THE real biography of Rammohan is to be read in his life work, a life full of sustained strivings in various fields-social, political and religious; full of courage, sincerity and singleness of purpose, of indomitable energy and fiery enthusiasm such as has seldom been equalled in any part of the world.
Much of this is happily reflected in his prolific writings in the English, Bengali, Sanskrit, Persian and Urdu languages, and thus remains as a heritage to generations unborn. For the purpose of this biographical sketch it is more appropriate to dive into his mind than to deal with the events of his life, save in so far as it may be necessary to furnish a framework for the picture.
Rammohan was born in the village of Radhanagar, near Krishnagar, in the district of Hoogly, on the 22nd May, 1772. He came of a respectable Brahman family. His great-grandfather, Krishna Chandra Banerji, saw service under the Nawab of Bengal and was honoured with the title of “Roy Roy,” afterwards contracted into ” Roy,” which has since been retained as the designation of the family in place of the caste name “Banerji.”
Braja Benode, the third son of Krishna Chandra and the grandfather of Rammohan, served the Nawab Siraj-ud- Doula in a distinguished capacity; but, on account of some ill-treatment accorded to him, he quitted the employment and spent the rest of his life at home. He had five sons, of whom Ramkanta, the fifth, was the father of Rammohan. Rammohan’s paternal ancestors were Vaishnavas noted for their piety and devotion. His maternal ancestors were Shaktas. Very early in life Rammohan showed signs of conspicuous talent, and Ramkanta spared no pains to give him an excellent education. He received his early instruction in the village, school, where he made some progress in Bengali. But Bengali was not of much consequence in those days. Persian was still the Court language, and knowledge of it was indispensable. He received private tuition in Persian at home under a Maulvi, and later on lie was sent to Patna, then a great centre of Islamic learning, for a proper study of Arabic and Persian. There he read Euclid and Aristotle in Arabic, and also made a study of the Koran and Koranic literature. He was then sent for study of Sanskrit to Benares, where he did not take long to become well-versed in the literature, law and philosophy of his people, especially the Upanishads. While this education made him an ardent admirer and advocate of the monotheistic religion inculcated in the Upanishads, it shook his faith in the popular Hindu religion of the day.
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On his return home he fearlessly attacked the meaningless ceremonialism and the priest-ridden idolatry which prevailed all round in the name of Hinduism. This led to an estrangement between him and his father, and made him leave his paternal roof. In search of truth he went out on travel, which was not confined to India alone but extended to far-off Tibet. After about three years of travel Rammohan returned to his father-when he was about twenty years old-and on his return was taken back with great kindness and affection. It appears, however, that intellectually and spiritually the paternal roof proved inhospitable, and we learn from his friend and contemporary, William Adam, that Ram- Mohan, after relinquishing idolatry, “was obliged to reside for ten or twelve years at Benares at a distance from his friends and relatives.”
The death of his father in 1803 led him to remove from Benares to Mur- shidabad, the old Mogul capital of Bengal. There he published his first work, entitled Tuhfat-ul-Muwahuddin, or. “A gift to Monotheists”-a treatise in Persian with an Arabic preface. This work shows in a considerable measure the influence on Rammohan’s mind and style of writing of his studies in Islamic scriptures at Patna. In matter, it is a deistic dissertation on the futility of all existing religions and the fatuities of religious leaders. In form, it is cast in a logical mould and abounds with logical and philosophical terms. It is an essay seeking to establish that the real root of all religions is faith in one Supreme Being, and that all the rest is mere excrescence.
Rammohan now entered service under the East India Company as a clerk in the Collectorate under Mr. John Digby, the Collector at Rangpur. He was subsequently promoted to the post of Dewan, “the principal native officer in the collection of revenue.” Rammohan commenced the study of English in his twenty-fourth year (1796). In his twenty-ninth year (1801) he could speak it well enough to be understood. During his stay at Rangpur, Rammohan carried on religious controversies with the Pundits, wrote tracts in Persian, translated portions of the Vedanta, studied the Tantras and made a study of the Kalpa Sutras and other Jaina scriptures. Thus it was a time of strenuous preparation for his future work. Besides these, he used to hold vigorous religious discussions every evening at his residence, in which he used all the weapons of his armoury in exposing the absurdities of idolatry.
