Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian [1 ed.] 0415736307, 9780415736305

Citation preview

Vidyasagar

Pathfinders Series Editor: Dilip M. Menon Professor of History and Mellon Chair in Indian Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg This series explores the intellectual history of South Asia through the lives and ideas of significant individuals within a historical context. These ‘pathfinders’ are seen to represent a break with existing traditions, canons and inherited histories. In fact, even the idea of South Asia with its constituent regions and linguistic and religious divisions maybe thrown into crisis as we explore the idea of territory as generated by thought. It is not cartographic limits that determine thinking but the imagining of elective affinities across space, time and borders. These thinkers are necessarily cosmopolitan and engage with a miscegenation of ideas that recasts existing notions of schools of thinking, of the archive for a history of ideas, and indeed of the very notion of national and regional limits to intellectual activity. The books in this series try to think beyond the limited frameworks of colonialism and nationalism for the modern period and more generally of histories of societies that are told through the prism of the state, its institutions and ideologies. These slim volumes written by leading scholars are intended for the intelligent layperson and expert alike, and written in an accessible, lively and authoritative prose. Through telling the lives of celebrated names and lesser known ones in context, this series will expand the repertoire of ideas and individuals that have shaped the history and culture of South Asia.

Also in the Series Javed Majeed Muhammad Iqbal: Islam, Aesthetics and Postcolonialism ISBN: 978-0-415-44578-8 Lakshmi Subramanian Veena Dhanammal: The Making of a Legend ISBN: 978-0-415-44611-2 Kris Manjapra M. N. Roy: Marxism and Colonial Cosmopolitanism ISBN: 978-0-415-44603-7 Savithri Preetha Nair Raja Serfoji II: Science, Medicine and Enlightenment in Tanjore ISBN: 978-0-415-53504-5

Vidyasagar The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

Brian A. Hatcher

LONDON NEW YORK NEW DELHI

First published 2014 in India by Routledge 912 Tolstoy House, 15–17 Tolstoy Marg, Connaught Place, New Delhi 110 001

Simultaneously published in the UK by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

© 2014 Brian A. Hatcher

Typeset by Solution Graphics A–14, Indira Puri, Loni Road Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh 201 102

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage and retrieval system without permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-0-415-73630-5

In memory of Tarun Mitra

This page intentionally left blank

Contents Glossary Preface and Acknowledgements Introduction 1. The Life and the Stories

ix xiii xv 1

2. Akhiladdin’s Song

25

3. Man in Motion

54

4. The Stuff of Legends

78

5. Salty Water

107

6. A Tale of Two Pandits

130

Conclusion Bibliography About the Author Index

156 167 175 176

This page intentionally left blank

Glossary Adhikara Adhikara bheda Astika

Atman Avatar

Bamun Batul Baul

Bhadralok Bhakti Chadar Chaitanya Chatushpathi

Dana Daya

Right, authority, jurisdiction, entitlement The concept that humans are not naturally equal, but are characterised by differing rights and privileges Believer. Literally, ‘one who affirms the existence of ’ (variously) the truths of the Vedas or the gods or God. A term connoting orthodoxy rather than denial. See nastika. The imperishable Self Literally, descent (of the deity), who takes on some human or animal form. Often rendered in English as ‘incarnation’, with the classic Hindu examples of Krishna and Rama. Brahmin, a colloquial corruption of the Sanskrit brahmana Mad, crazy. Possible source for ‘Baul’ (q.v.). Generic term for a wide range of itinerant holy men-cum-musicians who teach and practise a heterodox path of devotion and mystical exercises. Thought by some to derive from the Sanskrit batula (‘mad’). Literally, genteel folk. Typically applied to the middle-class, higher caste, educated members of Calcuttan society. Devotion A kind of shawl or upper garment typically worn by Brahmins during Vidyasagar’s day Consciousness Traditional hereditary Sanskrit school run by a learned pandit where the ‘four’ (chatur) subjects of Grammar, Law, History and Philosophy are ‘read’ (path) Giving Mercy

x

Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

Desh Dharma

Dhoti Diksha Ekadashi Guru Indriya samyama Ishvara Jati Jivanacharita Karuna Kulin

Lila Mahatma Manava Manusha

Mata Nastika Nirakara Niti

Land, region, nation. See svadesha. Duty, law, righteousness. A multivalent word connected to fundamental notions of what creates and promotes order in the cosmos, society and individual behaviour. The cloth lower garment worn by many high-caste Bengali men Initiation. Important rite for high-caste Hindu males marking their full participation in ritual life. The fast required of widows on the eleventh (ekadashi) day of each lunar fortnight Teacher or spiritual preceptor Sense control. See ripu damana. Lord Caste Biography Compassion From kula, ‘lineage’. Designation used in Bengal from about the thirteenth century for certain highcaste Hindu families that practice exclusive forms of social differentiation centering on marriage practices (typically involving polygamy). Play. Used as a form of theodicy, as in ‘divine play’. Literally, great soul. Applied to individuals of great charisma or spiritual power. Man, human being. See manusha. Man, human being. For Bauls, also a name for the highest state of spiritual realisation. Cognate with manava and important in several modernera terms connoting ‘humanity’ (manusyatva), ‘humanism’ (manava vada), or the ‘religion of man’ (manushya dharma). Doctrine or beliefs Unbeliever. Literally, someone who ‘denies’ the truths of the Vedas or the existence of the gods or God. See astika. Formless Ethics

Glossary

Nyaya

Pandit

Paropakara Pathshala

Pukka Punya Ripu damana Rishi

Sadhu Sagar Sahaj

Sandhya

Sannyasi

Saralata Seva

xi

Logic. One of the six schools of classical Indian philosophy. Scholars of nyaya are sometimes lampooned as logic choppers who have difficulty with ordinary human tasks. Learned or wise man (from the Sanskrit pandita). A generic term for a Sanskrit scholar trained in a chatushpathi and often himself responsible for training young scholars. Service of others Elementary village school in which students are introduced to basic language (starting with the alphabet) and arithmetic First-rate, as in a pukka house, or genuine, as in a pukka Brahmin Merit produced through the performance of good deeds Restraint of passions. See also Indriya samyama. Sage. The great rishis of old first heard and transmitted the sacred Vedas. In epic and classical Hindu literature the sage is a figure of great spiritual power who can dispense blessings or curses. Literally, good person. Generic term for a Hindu holy man or renouncer. See sannyasi. Ocean Natural, innate, normal. A word with shifting valences according to context. It can mean simply ‘normal’ or it may indicate for some mystical traditions the highest state of realisation of that which is ‘innate’ to all human beings. Term used to designate all ‘twilight’ prayers incumbent upon high-caste Hindu men. Also known as the ‘morning and evening prayers’. Hindu renouncer; one who abandons all worldly attachments to seek ultimate truth through a life of wandering, begging, and spiritual practice Simplicity, natural goodness Service, as in ‘social service’ (loka seva). See paropakara.

xii

Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

Shastra

Smriti

Sneha Shraddh

Siddha Svabhava Svadesha Svadharma

Tol Upadhi Vairagya Vidya Viraha Vishvas

Authoritative treatise in Sanskrit, dedicated to a range of important topics such as duty, ethics, polity, architecture, even love-making. Not quite scripture (since not technically revealed literature), but carrying nearly the same binding authority of scripture in other traditions. Law in the broad sense of Hindu law (dharmashastra), that is the wide range of rules and norms for conduct applicable to Hindu religious, social and domestic life Love, affection Rites performed to honour the departed and assist their integration into the spirit realm. Often elaborate and costly affairs to which numerous guests are invited and fed (including Brahmins and pandits). Literally, ‘accomplished,’ but applied to those spiritual adepts who have realised the ultimate (as in siddha purusha, ‘accomplished person’) Inherent nature. In the Bhagavad-gita this is thought to correlate to one’s inherent duty (svadharma) in the classical Hindu moral universe. Homeland. Literally, ‘one’s own land.’ See desha. Own duty. As taught in texts like the Bhagavadgita, these are the duties incumbent upon individuals by virtue of their inherent nature. See svabhava. Hereditary school for teaching Sanskrit according to traditional patterns. See chatushpathi. Title bestowed upon pandits, as in ‘Vidyasagar’ or ‘Nyayaratna’ Dispassion. The state sought by the renouncer who aims to overcome the sway of all passion in order to realise transcendent truth. Learning, knowledge Separation, especially from one’s beloved. In devotional Hinduism viraha bhakti, ‘love in separation’ is the highest form of love for God. Belief

Preface and Acknowledgements The near impossibility of pinning down Vidyasagar has been impressed upon me by two decades of research into the life and legacy of a man who can be said to have been both eminent and enigmatic. Over the years I have spoken to and benefited from the assistance of all manner of people in the United States, the United Kingdom and India. I remain grateful to everyone who has helped me in my efforts to understand Vidyasagar and only regret that there is no way to name them all here. I would like to note, however, that this volume would not have come to be had it not been for a delightful dinnertime conversation with A. R. Venkatachalapathy in Cambridge in the winter of 2010. I can’t thank him enough for putting me in touch with Dilip Menon, Editor of the Routledge Pathfinders Series. I owe Dilip a special thanks for inviting me to contribute to the series and for his encouragement to think about the problem of Vidyasagar’s biography in a new way. His support and consistent, critical feedback have been invaluable to me. Others who helped bring this particular project to fruition are Subir Sarkar and Hena Basu, both of whom assisted me during a quick research trip to West Bengal in 2012, and Hayden Lizotte at Tufts University, who read and commented on an early draft. But when all is said and done, no one has helped me more than Alison, who has lived with Vidyasagar as long as I have. She has poked around the dusty bookstalls of Kolkata and travelled the bumpy roads of Midnapore, not to mention read and commented on my many drafts. Along with Gerrit she brings balance and sanity to what might otherwise be a life of scholarly obsession. Long ago, before I knew Vidyasagar would make such a claim on my professional career, Alison and I benefitted from the hospitality of the late Tarun Mitra, former Director of the Kolkata Center of the American Institute of Indian Studies. Writing this book has helped me realise how much Tarun-da embodied the best and most delightful aspects of Vidyasagar: scholarly precision, worldly wisdom, personal charm and a razor-sharp wit. I imagine Tarun-da would have had plenty to say about this book. I’m only sorry I can’t sit across from him in the office on Swinhoe Street and try to defend it. I dedicate it to his memory in gratitude for being the host and conversationalist he was.

xiv

Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

Please note: As a rule I refer to the city of Calcutta by its colonialera name, except when speaking of the contemporary city of Kolkata. All translations from Bengali are my own, unless otherwise noted. In re-telling a number of recorded stories and anecdotes I have occasionally chosen to paraphrase in the interests of economy and flow, but I have tried to indicate whenever this is the case. In the interests of making the book as accessible as possible I have dispensed with diacritical marks for transliterated terms and have included a Glossary of Indic vocabulary.

Introduction In January 2012, I took a day trip from Kolkata to Jharkhand to visit the quiet town of Karmatar. It is not a journey many people make. Had my driver not insisted on a side trip to see the Maithon Reservoir, there would not have been much ‘scenery’ to report. And yet, for me, it was an exciting adventure, being the latest of many stops on a long journey to understand the life and work of Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar (1820–91), the Sanskrit pandit, educator and social reformer whose legacy in Bengal and India is as profound as it is contested. Karmatar may be remote and unremarkable, but for me it promised new discoveries. Why Karmatar? Because at the age of fifty-three, Vidyasagar built a small house there as a kind of country retreat. He called his new home ‘Nandan Kanan’, or the ‘Grove of Delights’.1 In those days Karmatar lay in the region known as the ‘Santhal Parganas’. Though less than three hundred kilometres from Calcutta, Karmatar must have seemed a world away from the social and intellectual universe of the colonial metropolis, an ideal place to escape the dirt, heat and disease of the city. Rail service to the region only opened in 1871, at which point Karmatar became a station stop on the line between Jamtara and Madhupur. It wasn’t long before members of Calcutta’s growing middle class began acquiring property there, attracted by the combination of remoteness, accessibility and salubrious climate. No doubt this is what led Vidyasagar to choose Karmatar to be his ‘Grove of Delights’. This was to be a place of respite, somewhere to escape the pressures, frustrations and disappointments of public life in Calcutta.2 Most accounts tell us he developed a special fondness for the local population, which at that time was largely comprised of poor Santhalis, a tribal group inhabiting the underdeveloped fringes of western Bengal and the Chota Nagpur plateau. The Santhalis tended to be suspicious of any Bengalis who moved into the area, having suffered from the predatory practices of Bengali landlords and moneylenders who first migrated to the region a half century earlier.3 Vidyasagar turned out to be a different sort of neighbour. We are told he dealt fairly and openly with the Santhali community and demonstrated a genuine concern for their well-being. He often arrived from Calcutta bearing sweets and trinkets to share with the local children, who used to greet him at the

xvi

Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

station and ask, ‘Uncle, what have you brought for us?’4 In time, he opened a homeopathic dispensary and began giving away medicine to those in need. He was not above visiting ailing Santhalis in their homes, an act that is almost unimaginable for a pukka Brahmin pandit of his generation.5 In 1974, the station at Karmatar was renamed ‘Vidyasagar’ in honour of the town’s most noted resident. Today it is an immaculate little station, with a memorial plaque commemorating Vidyasagar’s 170th birth anniversary and a vibrant colour painting of Vidyasagar on the southbound platform. For a visitor arriving from West Bengal the painting provides both a sense of welcome and a slight sense of displacement, since the caption on the painting is in Devanagari rather than Bengali script. Something similar might be said of the stationmaster. He was hospitable to a fault, but as a Bihari he was more comfortable speaking Hindi than Bengali.6 This is not to say he was any the less eager to talk about Vidyasagar. He took obvious pride in the station and its namesake, and called my attention to a charming and well-maintained garden just outside the main building. Above the stationmaster’s desk hung a black-and-white photo of Mahatma Gandhi, commemorating the birth of the Indian nation, and a bit below, a series of nine colour photographs of the station. It was a sunny mid-winter afternoon when I visited and the air was crisp and clear. The locals were enjoying the pleasant sunshine, bundled comfortably in hats and mufflers. In the stationmaster’s office, we sipped tea and traded reflections on Vidyasagar and Karmatar. The station is just a stone’s throw from Nandan Kanan. Today, Vidyasagar’s property has been converted into a memorial, having been acquired from private owners and given a modest refurbishing in honour of its original owner. One enters the property through a gate that fronts onto a rather non-descript lane. Directly ahead one sees the house, about 70 metres away atop a small knoll in the middle of the spacious grounds. It is a one-story, rather utilitarian bungalow, with a stone patio in lieu of a raised veranda. Vidyasagar’s original charitable dispensary used to stand to the immediate right as one enters the gate. Today it lies in ruins; a crumbling architrave protrudes forlornly from a pile of red bricks. However, the work of the dispensary goes on; the earlier building has been replaced by a small yet functional one-room whitewashed structure. The freshly-painted sign reads (in both Hindi and Bengali): ‘Vidyasagar Charitable Homeopathic Dispensary’ (Vidyasagar Datavya Homeo Chikitsalay) and gives the

Introduction

xvii

date of its opening as 11 September 2008. Immediately to the left as one faces the bungalow is a girls’ school named in honour of Vidyasagar’s mother, Bhagavati Devi. As I stood on the entry path between the dispensary and the school admiring the house and savouring the moment of arrival, I was taken in hand by a young boy and girl — brother and sister, as it turned out. They pointed excitedly to the left of the house in the direction of what looked like a fenced enclosure at the base of a large tree. They made it clear that I needed to follow them there immediately. So off we went, racing across the closely cropped grass and dodging the occasional goat. As yet uncertain as to our destination, I couldn’t help feeling I had been recruited for some impromptu game. I don’t recall my self-appointed guides ever explicitly mentioning Vidyasagar’s name, but considering the site and the nature of my visit, it seemed clear that we were off to find him. But where was he? It felt a bit like hide and seek. Drawing closer to the enclosure I could see the fence had been erected to demarcate the boundary of a memorial, but I could not quite see past the lively foliage of the ornamental trees that had been planted along the front of the fence. I later learned these trees had been planted by the caretakers of Nandan Kanan in a recent effort at beautification. At the time what struck me most was the unintended effect of this recent landscaping, which largely served to obscure the memorial within. As my young friends led me up to the entrance, all I could make out was the base of a monument. It was only once we had passed through the trees and into the enclosure that we came face to face with a bust of Vidyasagar set atop a trapezoidal plinth and adorned with a desiccated garland of marigolds. The bust was rather well done and by no means the least attractive of such memorials (that distinction, in my opinion, should go to the marble image of Vidyasagar that sits at the entrance to the Sanskrit College in Calcutta).7 While it was a decent likeness, the great man wore a frozen glare of abstraction and seemed to stare right past his visitors. Directly beneath the bust on the front of the plinth was an inscription featuring Rabindranath Tagore’s widely quoted claim that Vidyasagar’s greatest virtues were his ‘invincible manliness and imperishable humanity’ (ajeya paurusha o akshaya manushyatva).8 Admiring the solidity of the monument I felt a keen sense of the man’s imperishability, even if the abstracted gaze of the subject did little to communicate his humanity. As for the massive tree in whose shade the memorial is sheltered, there is some chance it dates from the time of Vidyasagar’s

Plate 1: Memorial to Vidyasagar in Nandan Kanan obscured by foliage, Karmatar, Jharkhand (2012) Source: All photographs courtesy of the author.

Introduction

xix

residence in Karmatar.9 Its welcome shade, coupled with the exuberance of my two companions did much to animate the scene. Even so, I couldn’t help thinking: if Vidyasagar came to Karmatar to hide from the world, it seems he has succeeded.

Coming to See Him Anew In the grand scheme of things the question of why Vidyasagar adopted Karmatar as a kind of sanctuary may seem a relatively minor matter, of interest only to those few Vidyasagar aficionados with a deep and abiding curiosity about the man. That may well be, but my visit there taught me a valuable lesson about the entire project of coming to know Vidyasagar. My visit to Karmatar allowed me to appreciate that as important as it is to follow all the leads and track down all the evidence about Vidyasagar (no matter how apparently trivial), the truly pressing issue is to come to grips with the problem of how all of this evidence contributes to the task of finding Vidyasagar. Rather than imagining it will be possible to somehow go back in time to retrieve a ‘life’ from the past through a process of relentless excavation and recovery, we have to accept that the ‘life’ we hope to understand is inextricably tied to an equally compelling and complex ‘after-life’. The relics and reminders of Vidyasagar’s life in Karmatar, testify to the fact that our purchase on a biography is, as Malcolm Bradbury puts it, always unsettled and reconfigured by a myriad intervening factors, [w]akes and processions, cemeteries and dripping yews. Obituaries, eulogies, epitaphs, inscriptions, tombs, catafalques. Statues, plinths, busts, poets’ corners, writers’ houses, pantheons. Libraries, collections, lost manuscripts, translations, collected edited editions, complete works (they almost never are) . . . In short, the shadowy theatre where we all bury, disinter, translate, interpret, study, revise, amend, re-edit, parody, quote, misquote, traduce and transcend, in a wild anxiety of criticism and influence.10

Put differently, when we set out to recover the life of the man, we have to take into account the manifold lacunae, failures, and occlusions — not to mention misunderstandings and misrepresentations — that stand in our way. The benefactors of Nandan Kanan had no intention to hide the memorial from view, but when they undertook their recent landscaping they did just that. The ornamental trees they planted along the

xx

Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

fence now obscure the man they are meant to honour. There is no easy way to view the monument without negotiating this ornamental screen. Likewise if we hope to understand the life of Vidyasagar, we must be willing to move around, to dodge obstacles, sneak through openings, and slip past eager tour guides — all in the interest of gaining better vantage points. Of course, the analogy is far from perfect; we’re not simply trying to view an immobile monument but are attempting to make sense of a historical actor. There never can be a single line of sight to our subject, let alone a single vantage point from which to understand him. Our approach must be cautious and tentative, and we dare not forget that the many aids offered by others (biographies, memoirs, monuments and memorials) may often — like the ornamental trees in Nandan Kanan — obscure what we most wish to see.

Plate 2: Bust of Vidyasagar in Nandan Kanan, Karmatar, Jharkhand (2012)

Introduction

xxi

Not surprisingly, the question of how best to memorialise Vidyasagar became a contentious matter shortly after his death. Debates at the time were couched in terms of how best to honour the legacy of a ‘great man’, whether in stone or through living deed. Those debates played out in the press and public halls over a century ago, but there is a sense in which those early disagreements about the act and the art of memorialisation continue to reverberate throughout all the subsequent research, writing and commemoration of Vidyasagar. In 1891, the people of Calcutta were able to mourn the demise of Vidyasagar as the loss of a hero and a national pathfinder. Having himself lived through and shaped some of the most consequential events of the century, he was one of those ‘eminent Indians’ to whom many looked for guidance.11 Hailed at the time of his death as ‘the most active social reformer in Bengal’, his life and example soon came to occupy an important place in the emerging Indian national imaginary.12 Over a century later, Vidyasagar’s greatness and lasting legacy may be assured, but questions persist regarding the framing and maintenance of that legacy. My goal in the present volume is to consider how our understanding of the life of this eminent Indian might benefit from simultaneously attending to his after-life, to all those ‘wakes and processions’ that have worked to frame his legacy for generations. Toward this end, we must revisit the ‘cemeteries and dripping yews’ and re-read the ‘eulogies, epitaphs, inscriptions’.13 As I discovered in Karmatar it is easy to lose sight of our heroic subject within the fog of memorialisation; this means that we must ourselves become pathfinders, actively seeking new vantage points for understanding Vidyasagar. Given his relative obscurity outside of India, it may sound like hyperbole but I would suggest that the problems confronting the scholar of Vidyasagar are not all that different from the challenges faced by researchers interested in Mahatma Gandhi. Like Gandhi, Vidyasagar becomes visible to us through a bewildering maze of published documents, which includes not just the better-known biographies, but also countless lesser biographies, appreciations, anthologies, commemorative works, government documents, and critical studies. Furthermore, numerous letters and other unpublished sources on his life have long since been unearthed, edited and published, including an immensely important autobiographical fragment that we will explore in Chapter Three. There is also the matter of his own considerable literary output, which ranged from schoolbooks, primers and readers to various forms of Sanskrit pedagogical works, reformist tracts, journalistic pieces

xxii

Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

and editions of Sanskrit and Bengali classics. Even today, his principal Bengali publications are readily available in any number of ‘collected works’ (rachanavali), often available in two or three volumes. The reason for this is Vidyasagar’s formidable role as a creator of modern Bengali prose. His traces can even be found in the grammar and cadence of the Bengali language itself. And this is just to speak of the more or less obvious evidence. Beyond such published and archival material are the countless stories, legends, apocrypha and quasi-mythic tales. As with Gandhi this material is not mere arcana, known only to insiders; such stories come to the mind of countless Bengalis (and many Indians) at the mere mention of Vidyasagar’s name. Now and again, in what follows, we shall have an opportunity to see the way such stories arise and intersect with what we might call the more verifiable evidence of history. Such apocrypha should remind us that even if Vidyasagar never gathered around him the same devoted cadre of disciples as Gandhi, his admirers and his antagonists have both had ample say in shaping his after-life. This includes everyone from family members and professional colleagues to colonial superiors, ardent acolytes, rabid opponents, and any number of latter-day commentators. Meanwhile, Vidyasagar’s legacy has moved forward in tandem with technology. Village scroll painters (patuas) have been singing of his exploits while unrolling their colourful scrolls for the better part of a century, while shortly after Indian independence both his life story and his literary output were recreated in film (two examples of which we shall discuss in due course). His biography has been rescripted in comic book form in the ‘Immortal Comic Book’ series (Amar Chitra Katha), and today one can watch animated versions of his life on the Internet.14 Needless to say Vidyasagar lives and morphs on sites like Wikipedia and Banglapedia and likewise makes his way into any number of websites dedicated to modern Indian history and Bengali culture. Again, as with Gandhi, access to Vidyasagar must be gained by struggling through and around a world of memory, anecdote, biography, memorialisation, folktales, and popular culture.15 Instead of falling back on the comforting teleology of the ‘life story’, I want to embrace what Malcolm Bradbury calls the ‘wild anxiety of criticism and influence’.16 Instead of corralling this stampede of information and anecdote into a convenient narrative, I hope to pull from it a few selected issues or themes that I think promise to shed new light on Vidyasagar and his legacy. These include the early crafting of

Introduction

xxiii

his biography (Chapter One); the meaning of his oft-lauded humanism (Chapter Two); his strategies for self-revelation and self-distancing in a text like his autobiography (Chapter Three); the challenge of making the ubiquitous hagiographical labels speak anew (Chapter Four); his well-known penchant for humour and irony (Chapter Five); and finally, the case of a fractured friendship that casts many of the foregoing themes in a new light (Chapter Six). These themes will develop across chapters that follow no obvious chronology, but which strive instead to offer a variety of discrete (yet hopefully interrelated) perspectives for thinking about Vidyasagar’s identity. It is my hope this perspectival approach will encourage interested readers to turn once more to the standard biographies and wider literature on Vidyasagar to develop their own interpretations of the man, his world, and his legacy. And since I fully recognise that dispensing with the traditional mode of biography may prove disorienting to readers who are less familiar with Vidyasagar, I include in Chapter One what I hope is enough of a biographical framework to allow even new readers to find their bearings. If we are to gain new purchase on the unforgettable (chira smaraniya) Vidyasagar, we must keep in play both the indisputable facts and the messier, even unreliable, stories that circulate about the man. The goal is not to debunk the life, but to see it anew. I want to insist that my subject remains the Vidyasagar who is known and revered by many to this day, even if my goal is to raise new questions about his life and identity. Some will surely think I have failed to communicate the enormity of Vidyasagar; others will feel I have handled him with too much reverence. While I have tried to strike an appropriate balance, I have to confess this book is predicated on a genuine respect for the man. I don’t see how one can consider his accomplishments and not feel a certain awe. That said, I hope the following chapters will also demonstrate my commitment to raising critical questions about a complex life and legacy. Of necessity this book focuses on some issues at the expense of others. I justify this decision by reminding readers of the sorts of topics I have addressed elsewhere, which I feel need not be taken up here. These include Vidyasagar’s training as a Sanskrit pandit, his schoolbook pedagogy, his early involvement with progressive religious reform and his work in connection with the widow marriage campaign.17 While it has not been easy to pass over such crucial elements

xxiv

Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

of his career, I have felt compelled to make choices when confronted by a life as dynamic and productive as Vidyasagar’s. I only hope that what readers may lose in terms of biographical completeness they will gain in terms of critical insights. An additional goal of this book is to pay attention to a number of Vidyasagar’s works that have hitherto received little critical attention in English, most notably his polemical and pseudonymous writings and his brief autobiography. By reading such texts, alongside the many stories and jokes Vidyasagar liked to tell as well as the anecdotes and truisms that circulate about him, I hope to reveal the ordinary humanity of an extraordinary man.

Notes 1. See Shambhuchandra Vidyaratna. 1891. Vidyasagar Jivancharita. Calcutta: English–Sanskrit Press, pp. 216–17. 2. Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, pp. 203–4. 3. See Ranjan Kumar Gupta. 1984. The Economic Life of a Bengal District: Birbhum 1770–1857. Burdwan: University of Burdwan Press, Ch. 8. 4. Manomohan Gangopadhyay. 1927. Shruti-smriti. Part I. Calcutta: Avanimohan Gangopadhyay, pp. 23–24. 5. A new charitable dispensary was erected in 2008, the Vidyasagar Datavya Homeo Chikitsalay. 6. The sense that Karmatar is off the beaten path for most residents of West Bengal is amplified by the fact that Nandan Kanan has lately benefitted from the oversight of the Bihar Bengali Association. Plaques adorning the perimeter wall remind us that the contemporary custodians of the site are benefactors from local towns, such as Jamtara and Jamshedpur. They may even represent the descendants of those Bengalis who first gravitated to the area in the late nineteenth century. 7. The Nandan Kanan memorial was established by the Vidyasagar Memorial Committee of the Bihar Bengali Association. 8. Rabindranath Tagore. 1995. Vidyasagar Charita, in Rabindra Rachanavali, Vol. 2. Calcutta: Visvabharati Press, p. 782 9. Several other trees around Nandan Kanan bear plaques in Hindi proclaiming they were planted by Vidyasagar. 10. Malcolm Bradbury. 2000. To the Hermitage: A Novel. New York: The Overlook Press, p. 153. 11. In the 1920s, Natesan Press in Madras published a series on the ‘biographies of eminent Indians,’ which included a volume on Vidyasagar. 12. Quoted from an obituary in the Statesman, 30 July 1891, as reproduced in Biharilal Sarkar. 1981. Vidyasagar. Calcutta: Jijnasa, p. xvi. 13. Bradbury, To the Hermitage, p. 153.

Introduction

xxv

14. For more details, see http://wn.com/Ishwar_Chandra_Vidyasagar (accessed 26 August 2012). 15. On folk perceptions of Gandhi, see Shahid Amin. 1988. ‘Gandhi as Mahatma: Gorakhpur District, Eastern U.P., 1921–22’, in Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (eds), Selected Subaltern Studies. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 288–349. 16. Bradbury, To the Hermitage: A Novel, p. 153. 17. Despite the fact that the phrase ‘widow remarriage’ has found wide currency, and appears in the title of Act XV of 1856, I prefer to render the Bengali phrase vidhava vivaha as ‘widow marriage.’ I believe Vidyasagar himself preferred this usage insofar as it avoided the stigma attached to ‘remarried women’ in orthodox Hindu society.

This page intentionally left blank

1 The Life and the Stories Imagine a village schoolmaster in rural Bengal, seated on the verandah of his thatched bungalow, on a warm spring afternoon in 1855. The teacher has sent his pupils home for the day and is now dozing quietly in the shade. All of a sudden he is roused by the sound of approaching footsteps. He opens his eyes in time to see one of his former students approaching the verandah. The young man slips out of his sandals, steps onto the verandah and bows to his teacher, paying his respect by taking the dust of his feet. The teacher offers him a seat and calls to his wife to bring some water for the guest. Then he notices his visitor is clutching something in his hand. The teacher nods casually toward the item and asks, ‘what’s that you’ve got there? Tell me it isn’t another one of those books the missionaries are always handing out on the main road’. ‘No’, the student replies, looking down at the object in his hand. ‘Well, yes, it is a book, but it isn’t a Christian publication. This is a book written by a Sanskrit scholar who teaches in Calcutta. I picked it up when I was there. The author makes a case for the promotion of Hindu widow marriage’. The teacher straightens up and looks at the young man in disbelief. ‘What’s that you say? Who is this teacher? What’s his name? Where does he teach?’ ‘His name is Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar. Does that ring a bell?’ ‘Wait a minute’, says the teacher. ‘Did you say Vidyasagar? You mean the one who teaches at the Government Sanskrit College?’ As he says this, the teacher leans forward and holds out his hand. ‘May I have a look at the book?’ The teacher turns the small book over in his hands, examines the binding, and then begins to turn the pages carefully. ‘Would you look at this, it is by Vidyasagar. But what on earth would prompt him to support such an idea? This is just too much!’1 This brief vignette, though fictional, serves as a wonderful way to begin our investigation into the life and after-life of Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar. It was composed by an opponent of Vidyasagar’s widow

2

Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

marriage campaign but it nonetheless highlights several important issues. These include the widespread currency Vidyasagar’s name was beginning to achieve by the mid-1850s, when he was still only in his thirties; the ripple effects of urban reform as these were experienced, far removed from the elite salons and official chambers of colonial Calcutta; the prominent role of publishing and the printed book in nineteenth-century Bengal; and the evidence of significant resistance to Vidyasagar’s progressive social attitudes. What is additionally striking about this vignette is that it merges fiction, hearsay, and published truth into one seamless (if brief) narrative. Even though this event most likely never took place, the story speaks rather accurately to the way news, controversy and entertainment circulated in colonial Bengal. A young man travels to the city and comes back with stories to tell and trinkets to share, including a controversial new book. This is where fiction meets fact. We know for certain that in 1855 Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar published two books entitled Vidhava Vivaha or ‘Hindu Widow Marriage’.2 In these books, Vidyasagar made a case for promoting Hindu widow marriage by focusing on a verse from Parashara Samhita, a classical Hindu legal text, in which he claimed to find scriptural sanction for the practice. Using a combination of textual exegesis, rational argumentation and humanitarian moral persuasion, Vidyasagar attempted to convince both his co-religionists and the British government that there were legitimate grounds for passing a law legalising widow marriage. His books sold out rapidly and over succeeding years went through numerous editions. They circulated widely and helped transform Vidyasagar from a man into a movement. Needless to say, Vidyasagar also became the focus of intensive opposition. Kalidas Maitra, the author of the book from which the vignette is taken, was so agitated by Vidyasagar’s proposal that he immediately published a rejoinder, commenting that ‘When I saw [Vidyasagar’s book], I felt it was my duty to respond’.3 While Maitra’s work is intended to be a rejoinder (pratyuttara) to Vidyasagar’s proposal, its dialogic structure also brings to the fore something of the anxiety and uncertainty surrounding Vidyasagar’s identity and the goals of his reforming project. In the exchange between the schoolmaster and his pupil, we witness the solidification of the popular image of Vidyasagar. A young man shows his teacher a book by ‘some author’ containing an argument about widow marriage. At first, the teacher is curious: Who is this Sanskrit scholar? Does he run a school (chatushpathi)? Does he have followers? But when he

The Life and the Stories

3

sees the book, he is given a further shock. He has heard of Vidyasagar but he cannot believe such a learned scholar would endorse an outrage like widow marriage. In his mind, it serves as an index of the kind of ‘unbelief’ (nastikata) growing under British rule. As the student watches his teacher’s reaction, he grows confused and curious. Who is this Vidyasagar? And so, in the exchange between the schoolmaster and his pupil, we witness the gradual solidification of the popular image of Vidyasagar. Maitra’s vignette suggests that some of the most enduring images of Vidyasagar have their roots in everyday sorts of exchanges. I have in mind not only the kind of ‘street corner’ conversation and gossip imagined by Maitra, but the daily intercourse among brothers, fathers and sons, best friends, professional colleagues and bitter opponents. Plunging into the problem of biography involves attending to these varied yet widespread understandings of Vidyasagar’s story. This is where the challenges arise, because we must often wrestle with the same blend of fiction, verisimilitude and truth that we find in Maitra’s vignette. How can we extract truth from such ‘history’? One thinks of Robert Darnton’s reflections on the challenges of reading libelous and satirical tracts composed in revolutionary France from our current critical vantage point. As with the kinds of literature examined by Darnton, Maitra’s work offers ‘a story that fits together nicely’. But is that all it is, just a story? Is there nothing more to be said? The very notion of historical truth may seem dubious today, when historians take cues from literary critics and history, sometimes, looks more like a verbal construct made with tropes than a solid edifice built from facts. To search for the facts behind the narrative of the libels may be a misguided undertaking, but they are there, nonetheless: not self-evident, ‘hard’ facts that can be extracted from archives as if they were nuggets of reality but evidence embedded in documents that can be made to make sense.4

I take Darnton’s way of formulating the task to be instructive for my approach in what follows. The search for the truth about Vidyasagar, as we shall see, has been going on for at least 150 years. Many nuggets of ‘self-evident’ truth have been unearthed, just as we can disentangle the real book of Vidhava Vivaha from the fictional narrative created by Maitra. Such evidence provides a crucial foundation upon which to establish knowledge about Vidyasagar, but as Maitra’s vignette suggests such evidence comes to us ‘embedded’ in a myriad of literary, historical and imaginary frameworks. The young man clutching a copy of

4

Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

Vidhava Vivaha in the opening vignette should serve as a reminder that the ‘self-evident’ truth of a book published by Vidyasagar can be made to speak to a number of truths. This is the challenge we face. Rather than attempting to answer once and for all ‘Who was Vidyasagar?’ the question becomes ‘Where and how is Vidyasagar to be found?’

The Early Life of a ‘Life’ In the Introduction, I announced my desire to forego the comforts of the traditional ‘life story’. That does not mean, however, that I plan to dispense with Vidyasagar’s biographers. They are essential to our work, and not merely for the information they provide about Vidyasagar’s life. We must also reckon with their role in shaping the popular image of Vidyasagar as one of modern India’s great men. Few figures from nineteenth-century Bengal have attracted the same measure of biographical attention as Vidyasagar. This is rather remarkable given the fact that he was a contemporary of the likes of Rammohan Roy, Keshub Chunder Sen, Shri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda. All of these figures earned worldwide recognition in their own day and their names are synonymous with the history of modern India. By contrast, Vidyasagar’s name has never been widely known outside of India and he receives, at best, passing mention in recent histories of modern South Asia.5 Unlike Rammohan and the others, Vidyasagar never travelled to the West, never founded a religious movement, never gathered around him a well-defined group of disciples, nor attracted the attention of contemporary Western intellectuals. In fact, it would be fair to say Vidyasagar had precious few admirers in the West.6 It surprises no one that the likes of Rammohan and Vivekananda have generated considerable biographical and scholarly study, but the rich biographical record surrounding Vidyasagar does require some explanation.7 The process of constructing Vidyasagar’s biography actually commenced well before his death in 1891. Unless I am mistaken, the earliest biographical treatment of Vidyasagar can be found tucked away in the middle of an early survey of modern Bengali literature composed by Ramgati Nyayaratna in 1872.8 Ramgati was a Brahmin scholar who had studied under Vidyasagar at the Sanskrit College. He informed his readers that he had been contemplating writing a biography (jivana charita) of Vidyasagar for some time.9 His claim seems a bit surprising until we recall Maitra’s book, which suggests that Vidyasagar had managed to galvanise public opinion during the 1850s. Ramgati was well aware of

The Life and the Stories

5

this and understood that he could not address changes in Bengali language and literature without also referring to the larger social debates that were rocking Bengal. As Ramgati knew, Vidyasagar was central to both. And so, halfway into his survey, Ramgati paused to introduce Vidyasagar to his readers. The brief biography he created marks an early attempt to frame Vidyasagar’s life story in terms of a set of key moments and defining themes. I would like to follow Ramgati’s lead, using his text as a way both to foreground the problem of biography and to offer first-time readers a broad synopsis of Vidyasagar’s career.10 Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar was born in the rural village of Birsingha in 1820. His father was Thakurdas Bandyopadhyay and his mother, Bhagavati Devi. Ishvarchandra was the eldest of their seven sons and three daughters. As a young man, Thakurdas moved to Calcutta to look for work. Growing up, Ishvarchandra received whatever education he could in the local village school (pathshala). At the age of nine, Thakurdas brought him to Calcutta and enrolled him in the Sanskrit College. Life in the city was difficult for both father and son. In addition to his schoolwork, young Ishvarchandra was forced to do a great deal of the cooking and household chores. Over the next twelve years he studied Sanskrit grammar, literature, rhetoric, astronomy, law, logic, Vedanta, and Samkhya. Ishvarchandra was a sharp-witted boy and applied himself energetically to everything he studied. At the end of his studies (in 1841), the faculty of the college bestowed upon him the honorific ‘Vidyasagar’, meaning ‘Ocean of Learning’. Ramgati points out that at the time, this title (upadhi) was rather commonplace among Sanskrit pandits. However, thanks to the subsequent accomplishments of its newest bearer, this title would soon become synonymous with this man. To emphasise his point, Ramgati cited a Sanskrit aphorism: ‘Just as Vishnu alone is known as Purushottama, so too only the great Lord Shiva is known as Tryambaka’. In other words, only Ishvarchandra is Vidyasagar. While studying at the Sanskrit College, Ishvarchandra was taken under the wing of Major G. T. Marshall, a British government servant who developed a genuine affection and respect for him. When a position at the College of Fort William became available, Marshall offered it to Vidyasagar. Though fresh out of college, he was now earning five times the salary of his father. Marshall told the young man, ‘Ishvar, if you make an effort to study English and compose Bengali books, you will really become something’. Vidyasagar took his advice and began studying English. While he encountered some difficulty in finding

6

Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

teachers, he persevered and soon acquired significant mastery over the language. In 1846, the post of Assistant Secretary became available at the Sanskrit College. Even though it didn’t amount to a great change in salary, Vidyasagar took the position and immediately began instituting changes in the curriculum. He also began to write books that could be adopted for use in government schools. His first attempt was a life of Krishna (Vasudeva Charita), but the government rejected the text (perhaps on the grounds of Krishna’s mythological exploits). Vidyasagar went on to provide a Bengali version of the ‘Twenty-five Tales of the Vampire’ (Vetala Panchavimshati 1846) as well as a Bengali translation of J. C. Marshman’s History of Bengal (Bangalar Itihas 1848). These works effectively inaugurated Vidyasagar’s career as an author and publisher. In this context, Ramgati provides relevant details about other early publications including Vidyasagar’s adaptation of schoolbooks by William and Robert Chambers, including their ‘Rudiments of Knowledge’ (Bodhoday 1851) and ‘Biography’ (Jivana Charita 1849). While serving as the Assistant Secretary, Vidyasagar had a memorable disagreement with the Secretary of the college, Rasamay Datta. Even though he was Datta’s junior, Vidyasagar was a fiery young man (tejasvi lok), not easily cowed by the Secretary. In the end there was no hope of compromise and after only one year in the post, Vidyasagar left the college in 1847. Shortly thereafter he was appointed Head Writer at the College of Fort William, thanks again to his mentor Marshall. At this time, he formed further friendships with influential Europeans, including John Eliot Drinkwater Bethune, an advocate of female education, and F. J. Mouat, then Secretary of the Council on Education. Before long, changes at the Sanskrit College created an opportunity for Vidyasagar to return, this time as Professor of Literature. He was offered the position and was almost immediately promoted to the newly-created position of Principal. It was this position that allowed him to advance his project of reforming Sanskrit education. At this point Ramgati summarises the range of curricular and administrative change under Vidyasagar, giving special attention to the innovative texts he created in the interests of simplifying the process of language acquisition. These included the ‘Introduction to Sanskrit Grammar’ (Sanskrit Vyakaraner Upakramanika 1851), ‘Simple Lessons’ (Rijupath 1852) and the more substantial ‘Moonlight of Grammar’ (Vyakarana Kaumudi 1853).

