Sivanath Sastri

“ Let the votaries of all religions appeal to the reason of their fellow-creatures, and let him who has truth on his side prevail.”
Though Mr Lahiri did not join the Brahmo Samaj, yet his appearance among the educated people of Krishnagar, and the healthy influence he exerted on them, infused into them new and noble sentiments. He had learnt from his teacher, Mr Derozio, how to appreciate truth. He had learnt from him, too, to respect freedom in thought and action; and, like him, he encouraged his pupils, whether in the class-room or out of it, to discuss freely the various topics he suggested. ”

“ Blessed are those children who have such a father enshrined in their memory. It is no wonder that a family in which a mother has once been worshipped as a goddess had a scion like Dwarkanath, so respectful to his mother in spite of the flame of persecution she kindled. It was for this excellent trait in his character, that during the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, when the Christians in Agra — European and Indian — were foully massacred, Dwarkanath was screened from the fury of the fanatics by the Hindu residents of the city. ”

“ At the time of which we are speaking, the Hindu Rajas were to some extent free from Imperial interference. As long as they punctually paid the revenue, they might do much as they liked in their own territories. They had armies, courts, and ministers of their own; and men of merit flocked to their palaces for rewards and distinctions.
Raja Krishna Chandra of Nadia created for himself an imperishable name as a great patron of literature and learning. ”

“ Neither before nor since his day has any teacher within the walls of any native educational establishment in India ever exercised such an influence over his pupils. It was not alone in the class-rooms and during the hours of teaching that the genial manner, the buoyant spirit, the ready humour, the wide reading, the readiness to impart knowledge, and the patience and courtesy of Derozio won the hearts and the high reverence of his pupils. ”

“ Government was impressed with the fact that Indian gentlemen, of the highest rank in society, had united to make their wants known to their rulers, and to defend the rights of the people, and that it could no longer trifle with the feelings of their subjects. These in their turn perceived that they had a strong force to fight for them. So it may with truth be said that every class of men in Calcutta watched the work of the association with keen interest and hopeful hearts. ”

“ I have read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanskrit works. I have conversed both here and at home with men distinguished by their proficiency in Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take the Oriental learning at the valuation of the Orientalists themselves. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia. ”

“ Lower Bengal is called by Europeans the “Garden of the World” and the banks of Mother Ganges fascinate the eye with their luxuriant vegetation. In the centre of this “Garden of the World” stands Nadia; and young Ramtanu delighted to visit its verdant scenes.
But while he was enjoying these pleasures, his parents were very anxious about his future. The moral atmosphere of Krishnagar at the time was tainted. Pious men like Ramkrishna found the city badly wanting in those virtues that they desired to see displayed in their families. ”

“ When I came out to India in 1868, as a young Professor in the Bengal Education Service straight from Oxford, one of the earliest friendships I formed on joining the Krishnagar College was that of the revered Ramtanu Lahiri, a gentleman of high Kulin Brahman birth, whose saintly life and lofty patriotism had already marked him out as a leader of men in the cultured Bengali society of Calcutta and Krishnagar. ”

“ Though men like Madan Mohan Tarkalankar, Debendranath Tagore, Ram Gopal Ghosh, and others, sent their girls to it, yet the Hindu society at large, consisting mostly of the illiterate and superstitious, denounced it, saying that the education of women would cause a complete revolution, and that it would be impossible in any way to utilise the book-learned girls in the future who, instead of attending to domestic duties themselves, would assume the airs of “mem-sahibs,” and fag their husbands to death. ”

“ How shall we Indians be civilised, and how will our country be free from the tyrannical sway of error and superstition, if we abstain from wine? The alumni of the Hindu College, who set themselves up as reformers, all drank. When one of them, Babu Madhab Chandra Mullick, was here, we now and then went to his house of an evening and drank each a glass or two of the best liquor.”
Ramtanu, as said above, was admitted into the fourth class of the Hindu College. He studied with so much success that he was soon known as one of the cleverest boys. ”

“ It was the custom in the schools we have mentioned to make the pupils learn by heart a certain number of words every day. Committing an English dictionary to memory was the most laudable feat that a student could achieve.
We may be asked how such a poor and imperfect knowledge of English could be of any use. How could people, supplied only with this knowledge, make themselves intelligible to those whose language they had learnt? There are many stories on the point, and we notice one. A sircar used to lunch every day on some of the grain kept for his master’s horses. ”

“ At length they asked Kali Charan to explain himself, and he said, “On going to his house, I found that the thatch had given way, and that it should be instantly repaired, otherwise, in spite of all the medicines he might take, he would die of exposure, and so I thought of sending him, along with the medicine, a cartload of straw.” What wonder that the man who gave so much thought to the wants of the needy, would be loved by all? ”

