vidyasagar had already made a quick tour •of some of the districts to select sites for the model schools during

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the summer vacation of the Sanskrit College i n 1854.^^ The Director of Public Instruction suggested that Vidyasagar be employed temporarily to superintend schools i n Hooghly, Burdwan and Nadia, vice Hodgson Pratt, whose services as Inspector of Schools would not be available for a month or two. O n Pratt's return the D.P.I, would report whether the Pundit's services would be further required. A t this cavalier treatment of his protege Halliday was furious. •"I should not anticipate any advantage", he wrote, "from a merely temporary employment of Pundit Eswar Chunder. H e is a man of very decided character who has formed and expressed strong views on the subject of vernacular education, which i f permitted he will no doubt endeavour to carry into effect with energy and intelligence according to the scheme approved of. But I do not see that he could be expected to effect much i f temporarily employed, and left to understand that at any time, three weeks or three months hence he is to retire from the work on the appearance of M r . Pratt as Inspector." Halliday desired liim to be permanently employed under some name, like Offg. Sub-Inspector, over the three or four districts where the experiment of model schools was to be made. Pratt might inspect what Vidyasagar had done. " I believe", he continued, "the method which I devised with great pains and after much enquiry to be the most promising, and it would be a pity to wish its failure by placing one of the chief instruments of its execution i n an embarrassing and erroneous position i n which it would be difficult for him to exert himself with effect."^* It was entirely due to the stubborn stand of Halliday that Vidyasagar could circumvent red tape and racial complexes. H e was appointed Assistant Inspector of Schools, South Bengal, on a monthly salary of two hundred rupees over and above his pay as Principal, from 1 M a y 1855. Vidyasagar set to work with his characteristic zest and appoint­ ed four sub-inspectors who immediately went out selecting sites. Twenty schools were founded, five i n each of four districts— Hooghly, Burdwan, Nadia and Midnapur—between 22 August 1855 and 14 January 1856. The villagers pooled their resources for construction of school-buildings and the Government offered a monthly grant-in-aid of fifty rupees to each school and free tuition for the first six months. "The inhabitants of nearly all

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VIDYASAGAR : THE TRADITIONAL MODERNISER

the villages", reported Vidyasagar, "take a lively interest i n them. The elders frequently visit the schools and sit for hours together, hearing the boys read and explain their lessons. ..."^^ Thesuperiority of the new system over the older one was apparent even to the unlettered. After three years the pupils acquired a thorough knowledge of the Bengali language and made respectable progress in several branches of useful studies.^* Their number swelled with time. By the beginning of 1856 it was 2,738, and Vidyasagar, carried away by the success of his exertions, promised funds from his private means right and left. H e set up a free school i n his homevillage i n 1853, lodged and fed a good number of students at his own house and left a legacy of a hundred rupees a month i n his last will for the maintenance of the institution. The teachers were selected with great care after an examination, and the Bengali school, formerly attached to the Hindu College (now the Presidency College) was transferred to the care of Vidyasagar for conversion into a normal school for teachers' training. It was put in charge of Akshoy K u m a r Datta, whom he had known as a fellow-member of the Tattvabodhini Sabha and who was the foremost writer in Bengali on scientific and philosophic topics.^* Vidyasagar showed how the genuine love of one deter­ mined and dedicated individual for learning and for people, could do i n dispelling the appalling darkness that enveloped the countryside. A l l this time he had been fighting against the near impossibility of working the grants-in-aid system under the prescribed rules which made Pratt despair and Woodrow circumvent.*' Y e t he took keen interest i n the progress of his model schools, published text books for them and pestered the Government for appointing their alumni to the lower posts in the Judicial and Revenue Depertments.^* The curriculum he proposed should interest us. Besides Literature, a little Johnsonian to our taste (Rasselas and Telemachus were texts). History with a wide coverage of countries and cultures (Greece, Rome, England and India), Geography and Biography (Vidyasagar was over-fond of them and translated a good deal from Chambers), Arithmetic, Astronomy Elements o f Natural Philosophy, and even Physiology were to be taught i n mother tongue. The attention paid to History reminds us o f the attitude the great Renaissance humanists, one of whom

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