The Life and the Stories

7

While serving as the Principal, Vidyasagar formed a close relationship with the then Lieutenant Governor F. J. Halliday, who like Marshall became quite fond of him. Under Halliday, Vidyasagar was appointed an Inspector of Schools. Thereon followed an important phase of his career, in the 1850s, when he dedicated himself to establishing schools in districts outside of Calcutta. However, as the decade wore on government educational policy began to change, especially in the wake of the 1857 rebellion. Vidyasagar became vocally disenchanted with official policy and, to the dismay of men like Halliday, tendered his resignation in 1858. As Ramgati puts it, he would never again work for a salary. However, by this time he had established the Sanskrit Press and Depository (along with his colleague Madanmohan Tarkalankar), which published his growing list of books. These publications provided him with an income well beyond what he had earned as a government servant. At this point, Ramgati narrates Vidyasagar’s efforts to promote the marriage of Hindu widows during the mid-1850s. He lavishes considerable attention on Vidyasagar’s intensive study of the Hindu shastras and his eventual identification of the crucial verse from Parashara Samhita that would anchor the argument. In keeping with his focus on literature, Ramgati looks at Vidyasagar’s Vidhava Vivaha as a literary document. After narrating the success of the campaign, Ramgati makes note of the first marriage performed under the new law (Act XV of 1856) and of Vidyasagar’s meteoric rise to fame and notoriety.11 His name began to figure in popular songs and satires while the weavers of Shantipur began to embroider the phrase bemche thak Vidyasagar, chirajivi ha’ye (‘Long live Vidyasagar!’) on their saris.12 Ramgati is careful to note that the immense burden of the widow marriage campaign did nothing to slow down Vidyasagar’s productivity as an author. During the same tumultuous period, he published more influential schoolbooks including ‘Introduction to the Alphabet’ (Varnaparichay 1855), ‘Exemplary and Instructive Biography’ (Charitavali 1856) and ‘Select Fables of Aesop’ (Kathamala 1856). Emphasising that Vidyasagar continued to write and publish even after his retirement from government service in 1858, Ramgati stresses that Vidyasagar was therefore always able to care for his four daughters and one son, Narayan. Further, Ramgati makes a note of the fact that Narayan went on to marry a widow in 1870. This was also the period when Vidyasagar launched into another vigorous and fiercely-contested social reform

8

Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

campaign opposing the practice of high-caste polygamy (bahuvivaha). It is with this anti-polygamy campaign that Ramgati’s sketch draws to a close. It is important to bear in mind that Ramgati’s text is largely a literary biography, that sets out to review Vidyasagar’s accomplishments from the stylistic innovations of Betalapanchavimshati in 1846 to the controversial tracts he composed against polygamy in 1872 (known briefly by the title Bahuvivaha). Clearly, Ramgati provides other information, notably about Vidyasagar’s parentage and his own children. But such details are few and far between. Ramgati’s goal was to cast Vidyasagar as the progenitor of modern Bengali prose: Between Vetala Panchavimshati and Bahuvivaha, Vidyasagar published nearly 30 books, popular across Bengal. There can’t be anyone who loves the Bengali language and doesn’t know Vidyasagar’s works. Therefore, one does not need to review each book individually. Today’s pure mode of Bengali prose composition, using mellifluous Sanskrit vocabulary, has its root in Vidyasagar’s Betalpanchavimshati. Bengali was not written in this manner earlier. Its creator was Vidyasagar.13

There is much about Ramgati’s sketch of Vidyasagar that would remain characteristic of subsequent biographies, not least the focus on language and literature. Rabindranath Tagore would later dub Vidyasagar the ‘first true artist of the Bengali language’ and all subsequent biographies consistently foreground his work as an author and prose stylist.14 Ramgati also established a precedent for treating Vidyasagar’s life as a ‘rags to riches’ story that follows Ishvarchandra from his humble village origins through hardships in the colonial city to early acclaim as a Sanskrit scholar. His penchant for learning and his ability to work with colonial authorities are identified as key factors for his rapid rise within the colonial educational bureaucracy and his success as a promoter of vernacular education. Finally, Ramgati tempers this success story with an element of tragic frustration — there would come a time when Vidyasagar fell out of sympathy with official policy. Nonetheless, we are told that Vidyasagar’s intellect and resolve assured his eventual financial security. It is his success as an author, publisher and printer that helps underwrite Vidyasagar’s independent career as a social reformer and a philanthropist dedicated to helping the poor and the needy. In this respect, even though Ramgati was not particularly progressive in his social attitudes, he set an important

The Life and the Stories

9

precedent by foregrounding Vidyasagar’s work as a reformer. Overall, then, Ramgati’s work establishes an influential biographical template that is structured, in some sense, around Vidyasagar’s intervention in the three areas of education (shiksha), literature (sahitya) and society (samaj). Subsequent biographers have found this three-fold thematic to be a handy way to understand the major currents in Vidyasagar’s life.15 By extension, these three themes are often used to categorise Vidyasagar’s collected works (rachanavali).16

The Major Biographies Ramgati may have the distinction of writing the earliest biography but the most important biographies date from the period immediately after Vidyasagar’s death in 1891. Four major biographies from this period merit our attention since they have been, by far, the most influential in shaping latter-day understandings of this remarkable intellectual. Other lesser works can be found from this early period but none have had the staying power or interpretive sway of the four major biographies. Because the authors of these four biographies will be our travelling companions from here on, readers will want to make a note of their names (I adopt the convention of referring to them by their given names): Shambhuchandra, Biharilal, Chandicharan and Subal Chandra. Some details about each will help introduce the authors and their texts. The earliest of the major biographies was written by Vidyasagar’s younger brother Shambhuchandra Vidyaratna and published in 1891 as ‘The Life of Vidyasagar’ (Vidyasagar Jivanacharita). In the wake of Shambhuchandra’s publication two other biographies appeared in Bengali, both in 1895. One was written by the conservative critic, Biharilal Sarkar, and the other by Chandicharan Bandyopadhyay, best described as a devoted acolyte of Vidyasagar.17 Both Biharilal and Chandicharan drew upon information provided by Shambhuchandra, but their texts also brought forward additional evidence and introduced new interpretive perspectives. In time, these two biographies would come to overshadow Shambhuchandra’s text. In fact, we might call them the two most influential Bengali biographies. Biharilal’s text in particular was able to have an immense (if sometimes overlooked) influence on later understandings of Vidyasagar, since it was largely replicated in Subal Chandra Mitra’s English biography, Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar: A Story of His Life and Work in 1902.18 While not the earliest biography in English,

10 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

it was Subal Chandra’s biography that helped popularise Vidyasagar’s life well beyond Bengal.19 In all likelihood, it was the source Gandhi relied on when he provided a sketch of Vidyasagar’s life and character for the Indian Opinion in 1905.20 Surprisingly, while critical reflection on Vidyasagar (in Bengali and English) has carried on vigorously ever since his death, the same cannot be said for biographical studies; Shambhuchandra, Biharilal, Chandicharan and Subal Chandra remain the most important comprehensive biographies. One possible exception might be Indra Mitra’s Karunasagar Vidyasagar, first published in 1969 but greatly expanded in successive editions. Karunasagar Vidyasagar is both broadly chronological in scope and comprehensive in its aspirations, but the book is really more of an accordion file of biographical data than a life narrative as such; it forms an essential companion to the great biographies but really cannot supplant them as narratives.21 And when it comes to the English-language sources, we have to reckon with the immense success of Subal Chandra’s book. Not only has there been no attempt to translate the other major biographies, there has also been no attempt to write a comprehensive, critical and up-to-date biography of Vidyasagar in English. It is true that Vidyasagar’s ‘name recognition’ is rather limited beyond India; he never achieved the international stature of a Gandhi, Nehru or Tagore. And yet both Gandhi and Tagore looked up to Vidyasagar, and it is safe to say that even today many Indians would place him on the same level of greatness. Certainly, one can point to any number of shorter critical studies of Vidyasagar in English, even one or two very brief biographies, many of which I will have reason to cite in what follows. And yet, such works really only throw into relief the fact that we continue to await a comprehensive and critically informed biography in English. That fact notwithstanding, I have a different goal in mind. Rather than attempting to complete Vidyasagar’s biography, I hope to complicate it. At a very basic level I feel the need to unsettle the almost canonical narrative that has developed since Ramgati’s day, which is essentially a romantic, bourgeois parable of a poor Brahmin boy who rises to public greatness and tackles the recalcitrant powers of tradition; he achieves enormous success through his intellect and savoir faire but also encounters great frustration and disappointment along the way, such that he approaches the end of his life in loneliness and despair. As an illustration of just how easy it is to reduce Vidyasagar’s

The Life and the Stories

11

biography to a parable of the heroic reformer, consider the following summary penned by a former Education Minister for the Government of India: Pandit Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar is a legendary figure of Modern India. His name recalls the virtues of compassion, learning, integrity, and strength of character. A poor, village Brahmin boy, he walked all the way to Calcutta and since won the regards of the urban elite, both European and Indian by his writing, teaching and above all, fighting for the cause of the oppressed Indian woman. He mastered traditional and modern learning, taught the European Civil Servants, managed and headed the Sanskrit College, wrote numerous text books, founded schools and a college, made charities, fought for social reforms and successfully championed the remarriage of the Hindu widows.22

It makes a compelling story to be sure and there are certainly good reasons for thinking this description largely accords with key facts about his life, but we also know that the life lies in the telling. What does this way of telling his story, this modern morality tale, prevent us from seeing? More importantly, how do the accounts found in the standard biographies square with any number of other versions one might encounter, from children’s books to film interpretations to personal anecdotes? For example, how does the image of Vidyasagar as a compassionate educator and champion of women sit with popular conceptions of the man as a tiresome pedant, an overbearing schoolmaster or a representative of high-caste male privilege? Vidyasagar may deserve his reputation as a ‘Builder of Modern India’, but how much of the complexity of the man is lost by honouring him in this fashion?23 Before we set out to write the next biography of Vidyasagar, we really ought to press harder on both the complexity of his life and the ramifications of his considerable after-life.

On the Tracks At the outset of Enigmas of Identity, Peter Brooks reminds us of a passage from Jean-Paul Sartre’s autobiography Les Mots in which the narrator finds himself as a young boy travelling on a train, with no ticket to present to the conductor.24 To justify his right to occupy his seat, the boy makes a grandiose claim that the fate of the country depends upon his being able to reach his destination. The conductor is unmoved but the boy carries on with his story. For Brooks, this passage works as a kind of parable about identity, which in the modern period seems to

12 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

ride on the telling — the modern self emerges through narration. However, as Brooks points out, while we know it ‘matters crucially to be able to say who we are’, we remain always somewhat at a loss, like the boy on the train. We can’t produce our ticket. ‘That doesn’t mean we won’t keep on looking for it, inventing it, producing various excuses for being in our seat on the train’.25 Thinking of Sartre’s young boy, it is almost as if the railway tracks fall into place ahead of the locomotive with every word he utters; with every twist and turn in his story, the tracks bend and curve to take him where he says he’s going. In an attempt to shed light on the restlessly modern quest to say who we are and to authenticate who we take ourselves to be, Brooks introduces a pair of concepts that might help us when thinking about the question of Vidyasagar’s identity — ‘identity paradigm’ and ‘identifactory paradigm’. The former calls attention to what it is that needs to be known and affirmed, what we might call the truth and authenticity of the self. The latter concept directs our attention to the ways in which such a self may be known — everything from dreams and stories to statistics and enumerative categories. Many quintessentially modern modes of knowing and creating are caught up in this ‘identificatory’ process: the novel, the autobiography, psychoanalysis, forensics, and legal procedures. Each of these offers particular ways to analyse, pin down and identify the self. Brooks reminds us of the intimate relationship between the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of identity. Most importantly, he emphasises the anxiety behind the problem of identity: ‘We need to keep saying what our identity might be and where it might lie, and how we might find it authenticated by other identities’.26 This is the same anxiety that besets the author of the modern biography. On the one hand, there is the awareness that the self (if we could somehow get inside it) would manifest its own truth and solidity. On the other, there is the realisation that the same self, when momentarily trapped in the crosshairs of insufficient data, will always be in flight, unsteady, indeterminate, enigmatic. As Brooks says, ‘we are forced to accept that both images of the self are true, though we can’t really reconcile them’.27 As I see it, the twin rubrics of ‘identity paradigm’ and ‘identificatory paradigm’ provide us with a convenient and illuminating way to speak about the challenges facing any biographer of Vidyasagar. We are faced with two sorts of questions: Who was he? And how do we know him? As will become evident, Vidyasagar’s biographers have all too often been willing to point to his essential identity. For instance, the idea that

The Life and the Stories

13

he was fundamentally a ‘humanist’ is among the most widely shared answers to the identity question; we shall turn to this topic in Chapter Two. For now, Brooks reminds us that such identifications are always made in relation to certain kinds of evidence. There are countless identificatory resources that may be called into court to bear witness to the identity of Vidyasagar: personal letters, government records, first-person testimony, folksongs, poetry, and a world of apocryphal wisdom. However, beyond this, one must consider how such evidence is collected, collated, weighed and presented. This returns us to the saliency of the identity paradigm, except that now we must wrestle not only with Vidyasagar’s identity, but also with the identity of those who tell his story. As we plunge into the biographies and the evidence, it will become apparent how the literature on Vidyasagar reflects the identities and concerns of authors whose lives were shaped by the converging (and sometimes competing) forces of colonialism, orientalism, traditionalism, nationalism, resistance, and decolonisation. So while there may be abundant evidence, it is quite another thing how it has been used and what sorts of conclusions have been drawn from it. In this context, one thinks of Partha Chatterjee’s recent study of a mysterious holy man who appeared in Dhaka in 1921 and claimed to be the princely heir of a local landed family.28 In A Princely Impostor? Chatterjee skillfully addresses the challenge of identity when examined from such perspectives as philosophy, narrative history and law. His attempt to problematise identity against a backdrop of colonial legal structures, forensic practices, and emerging Bengali social norms speaks eloquently to the entanglement of the identity paradigm and the identificatory paradigms. Vidyasagar was no princely impostor but his ‘case’ raises cognate issues. A great deal turns on forensics and the handling of evidence. There are also numerous witnesses who bring with them varying norms and beliefs depending on time period, social location, political agenda and customary entanglements. Then, there is a range of popular opinions that must be weighed against the indisputable ‘facts of the case’. And finally, at a more philosophical level, we must address the question of what makes someone who they are. All in all we face a daunting task, but thankfully ours is not a legal case nor must we solve ‘the identity puzzle’ of the philosophers.29 For us, the quest to track down Vidyasagar is a qualitative, subjective and moral exercise. We recognise going in that a great deal turns on how his story is told and that the chances of a clear verdict are slim to none.

14 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

In what follows, I hope to give due weight to the challenges of acquiring well-attested evidence about Vidyasagar while handling as cautiously as possible the contexts out of which such evidence arises and the stories into which it has been woven over the course of a century. Hoping to avoid both simplistic reductionism and heroic biography, my goal is to demonstrate that the question of Vidyasagar’s identity is a function of how he has been remembered. No amount of ‘hard data’ is likely to complete the biographical picture or unseat him from his place of eminence. If anything, I hope that by recognising the narrative construction of his biography and the teleological constraints of what has become an almost canonical life story, we may be able to better appreciate the way the enigma of the man haunts his after-life. In the Introduction, I had mentioned that my task is to become a kind of ‘pathfinder’. This is my way of accepting ownership for the choices we inevitably make in wrestling with the problem of biographical identity. There is no single way to solve the problem and no right place to begin or end. I began the book in Karmatar, a place associated with the twilight of Vidyasagar’s career and I will end our story in his birthplace, Birsingha. I will provide no narrative thread to suggest any essential connection between these two places; instead, I hope to explore various avenues for gaining access to Vidyasagar’s identity. One might protest that the major biographies tell us where Vidyasagar came from and where he was going, but I begin with the assumption that the biographies do not deliver the life. If anything they are part of the after-life and, as such, they may often stand in our way much like the ornamental trees surrounding the memorial at Nandan Kanan. It may prove necessary to find ways to work around them. For all that my approach to Vidyasagar’s life reflects my own critical choices and personal preferences (informed by decades spent studying the man), my route will not be entirely idiosyncratic. I plan to explore what I take to be instantly and almost perennially recognisable themes from his life — for example: his enigmatic religious views, his profound compassion and generosity, his fondness for humour and irony, even his unforgiving temperament. The difference will be that rather than running these themes up the flagpole for a perfunctory salute, I hope to use them to raise new questions about how and what we can know about a figure like Vidyasagar. Furthermore, as I hope to show, a careful investigation of these themes has much to tell us about a number of other important topics including colonial history, modern Indian

The Life and the Stories

15

Plate 3: Portrait of Vidyasagar on platform of Vidyasagar Station, Karmatar, Jharkhand (2012)

identity, the contemporary postcolonial predicament, and the writing of biography.

The Meaning of the Man There are many concrete, verifiable facts we can adduce about Vidyasagar. As with Gandhi, Vidyasagar’s life is not only well-documented, but has been subjected to near-maniacal forensic research on the part of admirers, critics and objective scholars alike. Massive tomes like Indra Mitra’s Karunasagar Vidyasagar speak to the almost obsessive attempt on the part of some writers to track down everything that can be known and

16 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

said about the man. I myself have felt the grip of this obsession, spending countless hours in far-flung libraries, burrowing through fragile documents in search of the next great ‘nugget’ of truth. And such nuggets do still come to light, as I was delighted to find when I came across a rare volume of theological writings from 1839–40 that contained what I have argued are two hitherto unknown discourses by Vidyasagar.30 This discovery along with the recent publication of lesser-known works like Vidyasagar’s ‘Tale of the Dwarf’ (Vamanakhyanam 1982) and ‘An Unprecedented History’ (Apurba Itihasa 1998), represent important new pieces of evidence to consider when delving into the question of his life, work and identity. However, there is more to the problem of biography than simply verifying facts and unearthing new evidence. We should consider how things are said just as much as we attend to what gets said. What would we see if we paused and paid attention to the way others have gone about remembering Vidyasagar? A good case in point may be found in an early and influential set of essays by Rabindranath Tagore, dating from 1895. Building on Chandicharan’s recently published biography, Tagore saw in Vidyasagar the romance of the isolated reformer, the hero who stands up against the world. For Tagore, Vidysagar was a kind of sui generis rebel who laid siege to the fortress of outdated custom; he was a man who remained utterly unbowed before ‘tradition’; as Tagore put it, rather than merely following in the footsteps of others (gatanugatika), Vidyasagar was guided by his awareness of a higher truth (paramarthika).31 Thanks in part to his enormous influence, Tagore’s essays on Vidyasagar were to become the archetype for countless later biographical assessments that stress the courage and the loneliness of the hero. For instance, it was Tagore’s tribute to Vidyasagar’s ‘invincible manliness and imperishable humanity’ that was inscribed on the memorial at Nandan Kanan (see the Introduction). This is one concrete illustration of how little things have changed over the course of a century. Often the tropes seem as invincible as Vidyasagar! Thus, in his widely read monograph Vidyasagar: The Traditional Moderniser (1974), Amales Tripathi revives and expands on Tagore’s heroic language. For Tripathi, Vidyasagar is a ‘lonely Prometheus’ stealing fire from the Brahminical tradition in the name of modern humanistic values. In an equally memorable turn of phrase, Tripathi sees in Vidyasagar a veritable ‘Don Quixote in a dhoti’.32 Just as Tagore recognised the loneliness of the reformer, Tripathi sees in Vidyasagar a tragic hero who wages

The Life and the Stories

17

brave, if not always successful, assaults on tradition. The same trope is prominent in the writings of Gopal Haldar from the same period: Disillusioned with the big men, disappointed often with friends, deceived by the very people whom he helped out of troubles, misunderstood even by members of his own family, he was bound to go from disappointment to disappointment, but would keep to his own way of sturdy manliness and unsullied integrity. So, finally, he went to his grave in sad, suffering silence, a lonely tragic figure.33

The theme of heroic perseverance and tragic isolation finds, perhaps, its sharpest expression in yet another contemporary of Haldar and Tripathi, Asok Sen. According to Sen, Vidyasagar found himself trapped in the confining meshes of colonialism; all his goals as a reformer remained ‘elusive’.34 Tragic isolation and alienation form the framework within which Sen’s Vidyasagar is situated. We need not work hard to appreciate the appeal of such representations of Vidyasagar, whether it is that of Tagore or his latter-day inheritors. In the early decades of the twentieth century, when the goals of indigenous identity (svadeshi) and national pride began to fire the Indian imagination, Tagore’s Vidyasagar represented a kind of indigenous hero; he modelled an authentic response to both the norms of European modernity and Indian traditional values. During the 1970s, a decade tainted by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s Emergency, by episodes of civilian revolt and by postcolonial conflicts over religion, class, caste and region, Vidyasagar was asked to reprise his heroic role for similar purposes. The only real difference is that in the works of Tripathi, Haldar and Sen, Vidyasagar’s heroism took on a more tragic cast. Whereas Tagore’s Vidyasagar was the harbinger of national integrity, readers in the 1970s recognised in Vidyasagar’s ambitions and failures the dreams and frustrations of independent India. Whether one reads Tagore or Tripathi, Haldar and Sen, one senses the pressing need for history to mean something. If authors from such disparate times have chosen to emphasise Vidyasagar’s heroism and his tragic isolation, it is because they have found his life-story useful for telling another story — that of South Asian modernity, decolonisation, national aspiration and postcolonial frustration. Whether in 1909 or 1975, Vidyasagar has time and again been asked to play the part of the ‘representative’ Indian.35 He has served as a kind of mirror in which Indians have been able to see not only who they are, but who they hope

18 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

to become. To envision Vidyasagar as a ‘lonely Prometheus’ is not just to make a comment about the man but to offer a commentary on the promise and the cost of liberation, be it individual, social or national. As a result, one could be forgiven for thinking that when Vidyasagar is being discussed the actual topic is often something else entirely. When Gopal Haldar portrays Vidyasagar as a ‘lonely, tragic figure’, we may initially feel we are gaining an insight into a peculiar facet of the man, but when he reinforces this observation with a quote from Gandhi — ‘The greatest men of the world have always stood lonely’ — we witness the way biography slips into a kind of moral pedagogy.36 If Gandhi embodied the heroic loneliness of someone dedicated to the truth, who better to help us grasp the meaning of a man like Vidyasagar? For that matter, wasn’t Tagore a kind of lonely rebel as well?37 Suddenly, the particularity of these ‘eminent Indians’ — Vidyasagar, Gandhi and Tagore — gives way to the pressing need for a set of shared values. These are the values of a new nation, a fact made clear from Tagore’s comment that Vidyasagar ‘prepared the path down which our nation (desh) should move’.38 It isn’t only that the life inheres in the narration but that the narration itself gives voice to a range of fundamental values — reason, integrity, manliness, tradition, progress, modernity, and national integrity — whose real application lies not in the life of the subject but in the promise of the nation. How many of these values can one life encompass without collapsing into absurdity? In his biography, Shambhuchandra rendered his brother’s portrait through a series of moral abstractions; Vidyasagar was a promoter of learning, patriot, friend to the weak, compassionate, chaste in conduct, and worthy of respect.39 These rubrics may well apply in important ways to the case of Vidyasagar, but it is hard not to feel a deep sense of yearning as well. The problem is less that Shambhuchandra moulds Vidyasagar’s image to his needs but that subsequent readers adopt these visionary ideals as the essential traits of the man. Before long the portrait becomes so familiar that we lose a sense for its particular origins. And this is what frees a latter-day commentator to claim: I’ve never seen Vidyasagar, but I’ve heard a lot about him. I feel I know him well. In fact, if I had seen him, I would only have grasped him in pieces. But having heard about him, I’ve grasped the whole person completely. What we see with our eyes is fleeting, but what we apprehend through intensive contemplation is long-lasting. As much as that sort of apprehension is unique

The Life and the Stories

19

and essential, it also captures the complete picture. To me, Vidyasagar is the very picture of doggedness; he is resolve personified; he is total culture; his is an individuality worthy of intense contemplation.40

The Vidyasagar ‘seen’ here is less a matter of a ‘total culture’ than a particular product of culture; he is the visionary residue of collective moral aspiration, an icon of ‘dogged’ individualism. Never witnessed, but intensely known, he is the representative man, the eminent Indian, the heroic pathfinder. While reading the literature on Vidyasagar, one cannot help thinking that oftentimes what people know of him comes to them through the powerful and emotion-laden filters of colonial history, Bengali identity, Indian nationalism and postcolonial experience. And yet the meaning of modern India as a kind of extended moral project has constantly been in dispute. The pressures of the binaries of caste and religion, wealth and justice, and unity and diversity have meant that not even the representative Indians can be squared with one another. The moral heroism of Gandhi was not the same as that of Tagore; the renunciant apostle of non-violence followed a different path than the cosmopolitan poet of beauty and love. Each has found their disciples and their detractors, and the tensions so evident between the two are played out again and again in postcolonial India. The life of Vidyasagar must be viewed in similar terms. Not only does it stand in tension with these other eminent Indians, it remains just as open to interpretation and debate as the lives of Gandhi and Tagore. If Vidyasagar has been deemed ‘worthy of remembrance’ (pratahsmaraniya) since the time of his death, another adjective commonly applied to him is the word ‘disputed’ (vitarkita). In fact, the disputes — some grand, some trivial — never seem to end. In the spring of 2012, the Kolkata newspaper Bhorer Bela published a letter to the editor from a reader calling for continued efforts to advance Vidyasagar’s cherished cause of widow marriage. Two weeks later, another Kolkata daily Ananda Bajar Patrika featured an editorial by the well-known author Sunil Gangopadhyay, which claimed that Vidyasagar deserved to be remembered as much for his efforts to promote female education as for his work to legalise widow marriage. Two weeks after that, the same newspaper ran a notice calling Vidyasagar’s efforts at female education into question by suggesting his wife had been prevented by her mother-in-law from acquiring even the most basic education.41 And so the debates rage on: Was he a proper Hindu or not? Did he

20 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

really improve Bengali prose or merely shackle it to the elitist norms of Sanskrit? Was he an advocate for women or merely another Brahmin male seeking power in the colonial arena? Were his arguments for widow marriage valid or not? Was he an innovator in literature or just an imitator? These and other questions enliven and complicate the quest to understand Vidyasagar.

Plate 4: Vidyasagar memorial in College Square Park showing evidence of restoration of head, Kolkata (1989)

A visit to College Street in north Kolkata provides one concrete way to appreciate the on-going contestation of Vidyasagar’s legacy in contemporary Bengal. This area was the epicentre for much of his public work and it is here that one can find several statues and portraits in his memory, notably in the entrances to the Sanskrit College and the former Metropolitan Institution (now Vidyasagar College). By far, the most familiar statue sits in the western entrance to the park directly

The Life and the Stories

21

behind the Sanskrit College. This statue, in particular, has felt the ongoing force of public disagreement. It was decapitated in the 1970s in a gesture of outrage at Vidyasagar’s purported complicity with British colonialism. In time, the head was restored and, in 1979, the park was rechristened ‘Vidyasagar Park’ (Vidyasagar Udyan). Later on, the statue acquired an elaborate metal enclosure that today seems to promise lasting if rather gaudy protection from the brickbats of controversy. But the controversy doesn’t cease; it simply shifts to new venues. In the spring of 2012, Vidyasagar’s portrait in Vidyasagar College was defaced by vandals, although the precise nature of the protest remains unclear.42 The point I wish to make is that the meaning of Vidyasagar is as unstable as it is profound. While someone setting out to write his biography today might feel grateful for the existence of ample documented evidence and several substantial biographies, such resources cannot solve the problem of his identity. Anyone who sets out to find him (in terms of Brooks’s ‘identity paradigm’) must come to terms with the problem of how he can be known (the ‘identificatory paradigm’). Put somewhat differently, the ‘life’ is integrally connected to the ‘afterlife’. The statues, portraits and inscriptions for all their apparent solidity will always be unsettled and problematised by the countless stories and debates that circulate around the man. This is not to despair over the possibility of knowing Vidyasagar, but to call for a certain amount of caution in pronouncing on his identity. As the subject of protean tales and endless disputes, he remains something of a man in motion. As such he won’t be waiting for us, fleshed out and complete at the end of our search. And his identity will never simply be a function of more complete documentation. If anything the life of this eminent Indian must be understood anew by wrestling against the tide of the afterlife. Before erecting yet another biographical monument, we would do well to try to look past the ornamental trees that have already been planted.

Notes 1. Paraphrased from Kalidas Maitra. 1855. Paunarbhava Khandanam. Serampore: Tamohar Press. The title of this work betrays the author’s attempt to reject the validity of widow marriage by yoking it to the question of the status of the sons produced by women who have remarried (known in the legal literature as paunarbhava).

22 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian 2. See Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar. 2011. Hindu Widow Marriage: An Epochal Work on Social Reform from Colonial India, trans. from Bengali and annot. by Brian A. Hatcher. New York: Columbia University Press. 3. Maitra, Paunarbhava Khandanam, Preface. 4. Robert Darnton. 2010. The Devil in the Holy Water or the Art of Slander from Louis XIV to Napoleon. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, p. 105. 5. See, for example, Sugata Bose and Ayesha Jalal. 2011. Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy. New York: Routledge, p. 91. 6. For a rare early appreciation, see F. A. Brockhaus. 1865. ‘Bengalische Literatur: Die Werke des Iswarchandra Vidyasagara’, Zeitschrift der Deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft, 18: pp. 642–47. 7. For a brief and insightful examination of the early biographies, see Sumit Sarkar. 1997. Writing Social History. Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 233–42. 8. Ramgati Nyayaratna. 1991. Bangala Bhasha o Bangala Sahityavishayaka Prastava, ed. by Asit Kumar Bandyopadhyay. Calcutta: Supreme Book Distributors. 9. Ibid., p. 194. 10. In what follows, I summarise and paraphrase from Nyayaratna, Bangala Bhasha, Ch. 4. 11. Act XV, The Hindu Widow’s Remarriage Act, was passed on July 25, 1856. For a collection of materials, see N. K. Vaidya (ed.), 1974 [1885]. Collection Containing the Proceedings which led to the Passing of Act XV of 1856. Bombay: Mazagaon Printing Press. 12. See Haraprasad Shastri. 1959. ‘Vidyasagar Prasanga’, in Haraprasad Rachanavali, ed. by S. K. Chattopadhyay, Vol. 2. Calcutta: Eastern Trading Company, p. 15. 13. Nyayaratna, Bangala Bhasha, p. 203. 14. Tagore, Vidyasagar Charita, p. 8. 15. See, for example, Jogeshchandra Bagal. 1960. Vidyasagar Parichay. Calcutta: Ranjan Publishing House. 16. See, for example, Gopal Haldar. 1972. Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha. Calcutta: Saksharata Prakashan. 17. Sarkar, Vidyasagar; Chandicharan Bandyopadhyay. 1987. Vidyasagar. Calcutta: De Book Store. 18. Subal Chandra Mitra. 1975 [1902]. Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar: A Story of His Life and Work. Delhi: Ashis Publishing. In the Preface, Subal Chandra gives ‘heart-felt thanks’ to Biharilal, from whose biography he ‘got much help’. Careful comparison with Biharilal’s text reveals what an understatement this is. 19. The earliest biography in English is Sricharan Chakravarti. 1896. Life of Pandit Ishvarchandra Vidyasagara. Calcutta: A. K. Chakravarti.

The Life and the Stories

23

20. See The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, Vol. 5. New Delhi: Government of India, pp. 65–68. 21. Indra Mitra [aka Arabinda Guha]. 2000. Karunasagar Vidyasagar. Calcutta: Ananda Publishers. 22. Pratap Chandra Chunder, Foreword to S. K. Adhikari, Vidyasagar and the New National Consciousness. Calcutta: Vidyasagar Research Centre. 23. See S. K. Bose. 1981. Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar. New Delhi: National Book Trust, p. 91; also, Benoy Ghosh. 1984. Vidyasagar o Bangali Samaj. Calcutta: Orient Longman, p. 118. 24. Peter Brooks. 2011. Enigmas of Identity. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 25. Ibid., p. 9. 26. Ibid., p. 197. 27. Ibid., p. 196. 28. See Partha Chatterjee. 2002. A Princely Impostor? The Strange and Universal History of the Kumar of Bhawal. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. xi–xiii. I am indebted to A. R. Venkatachalapathy for recommending this book to me. 29. See Chatterjee, A Princely Impostor?, Ch. 8. 30. For more, see Brian A. Hatcher. 2008. Bourgeois Hinduism, or the Faith of the Modern Vedantists: Rare Discourses from Early Colonial Bengal. New York: Oxford University Press. 31. See Tagore, Vidyasagar Charita. See also, Brian A. Hatcher. 2011. ‘Better a Rebel than a Beggar: Tagore and the Quest for Freedom’, in Amalendu Biswas et al. (eds), Rabindranath Tagore: A Timeless Mind. London: Tagore Centre, pp. 135–43. 32. Quoting Amales Tripathi. 1974. Vidyasagar: The Traditional Moderniser. Delhi: Orient Longman, p. 74 and p. 64, respectively. Much earlier, Bankimchandra Chatterjee had claimed Vidyasagar’s battle against polygamy ‘will lead many to think of Don Quixote’ (see his essay ‘Bahuvivaha’, in Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay. 1985. Bankim Rachanavali. Part Two. Calcutta: Sahitya Samsad, p. 315). 33. Haldar. Vidyasagar: A Reassessment, p. 75. 34. See Asok Sen. 1977. Vidyasagar and his Elusive Milestones. Calcutta: Riddhi– India. 35. See G. Paramaswaran Pillai. 1897. Representative Indians. London: Routledge. 36. Haldar, Vidyasagar: A Reassessment, p. 75. 37. See Uma Das Gupta. 2004. Rabindranath Tagore: A Biography. Delhi: Oxford University Press, p. 73. 38. Tagore, Vidyasagar Charita, p. 74. 39. The Bengali phrases were vidyotsahi, deshahitaishi, abalabandhu, dayamay, ajanma-vishuddha-charita, and pujyapada; see Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivanacharita, p. 1.

24 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian 40. Ahmad Sariph. 2000. ‘Vidyasagar: Droha o manavatavad’, in Prathama Raymandal (ed.), Bangladeshe Vidyasagar Charcha. Calcutta: Vishvakosh Parishad, p. 47. 41. In order of reference — ‘Vidhava Vivaha Chalu Hok’, Bhorer Bela, 1 April 2012; ‘O Vidyasagar, Amar Panch Ganda Paysa Darkar’, Ananda Bajar Patrika, 18 April 2012. Available at http://www.anandabazar.com/archive/ 1120418/18edit3.html (accessed 13 August 2013); ‘Shashurir Badha Chila, Vidyasagarer Stri Padte Paren Ni’, Ananda Bajar Patrika, 1 May 2012. Available at http://www.anandabazar.com/archive/1120501/1edit5.html (accessed 13 August 2013). 42. ‘Defaced Portraits Cause Campus Row’, The Times of India, 4 March 2012. Available at http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata/Defacedportraits-spark-campus-row/articleshow/12128443.cms (accessed 13 August 2013).

2 Akhiladdin’s Song While monuments and memorial sites offer concrete evidence of the after-life of Vidyasagar, they do not readily reveal the way the man remains a subject of ongoing debate — unless, of course, you happen to notice the suture on the neck of the sculpture in Vidyasagar Udyan, which provides a visible reminder of its former desecration. By contrast, the ‘debatable’ Vidyasagar is apparent from even a cursory review of the extensive literature on his life and legacy. Within that literature one issue, in particular, has been the subject of near-endless debate. We might call it the question of his ‘religious beliefs’, although this is not the best way to characterise it. In Bengali, the question is usually phrased, ‘Vidyasagar ki nastika chilen?’, which is to say ‘Was Vidyasagar a denier?’1 The operative word ‘denier’ (nastika) is an ageold concept in Brahminical Hinduism for someone who rejects the revealed truth of the Vedas or denies the existence of the deities (with Buddhists being a prime example of both purported errors). In modern Bengali, the word nastika carries the sense of ‘atheist’ even as it retains the aura of rejecting things held dear by more orthodox Hindus. Seen in this light, Vidyasagar’s possible ‘atheism’ (nastikata) registers a larger range of concerns; it isn’t just a matter of theology or metaphysics, but also one of ritual adherence and social conformity. Debates over this question are, in some sense, a proxy for solving the enigma of Vidyasagar’s modernity. After all, one man’s modernity is another man’s atheism. Biharilal was deeply troubled by the widow marriage campaign and the critical impulse behind any re-evaluation of Hindu tradition. He viewed Vidyasagar’s efforts in this connection as a great infamy; they were ‘un-Hindu’ (ahindu) and predicated on ‘misguided faith’ (bhranta vishvasa). Like several of Vidyasagar’s contemporary critics, Biharilal viewed the attempt to validate widow marriage as a perversion of the shastras.2 Chandicharan, by contrast, wanted to see in Vidyasagar someone who rejected outward Hindu ritual but affirmed the possibility of a kind of rational faith in the God of the Deists.3 The debate has been raging ever since, with critics and admirers combing through Vidyasagar’s published and unpublished works for references

26 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

to God, religious practices, and the after-life — everyone in search of that last piece of irrefutable evidence. The matter is far from straightforward and interpreters are regularly frustrated by Vidyasagar’s varied and enigmatic pronouncements about religion. With his penchant for irony and sarcasm (which we will address in subsequent chapters), he took a certain amount of pleasure in tossing barbs or making jokes about God and the after-life. For instance, he often said that the meaning of religion was unknowable. And then he would probably add, with a wink, that he wasn’t about to tell someone what to believe lest it turned out he was wrong and he would then have to answer to God for his error.4 Inevitably, his reticence and dissimulation have only served to further fuel the debate. One is tempted to say that whatever he may have believed, he preferred to keep it private. This has not stopped critics and admirers from identifying what they take to be conclusive pieces of evidence. For instance, if Vidyasagar wasn’t particularly scrupulous about his personal Brahminical rituals (for instance, the twice-daily prayers known as sandhya), does this mean he had lost his ‘faith’?5 If he ensured that his parents’ last rites were performed with appropriate solemnity, does this indicate he did, in some sense, ‘believe’?6 If he advocated for social change by appealing to the Hindu shastras (when he worked to promote Hindu widow marriage or to contest the practice of high-caste polygamy), is this because he ‘believed’ in the authoritative texts of Hinduism?7 If he wrote a children’s textbook that defined the Lord (ishvara) as ‘formless and possessing the quality of consciousness’, is this proof that he believed in God, perhaps even a God compatible with Christian monotheism?8 Does his ‘amazing silence’ on ultimate questions prove he was an ‘agnostic’?9 If he questioned the truth status of Vedantic philosophy, does this mean he rejected Hindu metaphysics outright?10 This is just a sampling of the kinds of evidence that has exercised the minds of Vidyasagar biographers for a century or more. Sadly, few commentators pause to wrestle with the theoretical or terminological challenges involved. For instance, to be able to answer a question like ‘Was Vidyasagar religious?’, one ought to be able to say what constitutes ‘religion’ and how this concept of ‘religion’ actually relates to the practice or state of ‘being religious’. As even this brief sampling of evidence suggests, there is a great deal of ambiguity regarding where to look for the essence of religion: does it lie in belief or is it better indexed by particular kinds of behaviour? If, as is often said, Hinduism

Akhiladdin’s Song

27

is a religion of ‘orthopraxy’ rather than ‘orthodoxy’, have we said anything significant about Vidysagar’s religious character if we highlight a particular pronouncement about God? And just what are the proper linguistic correlates in Bengali or Sanskrit for English words such as ‘religion’ or ‘belief’? Finally, when we acknowledge that the very concepts of ‘religion’ and ‘Hinduism’ arose in a context of European imperialism, orientalism and Christian missions, how does this complicate the very ‘foundational’ questions we want to ask? It will come as no surprise that the way critics and commentators view Vidyasagar depends greatly on where they stand. For the representatives of Hindu orthodoxy, he has been used to illustrate the threat of social decay. Thus, Biharilal felt compelled to expose Vidyasagar’s ‘atheism’ in order to create a cautionary tale about the dangers of abandoning the faith of one’s fathers. For nationalists, Vidyasagar’s apparent refusal to orient his life around religion made him an ideal emblem of the emergent Indian nation. One early biographer argued that Vidyasagar gave ‘a new impetus to national life in Bengal’.11 For modern rationalists, his reluctance to discuss religion has long struck a familiar chord. A range of prominent intellectuals, such as Amales Tripathi, Gopal Haldar and Benoy Ghosh have promoted Vidyasagar’s secular humanism as a model of civic virtue for a nation seeking national integration across multiple religious identities.12 As I say, we tend to recognise the process whereby the identity of important historical agents is fabricated retroactively. Recently this has been illustrated through a study of the literature surrounding another controversial figure, Marie-Antoinette. During her reign, Marie-Antoinette was subject to harsh and often salacious caricature by pamphleteers and polemicists. All of this helped construct the figure of the ‘Wicked Queen’ — the very embodiment of counterrevolutionary aristocracy. Examining French biographies of the queen from the early twentieth century — works such as Hector Fleischmann’s Les Pamphlets libertines contre Marie-Antoinette (1907) and Henri d’Almeras, Les Amoreux de al reine, Marie-Antoinette et les pamphlets royalists et révolutionnaires (1907) — Chantal Thomas points out how these authors failed to address the discursive constructs employed by the earlier pamphleteers. At the same time, these same authors fell prey to the twin illusions of ‘retroactivity’ and ‘essence’, reading identity backwards and then locating it in a set of core characteristics required to explain it.13 Put more simply, since Marie-Antoinette was guillotined, these biographers saw their task as one of recovering the

28 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

Wicked Queen who had to be sent to the guillotine for her wickedness. It offers a striking illustration of the entanglement of life and afterlife. Something similar, if less dramatic, can be detected in the retroactive fixation on Vidyasagar’s religious beliefs, a topic that for so many of his commentators seems to point to his very essence. We shall see that while the earliest biographers of Vidyasagar provide sometimes compelling accounts to retroactively construct explanations of his most essential beliefs, those biographies must be read with as much caution as Thomas brings to Marie-Antoinette’s biographers. By way of illustration, this chapter takes as its point of departure a short anecdote recorded in Chandicharan’s biography. I hope to show how this one anecdote reveals the process — and the ramifications — of retroactively resolving the essence of Vidyasagar’s identity. Appropriately enough, the focus of this anecdote is the question of Vidyasagar’s nastikata.

Akhiladdin’s Song According to Chandicharan, Vidyasagar was especially moved by the song of a wandering holy man, one of those mystical folk singers known throughout Bengal by a variety of names: Fakir, Aul or Baul. While such figures are occasionally slotted into definitive categories such as ‘Hindu’ or ‘Muslim’, in many respects they represent the complex synthesis of Hindu and Muslim traditions with elements of folk worship, remnants of quasi-Buddhist thought, and forms of esoteric (or ‘Tantric’) sexual mysticism. Today, the figure of the ecstatic Baul singer has become almost iconic in the symbology of modern Bengal. With his long, matted locks, colourful robes stitched from odd scraps of rags, and his one-stringed ek-tara, the Baul presents a striking and evocative image of Bengali popular religion.14 We meet such a figure towards the end of Chandicharan’s biography. One day Vidyasagar was chatting with some friends when a wandering holy man came down the street, singing for all to hear. Chandicharan describes him as a blind and crippled Fakir named Akhiladdin and allows his readers to imagine him strolling barefoot down the narrow lane outside Vidyasagar’s north Calcutta residence. While Chandicharan does not provide such details, we may easily imagine Akhiladdin’s head is thrown back in song, while he extends his ek-tara before him in a gesture of religious ecstasy. Chandicharan tells us that as soon as

Akhiladdin’s Song

29

Vidyasagar caught the words, ‘Where have you lost yourself, O stainless one?’, he asked for the singer to be invited inside.15 When Akhiladdin appeared, Vidyasagar offered him a seat and asked him to sing for him — not once but several times. Akhiladdin’s song invoked a nameless deity dwelling at the heart of all experience, a figure who could be both mother and father, evanescent yet eternal. You are the two banks of the river, You are the river’s edge. I am drowning in the deep waters, And if I forget your name I am sure to perish. ... You are the fish that move through the waters, O formless one, But where is your true home? As for me, I am worn out from worrying.16

Chandicharan says tears streamed down Vidyasagar’s face as he listened to Akhiladdin’s song. Even after Akhiladdin had stopped singing Vidyasagar remained lost in a kind of emotional trance. When Vidyasagar eventually regained his senses, he gave the blind man some coins and asked him to come by another time.17 Chandicharan finds immense significance in this story; for him it offers a ‘genuine’ reflection of Vidyasagar’s ‘religious beliefs’.18 Other commentators have followed his lead. In Karunasagar Vidyasagar, Indra Mitra repeats Chandicharan’s story in order to suggest that Vidyasagar’s fondness for Akhiladdin’s song — so redolent of the devotee’s ardent longing for God — proves he believed in God.19 It is just an isolated and uncorroborated story at the end of Chandicharan’s biography, but the glimpse it seems to provide into the ‘soul’ of Vidyasagar has given this story immense traction in the literature on Vidyasagar. I would actually like to suggest that while the crux of the story might appear to be the evidence it provides of Vidyasagar’s religious beliefs, the ‘evidence’ actually depends greatly on Chandicharan’s construction of Akhiladdin. The real focal point of the story is thus the discursive construct of Akhiladdin the holy man. I would further like to suggest that far from offering anything like straightforward evidence, the centrality of Akhiladdin actually introduces a measure of indeterminacy. When we place the Baul singer at the centre of this anecdote, we are forced to reckon with the evolving trope of Baul spirituality during the late nineteenth century. And when

30 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

we investigate this matter, we arrive at new insights about the nature and purpose of Chandicharan’s biography. This in turn allows us to appreciate anew the significance of Chandicharan’s Vidyasagar. We might begin by noting that the story of Akhiladdin need not necessarily be about belief in God at all. Some later commentators refer to Chandicharan’s account in order to demonstrate that Vidyasagar was a humanist. One might ask how such a conclusion can be supported in the face of Akhiladdin’s reported religious ecstasy, but this is precisely where we must interrogate the shifting significance of the Baul. For as much as the Baul has come to represent the heights of religious devotion, it can also be shown that Bauls are notoriously wary of being categorised in terms of confessional beliefs or doctrines. Eschewing the theistic discourse of either Ram or Allah, they take refuge in the fundamental category of the ‘human being’ (manusha). For Bauls, the category of the human being marks both a kind of ‘anti-identity’ that eludes the grasp of sectarian appropriation and a name for the very heights of spiritual attainment.20 For many modern Bengalis this suggests that the Baul is, in fact, a kind of folk humanist who values the human above all else. Read in this light, Chandicharan’s story thus can be taken to demonstrate that Vidyasagar essentially shared the vision of a pre-modern saint like Baru Chandidas, who proclaimed ‘there is no truth greater than the human’.21 On this reading, the true connection between Akhiladdin and Vidyasagar lies in their shared commitment to a human- and not a God-centred concept of truth. The fact that Chandicharan and subsequent Bengali commentators can extract such grand metaphysical claims from the encounter with Akhiladdin only underscores my point that the key figure in Chandicharan’s story is the Baul. The fact that the figure of the Baul can be read in such divergent ways also suggests the indeterminacy of this figure; the Baul is something like a blank screen onto which a commentator’s own beliefs can be projected. As we shall see, the figure of the Baul had been evolving since the middle of the nineteenth century, evoking in the minds of educated Bengalis a range of emotions, from denunciation and suspicion to outright reverence. Around the turn of the twentieth century — a period characterised by increasingly passionate forms of anti-colonial aspiration — the Baul was to accrue another level of associations clustering around the desire to express indigenous Bengali or national Indian identity. When we recognise that the four major biographies of Vidyasagar were composed in the period between the formation of the

Akhiladdin’s Song

31

Indian National Congress in 1885 and the revolutions of the Swadeshi period in 1905, we may be less surprised to find that Vidyasagar’s biographers sought to frame his identity in ways that mirrored the same proto-nationalist yearnings. Several other testimonies and reminiscences of Vidyasagar penned during this period demonstrate the degree to which his identity was actively constructed in ‘national’ terms.22 During the same period, a lesser-known biographer characteristically remarked that ‘[t]he biography of such a distinguished figure in the history of social, educational and literary progress in Bengal, whose influence upon the leaders of thought in the other provinces of India was not less potent, needs no apology for its appearance’.23 After his death, many Indians in fact looked to Vidyasagar for an answer to the conundrum of how to express an authentic identity within the context of colonial modernity. And in their attempts to account for Vidyasagar’s success in this regard, they looked to those figures within Indian culture who might serve as prototypes of Indian modernity. In the story of Akhiladdin’s song, we see Chandicharan and other commentators have latched onto the Baul as one such prototype, an authentically Indian figure who could account for both the origin and the meaning of Vidyasagar’s proverbial independence and humanism without any recourse to Western influences. Chandicharan’s simple story thus depends upon a rather complicated network of associations grounded in the context of Indian national aspiration and on the trope of the Baul in the modern Bengali imagination. Examining the history of this trope promises to tell us as much about modern India as it does about the way Vidyasagar has been remembered and revered.

