Lecture 10:

Hindu Reformation and

Bengali Renaissance
What is Bengali Renaissance
• The Bengal Renaissance signifies a time of transition from medieval to modern in a
number of fields, including literature, religion, social reform, political leanings and
scientific discoveries. It was predominantly led by Bengali Hindus.
• The movement was characterised by a sociopolitical awakening in art, literature,
music, philosophy, religion, science, and other fields of intellectual inquiry. It
questioned existing customs and rituals in Indian society:
• the caste system
• the dowry system
• the practice of sati
• the role of religion
• colonial governance.
• There were four aspects of the Renaissance movement (Source:
Banglapædia)
• First, there was the modernisation of the Bengali language and the
simultaneous birth of a new Bangali literature.
• Second, rediscovery of, and identification with an Indian classical era
hailed as a golden age which placed South Asian civilisation on a par
with the grandeur of Greece and Rome.
• Third, Serampore missionary interpretation of the Protestation
Reformation, which Indians applied creatively to their own historic
situation.
• Fourth, the secular view of universal progress on which India's hope
lay not in resurrecting the past but in projecting the golden age into
the future.
• The movement advocated for societal reform inclined to secular, humanist
and modernist ideals. It saw the emergence of important figures, whose
contributions still influence cultural and intellectual works today.
• The renaissance movement originated in the Bengal Presidency of the
British Indian Empire, but more specifically, in its capital city of Kolkata
(Calcutta). This colonial metropolis was the first non-Western city to use
Prominent Hindu Reformists:
Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772-
1883)
• Born in Radhanagar, Hooghly District, Bengal
Presidency in May 1772 into an orthodox Bengali
Hindu family.
• He went to Patna for higher studies where he studied
Persian and Arabic. He read the Quran, the Arabic
translation of the works of Plato and Aristotle and the
works of Sufi mystic poets.
• By the age of fifteen, he had learnt Bangla, Persian,
Arabic and Sanskrit. He also knew Hindi and English.
• He went to Varanasi and studied the Vedas, the
Upanishads and Hindu philosophy. He studied
Christianity and Islam as well.
• He was given the title ‘Raja’ by the Mughal
Emperor of Delhi, Akbar II
• In 1817, the urban elite led by Raja Ram Mohan Roy cofounded the
Hindu or Presidency College in Kolkata, now known as the Presidency
University, the only European-style institution of higher learning in
Asia at the time.
• The city was also home to a public library, the Imperial Library, now
the National Library of India, and newspapers and books were being
published regularly in both Bengali and English.
• He established the Vedanta College, the English School and the City
College of Calcutta popularising English education and promoted a
rational and non-authoritarian form of Hinduism.
• He established reformist religious associations as instruments of
social and political transformation to fight the social evils
• The Atmiya Sabha (1814) and the Unitarian Community (1821)
• The Brahma Sabha or Brahma Samaj in 1828.
• The Brahma Sabha played a key role in modernising Indian society.
• Roy successfully campaigned against
Sati or the immolation of Hindu
widows
• He started the Sambad Kaumudi, a
Bengali weekly newspaper that
regularly denounced Sati as barbaric
and against the tenets of Hinduism.
• His efforts led to the abolition of Sati
in 1829 by Lord William Bentinck,
the then Governor-General of India.
Satyendra Nath Bose (1894-
1974)

• Satyendra Nath Bose was an Indian

mathematician and physicist specialised in
theoretical physics.
• In 1907, aged 13, he joined Kolkata’s Hindu
School that had made notable contributions to
the Bengal Renaissance and the Reformation
movement.
• In the year 1909, he enrolled in the Presidency
College where he completed BSc and MSc in
mixed mathematics
• He is famous for his collaboration with Albert
Einstein in developing a theory regarding
electromagnetic radiation.
Rabindranath Tagore (1861–
1941)
• The Tagore family was extremely influential
and active in the Bengal Renaissance with a
specific interest in educational reform.
• Dwarkanath Tagore of the Tagore was
involved in the establishment of Brahma
Samaj with Raja Ram Mohan Roy
• Tagore’s Geetanjali was one of the
renaissance masterpieces, for which he was
awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in
1913.
• In 1915, he was awarded the knighthood by
the British power. He later renounced in
1919 as a manifestation of disapproval to
their arrogance and the high handedness.
Foundation of All India Congress
• The Indian National Congress conducted its first session in Bombay from 28 to
31 December 1885. The initiative was taken by retired Civil Service officer Allan
Octavian Hume. In 1883, Hume had outlined his idea for a body representing
Indian interests in an open letter to graduates of the University of Calcutta.

• It aimed to obtain a greater share in government for educated Indians and to

create a platform for civic and political dialogue between them and the British
Raj. Hume took the initiative, and in March 1885 a notice for convening the first
meeting of the Indian National Union to be held in Poona the following December
was issued. However, due to a cholera outbreak there, it was moved to Bombay.

• Its delegates were mostly upper caste Hindus from the legal profession. They
were more or less loyal to the British Empire, and initially did not advocate for
any radical political or social change.
• Viceroy Lord Curzon's
measure of partitioning
the province of Bengal in
1905 evoked strong
protest from the Bangali
Hindu leaders and
ultimately gave rise to
factionalism
• Congressmen were
divided by personal
animosities, and
factionalism within the
congress at national,
provincial and local
levels.