After about ten years Rammohan retired from service with a view to finding more, time for the work which lay nearest his heart. Leaving’ government service lie went home to stay with his mother awhile. But his controversies with the Pundits and his persistent attacks on the popular Hinduism of the day roused the animosity of his neighbours, who subjected him to endless persecutions. Eventually, these brought about the displeasure of his mother, Tarini Devi, who obliged Rammohan to quit the house. He then went to Raghunathpur, a neighboring village, where, living in a society sunk in idolatry, superstition and nameless ritualism, this votary of the spirit-God worshipped from day to day The One without a second, in spirit and in truth, and in the grand solitude of his independence.
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There was one fateful event that happened during this period which left an indelible impression on Rammohan’s mind and acted on him as a powerful impetus later in life, to the everlasting benefit of his country. Rammohan had an elder brother, named Jaganmohan, who died in 1811. His wife, who was devotedly attached to him, burnt herself on his funeral pyre. Rammohan had tried to dissuade her from it, but had failed. When, however, she actually felt the flames on her person she made an attempt to get up and escape. But the orthodox relations, dreading such escape as almost an act of heresy and sacrilege, managed to keep her pinned down to the pyre by means of bamboo poles while, with the noise of tom-toms and other instruments, they drowned her frantic shrieks. Rammohan, though a witness of this awful scene, failing to help her out of such a tragic end, was stricken with pity and remorse. He there and then took the vow that he would never rest till the inhuman practice of Sati was abolished.
How faithfully he kept this vow and with what consummate energy and skill he accomplished his great object will appear from the following testimony of the Rev. J. Fox, a noted Englishman of the day: “There is no doubt that it was greatly through his firmness, his enlightened reasonings, and his persevering efforts, that the Government of Bengal at last thought themselves enabled to interdict the immolation of widows. His arguments and his appeals to ancient authorities held sacred by the Brahmans, enlightened the minds of many of them, and made the merciful intervention of Lord William Bentinck and his Council no longer regarded by them, and by persons connected with the East India Company at home, as an interference with the religions of the Hindus.” So great was the agitation engineered by the blind Hindu orthodoxy of the day in favour of its retention that, but for Rammohan’s indefatigable exertions and powerful moral support, it would hardly have been possible for Lord William Bentinck, the then Viceroy and Governor-General of India, actuated as he was by the most humane sentiments and the best of intentions, to abolish the Sati. In 1829 the Sati Act was passed and the inhuman practice put down for ever.
The year 1814 saw Rammohan settled down at Calcutta and there he soon began his life work in right earnest. There was in those days in and about Calcutta a galaxy of foreign intellectuals who have by their labours left their mark on the Indian social and educational history of the day-men of the caliber of Colebrook, H. H. Wilson, Macaulay, Sir William Jones, Sir Hyde East, Adam, and the like. The last mentioned of these played the part of an active comrade and coadjutor with Rammohan later on. Thus the atmosphere was congenial to Rammohan and favourable for his work. He had now set his heart on waging war against the current idolatry and superstition, and on reviving the unidolatrous Hindu monotheism of old. With this object he first published, at considerable expense, the Sanskrit original with annotations of a few of the Upanishads. In the year 1815 he published the Vedanta Sutras in Bengali. In 1816 came the Abridgment of the Vedanta in Bengali, Urdu and English and also translations of the Kena and Isha Upanishads into Bengali and English. In 1817 followed translations of the Katha and Mundaka Upanishads into Bengali and English and in 1818 a translation of the Man- dukya Upanishad into Bengali. In 1817 there also appeared in English “A Defence of Hindu Theism” and ‘A Second Defence of the Monotheistical System of the Vedas.” These publications, appearing in quick succession one after another, caused a great commotion in the orthodox camp. Criticisms and controversies followed; but Rammohan was not to be silenced. The next four or five years saw Rammohan vigorously engaged in refuting with consummate skill the arguments in support of Hindu symbolism and priestcraft.
This was but one phase of his polemical activities. Another important phase was his controversy with Christian missionaries. In order to study the Christian scriptures in their original, Rammohan began to learn Greek and Hebrew with the help of his friend Adam. The friendship that sprang up between Rammohan and Adam remained unshaken even to the day that Rammohan drew his last breath. With the help of his friend and one Mr. Yates, another Christian missionary, Rammohan commenced translating the four GaspeL in(o Bengali. undertaking proved rather eventful-Adam made a public avowal of his conversion from Trinitarianism to Unitarianism! This was sarcastically described by the scandalised critics of the day as the “fall of the second Adam.”