Bauls and Bhadraloks The point to note about the figure of the Baul in modern Bengali discourse is that it was subject to considerable revision over the course of the nineteenth century. This makes it a somewhat unreliable point of reference to use for drawing conclusions about Vidyasagar’s character. During Vidyasagar’s own lifetime it was not uncommon for the figure of the Baul to be the focus of derision and disgust both by colonial British officials and by elite Bengali intellectuals. In terms of the hegemonic discourse of colonial reason and the imperatives of ‘social improvement’, men like Akhiladdin were often stigmatised as dirty, uneducated beggars. Viewed as social parasites or degenerates, they were ready symbols of the backwardness of indigenous culture; they were even cast as being downright ‘queer’.24 None other

32 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

than Vidyasagar’s close friend and colleague from the 1840s and ‘50s, Akshaykumar Datta wrote one of the earliest Bengali-language accounts of the Bauls, which was far from flattering. Datta portrayed them as strange and suspect antinomian figures.25 Datta and Vidyasagar shared a commitment to the promotion of bourgeois values in both personal life and religion. Their values reflected and in turn lent greater authority to the worldview of Calcutta’s colonial bhadralok, those (typically) high-caste, well educated, middleclass urban ‘sentinels of culture’ (to borrow Tithi Bhattacharya’s phrase).26 As advocates of an ‘improved’ Indian society men like Datta and Vidyasagar held rather bourgeois notions about respectability, propriety, hard work and social responsibility. Both men were also part of a particularly influential subset of bhadralok society made up of reform-minded intellectuals associated with such progressive organisations as the Brahmo Samaj (est. 1828) and the Tattvabodhini Sabha (est. 1839). Taking inspiration from the leadership of men such as Rammohan Roy and Debendranath Tagore, these ‘bourgeois Hindus’ espoused a moral path of worldly engagement. Their ideal was Rammohan’s ‘godly householder’ (brahmanishtha grihastha) and they tended to look with disfavour on the classical Hindu ideal of the sannyasi, or world renouncer.27 In their writings, the wandering sadhu (‘holy man’) represented a kind of parasitic social form. The sadhu’s decision to abandon family, work and social responsibility and to survive strictly off of mendicancy represented a visible rejection of bourgeois norms. Early in his career, Vidyasagar had in fact written of the supremacy of the householder life over that of the sadhu, highlighting not just the futility but the fundamental immorality of renouncing the world to search for God.28 How are we to square Vidyasagar’s rejection of renunciation, begging and itinerancy with Chandicharan’s account of his affection for a holy man like Akhiladdin? What could a figure like Akhiladdin represent if not the very values Vidyasagar rejected? There are, at least, two interpretive options here. The first is to ask whether the story of Akhiladdin reveals another side of Vidyasagar, a private self that was drawn powerfully to the very ideals so firmly rejected by his public persona.29 Do the tears shed by Vidyasagar at Akhiladdin’s song point to the man whom the poet Michael Madhusudan Datta described as having the ‘heart of a Bengali mother’?30 If so, did the rustic beggar, with his song of loss and yearning, somehow speak to Vidyasagar’s own experience, conjuring the loss of his rural home and childhood

Akhiladdin’s Song

33

innocence or perhaps evoking the plight of Bengal’s poorest and most marginalised citizens? Such an interpretation remains plausible, but also purely speculative. But so too are the conclusions reached by the likes of Chandicharan or Indra Mitra who wish to find in the encounter with Akhiladdin evidence of Vidyasagar’s religious beliefs. The other option is to ask just why it is that Akhiladdin’s story assumes the significance it does for biographers like Chandicharan. Here, the focus of our attention should not be on Vidyasagar’s inner self, but on the motivations of his biographers. That is, if there is a reason to connect Vidyasagar with Akhiladdin, we should seek it not in the mystery of Vidyasagar’s private self, but in the interests of someone like Chandicharan. What might the figure of the Baul have meant to Chandicharan such that the story of Akhiladdin could acquire so much meaning for him? Had the bhadralok estimation of the Baul undergone enough of a makeover by the 1890s for Akhiladdin to stand for something other than degenerate moral escapism? As we have seen, the earliest biographies of Vidyasagar date from a time when the bhadralok became increasingly energetic about identifying their national identity in response to the heightened imperial hubris of British rule. During this period, Indian intellectuals began to question, and then reject, the hitherto hegemonic colonial stereotypes of Indian ‘weakness’ and ‘degeneracy’.31 Simultaneously, bhadralok conceptions of Hinduism themselves began to shift. Whereas earlier reformers, such as Rammohan Roy, had depicted popular Hinduism as a species of medieval superstition that stood in need of extensive reform, during the last quarter of the nineteenth century a host of Hindu intellectuals — from Swami Vivekananda and Aurobindo Ghosh in Bengal to B. G. Tilak in Maharashtra and Lala Lajpat Rai in the Punjab — began to speak of protecting the cherished values of Hinduism from the deracinating effects of Westernisation. European denunciations of Hindu ‘heathenism’ began to be met by increasing appeals among educated Indians to the dignity, even superiority of Hindu ‘spirituality’ over crass Western ‘materialism’.32 Alongside the pan-Indian efflorescence of such cultural nationalism, one notes, in places like Bengal, a corresponding regional imperative to single out and promote the vigorous roots of local identity. During this period, as Jeanne Openshaw has noted, bhadralok intellectuals began to turn away from the sterile rationalism of the coloniser’s urban metropolis to various nativist dreams of the ‘idyllic rural life of “Golden Bengal”’.33 Finding in folk traditions and rural memory the keys

34 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

to Bengali culture, language and the arts, Bengali intellectuals began in turn to promote a new image of the Baul. No longer a trope for moral weakness, this newly romanticised Baul spoke to the emotional heart of the Bengali identity, which was extolled in popular literature and folk art. At the same time, the bhadralok turned away from the crass materialism of workplace culture, increasingly stigmatised as synonymous with colonial enslavement. As scholars such as Partha Chatterjee and Sumit Sarkar have pointed out, during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the bhadralok gravitated toward images of a more genuine Bengal as a kind of cultural refuge from the hegemony of European values.34 As the indigenous (svadeshi) traditions of India and the ethos of a particular region (desh) — in this case Bengal — became rallying points for bolstering anti-colonial pride and promoting alternate visions of local identity, figures like the Baul began to take on powerful new emotional registers.35 The filthy, degenerate singer experienced a kind of moral makeover, emerging anew as the untarnished voice of an authentic Bengal. The Baul spoke to Bengal’s cherished social, aesthetic and spiritual values. This romanticising and quasi-nationalist refiguring of the Baul reached its zenith in the writings of Bengal’s Nobel Laureate poet, Rabindranath Tagore.36 Tagore helped re-cast the figure of the ‘wandering, unattached . . . Baul,’ to such an extent that he now became an ‘idealised, even semi-divine’ figure commanding the ‘deepest reverence’ among Bengalis. By the early decades of the twentieth century, the trope of the Baul had come to stand for the ‘fount of non-sectarian wisdom, capable of offering an indigenous alternative to orthodox divisiveness’ — the perfect saint for a multi-religious nation actively in search of avenues toward national emancipation and integration.37 This actually helps account for the fact that Chandicharan’s story about Akhiladdin appears in a chapter dedicated to Vidyasagar’s ‘religious views’ (dharma-mata). In this context, Akhiladdin provides the proof of Vidyasagar’s religious beliefs and these, in turn, are meant to provide a kind of moral compass to guide Indian national aspiration. Appearing near the end of Chandicharan’s biography (followed only by a chapter on Vidyasagar’s death and a brief conclusion), the chapter on his religious views is meant to conclude the story by bringing us to the very heart of Vidyasagar, his essence. And in doing so Chandicharan has an answer for those who might suspect that this advocate of education and social reform had been led astray by his colonial education; he has an answer for those who might suspect that this modern

Akhiladdin’s Song

35

pandit valued reason and scepticism over emotion and piety; most of all, he has an answer for anyone who might suspect that Vidyasagar had become an illegitimate colonial hybrid, deracinated and alien to his own Bengal. As the encounter with Akhiladdin is meant to demonstrate, Vidyasagar was, instead, a man who felt the deepest and most authentic (svabhavika) kinship with the likes of a humble Baul. He was therefore, truly Indian and perfectly Bengali; he was a man of ardent faith, who remained tolerant of others.38 We are, of course, left with further questions. Does the fact that Chandicharan cast Vidyasagar in the image of the Baul mean the story is baseless? Is Vidyasagar’s affinity with the Baul spurious? Should we simply excise that story from our biographies? My answer to such questions is ‘no’. In what follows I would like to suggest how Akhiladdin may yet prove useful for thinking about Vidyasagar’s life as well as his after-life.

There is No Truth Greater than the Human It is one thing that the image of the Baul has shifted over time, but it also turns out that Bauls are themselves rather evasive when it comes to issues of personal identity. As Jeanne Openshaw writes, Bauls by and large ‘prefer to evade definition’ by placing a high premium on what Openshaw calls ‘idiosyncracy and non-conformity’.39 What this means in the context of Baul philosophy and practice is that Bauls regularly seek to challenge fundamental norms of South Asian social and cultural life including those that shape the roles of householder and renouncer and which map social groups, such as family and lineage. They are equally resistant to pigeon-holing in terms of religious or sectarian affiliation, defying easy classification as either Hindu or Muslim. As Openshaw aptly remarks, Bauls are ‘unusually sophisticated about the hazards of identity’.40 Openshaw demonstrates that it is not even accurate to describe Bauls as sannyasis or world renouncers. To be sure, they do represent one modality of the all-pervasive South Asian ideal of renunciation, but according to Openshaw they use their status as Bauls to challenge the customary ideal of the renouncer. It is as if they fear even the role of the renouncer might become a kind of fixed and constraining form of identity. Their tendency to resist such categorisation makes them the very type of the ‘holy fool’ who calls into question what others take for granted. Flitting mercurially between the roles of householder and renouncer, Bauls challenge all categories of ordinary wisdom.41

36 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

This is why many consider the very meaning of the word Baul to be ‘crazy’ (from Sanskrit, batula). The slipperiness of Baul identity has precipitated a good deal of confusion and misunderstanding. When Chandicharan latched onto the Baul as an exemplar of indigenous theism (finding in the Baul an ‘authentic’ alternative to colonial Christian categories of religion), his choice was predicated on an idiosyncratic if well-reasoned interpretation of their religious message. Chandicharan was an enlightened Bengali theist shaped by the reformist views of the Brahmo Samaj. When he heard Baul singers praise the Ultimate as ‘formless’ (nirakara), it conformed to his own understanding of an almighty God who was the One formless source of creation. Such a message clearly seemed to echo the descriptions of God provided by earlier Brahmos such as Debendranath Tagore, not to mention Vidyasagar who was associated with the Brahmos during the 1840s and ‘50s. In different contexts, each of them had described the Lord (ishvara) as nirakara chaitanya svarupa, or ‘formless and possessing the quality of consciousness’.42 The problem is that such a reading of Baul ‘theology’ is inaccurate if not simply mistaken. Openshaw’s detailed historical and ethnographic explorations of Baul thought and practice suggest an entirely different way of understanding the word nirakara. According to her Baul informants, the term does not point to a ‘formless’ (nir ‘without’ + akara ‘form’) deity but to a deity whose ‘form is like water’ (nira ‘water’ + akara ‘form’). If we follow this interpretation, the supreme principle worshipped by Bauls is not some transcendent and formless creator God but is an elusive being who manifests by ceaselessly ‘morphing’ into one shape after another.43 Bauls like to invoke this highest principle under the category of the ‘human’ (manusha). This allows us to think again about the words of saint Baru Chandidas (quoted earlier): ‘there is no truth greater than the human (manusha satya)’.44 According to Openshaw, the truth of the ‘human’ (manusha) marks the highest state of Baul realisation. At the other extreme is the awareness of the ordinary householder, which is strictly concerned with the pursuit of personal pleasure. This lowest level can be transcended by a renouncer who chooses to abandon worldly desires in order to pursue a life of dispassion or vairagya. In this respect, at least, Bauls conform to typical South Asian spiritual hierarchies in which the renouncer ranks higher than the householder. But Bauls recognise a still higher realisation, that of the ‘human’ or manusha, in which the awareness of both the renouncer and the

Akhiladdin’s Song

37

householder are transcended. From the perspective of manusha, the vaunted dispassion of the renouncer is really nothing more than a quest for self-satisfaction that insofar as it remains grounded in the fulfillment of desire, is little different from the self-infatuated world of the householder. To attain the highest state, one must let go and enjoy a fluid state of give-and-take with the world, ‘mingling or simply giving’.45 The fluidity of this highest goal is mirrored in the fluidity of the Ultimate that ‘has the shape of water’ (nirakara). Hence many Bauls prefer to call themselves simply manusha, rather than Baul.46 As we pursue the meaning of manusha, we come to appreciate the slipperiness of Baul identity. On the one hand, the concept of manusha refers to the realised practitioner or spiritual adept (who may be a woman). On the other, manusha may also refer to human beings in general — although because the madness of the Bauls tends to reject ordinary categories of understanding, the concept of manusha also imparts to the category of ‘human being’ a measure of social critique.47 To be manusha, and to recognise the truth of manusha, is in fact to reject the hierarchies and categories of identity that typically tend to separate one human being from another. Identities based on family, caste and gender are thereby called into question. And so in Baru Chandidas’ verse, one’s ‘brother’ may be anyone; any and all human beings are the same from the vantage point of manusha. Baru Chandidas thus points the spiritual aspirant toward the highest spiritual state known as manusha even as he advocates an egalitarian view of the human. Knowing this it is easier to appreciate why some commentators have chosen to understand Vidyasagar’s worldview in terms of Baul ‘humanism’ (a concept that can be rendered through a variety of Bengali phrases such as manava-priti, manushyatva-bhakti, manusher dharma or manava-dharma). This includes not only Chandicharan but also his better-known contemporary, Rabindranath Tagore, who memorably interpreted Vidyasagar’s humanity in terms of a retooled image of the Baul that seemed tailor-made to address the cultural aspirations of late-colonial Bengali bhadralok.48 For Tagore, Vidyasagar’s independence and his compassion made him an ideal representative of what he called the ‘religion of man’, a worldview which recognised ‘Man’ as the only creature able to engage with the world ‘in his knowledge and in his feeling and in his imagination, to realise in his individual spirit a union with a Spirit that is everywhere’.49 Without a doubt, Tagore’s evocation of this humanist religion is the most creative and idiosyncratic of the great commentators on

38 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

Vidyasagar but it is, nonetheless, of a piece with all those who have found in Vidyasagar the epitome of a human-centred vision of truth, including late-twentieth-century authors, such as Gopal Haldar and Amales Tripathi.50 As in Tagore’s tribute, subsequent evocations of the humanist Vidyasagar present him as a model of independence in the service of others, including students, orphans, widows, poets, and victims of disease or famine. The humanist Vidyasagar also realised that truth existed outside the narrow dictates of parochial Hinduism and, thus, demonstrated no interest in such rituals as daily prayer or temple worship. For all these reasons, Gopal Haldar has dubbed Vidyasagar India’s ‘first secularist’, seeing in him the kind of progressive leader to whom secular nationalists and left-leaning intellectuals, in postindependence India, could look up to with pride.51 At the time of his death it may have been possible for some, such as Biharilal or Subal Chandra, to bemoan Vidyasagar’s apparent rejection of Hindu orthodoxy, but such a complaint is almost never registered in post-independence India. On the contrary, if there is any scepticism among late-twentieth-century commentators, it has to do do only with Vidyasagar’s failure to fully deliver on the promise of secular humanism. Such commentators do not fault him for failing to be a proper Brahmin, but for failing to finally transcend the limits of his own caste and class privileges. Thus, in some Naxalite-influenced circles in 1970s West Bengal, Vidyasagar was faulted for trading on his Brahmin status to work for the narrow interests of a comprador colonial middle class. As we have seen, this ultimately led to the decapitation of his statue in College Square Park. The point is that even these dissenting opinions choose to measure the impact of Vidyasagar against the yardstick of ‘humanist’ ideals. It is enough to press upon us the need to explore how Vidyasagar came to be so closely tied to the discourse of modern Indian humanism. To do this we need to return to the late nineteenth century, to the period in which the first biographies were composed, and to Chandicharan’s intriguing story about Vidyasagar and Akhiladdin.52 Jointly recruited during a moment of emergent cultural nationalism, Vidyasagar and Akhiladdin were asked to illustrate the possibility of a distinctly Indian version of humanism. The same forces that led to the rehabilitation of the Baul in the Bengali imagination made it possible to find in Vidyasagar’s idiosyncratic attitudes evidence of an authentic Indian humanism. Such evidence was found in Vidyasagar’s willingness to serve others regardless of age, gender, caste or religion

Akhiladdin’s Song

39

as well as in his unwillingness to look for transcendental solutions to worldly problems. Like the Baul, he represented a non-sectarian, egalitarian and this-worldly outlook that echoed vital strands of authentic South Asian experience. This is not to say that in Vidyasagar’s case the colonial framework was denied. Chandicharan’s contemporary, Ramendrasundar Trivedi remarked that Vidyasagar possessed all the qualities one might look for in a European; but Trivedi was careful to comment that even so he remained a ‘true Bengali’.53 And that is the point. Like the Baul, Vidyasagar represented the authentic, the real, the human.54

Talking Inequality One lesson we learn from the foregoing discussion is just how cautious we must be in reading the biographical literature on Vidyasagar. Stories adduced as evidence about him may actually tell us more about their authors and the time of their composition than they do about Vidyasagar. Far from providing reliable proof of Vidyasagar’s religious views, Chandicharan enlists both Vidyasagar and Akhiladdin as proof for his own culturalist assumptions. And yet there are other lessons to learn as well. By foregrounding the figure of the Baul, Chandicharan inadvertently provides us with an occasion for reflection on what we might call South Asian articulations of ‘humanism’. Furthermore, Chandicharan allows us to see that just as humanism in the modern West often operates as a counter-hegemonic discourse directed at dominant religious orthodoxies, Baul humanism likewise provides a ‘constant critique of established religious traditions and authority’.55 The ‘crazy’ humanism of the Baul is a constant challenge to settled norms, working to undercut South Asian family, caste and gender roles, giving women in particular far more religious authority. And thus, in roundabout way, we are able to thank Chandicharan for reminding us that there are in fact powerful religious and moral traditions within South Asian culture, from which an indigenous reformer like Vidyasagar might draw inspiration. There may be much about Vidyasagar that reflects the Bengali domestication of European rationality, scepticism, individualism and moral effort; but these attitudes and commitments clearly found points of contact and convergence within his own South Asian heritage. This is a point I pressed in my earlier work on Vidyasagar.56 More recently, it has been reaffirmed by Jeanne Openshaw, who argues that Vidyasagar’s humanism managed

40 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

to take root in Bengal precisely because it ‘reinforced local rural ideas’, not least those associated with Baul values and practices.57 I do not mean to imply we naïvely endorse Chandicharan’s straightforward equation of Vidyasagar’s religious beliefs with those of Akhiladdin. There is no need to suggest Vidyasagar was a sort of Baul-manqué. For one thing, it would be asking too much of the Bauls to bear all the responsibility for making Vidyasagar who he was. The point is, Baul humanism with its rejection of caste and gender norms represents one important subset of broader ‘contrarian’ impulses within South Asian religious traditions, to which one might turn in thinking about the precise character of Vidyasagar’s religious attitudes. In what follows, I would like to expand the scope of our reflections to explore another kind of discourse about human beings employed within the Hindu religious tradition, one that opens up further possibilities for thinking about the expression of opposition and dissent. At the risk of generalisation it may be said that the structure and logic of Hindu religious and social life is predicated on the assumption that reality is fundamentally constructed and maintained in terms of hierarchical relationships. According to Brahminical ideology, this assumption is encapsulated in the concept of adhikara bheda (also adhikari bheda). The word adhikara connotes ‘authority’, ‘jurisdiction’, or ‘prerogative’; adhikara bheda enshrines the presumption that there are ‘differences’ (bheda) among human beings by virtue of their inherent natures and that therefore people do not share equal ‘rights’ to either social privileges or sacred performances. At a basic level, Brahmins are thought to have ritual authority and jurisdiction over religious life, simply by virtue of being Brahmins; Kshatriyas are authorised for warfare and politics. In the classic model enshrined in texts such as the Laws of Manu and the Bhagavad Gita, this logic is spelled out in terms of the direct connection between inherent nature (svabhava) and personal duty (svadharma). Brahmins are entitled to their high ritual status because their inherent nature is one characterised by calmness, purity and intellectual clarity; by contrast, the inherent nature of a Kshatriya is aggressive, rough and prone to violence.58 The originary idea for the hierarchical ordering of society can be traced to the late Vedic era (ca. 1000 BCE). In the hymn known as the ‘Sacrifice of Primal Man’ (Rig Veda 10.90), the natural and social world are said to have been created by the dismemberment of a cosmic person, the substance of all that exists.59 This hymn serves as the charter myth for the Brahminical theory of the four social ‘classes’ (varna).

Akhiladdin’s Song

41

When the Primal Man was immolated, the hymn tells us that from his mouth came the Brahmins, from his arms the Kshatriyas, from his thighs the Vaishyas (who ‘support’ the economy through trade, industry and agriculture), and from his feet the lowest of all, the Shudras. Based on the implicit hierarchy of the human body, in which the head represents the relative purity of the highest ‘class’, the varna hierarchy provides a cosmic etiology for the subsequent principles of ritual entitlement. These are enshrined in classical Hindu law and remain fundamental to social customs that persist to the present day. In particular, the ideology of varna provides the guiding logic for the realworld distinctions of jati bheda or the differential ranking of Hindu caste groups (understood as endogamous birth groups or jati).60 In the modern era, challenges to the lasting hold of ‘casteism’ in India have been regular, if never completely effectual; discrimination is outlawed, but the practice of caste persists. While the values of humanism and individualism celebrated in the literature on Vidyasagar represent a challenge to the ideology and practice of hierarchy, the response of cultural nationalists has often been to defend the indigenous validity of the varna ideology. Just as Chandicharan looked to the Baul for an authentically Indian articulation of humanism, modern Hindu apologists, such as Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Mahatma Gandhi, have chosen to defend the concept of adhikara bheda (if not in name, then in spirit). For these thinkers, the ancient Indian varna system speaks to the fundamental wisdom of Hinduism’s social vision. Shifting the focus from hierarchical inequality to organic solidarity, such authors see in this ideology a philosophy that supports the ‘division of labour’ and, therefore, enshrines the ideal of ‘unity in diversity’.61 Thus, while Gandhi sought to eradicate untouchability and redeem the dignity of ‘bread labour’, he never explicitly contested the logic of jati bheda.62 The modern era has been notable for both new constructions and contestations over caste, but like any ancient and complex religious tradition, Hinduism has long included in its ranks sceptics, naysayers and social renegades. One of the earliest of these was Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, who challenged ancient Indian notions of sacrificial violence as well as the ritual prerogatives of the Brahmin class. During the same time period as the Buddha (ca. 800–400 BCE), the sages of the Upanishads stressed the spiritual equality of all humans, basing their teachings on the direct experience of an eternal self (atman) that was identical within all persons, irrespective of class, caste, gender or

42 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

age. Likewise, the great medieval poet-saints claimed in their ecstatic songs (if they didn’t always demonstrate in their own lives) that on the plane of ardent devotion (bhakti) all human beings were identical before God. Similarly, the sadhus and sannyasis of Hinduism, those wandering holy men who have given their lives to meditation and ascetic practices, represent a potential challenge to adhikara by abandoning concerns over caste identity, rules of social intercourse and dietary restrictions (even if the practice of hierarchical discrimination has tended to creep back into some of the renunciant orders). As an ancient and multifaceted religious tradition, Hinduism consists of multiple axes of value and competing normative ideals. Debates and social confrontations over the ideology of adhikara bheda reflect a continual push-and-pull between advocates of hierarchy and those who challenge the ideology in the name of a universalist or egalitarian social vision. Vidyasagar’s own life-story provides one illustration of this dynamic. In the next chapter, we will discuss the challenges faced by his Brahmin family, beneficiaries of high-caste privilege but victims of economic privation, who had to fall back (at times) on the largesse of lower-caste patrons whose service to these Brahmins was itself based on deep-seated notions of ritual obligation. Once Vidyasagar rose to become the Principal of the Government Sanskrit College, he would wrestle with adhikara bheda when he debated over the wisdom of opening the college to non-Brahmin students. In the end, he resolved to open the college to Kayastha students (in Bengal, Kayasthas ranked among the lower Shudra varna) on the grounds of their de facto respectability within the Hindu community. However, he simultaneously chose not to extend admission to other Shudra groups who he deemed were still ‘wanting in respectability’ and, thus, ranked ‘lower in the scale of social consideration’.63 His willingness to challenge existing notions of ritual privilege was, therefore, offset by a reluctance to contravene deep-seated notions of caste hierarchy (reinforced during the colonial era by bourgeois notions of propriety, industry and respectability). This is but one illustration of the persistence of adhikara bheda as a normative principle and might also serve to caution against enthusiastic portrayals of Vidyasagar as a radical humanist. One of the most fascinating instances in which the logic of adhikara was debated during Vidyasagar’s lifetime occurred during his encounter with the great mystic-saint of Dakshineshwar, Shri Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna was a Brahmin child from the outlying districts who, like

Akhiladdin’s Song

43

Vidyasagar, had been pulled into the intellectual and cultural orbit of Calcutta; indeed, their home villages were not all that far from one another. However, unlike Vidyasagar, Ramakrishna was effectively uneducated and, as such, he shared little with the college-educated and affluent bhadralok intellectuals who were then playing an important role in Calcutta’s public life. He was, in fact, little more than a poor temple priest, who served the Goddess Kali at a colonial-era temple just north of the city, in Dakshineshwar. However, while serving the Goddess, Ramakrishna experienced a range of profound and lifealtering religious experiences that led him to gain enormous fame as the living embodiment of profound spiritual realisation. The emergence of his ecstatic mystical practices during an age of rational reform and bourgeois religious aspiration is often taken as an indicator of a shift towards more traditional, if not ‘revivalist’ forms of Hindu aspiration. Word of Ramakrishna soon spread and he came to play an enormous role in the lives of many influential young men in the last quarter of the century. His advent marks a fascinating juncture in intellectual and cultural history when a rustic, uneducated saint was able to fire the imagination of a generation of young bhadralok men. This was a time when many educated young Bengalis were beginning to experience the frustration and anomie of life in a colonial metropolis that held few opportunities for them. Though educated in colonial colleges and comfortable with the structures and styles of colonial modernity, these young men faced the uncomfortable realisation that their real-world opportunities were confined to unsatisfying roles as office clerks and low-level administrators. As Sumit Sarkar demonstrates, it was their disappointment, disaffection and sense of despair that caused them to gravitate towards Ramakrishna. In this rustic saint they sensed the promise of an entirely different order of validation.64 We are indebted to Sumit Sarkar for unpacking this historical moment with great skill and I see no need to reproduce his analysis here in detail. Suffice it to say that the bhadralok fascination with the saintly Ramakrishna soon ran up against their equal respect for the one man who had done so much to shape the curriculum and social ideals of their world, namely Vidyasagar. As it turns out, many of Ramakrishna’s new disciples had close ties to Vidyasagar. It would have been readily apparent to them that Ramakrishna’s life of spiritual practice and mystical devotion bore little relationship to the active and

44 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

engaged lifestyle of Vidyasagar. We may imagine many of them felt torn between their allegiance to two very different masters. One such figure was Mahendranath Gupta, who taught at the Metropolitan Institution, a prominent Calcutta college under the managing leadership of Vidyasagar. Mahendranath owed a great deal to Vidyasagar’s patronage, even though he is largely remembered today for his service to Ramakrishna. Known to posterity simply as ‘M’, Mahendranath went on to compile a work known as the Shri Shri Ramakrishna-Kathamrita (‘The Ambrosial Teachings of Shri Ramakrishna’; henceforth Kathamrita). In the Kathamrita — translated into English as The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna — M left us with a voluminous record of Ramakrishna’s conversations, anecdotes and ‘table talk’.65 He also worked to facilitate a meeting between his two masters, which is memorably recounted in the Kathamrita. Ramakrishna was aware of Mahendranath’s connection to Vidyasagar through the Metropolitan Institution. One day Ramakrishna asked Mahendranath, ‘Can you take me to Vidyasagar?’66 This was a rather unprecedented request from Ramakrishna, who rarely chose to visit other notables. We can imagine that Mahendranath was enthused by the prospect, if a bit anxious. He approached Vidyasagar with the proposal and the latter extended an invitation to Ramakrishna. On a Saturday in August 1882, Ramakrishna left the temple at Dakshineshwar to travel by carriage to Vidyasagar’s home in north Calcutta.67 The scene is memorable on many levels. As the Kathamrita notes, Vidyasagar ‘lived in a two-storey house built in the English fashion with lawns on all sides and surrounded by a high wall’.68 Ramakrishna was apparently so impressed by this massive display of bourgeois respectability that before approaching the house he asked one of his companions to make sure his shirt was not unbuttoned! As improbable as this encounter seems — the mystic devotee and the rational reformer — Sumit Sarkar notes that the two men seemed to have rather quickly arrived at a kind of consensus on the topic of the question of ultimate reality. Vidyasagar was famously averse to ‘preaching’ of any kind and he seems to have been pleased that Ramakrishna affirmed the unknowability of God — although to be fair there is a wide gulf between the mystic’s apophatic experience and the rationalist’s agnosticism. Despite this promising beginning, the views of the two men began to ‘diverge radically’, as Sarkar puts it.69 What began as a conversation about spiritual practice and the highest ideals

Akhiladdin’s Song

45

of liberation, soon evolved into a debate over the issue of adhikara. It is worth quoting from Sarkar’s reconstruction at length, since he isolates the core issue: For Vidyasagar . . . the unknowability of the supramundane makes it our supreme duty to try to do everything possible to improve this-worldly life. For Ramakrishna, in total contrast, ignorance becomes the premise for faith and devotion, and it is folly and arrogance for men to think of improving the world. The universe inevitably consists of big and small, some with more power and others with less: it is beautiful because it is divinely structured in terms of hierarchical inequality.70

Put simply, the saint endorsed the concept — indeed the cosmic truth — of adhikara-bheda. For Ramakrishna, the world is not ‘fair’ and never can be; the reformer’s goal in seeking social justice and equality is fundamentally misguided. In metaphysical terms, Vidyasagar’s commitments betray his failure to seek ultimate knowledge (jnana) through overcoming attachment to the illusory distinctions of ordinary existence. Ramakrishna’s argument is that one simply needs to recognise that the Lord (bhagavan) has created a magnificent universe, full of marvels that are arrayed in hierarchical splendour, from the sun and the stars down to the varied taxonomy of living creatures, some big, some small, some strong, some weak. At this point, Vidyasagar interrupted Ramakrishna to ask, ‘Are you saying the Lord has given more power (shakti) to some than to others?’ In reply, the saint attempted to employ Vidyasagar’s own reputation against him by saying, ‘Well, don’t you have more compassion (daya) and more learning (vidya) than others? Isn’t this why others respect you and come to visit you?’ It was a classic affirmation of adhikara bheda. If some people are great leaders and others are great villains, this can only be due to fundamental differences in the natures they have been endowed with.71 Vidyasagar was not convinced by this ploy. Not surprisingly, given the partisan character of the Kathamrita and M’s respect for his spiritual guru, Vidyasagar appears to say less than Ramakrishna; he is never allowed to have the final word. Even so, we hear enough to be able to reconstruct his basic position. In the face of Ramakrishna’s logic, Vidyasagar replied that if there is human inequality, it is far from natural; nor can it be said to be divinely ordained. It is simply a product of social behaviour and as such is ‘open to human remediation’.72 Vidyasagar’s point was that instead of expending valuable time and energy pondering the supernatural, each of us should

46 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

work to create heaven (svarga) on this earth. As he put it, ‘It is incumbent upon everyone to work for the welfare of the world’.73 On one level, we could say that the conversation between Ramakrishna and Vidyasagar is evidence of a ‘failure to communicate’. Here modern social reform appears to collide with traditional Brahminical wisdom. However, on another level, what is really taking place in this conversation is the working out of one of the great pushand-pull dynamics within the Hindu tradition. Like debates over the validity of iconic representations of deities, which have characterised the Hindu tradition for millennia, the debate over adhikara has no clear and certain winner. The tension and anxiety over the issue of adhikara is as profound as it is ongoing. We dare not explain away Vidyasagar’s attitudes as evidence of his refusal to live by the norms of Hinduism let alone of his deracinated endorsement of Western social philosophy. His opposition to Ramakrishna’s religious vision has its own indigenous roots. And those roots can be traced in Vidyasagar’s own family history. We are told that in her youth, Vidyasagar’s mother, though a Brahmin, used to play with girls from the Untouchable community (today, the ‘Scheduled Castes’). The story may be a hagiographical fiction, but even so it reminds us that disregard of caste restrictions is hardly a ‘modern’ phenomenon.74 Nor can the dialogue between Vidyasagar and Ramakrishna be reduced to something like a conflict between scientific rationalism and mystic traditionalism, which seems to be the interpretation preferred by Partha Chatterjee in his reading of the Kathamrita.75 Chatterjee refers to another conversation that took place between Ramakrishna and Dr Mahendralal Sarkar (occasionally also spelled Sircar). Mahendralal was a close friend of Vidyasagar and, like him, also something of sceptic (we shall meet him again in a later chapter). By the time he met Ramakrishna, Mahendralal had earned a great deal of respect within Calcuttan society for his medical training. This failed to impress Ramakrishna who viewed him as he had Vidyasagar: another example of great learning that failed to submit to the higher truth of devotion.76 In the end, Mahendralal’s conversations with Ramakrishna also ran aground on the topic of adhikara bheda. Ramakrishna not only chided the doctor for his book learning but he also tried to disabuse Mahendralal of his commitment to helping others. Leave it to God, was the saint’s advice. This was no more acceptable to Mahendralal than it was to Vidyasagar.

Akhiladdin’s Song

47

In Chatterjee’s analysis, what we witness in the conversations between Ramakrishna and Mahendralal is the defeat of ‘skeptical rationalism’ by ‘unquestioning devotion’.77 As Chatterjee develops his by-now familiar argument, this encounter represents a developing tension within the consciousness of the colonial bhadralok. For Chatterjee, the educated Bengali resolved this tension by accepting the inevitability of the dichotomy; to save one’s spiritual soul, it was necessary to retreat from the public sphere into the realm of private devotion, to abandon the world of colonial reason in order to find refuge in the inner world of spiritual solace.78 Sumit Sarkar rightly notes that Chatterjee’s reading of the situation is too ‘monochromatic’.79 What threatens the validity of Chatterjee’s interpretation is the fact that while Mahendralal fits a model of ‘public reason’ committed to scientific rationality (being among the first Bengalis to qualify for a medical degree) this characterisation fails to acknowledge that his ‘public self’ was, in fact, imbued with profound elements of emotion and (even) faith. It turns out he was an early and ardent promoter of homeopathy, which was simultaneously an alternative mode of healing and an alternative way to affirm Indian modernity. Mahendralal’s gravitation toward homeopathy could in fact be likened to a religious conversion, not least in that it was fuelled by a great deal of emotion (we shall return to this in Chapter Four). Four years after receiving his Doctor of Medicine (MD), Mahendralal announced publicly in 1867 that he endorsed homeopathy as a superior alternative to allopathic medicine. Having likened this volte face to a kind of conversion, I think we should be careful not to turn it into a simplistic parable of faith overcoming reason. For one thing, Mahendralal’s conversion to homeopathy was predicated on empirical study. For another, he remained throughout his life an active promoter of scientific inquiry and experimental research. In fact, he took a leading role in establishing the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, which was founded in 1876, 10 years after his conversion to homeopathy. As David Arnold and Sumit Sarkar have pointed out, there is no way to construe Mahendralal’s interest in homeopathy as a retreat from the Western to the indigenous, not least because the very genealogy of homeopathy begins in the West.80

You Never Admit to Being ‘You’ Perhaps there is good reason for thinking that men such as Mahendralal and Vidyasagar were nastikas. In many respects, they were rationalists

48 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

and sceptics, who questioned the excessive hold of religious devotion over their countrymen, just as they challenged Brahminical norms of privilege and exclusion. But this does not mean they were rootand-branch sceptics, nor does it mean that we should allow their encounters with a figure like Ramakrishna to tempt us into intractable dichotomies such as Chatterjee offers. To accept Chatterjee’s solution, one must, in a sense, agree that the encounter between Ramakrishna and Vidyasagar was a victory for astikata or ‘belief’. It may be that some followers of Ramakrishna would welcome such a conclusion, but judging from the hold this episode has over popular imagination, it seems more reasonable to view the encounter as evidence of a particular kind of Bengali modernity in which faith and reform wrestle cordially with one another If not this, we would have to ask ourselves why Vidyasagar was even interested in meeting Ramakrishna. Was it merely for titillation? Did he hope to puncture the saint’s aura or aim to assert his own moral superiority over the saint? In later chapters we will have ample occasion to explore Vidyasagar’s gift for irony and his sometimes unforgiving anger, but it seems doubtful he would have invited the saint to his home merely in order to belittle him. It is more productive to ask whether Vidyasagar didn’t harbour the same emotional attraction to Ramakrishna as he did to someone like Akhiladdin. If nothing else, such men were part of his world; they each embodied powerful modes of Bengali identity. Nor is it impossible that they spoke somehow to the emotional depths of Vidyasagar’s own personality. Alternatively, we might wonder whether Vidyasagar didn’t seek out men like Ramakrishna and Akhiladdin because he understood that new truths are found in surprising ways — just as he once acquired a cure for colic from a wandering holy man.81 Vidyasagar’s publication of the holy man’s cure is a bit like Mahendralal’s commitment to homeopathic science. It is not a simple question of reason versus faith, but of the two value-orientations weaving their complex webs within individual lives.82 There may simply be no easy way to account for Vidyasagar’s enigmatic interest in saints and holy men like Akhiladdin or Ramakrishna. If nothing else, we should avoid reductionist readings of his identity. Just as the attempts to find in Vidyasagar a kind of nation-in-miniature overlook the complex politics of religious and national identity in the late nineteenth century, attempts to reduce Vidyasagar to a kind of deracinated modern reformer run the risk of missing the remarkable

Akhiladdin’s Song

49

processes of cultural convergence that made him who he was. Neither quintessential Indian nor quintessential rationalist, we might see in Vidyasagar a figure in whom the values of integrity, independence and commitment to equality came to expression in tandem with (rather than in contrast to) indigenous forms of religious belief and values. If it proves useful to appeal to the Baul reverence for manusha or debates over adhikara-bheda in order to ponder his identity, these need not be the final word. Instead, as his encounter with Akhiladdin suggests, his identity necessarily remains elusive. Perhaps like the Baul singer Raj Khyepa, we do best to say, ‘Whomever I address as “you” will never admit to being “you”’.83

Notes 1. See Hiranmay Bandyopadhyay. 1983. ‘Vidyasagar Ki Nastika Chilen?’, Vidyasagar Patrika (Feb.): pp. 13–19. 2. Sarkar, Vidyasagar, p. 171. 3. See Bandyopadhyay, Vidyasagar, p. 465. 4. See Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, pp. 240–41 and Brian A. Hatcher. 1996. Idioms of Improvement: Vidyasagar and Cultural Encounter in Bengal. Delhi: Oxford University Press, p. 260. 5. See Bandyopadhyay, Vidyasagar, p. 38, Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, p. 30, and Sarkar, Vidyasagar, pp. 214–15. 6. Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, pp. 213 and 230. Biharilal faults Vidyasagar’s lax ritual behaviour, but admits he supported family members who wished to perform religious ceremonies (Sarkar, Vidyasagar, pp. 214–15). 7. On this see Vidyasagar, Hindu Widow Marriage, pp. 31–32. 8. See Bandyopadhyay, Vidyasagar, p. 466. 9. See Samarendrakrishna Basu. 1972. ‘Vidyasagarer Nastikata’, in Ramakanta Chakravarti (ed.), Satavarsha-smaranika, Vidyasagar Kalej, 1872–1972. Calcutta: Vidyasagar Kalej Satavarsha Smaranika Samiti, p. 320. 10. For Asok Sen, Vidyasagar’s dismissal of Vedanta and Samkhya as ‘false systems of philosophy’ confirms his opposition to ‘age-old metaphysics’ (Sen, Vidyasagar and his Elusive Milestones, p. 25). 11. Chakravarti, Life of Pandit Ishvarchandra Vidyasagara, p. 1. 12. Tripathi’s Vidyasagar is dedicated to Indira Gandhi, while Benoy Ghosh’s English-language biography was published in the series ‘Builders of Modern India’. 13. See Chantal Thomas. 1999. The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of MarieAntoinette. New York: Zone Books, p. 13

50 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian 14. For background, see Jeanne Openshaw. 2002. Seeking Bauls of Bengal. New York: Cambridge University Press. 15. Sricharan Chakravarti translates as ‘O thou holy where art thou forgetting thyself?’ (Life of Pandit Isvarchandra Vidyasagara, p. 134). 16. This story and the Bengali lyrics can be found in Bandyopadhyay, Vidyasagar, pp. 468–69. 17. The scene was such a moving one that Chandicharan made an effort to track down Akhiladdin. After a bit of searching, he found the old man and was able to ask him about Vidyasagar. Akhiladdin’s reply speaks of an unaffected relationship to his admirer and sometime benefactor, ‘Yes, Mr “Biddesagar” was quite fond of me. This one song really made him happy. I used to get quite a bit of money from him.’ See Bandyopadhyay, Vidyasagar, p. 469. Vidyasagar purportedly also liked the crude lyrics of a singer named Dhiraj, who composed songs in opposition to the widow marriage movement; on this see Bipin Bihari Gupta. 1966. Puratan Prasanga. Calcutta: Vidyabharati, p. 52. 18. Bandyopadhyay, Vidyasagar, p. 468. 19. See Mitra, Karunasagar Vidyasagar, p. 578. 20. See Openshaw, Seeking Bauls of Bengal, 244. 21. See Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. xxxvii. Also, Satyaprasad Sengupta. 1974. Vidyasagar Smriti. Calcutta: Calcutta Book House, pp. 192– 205 and Basu, ‘Vidyasagarer Nastikata’, pp. 322–24. 22. See Ramendrasundar Trivedi. 1913. Charita Katha. Calcutta: Navavibhakara Press, pp. 183–84 and Rajanikanta Gupta. 1896. Pratibha. Calcutta: Np., pp. 18–20. 23. Sricharan Chakravarti, Life of Pandit Isvarchandra Vidyasagara, p. i. 24. Openshaw, Seeking Bauls of Bengal, p. 23; cp. Lisa I. Knight. 2011. Contradictory Lives: Baul Women in India and Bangladesh. New York: Oxford University Press, p. 29. 25. Openshaw, Seeking Bauls of Bengal, pp. 24–25. 26. On the ‘ethic and sentiment’ of the bhadralok, see Tithi Bhattacharya. 2005. Sentinels of Culture: Class, Education, and the Colonial Intellectual in Bengal (1848–85). New York: Oxford University Press, p. 67 27. See Hatcher, Idioms of Improvement, Ch. 9. 28. See Hatcher, Bourgeois Hinduism, p. 167. 29. Vidyasagar’s private proclivities are said to have included a fondness for snuff and tobacco; see Shankariprasad Basu. 1991. Rasasagar Vidyasagar. Calcutta: De’s Publishing, pp. 57–99. 30. Quoted in Ghosh, Vidyasagar o Bangali Samaj, p. 364. 31. See Trivedi, Charita Katha, p. 196. 32. For useful studies, see Andrew Sartori. 2008. Bengal in Global Concept History: Culturalism in the Age of Capitalism. Chicago: University of Chicago and Partha Chatterjee. 1986. Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Akhiladdin’s Song

51

33. Openshaw, Seeking Bauls of Bengal, p. 26. 34. See Partha Chatterjee. 1992. ‘A Religion of Urban Domesticity: Sri Ramakrishna and the Calcutta Middle Class’, in Partha Chatterjee and Gyanendra Pandey (eds), Subaltern Studies, VII. Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 40–68 and Sumit Sarkar. 1997. Writing Social History. Delhi: Oxford University Press, Ch. 8. 35. See Openshaw, Seeking Bauls of Bengal, pp. 26–31. 36. See Appendix I of Rabindranath Tagore. 1931. Religion of Man. London: Macmillan. 37. Quoted from Openshaw, Seeking Bauls of Bengal, p. 35. 38. My rhetoric here is grounded in existing evocations of Vidyasagar, as in Yogendranath Vidyabhushan. n. d. Vira Puja, in Yogendra Granthavali. Part 2. Calcutta: Basumati Sahitya Mandir, p. 246. 39. Jeanne Openshaw. 2010. Writing the Self: The Life and Philosophy of a Dissenting Bengali Baul Guru. Delhi: Oxford University Press, p. 81. 40. Ibid., p. 176. 41. Openshaw, Seeking Bauls of Bengal, p. 241 and Writing the Self, p. 131. 42. See Debendranath Tagore. 1980. Maharshi Debendranath Thakurer Atmajivani, ed. by Arabinda Mitra and Asim Ahmed. Calcutta: Chariot International, p. 19 and Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar, 1982. Vidyasagar Rachanasambhar, ed. by Pramathanath Bishi. Calcutta: Mitra and Ghosh, p. 342. 43. Openshaw, Seeking Bauls of Bengal, p. 186. 44. For a slightly different translation, see Openshaw, Seeking Bauls of Bengal, p. 159. 45. Following Openshaw, Seeking Bauls of Bengal, pp. 158–62. 46. Openshaw, Writing the Self, p. 176. 47. Openshaw, Seeking Bauls of Bengal, p. 160. 48. The phrase is found in Tagore, Vidyasagar Charita, p. 782. 49. Tagore, Religion of Man, p. 103. 50. See, especially, Haldar, Vidyasagar: A Reassessment, p. 91 and Tripathi, Vidyasagar: The Traditional Moderniser, p. 94. 51. See Haldar, Vidyasagar, p. 92; and Asit Kumar Bandyopadhyay. 1986. History of Modern Bengali Literature: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Calcutta: Modern Book Agency, p. 51. 52. Other early biographers were clearly influenced by Chandicharan’s interpretation; see Chakravarti, Life of Pandit Isvarchandra Vidyasagara, p. 136. 53. R. Trivedi, Charita Katha, pp. 183–84; and R. Gupta, Pratibha, p. 18–20. The balance is recognised by more recent commentators as well. Asit Kumar Bandyopadhyay confidently places Vidyasagar in ‘the school of August Comte, Mill and Bentham’; see his History of Modern Bengali Literature, p. 51; cp. Tripathi, Vidyasagar, p. 94. 54. Even a non-Bengali Indian nationalist like Mahatma Gandhi was led to praise Vidyasagar as an authentic Indian; see Gandhi, Collected Works, Vol. 5, pp. 65–68.

