Mother's Chronicles - Book Four

9

Raja Rammohan Roy

As for the British and the French, our historian, Sisir Kumar Mitra, says, "The last days of the Muslim rule were marked by political and social evils of the worst type undermining the integrity and morale of the administration, laying the country open to any aggression from outside. As a matter of fact, the British found it easy, without having to strike a blow, to establish themselves in India by sheer underhand means. Whatever challenge they had to meet was not of India but of their rival within her borders, the French."

All the same, the conquest of India by the British is an unparalleled achievement in the history of the world. "The country," wrote Sri Aurobindo, "which the mighty Muslims, constantly growing in power, took hundreds of years to conquer with the greatest difficulty and could never rule over in perfect security, that very country in the course of fifty years willingly admitted the sovereignty of a handful of English merchants and within a century went into an inert sleep under the shadow of their paramount empire."

By the 1800s, when the East India Company had secured

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its grip on the country, when de Lesseps had dug the Suez Canal, when steamships began plying between Europe and India, many Europeans had come. And under the impact of the culture they brought, the first reaction was a crude and confused attempt to imitate the ways of life it introduced. Under the cultural-political attack of Europe, Indians began to forget their own culture and many snapped the thin thread that linked them to their life-source.

There, in the east, on the Bay of Bengal, lies a land painstakingly created by Ganga. There she lets down her hair and, crisscrossing the land, holds her creation in a close embrace.

But now her children, the educated men of Bengal, were turning away from her, from the truth of their forefathers; many were becoming agnostic or embracing Christianity. The very fabric of the Hindu society was threatened.

Such was the scene when there appeared on the stage a rationalist and a great reformer, Raja Rammohan Roy (1772-1833). He is considered to be the inaugurator of the modern age in India. He was against all social evils and did a lot to end them. "Ram Mohan Roy arose with a new religion in his hand." In 1828 he started the Brahmo Movement, which recognized only the Formless One. He insisted that true Hinduism was and should be based on the Vedanta. The Raja went to England in 1830 and visited France in 1832. In both the countries he ably presented India's views and was warmly appreciated. Rammohan acted as an ambassador of a new India to the Western world. While engaged in that work, he died in England on 27

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September 1833. He died with a dream of a free India which, he told his French friend, Victor Jacquemont, he expected to happen after some forty to fifty years. His grave is in Bristol. The edifice raised by Dwarakanath Tagore in 1843 —his grandson Rabindranath visited it in 1920 —is now crumbling.

Raja Rammohan Roy never denied he was a Hindu; nor did his immediate successors. The Brahmo Movement was considered by them to be an improved, a reformed version of Hinduism. The Movement was basically a social one; the reforms did not go far enough, but stopped with some alteration of social customs and social laws. Anyway, contrary to the orthodox who obstinately believed that to stand unmoved in the ancient paths is always good and safe, the reformist believed that that immobility is the most perfect way to stagnate and to putrefy. The reformist could not understand the logic which argued that because a thing has lasted for five hundred years it must be perpetuated through the aeons. Thus, the Brahmo Movement stirred up the still and stagnated pond that the Bengali Hindu society had become.

Bengal had borne the first impact of Western culture, and it was the first to recover. In the wake of the crude movement of blind imitation, the "first impulse was gigantic in its proportions and produced men of an almost gigantic originality."

After Rammohan's death the Brahmo Movement slowed down. It was Debendranath Tagore (1817-1905), the Poet Rabindranath's father, who infused a new life into it when he took up its reins in 1843. His spiritual vision and generous character made his countrymen refer to him fondly as the Great Sage, Maharshi.

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Indeed, by his erudition, bearing, character and contribution to culture, he made the Tagore family a centre of Indian culture. He was also uncommonly honest. His father, Dwarakanath Tagore (1794-1846), died in England. When alive, he had earned for himself the title of 'Prince' by his luxurious way of living. His lavish spending —offering costly presents and necklaces of rare jewels to Queen Victoria, who received him in audience — left the Tagores with more debts than assets. Then it was that Debendranath showed his mettle. He called all the creditors together and promised to repay all debt. He kept his promise.

Incidentally, when the news of his father's death reached him, Debendranath was away from Calcutta; he was on a pleasure trip in a pinnace, a two-masted vessel, with his family and his friend, Rajnarain Bose. There was a sudden storm that evening, and an accident caused Maharshi's nose to bleed.

Rajnarain Bose was Sri Aurobindo's maternal grandfather. He is our mighty Tree.

Now that we have explored the Jungle, shall we stop awhile under the Tree?

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