“ The news that Ramtanu had rejected the sacred thread soon reached Krishnagar, and many a bigot would have been pleased to kindle the torch to burn him had he been present on the spot. In his absence, however, his old father had to suffer for him. Taunts, abuse, and threats were used to wean his heart from his son, but all was in vain. The pious old man did not lose his equanimity. He did not resent the ill-treatment he received from his neighbours, nor was he at all influenced against his son. ”

“ In course of time, there arose a number of young men in Krishnagar, who commenced a war against popular Hinduism. These had not to fight unaided. They received fresh recruits from the Missionary School close by, most of the students of which, under the influence of their teacher, Babu Brajanath Mukerji, a Brahmo, had publicly forsaken the religion of their forefathers and accepted the doctrines of Monotheism. And at length this young band of reformers, making no longer a secret of their religious convictions, openly announced their determination to put an end to idolatrous Hinduism. ”

“ The Rajas of Krishnagar, or of Nadia, are of long-standing celebrity. The whole of the district is indebted to them in many ways for its prosperity. The author remembers, in his boyhood, to have seen on the title-page of the old Bengali almanac, the name of Raja Satis Chandra, under whose auspices it had been got up, and, on inquiring who he was, to have been told that he was the then Raja of Krishnagar, descended from ancestry noted as the leaders of Hindu society, the guardians of Kulinism, and the encouragers of merit. ”

“ Digambar Mitter (the future Raja Digambar) , who had been admitted into the Hare School on the same day as our hero, and belonged to the same class as he did, lived close by in his maternal uncle’s house. Here would young Lahiri often go to see his friend, and in a short time he so ingratiated himself with the latter’s mother, that she looked upon him as her own child, and was lavish in her presents to him. The lady’s kind treatment was ever remembered by him, and years afterwards he would talk of it with a grateful heart.
Fellow-students then loved one another with a love which is rare now. ”

“ We cannot help weeping, when the fact is forced upon us, that the same Hindu race that the Greek and the Chinese travellers who visited India before the Muhammadan conquest, or even before the Moslem rule had been firmly established, admired as brave, truthful, frank, and hospitable, became so degenerate in a few centuries of foreign rule. ”

“ Next in importance to the rich ranked another class of Bengali Babus, who knew Persian and had only a smattering of English, and, backed by this knowledge held in contempt the religion of their country. Without any higher end in view, they lived for themselves alone, pleasure being the be-all and end-all of their existence. ”

“ The Hindu biographer usually introduces his hero with a description of his ancestry, the place or places chiefly associated with the history of his family, and the persons who more or less influenced his life and character. We shall follow this plan, and propose at the outset to say something about Krishnagar, hallowed by its associations with Ramtanu and his venerable ancestors, and about its illustrious Rajas. The Rajas of Nadia and the Lahiris have lived together amid the same surroundings from generation to generation, their connection dating back far in the past. ”

“ He became a reformer after the school of Raja Rammohan Roy, and a leader in New Bengal; but he was never a violent or extreme man — and except on the subject of his own Brahmanical caste, which he threw off as his own personal sacrifice to a great cause, and one or two other points of a like nature, he was never willing to exacerbate the differences between himself and his more orthodox relations and friends.
In 1833 he became a teacher in the Hindu College, and soon became widely known as the friend of the friendless and the deserving. ”

“ The fever raged far and wide, and having almost depopulated Jessore it entered Nadia, and there did its work of havoc.
On Kesava’s death Ramtanu’s responsibilities greatly increased. On him fell the duty of maintaining the whole family — a duty very onerous to a man of his means; but nevertheless he was fully alive to it, and determined that, to support his old parents and younger brothers, he would himself, if necessary, forgo every comfort. ”

“ Raja Siris Chandra was about to have the remarriage of widows sanctioned by the pandits, when the young reformers in the city held a meeting on the subject, on the premises of the college, and, after talking themselves hoarse on the pernicious customs of Hindu society, bound themselves by a solemn oath to fight on behalf of the widows of their country. They did not know the weapons their enemies were preparing to use against them. ”

“ From Kidderpore he came direct to Ramtanu Babu, and told him everything. Mr Lahiri was very much pleased by his guest’s scrupulous regard for truth, and invited him to become an inmate of his house. While here, Shama Charan Sirkar came to know Babu Ram Gopal Ghosh, already a man of influence, who got him appointed as tutor in Hindu to Mr Joseph, the head of the firm of Joseph & Co., and also to Mr Kelsall. But he felt that, in order to get on in the world, he ought to acquire a knowledge of English; and so, at the age of twenty-two, he began taking lessons in the language from Ramtanu Babu. ”