52 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian 55. 56. 57. 58.

59.

60.

61. 62. 63.

64. 65.

66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78. 79.

Openshaw, Seeking Bauls of Bengal, p. 252. See Hatcher, Idioms of Improvement. Openshaw, Writing the Self, p. 118. In the context of worship (puja), ritual performance can likewise be subdivided according to adhikari bheda, so that one may speak of ‘higher’ and ‘lower’ modes of worship; see Chintaharan Chakravarti. 2001. Hindur Achara Anushthana. Calcutta: Papyrus, p. 43. The hymn, known as the ‘Purusha-Sukta’, has been widely translated. See R. C. Zaehner, trans. 1992. Hindu Scriptures. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, pp. 10–11. ‘The real unit of caste is jati, and the some 4000 jatis in India may be grouped roughly, very roughly, into the varna scheme, at least in the north’. Quoted from Eleanor Zelliot, 2004. ‘Caste in Contemporary India’, ed. by Robin Rinehart, Contemporary Hinduism. New York: ABC CLIO, p. 248. See Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan. 1927. The Hindu View of Life. London: George Allen and Unwin, Ch. 4. See Sarkar, Writing Social History, Ch. 9. Quoted from a letter dated 28 March 1851 in Vidyasagar, 1971. The Unpublished Letters of Vidyasagar, ed. by Arabinda Guha. Calcutta: Reba Guha, p. 6. For a summary, see Hatcher, Idioms of Improvement, 101–2. Ibid., 227–28. On textual issues surrounding the Kathamrita, see Sumit Sarkar. 1985. ‘The Kathamrita as Text: Towards an Understanding of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa’. Occasional Papers on History and Society. 12. New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, pp. 115–42. See Shri Ramakrishna. 1966. The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, trans. by Swami Nikhilananda. Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, Ch. 3. Shri Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, p. 100. Ibid. Sarkar, Writing Social History, p. 217. Quoted from Sarkar, Writing Social History, p. 217. See Shri Ramakrishna. 1993. Shri Shri Ramakrishna Kathamrita, ed. by ‘M’. Vol. 3. Calcutta: Kathamrita Bhavan, p. 10. Quoted from Sarkar, Writing Social History, p. 217. Shri Ramakrishna, Shri Shri Ramakrishna Kathamrita, vol. 3, p. 6. See Priyadarshan Haldar. 1983. Vidyasagar Janani Bhagavati Devi. Calcutta: Prajnabharati, p. 6. See Chatterjee, ‘A Religion of Urban Domesticity’ and The Nation and its Fragments, pp. 59–61. See Shri Ramakrishna, Shri Shri Ramakrishna Kathamrita, Vol. 1, p. 219. Chatterjee, The Nation and its Fragments, p. 61. Ibid., p. 72. Sarkar, Writing Social History, p. 285.

Akhiladdin’s Song

53

80. See David Arnold and Sumit Sarkar. 2002. ‘In Search of Rational Remedies: Homeopathy in Nineteenth-Century Bengal,’ ed. by Waltraud Ernst, Plural Medicine, Tradition and Modernity, 1800–2000. New York: Routledge, p. 52. 81. Reprinted in Benoy Ghosh (ed.). 1981. Samayikapatre Banglar Samajchitra. Vol. 5. Calcutta: Papyrus, p. 217. 82. As Sumit Sarkar has noted, ‘the contradictions here are at the heart of Vidyasagar’s lifelong endeavours and tragedy’. See Writing Social History, p. 242. 83. Quoted in Openshaw, Seeking Bauls of Bengal, p. 189.

3 Man in Motion We tend to think of our own twenty-first century lives as characterised by endless motion, but in Vidyasagar’s day people and their lives were no different. Merchants, traders, pilgrims, itinerant holy men, wealthy princes, and destitute labourers were continually on the move, whether across vast distances, such as those that separate Calcutta from the pilgrimage sites of north India, or across the relatively shorter distances between rural village and district bazaar, or between urban employment and village home. Moreover, all of South Asia was coming under the sway of a new global empire, predicated on enhanced mobility by sea and fuelled by the lucrative movement of goods and people which, in turn, produced rapid and widespread forms of dislocation in the lives of the people.1 We cannot overlook the fact that much of the upheaval and movement in a life like Vidyasagar’s was provoked by the realities of British colonialism. It is worth remembering, too, that the originating causes and ultimate goals of human migration and circulation are varied. People do not always move by choice, nor are their choices always freely made. Furthermore, movement can be ‘away’ from peril or deprivation just as it can be oriented ‘towards’ reward, adventure or the promise of fulfillment. People move around in order to explore and conquer their worlds, but they also are sent into exile or forced to flee persecution. However it may originate, movement invariably holds the potential to open up possibilities for self-reflection, for criticism, and for humour. Such possibilities inhabit the very metaphors we employ, whether it is the idea of ‘gaining distance’ on events or in the notion of taking oneself ‘out of the picture’. Often, it is the narration of travel or dislocation that allows an author to see the world anew, to ‘move’ his readers to a new ‘vantage point’. As an illustration, consider the following parable, which we might label the ‘The Legalist and the Logician’. Once there were two brothers, both pandits, who lived in the same village. The elder brother was trained in Logic (nyaya), while the younger was a scholar of Legal literature (smriti). One day, the Legalist went to a neighbouring town on some errands. While he was away,

Man in Motion

55

a grief-stricken man came looking for him, anxious to know how to perform the last rites for his deceased three-year-old daughter. The Logician told the visitor that his younger brother was not expected to return for a while. The bereaved father looked to the Logician for help. ‘Pandit-ji, just tell me. Should the child be cremated or buried?’ The Logician replied, ‘Well, if that’s all you’re worried about, go ahead and bury the child’. This surprised the poor man, who had anticipated that the right course would be to cremate the child. But the pandit had made his ruling, so the father set off for home, intent on carrying out the burial. On his way, he met the Legalist brother and explained his predicament. With no hesitation the Legalist told him to cremate the child. ‘But your elder brother told me to bury her?’ Unwilling to tarnish the dignity of his brother, the Legalist said, ‘Well, he may have been joking. Off you go, and be sure to cremate the body.’ The Legalist hurried home and confronted his brother. ‘Why on earth did you say to bury the child when she should be cremated?’ The Logician replied calmly, ‘Well, I wondered about that. But then I reasoned that if I told the man to cremate the child and it turned out that the body should have been buried, it would have been most unfortunate. But if I told him to bury the child and it turned out that the body should have been cremated, then I figured the body could always be dug up’.2 Vidyasagar used to tell this story to poke fun at the incompetence and hypocrisy of his fellow pandits. By ‘stepping back’ from his own pandit milieu in order to tell this story, Vidyasagar gained a critical ‘vantage point’ on the failings of his peers. But, at the same time, his parable can be read as a kind of commentary on the perils of movement. After all, had the younger pandit remained at home the poor father would have been spared a great deal of confusion and anxiety; the sanctity of the deceased girl’s postmortem rites would not have been put at risk; and the reputation of the two pandits would not have been exposed to possible ridicule. The story amounts to little more than a clever joke, but at the same time it seems to emerge organically from the concrete world of Bengal’s villages where people regularly wander about — whether to visit a local market, participate in a wedding, attend a festival or visit a sacred place. As the parable suggests, one never knows what might happen when people begin to move around.

A Text in Motion The same storyteller also left behind a brief autobiography, published posthumously as Vidyasagar Charita (Svarachita) or ‘The Life Vidyasagar

56 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

(as he composed it)’.3 It is a remarkable work for many reasons. Vidyasagar most likely wrote it sometime late in his life, though it seems he never saw it to completion. Ultimately, it was published by his son Narayan, who viewed it as the most notable of the many books his father had been working on at the time of his death.4 What intrigues me most about Vidyasagar Charita (Svarachita) is that it is a self-narrative in which both ‘self’ and ‘narrative’ are in constant movement. On the one hand, all the key figures in the text — Vidyasagar’s grandfather Ramjay and grandmother Durga Devi, his father Thakurdas and mother Bhagavati Devi, even the narrator himself — are in motion and all this movement is conducive to both discovery and crisis. Perhaps as a result of all this movement, Vidyasagar himself remains an unsettled presence in the text. This is a self-narrative that often seems to skirt around the ‘self’ in question; the text moves in disorienting recursive loops, with little of the comfortable linearity we associate with a life history. As a result, we only catch glimpses of the narrator against the backdrop of family upheaval and recurring dislocation. All of this means that Vidyasagar Charita (Svarachita) can be somewhat infuriating for readers who come to it hoping to read a straightforward accounting of his life. As Narayan himself acknowledges, Vidyasagar gives us little more than a brief history of his forebears and a general account of his childhood.5 In other words, this is not a full-blown atmacharita (‘autobiography’) as that genre came to be understood in modern Bengal. With the emergence of the bourgeois genre of autobiography came the attempt to frame a compelling narrative about a ‘self’ (atma) that works to reveal its ‘character’ as a function of the ‘events’, which make up its story (the latter two terms both connoted by the word charita).6 Because Vidyasagar’s text remained incomplete, we cannot say whether he intended to create such a modern atma charita. The question of authorial intention aside, in subsequent chapters I hope to suggest that Vidyasagar did participate in the same imaginary that produced the modern Bengali autobiography, the first great examples of which were written by his contemporaries, Shibnath Shastri and Debendranath Tagore. Despite its apparent incompleteness, I would argue that in Vidyasagar’s text, we witness the efforts of the narrator to test new modes of self-expression even as he struggles to make sense of a life lived amid widespread change and disorientation. This may, in fact, be one index of the modernity of the text. Another such index can be found in the logic of creative dissimulation employed by the narrator. The best evidence of Vidyasagar’s

Man in Motion

57

struggle with modern identity comes from the gestures of ironic distancing that lie at the heart of Vidyasagar Charita (Svarachita) . While he apparently focuses on the peregrinations and personalities of his forebears, he is, in fact, telling the reader a great deal about himself.7 This makes the text quite, literally, eccentric. But this eccentricity — the way the narrative seems to move away from the self — is revealing. By emphasising movement and displacement, Vidyasagar could be said to invest ‘movement with meaning’; this is meaning articulated ‘through time’ (if one thinks genealogically) and ‘across space’ (if one thinks of pilgrimage and travel).8 The text seems to suggest that he can best be found amidst all this movement. Thus, as I see it, movement provides one of the most important interpretive lenses through which to pursue the question of Vidyasagar’s identity. Just as the previous chapter brought to the fore a kind of fluidity with respect to his identity — emphasising the difficulty of capturing a clear image of the man when looking through continually shifting frames of reference — this chapter will explore his identity through the lens of movement and dislocation. From our reflections on Akhiladdin’s song, we came to appreciate the water-like fluidity of identity; we faced up to the difficulty of making essential statements about the man. In the present context, I hope to explore how the spatial, temporal and narrative movement embodied in a text like Vidyasagar Charita (Svarachita) can provide another set of tools with which to address the same problem. Typically, Vidyasagar’s autobiography is read as a straightforward historical and genealogical record. Authors such as Shambhuchandra, Chandicharan, Biharilal and Subal Chandra draw directly upon the autobiography but avoid giving it a critical reading or treating it as a creative work. As I hope to demonstrate in this chapter, there is another way to read Vidyasagar’s autobiography. Without foisting on it a greater degree of literary complexity than is reasonable, I would like to explore how the text operates as a creative narrative. In particular, I would like to emphasise how it is simultaneously structured and disrupted by the forces of displacement and travel. As much as it is a text about movement, Vidyasagar’s autobiography is also itself a text in motion. Recognising this fact opens up new interpretive possibilities. On the one hand, the rather fluid and recursive quality of its narrative, combined with the stories it tells about other people on the move, serves to enhance the enigma of Vidyasagar’s own identity. On

58 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

the other, these same stories of movement and dislocation, even when they are not about Vidyasagar, give us access to his world and his selfunderstanding. As it turns out, one of the most beloved and widely known stories about Vidyasagar is found in the autobiography. This is the ‘The Story of the Milestones’ (Mail Stoner Upakhyana). I think it is significant that while it is Vidyasagar who recounts the story in Vidyasagar Charita (Svarachita), he tells the reader that the story was originally narrated to others by his father, Thakurdas.9 This is precisely the sort of selfdistancing that makes the text so fascinating. Rhetorically, it is a powerful tool, allowing Vidyasagar a means to indirectly reveal things about himself. On the most basic level ‘The Story of the Milestones’ is a story about movement. It harkens back to Ishvarchandra’s childhood, when he was studying in rather modest primary schools, first in his own village and then for a few months in Calcutta. When it became clear that the boy needed further education, his teachers and his family debated sending him for advanced schooling in Calcutta. It was not a move to make lightly. The city was a strange and alien place and not an easy environment for a child. And yet, since the boy showed promise, Calcutta offered the best hopes for advancement in the world. Vidyasagar suggests that Thakurdas told this story in order to demonstrate how bright his son was. Read in this light it is a story about hope and the promise of new beginnings, all centred on the boy’s extraordinary intellectual gifts. On my first journey to Calcutta I noticed something that looked like a grindstone embedded in the ground by the side of the road. I was curious and asked, ‘Father, why is that grindstone embedded by the side of the road?’ He smiled at my question and replied, ‘That’s no grindstone; it’s called a “milestone”’. I said, ‘I don’t understand. What’s a milestone?’ ‘It’s an English word’, he said. ‘A “mile” is equal to one half of a krosh’.10 ‘Stone’ means pathar. These stones are embedded every mile along this road. On them are engraved the numbers ‘one’, ‘two’, ‘three’ and so on. The number on this stone is ‘nineteen’. When people look at it, they know they are nineteen miles from Calcutta, or nine-and-a-half krosh’. Then he took me over to the stone. I had learnt from my multiplication tables that a ‘one’ written beside a ‘nine’ indicates ‘nineteen’. I touched first the ‘one’ and then the ‘nine’, and said, ‘Then this is the English “one” and this is the English “nine”’. Then I added,

Plate 5: The story of the milestones as depicted at Vidyasagar Smriti Mandir, Sukiya Street, Kolkata (2012)

60 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian ‘So, Father, after this the next stone will be “eighteen,” then “seventeen,” and so on, until we reach number “one”’. He replied, ‘Today we will only go as far as milestone “two.” We won’t see where the first milestone is embedded, but if you want I can show you one day’. I said, ‘I don’t need to see it; I can see the number “one” on this stone. Father, as we proceed along this road, I will learn the English numbers’. Having made this claim, I went up to the first milestone and studied the numbers. Later I saw the tenth milestone and called out to my father, ‘I know the English numbers’. My father said, ‘Let me test you to see how well you know them’. As we passed the ninth, eighth, and seventh milestones, he asked me and I replied, ‘That’s a “nine,” that’s an “eight,” that’s a “seven”’. My father determined that I had either learnt the numbers or I was just clever enough to know that eight followed nine, and seven followed eight. In order to test me he shrewdly skipped the sixth milestone. Then he pointed to the fifth milestone and said, ‘Tell me which milestone this is’. I looked at it and said, ‘Father, this milestone was engraved incorrectly. It should be “six,” but it is engraved with a “five”’.11

On one level this is clearly a story about the future and about the opportunities that open up when a person puts himself/herself in motion. We might say that Ishvarchandra was destined to ‘go far’. It is, in fact, during the journey from his village to the city that Ishvarchandra’s promise is revealed. As every biographer has understood, his future inheres in this simple journey.12 As a result, biographers have often been tempted to impose the sense of teleological certainty implicit in this one vignette onto the otherwise disjointed narrative of Vidyasagar Charita (Svarachita) as a whole. That is, instead of wrestling with the challenges posed by the text, Vidyasagar’s biographers tend to read it in light of their desire to find in it concrete evidence about Vidyasagar’s early life. And yet, as compelling as ‘The Story of the Milestones’ is, it may not represent the best way to read the autobiography.13 As an alternative, I propose to focus on two features of the text that, at first glance, appear to frustrate the very purpose of the autobiography — first, the centrality of protagonists other than Vidyasagar and second, the apparently random structure of the narrative. My goal is to let the text do what Vidyasagar seemed to have in mind: speak less about himself and more about his family members. In the process, I want to see if there is any way we might learn from the text’s curious and disjointed structure. If this is a text in motion, then what does it tell us about the lives of its main characters?

Man in Motion

61

A Family in Motion Vidyasagar Charita (Svarachita) opens with the prototypical statement of the autobiographer, ‘I was born in the village of Birsingha around noon on Tuesday, the 26th of September, in the year 1820’.14 This certainly seems to suggest that the author forms the self whose narrative is at the centre of the text. And indeed, the paragraphs that follow begin to narrate how Vidyasagar’s father came to learn of the birth of his first son. We shall turn to this account in more detail later, but it is important to note that even in the opening paragraphs recounting his birth, another character moves toward the centre of the stage — Vidyasagar’s paternal grandfather, Ramjay Tarkabhushan. Like so many of Vidyasagar’s forebears, Ramjay was a Sanskrit pandit.15 But as readers soon learn, his learning was the least remarkable thing about him. Far more importantly, he acts as a striking catalyst or focal point for developments in Vidyasagar’s family life. His centrality is signalled early on by the fact that it is Ramjay who goes to find Vidyasagar’s father to deliver the news about the birth of his son. Henceforth Ramjay will be at the heart of Vidyasagar’s story, even if that story unfolds in a less than linear fashion. For instance, no sooner has the narrator announced the circumstances of his birth, than he abruptly changes course. In the fourth paragraph of the text Vidyasagar remarks, ‘I was born in Birsingha but this was not my ancestral village’. In some sense birth and displacement go together, and as we shall see Ramjay is at the heart of the matter. Though he provides no dates, Vidyasagar effectively takes the reader back to the late eighteenth century, to a time when his ancestor Bhuvaneshvara Vidyalankara lived in a village called Vanamalipur, located to the west of the well-known pilgrimage town of Tarakeshwar, in present-day Hooghly District, West Bengal. His family were Sanskrit pandits and this had been their ancestral home for generations.16 Bhuvaneshvara had five sons of whom Ramjay was the third. Sometime after Bhuvaneshvara’s death, Ramjay had a falling out with his two elder brothers. By this point, he was married to Durga Devi and had a family of his own. Unfortunately, Ramjay’s dispute with his brothers grew so intractable that he one day disappeared from home while Durga Devi was left to fend for herself in her husband’s family home. With her husband gone and children to feed, it is easy to imagine her in-laws were far from happy. As for where Ramjay went or why, Vidyasagar tells us nothing. He tells us twice, rather simply, that he ‘left home’ (deshtyagi hailen).17

62 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

Durga Devi had grown up in the village of Birsingha, which lies to the south and west of Vanamalipur. Her father, Umapati Tarkasiddhanta, was also a pandit. Vidyasagar praises Umapati’s learning and provides some brief background on his career as a Grammarian.18 Durga Devi was the youngest of Umapati’s two daughters. When she married Ramjay, she had followed custom and moved to Vanamalipur in order to take her place in her husband’s extended family. Ordinarily, a young wife faces considerable emotional challenges as she attempts to adjust to life in the marital home. But since Ramjay did not get along with the rest of his siblings, Durga Devi was placed in an even more difficult position. It would have been bad enough to be at the centre of Ramjay’s disputes with his brothers, but quite another to be abandoned altogether and left at the mercy of his family. The emotional stress alone must have been tremendous, but Durga Devi also faced difficult financial times. Vidyasagar describes the hardships experienced by his grandmother, who had to deal with a spiteful elder brother-in-law — none too happy that his younger sibling had simply opted out of his familial responsibilities — in addition to providing for her children. Eventually, the situation ‘became so bad’ (as Vidyasagar puts it) that Durga Devi took her children and returned to her father’s home in Birsingha.19 But this brought little improvement in her circumstances. In place of her brothers-in-law’s resentment, she now faced the ire of her own elder brother, who was confronted with the prospect of feeding seven more mouths with no additional income. In the end there was too much bitterness between the two siblings for this new arrangement to work. In desperation, Durga Devi approached her father. Unwilling to risk any affront to his eldest son, who, by this point, was the de facto head of the family, Umapati moved Durga Devi and her children to a cottage in the village. This arrangement proved to be a blessing. However, not long thereafter Umapati died, at which point Durga Devi lost the rent-free settlement. It was now clear she would have to fend for herself.20 To make ends meet, she took up cotton spinning, and sold her wares in a local bazaar. It is a remarkable story, which is surely why Vidyasagar devotes so much space to it. For him, Durga Devi is a model of resolve, a clear equal to her principled if peripatetic husband, Ramjay. Despite Durga Devi’s best efforts, the money she earned from spinning was not enough to support her family. And so a fateful decision was made. She would send her eldest son, Thakurdas, who was then about

Man in Motion

63

fourteen years old, to Calcutta in search of employment.21 Among other things, this meant that Thakurdas was forced to abandon his hopes of training to be a pandit like his father and grandfather.22 After depicting his father’s tearful arrival on the doorstep of a relative in the city, Vidyasagar provides a lengthy and moving narration of Thakurdas’s further struggles to find work and housing in the city. These trials were clearly meaningful for Vidyasagar, who praises Thakurdas in words that appear to echo his own honest work ethic: ‘He was very intelligent and an incredibly hard worker. He completed all his work smartly, never once resorting to deceit. As a result, all his employers were quite pleased’.23 It is at this point that Ramjay re-enters the narrative. The actual chronology of events is murky but Vidyasagar tells us Ramjay had been gone for about seven or eight years. On the occasion of his reappearance, he remarks laconically, ‘Everyone was delighted at his return’.24 The only additional details come to us from the account of Shambhuchandra, who suggests that there may have been a compelling reason for Ramjay’s return. Shambhuchandra tells us that while away on pilgrimage, Ramjay had a dream in which a voice chastised him for being so unrighteous as to leave his wife and family to face a series of hardships.25 (We shall see — if Shambhuchandra is to be believed — that Ramjay’s dreams played a similar role in the unfolding of Vidyasagar’s own story.) Naturally, Ramjay expected to find his family living in Vanamalipur where he had left them. To his surprise, he discovered that his wife and children had moved back to her home village of Birsingha. Vidyasagar doesn’t indicate how Ramjay initially reacted to this news. He only tells us that Ramjay immediately set off for Birsingha in order to rejoin his family. At this point, Shambhuchandra provides further fascinating information. He tells us that when Ramjay first arrived in Birsingha, he did so in the guise of a north Indian holy man (hindustani sannyasi). In this account, Ramjay spent some time wandering about the village for a while, keeping his identity secret. It was only when his youngest daughter, Annapurna, recognised him that he revealed himself.26 After rejoining his wife and children in Birsingha, Ramjay, seems to have been eager to reassert his role as karta or pater familias. For one, he felt it was beneath his dignity to remain in such a disgraceful situation, living in his father-in-law’s village. He, therefore, resolved to relocate to Vanamalipur. However, once Durga Devi recounted his brothers’ behaviour towards her, Ramjay seemed to change his mind

64 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

and agreed to keep his family in Birsingha.27 Not that this made him much happier, since Vidyasagar describes Durga Devi’s own brother as ‘proud and arrogant’.28 He tells us that his maternal uncle (mama) fancied himself a big man in the village and as such expected Ramjay to kowtow to him. One might think Durga Devi’s brother was within his rights to look down on his good-for-nothing brother-in-law, but Vidyasagar takes this as an occasion to praise Ramjay. He tells us Ramjay defiantly proclaimed, ‘I would rather leave home than bow to my brother-in-law’.29 Whether Ramjay felt any guilt or remorse for having left Durga Devi to struggle with family discord and poverty, Vidyasagar never says. At best he tells us Ramjay expressed immediate concern about the welfare of his eldest son, Thakurdas. When he learned that his son had gone to Calcutta in search of employment, Ramjay decided he ought to check on him. And so once again Ramjay set off on a journey, this time for Calcutta.30 By the time Ramjay was reunited with his son, Thakurdas was around twenty-three years old, well past the customary age for marriage. Ramjay felt pressed to make the appropriate arrangements. The plans for Thakurdas’ marriage provide Vidyasagar with an occasion to enter into another rather lengthy excursus, this time on the family history of Thakurdas’s future bride (and Vidyasagar’s mother), Bhagavati Devi.31 As it turns out, her story is no less dramatic than Durga Devi’s for its elements of family disharmony and dislocation. Bhagavati Devi hailed from the village of Goghat, not far from Birsingha, and also came from a family of pandits ; her own father had been a renowned scholar of Hindu law.32 However, Bhagavati Devi’s father had taken up the practice of esoteric meditation (tantra), which included the unorthodox practice of corpse meditation (shava-sadhana). It would appear that he invested such intense energy in this secret and unconventional practice that he wound up losing his mind. As a result, Bhagavati Devi’s mother had to leave her husband’s home and relocate to her ancestral village, of Patul, where she moved in with her father and brothers. When her maternal grandfather died, her mama (or maternal uncle) Radhamohan Vidyabhushan took over as head of the family. The first chapter of Vidyasagar’s autobiography ends with extended praise for Radhamohan’s caring and generous nature. Vidyasagar tells us that Radhamohan’s main aim in life was to lend assistance to local villagers who suffered from disaster or financial ruin. As Vidyasagar put it, Radhamohan may have been ‘well off’ but he never sought ‘to hoard that wealth or to use it for his own family’s happiness’.33 Instead,

Man in Motion

65

he used his wealth to provide food and assistance to those in need. As Vidyasagar notes, ‘one does not often find men as amiable, benevolent and strong as the revered Radhamohan Vidyabhushan’.34 In Vidyasagar’s praise of Radhamohan’s harmonious extended family, we find a striking contrast to the envy and neglect that Durga Devi experienced while living with her husband’s family in Vanamalipur. Clearly, Bhagavati Devi was fortunate to have had such relations.35 Notwithstanding Bhagavati Devi’s good fortune in landing in the care of Radhamohan, one cannot help but notice how unsettled, even vertiginous, the lives of Vidyasagar’s parents and grandparents were. This is a family shaped by unusual occasions of dislocation. Durga Devi had to return to her father’s home to raise her family; Bhagavati Devi’s mother, too, had to abandon her husband and flee to her natal home. Remarkably, it was none other than the wandering figure of Ramjay who helped create a connection between the relocated families of Durga Devi and Bhagavati Devi. And yet it probably comes as no surprise that neither Ramjay’s son Thakurdas nor his grandson Ishvarchandra actually grew up in the home of their fathers’ forebears. In this respect Ramjay represents the fundamental dislocation at the heart of Vidyasagar’s narrative. We begin to gain an appreciation for the interweaving of movement and genealogy, place and personality, within Vidyasagar’s narrative. By learning the stories of Ramjay, Durga Devi, Thakurdas and Bhagavati Devi, we begin to understand not just where Vidyasagar came from but what it is that made him. In Ramjay he saw the independence and energy it took to break with family to chart one’s course in the world; in Bhagavati Devi and Radhamohan, he found striking exemplars of love, affection and generosity.36

Lost in the City A major narrative strand in the first chapter of the autobiography that I have not yet addressed, but which is crucial for understanding how Vidyasagar drew meaning from his family history involves the hardships faced by young Thakurdas while trying to eke out a living in Calcutta, prior to Ramjay’s reappearance. This section of the text may be read on several levels: first, as a fond homage to his father’s strength and resolve; second, as a sketch of the challenges confronting the urbanmigrant in colonial Calcutta; and third, as an etiology for Vidyasagar’s own compassionate attitude towards women and the poor. In a different vein, this section could be read as both history and as charter

66 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

myth. In Vidyasagar’s account, it is his father’s perseverance in the face of extreme hunger and poverty, combined with the unexpected and selfless help he receives from a poor and nameless widow, which foreshadow the advent of another boy from Birsingha who would come to Calcutta, struggle with poverty, and eventually become an ardent spokesman for subjugated Bengali women. To retell this story, we need to go back to the time when Thakurdas first arrived in to Calcutta. At that time, he took advantage of family connections and stayed with a pandit named Jaganmohan Nyayalankar. Jaganmohan’s father was also a pandit and Jaganmohan had come to Calcutta to study under another well-known scholar, Chaturbhuj Nyayaratna.37 These details may seem extraneous but are important because they hark to the proud heritage of learning preserved within such pandit families, including Thakurdas’ own. Vidyasagar is explicit about how much it pained Thakurdas to present himself to Jaganmohan, not for the purpose of studying Sanskrit but merely in search for a roof over his head while he looked for employment. Contrary to his hopes of becoming a pandit, Thakurdas was to learn from his friends in Calcutta that with ‘a little knowledge of English’ he would find it easy to get work in ‘a European trading house’.38 And so his course was set. As it turned out Jaganmohan knew someone who had, what Vidyasagar calls, a ‘serviceable command of English’ and who agreed to teach Thakurdas at his home in the evenings.39 This posed a serious problem, however. According to Vidyasagar, guests staying at Jaganmohan’s house used to receive a meal just after sundown, but since Thakurdas had to leave before the meal was served, there were many nights when he went to bed on an empty stomach. One evening, a relative of Thakurdas’ teacher heard of this difficulty and offered to take him in. However, this man was a Shudra who recognised that his caste might well be a problem for a good Brahmin. So he reassured Thakurdas that ‘If you can cook for yourself, I can let you stay at my house’. Thakurdas moved to his house the following day.40 As Vidyasagar tells it, this gentleman had more kindness than money. As a result it wasn’t long before the two of them were only barely making ends meet. Once again Thakurdas had to struggle through days without eating. After trying unsuccessfully to hock his sole brass water pot and plate in New Market, Thakurdas saw his options rapidly vanishing.41 Vidyasagar recounts the pivotal moment in his father’s saga: One day around noon Thakurdas left his residence, weak with hunger. He set off walking absentmindedly, in the hope of forgetting his hunger

Man in Motion

67

pangs . . . By the time he had walked from Badabajar to Thanthaniya, he was so tired and overcome by hunger and thirst he could walk no further . . . [There was] a middle-aged widow sitting in a shop selling puffed rice. Seeing him standing there, the woman asked him, ‘Young man, why are you standing there?’ Thakurdas told her he was thirsty and asked for some water. She kindly offered him a seat. Then, deciding it would not be right to give a Brahmin boy only water, she offered him some sweetened parched rice with his water. Noticing how eagerly Thakurdas ate the puffed rice, she asked him, ‘Young man, haven’t you eaten today?’ ‘No, Ma’am, this is the first I have eaten today.’ To this she said, ‘Don’t drink your water yet; wait a minute.’ Then she went quickly to a dairy close by and brought back some yogurt. This, along with some more parched rice, made for a meal that filled Thakurdas’s stomach. Once she had heard the details of his situation, she insisted, ‘Anytime this happens, come here and I will feed you’.42

The scene is one of great pathos in its own right, but Vidyasagar’s comment on the widow’s kindness transforms this piece of history into an explanation for what is, often, taken to be one of the defining aspects of his identity. Immediately after narrating this encounter, he writes, ‘When I heard this heart-rending story from my father, it kindled an unbearable blaze of sorrow in my heart, matched in intensity only by the profound respect for women it engendered in me’.43 When one considers the autobiography as a text that works to keep the ‘self’ of Vidyasagar at some distance, a comment like this must surely attract our attention, as it has most subsequent readers and biographers. It is amplified later, in the second chapter, by Vidyasagar’s comments about the affectionate treatment he received from a young widow named Raimani on his first momentous visit to Calcutta. Vidyasagar tells us more about Raimani than about the young widow who took pity on Thakurdas. Raimani was one of the sisters of the gentleman who had offered Thakurdas a place to stay in those early days. Raimani had a son named Gopalchandra Ghosh, who became friends with Vidyasagar. While living in their house, Vidyasagar tells us Raimani cared for him as if he were her own son. Vidyasagar used to address Raimani’s brother as ‘big brother’ (dada); likewise he addressed Raimani, who was the younger of two sisters, as his ‘little big sister’ (choto didi). He tells us he never once felt as if he were living in someone else’s home. His account of her love appears to provide a clear etiology for his subsequent efforts to improve the lot of Bengali women,

68 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

especially widows. He tells us that Raimani’s image resided in his heart ‘like an image of the goddess’.44 Indeed, he can scarcely mention her name without being ‘moved to tears’. Then, in a moment of frank autobiographical reflection he adds: Many say that I am an advocate for women. I suppose they are right. Anyone who could witness Raimani’s love, compassion and goodness, and enjoy the fruits of her virtues, and not become an advocate for women would have to be the most vile and ungrateful person on this earth.45

Needless to say, this passage is often cited in the literature on Vidyasagar; it marks one of those places commentators have looked for clues to his essential identity. Thus, for Gopal Haldar the way Vidyasagar writes about Raimani and Bhagavati Devi points us (the readers) to his very core.46 That core, as we shall see in the next chapter, has been endlessly celebrated through epithets, such as ‘ocean of compassion’ (karuna sagar) and ‘friend to the weak’ (abalabandhu), which have become synonymous with the man.47 For major biographers, the stories of Thakurdas and Raimani account for the genesis of the man who would go on to argue against child marriage, plead on behalf of Hindu widows, and fight to outlaw the custom of polygamy, which (along with child marriage) he took to be a root cause for child widowhood in colonial Bengal. To go further in that interpretive direction is to run the risk of slipping into hagiography. While it is difficult to ignore Vidyasagar’s uniquely revelatory statements in this context, we must also bear in mind that these remarks were crafted by the man who was already widely known as the champion of Bengali women. In that respect, rather than revealing his identity they may simply serve to confirm public expectation. I do not mean to diminish the force of such revelations for readers of the autobiography. I merely seek to augment our understanding of Vidyasagar and his self-narrative by highlighting the way meaning emerges from a dynamic combination of vulnerability, risk, and opportunity. Such a combination is evident in Thakurdas’s story. While still a boy, he leaves home and travels to Calcutta in search of employment, a move that entails forfeiting his aspiration of becoming a pandit. His circumstances in the city are so dire that he is forced to move in with a Shudra benefactor. But even this arrangement fails and he finds himself wandering in the streets of Calcutta. Just when it seems he has run

Man in Motion

69

out of options, he is rescued through the charity of a poor widow. This single act of kindness from a nameless widow marks a turning point in Thakurdas’s story. Shortly after, he was able to land a job that paid two rupees per month; in another few years, he was making a decent salary of five rupees a month, which ‘relieved his family’s sufferings a little further’.48 Only then does the wandering Ramjay return to Birsingha, track down his son in Calcutta, and arrange for his marriage to Bhagavati Devi.

Birth of the Bull Calf Against this dramatic backdrop, we may now return to the birth of Ishvarchandra, which is narrated in the first three paragraphs of the autobiography. As we have seen, the first information he gives us is that he was born in 1820 in the village of Birsingha; shortly after, he tells us this wasn’t the ancestral home on either his father’s or his mother’s side.49 With the benefit of our rather circuitous route through the text, we now appreciate the import of this disclaimer. And we can appreciate more fully the irony that the man who would hereafter be known as the ‘lion cub of Birsingha’ (Birsingher singha shishu) only happened to be born there by virtue of curious disruptions and dislocations.50 In light of all we have seen thus far it should hardly surprise us to learn that his birth was also marked by a series of comings and goings. After their marriage, Thakurdas had arranged for Bhagavati Devi to live in his parents’ house in Birsingha. He then returned to Calcutta. The autobiography doesn’t tell us what became of Ramjay, but Shambhuchandra tells us he departed Birsingha once again, determined to spend the remainder of his life in holy pilgrimage.51 As Shambhuchandra says, Ramjay was confident that he had done enough to ensure that his family was secure and his son satisfactorily employed. It seems like a strange decision, in the light of all his family had been through, but it accords with the independent and unpredictable character sketched for us by Vidyasagar. At some point, Bhagavati Devi became pregnant and, while Vidyasagar does not mention it, Shambhuchandra tells us that her pregnancy was marked by a mysterious bout of madness.52 This is certainly intriguing given our knowledge of her father’s lapse into madness. But the claim takes on another significance when we bear in mind that her madness is mentioned in connection with the birth story of a great man. In such a context, we might expect to see evidence of signs

70 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

and wonders, and portents of greatness. In Shambhuchandra’s account the portents are clear, even if Vidyasagar remains silent on the events leading up to his birth. At this point, one must bear in mind that Ramjay has disappeared in the Himalayas. While it had been his intention to live out his days as a pilgrim, Shambhuchandra tells us Ramjay had another dream in which a disembodied voice asked why he was wasting his time in useless pilgrimage. Did he not know that a child was about to be born that would be the glory of his lineage?53 Shambhuchandra tells us that, at first, Ramjay ignored the dream. However, when the dream recurred Ramjay knew something big was afoot and he set out for home again. By the time he arrived at Birsingha, Bhagavati Devi was not only pregnant but had completely lost her senses. People feared she had been possessed by ghosts or evil spirits and numerous remedies were tried. However, the doctor/astrologer, who examined her announced she was carrying the child of a god and would return to health upon his birth.54 None of this appears in the autobiography. Vidyasagar’s account is understandably less mythic, but it is also a far more intimate account of the circumstances around the time of his birth. When Vidyasagar takes up the story, Ramjay had returned to Birsingha. On the day he was born, it just so happened that Thakurdas had left town to visit a local market. As fate would have it, of all people, it was Ramjay who was at home. In due course he went to fetch Thakurdas. Vidyasagar tells us: [Ramjay] went to give [Thakurdas] the news; he met him on the way and said, ‘You have a new bull calf’. At that time there was a pregnant cow at home and it was possible that she, too, could have delivered. So when he heard my grandfather, my father thought the cow had calved. The two of them came home and my father headed for the cow-shed to see the new bull calf. My grandfather smiled and said, ‘Not that way; come here, I’ll show you the bull calf’. Then he took him to the lying-in room and showed him the ‘bull calf’.

Given that Ramjay was so often absent, it is remarkable to find him not just present for the birth, but also deputed to convey the news to the absent father. Vidyasagar, apparently, saw no irony in this, but must have preferred to read the story of his birth as proof of a profound connection with his grandfather Ramjay. Shambhuchandra, actually, amplifies the central role assigned to Ramjay in Vidyasagar’s

Man in Motion

71

birth narrative. He tells us that immediately after the boy was born, Ramjay wrote something on the baby’s tongue with lac dye, proclaiming that he had ensured the boy would need no one to initiate him later in life; that is, Ramjay had effectively assumed the role of dikshaguru for the boy.55 In his biography, Biharilal claims that Vidyasagar denied this story as ‘baseless’ and it is true that he does not mention it in the autobiography.56 Clearly, Biharilal was happy with Vidyasagar’s repudiation of this small event, since it bolstered his fundamental complaint that Vidyasagar had never received proper diksha as every twice-born Hindu should.57 Such details aside, it seems clear that it was Ramjay’s decision to name the boy Ishvarchandra.58 The story of Vidyasagar’s birth is wonderful in its own right, filled with a kind of magic. The fact that Bhagavati Devi promptly regained her senses helps confirm all the portents that her child was indeed special. The connection between the peripatetic sage Ramjay and the future reformer is also clearly cemented. Even so Vidyasagar goes on to provide the following gloss that offers yet another frame within which to make sense of Vidyasagar’s putative independence and stubborn resolve: [t]he significance of this little story [that is, of the bull calf] is that throughout my childhood, I was very willful. My father could not overcome my willfulness with either beatings or reproaches. At that time [Thakurdas] used to tell people about my grandfather’s joke, ‘He really is a bull calf. Father [that is, Ramjay] may have been joking, but he was a genuine sage. His joke has not proven false. The little fellow has come to be more stubborn than my bull’. When I was born, my grandfather had jokingly called me a bull calf. According to astrological calculation, I was born in the sign of the bull [Vrishabha or Taurus]. And, at times, the characteristics of a bull became very noticeable in my character — especially in my behaviour.59

Born under the sign of the bull, grandson of a bull among men, young Ishvarchandra showed all the signs of being an indomitable leader and agent of change. According to a more recent biography, it would be the willfulness of the bull calf that would allow this child of a ‘conservative family’ steeped in ‘countless ages of ancient culture’ to break free and become the guiding voice of the ‘progressive movement’ in Bengal.60 By Vidyasagar’s own account, he was ‘an object of terror’ to his neighbours.61 Like the child Krishna, Ishvarchandra was a willful and unruly child, nothing if not ‘naughty’.62 This was a child who seemed to run reckless through the village, a restless young rebel. Shambhuchandra

72 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

tells us that there was even a time when Ishvar routinely stopped on his way to school to defecate outside the house of a neighbour by the name of Nathuram Mandal. Shambhuchandra tells us that Nathuram’s mother Parvati and wife Subhadra always cleaned up the mess. Many times Subhadra grew livid at this ‘naughty little Brahmin’ (dushtu bamun) and threatened to report him to his schoolmaster. Invariably, her mother-in-law would intervene and remind Subhadra that the boy wasn’t really ‘normal’ (sahaj). Hadn’t his grandfather Ramjay spent twelve years as a wandering ascetic? Wasn’t Ramjay a rishi (sage)? And hadn’t Ramjay proclaimed that Ishvar was destined for greatness? Parvati was happy to clean up after Ishvar.63

On Making Sense of It All Like many of his bhadralok peers, Vidyasagar would always have, at least, two homes, in Birsingha and Calcutta, respectively. As a result, he would be in an almost constant state of movement between the two. In time, however, his regular transit between these two poles would be altered by the gravitational pull of new locales. In the prime of his career he would routinely journey between Calcutta and regional centres, such as Burdwan and Krishnagar, not to mention up-country destinations, such as Varanasi in North India, where his father settled late in life. In time, Vidyasagar would make a drastic and emotional break with his native village, revealing yet again the almost brutal force of his will and re-enacting a fundamental motif from Ramjay’s life story. This act of renunciation would, eventually, be mirrored in his rejection of Calcutta, when he began to show a preference for the environs of Karmatar and the company of the local Santhali residents. If we make an effort to look past the hagiographical accounts of his greatness and read between the lines of his own remarkable selfnarrative, we catch glimpses of a rather elusive man reacting to a world of changing prospects and possibilities. He was surely equipped with singular gifts, but the meaning of such gifts only become apparent once we allow him to tell his own story or set out to write our own; destiny, in this sense, is retroactive rather than given at birth. One might even say that his family’s history was hardly unique. Stories similar to the dislocation and suffering of his forbears (mentioned earlier) were played out countless times across rural Bengal during the same period. It is only by being incorporated into Vidyasagar’s curious self-narrative that the particular movements and struggles of his ancestors begin to provide a kind of prologue to his singular life. As we think of the effort

Man in Motion

73

he took to weave the peregrinations of his parents and grandparents into his life story we can’t help asking, does character pass from generation to generation? What gives coherence to a single life? What makes a Brahmin become a rebel? Earlier in this chapter, I quoted an author who lavished praise on Vidyasagar for breaking free from the confines of his family’s Brahminical past. But did he really break free? Krishnakamal Bhattacharya, a younger contemporary, actually faulted Vidyasagar for his ‘overweening sense of being a Brahmin pandit’ (ekanta ‘bamun panditi’ bhava).64 In view of the discussion of adhikara bheda, this is a rather serious verdict. And yet, having met Ramjay and considered the consequences for Vidyasagar’s family of his grandfather’s unyielding pride, we cannot simply dismiss Krishnakamal’s comments as those of a mere contrarian. If anything, Krishnakamal provides a rare first-person testimony allowing us to draw a more faithful portrait of Vidyasagar as a willful and cantankerous individual. Other voices confirm his assessment. The son of one of Vidyasagar’s closest pandit friends reported hearing a former teacher at the Sanskrit College say that even though Vidyasagar had been his pupil, he was no longer brave enough to speak to him.65 Such comments informed my own earlier reflections on Vidyasagar, where I attempted to trace the roots of his anger at social injustice to his sense of Brahminical privilege. On that occasion, I likened him to the mythical rishi Durvasas, who cursed the damsel Shakuntala for her failure to greet him with due respect. In that context I wrote, ‘If socially the Brahmin is revered as a guardian of learning, individually he may often be feared as a repository of righteous anger’.66 Drawing support from a comparison made even earlier by Benoy Ghosh, I went on to conclude that the intensity and conviction of certain Brahmin reformers, such as Rammohan Roy and Vidyasagar, may have derived from their ‘conviction . . . that as Brahmins they had a special responsibility toward their community, but also that they spoke and acted from a position of awesome authority’.67 Surely contemporaries like Krishnakamal and later commentators like Benoy Ghosh are right to emphasise Vidyasagar’s fundamental stubbornness. It is hard not to think such unyielding confidence derived, at least, in part from a sense of Brahminical privilege; perhaps we might even call it adhikara or a sense of entitlement. After all, as we observed in the previous chapter, Vidyasagar’s challenge to adhikara bheda (or the idea of inherent difference) was neither complete nor consistent. The persistence of his own sense of entitlement as a

74 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

Brahmin might be for us but another way of marking the enigma of his modernity. A complex and elusive figure with a considerable after-life, in the Bengali and the pan-Indian imagination, we glimpse his Brahmin identity the way we glimpse his religious beliefs, through a glass darkly. In the end, we must find ways to talk about him as a man who could be a tolerant humanist egalitarian as well as a person who benefitted from and was motivated by a deep-seated sense of Brahminical authority.68 This may actually help make sense of the otherwise counterintuitive observation that the great social reformer, who liberated the Hindu widow, was himself a Brahmin pandit. Perhaps, it took such a man to master the texts and challenge the prejudices that had held the widow captive. We have been led to such conclusions thanks to the meandering text of Vidyasagar’s autobiography. Even though his birth plays but a small role in the story, we understand how the story of his birth is, in fact, reinforced by the structure of the entire work; a work that otherwise might appear to tell us very little about Vidyasagar. As it turns out, the intersecting tales that make up the autobiography and that create such a dizzy reading experience work to replicate the movement and dislocation experienced by Vidyasagar’s forebears. Through these episodic rambles, Vidyasagar opens up spaces for discovery — discoveries about the nature of the family, about human affection and pride, and about suffering, kindness and generosity. If Thakurdas’ saga forms the emotional core of the text, Ramjay is the ultimate anchor of the narrative. While the former’s struggles in Calcutta proved to be a defining moment in Vidyasagar’s own moral development, it was the latter’s inscrutable and indomitable spirit that Vidyasagar seems to have channelled to fight his own battles. As a whole, the work throws into relief a world of uncertainty, risk and suffering even as it works to account for the genesis of an individual who would be a righteous champion of those in need.