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In 1820 Rammohan published “The Precepts of Jesus, the Guide to Peace and Happiness,” being a compilation from the four Gospels of the essential teachings of Jesus, with all that savoured of dogmas and miracles studiously left out. This raised a storm of opposition. Contrary to expectation, it was the Baptist missionaries of Serampore who attacked him most vehemently. In fact, this opposition came as the greatest surprise of his life. Nothing daunted, Rammohan published in close succession three “Appeals to the Christian Public in Defence of the Precepts of Jesus.” In these he surpassed himself in the accuracy, clearness and perspicuity of his exposition, in the thoroughness and depth of his research, in the dignity of his self-restraint, and in his transparent sympathy and charity towards his opponents. Indeed, his writings on this subject will go down to posterity as a model for all controversialists.
While his main objective was religious reformation, a life so true and devout, a genius so versatile could not but flow into other channels of activity. And so it came to pass that there was hardly any field of reform that Rammohan did not traverse, hardly any effort in which he was not the first and foremost in India’s renaissance. In upholding the cause of education and social reform, in advocating the rights of woman, in pressing for the inherent right of citizens to freedom of speech and to a free press, in claiming for the submerged castes the right to better treatment, and for the agriculturists the right to freedom from rack-renting, in demanding equal treatment to the white and coloured races, Rammohan was always to the fore and brought to bear upon these questions his vast erudition, his logical acumen and his polemical skill.
Rammohan turned the public mind from its apathy and indifference to womenfolk and demanded on their behalf “a fair opportunity of exhibiting their natural capacity.” The time had not yet come for actually initiating a measure for the education of women. The function of the pioneer everywhere is to kill prejudices, provoke thought, turn people’s minds in the right direction and thus clear the path to reform and progress. This Rammohan did in ample measure for women. The high esteem and sympathy with which he regarded women is evident throughout his writings on their behalf.
In his “Brief Remarks Regarding Modern Encroachments on the Ancient Rights of Females,” published in 1822, Rammohan sought to elucidate “the interest and care which our ancient legislators took in the promotion of the comfort of the female part of the community; and to compare the laws of female inheritance which they enacted, and which afforded that sex the opportunity of enjoyment of life, with that which moderns and our contemporaries have gradually introduced and established, to their complete privation, directly or indirectly, of most of those objects that render life agreeable.” He directed his attention to the general Hindu Law of inheritance. His “Essay on the Rights of Hindoos over Ancestral Property according to the Law of Bengal” (1830) would do credit to any trained lawyer and jurist deeply trained in the history of Hindu Law.
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The beginnings of educational enthusiasm in India may be traced to Rammohan as the pioneer. He conducted the journals the Sambad Kaumudi, in Bengali, and the Mirat- ul-Akhbar, in Persian, for the dissemination of useful knowledge o£ a historical, literary, and scientific character, politics not excluded, lie turned the Bengali language into a powerful medium of expression for all purposes of national uplift. He wrote text books in Bengali on Grammar, Geography, Astronomy and Geometry. He lent his support to all movements and organisations which were calculated even indirectly to help forward the cause of education. It did not matter to Rammohan whether the schools and colleges were to be started under Christian missionary enterprise or not. It was the diffusion of useful knowledge-scientific, literary and moral-that he cared for. Later on, when Dr. Duff, the great educationist, arrived in India and found the forces of prejudice arrayed against him, it was Rammohan who actively helped him to secure pupils and even attended the Bible classes himself in order to dissipate the fears of the guardians in regard to proselytism. Besides this, he established and maintained at his own expense an English School, where Devendra Nath Tagore, the second great leader of the Brahma Samaj, received his early instruction.
Rammohan’s name will always be remembered with gratitude for the distinguished part he took in the famous controversy of the so-called Anglicists versus the Orientalists as to the pattern of education to be pursued in India. Himself a profound Oriental scholar he would yield to none in his regards and respect for Oriental learning. But his eagle eye perceived its limitations and saw the future fraught with clanger, if education were pursued after a purely Oriental pattern. In a country where metaphysics and philosophy had almost been overdone and men had developed a morbid feeling that “we are such stuff as dreams are made of,” what was wanted was a wholesome antidote of Western methods of education in natural sciences and a more practical view of life. At the same time he was not unconscious that the Vedanta, rightly handled, would help his countrymen to emerge from superstition and idolatry and embrace pure Theism. It was with this purpose that he founded the Vedanta College for the kind of instruction which the Vedanta alone could give.
The efforts of Rammohan for the introduction of the English system of education did not fructify till two years after his death. In 1835 was passed the famous Education Decree inaugurating the present system of English education.