“ In 1740 bands of Mahrattas commenced pillaging and ravaging Bengal; and great were the sufferings of the people. At first those living on the right bank of the Hughli had to bear the brunt of the attack; and to save their lives and property they fled to the other side of the river. But here too the plunderers came; and fearing to face them, Krishna Chandra, as said above, left Krishnagar for Shibnibash. ”

“ Having no love for the people, they screwed money out of them by fair means or foul; and did nothing for the benefit of the millions over whom it had pleased Providence to place them, because it never entered their minds that they were responsible for the comforts or discomforts of those under them. Their conduct in connection with the great famine that devastated the whole province of Bengal in 1770-1771 may be cited as an illustration. One-third of the inhabitants were carried off, yet the collection of the revenue was made unremittingly, and even with greater rigour than before. ”

“ We feel a pleasure in speaking of a man like him and our character is exalted in studying his exemplary nature.
Ramtanu’s mother, Jagaddhatri Debi, was born in this great family, and inherited its virtues. She was undoubtedly rich in intellectual and moral gifts. She was the only daughter of her parents, she presided over her father’s house as the goddess of good-luck. ”

“ In fact, Mr Derozio gained so great an ascendancy over the minds of his pupils, that they would not move even in their private concerns without his counsel and advice. On the other hand he fostered their taste in literature, taught the evil effects of idolatry and superstition, and so far reformed their moral feelings as to place them completely above the antiquated ideas and aspirations of the age. Such was the force of his instruction, that the conduct of the students out of the college was exemplary. ”

“ To be sent home then was the punishment inflicted on Anglo-Indians if they conducted any newspapers in a way to offend Government; and the question that puzzled the authorities was, how to deal with Eurasians and English-speaking natives if found guilty of a similar offence. To send them to England at the expense of the East India Company was not to be thought of. Mr Adam met the difficulty by passing the Press Act, and getting it approved by the Supreme Court. Rammohan Roy, backed by Dwarkanath Tagore and some clever barristers, tried to prove that the Act was illegal. ”

“ Ramtanu got on well at the school, but this in no way lessened Kesava’s anxiety for him, but rather increased it. Gaur Vidyalankar’s lodging, where he resided, was not a fit place for him. Vidyalankar was himself profligate; and his co-lodgers, almost all of whom held him in great respect, imitated him in his favourite vices. Sometimes they surpassed him in profligacy. They were all foppish in their modes of living, and idle in the extreme. Not one of them would stir even when required to cook a meal. Men working in Calcutta then never brought with them their families ”

“ The impediment removed, Ramtanu got his admission into the school, now known as the "Hare School.”
A few words about Mr Hare seem necessary here.
He was born in Scotland in 1775, and he came to India as a watchmaker in 1800. In course of time he became familiar with many Hindu gentlemen of rank and education, and Rammohan Roy was one of them. Mr Hare, though not highly educated himself, felt that for the real intellectual development of the natives of this country, it was absolutely necessary that they should have a liberal English education. ”

“ In her childhood, she was loved by Raja Shib Chandra as his own daughter; and, mounted on an elephant by his side, she often accompanied him in his excursions. We can easily conceive how much this girl was loved by her parents. It is no exaggeration to say that her father occupied, next to the Rajas, the most honoured position in Krishnagar, and she could have, had she liked, always lived with him. Her husband, Ramkrishna, too, in accordance with the custom of the Kulins, might have lived permanently in his father-in-law’s house. ”

“ The Society undertook to prepare and publish good school books; and Rammohan Roy, with the assistance of his friend, Mr Hare, compiled suitable English and Bengali selections for the students of this country. Two of his chief works were a Grammar and a Geography in Bengali. Other men of education contributed their quota to the formation of a school library. On the 1st of September the next year another Society was formed, the object of which was to found schools, English and Vernacular, in different parts of Calcutta. Mr Hare and Radhakanta Deb were its joint-secretaries. ”

“ Immediately after Miss Cooke’s marriage some of the English ladies of Calcutta, under the auspices of Lady Amherst, established the “Bengal Ladies’ Society,” with the intention of forwarding the cause of female education in India. The society went on establishing schools in different places. It laid the foundation of a very large schoolhouse in the centre of Calcutta. Besides that
Kalicharan Ghosh
there were its girls’ schools in Serampore, Burdwan, Kalna, and Katwa, and in Krishnagar, Dacca, Bakarganj, Murshidabad, Birbhum, and Chittagong. ”