Notes 1. See Velcheru Narayana and Sanjay Subrahmanyam. 2006. ‘Circulation, Piety and Innovation: Recounting Travels in Early Nineteenth-century South India’, in Claude Markovitz et. al. (eds), Society and Circulation: Mobile People and Itinerant Cultures in South Asia, 1750–1950. New York: Anthem Press, p. 306. 2. Paraphrased from Haldar. Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. 486.

Man in Motion

75

3. Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar. 1893. Vidyasagar Charita (Svarachita), ed. by Narayanchandra Bandyopadhyay. 2nd Ed. Calcutta: Calcutta Library. 4. For an English translation, see Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar. 1993. ‘My Life, Iswarchandra Sarma’, in Manik Mukhopadhyay (ed.), The Golden Book of Vidyasagar. Calcutta: Vidyasagar Death Centenary Committee, pp. 25–38. 5. Vidyasagar, Vidyasagar Charita, p. i. 6. For more details, see Sudipto Kaviraj. 2004. ‘The Invention of Private Life: A Reading of Shibnath Shastri’s Autobiography’, in David Arnold and Stuart Blackburn (eds), Telling Lives in India: Biography, Autobiography, and Life History. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, p. 85. 7. See Brian A. Hatcher, 2001. ‘Sanskrit Pandits Recall their Youth: Two Autobiographies from Nineteenth-Century Bengal’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 121(4): pp. 580–92. 8. Quoted from Engseng Ho. 2006. The Graves of Tarim: Genealogy and Mobility across the Indian Ocean. Berkeley: University of California Press, p. xxv. 9. Vidyasagar, Vidyasagar Charita. 10. The British instituted the practice of measuring distances in terms of miles. The older Indian unit of measurement, the krosh, is equivalent to 3.2 kilometres. 11. Vidyasagar, Vidyasagar Charita, pp. 47–50. (My translation.) 12. Even a work intended to raise critical questions about the tendency to glorify Vidyasagar’s role in Bengal’s so-called ‘Renaissance’ cannot escape playing with the trope of the milestones; see Sen, Vidyasagar and his Elusive Milestones. 13. It is worth pointing out, as well, that not all of young Ishvarchandra’s journeys proved to be as successful. On another trip to Calcutta, he apparently fell deathly ill with dysentery and had to return to the village to recover (Vidyasagar, Vidyasagar Charita , p. 43). 14. Vidyasagar, Vidyasagar Charita., p. 1. Vidyasagar gives the date as 12 Ashvin 1742 Shaka. 15. For more on pandits generally, see Hatcher. 2011. ‘Pandita’. Encyclopedia of Hinduism. Vol. 3. Leiden: Brill, pp. 245–51. 16. Vidyasagar, Vidyasagar Charita, p. 3. 17. Ibid., pp. 4–5. 18. Ibid., p. 4. 19. Ibid., p. 5; also, Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, p. 3 20. These details are largely from Shambhuchandra’s account; see Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, pp. 3–4. 21. See Vidyasagar, Vidyasagar Charita, p. 8; Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, p. 4. 22. Vidyasagar, Vidyasagar Charita, pp. 9–10. 23. Ibid., p. 17. 24. Ibid., p. 18.

76 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

31. 32. 33. 34. 35.

36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42.

43.

44. 45. 46. 47.

48. 49. 50.

Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, p. 4. Ibid., p. 4. Vidyasagar, Vidyasagar Charita, p. 18. Ibid., p. 32. Ibid., p. 32 Ibid., 18. This account does not quite square with Shambhuchandra’s account, who says that Ramjay returned to Birsingha before Thakurdas went to Calcutta; further, Ramjay was the one who took his eldest son there. For details, see Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, p. 4. Bhagavati Devi was about nine years old when she married Thakurdas; see Haldar, Vidyasagar Janani Bhagavati Devi, p. 9. Vidyasagar, Vidyasagar Charita, p. 20. Ibid., p. 27 Ibid. Vidyasagar tells us his mother regularly took her children to stay with Radhamohan, sometimes for as long as five or six months; see Vidyasagar, Vidyasagar Charita, p. 27. Radhamohan is an excellent illustration of the special place of affection reserved for the maternal uncle (mama) in Bengali family life. See Vidyasagar, Vidyasagar Charita, p. 8. Ibid., p. 10. Ibid. Ibid., p. 12. Ibid., p. 13. Ibid., pp. 14–15. The widow was not a Brahmin and therefore was prohibited from feeding Thakurdas cooked food. Commenting on this episode, Vidyasagar’s younger contemporary Romesh Chunder Dutt noted there is ‘a touch of true Hindu life in this simple story’ (quoted in Mitra, Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, p. xiv). Vidyasagar, Vidyasagar Charita, p. 16. Vidyasagar adds: ‘If that shopkeeper had been a man, he never would have shown Thakurdas such compassion and parental affection’. Ibid., p. 40. Ibid., p. 40. Haldar, Vidyasagar: A Reassessment, p. 15. See Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, p. 1. Because abala may also mean ‘woman’ the epithet abalabandhu carries the additional sense of ‘the woman’s friend’. Vidyasagar, Vidyasagar Charita, pp. 17–18. Birsingha lies in Midnapur District, about 50 miles west of Calcutta. The phrase appears in a poem composed by Satyendranath Datta, as quoted in Gaurishankar Ray. 1988. Sagar Pranam. Calcutta: Vidyasagar Research Center, p. 21.

Man in Motion 51. 52. 53. 54. 55.

56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62.

63.

64. 65. 66. 67. 68.

77

Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, p. 10. Ibid., p. 11. Ibid., p. 10. Ibid., pp. 11–12. According to Shambhuchandra, this dye caused Ishvarchandra to stutter as a boy (see Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, p. 12). This stutter plagued him later in life, as mentioned in B. B. Gupta. 1966. Puratan Prasanga. Calcutta: Vidyabharati, pp. 104 and 306. Sarkar, Vidyasagar: Ishvarchandra Vidyasagarer Jivani, p. 19. On diksha and the role of the guru, see Chintaharan Chakravarti. 2001. Hindur Achara Anushthana. Calcutta: Papyrus, p. 156. See Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, p. 12. Vidyasagar, Vidyasagar Charita, p. 2. (My translation.) Quoted from S. K. Basu. 1981. Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar. Rashtriya Jivana Charitamala. New Delhi: National Book Trust, p. 91. A comment made later in life and quoted in Mitra, Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, p. 26. The mythic Krishna is lovingly remembered as the ‘butter-thief’, who caused his mother no end of trouble. Subal Chandra Mitra compares Ishvarchandra to young Chaitanya as well as Shakespeare, Wordsworth and Lord Clive! For more details, see Mitra, Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, p. 25. Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, p. 15. For other scatological stories, see Bandyopadhyay, Vidyasagar, p. 22 and Vidyasagar, Vidyasagar Charita, p. 34. Quoted in Gupta, Puratan Prasanga, p. 46. See Harishchandra Kaviratna. 1925. ‘Sekaler Sanskrit College’, Prabasi, 25(1): p. 647. Quoted from Hatcher, Idioms of Improvement, pp. 30–31. Ibid. See also, Ghosh, Vidyasagar o Bangali Samaj, p. 2. See Brajendranath Bandyopadhyay. 1948. ‘Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar’, in Sahitya Sadhaka Charitamala, Vol. 2. Calcutta: Bangiya Sahitya Parisat, p. 124. Bandyopadhyay asserts there was not a trace of ‘bigotry’ (gomdami) about Vidyasagar.

4 The Stuff of Legends It is one thing when someone refuses to speak about himself and offers only allusive clues or indirect avenues of approach to his character or personality. It is another when so much has been said about him that it sometimes seems there is no other story to tell. In Vidyasagar’s case, the critic faces both sorts of challenge. However, if it was possible to catch glimpses of the man through the self-distancing text of his autobiography, I cannot help asking whether there is some way to examine the most commonplace markers of his identity and make them speak to us anew. This is the task of the present chapter, in which I want to explore the Vidyasagar enshrined in biography and popular memory as a friend of the friendless, a patron of the poor and a champion of the powerless. He may have been a stern and principled educator and administrator but he is also fondly remembered as a man who could be moved by the song of wandering holy man or the story of child widow. His heart is said to have melted at the sight of injustice, especially when visited upon the ‘weaker’ (abala) sex; his compassion, generosity and empathy are legendary and have spawned a range of hagiographical labels. He is revered not only as an ocean of learning (vidyasagar), but also as an ocean of compassion (karuna sagar) and generosity (dana sagar), a friend of the weak (abalabandhu) and the poor (dina bandhu). In some respects, these labels adhere to the life and character of Vidyasagar like an armature of papier mache applied over an inflated balloon. They may do no more than suggest the outline of the man but, for better or worse, they have also become the man. It is through these labels that generations have come to know Vidyasagar. It is tempting to suggest that removing this armature would expose only a void; a rigorously anti-essentialist approach would require us to acknowledge that there is no ‘real’ Vidyasagar beneath the hagiographic sheath. I am unwilling to pursue the analogy or the ontology that far. As I pointed out earlier, there is no shortage of empirically verifiable evidence to employ in our quest to understand Vidyasagar. And yet, when

The Stuff of Legends

79

we recognise the manner in which such evidence is imbricated in the after-life of Vidyasagar, we are forced to come to terms with the fact of their mutual entanglement. Is there some way we can retain the labels and yet ask them to give a better account of our subject? If not, then Vidyasagar becomes the human equivalent of the ‘World’s Most Photographed Barn’ in Don Delillo’s novel White Noise.1 No one can say what the barn looks like; they only see the ‘World’s Most Photographed Barn’.2

Plate 6: Storefront mural of Vidyasagar, North Kolkata (2012)

We have to accept that these labels have clustered around Vidyasagar for good reasons, even if those reasons sometimes have as much to do with the desires and needs of others as they do with Vidyasagar’s own inherent qualities. We have seen that the idea of Vidyasagar as a humanist can be understood in relation to a particular constellation of late colonial attitudes about the modern self, the Bengali character, and the Indian nation. Rather than rejecting the utility of the label ‘humanist’, we discovered in Chapter Two that there were, in fact, ways to make the label say something more particular about Vidyasagar. In this chapter, by focusing on Vidyasagar through epithets such as ‘ocean of compassion’, ‘ocean of generosity’ and ‘friend of the poor’, I want to ask whether such descriptions can be made to support a more nuanced understanding of his values, aspirations and life’s work.

80 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

Love’s Labour In December of 1854, Vidyasagar published a Bengali narrative re-telling of Kalidasa’s fifth-century Sanskrit drama, Abhijnanashakuntalam.3 The drama takes its title from the heroine Shakuntala and from the token (abhijnana) of love given to her by her lover and husband. As told by Kalidasa, the drama of Shakuntala is a story about love, memory, suffering and fate.4 By entangling the course of its protagonists’ romance in the tendrils of suffering and despair, it is a story that reminds us of the awful power of love. We are reminded that love is unpredictable, unbearable; even violent. Like fate itself, love can ruin a life even as it impels a person onward; it can shatter hope and yet, somehow, also be the only hope remaining. In order to illustrate how these themes operate in the story, in the following paragraphs I have paraphrased (with occasional direct translations) Vidyasagar’s retelling of the Shakuntala story.5 Long, long ago there lived in India a mighty ruler named Dushyanta. Once, on a hunting expedition, he set his sights on a lovely fawn. Just as he pulled his bowstring taut, he heard the shouts of two hermits calling to him. ‘Kind Sir, don’t shoot! That deer lives in our hermitage. Please show mercy!’ The king was moved by their pleas and he dropped his bow. The hermits approached him and raised their hands in blessing. ‘Lord, since you have voluntarily held back your death-dealing arrows, we bless you in return and pray that you may be the father of a glorious son who will rule the world with the same majesty and mercy’. And with this blessing, the two hermits invited King Dushyanta to visit their hermitage, abode of the great sage Kanva. When the king asked after the sage, he was told that Kanva had left the hermitage briefly but that his daughter Shakuntala had been charged with receiving guests. The king decided to take the sages up on their hospitality and made for the hermitage, where he came upon the lovely Shakuntala, at play with two of her friends. At that very moment, Shakuntala screamed in fear as an enormous bumblebee made its appearance and began to harass her. The king thought, ‘This is, perhaps, the perfect time to approach the fair maiden. But I’d rather not introduce myself as the king’. With this thought in mind, he stepped forward and greeted the women, praying they lived safely in the protection of their king. The women welcomed their visitor, believing him to be a minister of the king charged with visiting all the sacred sites in the realm and

The Stuff of Legends

81

assured him all was well; Shakuntala had just been a bit frightened by a passing bee. Readers of Indian literature will know that kings and young maidens cannot be left alone without new dramas unfolding. Before long, King Dushyanta fell deeply in love with Shakuntala and the two were wed in secrecy. When the time came for the king to return to his capital, he realised he could not take Shakuntala with him. But he gave her a ring inscribed with his name as a token (that is, the abhijnana, or ‘token of recognition’ in Kalidasa’s original title) and pledge of his love. After his departure, Shakuntala became withdrawn as she pined for her absent lover. However, one day she was so lost in reverie that she failed to properly welcome a Brahmin sage named Durvasas who visited the hermitage. Durvasas was angered at this breach of the codes of hospitality. Without her knowledge, he cursed her: ‘Whoever it is that occupies your thoughts such that you disregard me, let him fail to remember you even when you try to remind him’. By chance, Shakuntala’s friends happened to hear these awful words and pleaded with Durvasas to show mercy. While a sage cannot take back his curse once it has been uttered, Durvasas was convinced to temper the curse by assuring Shakuntala’s friends that her lover would recall her as long as she presented him with some token. Her friends were delighted, knowing that such a token already existed in the form of the king’s ring. Time passed and through it all the lovers remained separated. Eventually, the secret of Shakuntala’s marriage emerged. Her father Kanva immediately insisted she leave for the capital to rejoin Dushyanta. But oh, the whims of fate! On her way to meet her husband, Shakuntala happened to lose the ring while bathing in a river. Due to the curse, when she presented herself to Dushyanta he greeted her as a complete stranger. She implored him with tears pouring down her face, but he only grew impatient. She was forced to depart in distress. Meanwhile, a fisherman from a nearby community was found to be in possession of a valuable ring inscribed with the king’s name. A local constable, recognising the ring’s worth and provenance, took the poor fisherman into custody. Shortly, he was presented before the king, to whom he pleaded for mercy. He swore upon his innocence, claiming that he had found the ring when he cut open the belly of a fish. When the ring was placed in the king’s hand, he immediately recalled Shakuntala and was just as quickly plunged into an ocean of grief. Only now did he realise that it had been Shakuntala who had come to him

82 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

and begged for his recognition. Had he lost his mind? Would he ever see his beloved again? The days passed and the king could do little to restore his peace of mind. One day, while he was travelling about his realm, he drew near a remarkable mountain. His inquiries revealed that it was the home of the mighty sage Kashyapa. The king felt it was his duty to stop and pay his respects. As he awaited his audience with Kashyapa, the king’s arm began to tremble. What was this? Some omen of ill events? Surely not in such an enchanted place? Growing curious, the king began to explore. Before long, he came across two hermit maidens watching a handsome young boy tease a lion cub. The king thought, ‘When I look at this child my heart is softened by affection just as if I were looking at my own son. How could that be?’ Moving forward to gain a better view, the king happened to catch a glimpse of the child’s hands. They bore all the characteristic marks of a great ruler. The love he felt for the boy only seemed to grow. He said to himself: Why do I have the desire to take this unknown child on my lap? I have never before experienced such affection upon seeing someone else’s child. Oh, what indescribable joy must that fortunate father feel when he takes this child on his lap and kisses him . . . I am so unfortunate. I am deprived of the greatest pleasure that comes to a family. I would take my son on my lap, kiss his face and soothe his whole body . . . But this hope has been banished from my life.6

Meanwhile, the young boy carried on teasing the lion cub despite the increasingly distressed pleas of the two maidens. At a loss for how to restrain the child, they looked around for help. That’s when they spotted the king watching nearby. They called to him, ‘Sir, would you please release the poor cub from the grip of this child?’ The king immediately obliged by stepping forward and calling to the boy, ‘Hey there, young sage’. At this, the maidens laughed. ‘This is no sage’s child’, they said. ‘He belongs to the lineage of Puru and only came here because his mother was cast off by a heartless ruler whose name we cannot bear to mention’. The king was about to ask the mother’s name when Shakuntala herself stepped into view. In that instant, the two lovers were reunited and the king found himself the father of a glorious son. He spoke to Shakuntala, [b]eloved, on the day I spurned you I took no heed of the streams of tears that flowed from your eyes. Since then, my heart has been torn apart by

The Stuff of Legends

83

pain. Now, as I wipe the tears from your eyes I shall drive away all that sorrow.7

Present-day readers may feel that such prose borders on the melodramatic. Vidyasagar was not averse to playing on his readers’ heart strings and some critics have complained that works such as his Shakuntala prompt too many tears to qualify as high art.8 Critics have also complained that while Kalidasa’s original drama embodied the complex aesthetics of classical Sanskrit drama, Vidyasagar’s version amounts to little more than a crib.9 However, there is a ready reply to both sorts of objection. It is, by now, widely accepted that what Vidyasagar wanted to accomplish in Shakuntala and in related works like ‘The Exile of Sita’ (Sitar Vanavasa, based on a work by the dramatist Bhavabhuti) was to establish a new standard for Bengali prose, then still in its infancy. Not only did Vidyasagar’s prose help establish all sorts of formal beacons by which other authors could navigate (in terms of verbal forms, punctuation, and sentence structure); he also modelled a kind of narrative flow and verbal clarity that was virtually unmatched in its day. He may have been no Kalidasa, but many have since agreed with Rabindranath Tagore’s verdict that he was ‘the first true artist of the Bengali language’.10 Even so, such formal considerations overlook deeper questions of meaning and significance. I would argue that stories such as Shakuntala also reveal something about Vidyasagar. For instance, I have always found it striking that Vidyasagar chose to publish his vernacular version of Kalidasa’s drama just as he was contemplating the fate of countless Hindu widows, who had been left alone to face the miseries of enforced austerity and hardship. His Shakuntala appeared in December of 1854. The first book of his epochal Hindu Widow Marriage (Vidhava Vivaha) was published the very next month. There is something rather uncanny about the emotional parallels between the literary work and the reformist campaign. One could say that both the widows and Shakuntala had been abandoned and forgotten; their only hope of deliverance lay in her being recognised. And yet, how could this be accomplished? In both cases, they were the unwitting victims of a curse, the curse of forgetfulness. Dushyanta’s failure to recognise his beloved, thus, mirrors the failure of Hindu society to recognise the suffering of the widow; a token was needed to lift the curse. I find it hard to imagine that Vidyasagar did not have Shakuntala on his mind as he

84 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

sifted through the Hindu shastras in search of a scriptural ‘token’, some indisputable proof that their plight was, in no way, necessary. 11 The problem of forgetfulness and delusion is, of course, deeply rooted in South Asian religious culture, with the goal for Hindus, Buddhists and Jains being in some fundamental sense simply to see things as they really are. Whether in folktales or lofty soteriologies, some kind of ‘awakening’ is the answer. To awaken is to learn to recognise things for what they really are. Often the means toward achieving such awareness involve strategies of renunciation, which might vary from the extremes of world renunciation to a range of less rigorous practices of abstinence, austerity or mental restraint. But Hindus, in particular, have never elevated the world-renouncing yogi to such an extent that they have blinded themselves to beauty, love, the joys of family, or the rewards of worldly pleasure. Another way to say this is to acknowledge that in the Hindu tradition, self-knowledge and renunciation are enacted across a wide spectrum of human practice. As proof it is worth noting that even a renunciant sage like Kanva is far from immune to the pangs of sorrow caused by his daughter’s departure. In fact, it is none other than the great forest-dwelling hermit Kanva who gives vent to the pain he feels when pondering Shakuntala’s departure from his hermitage. It is not transcendent wisdom but human anguish that leads him to ask, in Kalidasa’s original, ‘How do fathers bear the pain/Of each daughter’s parting?’12 Kanva’s outburst marks a powerful aesthetic moment in the text, eliciting deep feelings of compassion (karuna rasa) from its audience.13 In his Bengali version, Vidyasagar underscored these feelings by adding the declaration, ‘Love is a terrible thing’.14 In Hindu society, the departure of a daughter is fraught with intense emotion. Because daughters are customarily given away in marriage, they are expected to leave home and take up new lives in their husband’s home. For this reason the pain of separation is almost innate in the experience of raising daughters. What father can bear to see his daughter leave home? And if a father is pained at the sight of his daughter leaving to join her husband, what must a father feel when his daughter is left a widow? Can he remain unmoved while his widowed daughter is ostracised by her family and by society? What does he feel when she is condemned by custom to a life of austerity and loneliness?15 As far as Vidyasagar was concerned, any father who could remain unmoved by a widow’s sufferings had to be living under some kind of

The Stuff of Legends

85

curse. He makes this explicit in the conclusion to the second book of Hindu Widow Marriage: Alas, people of India! For how much longer will you lay prostrate on a bed of delusion? Open your eyes just once . . . [Y]ou are overwhelmed by the accumulation of vile customs, enslaved to local custom, and consecrated by your firmly held vow to protect what is popular . . . Your intellect and your sense of duty are both vitiated and subdued by errors of habit; your long-dessicated heart feels no surge of compassion at the sight of the poor widow’s plight.16

When one reads Hindu Widow Marriage in conjunction with Shakuntala, one realises how wrong it is to dismiss the latter story as mere melodrama. This is not pulp fiction, nor is it merely an abstract exercise in translating Sanskrit aesthetic theory into Bengali prose. Rather, one might argue that these two works, Shakuntala and Hindu Widow Marriage, represent the two prongs of a concerted strategy to advance the cause of women’s welfare. Both works point unerringly to the human predicament; they hope to cultivate greater emotional sensitivity in their readers. And both works make it clear that there is good reason to hope for a meaningful response to human suffering. Delusion can be overcome and desiccated hearts can find new life. All it requires is love and compassion, which in turn depend upon fundamental acts of recognition. There is one additional, and relatively overlooked, work from Vidyasagar’s expansive oeuvre that provides a further poignant glimpse into the dynamics of recognition and love. I refer to his ‘Conversation with Prabhavati’ (Prabhavati Sambhashan), which is neither narrative drama nor social reform tract. Written sometime around 1863 and only published posthumously, ‘Conversation with Prabhavati’ is a token of private sorrow embodied as a piece of reminiscence. Here, we confront Vidyasagar’s unflinching attempt to preserve the memory of a young girl named Prabhavati who died while still a child.17 It is a remarkable text in which Vidyasagar releases an outpouring of love and affection and allows us to peer into the very depths of the ‘ocean of compassion’. Prabhavati was the only daughter of Vidyasagar’s former student and friend, Rajkrishna Bandyopadhyay. Vidyasagar spent a good deal of time at Rajkrishna’s house, where he became immensely fond of Prabhavati. Her death, at the age of three, devastated Vidyasagar. In ‘Conversation with Prabhavati’ he created a moving and utterly unique

86 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

portrait of the child, one that reads like an aide-mémoire crossed with a philological exercise. While his emotional goal is to preserve his memory of the child, he couldn’t help including a series of explanatory notes clarifying Prabhavati’s colloquialisms. The work is at once a celebration of childhood innocence and a painful expression of grief. One wonders whether in its explanatory notes we don’t witness Vidyasagar reaching desperately for familiar scholarly tools that might help him process an event that has left him otherwise shaken to the core. Most remarkably, given the pathos of the text, Vidyasagar allows us to catch a glimpse of the simple fun he could have with a child who looked to him for nothing but friendship, security and play. The text opens with Vidyasagar calling out to ‘little Prabhavati’, who has vanished forever. He assures her he remains absolutely focused on her, with his love (sneha) unshaken. He tells her that he can think of nothing else, and as he thinks of her certain vignettes come to mind. Addressing her in the second person, he creates a list of nine, numbered vignettes that capture his memories of her. He thinks, for instance, [o]f the time you watched me walk by lost in thought and you stuck out your hand and said, ‘Pick me up.’ Or the time I sat down to eat and I asked your grandmother, ‘Where’s Prabhavati?’ And no sooner had you heard this than you came running, your face beaming, ‘Here I am!’ Or the times when your brothers would try to scare you by saying, ‘You know, he isn’t going to love you anymore.’ And you didn’t know they were only joking and you would get so upset that you would nod your head and say, ‘You’ll love me, you’ll love me.’18

After this last vignette, he provides a lengthy discursive note in which is embedded yet another moving scene: I remember one occasion when such a scene broke my heart. I was sitting outside on the verandah. You were standing in the window of one of the rooms downstairs talking with me. Just then Shashi (Rajkrishna’s eldest son) teased you and said, ‘He isn’t going to love you anymore’. You immediately began to nod your head and said to me over and over again, ‘You’ll love me, you’ll love me’. Now on any other day I would have immediately banished your fears by saying, ‘I’ll love you’. But that day, at the goading of others, I began to repeat, ‘I’m not going to love you anymore’. And each time you would reply, ‘No, you’ll love me.’ Finally, you said to me quite firmly, with no joy in your eyes, ‘You may not love me, but I’ll love you’. And you said this with such sweetness and trembling in your voice and

The Stuff of Legends

87

with such incredible affection that even strangers, who happened to be standing there, found their hearts filled with joy. I will never be able to forget this scene.19

As if this wasn’t a vivid enough glimpse into Vidyasagar’s emotional depths, he proceeds to confess: My child, for a number of reasons I have been cast into a most sorrowful state of late. The world seems to me now a joyless, poison-ridden place. If it were not for one thing, I would not have found the least joy or happiness anywhere. You were that one thing. By clinging to you, I had been able in recent days to view this poison-ridden world as in fact a heavenly place. If my mind were filled with sorrow and anger and the world seemed filled with pain, I had only to take you in my lap and kiss you and it was as if I had been anointed with heavenly love. My child, I cannot describe what powers of enchantment you possessed. You were a blazing light in a home plunged in darkness, a gushing fountain in a waterless wasteland.20

Such revelations are astounding from a man who so rarely spoke of himself and who is otherwise associated with immense emotional reserve. It is striking, too, that this confession was made while he was still only in his forties. We know his later career was plagued with all manner of family crisis, public disappointment and financial anxiety. Yet, this denunciation of the ‘poison-ridden world’ predates much of his later trials. Just a little over half a decade past the successful completion of the widow marriage campaign, we encounter a man who struggles with profound depression and an almost frightening sense of purposelessness. Perhaps, this is what adds to the poignancy of his confession, which demonstrates how much faith he placed in the bonds of human love and affection. The Vidyasagar we meet in ‘Conversation with Prabhavati’ hardly seems to embody the ‘invincible manliness’ lauded by Tagore. This is not a hero for the nation but a sad and broken man saved in some respects by the memory of a girl whose childish prattle and silly games won his complete trust and confidence. In this remarkable text, the meaning of trust emerges as a kind of informal theodicy. In ‘Conversation with Prabhavati’, Vidyasagar tries to make sense of suffering, and the central category on which he relies seems to be the Hindu concept of lila or ‘play’. This is a word with a rich theological heritage and it is admittedly somewhat surprising to see the very non-theological Vidyasagar invoke it more than once to speak of Prabhavati’s manifestation in the world. In the context of Vaishnava

88 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

devotional theology — which has deep and abiding roots in Vidyasagar’s Bengal — the concept of lila plays a central role. God’s very activity is understood as a kind of ‘play’ that corresponds to no human purpose or meaning. For many Vaishnavas, God’s play is understood as the divine sport of Lord Krishna. The devotee’s goal is to learn those sports, internalise them, even re-enact them in the ongoing attempt to realise the deepest devotion. Rather than ‘naming the whirlwind’, the devotee must simply surrender to the Lord’s play and throw his/her trust upon God. In a sense, Prabhavati is Vidyasagar’s Krishna; she is a selfless creature who playfully entered the world and ensnared others in a web of love. She asked for nothing but love in return. After her death, Vidyasagar experienced the same sense of separation (viraha) experienced by the cowherd maidens abandoned by Krishna, who are models of the ideal devotee. As with the devotee, Vidyasagar relies on memory and textual reenactment to reanimate and preserve his affection for young Prabhavati. Embracing a theodicy of lila, Vidyasagar never asks why Prabhavati had to die. He may chastise her for abandoning him (as Krishna’s lovers sometimes do) but like the ideal devotee he focuses on the ‘delightful and remarkable exploits’ of Prabhavati.21 If the devotee of Krishna chants the Lord’s name and seeks to re-live the Lord’s earthly deeds, Vidyasagar likewise promises to rehearse Prabhavati’s lila again and again, thereby keeping her memory alive. In ‘Conversation with Prabhavati’, the dramatic enacting of devotion works to preserve love and memory, even if Vidyasagar clings to no message of ultimate restoration. The best Vidyasagar can do is pray that no one else has to suffer such grief. Thus, he begs Prabhavati, [s]hould you ever again be born into this world, do one thing for me in the name of all that is true and just. When others find themselves bound to you by the snares of love (sneha-pasha), do not consign them to the flames of endless grief and sorrow as you have done to me.22

If we were looking for a way to speak with more concreteness about the concept of ‘compassion’ that is so often used with respect to Vidyasagar, we could hardly do better than passages such as these. Along with Shakuntala and Hindu Widow Marriage, Prabhavati Sambhashan reveals in Vidyasagar a consistent concern for women who are destined to live in a world structured by harsh patriarchal marriage customs. These texts make his legendary concern for others far more concrete;

The Stuff of Legends

89

these texts speak less of moral reasoning than of organic sympathies and affections. Vidyasagar experienced love and loss, happiness and sorrow and such experiences clearly shaped his ability to express affection and concern, love and compassion. Reading these texts, one comes to a new understanding of what it means to call Vidyasagar a ‘friend of the weak’ (abalabandhu, also ‘friend of women’). It certainly seems more than coincidental that the figure who occasioned such a unique and apparently unselfconscious glimpse into Vidyasagar’s interior life should have been a young girl. The same tenderness Vidyasagar appears to have felt for the exiled Shakuntala, the kidnapped Sita, the child bride, and the widowed woman is mirrored in the love he felt for Prabhavati. In fact, we know he feared Prabhavati might have similar misfortunes had she lived. In the following passage, we are able to see how his love for Prabhavati correlated to the compassion he felt for all the ‘powerless’ women of Bengal: Who knows what fate might have awaited you if you had remained longer in this cruel world. If you were fortunate you might have been wed to a worthy husband and settled in a good family . . . But if your fate was not so good you might have been wed to an unworthy husband and fallen into the awful jaws of an evil family where your life would be miserable. I think it would have broken my heart to have seen you bound to a lifetime of such trials . . . I will be able to console myself just a little bit with the thought that for the short while you were with us you did not suffer the least scorn or neglect.23

A Private Life? A passage such as the preceding one provides evidence for the emergence of a distinctly modern self, not least in light of the way it articulates a very private set of sentiments on the part of its author. If the arrival of ‘private life’ in colonial India is associated with the expression of new forms of conjugality, romantic love, friendship and interiorised religious belief, some of these developments are hinted at by Vidyasagar’s intimate expressions of love and affection.24 Sudipto Kaviraj has written of the evidence he finds in Shibnath Shastri’s autobiography (first published in 1918) for the spread of these modern norms and attitudes. Shibnath’s life-narrative recounts his efforts to pursue a professional career far different from the long-standing Sanskrit intellectual commitments of his forebears; it marks his discovery of alternate modes of religious belief and practice, culminating in his conversion to Brahmoism and his ascent to a position as leader

90 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

of that community; finally it narrates his attempts to make sense of friendship and family life in light of his exposure to European norms, Christian practices, and the English customs he observed while travelling abroad. Shibnath belongs to the generation after Vidyasagar. He looked up to Vidyasagar as mentor, friend and teacher — even if Vidyasagar occasionally chided Shibnath for some of the choices he made on his journey.25 The great man’s fond jabs at Shibnath serve to remind us that Vidyasagar’s world continued to resonate with an older Hindu social ethos. Vidyasagar was himself married at the age of fourteen, to an eight-year old girl named Dinamayi Devi. After their marriage, Dinamayi Devi was established at Vidyasagar’s mother’s house in Birsingha and, in those early years, she remained in the village while he worked away at his studies in Calcutta. As was the case for many reformers of his day, Vidyasagar’s public projects did not always find an obvious expression in his home life. For instance, it would seem he never helped his wife acquire an education.26 In this respect, we may not really be able to find in Vidyasagar’s relationship with Dinamayi Devi evidence of a fully companionate marriage in the modern sense. Nonetheless, it would be wrong to picture Vidyasagar as mired in traditional family norms. His fierce and rationally-articulated opposition to the practice of child marriage is well known; it forms the logical and emotional correlate to his intense concern for the child widow.27 He was also far from pleased with the institution of the joint family. Whether out of lofty principle or mere expediency, he acted to break his own larger family into separate functioning households.28 Throughout most of his later life, Vidyasagar maintained his own residence, even if the family home in Birsingha remained an important focal point for him.29 His opposition to the joint family arrangement led some of his early biographers to express their regret that he had so deliberately moved away from established custom. Subal Chandra (echoing Biharilal on this point) took it as clear evidence of a ‘failing’. To him, it demonstrated the degree to which Vidyasagar’s moral and social instincts had been corrupted by exposure to ‘English education’.30 However, in light of Kaviraj’s reflections on Shibnath and the emergence of private life in Bengal, we might say that for Vidyasagar relationships were chosen more than they were simply given.31 Unfortunately, detailed evidence for how Vidyasagar behaved within his own family, how he conducted himself around his children, how he spoke to his wife, or how the family interacted when out of the public

The Stuff of Legends

91

eye, remains largely unknown. His autobiography does not provide a chance to see inside his ‘private life’ the way Shastri’s does. However, the fact that Vidyasagar figures somewhat prominently in Shastri’s self-narrative could be taken as indirect proof that Shastri internalised significant aspects of public morality and private comportment from Vidyasagar. Shastri confirms that Vidyasagar was a man who would playfully bounce a low-caste child widow on his knee; who would act as an intercessor in family squabbles in order to promote reconciliation; and who acted toward Shastri himself with immense affection and concern. Such signs seem to indicate the first emergence of a modern self. Even the desire of biographers, such as Biharilal and Subal Chandra, to explain Vidyasagar’s ‘failings’ only serves to highlight such modern habits and sentiments.

Giving Gladly It takes some care to handle the concept of generosity when thinking of a figure like Vidyasagar. Deeply-rooted South Asian norms of ‘giving’ (dana) would have to come under consideration, as would similarly widespread convictions about the production of good merit (punya) for future births through such positively-valued actions as giving and service to others.32 In traditional terms, a range of activities, such as feeding mendicants, building shelters for pilgrims, composing or copying texts, or establishing shrines, might be understood as instances of generosity in the form of service to others (paropakara). These longstanding norms of giving and merit come to particular expression in the catalogue of virtues that were traditionally thought to characterise a high-ranking (kulin) Brahmin like Vidyasagar.33 These normative threads were subsequently woven into new patterns of belief and action with the arrival of British colonial rule in South Asia. In the colonial context, we notice the increasing prominence of values such as charity, philanthropy and benevolence. The process whereby these European idioms were interwoven with indigenous religious and moral norms was lengthy and complex, given varying shape and content by further modifying factors that included regional history, culture, language and countless forms of personal initiative. Rather than picturing the sudden advent in India of new notions of generosity, benevolence and charity, one would have to speak, instead, of a ‘partial and selective’ realignment of values, as Douglas Haynes has done when looking at colonial Surat in western India.34

92 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

We notice this process of realignment taking place in Vidyasagar’s schoolbooks and primers. I have elsewhere spoken of this process in terms of a ‘vernacular convergence’ that is given textual expression in such works as Varnaparichay and Bodhoday.35 These schoolbooks articulate a worldview that draws upon both indigenous and European moral idioms. A second way to think about the convergence of values may be had by examining the expansion, after 1800, of a wide range of voluntary associations and other public institutions dedicated to a range of benevolent activities. An early example would be the Gaudadeshiya Samaj (‘Bengali Society’), established in Calcutta in 1823, whose mission included publishing books, fostering vernacular education, and working to prevent a range of ‘evil behaviours’.36 Similarly, the Hindu Theophilanthropic Society, founded in 1843, aimed to provide a forum for educated Bengalis to discuss issues of theological, moral and social import. For the educated members of this Society, the great exemplar of benevolence in 1840s Calcutta was the Scottish watchmaker David Hare, whose efforts in the area of education were widely lauded.37 When we think of Hare, we likewise think of the Brahmo reformer Ramtanu Lahiri, who got his start at Hare’s school and whose biography provides a window onto this period. Especially moving are the scenes of Hare visiting the school and distributing sweets to the young students; or the scenes in which swarms of boys ran alongside Hare’s palanquin begging him, ‘Me poor boy, have pity on me, me take in your school’.38 In time, such stories of charity towards the young and the needy would become characteristic of Vidyasagar as well, who might be said to have taken up Hare’s mantle. Vidyasagar’s ‘little acts of mercy and charity’ are legendary; his biographers catalogue in detail gifts to beggars, harlots, struggling poets and debt-ridden Brahmins. Vidyasagar more than once incurred significant debt in order to relieve a needy petitioner from a financial burden.39 But his gifts amounted to more than simple charity. He lavished his energy, time and money on a staggering range of causes from famine relief in Midnapur and malaria relief in Burdwan, to the creation and monitoring of schools, hospitals and annuity funds. Such endeavours are at the very heart of the major biographies.40 They are the stuff of legends. But can we say anything more about what drove this kind of behaviour? In one of his earliest published writings, Vidyasagar employed classical South Asian notions of self-control (ripu damana) and senserestraint (indriya samyama) to offer his own version of a modernising

The Stuff of Legends

93

Hindu morality. In this new morality, the highest goal was not complete transcendence of worldly desire but, instead, a reasoned and restrained application of the human passions. Properly restrained, our passions would be the motive force allowing us to pursue the social good. Putting a new slant on two of the most problematic passions, he wrote: Without lust, there would be no bonds of love with our wives and sons . . . Without selfishness, there would be no friendship on earth. No one would share in the suffering and happiness of others; no one would lift a hand to help anyone else.41

In articulating this particular vision of disciplined sense restraint and moral generosity, Vidyasagar drew upon resources from within both the Sanskrit intellectual tradition and European moral philosophy. It is this convergence that provides a way to appreciate the logic behind Vidyasagar’s wide-ranging commitments to education, social reform and philanthropy. While we have seen that Vidyasagar was never particularly ‘religious’ in a narrow sense of the term, when we examine his commitments to social welfare we can at least appreciate why critics and commentators have tried to frame his life in terms of religion. In a loose sense, he seems to have been ‘religious’ about his mission to improve the world of those around him. Concepts such as ‘humanism’ and the ‘religion of man’, which we explored in Chapter Two, are merely alternate ways of acknowledging that Vidyasagar’s benevolence reflects a sort of ‘religious’ level of commitment. In the present context, we might think of his commitment in terms of a trust in what is most true. That trust bespeaks a kind of ‘faith’ although the term is so freighted with particular Christian significance that it seems problematic to use it here. Perhaps, it would better to think of trust in terms of a commitment to the truth.42 This commitment is not something disembodied and abstract; it is eminently concrete, recognisable through all that one does. An important dimension of this enacted trust can be found in Vidyasagar’s proclivity for giving. By the late colonial and early nationalist era, the convergence of European and indigenous moral imaginaries had proceeded far enough to produce a range of individuals, organisations and movements dedicated to ‘giving’ in the broadest sense. Societies were created to promote everything from the acquisition of ‘general knowledge’ to

94 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

temperance. Organisations came into being predicated on invigorating scientific inquiry, public debate, even horticulture. And the early example of European benefactors like David Hare was reproduced in the lives of numerous prominent Indians in Bengal and elsewhere, who embodied the realignment of charity with paropakara, or ‘service to others’. Among Vidyasagar’s contemporaries, Akshaykumar Dutt and Ramgopal Ghosh, as well as the next generation of Bengalis — men like Shibnath Shastri and Keshub Chunder Sen — worked to change marriage law and explore the possibilities for new kinds of pluralist socioreligious configurations. This is the precisely the context within which to situate Vidyasagar’s proverbial generosity and helps flesh out the enduring image of Vidyasagar as an ‘ocean of generosity’. In one respect, we could say that his behaviour corresponds to what a proper Brahmin should do, such as giving to those in need, spreading learning, and promoting the best understanding of how Hindu norms should be put into practice. In another respect, Vidyasagar was clearly fired by the modern reformer’s zeal for social improvement; he wrote tracts, published books and started reform campaigns. And he worked tirelessly on all fronts, a man of boundless energy and unflinching commitment. In the Bengali biopic ‘Vidyasagar’, we see just how this image of tireless service was given a creative spin that helped it live on in the imagination of modern Bengali audiences. The scene opens. It is late at night and Vidyasagar is toiling away at some task. His wife Dinamayi Devi comes to him and asks him to rest. He refuses. He must stay up late, writing, because as he tells her, there’s still no magazine for women. Before long we see him composing the first page of Shakuntala. Dinamayi says to him, ‘Are you a human being?’ He smiles and says, ‘No, a camel; that’s what my friends call me’. Not to be outdone, Dinamayi carries on pleading with him to rest. Finally, she gets him to stop. The great man prepares to retire for the night, but before he can even get the chadar off his shoulders, he hears the sound of distant wailing. He looks at his wife, who says it must be from a nearby neighbourhood. There’s been a cholera outbreak and people are dying. In a flash, Vidyasagar is up and heading for the door. At this point, one can’t help thinking of Dinamayi’s question, is he human or some kind of superhero? Who could keep up with his pace? Here is our man in motion!

The Stuff of Legends

95

The following morning Vidyasagar is late to deliver the blessings at his younger brother’s marriage. He makes it to the ceremony in the nick of time, with a book on homeopathy tucked under his arm. He lets it be known that he’s arranged everything for the care of the sick. With this, he heads off to bathe. Needless to say, he is soon back to perform the needful and to shower blessings on the newlyweds. He welcomes the new bride into the family by reminding her of a verse from the great lawgiver, Manu: ‘God blesses a home where women are respected’. But even as the words leave his mouth, we begin to hear a woman somewhere (off camera) chastising her ‘evil’ daughter. Once again our man is in motion; he races off to intervene. It turns out that the girl — though still just a child — has lost her husband. This meant she was obligated to follow all the stringent rules that circumscribe the life of a chaste widow. And this is what has angered the woman — the willful little girl had failed to adhere to the rigid restrictions of the ekadashi fast, whereby a widow cannot consume any food or water for an entire day, regardless of the weather or her own health. Vidyasagar arrives on the scene and in a wonderful turnaround proceeds to ask the woman, ‘Are you even a human being?’ We are reminded of his early discourse on the passions, in which he had told his listeners that it was our capacity for love that separated us from the beasts. The indictment is plain: what kind of person could subject a woman of any age to such torment? The woman understands his meaning all too well. She snaps back at him saying, ‘You’re supposed to know the shastras. Are you going to tell me there isn’t a penalty for not observing the ekadashi fast?’ Vidyasagar replies, with pity in his voice, ‘No, whatever penalty there may have been, this young girl paid it long ago’. His pity is met with scorn as the woman (now standing in for Vidyasagar’s opponents) snaps at him, ‘But what is one to do in the face of local custom?’ Vidyasagar replies in kind, ‘Ah yes, local custom. You mean forcing young widows to fast, drowning babies at Ganga Sagar, polygamy’.43 The allusion to women throwing their baby daughters into the mouths of waiting crocodiles (a favorite trope among Protestant missionaries in India) reminds us that even though we’re ostensibly watching the life of Vidyasagar, a film like this is, in fact, a medley of history, folk memory and social commentary. The facts matter less than the story of a large-hearted man with the wisdom, courage and generosity

96 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

to take on a society driven by practices that, in an age of colonial moral realignment, can no longer stand as before. Moving from the realm of imaginative film-making to archival evidence, we detect Vidyasagar’s embrace of generosity and service in a letter he wrote upon severing his ties with the Hindu Family Annuity Fund. While he had given considerable support and guidance to the Fund, he now felt disappointment at its management. He speaks of the effort, care and energy he put into creating and seeking the improvement of the Fund. He remarks that ‘The greatest duty (parama dharma) of an individual and his life’s pre-eminent activity is to be as hardworking and diligent as he can in promoting the welfare of the land in which he was born . . . I had no further desire to promote my own interests’. Then he faulted the current directors of the Fund for not walking ‘a straight path’. In the name of dharma itself he had to sever his connection with such men.44 Trust, commitment, effort, and accountability — these are key terms in Vidyasagar’s moral lexicon. Add to them the idea of empathy, the ability to feel the pain of others, and we begin to arrive at the roots of his generosity. In this respect, Subal Chandra accurately noted that Vidyasagar had ‘put forth all this energies — had devoted himself, heart and soul, to the establishment of the Hindu Family Annuity Fund’.45 Subal Chandra’s language is quite correct, yet our familiarity with such idioms as ‘devoting oneself heart and soul’ tends to prevent us from appreciating what such commitment might have meant within a life of passionate service. As with labels such as ‘ocean of compassion’ we need to scrape the crust of banality off such language in order to reveal something more particular and concrete about Vidyasagar’s generosity.46 If we are to get at the complexity of the man, then we need to see him as someone trying to embody the values of reason, generosity and duty, who was also often profoundly disappointed by the failings of others. In this respect, it is worth recalling the number of times Vidyasagar resigned, renounced, rejected or stepped away from his commitments, whether in government service, in public life, or within his own family. His moral compass, obviously, made him a difficult and mercurial person to live with, not unlike his grandfather Ramjay. He had something of a habit of falling out with supervisors, friends and family and, as we shall see in a subsequent chapter, some of these ruptures were dramatic and long-lived. Furthermore, the generosity of his soul was offset by a prickly temperament. After his sudden resignation

The Stuff of Legends

97

from the post of Principal at the Sanskrit College, one of his British supervisors commented on the ‘sensitiveness of the Pundit’s feelings’ and marvelled that even though Vidyasagar had had ‘more independence than any other Principal’ he could now be so ‘dissatisfied with the results’.47 We can’t help but recall the ‘bull calf’ of the autobiography. When he spoke of the errors of pride and self-interest, he certainly had to be aware of his own failings.