Rammohan may well be called the Father of Indian Politics. But his political horizon was not confined to India. His politics were truly cosmopolitan and sprang out of a consuming love of freedom which brooked no barriers of race, creed, colour, or country. Hence, whether it was the people of Naples that had failed to extort a constitution from their despotic king, or the people of Ireland that had failed to get justice and fairness from the British Government, Rammohan’s active sympathies were always with the oppressed. Similarly, when he saw the triumph of liberty in the success of the French revolution of 1830, or in the establishment of constitutional government in Spain, his heart rejoiced with them in sympathy, which he did not fail publicly to express. Indeed, it was his intense love of freedom, freedom not only for himself but for all that accounted for this cosmopolitanism in his politics. In the words of his lifelong friend Adam, “He would be free or not be at all…. Love of freedom was perhaps the strongest passion of his soul-freedom not of action
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Nearer home in matters that affected freedom he proved an intrepid fighter
and an unfailing champion of liberty In 1823 was passed a Press Ordinance which provided that thenceforth no one was to publish a newspaper without having first obtained a licence from the Governor-General in Council. Rammohan took a fearless stand against this Ordinance curtailing the freedom of the Press, and presented a memorial, signed by leading gentlemen of the town of Calcutta, praying for its repeal. This memorial has rightly been described by his biographer, Miss Collet, as “the Areopagitica of Indian history.” The Memorial, however, did not succeed in its object.
In 1827 was passed a new jury Act. The mischief of the Act lay in the fact that thereby there had been introduced “religious distinctions into the judicial system of the country.” He was the first to protest against it, and sent petitions for presentation to both the Houses of .Parliament signed by many leading Hindus and Muslims. In 1828 the Executive Government of India passed a regulation authorising its revenue officers to dispossess the holders of rent-free lands at their own discretion, without any judicial decree having been sought or obtained against the validity of the title to such lands. Rammohan instantly placed himself at the head of the landholders of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa and in a petition of protest addressed to Lord William Bentinck, Governor-General, condemned such arbitrary and despotic proceedings. The representation failed. The matter was carried to England where, too, it proved unsuccessful. But it points to the promptitude with which Rammohan exposed the black spots in the administration, of which he was as ardent a well-wisher as he was of his own people.
No less important were his answers to the numerous questions put to him during his sojourn in England by the Select Committee of the House of Commons on a variety of subjects vitally affecting good government. They show the breadth and accuracy of the Raja’s knowledge of the administration of this country, and the unfailing sympathy for his people which breathed through them. In his answers on the Judicial and on the Revenue systems of India he had to touch upon a vast variety of topics, such as appointment of native assessors in the civil courts; the separation of judicial from revenue functions; the separation of judicial from executive functions; the codification of the criminal and other laws of India; the proportion of Indian revenues expended in England, in other words, the drain of Indian money to foreign countries without any hope of return -subjects which present problems still unsolved. It was only a Rammohan who could have dealt with all these questions with the same insight and authority as he did the Vedanta and the Precepts of Jesus!
Side by side with this incessant quest after knowledge, freedom, happiness for all, there was the insatiable hunger and thirst of his soul after the bringing together of people of all races and creeds in one catholic worship of the common Father of all. That was to be the crowning act of his life. To that end he had to go through much preparation, much thought and research, much estrangement from his near and dear ones, till in 1830, on the 23rd January, he was able to throw open the doors of the first Temple of Universal Worship of The One without a second an epoch-making event. The Trust Deed, dated January 8, 1830, is a unique document. It marked the advent of Universalism in actual worship in the Temple “to be used occupied enjoyed applied and appropriated as and for a place of public meeting of all sorts and descriptions of people without distinction as shall behave and conduct themselves in an orderly sober religious and devout manner.” The worship was to be so conducted as would not only tend “to the promotion of the contemplation of the Author and Preserver of the Universe,” but also “to the promotion of charity morality piety benevolence and virtue and the strengthening of the bonds of union between men of all religious persuasions and creeds.” Thus the Trust Deed was not a mere legal document. It heralded the beginning of the Brahmo Samaj which in the fulness of time was to take its stand on universal brotherhood and universal worship of the common Father of all.
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Later, under Devendra Nath Tagore -the next leader of the Brahmo Samaj was evolved a congregation with a covenant and a public declaration of faith. It was left to the genius of Keshub Chunder Sen, the third great leader, fifty years after, to form it into an organised Church which recognizes in all prophets and saints a harmony, in all scriptures a unity and through all dispensations a continuity.