Empathy and Homeopathy Malaria struck Burdwan District during the 1860s. Among the many well-known indicators of Vidyasagar’s generosity is the enormous energy he expended caring for victims of the notorious ‘Burdwan fever’. His brother tells how Vidyasagar arranged to rent a house in Burdwan for a much-needed change of air, suffering as he did (by this time) from his own slate of recurring maladies. No sooner had he settled in Burdwan than he came to learn of the outbreak. Shambhuchandra tells us Vidyasagar visited poor Muslim villagers in the surrounding area to assess the extent of their sufferings. Seeing, at first hand, the urgent need for medicines and relief, he set up a dispensary in the house he was renting. Then, after his return to Calcutta, he made a full report to Lieutenant Governor William Grey and urged him to act. The government did eventually respond, sending medical teams and supporting further measures to provide medicine. But even so, Vidyasagar carried on with measures of his own. He paid the salary of an itinerant doctor, who helped ensure that quinine and other essentials reached victims throughout the area. As the cold season approached, he is reported to have donated two thousand rupees to provide clothing to the needy victims. Before it was over, Vidyasagar had spent two years in Burdwan, giving no thought (as his brother tells us) to the possibility that he might fall ill.48 Epidemics of this sort (cholera, plague and malaria, especially) were the substance of nineteenth-century nightmares, for Indians and colonial officials alike. Western allopathic medical science had been promoted in places such as Calcutta since the early part of the century; but, by the 1860s, it still competed with indigenous systems of medicine such as Ayurveda and Yunani as well as with the new methods of homeopathy. As early as the 1850s, Rajendralal Datta had advocated homeopathic treatment for malaria victims. Vidyasagar was among his early supporters.49 As it turned out, Datta had provided Vidyasagar

98 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

relief from severe headaches around 1866 and had won him over to the virtues of homeopathy. Vidyasagar, in turn, famously converted Dr Mahendralal Sarkar (also spelled Sircar). As we have already seen, Mahendralal was a pioneering figure in modern Indian medicine. Up until that point, Mahendralal was only the second Indian to have earned an MD, qualifying from the Calcutta Medical College in 1863. Leaving medical school, he had been a staunch proponent of allopathic medicine and throughout his career was committed to the advancement of science in India. But thanks to an argument during a memorable carriage ride with Vidyasagar in 1867, he is said to have abandoned his earlier doubts about homeopathy. His conversion made him instantly infamous among the new medical establishment in Calcutta.50 Before long, Mahendralal and Vidyasagar became dynamic spokesmen for and practitioners of homeopathy. They bought and traded the latest publications in the field, spending significant sums on expensive European publications. And they consulted a wide range of patients, including family, friends and colleagues. Mahendralal, as we saw in Chapter Two, had attended to the medical needs of Shri Ramakrishna while Vidyasagar’s homeopathic instructions once helped a friend in Varanasi successfully treat the wife of a local European magistrate. Together, the two men contributed greatly to the spread of homeopathy in colonial India. In their attempts to arrive at a locally meaningful path to well-being, the two men contributed to a realignment in the realm of science, similar to that taking place in the realm of colonial moral thought. As Gyan Prakash has noted, men like these were engaged in a ‘syntactical rearrangement of culture’, defining an emergent Indian way of doing science.51 The fact that homeopathic treatment had brought Vidyasagar proven relief in the 1860s was surely one profound reason for his faith in this medicine. He, and later Mahendralal, demanded that there be empirical proof of the success of homeopathic remedies; gathering such proof would demonstrate the supremacy of homeopathy to allopathy. Beyond such reasoning, David Arnold and Sumit Sarkar identify further factors in the appeal of homeopathy to ‘autodidacts’ such as Vidyasagar and Mahendralal. With little or no formal training, these men were able to dispense cures for a range of common maladies such as colds and stomachaches — cures which went on to become quite well-known in middle-class Bengali homes. Furthermore, the popularity of homeopathy benefited from the fact that it was inexpensive, required far less formal training than allopathic medicine, and while

The Stuff of Legends

99

it was European in origin, its roots in Germany meant it escaped the charge of being colonial.52 As empirically-minded proponents of homeopathy, both Vidyasagar and Mahendralal kept copious diaries, often noting (especially in Vidyasagar’s case) the names of particular patients, their symptoms and the treatments prescribed. From these diaries, we can develop a picture of their shared experience of suffering and their concerted search for health. On 12 April 1879, Mahendralal records that he is suffering from bowel pain, but he chooses to visit Vidyasagar anyway. A month later, Mahendralal pays a visit on Vidyasagar’s grandchildren who appear to have been in poor health. Vidyasagar presents him with a copy of Libenthal’s Homeo Therapeutics. Less than a week later, Mahendralal is back to see the grandchildren and pronounces them ‘doing well’. He takes the opportunity to present Vidyasagar with a copy of Heineg’s Analytical Therapeutics. And so the exchanges continue; one man has a boil, the other man pays a visit, diagnoses are compared and prescriptions tested.53 In their detail and candour, Vidyasagar’s homeopathic diaries offer yet another fascinating window into the mind and heart of a man for whom the scientific practice of homeopathy was also the outgrowth of empathy. His diagnosis of patients, including his wife Dinamayi Devi, is often frank and clinical, suggesting among other things that his patients felt enough at ease with him to share intimate details about their chests, bowels, stomachs and sexual organs.54 One can’t help wondering whether, in the decades that saw his hopes for social reform begin to fade (as we shall see in the coming chapters), Vidyasagar found in homeopathy an alternative route to ‘improving’ the world, a route that thanks to scientific empiricism would be far removed from the squabbles and backbiting that marred his public reform campaigns. Where his efforts to promote reforms such as widow marriage led him to be abused in the press and in person, his work with homeopathy allowed him to experience first-hand the satisfaction of relieving suffering. When thinking of this interplay of empathy and homeopathy, it is also worth reminding ourselves how immediately acquainted Vidyasagar was with suffering and illness. Like his grandfather Ramjay, our ‘man in motion’ travelled extensively around western Bengal and the Northwest Provinces (including stays in Varanasi and Kanpur), when he wasn’t addressing famine or malaria relief or seeking temporary solace in a more comfortable locale. In addition to routine trips

100 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

back and forth to his home village, Vidyasagar spent considerable time as Assistant Inspector of Schools, travelling through Hooghly, Burdwan, Midnapur and Nadia districts; he routinely visited wealthy landholders, local rulers and friends in places such as Uttarpara, Burdwan and Krishnanagar. Add to this a lifetime in the largest colonial metropolis of its time and we can easily imagine how intimately familiar he was with the kinds of suffering and deprivation occasioned by poverty, famine, disease as well as the hardships of internal migration. With his own family’s history of displacement and poverty and his penchant for looking reality in the eye, he certainly internalised much of the pain he came across. A compelling example of his empathetic response to real suffering occurred on the death of his daughter Hemlata’s husband, Gopal Chandra Samajpati, in 1873. Not only did Vidyasagar arrange housing and support for his son-in-law’s family, in a moving and completely voluntary gesture he assumed the same dietary restrictions incumbent upon his daughter as a widow. Only at her urging did he eventually return to his normal diet.55 Perhaps, such empathy came naturally to a man whose life was coloured by severe illness and suffering. When he was six years old, he suffered a life-threatening inflammation of the spleen, not to mention bouts of dysentery.56 When he first went to live with his father in Calcutta, he was struck with such a serious case of dysentery that he was forced to leave school and return home.57 While he recovered his health and eventually returned to the Sanskrit College, his earliest years in the city were trying ones. He lived with his father in nearsqualid conditions and was taxed with cooking for his father while carrying a heavy load of studies. Getting through long days on meagre rations and staying up late into the night in order to complete his work (proverbially working under the streetlights outside their residence) — all this had to shape the boy’s awareness of need.58 Furthermore, whether due to genetics or the lingering effects of childhood poverty, Vidyasagar suffered his entire life with a range of ailments, chief among them were disorders of the digestive tract such as cholic, diarrhea and constipation. Information from the biographies is often none too specific (‘head disease’ or ‘stomach disorder’), but the overall picture is one of physical discomfort bordering on debilitating illness throughout large portions of his adult career. It was the quest to find clean air and a peaceful environment in which to shepherd his failing health that led Vidyasagar to build his ‘Grove of Delights’ in Karmatar in 1873.59 This was not long after he

The Stuff of Legends

101

had taken up homeopathy and it was here that he set up a charitable dispensary on his own property and plunged energetically into treating the local Santhali population. At the time, the Santhalis were poor, uneducated folk and we are told this is precisely what endeared them to Vidyasagar. He is said to have loved them more than his bhadralok peers in Calcutta because whatever they lacked in learning and sophistication, they made up for in their basic ‘humanity’ (manushyatva).60 At least, the biographers and commentators would have it so. Perhaps, in the present context, we might simply say that in the Santhalis, Vidyasagar found an impoverished and under-educated population in need. While the Santhalis had come to think of Bengalis as crooked and untrustworthy, the biographies lead us to believe that they soon learned to trust Vidyasagar’s sincerity and generosity.61 A cynic might see in Vidyasagar’s decision to put down stakes in Karmatar evidence of a kind of elite Bengali paternalism, the subtle manifestation of a desire to be revered as a Brahmin and given free rein to do as he pleased. He certainly possessed all the traditional prerogatives. He could have claimed the adhikara or entitlement to be the big man in the village. But as we saw at the close of Chapter Two, Vidyasagar was uncomfortable with the idea of caste-based social entitlement, or adhikara bheda. While the locals in Karmatar accorded him enormous respect, this cannot be taken as proof that he demanded special reverence. Even if the Santhalis showed him deference in the beginning, this appears to have evaporated in the daily course of their interactions. They gave this stranger free reign to settle among them and to practice his medicine; they joked with him and called him by familiar names like Dada (‘Elder Brother’) and Baba (‘Father’); and they let him into the privacy of their homes to treat family members who were too ill to visit the dispensary at Nandan Kanan.62 At a time when there were virtually no other gestures of care or support from either the colonial state or the indigenous elite, the Santhalis found in Vidyasagar a rather unproblematic benefactor. Even if it were the case that Vidyasagar acquiesced in playing the role of big man, this at least would have offered him an organic pathway for connecting to his new neighbours. In the traditional framework for giving, the Santhalis represented perfect recipients of charity; and conversely, they would have seen in him the embodiment of a responsibility to give. We actually have precious few accounts that allow us to see in any detail how Vidyasagar’s relationship with the local residents played out. Over the years, a handful of travellers stopped in Karmatar to

102 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

pay calls on Vidyasagar and we are fortunate to have their reports, as fragmented and anecdotal as they are. Beyond these we are left to rely on works of imagination that have grown up around this moment in Vidyasagar’s life. The following contemporary reworking of a nineteenth-century visitor’s account provides a good example of how Vidyasagar is remembered in this context: One morning, a local Santhali man came to Vidyasagar with some corn meal and said, ‘Sir, I need some money. Would you please take this meal and give me five paisa for it.’ Vidyasagar immediately obliged, without even bothering to ask what the actual value of the corn meal might be. Before long, another Santhali man showed up and made the same request. Once again Vidyasagar obliged. This went on all morning. By midday, Vidyasagar was sitting beside a veritable mountain of corn meal on his porch. Later, that same day, a group of Santhalis approached his house. One of them said to Vidyasagar, ‘Sir, we are awfully hungry. Could you please give us something to eat?’ Vidyasagar happily kindled a big fire and began roasting the corn meal for his visitors. Before long, the entire mountain of corn meal had vanished.63

This is a story based on a reminiscence, retold after a gap of over a century; therefore, it is tempting to say there is very little history here. What’s more it seems to give us the Vidyasagar we already know, the paragon of generosity and friend of the poor. And yet, its almost mythopoetic logic can be used to ratify our critical historical judgement that his care for the needy represents a blend of high-caste paternalism, colonial charity and sheer good-natured generosity. We can imagine the Santhalis walking home, feeling pleased at having done so well by playing on the big man’s obligation to help them. We can also imagine a rather contented Vidyasagar smiling from his front porch. His contentment might betray a measure of satisfaction at having lived up to his paternalistic obligations; but it might also reflect the awareness that his relationship with the Santhalis is something both he and they have chosen. Their roles are not merely given but point to the possibility for creating new kinds of social arrangements. From this new vantage point, being a friend of the poor moves away from traditional frameworks surrounding ‘duty’ toward modern conceptions of human responsibility.64 As difficult as it is to disentangle history and myth in stories such as these, the goal of this chapter has been to explore how we can, in fact, arrive at new perspectives on Vidyasagar’s proverbial virtues even while acknowledging their debts to hagiography and popular

The Stuff of Legends

103

memory. The best approach, it seems, is not one of forensic reduction of all information to verifiable ‘data’ but one of critical reading. As we discovered with respect to works such as Shakuntala and Prabhavatisambhashan there are resources in Vidyasagar’s own corpus that can open up new ways to think about his virtues as a compassionate friend of the powerless. Likewise, if we juxtapose even a fictional re-creation of his encounter with the Santhalis with what we know about his actual efforts to relieve suffering in places such as Burdwan, we are allowed to see something of the emotional core — the humanity, if you wish — of a figure who is otherwise made into a two-dimensional moral symbol. As we have yet to see, this very human Vidyasagar was also a man of irrepressible humour and, sometimes, caustic anger. The stuff of legends may often seem like moral pablum, but a critical engagement with the sources can also reveal the messier truth behind the hagiography.

Notes 1. Don Delillo. 2009. White Noise. New York: Penguin Classics. 2. Ibid., p. 13. 3. Vidyasagar. 1854. Shakuntala. Calcutta: Sanskrit Press; reprinted in Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha. 4. For a comparison of Vidyasagar’s version with Kalidasa’s original, see Brian A. Hatcher. 1988. ‘Vidyasagar’s Sakuntala’, Bulletin of the Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University, 14 (1): pp. 52–62 and Bandyopadhyay, Bangla Sahitye Vidyasagar, pp. 31–41. 5. Paraphrased from Vidyasagar’s Shakuntala as found in Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, pp. 133–79. 6. Ibid., p. 175. 7. Ibid., p. 177. 8. Bankimchandra Chatterjee is reported to have called Vidyasagar’s ‘Exile of Sita’ (Sitar Vanavasa) a ‘tear-jerker’; see Bandyopadhyay, Bangla Sahitye Vidyasagar, p. 64n68. In her translation of Vidyasagar’s Sitar Vanavasa, H. Jane Harding remarked that ‘what is pathos in one language’ can become ‘bathos in another’; See H. Jane Harding. n.d. The Exile of Sita, translated from the elegant Bengali of the learned Pundit, Iswarachundra Vidyasagara. London: Henry Drane, p. v. 9. Vidyasagar was aware of this danger: ‘How many times will I be reprimanded for providing this sort of introduction to Kalidasa and Shakuntala for readers who do not know Sanskrit?’ See Vidyasagar, Vidyasagar Rachanasambhar, p. 68. 10. Tagore, Vidyasagar Charita, p. 8.

104 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian 11. For an extended version of this interpretation, see Brian A. Hatcher. Forthcoming. ‘The Shakuntala Paradigm: Vidyasagar, Widow Marriage and the Morality of Recognition’, Journal of Hindu Studies. 12. Translated in Barbara Stoler Miller. 1984. Theater of Memory: The Plays of Kalidasa. New York: Columbia University Press, p. 126. 13. According to Vidyasagar, the predominant emotion associated with Shakuntala is actually the erotic (adi rasa); for karuna rasa he suggests the plays of Bhavabhuti; see his 1853 lecture, ‘Sanskrit bhasha o Sanskrit Sahitya Shastra Vishayaka Prastava’, in Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, pp. 120–25. 14. Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. 158. 15. Bankimchandra Chatterjee claimed that to grasp the emotional impact of Sita’s abduction one had to be able to feel such pain; see his ‘Uttaracharita’, in Bankim Rachanavali, pp. 159–60. 16. Vidyasagar, Hindu Widow Marriage, p. 206, omitting Vidyasagar’s references to the ‘evil tide of prostitution and abortion’ that he felt followed from continued support for the ban on widow marriage. 17. Prabhavati Sambhashan was first published in the journal Sahitya in 1892. It is reproduced in Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, pp. 427–34. 18. Paraphrased from Vidyasagar, Vidyasagar Rachanasambhar, p. 200. 19. Ibid., p. 200. 20. Ibid., p. 201. 21. Ibid., p. 203. 22. Ibid., p. 204. 23. Ibid., pp. 201–2. Compare the conversation Vidyasagar records having with two sisters who had been married into polygamous marriages (Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, pp. 218–19). 24. Kaviraj, ‘The Invention of Private Life, p. 114. 25. See Shibnath Shastri. 1921. Atmacharita. 2nd ed. Calcutta: Prabasi, p. 20. 26. Amales Tripathi acknowledges that Vidyasagar never gave her an education, but notes that Vidyasagar didn’t really have the time (Vidyasagar, p. 64); Haldar, Vidyasagar: A Reassessment, p. 16. 27. See Vidyasagar. 2003. ‘The Evils of Child Marriage: Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar’, trans. by Brian A. Hatcher, Critical Asian Studies, 35(3): pp. 476–84. 28. Vidyasagar, Vidyasagar Charita, p. 25. 29. After a dispute with the family in the summer of 1869, he vowed never to return to Birsingha; see Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, pp. 203–4. 30. Mitra, Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, p. 483; and Sarkar, Vidyasagar, p. 269. 31. Kaviraj, ‘The Invention of Private Life,’ p. 90. 32. For an interesting attempt to articulate this ‘logic’ within the colonial context, see Bhudev Mukhopadhyay’s Svapnalabdha Bharatvarsher Itihas (1875), in Bhudev Mukhopadhyay. 1962. Bhudev Rachanasambhar, ed. by Pramathanath Bishi. Calcutta: Mitra and Ghosh, pp. 341–74.

The Stuff of Legends

105

33. Giving or dana is one of the nine attributes of an ideal Kulin Brahmin; see Hatcher, Idioms of Improvement, Ch. 1. 34. See Douglas Haynes. 1987. ‘From Tribute to Philanthropy: The Politics of Gift Giving in a Western Indian City’, Journal of Asian Studies, 46(2): pp. 339–60. 35. See Hatcher, Idioms of Improvement, Part 2. 36. For a survey of associational activity, see Rajat Sanyal. 1980. Voluntary Associations and the Urban Public Life in Bengal. Calcutta: Riddhi-India. 37. See Discourses Read at the Meetings of the Hindu Theophilanthropic Society, Vol. 1, (1844), p. 134. 38. Shibnath Shastri. 1983. Ramtanu Lahiri o tatkalin Bangasamaj. Calcutta: New Age Publications, p. 47. 39. The phrase is Gopal Haldar’s (Vidyasagar: A Reassessment, p. 73). Biharilal tells a charming story of Vidyasagar’s gift to a poor urchin in Burdwan and their subsequent re-encounter after the boy had made something of himself (Sarkar, Vidyasagar, pp. 285–86). 40. For a contemporary tribute to the depth and range of Vidyasagar’s charity, see the notice in the Indian Nation published after his death, passages of which can be found in Mitra, Karunasagar Vidyasagar, p. 390. 41. From a discourse read before the Tattvabodhini Sabha and translated in Hatcher, 2008. Bourgeois Hinduism, p. 158. 42. The case is made in Hatcher, Idioms of Improvement, Part 3. 43. Summarising a sequence of scenes from the 1950 film ‘Vidyasagar’, directed by Kalikaprasad Ghosh, Calcutta: Channel B DVD. 44. The original source for the Bengali letter is Sarkar, Vidyasagar, pp. 314–15; for an English version, see Mitra, Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, pp. 577–78. 45. Mitra, Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, p. 579. 46. Subal Chandra cannot resist using the failings of the Fund to emphasise the failings of the Bengali nation, reminding us how closely the life of Vidyasagar is mapped onto the story of a nation; see Mitra, Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, p. 579. 47. Henry Woodrow. 1859. Report on the Sanskrit College. National Archives of India, Home Department: Education. (20 May 1859), no. 18. 48. Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, pp. 193–96; see also Mitra, Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, pp. 516–19. 49. On Datta, see Arnold and Sarkar, ‘In Search of Rational Remedies’, p. 47. 50. Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, pp. 174–77; and Gyan Prakash. 2000. Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, p. 248n25. 51. Prakash, Another Reason, p. 85. 52. Arnold and Sarkar, ‘In search of rational remedies’, pp. 43–44; and Surinder M. Bharadwarj. 1981. ‘Homeopathy in India’, ed. by Giri Raj Gupta, The Social and Cultural Context of Medicine in India. Delhi: Vikas, pp. 31–54.

106 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian 53. All details are from Arun Kumar Biswas (ed.). 2000. Gleanings of the Past and the Science Movement in the Diaries of Drs. Mahendralal and Amritalal Sircar. Calcutta: Asiatic Society. 54. See Mitra, Karunasagar Vidyasagar, pp. 33–36 for facsimile copies of Vidyasagar’s homeopathic diaries. 55. Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, p. 218. 56. See Vidyasagar, Vidyasagar Charita, pp. 29–30; and Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, p. 14–15. 57. Vidyasagar, Vidyasagar Charita, pp. 42–43. 58. He was also teased by his classmates for having an oversized head and for stuttering; see Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, pp. 22–25. 59. Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, pp. 216–17; see also Sarkar, Vidyasagar, pp. 330–31. 60. Bandyopadhyay, Bangla Sahitye Vidyasagar, p. ix. Few commentators can resist turning the Santhalis into ‘noble savages’ and emblems of untarnished humanity; see Tripathi, Vidyasagar, p. 92 and Haldar, Vidyasagar: A Reassessment, p. 80. 61. See, for instance, Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, p. 217. 62. See Sarkar, Vidyasagar, pp. 330–31. 63. Paraphrased from Sunil Gangopadhyay, ‘O Vidyasagar, Amar Panch Ganda Paysa Darkar’, Ananda Bajar Patrika (18 April 2012). The original story as told by Haraprasad Shastri is excerpted in Mitra, Karunasagar Vidyasagar, pp. 423–25. 64. It seems extreme to claim Vidyasagar had no concern for the poor as is suggested in Badruddin Umar. 1979. Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar o Unis Sataker Bangla Samaj. Calcutta: Chariot, p. 93.

5 Salty Water The story of Vidyasagar sharing corn meal with his Santhali neighbours, with which I concluded the previous chapter, is significant not merely for the light it sheds on emerging norms of social responsibility, but for the way the very tone of the story mirrors something apparently fundamental about Vidyasagar, namely his love of the ironic. His fondness for humorous stories and one-liners, not to mention his ready and caustic wit mark another of those apparently essential aspects of his character; it is for this reason that so many stories about him turn on tricks of irony and self-deprecating humour. The story of the corn meal is not simply about a group of clever Santhalis taking advantage of a well-meaning visitor. That might be funny, but an even deeper irony is revealed by the fact that both the Santhalis and Vidyasagar are clearly in on the joke. This is all the more fitting because the man at the centre of the joke was himself a lively joker, a veritable ‘ocean of humour’ (rasa sagar).1 If we are to make sense of Vidyasagar, we must expose ourselves to this humour and ponder the role of irony in shaping popular understandings of the man. Upon being introduced to Vidyasagar on the occasion of their famous encounter, Shri Ramakrishna remarked that he had seen every kind of puddle, canal, stream and river, but that he had never visited the ocean before. It was a clever line and Vidyasagar happily took advantage of the set up. ‘So you’ve come to taste some salty water, eh?’ Not to be outdone Ramakrishna replied, ‘What do you mean salty water? You’re not an “ocean of ignorance”, you’re an “ocean of learning”. Even better, you are a “sea of milk-pudding” (kshir samudra)’. If the encounter between these two men amounted to a battle to establish moral superiority, that battle was apparently going to be waged through a humorous game of one–upmanship. Thus, when Ramakrishna flattered Vidyasagar by pronouncing him a siddha or ‘perfected soul’, Vidyasagar asked how that could be if he paid so little attention to religion. Ramakrishna explained that he was like a boiled (siddha) vegetable — all his good deeds had softened his nature. It was a clever riposte but Vidyasagar regained the upper ground when he added that some things

108 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

only get tough when you boil them.2 We sense the awkwardness of the exchange; we recognise the delicate dance being performed around egos and reputations. For all the humour, there was clearly much at stake. The jokes work to assert and to defuse positions of power. We notice something similar in Vidyasagar’s friendly exchange of corn meal with the Santhalis. The irony of the scene throws the challenge of social change into high relief. If Vidyasagar was an ocean of humour, commentators and critics are aware that oceans can be deep, dark and forbidding, fraught with whirlpools, riptides and tsunamis. If the ocean is an endless storehouse of wealth and riches, it is also home to the mythic submarine fire.3 Such fire creates as well as destroys. Vidyasagar’s contemporary, the poet Ishvarchandra Gupta had such concerns in mind when he pondered Vidyasagar’s role in the tumultuous widow marriage controversy of the 1850s. Paying homage to Vidyasagar as a ‘limitless ocean’, he went on to remind his readers that the ocean was a wind-swept and dangerous place. Heaven help the poor Hindu widow who sought refuge in this ‘shoreless, vast, black and salty’ ocean.4 Her boat might very well go down before it ever reached the shore. Gupta was no mean ironist himself.5 He knew all too well that wit is a double-edged sword; it can deflect a blow or inflict a wound. In their own ways, Gupta and Vidyasagar turned to irony and satire as tools to address the problems confronting their generation, if also as weapons to defend themselves or others. Theirs were trying times. There was much to take issue with, a great deal to defend, and there was always someone to offend. Men like Gupta and Vidyasagar faced the intrusion of foreign power into every aspect of personal and social life; the loss or reformulation of traditional modes of economic, religious, and intellectual life; and the near-constant threat of debasement before alien rulers. On the other hand, they had to contend with frequent internecine battles between disparate indigenous groups competing for the right to define, innovate or defend native customs. We see this in the numerous debates over issues such as widow-immolation, widow marriage, polygamy and the age of consent, not to mention the endless arguments over what it meant to be a Brahmin, a Hindu, a pandit or a patriot. In such challenging times, wit and wisdom were both essential tools for survival.6 In this chapter, I intend to spend some time thinking about the role of wit, irony and satire in Vidyasagar’s personal and social life. As the confrontation with Ramakrishna illustrates, humour provides a means

Salty Water

109

for coping with the discomfort associated with change as well as for enacting personal or social transformation. As we know, Vidyasagar’s life was framed, shaped and motivated by the challenge of negotiating the colonial world, which included securing a livelihood for himself and his extended family members, not to mention frequently having to defend his honour and propriety. Even in the most ‘everyday’ dimensions of life in a colonial city, there lurked the potential for moral skirmishes, righteous indignation or sly acts of insurrection. Who could know when an afternoon spent chatting with friends on the side of the road might suddenly flare up into a religious debate? When the slip of a tongue might not provide an opportunity to play the exacting schoolmaster? Or when a trip to a local museum might lead to a standoff over colonial authority? As we shall see, Vidyasagar’s humour and irony proved to be effective weapons in such circumstances.

Plate 7: Laminated reproduction of Vidyasagar’s portrait atop an office worker’s desk, Kolkata (2012)

Subaltern Shoes There is no better place to begin our investigation than with the ‘Shoe Question’, a scene so memorable and packed with significance that it

110 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

has earned a separate chapter in some of the major biographies.7 While easy to narrate, this incident looms large in the minds of his biographers who use it to celebrate Vidyasagar’s moral courage and indomitable wit in the face of injustice. In short, it is a morality tale of colonial power and native rebellion. One day, at the height of his public career, Vidyasagar went with two distinguished Indian friends to visit the library of the Asiatic Society and the collections of the Indian Museum, both on Park Street in the heart of colonial Calcutta. His companions were dressed according to modern fashion and wore ‘proper’ English shoes whereas Vidyasagar was attired in his customary garb of dhoti and local sandal. At the Asiatic Society he was denied admission (unlike his companions) on the grounds that he was wearing improper footwear. Outraged at being rudely turned away, Vidyasagar wrote an official letter of complaint, calling attention to the humiliation he experienced and remarking, in passing, that he failed to grasp the ‘mystery’ of footwear among the British.8 It was a sly way of suggesting that when it came to strange codes of behaviour, the British might even excel the notoriously superstitious Hindu. When framed in the proto-nationalist context of the earliest biographies, this incident demonstrated he was just the sort of Indian required by the nation: upright, unflinching, utterly indigenous (as indicated by his dhoti and sandals) and, ironically, more cultured than his colonial superiors. In this story, we witness the power of irony and satire, especially in a context of colonial domination. In the words of James C. Scott, these are the ‘weapons of the weak’.9 Scott reminds us that in ‘power-laden situations’, the subordinate’s opinion of their superior is rarely available for view; this ‘full transcript’ is typically driven underground, forced from view by the need to dissimulate before authority. Only rarely does the private or ‘hidden transcript’ explode fully into view. Typically, this occurs in highly-charged situations where caution is suddenly and temporarily abandoned.10 Thinking of the incident at the Asiatic Society, we can see that for someone in Vidyasagar’s ‘shoes’ humour can, on occasion, become what Sudipto Kaviraj calls the ‘discourse of subalternity’. It reflects the ‘tragic fate’ of those who both feel the irrepressible need to voice criticism and who recognise the inevitable failure of such criticism in the colonial context.11 It turns out that the ‘Shoe Question’ was preceded by another remarkable showdown over feet and footwear, which also lives on in biography and popular memory. The incident occurred relatively

Salty Water

111

early in Vidyasagar’s administrative career, when he was serving as Assistant Secretary of the Sanskrit College.12 On occasion, he found it necessary to visit the neighbouring Hindu College to speak with the Principal there, a certain Mr Kerr. One day when he entered the Principal’s office, Mr Kerr was reclining in his chair with his feet on his desk. Despite the arrival of his visitor, Mr Kerr remained in that position while Vidyasagar conducted his business. He neither took his shoes from his desk nor offered the pandit a seat. For his part, Vidyasagar endured the insult and swiftly departed. At some later date, Mr Kerr had an occasion to visit Vidyasagar’s office in the Sanskrit College. When Vidyasagar’s assistant announced that Kerr was in the anteroom, Vidyasagar quickly sat down and put his sandaled feet atop his desk. When Mr Kerr entered he was greeted by the soles of Vidyasagar’s sandals. He also found no chair in which to take a seat. He rapidly concluded his business and departed, fuming at the disrespect he had been shown. He immediately reported the incident to the Director of Public Instruction, Mr F. J. Mouat. Needless to say, Mouat demanded an explanation from Vidyasagar. The pandit’s reply speaks for itself: I thought that we [natives] were an uncivilised race, quite unacquainted with [the] refined manners of receiving a gentleman visitor. I learned the manners — of which Mr Kerr complains — from that gentleman himself, just a few days ago, when I had an occasion to call on him. My notion of refined manners being thus formed from the conduct of an enlightened, civilised European, I behaved just as respectfully towards him as he had done toward me. I do not think that I am to blame in the least.13

Mouat is said to have been pleased with Vidyasagar’s answer, finding in it the pandit’s ‘keen sense of self-respect and manly spirit’. Far from reprimanding Vidyasagar, Mouat instead asked Kerr to meet with Vidyasagar and ‘settle the matter amicably’.14 Vidyasagar’s run-in with Principal Kerr and the subsequent ‘Shoe Question’ together illustrate a crucial dimension of ‘subordinate group politics’ as discussed by Scott. This is a politics of ‘disguise and anonymity’. The operative principles are double meaning, euphemism, irony, humour, and other subtle forms of doubly-coded rhetoric or bodily behaviour.15 Vidyasagar’s run-in with Principal Kerr is a kind of pantomime that enacts a form of insubordination. In Scott’s terms the success of Vidyasagar’s tactics depends upon striking at the Achilles heel of the oppressor; it pushes directly at the very norms used by the dominant party to justify his superiority: ‘Having formulated the very

112 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

terms of the argument and propagated them, the ruling stratum can hardly decline to defend itself on this terrain’.16 In other words, if Kerr attempts to justify his rude behaviour he opens himself to the charge of ‘hypocrisy’. Vidyasagar’s reply to Mouat, thus, represents a significant tactical victory in the course of which he never risked direct confrontation. Stories like these are colonial parables in which self-respect wins out over pride — the pride of personal arrogance as well as the pride of European racial prejudice. Vidyasagar’s ‘victory’ (the word is Subal Chandra’s) is both a moral and a national one and the fact that Mouat sides with Vidyasagar is a double redemption. In Vidyasagar’s canny behaviour and his clever reply to Mouat we savour not only his personal victory but India’s as well.17 One is reminded of a scene from the film ‘Vidyasagar’ in which the Lieutenant Governor says to his Brahmin friend, ‘Couldn’t you just once come to my house wearing European clothes?’ To which Vidyasagar replies, ‘But this is our national dress (jatiya paribesh)’.18 It is no wonder so many Bengalis can recount one or more of these humorous stories or others like them, such as the following, which was told to me by a retired professor of electrical engineering in the fall of 1989. One day Vidyasagar was riding in a first-class compartment on a train. Feeling tired, he slipped off his sandals and fell asleep. While he was sleeping an Englishman entered the compartment. Seeing the recumbent Indian and the sandals by the berth, he became indignant. He picked up the sandals and pitched them out the window. Then he proceeded to take his own shoes off and lie down for a nap. Meanwhile, Vidyasagar awoke and saw that his sandals were missing. Looking over at the Sahib, in the opposite berth, he immediately understood what had happened. So he snatched up the man’s shoes and pitched them out the window. After some time, the Englishman woke up to find that his shoes had disappeared. He accosted Vidyasagar and demanded he produce the shoes. To which Vidyasagar replied, ‘Oh, but your shoes have gone to fetch my sandals’. When the train eventually reached its destination, the Englishman was astounded to see the official welcome that had been prepared for Vidyasagar. At this point he recognised the true identity of his travelling companion and promptly apologised.19 We hear echoes of the ‘Shoe Question’ in this story, but we also detect an echo of Gandhi’s famous rail journey in South Africa when he was put off the train in Peter Maritzburg for daring to ride in a first class carriage.20 In his autobiography, Gandhi lamented the tendency

Salty Water

113

of one human being to take pleasure in the denigration of another and sought thereby to offer the Indian nation-to-be a lesson in the power of self-sacrifice and humility. In the apocryphal tale of Vidyasagar’s rail journey, the Indian once again speaks back to white power, but instead of being abused and humbled for it as was Gandhi he asserts his moral supremacy through wit and irony. As he had with Princiapl Kerr, Vidyasagar deploys the ‘public transcript’ to indict the Englishman. Wry humour masks patent self-assertion. Whereas Gandhi stomached abuse in a gesture toward non-violent morality, Vidyasagar’s irony indirectly affirms the right to be treated fairly and on equal terms. The anecdote narrated to me by the electrical engineer, like so many stories in the informal corpus surrounding Vidyasagar, turns on the theme of misrecognition. Thus, in another vignette (whose precise origin I can no longer recollect), Vidyasagar is at home, puttering about in his garden, when a group of educated Bengali visitors drop by seeking an audience. With his rustic haircut (common among lower-caste labourers from the districts southwest of Calcutta) and his simple dhoti and sandals, the visitors mistake him for the gardener. They address him brusquely, growing rude and impatient all the while. The ‘gardener’ holds his tongue and gestures for the visitors to come inside while he summons the master. A short time later, Vidyasagar re-enters the drawing room and greets his guests who are suitably appalled at their error.21 Whether it was the refusal of the coloniser to acknowledge the Indian or the failure of the educated Babu to appreciate the nature of true Indian greatness, these stories rely on a sly sense of humour to make recognition a central issue. Perhaps, this is why footwear plays such a prominent role in these stories. Not only do feet speak immediately to issues of hierarchy and subservience (in both Hindu and European cultural registers), but Vidyasagar’s sandals themselves represent his own liminal, non-hegemonic identity. Like his rustic haircut, his sandals symbolise a refusal to internalise the standards and norms of either the coloniser or the educated bhadralok Babu, even as Vidyasagar presents himself as a man fully worthy of our recognition. The scandal of Vidyasagar’s footwear is the physical counterpart to his ironic self-presentation, shielding his identity while simultaneously granting him enormous powers of self-assertion.

Take No Prisoners The same qualities that made Vidyasagar a great storyteller inhere in his humour — clarity, concreteness and a definite punch. But it is his

114 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

irony that really distinguishes him from both the storyteller and the humorist. It might seem odd that a man who was so reluctant to make pronouncements about ultimate truth was rarely without a witty aside or devastating comeback. And yet the inconsistency is only apparent; the two traits are, in fact, closely wed to one another. The enigma of the man stems, in part, from his ironic temperament, which was coupled with the confident self-assertion of a modern Brahmin intellectual. A schoolbook moralist, educational reformer and advocate for social change, he also remained deeply suspicious of anyone who claimed to teach or preach about religion or morality.22 Shibnath Shastri who, as a young man, spent a great deal of time in Vidyasagar’s company reports that one day he and his friends were sitting outside with Vidyasagar. Along came a Christian preacher, who happened to recognise young Shastri, who was active in the reformist Brahmo Samaj. The preacher immediately came over and launched into a disquisition on the errors of Brahmo doctrine.23 Whether the preacher had failed to notice Vidyasagar or not, the latter eventually chimed in to say, ‘Come sir, let these young fellows be. They have plenty of time to think about their salvation. You should talk to us old rogues who are that much closer to dying’. The preacher apparently took offense at Vidyasagar’s impertinence, called him an incorrigible sinner, and huffed off indignantly. After he’d gone, Vidyasagar remarked to the group, ‘Hey, I was just having some fun with someone who likes to go around telling other people what to believe’.24 It wasn’t only preachers who came in for criticism. Vidyasagar used to tell the following story about a pandit who was also a renowned storyteller. This pandit could embellish any story to any length and enthrall just about any audience. Among those who loved to hear him speak was a young widow. Over time, this young widow became rather infatuated with the pandit and started to call upon him in order to ‘serve’ him. One day, the pandit had gone into a lengthy and detailed exposition of the hellish tortures awaiting any woman who paid attention to a man other than her husband. He lavished great attention in particular on a particular kind of iron tree that grew in hell. Like the thorny silk-cotton tree, this infernal tree was studded with nasty spikes. The pandit pointed out how the minions of Lord Yama would drag the unfaithful woman to this tree and force her to embrace it for all eternity with the same intensity she had lavished on her lovers. That evening as the pandit was preparing for bed he noticed that the young widow would not come inside his room as she so often did. Instead, she stood apprehensively in the doorway. When the pandit asked her why she

Salty Water

115

was acting so strangely, she reminded him of his sermon. ‘Oh yes’, he laughed, ‘I did talk quite a bit about that, didn’t I? But don’t worry, my dear, after so many eons of women embracing that iron tree, I’m sure all the spikes have been worn away’. ‘In fact’, he added for good measure, ‘if you were to hug it now, I’m sure you would find it pleasantly smooth and cool. Now please, why don’t you come join me in bed?’25 It is a remarkably cynical story. One might ask how Vidyasagar reconciled his efforts to improve the world with such profound scepticism about the failings of ‘do-gooders’? After all, this is the same man who poked fun at a Brahmo preacher who got lost on his way to Vidyasagar’s house, asking him how he ever expected to guide people to Heaven.26 Did Vidyasagar ever hold the same critical mirror up to his own work? Or was his mistrust of other preachers and pandits a necessary correlate to his own trust in a life shaped by moral restraint and respect for dharma? For him, such trust was grounded in a variety of powerful sources — the shastras, human affection, fidelity to one’s friends and the sense of fulfillment that flows from achieving one’s goals. Perhaps, this sense of trust provided him with a litmus test to judge the credibility of others, while humour and irony gave him the means to highlight the failures of others without lapsing into selfaggrandizement. On one occasion, Vidyasagar skewered a fellow pandit who dared to advance an utterly specious argument against him in the context of the widow marriage campaign. To make his case, the opponent had invoked the medieval commentary on Parashara Samhita by Madhavacharya. Since Parashara Samhita was a crucial source in Vidyasagar’s campaign to promote widow marriage, the opponent clearly thought he had cornered Vidyasagar. But Vidyasagar had an answer: At no point in his commentary on Parashara does Madhavacharya rule that the passage enjoining marriage applies in the case of lower castes. No doubt my respected opponent wrote this without having read the commentary on Parashara. My respected opponent is a celebrated scholar of Logic in our region. But it is utterly unjust for a celebrated scholar like him to casually state — on the basis of inference alone — that such a passage exists in the commentary on Parashara when he has never looked at that commentary. Basically, we should rely on perception as a source of proof before turning to inference.27

Admittedly the humour is a bit subtle. Vidyasagar uses the Logician’s own disciplinary tools against him, since according to the school

116 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

of Logic there are two ways of arriving at valid knowledge — through perception and inference, with inference coming into play where perception cannot. As Vidyasagar so gently suggests, the Logician has jumped to making a claim based on inference before relying on his powers of observation. Put bluntly, he tells his opponent to read the book before going around telling people what it says! Playing around with the word of the shastra was simply something Vidyasagar had no patience for. What was at stake was not so much the abstract ‘truth’ of the shastras as it was the integrity of an individual’s recourse to texts otherwise revered as a kind of final authority. In this respect, to misconstrue shastra was to violate a kind of trust; it was little different from lying or betraying one’s friends, two charges Vidyasagar laid at the door of his sometime friend and colleague Dwarkanath Vidyabhushan, who once dared to editorialise against Vidyasagar’s anti-polygamy campaign: Today Vidyabhushan says, ‘The custom of this land is the greatest proof that polygamy is not prohibited by the shastras; if it were forbidden by the shastras it would not be so widespread’. But if we follow this sort of ruling then tomorrow someone else will say, ‘The custom of this land is the greatest proof that the sale of daughters is not contrary to the shastras; if it were forbidden by the shastras it would not be so widespread’. Then the next day a second person will say, ‘The custom of this land is the greatest proof that abortion is not contrary to the shastras; if it were forbidden by the shastras it would not be so widespread’ . . . In this fashion all the most widespread evil customs can be deemed in accordance with the shastras. There is no doubt that with this ruling Vidyabhushan will earn the undying affection of a great many.28

Beneath the irony, Vidyasagar reminds Dwarkanath that friends should support their friends. At the same time, he chastises Dwarkanath for making specious arguments about Hindu law. Being true to the shastras, being true to one’s word, being true to one’s friends — these define trust for Vidyasagar. Many were to learn that they violated that trust at their own risk.

Pride goeth . . . One day, a wealthy gentleman sat down to his midday meal. Surrounding him were all the usual hangers-on and sycophants, who bowed and scraped at every opportunity. It was the time of year when the vegetable known as patal (or pointed gourd) is in season and the gentleman was

Salty Water

117

served a fish curry with patal. When it was set before him, he screwed up his face and said, ‘Ugh, patal is a worthless vegetable; you can’t put it in a curry!’ At this the sycophants responded eagerly, ‘You’re right, sir, precisely. What an outrage it is to put patal in your fish sauce! Patal is no food for a respectable man such as yourself’. Nonetheless, the gentleman proceeded to eat the dish. Before long he looked up and proclaimed, ‘You know what? This really isn’t that bad’. And now the flatterers replied: ‘Exactly, sir. After all, patal is the king of vegetables. You can boil it, fry it, mix it with dal — you name it, it goes with anything. In fact, there’s nothing better than patal curry’. At this, the gentleman threw up his hands in disbelief. He shouted at all the hangers-on: ‘Some kind of men you are! If I say patal is a lousy vegetable, you consign it to hell. But if I say patal isn’t bad, you raise it up to heaven’. The flatterers put their hands together and bowed low. Then one of them said to the gentleman: ‘Sir, you are absolutely right. But we aren’t in the service of the fish curry; we aren’t in the service of the patal. We are strictly at your service. Whatever pleases you pleases us’.29 So goes another of the stories attributed to Vidyasagar. We might see in it a commentary on what he took to be the venality of his opponents, many of whom were Sanskrit scholars like him, but whom he suspected opposed him merely to score points with prominent Hindu benefactors. Of such scholars Vidyasagar is said to have remarked, ‘They aren’t in the service of the Shastras; they aren’t the service of Dharma; they serve only mammon. If it makes the rich folks happy, they will dedicate their all to promoting it’.30 There are any number of human failings that would become the target of Vidyasagar’s biting wit, from sheer stupidity and professional incompetency to the recurrent human weaknesses of self-interest, sycophancy and deceit. The tropes of the deceitful preacher and of the lickspittle pandit served him well as tools for highlighting these latter failings.31 One might say that the urge to please others is merely the flip side of the urge to please oneself, since the sycophant hopes to gain some personal advantages by ingratiating himself with his superior. Vidyasagar held the inability to control one’s own desires to be a cardinal sin, a root cause of selfishness. The figure of the ‘one who does as he pleases’ (the yatheshtachari) recurs throughout much of his work, especially in writings of a personal, moral or social nature. During his early association with the Tattvabodhini Sabha, he wrote convincingly of the need to avoid willful behaviour by reining in our desires and

118 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

passions, whereas in a crusade like that in favour of widow marriage he saw such selfishness as the chief flaw of his opponents.32 That such values shaped his self-understanding can be seen from an ironic portrayal he once gave of himself in a little-known pseudonymous work. Pretending to side with his opponents in the ‘society of the good’ (sadhu-samaj), he mounted an assault on himself: With the greatest humility and respect I beseech the worthy leaders of this country’s honourable ‘society of the good’ — do not to consider me to be a blind devotee of Vidyasagar . . . As far as I can tell, the man is guileless, humble and benevolent . . . He is not willing to fall in line with the ‘society of the good.’ He says and does whatever he thinks is right. He does not respect the great worthies of the ‘society of the good’.33

This passage appeared in a lesser-known work entitled Vrajavilasa.34 The title itself, ‘The Sports of Vraj’, is a bit of a pun. It sounds like it could be a work dedicated to the worldly exploits of Lord Krishna, who is supposed to have lived in the region of Vraj (or Braj) in north India where he delighted himself through a variety of divine ‘sports’ or lilas. However, the work is, in fact, an attack on a fellow pandit, Vrajanath Vidyaratna, who also happened to be a proponent of the Bengali Krishnaite tradition.35 More importantly, Vrajanath was a vocal opponent of the widow marriage campaign. This prompted the composition of Vrajavilasa, which might be translated as ‘The Follies of Vraja[nath]’. The author of Vrajavilasa identities himself as a Competent Nephew (upayukta bhaipo) of Vrajanath. Adopting a position of false deference to Vrajanath, the Competent Nephew proceeds to lampoon his ‘uncle’ in a ruthless fashion. The text adopts the conventions of high Sanskrit literature, presenting itself as a ‘drama’ (mahakavya) composed by the ‘chief of poets’ (kavi-kula-tilaka). Mirroring well-known classical works, the text is composed as a series of chapters known as ‘splendours’ (ullasa). The first ‘splendour’ begins with several stanzas of tongue-incheek panegyric: Vrajanath Vidyaratna, the awesome scholar rules! His head is crowned with wondrous jewels. What a blessed moment when his mother gave birth — There is not another man like him on this earth. Unmatched in wisdom like Brihaspati Unmatched in beauty just like Ratipati.

Salty Water

119

Owning every virtue, he’s the crown of aesthetic pleasure, Ocean of compassion, he’s the man the virtuous treasure.36

At the end of the fifth and final ‘splendour’, the competent nephew offers two more stanzas of mock panegyric and then pokes fun at Vrajanath’s emotional investment in the worship of Krishna. In the Vaishnava context, chanting the Lord’s name is a central and often highly emotional religious practice. Chanting the names of Krishna, Rama or Hari (Vishnu) amounts to a kind of public profession of faith. Both the emotion and the public display of such devotion seem worlds away from Vidyasagar’s reserve, let alone his silence on religious matters. As a result, the reader can only laugh when the Competent Nephew concludes his text with the outburst: ‘Out of love for my uncle, let us all say “Hari, Hari”!’37 It is a reminder of Vidyasagar’s deep suspicions regarding those who cloak their agendas in religious garb. Overall, Vrajavilasa offers a ruthless caricature of Vrajanath, spiced with catchy aphorisms plucked from Sanskrit moral and didactic texts and given an ironic spin. For instance, after alluding to Vrajanath’s various pronouncements on dharma (that is, religious law, duty or custom), the Competent Nephew remarks: When it comes to matters of dharma one can hardly find fault with the behaviour of these people, since the authoritative treatises on ethics decree that ‘Humans are slaves to profit.’ There is nothing that people won’t do for money. Theft, banditry, murder, fraud . . . And if one can realise such virtues, he will be accepted into the society of the good and praised as a great man.38

One final passage makes it clear that the purpose of this send-up was to challenge Vrajanath’s right to criticise Vidyasagar’s work as a reformer. Toward this end, the Competent Nephew sets up a comparison between Vidyasagar and the custodians of ‘true’ Hindu dharma: Vidyasagar is not a worthless scholar like Vidyaratna. He is not shamelessly rooted in dharma like the rest of them. He does not recognise nor obey the commands of ‘good society’ as they do. He is not dedicated to the protection of the pure and eternal dharma recognised by ‘good society’ as they are. In fact, the revered, learned and wise leaders of the holy ‘society of the good’ go as far as to call him [that is, Vidyasagar] a Christian. Vidyasagar is no Vidyaratna! So far astray has he gone we might as well call him a Christian! How dare such a man question the wisdom of Vrajanath?

120 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian I have often heard it said by quite respectable people that it is hard to find fault with Vidyasagar’s book on widow marriage. When I look at Vidyaratna’s decree it becomes clear to me that his holy gaze never fell upon that unholy book. After all, [Vidyaratna] is the most learned Brahmin of the preeminent society. What is there that he doesn’t know about the legal treatises? All the treatises dance before his divine eye. And so if he is called upon to display his learning with respect to matters of law, he has no need to consult a single book — Vidyasagar’s book be damned! . . . All hail blessed Vrajanath!39

Bear in mind, the problem is not just that Vrajanath disagrees with Vidyasagar. After all, that sort of thing comes with the job description of a pandit. Rather, in Vidyasagar’s opinion, men like Vrajanath fail to honour their calling to be reliable and honourable interpreters of Hindu law. Honour and trust are compromised — in Vidyasagar’s eyes — when one puts one’s learning at the service of other interests. While the bread and butter of a pandit’s life should be the interpretation of texts, a man like Vrajanath hasn’t even read Vidyasagar’s book on widow marriage. It is all quite entertaining. As Amales Tripathi noted, in works such as Vrajavilasa, Vidyasagar’s wit ‘thrusts like a rapier and rollicks like an elf’.40 We cannot help but feel a frisson of delight as he skewers his opponents. But the tone is caustic as well and one almost wants to turn away from what Biharilal called the ‘mean-spiritedness’ (badarasakita) of such works.41 It is a bit like witnessing a particularly vicious public argument. It might be a friend in the fight and their case might be valid, but you might also wish the whole thing hadn’t happened. It ends up getting ugly. But such things do happen, not least among high-minded Brahmin scholars with reputations at stake.42 Consider the following scene. One day, Vidyasagar got into a shouting match at the Sanskrit College with a junior scholar named Jivananda Vidyasagar. Jivananda happened to be the son of one of Vidyasagar’s friends and closest colleagues at the college, Taranath Tarkavachaspati. To the dismay of several onlookers, the two Vidyasagars — the elder Ishvarchandra and the younger Jivananda — launched into an acrimonious exchange. Jivananda’s father, Taranath was in an adjacent room teaching his class. When Taranath heard the racket he came running and his first instinct was to rebuke his son for failing to respect the elder Vidyasagar. But Taranath was also eager to calm his friend’s anger and so he begged Ishvarchandra to forgive him. Ishvarchandra took offense at the

Salty Water

121

well-meant gesture. How could he forgive Taranath when Taranath was not at fault? Taranath pleaded with Vidyasagar, ‘Brother, whatever Jivananda’s faults, please don’t let this ruin our long-standing affection for one another’. But his words were lost on Ishvarchandra, who suddenly turned on Taranath saying, ‘It was I and no one else who got you your position in this college. And yet now you think so much of yourself. If it weren’t for me, no one would even bother with you’. Taranath was shattered. He could only reply, ‘Who am I to question what you say? I would never wish anyone to think I am ungrateful’. It was as if a gaping chasm had suddenly opened between the two men. This scene offers an ugly reminder that the man who so playfully skewered opponents could also turn on those close to him.43 The full implications of this scene will become apparent in the following chapter.

The Ironical Self Vidyasagar may have had a prodigious sense of humour, but he was rarely just out for laughs. Yes, he was witty, but it would be wrong to think of him along the lines of an Oscar Wilde. With wit one can plant ‘small but devastating explosives in the rock of the social status quo’; yet Vidyasagar hoped to do more than puncture pretensions or trifle with taboos.44 We might think of him as an ironist, if by that we think of someone who uses dissimulation — what Soren Kierkegaard called ‘indirect communication’ — to express the truth. Kierkegaard’s goal was to communicate to his contemporaries what it means to be a Christian. To accomplish this he felt he had to dispel the illusion that his other contemporaries were true Christians. For this a direct assault would never succeed, since if you claimed to be a better Christian than your countrymen, they would find a way to turn your enthusiasm into fanaticism: If it is an illusion that all are Christians — and if there is anything to be done about it, it must be done indirectly, not by one who vociferously proclaims himself an extraordinary Christian, but by one who, better instructed, is ready to declare that he is not a Christian at all. That is, one must approach from behind the person who is under the illusion.45

So Kierkegaard set out to work indirectly, through the path of irony. This led him to a plan of pseudonymous authorship. His pseudonyms kept his true identity concealed while providing him a way to meet his readers where they were. Bringing them indirectly around to his

122 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

perspective, he hoped to eventually expose them to the fundamental problem of their existence. It was a grand project of ironic deception that sought to communicate something other than what it appeared to say. Do Vidyasagar’s pseudonymous tracts (which we will consider further in the following chapter) operate in a similar fashion? Do they represent an elaborate mask behind which Vidyasagar concealed himself while guiding his readers towards the truth? It often appears this way. Figures like the Competent Nephew allow Vidyasagar to express indirectly his scepticism about finding anyone who honours the shastras. Strategic dissimulation like this rings true to Kierkegaard’s plan of ironic authorship. Yet, while Kierkegaard wrestled with the communication of subjective authenticity, Vidyasagar’s struggle seems to differ. His primary goal was to establish his bona fides as a pandit — to authorise his own reform efforts. He hoped to convince his opponents that he operated in accordance with genuine Brahminical values; he was not some ‘new-fangled’ pandit, but a legitimate scholar with the training and background to apply the shastras to contemporary concerns.46 In this respect, the pseudonymous tracts operate much like his autobiography, which suggests that a man with ancestors such as Ramjay and Radhamohan must surely be a genuine pandit himself.47 Does this use of ironic communication mean that Vidyasagar also sought to articulate a distinctively modern subjectivity? For modern Western theorists such as Kierkegaard and Henri Lefebvre, the greatest of true ironists was Socrates who, with his maieutic method, sought to indirectly foster the emergence of a new kind of truth and a new mode of self-knowledge. As Lefebvre argues, irony gives ‘aggressed or oppressed sensibility a means of protesting against individual alienation’.48 For Lefebvre, the premier practitioner of such a strategy, in the modern era, was Karl Marx. Marx inserted irony into history by revealing that world history brings men ‘something other than that which they expected or wanted’.49 Only by acknowledging this fact are we saved from alienation. When Kierkegaard and Lefebvre speak about figures like Socrates and Marx they hope to emphasise the power of irony to overcome inauthenticity.50 We certainly recognise this theme in Vidyasagar and yet it will not do to place him too narrowly within such a framework. To be sure, he lived and worked in a time of great uncertainty; he was ever ready to question the received wisdom of those in power; and he was determined to move the public toward new modes of life. But we must resist

Salty Water

123

the temptation to redact his story in order to fit a self-aggrandizing narrative of Western modernity. That was not Vidyasagar’s story; he was not consumed by a philosophical or moral mission. He may have had a gift for irony, but rather than aiming at the articulation of subjective authenticity, he deployed irony as a weapon to confuse, confound and, ultimately, confute the forces that opposed him, manifested either as colonial officialdom or Hindu ‘orthodoxy’. Two further readings of Vidyasagar may help advance our understanding of irony and modernity in this colonial context. The first reading is not really a fully-fledged analysis; it only emerges in counterpoint, as it were, in the course of Sudipto Kaviraj’s exploration of the tragic modernity of Bankimchandra Chatterjee.51 In his study, Kaviraj makes passing, but not inconsequential, use of Vidyasagar as a foil against which to highlight Bankim’s uniquely modern consciousness. As I see it, Kaviraj’s reading makes too little of Vidyasagar’s capacity for irony. The second reading comes from Asok Sen’s important monograph Vidyasagar and his Elusive Milestones. Where Sen goes wrong is by making too much of Vidyasagar’s ironic predicament, reading it too narrowly in Marxist terms. For Kaviraj, Vidyasagar represents little more than a type; he is one of those mid-century Bengali intellectuals who largely turned their backs on the ‘historical changing world’ — a world of ‘invading modernity’.52 Vidyasagar refused to engage with colonial modernity; according to Kaviraj, we find him taking ‘refuge’ in ‘traditional’ modes of composition. In a work like Shakuntala (which we reviewed briefly in Chapter Four), Vidyasagar may have ‘experimented with a new language’, but for Kaviraj he nevertheless remained in the thrall of the old ‘sonorous Sanskrit’.53 Kaviraj remarks that Vidyasagar’s dramatic characters experience only the ‘traditional emotions of vatsalya, karuna, etc’. One does not find in Vidyasagar the ‘indescribable emotions of modernity’.54 What are these emotions? They should be the emotions of the heroic individual who actualises him or herself over tradition and the dead weight of history. While this heroic struggle in the modern west was a story of emancipation, in a colonial context it could only be one of subjugation, frustration, self-alienation and tragedy. A modern Bengali, therefore, would have to be a tragic figure; someone who awakened to personal autonomy even as such autonomy was denied or impeded by the discourse and institutions of colonialism. For Kaviraj, such a distinctly unhappy consciousness first comes to expression in the works

124 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

of Bankimchandra. Bankim found himself in a position where he could no more abandon his ancient traditions than he could completely embrace them. His stance was, therefore, one of tragic irony: ‘hemmed in between two large circles of discourse’ and was always ‘contradictory’ in his own consciousness.55 Kaviraj’s reading of Bankimchandra’s work has rightly attained a kind of canonicity within the literature of Subaltern Studies. I do not wish to quibble with his overall interpretation of Bankimchandra, but I do take issue with his manipulation of Vidyasagar as the ‘other’ against which Bankim’s modern consciousness is highlighted. Earlier in this chapter, when discussing Vidyasagar’s use of humour as a ‘weapon of the weak’, it seemed quite appropriate to quote Kaviraj’s observation that humour and dissimulation were characteristic modes of survival for the subaltern. This leads me to ask, if we witness Vidyasagar speaking one truth to power, while meaning quite another; if we observe him ‘talking the talk’ but not necessarily ‘walking the walk’; and if we watch as he engages in ironic assaults on his alter ego (as when he takes on a pandit like Vrajanath); if all this seems to be characteristic of him, then how much less ‘modern’ is his consciousness than Bankim’s? Vidyasagar may not have created dynamic fictional characters such as Kamalakanta, whose madness mirrors his betrayal by the ‘hieroglyph of reason’, but there were some who found in Vidyasagar himself a measure of madness.56 If a certain quality of self-distancing and the capa-city to adopt an ironic posture toward matters of religious truth and self-narration are markers of a modern temper, then surely Vidyasagar was every bit as modern as Bankimchandra. They were quite different men, to be sure, but they were linked across their differences by a shared modern temperament.57 In Kaviraj’s study, it is Bankim who becomes the tragically alienated modern hero, lonely and tossed between two competing moral and epistemic extremes. In the work of Asok Sen, by contrast, it is Vidyasagar who appears to be the alienated and lonely modern. Sen’s analysis rests on a somewhat procrustean Marxist bed, even if modified through the later work of Antonio Gramsci. For Sen, Vidyasagar is a new kind of hero who does battle with the ‘false consciousness of his times’. His is the story of History itself. It is History that ‘made a parable of his life’ — the parable of ‘a bonafide individual in a stage of malafide modernization’. As with Kaviraj, one hears the ghosts of Hegel and Marx whispering in the wings. The irony of History means that ‘Things were not what they appeared to Vidyasagar’.58

Salty Water

125

Sen’s study is, in many respects, one of the most sensitive and informed discussions of Vidyasagar available and I do not wish to make light of it. However, it not only runs the risk of romanticising Vidyasagar’s lonely quest; it also fails to acknowledge what is most important about Vidyasagar’s ironic agency. If Kaviraj magnifies Bankim at the expense of Vidyasagar, Sen makes too much Vidyasagar’s uniqueness. For Kaviraj, Vidyasagar remains ensnared in traditional modes, while in Sen’s analysis Vidyasagar makes a bold break with tradition. Sen fails to recognise that Vidyasagar’s approach to the shastras was neither radical nor sui generis. He did not resort to the shastras to find an instrumental middle ground from which he could launch an assault on his benighted society; he trusted in the shastras and put them to work.59 And when others failed to accept his reading, it called forth his anger, his wit and his irony. Before reading Vidyasagar’s irony as an expression of bonafide subjectivity when faced with a malafide social and political system, we might simply view it as an effective tool of persuasion. If he was able to attack the likes of Vrajanath so effectively, it was because he stood so close to him. It was his very familiarity with the pandits that bred a measure of contempt.60 Who better to instruct Hindus on how to follow the shastras than someone who was prepared to have people think he didn’t follow the shastras! In the end, while we can learn a great deal about ironic communication and the ironic temper from reading the likes of Kierkegaard and Lefebvre, we can also thank both Kaviraj and Sen for helping us triangulate, more effectively, on Vidyasagar’s particular use of irony in relation to his own modernity. On the one hand, it makes sense to avoid affiliating Vidyasagar’s wit and irony with influential theories of irony and history formulated in the modern West. His mission — if we can even speak of such a thing — was far different from that of a Socrates, Marx or Kierkegaard. On the other hand, we must remain cautious lest we transform Vidyasagar into a kind of placeholder marking a particular juncture in our preconceived narratives about the origins of colonial modernity. Neither in thrall to tradition nor a lonely hero on the windswept promontory of history, he is, as Ashis Nandy says, someone who tried to make ‘instrumental use of the transient, “unavoidable” oppression of colonialism’.61 And in this task, Vidyasagar’s dark and salty wit came in handy. He used it to target hypocrisy and selfishness, especially on the part of those who claimed to speak for the interests of others. This included both coloniser and colonised; his was an equal opportunity irony that

126 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

could poke fun at Brahminical custom and European hubris. All of this makes one think that a rich sense of humour was simply inherent in his DNA. This is no doubt what Tripathi meant when he spoke of Vidyasagar’s ‘kindly, ironical self’.62 Then again ‘kindly’ may not say enough. We have to remember that anger, stubbornness and pride were also part of his make-up. Rather than elevating his ironic outbursts to world-historic proportions or relegating them to the frustrated shouts of a lonely prophet, we might simply view them as evidence of a man who found himself consistently in the fray. His emotions were neither modern nor pre-modern; they were simply emotions and they point to the complexity of a man whose sense of humour and ironic selfdistancing allowed him negotiate the challenges of his world. Of course, as we shall see in the next chapter, his emotions and his irony also came at their own costs.

Notes 1. See Basu, Rasasagar Vidyasagar. 2. Paraphrased from Shri Ramakrishna, Shri Shri Ramakrishna Kathamrita, Vol. 3, p. 5. 3. On this, see Hatcher, Idioms of Improvement, pp. 5–6, quoting a line from Satyendranath Datta. 4. Translated in Bandyopadhyay, History of Modern Bengali Literature, p. 43. 5. See Rosinka Chaudhuri. 2012. ‘Three Poets in Search of History’, in Transcolonial Modernities in South Asia, Michael S. Dodson and Brian A. Hatcher (eds). New York: Routledge, pp. 204–5. 6. Both wit and vidya, ‘learning’, derived from the Proto-Indo-European *woid/weid/wid, ‘to see, know’. 7. The phrase is taken from the title to Subal Chandra Mitra, Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, Ch. 31; see also Sarkar, Vidyasagar, Ch. 38. 8. Sarkar, Vidyasagar, p. 321. 9. James C. Scott. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press, pp. 284–89. 10. James C. Scott. 1990. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven: Yale University, pp. 6–9. 11. See Sudipto Kaviraj. 1998. The Unhappy Consciousness: Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay and the Formation of Nationalist Discourse in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press, p. 33. 12. See Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, pp. 69–70; and Mitra, Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, pp. 162–64. The scene is enacted with comic brilliance in the 1950 film, ‘Vidyasagar’, and has recently been animated for children

Salty Water

13. 14. 15. 16. 17.

18. 19. 20. 21. 22.

23. 24.

25.

26. 27. 28.

29. 30.

127

online, available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmIPCQbCqk4 (accessed 28 February 2012). As quoted in Mitra, Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, pp. 163–64. In Chandicharan’s account, Vidyasagar says more forcefully, ‘If I am at fault, Kerr was my teacher’ (Chandicharan, Vidyasagar, pp. 78). Mitra, Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, p. 164. Chandicharan tells us Mouat valued Vidyasagar’s ‘self-respect’ (atmasamman) and ‘fiery temperament’ (tejasvita); Vidyasagar, p. 78. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance, p. 19. Ibid., p. 105. Mouat would later recommend Vidyasagar to become Principal of the Sanskrit College. Despite his admiration for Vidyasagar, Mouat’s recommendation still betrays his colonial bias, claiming to find in Vidyasagar an ‘amount of decision and energy of character rarely met with in a native of Bengal’; from a letter dated 4 January 1851, cited in Brajendranath Banerji. 1927. ‘Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar as an Educationist, Part I’, Modern Review, 42(3): 259–60. ‘Vidyasagar’, directed by Kalikaprasad Ghosh (1950). Personal conversation with Professor Sukumar Dutta, 26 September 1989. M. K. Gandhi. 1993. Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Boston: Beacon Press, pp. 109–12. I have been unable to locate the original source for this story; see Mitra, Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, p. 323 and Mitra, Karunasagar Vidyasagar, pp. 42–43. Kshudiram Basu reported hearing Vidyasagar complain that colonialism had brought three evils to India: merchants, attorneys and preachers (from Basu’s ‘Vidyasagar Smriti’, quoted in Ghosh, Vidyasagar o Bangali Samaj, p. 555). On Brahmos and missionaries; see Hatcher, Bourgeois Hinduism, Ch. 5. Both remarks are paraphrased from Ghose, Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, p. 154. See Shibnath Shastri. 1919. Men I Have Seen: Being the Author’s Personal Reminiscences of Seven Great Bengalis. Calcutta: Modern Review Office, pp. 17–18. Paraphrased from Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, pp. 454–55. While we obviously don’t find stories like this in Vidyasagar’s school books, the punch line, ‘the spiked tree has been worn smooth’ (simul gach tel haiya giyache) attained the status of a proverb. Shashibhushan Basu, ‘Vidyasagar Smriti’, p. 548. See Vidyasagar, Hindu Widow Marriage, p. 184. Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. 238. For more on Vidyasagar’s critique of Dwarkanath, see A. K. Bandyopadhyay, Bangla Sahitye Vidyasagar, pp. 168–69. Paraphrased from Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. 482. Ibid., 180–81.

128 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian 31. Such tropes are deep-seated in Bengal; see Dinesh Chandra Sen. 1921. Bengali Prose Style: 1800–1857. Calcutta: University of Calcutta, p. 77. 32. For more see Hatcher, Idioms of Improvement, Ch. 9, and the discourses translated in Hatcher, Bourgeois Hinduism, Ch. 8. 33. Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, pp. 478–79. 34. Reprinted in Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, pp. 451–89. 35. Vrajanath hailed from Navadwip and was among a small group of Sanskrit pandits committed to endorsing the divinity of Lord Chaitanya, central to the Bengal Krishnaite tradition; see Kantichandra Radhi, 1937. Navadvipa Mahima. Calcutta: The Book Co, pp. 350–51. 36. Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. 457. 37. Ibid., p. 485. 38. Ibid., p. 483. 39. Ibid., p. 464. 40. Tripathi, Vidyasagar, p. 73; and Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, pp. xxvi–xxvii. 41. Sarkar, Vidyasagar, p. 176. Subal Chandra found the language ‘so vile and scurrilous’ that he could not imagine it coming from Vidyasagar’s pen; see Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, p. 270. 42. As Indra Mitra notes, it is hardly unusual in debates for pandits to cast scorn on their opponents; see Karunasagar Vidyasagar, pp. 320–21. 43. Paraphrased from Taradhan Tarkabhushan. 1893. Taranath Tarkavachaspatir Jivani Evam Samskrita Vidyar Unnati. Calcutta: Brahmo Misssion Press, pp. 64–66. 44. Henri Lefebvre. 2011. Introduction to Modernity: Twelve Preludes September 1959–May 1961, trans. by John Moore. New York: Verso, p. 8. 45. Soren Kierkegaard. 1962. The Point of View for My Work as an Author, trans. by W. Lowrie. New York: Harper Torchbooks, pp. 24–25. 46. During the widow marriage campaign, Vidyasagar’s opponents portrayed him as ‘new-fangled’. See Vaidya (ed.). Collection Containing the Proceedings which led to the Passing of Act XV of 1856, pp. 37–38. 47. For more on this interpretation, see Hatcher, ‘Sanskrit Pandits Recall Their Youth’. 48. Lefebvre, Introduction to Modernity, p. 7 49. Ibid., p. 20. 50. Ibid., p. 7. 51. In what follows I refer to Kaviraj, The Unhappy Consciousness. 52. Ibid., p. 159. 53. Ibid. 54. Ibid. Vidyasagar once compared his usage with Bankim’s by saying, ‘I use Sanskrit words with samskrita [that is, “refined” or proper] meanings, while Bankim uses Sanskrit words with asamskrita [or “unrefined”] meanings’; quoted in Shastri, ‘Vidyasagar Prasanga’, p. 16.

Salty Water

129

55. Kaviraj, The Unhappy Consciousness, p. 168. 56. The phrase ‘hieroglyph of reason’ is from Kaviraj, The Unhappy Consciousness, p. 168. On Vidyasagar as mad (batul), see Bandyopadhyay, Vidyasagar, pp. 72–73. 57. Badruddin Umar is correct when he notes that Vidyasagar and Bankimchandra represented two closely-related poles of the middle-class Bengali response to colonial modernity; see his Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar o Unis Sataker Bangla Samaj, pp. 92–93. 58. All quotes in this paragraph are from Sen, Vidyasagar and his Elusive Milestones, pp. 164–65. It is worth noting that Sen dismisses Badruddin Umar’s Marxist reading of Vidyasagar as ‘too facile’ (p. 147). 59. For more details, see Vidyasagar, Hindu Widow Marriage, p. 31. 60. Ashis Nandy. 1983. The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism. Delhi: Oxford University Press, p. 28. 61. Ibid., p. 29. 62. Tripathi, Vidyasagar, p. 98.

6 A Tale of Two Pandits During the colonial era Sanskrit pandits experienced a range of transformations in their intellectual practices, modes of employment and socio-political activities. Vidyasagar represents just one example of such changes. His autobiography reveals how much his family’s traditions and mode of living underwent significant upheavals and dislocations, though he was far from unique in this regard. Numerous pandits like him had found their way to Calcutta, where some carried forward patterns of traditional Sanskrit education and others entered the service of the colonial government as professors, judges and lowlevel administrators.1 Understandably, not all of these scholars shared Vidyasagar’s commitment to progressive social change. But there were many others who demonstrated in their individual lives a similar blend of personal courage, public integrity and professional gravitas, which they leveraged in the interest of various causes. Theirs was an age greatly shaped by reformist impulses and counter-reformist anxiety. The premier instance of progressive reform since the abolition of Suttee in 1829 no doubt came in 1856 when the Government of India passed legislation in favour of the marriage of Hindu widows. Surveying the vast literature surrounding the widow marriage movement, one becomes familiar with a vast microcosm of pandit activity spread across the region of Bengal.2 The widow marriage campaign benefitted immensely from the collaboration of two pandits in particular: Vidyasagar and his colleague Taranath Tarkavachaspati (1812–85). If Vidyasagar spearheaded the campaign, he often relied on the moral and intellectual support provided by Taranath. Certainly, if we listen to Taranath’s son, it was his father’s skills at logical argument that proved crucial when the two men argued the matter with other pandits.3 Their success in seeing the campaign through to a successful legislative conclusion marks the greatest public triumph in both their careers. Along the way, the two stood firmly side-by-side facing down opposition, even from their own families. Verbal assaults were common and physical threats not

A Tale of Two Pandits

131

unknown, while the financial debts incurred by Vidyasagar alone are the stuff of legend.4 In 1870, when Vidyasagar agreed to give his only son Narayan in marriage to a widow, he could not even count on the support of his own wife or younger siblings.5 On the night of the wedding, he was unable to find a single woman from his family who was willing to greet the new bride. Only his friend Taranath rose to the occasion by hastening home and bringing back his own wife to play the role. Even Vidyasagar’s brother Shambhuchandra, who opposed the marriage, acknowledged Taranath’s devotion to his brother.6 One could scarcely ask for a better expression of friendship and mutual esteem. The fact of the friendship alone should not be surprising. Vidyasagar made friendships with a variety of notable figures of the period, from British officials such as G. T. Marshall and F. J. Halliday to prominent bhadralok intellectuals such as Akshaykumar Dutt and Debendranath Tagore. What is frustrating for the biographer is that it proves rather difficult to reconstruct the nature and development of these relationships. Detailed evidence is spotty; at best, we get snapshots of particular activities or snippets of conversation. Furthermore, we tend to see the public side of such relationships rather than the private. We can say a fair amount about Vidyasagar’s work with Akshaykumar and Debendranath in connection with the Tattvabodhini Sabha in the 1840s and ‘50s, but we can’t easily fathom the shape or character of their day-to-day exchanges. Considering the fact that Vidyasagar’s early and rather intense engagement with both men in the promotion of Brahmo thought appears to have abruptly ended by the late 1850s, we remain curious to know what sorts of concerns might have shaped his eventual move away from the Sabha and the Brahmo movement.7 We might well expect Vidyasagar’s relationship with Taranath to prove equally inaccessible. As a rule, pandits are reticent to speak about themselves. Vidyasagar may have composed an allusive autobiography, but there is no equivalent in the case of Taranath. While his public activities in connection with Vidyasagar are fairly well documented, these offer very little insight into the precise quality of their private friendship. Nevertheless, I think it is possible to peer a bit further into the dynamics of their relationship, especially if we read the sources carefully and expand our understanding of what sorts of evidence can assist us. I have in mind a set of rare and infrequently cited polemical writings composed by both men in connection with a second great public cause, namely the anti-polygamy movement. As these texts

132 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

reveal, it was during the anti-polygamy movement that Vidyasagar and Taranath suffered a painful and rather public falling out. The most intimate details of this rapid and dramatic change in their relationship may remain inaccessible, but a careful reading of several tracts and pseudonymous publications from the anti-polygamy campaign reveals some important clues as to the cause of the break and the emotional toll it took on both men. Why bother to bring this rupture to light? I believe by examining the friendship and the subsequent falling out between these two men we gain a valuable and hitherto unexplored perspective on the life of Vidyasagar. There are at least three good reasons to undertake such an exercise. First, it will afford us another avenue for circumventing the truisms of hagiography and thereby promises to further nuance our understanding of the enigma that is Vidyasagar. Second, a close examination of his relationship with Taranath sheds additional light on the after-life of Vidyasagar, revealing yet again how the records and reminiscences about his life reflect the particular interests of subsequent commentators. Third and finally, this investigation promises to reveal the very human character of Vidyasagar’s reform campaigns and to suggest the high emotional cost of these campaigns for himself and his friends.

Friendship and Fractures Taranath was born in 1812 in the village of Ambika-Kalna on the banks of the Hooghly River in Burdwan District.8 He was already well versed in grammar (vyakarana) before he was offered the opportunity to study at the Government Sanskrit College in 1830. As a result, he proceeded directly into the study of rhetoric (alamkara). He was, by all accounts, a prodigy, completing his studies at the Sanskrit College in just five years. Having mastered all six systems of philosophy (darshana), he was offered a position teaching Logic (nyaya) at the college, which he declined.9 The following year, he passed the Judge Pandit examination, gateway to an official position and a decent salary (his own father held such a position). He was offered a minor position in the Burdwan court soon after but turned it down out of pique, convinced he deserved a more prestigious Judge Pandit position. After this he left for Varanasi (also known as Kashi), where he studied Vedanta. Eventually he returned to his family home in Ambika-Kalna and began teaching Sanskrit in his own school.10

A Tale of Two Pandits

133

Young Ishvarchandra was a year into his studies at the Sanskrit College when Taranath first joined as a student. Those early years were not exactly easy ones for Ishvarchandra. Along with the pressures of college his home life presented other regular challenges. His biographers recount how he and his father were forced to eke out life in a strange city on the most limited means. His father placed enormous hopes on his eldest son’s success at school, not least since he had been forced to abandon his own training as a pandit.11 Then there were the more mundane but no less trying circumstances of youth. Ishvarchandra was not the most handsome young man and had a tendency to stutter. Between daily taunting at school, a father ready to discipline him, and long, hungry nights spent struggling to complete his lessons, it is not surprising that Ishvarchandra would have looked for a friend. He found that friend in Taranath, who took the younger boy under his wing. Shambhuchandra tells us that there were many evenings when Ishvarchandra came to Taranath’s house to study and before long the two developed a close friendship.12 In 1841, Ishvarchandra successfully completed his education and immediately began to take advantage of the kinds of official positions that were becoming available for colonially trained pandits in Calcutta. His first position was as Head Pandit at the College of Fort William; he taught there for five years. During this period, as we have seen, he benefitted from the active support of Major G. T. Marshall who served on the Council on Education. Marshall approached Vidyasagar with an offer to teach in the Grammar Department at the Sanskrit College. Thinking of his friend from college, Vidyasagar declined the offer and recommended that Marshall consider Taranath instead. Marshall approved of the idea and Vidyasagar set off immediately for AmbikaKalna to give Taranath the news. Ever a man in motion, Vidyasagar chose to make the journey on foot, walking through the night and arriving the next morning at Taranath’s Sanskrit school. Taranath was amazed at Vidyasagar’s energy and is said to have remarked, ‘You must be some kind of god in human form!’13 Then Vidyasagar showed him the official letter of appointment from Marshall. Taranath accepted. Shambhuchandra was the first to narrate the story of Vidyasagar walking to Ambika-Kalna, but it went on to become a definitive moment in most biographies. The reasons for its popularity are evident enough. To begin with, the fact that Marshall first approached Vidyasagar for the post ratifies Vidyasagar’s reputation as a promising young scholar. Secondly, the story adds considerable lustre to the image of Vidyasagar

134 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

as a man of immense physical energy and force of will. For the early biographers, the story offered a compelling corrective to prevailing colonial views of the weak and effeminate Bengali Babu. Finally, the story reinforces prevailing images of Vidyasagar as a paragon of generosity and kindness. Here is a man who turned down the security of a solid government position in order to promote the interests of his friend. Ironically, this story of generosity and friendship also provides the necessary backdrop for understanding Vidyasagar’s angry outburst at Taranath narrated in the preceding chapter. On that occasion, Ishvarchandra had a flare up with Taranath’s son Jivananda in the halls of the Sanskrit College. Readers will recall that Taranath arrived on the scene eager to defuse the tension by taking on the blame for his son’s apparent disrespect toward Vidyasagar. However, Vidyasagar rebuffed his friend. Worse, he shot a deeply cutting remark at Taranath, saying ‘It was I and no one else who got you your position in this college . . . If it weren’t for me, no one would even bother with you’.14 We now understand that the basis of the claim was Vidyasagar’s recommendation of Taranath for the Grammar position. But what could have prompted this bitter and spiteful claim? Writing about Vidyasagar’s outburst at the college, Taranath’s son remarks, [t]his marked the first visible fracture in the friendship between Vidyasagar and Taranath. For the rest of his life Taranath sought Vidyasagar’s affection, but if they encountered one another Vidyasagar never spoke to Taranath . . . Dear reader! Taranath was not to blame. His only error was to ask for forgiveness when he had done nothing wrong, being moved by nothing but sadness and affection . . . Afterwards, whenever Vidyasagar got the chance he would publicly denounce Taranath, though the latter never sought revenge.15

This may have represented the first ‘fracture’ in their relationship but we cannot help asking what prompted Vidyasagar’s angry outburst at his friend. Hadn’t Taranath helped Ishvarchandra through his early studies at the college? Hadn’t he helped Vidyasagar promote the cause of widow marriage?16 What prompted Vidyasagar to ‘publicly denounce’ Taranath?

For the Downfall of the Proud Our source for the story of the scene at the Sanskrit College is Taranath’s son, Taradhan Tarkabhushan, who does not provide a date for the

A Tale of Two Pandits

135

incident at the college. There are good reasons to think it took place sometime after 1870. That was the year of Narayan’s marriage, which had been publicly endorsed by both Taranath and his wife. Up to this point, there seems to have been goodwill between the two men.17 While it is unlikely that Vidyasagar’s outburst preceded this date, something did happen during the very next year that may have sparked the sudden reversal of affection on Vidyasagar’s part. In 1871, Vidyasagar launched his second major social reform campaign, the drive to abolish the custom of high-caste (or kulin) polygamy. In July, Vidyasagar published the first of two tracts, both entitled Bahuvivaha Rahita Haoya Uchita Kina Etadvishakayaprastava (loosely ‘A Proposal Concerning the Prohibition of Polygamy’).18 This campaign seems to have been the wedge that worked to drive Vidyasagar and Taranath apart. The opening words of Bahuvivaha resonate with Vidyasagar’s legendary compassion for the plight of young women in India who suffer from the need to submit to the regulations and whims of a patriarchal society. Vidyasagar knows he faces the collective resistance of deeply entrenched male conservatism and is quick to reveal the strategy he plans to adopt in arguing for the abolition of polygamy: There are some people who reach for their swords when the evils of polygamy are mentioned or there is talk of its prohibition. Such people are convinced that the matter of polygamy is in accordance both with the shastras and with dharma. In their opinion anyone who is angered or disgusted at this position is an opponent of shastra and an enemy of dharma, an atheist and a vile person. They have developed the position that if polygamy is prohibited it will bring about disdain for the shastras and a decline in dharma . . . [However if] we examine all the injunctions and prohibitions of the authors of the shastra regarding marriage we will be able to determine whether polygamy is in accordance with the shastras and with dharma and whether there is any danger of disdain for the shastras and a decline in dharma if polygamy is prohibited.19

As in opposing the ban on widow marriage, Vidyasagar intends to demonstrate that the practice of polygamy is supported by neither Hindu scripture nor law. Thus, if it were outlawed by the Government it would do no harm to Hindu society.20 While the argument can be easily stated, the text of Bahuvivaha is lengthy and detailed and features a virtuoso display of Vidyasagar’s learning and his polemical savoir faire, including a critical overview of high-caste marriage customs in Bengal, ‘real life’ stories of unfortunate women forced into such marriages,

136 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

even tables of statistics documenting the prevalence of multiple marriages among high-caste kulins (both Brahmins and Kayasthas). Rather than addressing the text in all its complexity, it is enough to highlight a leitmotif that emerges from Vidyasagar’s analysis, namely the pride and the selfishness of the Brahmin communities who promote the practice of polygamy.21 Among those who rejected Vidyasagar’s basic position was Taranath.22 However, the simple fact of Taranath’s opposition may not account for the energy with which Vidyasagar would go on to denounce him. To appreciate this, it is necessary to know that Taranath had initially spoken up in favour of a ban on high-caste polygamy. He was among 21,000 signatories on a petition submitted to Lieutenant-Governor Cecil Beadon in 1866 and endorsed by the Maharaja of Krishnanagar.23 Sometime after this, Taranath seems to have changed his mind. Taranath’s volte face explains the degree of Vidyasagar’s outrage. We know Vidyasagar suspected his pandit peers of the original sin of sycophancy and it would surely have stung him to think that Taranath might have opposed him simply to please a larger or more influential constituency.24 Vidyasagar’s growing suspicion of his friend is evident from two appendices attached to the first book of Bahuvivaha. In the first of these, Vidyasagar refers to a document upholding the scriptural validity of polygamy and signed by a number of pandits. Vidyasagar tells his readers he was shocked to learn that the document had been prepared with the assistance of Taranath (whom he identifies as Professor of Grammar at the Calcutta Government Sanskrit College). How odd, he suggests, since just five years earlier Taranath had publicly supported the idea of legislation. How was it that he now chose to support a ‘shameful, awful, pernicious, and unjust’ practice like polygamy?25 As if in reply to this very question, Vidyasagar quoted at length from an essay by Taranath that had recently appeared in the Bengali journal Shomprakash.26 In that essay, Taranath had pronounced that polygamy was not only supported by the shastras but was also a widespread and well-established custom. Taranath professed disappointment that Vidyasagar did not share his opinion, but said he simply could not accept his friend’s line of reasoning. Vidyasagar’s interpretation appeared to him to be something new-fangled (abhinava) and clever rather than scripturally sound. Taranath admitted that the marriage practices of certain ‘degraded’ high-caste groups (the so-called bhagna kulins) were in need of change and that he had once supported

A Tale of Two Pandits

137

the idea of a legal solution to this problem, but he now reasoned that such degraded customs would pass of their own accord as society progressed.27 Taranath’s rationale was, thus, neither specious nor was it unprecedented; many of his contemporaries shared the view that marriage customs would benefit over time from the ameliorating conditions of modern social progress.28 This only adds weight to the supposition that what really angered Vidyasagar was not the fact that Taranath disagreed with him in principle, but that he had simply betrayed him. The appendices to Bahuvivaha make it clear that Vidyasagar hopes to shame his friend into once again joining him in the fight. And yet, while he was successful in ‘calling out’ Taranath, he seems not to have anticipated that his friend would put up a fight. Taranath’s rejoinder appeared the following year under the title Bahuvivaha Vada (‘The Doctrine of Polygamy’). Unlike Vidyasagar, Taranath chose to compose his text entirely in Sanskrit. The decision was a perfectly reasonable one insofar as Taranath may have felt that the matter was one for Sanskrit scholars to adjudicate; only they had the skills and wisdom to interpret Hindu scripture. By writing in Sanskrit, Taranath may also have hoped to keep the debate more or less ‘official’ and to avoid personalising the matter (though we shall see he was not completely successful in this regard). As a rule, he speaks respectfully of Vidyasagar, addressing him politely as someone ‘worthy of blessings’ (kalyana bhanjana). His chief goal appears to be to correct Vidyasagar’s mistaken reading of certain Sanskrit sources.29 Of course the matter was personal. Vidyasagar composed a painstaking and aggressive response to Taranath’s Bahuvivaha Vada. In this text the reader begins to feel a keen sense of betrayal. Whatever Taranath may have thought, for Vidyasagar the battle lines had been drawn; the ‘bull calf’ of Birsingha was now digging in for a fight. Before the confrontation with Taranath was over, Vidyasagar would publish a second lengthy tract entitled Bahuvivaha under his own name; he would also compose two other tracts and publish them pseudonymously. In all these subsequent works we can see that the battle to reject polygamy had also become a personal contest with Taranath. And Vidyasagar’s strategy for winning the latter contest was to demolish Taranath’s credibility. Looking past the dense thicket of scriptural citations and the mind-boggling array of possible marriages classified under Hindu law, these texts amount to a relentless personal attack on Taranath. We may rightly think of the anti-polygamy campaign as a pressing issue of

138 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

politics and public sphere agitation but we can also begin to appreciate how personal the issue had become for Vidyasagar. The second book of Vidyasagar’s Bahuvivaha appeared in March 1872. It offered a lengthy and dense review of material culled from the shastras and other historical materials.30 True to form, Vidyasagar wrote in Bengali in order to reach a reading public not familiar with Sanskrit. He wanted this to be a ‘truly public debate conducted in full view of educated Bengali readers’.31 By translating the shastras from Sanskrit, Vidyasagar ‘invited the educated reader into the realm of scholarly debate’.32 Vidyasagar used this strategy to his advantage, reminding readers that Taranath wrote only in Sanskrit. Vidyasagar quipped that while Taranath claimed to want to help readers who had no knowledge of Sanskrit, he expressed that very claim in Sanskrit!33 On this point at least, Taranath ceded the high ground to Vidyasagar who could more truly claim to mediate Sanskrit knowledge to the Bengali reading public.34 In the second book of Bahuvivaha we notice that Vidyasagar also worked to cast his friend in the stereotypical role of the pandit. On the one hand, he painted Taranath as a clueless Brahmin scholar who was so absorbed in the niceties of his own intellectual universe that he had trouble connecting with ordinary readers. On the other, Vidyasagar depicted Taranath as puffed up and arrogant. Like so many pandits, Taranath could not help boasting of his skills at Sanskrit composition.35 When we see one pandit skewering another with the aid of such negative tropes, it should remind us that such failings are not the necessary concomitants of Sanskrit learning (as high-minded colonial scholars liked to suggest); rather, we see very clearly what polemical value they had for an author like Vidyasagar. He was successful at casting Taranath in the role of the proud and clueless pandit; however, we should not let his rhetoric stand in the way of understanding what is really at stake in this dispute.

The Case Against Taranath Vidyasagar opens the second tract of Bahuvivaha by claiming that there were few people who actually opposed his proposal. He singles out five pandits from around Bengal as his principal opponents, with Taranath Tarkavachaspati being the fifth. These opponents provide Vidyasagar with an organising conceit for the work; the bulk of the work is made up of five formal ‘topics’ (prakarana), each associated with one opponent.