As far back as 1817 Rammohan had written to his friend Digby of his intention to visit England. An opportunity now presented itself. The titular Emperor of Delhi, Akbar the Second, successor to the House of Timur, was anxious to place some grievances of his before His Britannic Majesty for redress. And who could plead his case better than Rammohan? He accordingly appointed Rammohan as Imperial Envoy to the Court of Great Britain and invested him with the title of Raja as a mark of dignity and distinction attaching to the position of Envoy. To Rammohan the visit to England was imperatively indicated for more reasons than one. The advocates of Sati were going to appeal to the King in Council against the Sati Act which, according to them, was an unwarranted interference with the religious practices of the Hindus. Rammohan felt that his presence in England would be necessary to vindicate the Government of Lord William Bentinck and to show up the hollowness of the contention that the inhuman practice of Sati had religious sanction behind it. There was also the Charter of the East India Company, which was shortly to come up for renewal. Rammohan was anxious in that connection to do his part for safeguarding and enlarging the rights and privileges of his people. All these, added to his insatiate thirst for a study of the peoples and politics of the West, pointed to the time as specially opportune for carrying out his long-cherished desire. He sailed from Calcutta in the Albion on the 15th of November, 1830, and landed in Liverpool on the &th of April, 1831. His fame had preceded him. As a God-fearing man of cosmopolitan sympathies, as an intrepid fighter and reformer, as a man of vast learning and erudition, as one who spoke and wrote with authority as the mouthpiece of India’s aspirations, indeed as the herald of Indian renaissance, he was already known in the West.
The actual impressions of his visit on English minds and the relations it established between the East and the West far exceeded expectations, and opened a new epoch. In the words of Professor Max Muller: “For the sake of intellectual intercourse, for the sake of comparing notes, so to say, with his Aryan brothers, Rammohan Roy was the first who came from East to West, the first to join hands and to complete that world-wide circle through which henceforth, like an electric current, Oriental thought could run to the West, and Western thought return to the East, making us feel once more that ancient- brotherhood which unites the whole Aryan race, inspiring us with new hopes for a common faith, purer and simpler than any of the ecclesiastical religions of the world, and invigorating us for acts of nobler daring in the conquest of truth than any that are inscribed in the chronicles of our divided past.” Wide and varied as were his interests, the period of the Raja’s sojourn in Europe coincided with some of the momentous events of British history. Apart from the mission from the King of Delhi, to which he faithfully attended and in which he attained success in a large measure, lie threw himself with all the earnestness of his soul into the great political movements of the day. He presented to, the House of Commons the counter-petition, numerously signed from India, against the renewal of the Sati atrocities and had the satisfaction of being present when the Sati appeal preferred by the die-hards of India was rejected. As a recognised authority on Indian affairs he was invited to give evidence before the Select Committee of the House of Commons appointed to consider the renewal of the East India Company’s Charter. He did not personally appear before the Select Committee, but by means of a series of “Communications to the Board of Control” gave his authoritative views on the revenue and judicial systems and the condition of the people in India which were duly embodied in the Blue Books. By the Statute that followed, embodying the last renewal of the Company’s Charter, the East India Company was changed from a trading concern into a political organisation. He followed with intense interest the passage of the Reform Bill through all its stages and saw England, passing from a practical oligarchy to a truer democracy. He saw the Act pass which abolished slavery throughout the British dominions. In fact, as his biographer puts it, he saw the New England being born out of the heart of Old England and “in him the New England first became acquainted with the New India.” He made many friends, and was received into many an English home not only as a distinguished guest but as a friend.
Public honours came thick and fast. The East India Company entertained him at a dinner attended by eighty distinguished guests, the chairman presiding. At the Coronation of George IV he was honoured with a place amongst foreign ambassadors. The Raja was also introduced to an audience, of the King (William IV) and was most graciously received. On his visit to France in autumn, 1832, he was received with great royal consideration by Louis Phillippe, with whom he had the honour of dining more than once. The Royal Asiatic Society and the British and Foreign Unitarian Society invited the Raja with great cordiality to take part in their annual functions.
But all this incessant strain told on the Raja’s health. Early in September, 1833, the Raja arrived at Stapleton Grove, near Bristol, to rest and recoup his tired nerves at that retreat. There, however, he was suddenly taken ill on the 18th, and after a short illness passed to his eternal rest on the 27th September, 1833.
His earthly remains lie interred in Arno’s Vale Cemetery at Bristol, where a graceful Indian mausoleum has been raised over them by his grateful countrymen.