A Tale of Two Pandits

139

It is a creative compositional strategy, one that adapts scholastic Sanskrit convention to a modern purpose. In this respect it is reminiscent of the structure Vidyasagar adopted for his work promoting widow marriage.36 Yet the second book of Bahuvivaha differs in one important way from Vidhava Vivaha. This is not just a review of legal sources, but a direct repudiation of his opponents. This time ‘it’s personal’ and the brunt of Vidyasagar’s polemical fury falls on Taranath, who is the focus of the longest topic (‘Tarkavachaspati-prakarana’), which spans over 100 pages (octavo).37 The topic on Taranath begins with a quotation from Taranath’s Bahuvivaha Vada in which the latter accuses Vidyasagar of trying to confuse his readers with new-fangled and misleading readings of the legal texts. Vidyasagar then answers this charge by asserting that it is never acceptable to deliberately conceal the true meaning of the shastras in order to gain victory in a debate. To intentionally promulgate the wrong interpretation of the shastras is a vile thing. He states emphatically, ‘I have never knowingly committed such an abominable act’.38 After this, Vidyasagar proceeds to defend himself from Taranath’s other charges. A recurring charge is that Taranath fails to invest the requisite effort in his study of scripture.39 Amid the legalistic parsing of Sanskrit passages and digressions on technical rules of interpretation, Vidyasagar sketches a highly unflattering portrait of his onetime friend. Taranath comes across as vain and willful and Vidyasagar accuses him of saying anything in order to achieve victory.40 Vidyasagar is clearly on the attack, just as he had been when confronting Vrajanath’s opposition to widow marriage. And, as in that instance, one wonders whether he has not gone too far in abusing his friend. However, in his defense Vidyasagar quotes selectively from Taranath’s Bahuvivaha Vada and this allows us to see that Taranath had, in fact, indulged in some mudslinging of his own. As an example, we may consider Taranath’s argument that marriage is a voluntary (kamya) sacred performance. The legal details need not concern us here since what is most relevant is the way Taranath concludes his argument. He tells his readers, ‘I have thus demolished the notion held by Vidyasagar — in the absence of any proof — that marriage is a necessary or occasional duty. Just let him try to show otherwise’. This might have been the point for Taranath to conclude, but he apparently felt compelled to add one more biting comment: ‘I don’t care if it takes him two carriage loads of books and a thousand teachings to do so’.41 It doesn’t take a Sanskrit scholar to appreciate the insult. If Vidyasagar were a

140 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

better pandit he wouldn’t need to spend so much time rooting around in the shastras to know what was valid and what was not. Without a doubt, Taranath is hinting at Vidyasagar’s desperate search through the legal literature for a conclusive passage to cement his argument in favour of widow marriage — in which he often relied on the assistance of Taranath! On one level barbs like these would be nothing new in the practice of Sanskrit debate, but on another level we know this debate had devolved into an ugly personal contest. In Taranath’s caustic remark we may even sense the chagrin of a friend who watched as Vidyasagar garnered all the acclaim for successfully promoting widow marriage.42 At the same time, Taranath also seems to boast a kind of brilliance that transcends mere book learning. Vidyasagar found in this rebuke clear evidence of an unrestrained ego. He replied sarcastically, ‘I am not omniscient like him. I don’t have the courage or the ego to launch into a debate without consulting the relevant sources’.43 In Bahuvivaha, Vidyasagar, thus, conducts a relentless assault on Taranath’s ego, his intellect and his moral character. The proud grandson of indomitable pandits, Vidyasagar takes seriously the moral imperative shouldered by the pandit to serve as the ultimate arbiter of legal issues. In his mind, pandits should be wise men who are masters of their disciplines, not to mention their egos and their passions. By attacking Taranath on all these counts Vidyasagar denies his old friend the right to deliver opinions on polygamy. The shastric validity of polygamy may be the overt focus of discussion, but it is really Taranath who is put on trial. This explains Vidyasagar’s decision to conclude the ‘Topic on Taranath’ by turning to one final and very personal assessment of his opponent’s character. The strategy is thoroughly ironic, with Vidyasagar adopting a tone of mock sympathy for his old friend, but using this mask to communicate something ‘he needs to say himself’.44 Vidyasagar appears to rise to Taranath’s defense, reminding his readers that Taranath had set out to do nothing more than assist readers who couldn’t understand Sanskrit.45 Vidyasagar claims to be dumbfounded that some readers might think Taranath’s gesture was disingenuous. Could they possibly think Taranath published Bahuvivaha Vada merely to demonstrate his superiority as a pandit? I have to say that those who make this claim have clearly never met nor spent time around the respected Tarkavachaspati. For people to suggest that he promulgated his book out of a desire for victory only demonstrates

A Tale of Two Pandits

141

their own immaturity. The desire for victory is produced by the quality of spiritual darkness (tamo guna). Anyone who has had even the slightest interaction with the respected Tarkavachaspati will openly tell you that he bears no trace of the quality of spiritual darkness.46

Vidyasagar then quotes some passages from Taranath’s text, ostensibly to prove the sincerity of Taranath’s work. Of course, the ironist in Vidyasagar knew these passages would communicate a very different message. In one such passage Taranath remarks: It may be that all those people who lack a knowledge of Sanskrit will trust in his [Vidyasagar’s] words and thereby find themselves whirled in confusion. But he will fall beneath the wheels of my logic and find himself overwhelmed by the force of my questions; there will be no place for him to hide.47

Looking at this passage, Vidyasagar asks his readers rather facetiously how anyone could think its author was ‘proud, arrogant or eager for victory’.48 Without directly condemning his friend, Vidyasagar finds a way to say precisely what he thinks. And so ends the topic on Taranath — with an enormous wink. How did Taranath respond to Vidyasagar’s cunning assault? Unfortunately, all we have are some suggestive clues.49 For instance, Taranath’s son provides a brief account of the anti-polygamy debate that reads like a photographic negative of Vidyasagar’s version: In an attempt to uproot from our land the evil custom of polygamy, the renowned Vidyasagar published a book that was intended to show that the practice was not authorised by the shastras. Reading it even now [this was written in the 1890s], anyone will see that Vidyasagar’s attempt was effectively a challenge made to contemporary pandits. And such was Vidyasagar’s arrogance and pedantry that he certainly did agitate the learned scholars of the land.50

Taranath’s son then quipped that not everyone was as well off as Vidyasagar; not everyone had the financial resources to inundate the public with lengthy tracts. He also suggested that the Brahmin’s code of humility and frugal living ought to preclude such lavish expenditure and self-aggrandizing behaviour. Comments like these allow us to appreciate how Taranath and his family resented being attacked by a media-savvy figure whose official connections and success as a publisher made him something of a power broker in colonial Calcutta. Seen

142 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

from this perspective Taranath’s attempt to refute the scriptural basis of Vidyasagar’s campaign was motivated not by his own ego, but by that of his high-minded opponent. According to Taranath’s son, it was Vidyasagar who had failed to rein in his ego and his passions. Claiming that Vidyasagar had ‘blazed up in anger like an eggplant frying in oil’ at the thought of Taranath’s opposition, he went on to say, [i]n Bahuvivaha, Vidyasagar didn’t restrict himself to shastric sources, but filled his book with the most vile and uncouth language. Vidyasagar’s reasoning was laden with coarse humor (gramya rasikata) and Taranath was so shocked by such foul and uncouth language that he offered no reply.51

However we view the matter, a once thriving friendship was breaking up in the stormy waves of debate. And this was only the beginning.

Helping Uncle Taranath In Chapter Five we encountered a character known as the Competent Nephew (upayukta bhaipo). As it turns out, his first appearance in print took place during the anti-polygamy campaign. This is the pseudonym Vidyasagar adopted when composing a short tract aimed at Taranath, published in 1873 under the somewhat cryptic title Ati Alpa Haila (‘It wasn’t much’), followed in the same year by a second tract entitled Abar Ati Alpa Haila (‘Once again, it wasn’t much’).52 The two tracts caused something of a sensation since in them the Competent Nephew subjected Taranath to a brutal ad hominem assault that left many readers cringing. Taranath’s son called it ‘a mean and completely unseemly’ work filled with ‘the vilest language’.53 Professing to be too polite to even mention the book’s title, he marvelled that its author hadn’t ‘been brought before a criminal court’.54 One thing was clear: based on the style, vocabulary and private details mentioned in the book, it had to have been written by Vidyasagar. And for him, this raised the question, ‘Would Vidyasagar ever be so mean-spirited and cowardly as to utter such abuse’?55 Many others agreed. Around the same time, early biographers, such as Biharilal and Subal Chandra, found the language of these tracts to be beneath the dignity of a respected scholar like Vidyasagar. Subal Chandra remarked that the Competent Nephew’s language was ‘lowly satirical’ and not ‘consonant to good taste’.56 Despite their reputation as uncouth and undignified, both pseudonymous works went through three editions in Vidyasagar’s lifetime.

A Tale of Two Pandits

143

Writing in the preface to third edition of 1884, Vidyasagar remarked that the first printing had sold out immediately. He found himself pressed by his supporters to bring out more copies. One is reminded of the Parisian official in charge of tracking libels in pre-Revolutionary France who remarked that ‘nothing circulates faster than a witticism and a good, biting epigram, especially when the satire is aimed at an important personage, a distinguished figure or a man in power’.57 According to Taranath’s son, Taranath refused to take the bait. This may not be entirely true, as we shall see, but in retrospect it does appear that he has emerged from the controversy as the party who was wronged. No doubt this only further angered Vidyasagar. Quite apart from feeling betrayed by his former friend, Vidyasagar was surely aggravated that his elaborate shastric arguments were not meeting with the same kind of success he had experienced when conducting the widow marriage campaign. Not only this, but Taranath was widely considered one of the most respected scholars of his day. Surely Vidyasagar was angry to have his authority challenged by such a figure.58 The ‘bull calf’ was not one to back down, however. In the two pseudonymous works he took his assault to another level, reaching for his preferred weapons — irony and satire. The Competent Nephew zeroes in on the theme of Taranath’s pride. Pandits are always squaring off against one another in debate; charging an opponent with excessive pride turns out to be a rather old debating strategy employed by South Asian intellectuals. Sometimes it could be quite artful. Classical Sanskrit rhetoricians theorised multiple ways to convey blame, whether directly or by concealing censure in the language of apparent praise.59 As a pandit, Vidyasagar knew all these tactics well; as an author of acknowledged skill, he found his own way to put them to good use. Ati Alpa Haila opens with a wonderful rhetorical flourish, commencing with five stanzas of Bengali under the heading (in Sanskrit for good measure), ‘For the downfall of the most lofty’ (atyuccaih patanaya): And so at last we see him frown — Mighty [Taranath’s] pride is brought down. One who boasts like this you don’t often see — ‘I’m bigger than all, there’s none quite like me.’ Overweening pride was Ravana’s demise — Vachaspati! It has ruined you, likewise.

144 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian Puffed up with pride, you view us all with scorn — The man to match your ego hasn’t been born. You fool of a pandit, with your jaded mind — You’re not just immature, you are too unkind.60

The theme of shattered pride (hatadarpa in Sanskrit) is an old one, but Vidyasagar appreciated how effectively it could be employed in the context of a debate over polygamy. In Bengal, high-caste kulin groups were understood to be immensely proud of their divinely endowed status.61 As Vidyasagar had argued in Bahuvivaha, the continued practice of polygamy depended precisely upon the arrogance of those Kulin groups who viewed themselves as superior to others, even of their own caste (once again the theme of adhikara rears its head). Vidyasagar, in fact, concluded the second tract of Bahuvivaha with a blistering attack on high-caste Brahmin pride and the self-serving ways in which Sanskrit scholars distorted sacred scripture to validate the perpetuation of their flawed customs.62 By focusing on the theme of pride in Ati alpa haila, the Competent Nephew associates Taranath’s ego with the original sin of polygamy. From the overarching theme of pride the Competent Nephew then strikes at the heart of pandit identity — mastery of Sanskrit learning. There is no good way to communicate the tenor and flow of the work except by providing a rather lengthy paraphrase. Here is how the Competent Nephew launches into his critique, calm and composed: I have long heard that Taranath Tarkavachaspati is a redoubtable scholar. But now I hear that he really isn’t all that learned. Vidyasagar recently published a book in which he argued that polygamy is not sanctioned by the treatises. My uncle brought out his own book in Sanskrit to refute Vidyasagar’s argument. Vidyasagar then published a second book in reply. Anyone who has read that second book will realise that Taranath has been brought low. People are amazed and they’re saying, ‘Well then, Taranath! Answer that!’ After all, Taranath used to say, ‘I’m the best pandit there is; there’s no one like me. Who knows Sanskrit better than I?’ People in the know claim that Taranath really only talks like a pandit. His learning doesn’t match his rhetoric. Now I’ve heard it said that Jagannath Tarkapanchanan was a redoubtable pandit. But even he never chattered on about himself the way Taranath does. Jagannath apparently wasn’t afflicted with the disease of biliousness . . . If you ask me, anyone who prattles on about himself is a fool. You know, it really made me want to read Vidyasagar’s book. So I went to him and got a copy. Let me tell you, that is one mad Brahmin. He throws his

A Tale of Two Pandits

145

money around, prints a few books and then just gives them away. Tell me that isn’t crazy! Well, now my uncle has been brought down and there is no way for him to get back up. The true extent of his legal knowledge has been revealed. What can I say? Uncle, you’re quite foolish and you’ve ruined your reputation for no good reason. If you hadn’t tried to prove your valour by writing that clever little book you wouldn’t have gotten into this mess.63

After a few more comments along these lines, the Competent Nephew turns to a scrutiny of Taranath’s work. This prompts him to comment, I know a thing or two about grammar . . . I may not be able to write Sanskrit myself, but I can tell good from bad. When I looked at my uncle’s book I realised he is nowhere as skilled at reading and writing as he is at making pronouncements. When he tries to write Sanskrit, he makes a hash of it. I suppose Vidyasagar didn’t notice what a mess my uncle had made because if he had he never would have let him off so easily.64

After this, the Competent Nephew begins to adduce examples taken from Taranath’s Bahuvivaha Vada. The details aren’t important and in any case the sting of the critique is perhaps a bit hard for most of us to appreciate.65 Suffice it to say that the bulk of Ati Alpa Haila is an exposé of grammatical errors.66 It may seem trivial but there is nothing more damning for a pandit than to be accused of grammatical errors. Reveal an error of gender, case or number and watch the edifice of argument tumble to the ground. The topic looming at the centre of public debate — the question of polygamy — is never directly broached. It’s a short work but it allows the Competent Nephew to make one simple request of his uncle: ‘Don’t spend any more money writing Sanskrit’.67 Taranath’s son says his father remained silent in the face of such abuse. But it would appear he did not suffer in complete silence. He composed a reply to the Competent Nephew that only survives (to the best of my knowledge) in the form of a handful of quotations that appeared in the second pseudonymous satire composed by Vidyasagar under the title, Abar Ati Alpa Haila. In this work, which also appeared in 1873, the Competent Nephew claims his Uncle Taranath has lost his mind. How else can he explain Taranath’s decision to compose a reply to Ati Alpa Haila? Hadn’t he been advised to stop writing? Through the

146 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

fog of satire we begin to hear very telling comments about the fractured relationship between Taranath and Vidyasagar. The Competent Nephew tells his readers his uncle ‘couldn’t have a better or more well-intentioned friend than Vidyasagar’.68 Echoing Vidyasagar’s charges during his outburst at the Sanskrit College, the Competent Nephew claims that Taranath’s reputation, fame, and wealth ‘are all owed to Vidyasagar — all of it’.69 Most importantly he claims that without Vidyasagar’s assistance his uncle would never have gotten his foot in the door of the Sanskrit College. How could his uncle be so ungrateful?70 Obviously, the outburst at the college did testify to a growing resentment on Vidyasagar’s part. The man who has been lionised for walking all the way to Ambika-Kalna to offer his own job to Taranath clearly felt that his act of generosity should have guaranteed Taranath’s loyalty. Instead, he feels persecuted and betrayed. The Competent Nephew even suggests Taranath and his son, Jivananda (the original focus of Vidyasagar’s anger in the college incident) were determined to harass and harm him.71 The Competent Nephew tells his readers that Taranath and ‘Brother Jivananda’ (Jivananda bhaya) never ‘let a moment go by without trying to injure Vidyasagar’.72 Asitkumar Bandyopadhyay has argued that Vidyasagar’s anger at Taranath is a proxy for his anger at all his pandit peers.73 In order to accept this interpretation we need to agree that the pandits of Bengal were ‘slaves to tradition,’ that they were ‘incredibly greedy, selfish and dastardly’.74 According to Bandyopadhyay, there wasn’t much pandits weren’t capable of doing to satisfy their own desires. To hinder the passage of legislation, such men would happily ‘throw up a dustcloud of grammar and punctuation’ to confuse the issue.75 And they had significant backing from wealthy elites who shared their interests in preserving the status quo. Bandyopadhyay argues that Vidyasagar understood all this; he knew that polite books and straightforward arguments would never win the day. He had no choice but to conceal his identity and adopt the harshest possible language if he was to win the day.76 Put simply, if we follow this interpretation, the battle between Vidyasagar and Taranath boils down to an epic confrontation between modern individualism and irrational traditionalism.77 For all its drama and simplicity, such an interpretation is too grounded in unfounded stereotypes, not least of the pandit as a kind of antediluvian logic-chopper who (in the words of an early Orientalist

A Tale of Two Pandits

147

scholar) worked continuously to shroud his sacred truths in ‘obstinate and inviolable obscurity.78 The trope of the unreliable pandit fighting a hopeless battle against modernity was, already, firmly in place by the time Vidyasagar penned his pseudonymous tracts.79 In fact, the tracts associated with the anti-polygamy campaign show how effectively Vidyasagar himself could use the trope against his own pandit peers. Sadly, Bandyopadhyay merely carries forward the same trope and then turns it into a tool for justifying the validity of Vidyasagar’s aggressive posture vis-à-vis Taranath. Yes, there was a battle here. Yes, Vidyasagar worked tirelessly to change the minds of the pandits who opposed him, but this was no battle between modernity and tradition. Indeed, there could hardly be two men who shared more than Vidyasagar and Taranath and who more actively engaged with modernity in their work. Both men took advantage of employment under the British, published widely and to great acclaim, and sought to have a direct impact on the ways colonial society was changing. The best way to understand their confrontation is, on the one hand, as a disagreement over how to interpret a sensitive legal question, and on the other hand, as a very personal and bitter falling out.

End of the Affair In the end, the irony of texts like Ati Alpa Haila and Abar Ati Alpa Haila masks a sense of profound pain and frustration.80 It is hardly a coincidence that Vidyasagar built his house in Karmatar in 1873, the very same year he adopted the guise of the Competent Nephew in order to attack his old friend. In the years running up to the anti-polygamy campaign, he had confronted significant financial challenges alongside recurring family crises. In the anti-polygamy campaign he faced relentless public pressure and scorn. The combined strain induced by endless debts carried over from the widow marriage campaign, a growing mistrust of his countrymen when it came to supporting reform, and the sheer exhaustion of waging another difficult campaign must have been enormous. As one commentator has remarked, ‘the last three decades of his life were full of trouble, tension and discord’.81 When seen in this light, the pseudonymous tracts look less like the weapons of a righteous hero than the acts of a desperate and frustrated man. After examining Vidyasagar’s pseudonymous tracts, Sumit Sarkar rightly notes that they convey a ‘sense of helpless anger’ bursting forth

Plate 8: Vidyasagar’s house in Nandan Kanan, Karmatar, Jharkhand (2012)

A Tale of Two Pandits

149

in ‘bouts of violent, even vulgar, abuse’.82 If these tracts cause us to laugh they may not, in fact, amount to the proverbial ‘last laugh’. It is easy to celebrate the righteous humanism of Vidyasagar and cherish thereby an image of his undaunted spirit in the face of adversity, but that celebration should not deafen us to the sorrowful chords echoing through his life. At one point, the Competent Nephew makes a joke about his uncle’s imminent demise. It is a joke that turns sour when we learn that Taranath died the following year.83 Even though Vidyasagar is said to have been deeply moved by the news of Taranath’s death, it would appear he never had an opportunity to mend the rift between them. Can we imagine how Taranath’s family felt when Vidyasagar publicly lamented Taranath’s death by proclaiming, ‘Alas, today India has lost its last pandit’.84 The bitter reminiscences composed by Taranath’s son reflect his all-too-understandable desire to redeem his father’s reputation. We can even forgive him for suggesting that his father had been the greater of the two pandits.85 If Vidysagar was the great humanist, it is worth recognising that no one person can claim the title of humanity over others who also cherish family, who seek the welfare of others and the stability of society. The sincerity of the son’s devotion to Taranath reminds us, too, that some of the greatest public battles in colonial South Asia had concrete personal ramifications. In the end, the tale of these two pandits allows us to complicate our notions of progressive colonial reform in, at least, two respects. To begin with, it provides an occasion to return to the question of Vidyasagar’s humanism. In light of this rather ugly public debate, what does it mean to say a reformer like Vidyasagar was a ‘lover of humanity’ (manava premik, a phrase often used to translate ‘humanist’). Vidyasagar would not be the first reformer to place his commitment to the greater good, above the bonds of personal affection, but his relationship with Taranath also makes the cost of that choice vivid and compelling. The fact of his assault on his old friend does not lessen our admiration for Vidyasagar as a reformer so much as it complicates the neat categories of hagiography. Perhaps, this brief review of the personal side of reform simply serves to humanise the humanist, confirming what we have seen in previous chapters, namely that he was a man of great emotional complexity. Recovering such complexity for all great figures of the day may prove impossible but

150 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

it does, at least, suggest the need to temper our triumphal histories of awakening. Secondly, after reviewing the story of these two Sanskrit scholars it becomes clear how careful we must be in deploying generic categories like ‘pandit’. The simplistic dichotomies that can be traced to early British prejudices against indigenous intellectuals, repeated even today by authors such as Asitkumar Bandyopadhyay, are no longer either adequate or justifiable.86 To perpetuate stereotypes of the pandit as either unreliable or anti-modern only fosters the repetition of simplistic versions of history. Such stereotypes breathe continued life into the misguided notion that we remember Vidyasagar today despite the fact that he was a pandit (as if it were a dirty secret to be denied) even as they support the equally erroneous notion that Taranath has been largely forgotten because he was a pandit. It seems far better to acknowledge that both men were pandits and then explore precisely what this meant for both their professional careers and personal lives. Furthermore, the history of reform in India stands to benefit by thinking through with more care the role played by such Sanskrit intellectuals in the great and consequential debates of the period. And when it comes to Vidyasagar himself, the exercise of reconstructing a highly personal and clearly painful moment from his life has hopefully illustrated not only what resources there are for rethinking the precise contours of his professional engagements and personal commitments but also how much care we should exercise in working through the layers of historical record, personal reminiscence and popular memory. The story of his dramatic falling out with Taranath may seem trivial when set against a lifetime of seventy-one years and a backdrop of tumultuous cultural change, but my hope is that it also provides a ground-level view of the complex dynamics and, sometimes, painful costs of advancing social change. If our biographies of Vidyasagar don’t reflect such aspects of his rich and challenging career, we have not done our job as historians and scholars of modern Bengal.

Notes 1. On this issue see Brian A. Hatcher. 2005. ‘What’s become of the Pandit? Rethinking the History of Sanskrit Scholars in Colonial Bengal’, Modern Asian Studies, 39(3): pp. 683–723.

A Tale of Two Pandits

151

2. Many of these pandits make an appearance in the arguments and footnotes of Vidyasagar’s Vidhava Vivaha; see Hindu Widow Marriage, passim. 3. See Taradhan Tarkabhushan, Taranath Tarkavachaspatir Jivani, pp. 47–48, and Vidyasagar, Hindu Widow Marriage, p. 45. 4. See Haldar, Vidyasagar: A Reassessment, p. 47 and Benoy Ghosh, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, pp. 106–7. 5. Chandicharan was appalled that Shambhuchandra failed to recognise the enormity of his brother’s commitment to widow marriage (Vidyasagar, p. 255), while Shambhuchandra later explained his misreading of the situation (see Vidyaratna. 1895. Bhramnirash. Arthat Shriyukta Chandicharan Bandyopadhyay pranita ‘Vidyasagar’ namak nutan Jivanchariter Bhramnirakarana. Calcutta, pp. 27–29). 6. Vidyaratna, Bhramnirash, p. 29. On Narayan’s wedding, see Mitra, Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, p. 536; and Tripathi, Vidyasagar, p. 64. 7. For information on Vidyasagar, Akshaykumar and Debendranath in connection with the Tattvabodhini Sabha, see Hatcher, Bourgeois Hinduism, passim. 8. For a summary of Taranath’s career, see Hatcher, ‘What’s Become of the Pandit?’ 9. Ibid., pp. 8–9. Vidyaratna gives no reason for Taranath’s decision. 10. Ibid., pp. 13–14. 11. On Ishvarchandra’s schooldays, see Hatcher, Idioms of Improvement, Ch. 3. 12. Vidyaratna, Panditakulatilaka Mahatma Taranath Tarkavachaspatir Jivancharita, p. 11. 13. Quoted in Sarkar, Vidyasagar, p. 91, who seems to follow Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, pp. 58–59. 14. For more on the incident, see Chapter Five. The story is told in Tarkabhushan, Taranath Tarkavachaspatir Jivani evam Samskrita Vidyar Unnati, pp. 64–66. 15. Paraphrased from Tarkabhushan, Taranath Tarkavachaspatir Jivani, p. 66. 16. For a discussion of Taranath’s role in the widow marriage movement, see Vidyaratna, Panditakulatilaka Mahatma Taranath Tarkavahcaspatir Jivancharita, pp. 19–23; see also Vidyasagar, Hindu Widow Marriage, passim. 17. See Vidyaratna, Panditakulatilaka Mahatma Taranath Tarkavachaspatir Jivancharita, p. 60. 18. See Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, pp. 167–244. 19. Ibid., pp. 171–72. 20. Ibid., pp. 179. 21. As Vidyasagar puts it, the pride of those who guard Hindu custom is boundless and it feels no shame in stomping on the very shastras; see Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, pp. 190–91. For a summary of the antipolygamy campaign, see Subal Chandra Mitra, Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, Ch. 29.

152 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian 22. See Mitra, Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, p. 569. 23. Ibid., p. 557. There had been earlier petitions to the government, such as one in 1855 for which Vidyasagar garnered the support of the Maharaja of Burdwan (Ibid., p. 555). The onset of the Indian Mutiny in 1857 and subsequent official reticence regarding reform caused such petitions to go unanswered. On this see, Ghosh, Vidyasagar o Bangali Samaj, Ch. 18. 24. Taranath had belonged to the Society for the Preservation of Dharma, which pursued the abolition of polygamy by petitioning the government. However, Taranath broke away from the group. Upset by his defection the Society attacked him publicly; see Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. 247. 25. Bahuvivaha in Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. 229. 26. The article first appeared in the summer of 1871; see Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. 231. 27. See Bahuvivaha in Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. 230. 28. Taranath’s position echoes Bankimchandra Chatterjee’s view of the anti-polygamy campaign; see his essay ‘Bahuvivaha’ in Bankim Rachanavali, Part 2, pp. 314–19. 29. Bahuvivaha Vada, as quoted by Vidyasagar; Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. 230. 30. The relationship of the second book of Bahuvivaha to the first is analogous to the relationship of the second book of Vidhava Vivaha to the first; for details on the latter, see Vidyasagar, Hindu Widow Marriage, passim. 31. Vidyasagar, Bahuvivaha (Book Two), in Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. 249. 32. See Vidyasagar, Hindu Widow Marriage, p. 29. 33. See Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. 249. Vidyasagar once quipped that the problem with Sanskrit grammars is they are all composed in Sanskrit! See his Sanskrit Vyakaraner Upakramanika, in Vidyasagar Rachanavali, ed. by Dev Kumar Basu, Vol 1. Calcutta: Mandal Book House, p. 295. 34. Vidyasagar provides both original Sanskrit passages and his own Bengali translations. On Vidyasagar as a kind of mediator in this regard, see Brian A. Hatcher. 2010. ‘Sastric Modernity: Mediating Sanskrit Knowledge in Colonial Bengal’, in Kausik Bandyopadhyay (ed.), Modernities in Asian Perspective: Polity, Society, Culture, Economy. Kolkata: Setu Prakashani, pp. 117–51. 35. This is a criticism Vidyasagar makes of his opponents in general; see Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. 245. 36. See Vidyasagar, Hindu Widow Marriage, Introduction. 37. Vidyasagar, Bahuvivaha (Book Two), pp. 249–359. 38. See Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. XXX.

A Tale of Two Pandits

153

39. Ibid., pp. 252, 288 and 301. 40. Ibid., p. 264. 41. For the original Sanskrit passage from Taranath along with Vidyasagar’s translation, see Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. 306. 42. It wasn’t until the fourth edition of Vidhava Vivaha that Vidyasagar included an acknowledgement of the help he had received from Taranath; see Vidyasagar, Hindu Widow Marriage, p. 45. 43. Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. 306. 44. Ibid., p. 357. 45. Ibid. 46. Ibid. 47. Bahuvivaha Vada, quoted by Vidyasagar in Bahuvivaha; Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. 358. 48. Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, Vol. 2, p. XXX. 49. Taranath apparently published a Bengali work attacking Vidyasagar entitled ‘He falls even though he wields a staff’ (Lathi thakile-o pade), but I have found no record of such a text; see Bandyopadhyay, Bangla Sahitye Vidyasagar, p. 170n59. 50. Paraphrased from Tarkabhushan, Taranath Tarkavachaspatir Jivani, pp. 88–91. 51. Ibid., p. 91. 52. Both works are reprinted in Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. XXX. 53. Tarkabhushan, Taranath Tarkavachaspatir Jivani, pp. 90–91. 54. Ibid. 55. Ibid. 56. Mitra, Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, p. 570; see also Sarkar, Vidyasagar, p. 308. 57. Quoted in Darnton, The Devil in the Holy Water, p. 110. 58. Asit Kumar Bandyopadhyay comments on Taranath’s high standing among Calcutta elites of the day; Bangla Sahitye Vidyasagar, 169. 59. See The Mirror of Composition: A Treatise on Poetical Composition, trans. by James Ballantyne and Pramadadas Mitra. Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press, p. 406 and 433. 60. Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. 418. 61. For a detailed discussion of kulinism, see Ronald. B. Inden. 1976. Marriage and Rank in Bengali Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press. 62. Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. 414. 63. Ibid., pp. 418–19. 64. Ibid., p. 419. 65. For example, the Competent Nephew takes issue with Taranath’s use of the Sanskrit participle, ghurnayamana: ‘Uncle Vachaspati has been working with grammar his whole life so I’m sure he could explain what rule of grammar he followed in creating the form ghurnayamana. Those of us with a meagre grasp of grammar . . . would much prefer to replace

154 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71.

72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78.

79.

80.

81. 82. 83.

84.

ghurnayamana with ghurnyamana. That would be better than creating something that violates grammatical rules the way my uncle’s writing does’. (Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. 420). Vidyasagar had used this tactic to good effect in the second book of Bahuvivaha; see Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. 318. Ibid., p. 422. Vidyasagar, Abar Ati Alpa Haila, in Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. 425. Ibid. Ibid., p. 425. Elsewhere, the Competent Nephew refers to Jivananda as a ‘non-entity’ who did his best to help Taranath, ‘sort of like a squirrel’ (Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. 449). Ibid., p. 425. Asit Kumar Bandyopadhyay summarises the case for Vidyasagar’s authorship in Bangla Sahitye Vidyasagar, pp. 206–07. Translating key phrases from Bandyopadhyay, Bangla Sahitye Vidyasagar, p. 204 Ibid. Ibid., pp. 204–5. See ibid., p. 203 where Vidyasagar’s opponents are depicted as stubborn and unreasonable. Nathaniel Halhed quoted in T. W. Clark. 1956. ‘The Languages of Calcutta, 1760–1840’, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 18(3): p. 456. See Hatcher, ‘What’s Become of the Pandit?’ for evidence of the gradual denigration and displacement of the pandit from a place of authority through the nineteenth century. Bandyopadhyay admits that by the time Vidyasagar composed these satires he had taken a beating on many fronts; Bandyopadhyay, Bangla Sahitye Vidyasagar, p. 219; cp. the same author’s remarks in History of Modern Bengali Literature, p. 54. Sen, Vidyasagar and his Elusive Milestones, p. 164. Sarkar, Writing Social History, p. 269. Sumit Sarkar reminds us that in another of his pseudonymous tracts, the Competent Nephew had expressed mock regret that his writings might have caused the death of Vrajanath Vidyaratna (whom we met in the previous chapter). But the nephew added that he wasn’t sure whether this would constitute Brahminicide or simply cow-slaughter; see Sarkar, Writing Social History, p. 269n146. Ramakrishnaswami. 1894. Panditakulatilakasya Taranathatarkavachaspateh Jivanacharitam. Calcutta: Siddheshvara Press, p. 99.

A Tale of Two Pandits

155

85. This was supposed to be demonstrated by two simple facts. First, when Taranath assisted Vidyasagar on the widow marriage campaign, the legislation was passed. Second, when Taranath opposed Vidyasagar over polygamy, the campaign failed; see Tarkaratna, Taranath Tarkavachaspatir Jivani, p. 49. 86. On this, again, see Hatcher, ‘What’s become of the Pandit? Rethinking the History of Sanskrit Scholars in Colonial Bengal’.

Conclusion In January of 1990 I travelled with my wife to Birsingha in the company of a distinguished Bengali historian who also happened to be a descendent of Vidyasagar. The car ride from Kolkata took us across the Hooghly River and west into Midnapur District, where we bumped and churned along narrow roads watching anxiously for oncoming traffic. With brilliant yellow fields of mustard spread out under an endless blue sky, the vistas alone were remarkable. But as our host shared snippets of family history, the sense of sharing a living connection to Vidyasagar grew quite profound. It was almost as if we were making the famous journey of the milestones in reverse, going back in time to the place where the whole story began. After all, who can resist the birthplace, the place of origin? How could one make such a journey and not hear those words, ‘I was born in the village of Birsingha around noon on Tuesday, the 26th of September, in the year 1820’.1 If the question of origins is so important, why leave Birsingha to the end? Why not begin the book there instead of making my start in Karmatar, which by any measure only figures in the last two decades of Vidyasagar’s career? One could easily argue that a place like Karmatar has no claim to being a long-standing centre of gravity in Vidyasagar’s life the way Birsingha does. If anything, Karmatar is situated at the very margins of Vidyasagar’s world in terms of geography, culture and emotion. By contrast, even today, Birsingha is synonymous with the man. The best way to answer such questions is to say that it was only by the time he reached Karmatar in the 1870s that Vidyasagar had truly become ‘Vidyasagar’. Obviously, on a trivial level, there was no ‘Vidyasagar’ for the first eight years Ishvarchandra spent in Birsingha, let alone for the next dozen years he spent as a student at the Sanskrit College. His public identity as Vidyasagar only began upon the completion of his studies, when he received the title (upadhi) by which he has henceforth been known. More importantly, however, it would take some time before this title acquired the density of meaning and associations it bears today. One could even say it took the remainder of his life for the fiery polemicist, ocean of compassion, humanist and friend of the poor, known as Vidyasagar, to emerge fully into view. Hence, to say that Vidyasagar escaped to Karmatar in the 1870s, is not simply to point out a minor fact about where he chose to build a house. It is

Conclusion

157

to make a statement about who he had become — the controversial reformer and public figure who felt a need to retreat from the very world that helped define him. In one respect, visiting Birsingha is not unlike visiting Karmatar. One quickly becomes aware of how hard it is to find Vidyasagar there; put more accurately, it is to be reminded of the retrospective quality of his identity. For example, one of the first sights to greet the visitor to Birsingha is the Bhagavati Vidyalay, a school Vidyasagar established in his mother’s name in 1890. To the visitor, the Bhagavati Vidyalay appears to represent an enduring testament to Vidyasagar’s profound love for his mother and, therefore, provides evidence of his enduring connection to the village. In reality, it speaks not of Ishvarchandra’s Birsingha but of the Birsingha of Vidyasagar’s final days, since its construction amounts to one of the last public accomplishments of his life.2 It may be dedicated to the woman who gave birth to the child and raised him to manhood, but as an edifice and a monument, the Bhagavati Vidyalay really belongs to the very end of Vidyasagar’s life story. Standing before the school, one stands no closer to an ‘original’ Vidyasagar than one does in the Grove of Delights.

Plate 9: Bhagavati Vidyalaya, Birsingha (1990)

158 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

By contrast, when one visits Karmatar, one does so fully knowing that this was a place chosen and shaped by Vidyasagar. What’s more, his decision to make this place his own comes from what might have been the most challenging period in his adult life, when some of the key fault lines in his character and reputation had become evident. The early 1870s were difficult years for Vidyasagar; he faced the controversial marriage of his son to a widow, the death of his mother, the challenges of the anti-polygamy campaign, and his falling-out with Taranath. His decision to build a retreat in Karmatar in 1873 must be seen in relation to such turmoil. Far more than the Bhagavati Vidyalay or the modest Memorial Museum one finds in Birsingha, the house in Karmatar bears the full impress of Vidyasagar’s complexities. It is, therefore, not all that surprising to find that Karmatar represents something special to Vidyasagar’s biographers, who often refer to this place and this period in order to throw his character into high relief. This is the place the lonely hero retreated to recover his failing health; this is the place the bruised and battered reformer sought solace from the quarrels and disappointments of Calcutta. This is the place the humanist and homeopath perfected his works of generosity and love by befriending and caring for the poor Santhali population. And when we realise how the romantic and proto-nationalist proclivities of Vidyasagar’s earliest biographers have worked to frame his lasting reputation in just these terms, we appreciate all the more how Karmatar is one place where the life and the after-life clearly meet.

You Are Not You Back in the 1860s when Vidyasagar was immersed in famine relief work, he somehow found the time to re-create Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors in Bengali, which he published in 1869 under the title Bhranti Bilash.3 It is a delightful work, both in terms of Vidyasagar’s translation strategy for indigenising Shakespeare’s dramatis personae and the testimony it gives to Vidyasagar’s love of humour and farce. Needless to say, the humour all turns on the problem of misrecognition. In 1963, the book was remade as a film under the same title starring Uttam Kumar and Sabitri Chatterjee.4 It remains a minor classic of Bengali cinema, with all the zany charm of an Abbott and Costello comedy. Since Shakespeare’s story is familiar enough and space is limited, suffice it to say that the story includes two pairs of doubles, a pair of bhadralok gentlemen both named Chiranjeev and a pair of servants, both named Kinkar, who

Conclusion

159

attend the Chiranjeevs. It is a maddening story to narrate, but at a certain point in the story one of the two identical Chiranjeevs is sent to the home of the other Chiranjeev, who is married to Rupa. There he meets Rupa’s sister-in-law Bilashini. Of course, he is immediately smitten by her. Because she confuses him for Rupa’s true husband, Bilashini is naturally at a loss to explain his odd behaviour. Why is he smoking cigarettes when previously he only took snuff? Why won’t he take some betel leaf when that always used to be his favourite? At this point Bilashini breaks into a song, ‘Who are you? You are not you’ (‘Tumi ke se tumi nao’, as voiced by Sandhya Mukhopadhyay). Watching this scene in the context of our quest to locate Vidyasagar, one cannot help letting one’s mind race all the way back to Birsingha on the day Ramjay wandered in disguise through the village after one of his lengthy absences. We are told the villagers failed to recognise him but one wonders whether they experienced the same uncanny feelings as Bilashini. Was there perhaps someone in the village who tried to take Ramjay aside and ask, ‘Do I know you?’ Now, as we draw near the end of our search, Bilashini’s song might serve as a kind of shorthand for the dilemma posed by any quest to identify Vidyasagar: ‘Who are you? You are not you’. In the film version, Chiranjeev is viewed as mad (pagal) by both Rupa and Bilashini. There is no other way to explain his strange behaviour. Meanwhile, one Chiranjeev is so puzzled by the odd behaviour of the other Kinkar (who in turn served the other Chiranjeev) that at one point he wonders out loud if Kinkar hasn’t taken to smoking marijuana. When Chiranjeev meets the jeweller Basupriya on the road, and the latter asks to be paid the outstanding one thousand rupees for the necklace he believes he gave this same Chiranjeev earlier that morning, poor Chiranjeev is dumbstruck. ‘Are you mad’, he asks the jeweller? ‘I can’t make sense of what you’re saying!’ Basically, all is madness and everything is topsy-turvy; things are not as they appear. It is hard to resist asking what a work like Bhranti Bilash might have meant to Vidyasagar. After all, isn’t it remarkable that of all Shakespeare’s plays, it was the Comedy of Errors that he chose to adapt in Bengali? For that matter why, of all of Kalidasa’s dramas, did Vidyasagar choose to re-create the story of Shakuntala in Bengali? What was it about such works that appealed to him? One thing is certain. Both Bhranti Bilash and Shakuntala turn in important ways on mistaken identity and the maddening pain caused by misrecognition. Was Vidyasagar sensitive to the dangers of mistaken identity, to the

160 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

harm or sheer craziness people can cause when they fail to see others clearly? When we throw the evidence of Vidyasagar’s autobiography into this mix, it is difficult not to see all three texts as narratives that turn on movement, misrecognition and misdirection. In these texts the causes for such misdirection are not always the same; in one text the author seems to deliberately conceal himself behind his family’s history; in another, a young woman is cursed to go unrecognised as a result of a simple failure of social etiquette; while in another, the whole comedy is really due to nothing more than sheer coincidence. But in each case, the reader is forced to wrestle with the consequences of failing to recognise the identity of another. We can never know what these texts meant to Vidyasagar but it is hard not to see in them a kind of commentary on the challenges faced by a very public man in a changing world where personal, social, religious and political identity were the topics of continual debate. Perhaps, the best a man like Vidyasagar could hope for was to hide in plain sight.

Missing Vidyasagar Biographers should resist the temptation of creating a puzzle for which their chosen subject, surprisingly, holds the solution. Instead of arriving at the point where one claims to know one’s subject well enough to reveal it in full and final form to others, perhaps we would do better to adopt a posture of biographical agnosticism. It may be for the best to allow Vidyasagar to retain the status of an enigma. His marked predilection for dissimulation, humour and irony all seem to demand this of us, quite apart from the challenges we face when we seek to balance the evidence and stories, the life and after-life. Like the monument in the Grove of Delights, there is always something that prevents us from getting a clear look at him. By all accounts, Vidyasagar was a man of enormous compassion and generosity. He took love and affection very seriously, setting them against the cruelties of a world prone to heaping injury and injustice on the powerless. He wrote words of immense feeling on the death of young Prabhavati and could even grieve for people he had never met, such as the ill-fated passengers who perished in the sinking of a steamship.5 And yet the story of Vidyasagar and Taranath reveals that this same paragon of compassion could also be ruthless, vindictive and unforgiving. It would be one thing if he had reserved such behaviour for faceless enemies or those who sought to do him harm, but we have

Conclusion

161

seen that the ‘bull calf’ could sometimes pass unyielding judgements on members of his family or on his closest friends. Gopal Haldar provides what can only be described as a rather staggering list of people with whom Vidyasagar fell out over the years, from his early colleague and friend Madanmohan Tarkalankar to his brother Shambhuchandra to his latter day friend and fellow homeopath Mahendralal Sarkar, to his only son Narayan.6 Though Haldar does not include Taranath in his list, we know that Vidyasagar was not even above alienating such a close friend, who may have been the first friend Ishvarchandra ever really made after coming to Calcutta. It doesn’t make him a monster, but it does serve to throw a new light on the somewhat dehumanised portraits produced through generations of adulation. This is simply to suggest that phrases like ‘humanist’ and ‘ocean of compassion’ are in many ways inadequate when it comes to biography. We may need heroes, but we should recognise too that it is beyond the capacity of any human being to be limitless in kindness or generosity or even good humour; everyone suffers from pain and loss, sorrow and grief, resentment and even deeper measures of despair and depression. We may psychologise a long-dead historical actor such as Vidyasagar at our peril, but we also dare not lose sight of what emotional and physical challenges he faced during his life. Torn from established patterns of living, forced to negotiate rapidly changing matrices of value and sensibility, and thrown into strange and often unforgiving new circumstances (not least, poverty and colonial subalternity), would it be wrong to think of trauma? What do we gain by saying Vidyasagar ‘never grew into an angry old man’?7 Do we lose something if we suggest that he struggled with anger, resentment, bitterness and despair? Which of these two views helps us better locate the man we set out to find? It just goes to show how fine a line there is between the life and the after-life. Labels such as ‘ocean of compassion’ seem to straddle this line. They are bestowed on historical figures like Vidyasagar as if to pull them out of history. Abstracted from the messy drama of life, the ‘ocean of compassion’ is outfitted for an unambiguous after-life. Struggling as we all do with the failings of pride, anger, resentment and despair, it can be reassuring to imagine a few remarkable historical actors who possessed the strength to surmount the trials of ordinary existence. And, in an odd sort of irony, even the most de-historicised abstraction like ‘humanist’ can become a kind of guide for concrete human aspiration. Such concepts re-enter history whenever individuals

162 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian

seek to embody them in their own lives, when they strive to replicate the virtues of the hero who bears the epithet. This is, of course, especially true for a nation in the making. It is easy to see how, in the late colonial period, a figure like Vidyasagar was chiselled in the stone of sainthood precisely so he might serve as a guide to others. This is how an enigmatic individual becomes an eminent Indian. Perhaps, the best we can hope to do is to hold on to both — the enigma and the exemplar — even if it means that from time to time we allow the saint to struggle and fail with the rest of us. The incredible ‘shelf life’ of Vidyasagar’s story within the modern Indian context speaks to the particular power he seems to possess for alternately evoking and testing a range of values within the colonial and postcolonial contexts. Precisely because Vidyasagar continues to be ‘debated’ he remains alive from generation to generation. As we have seen, the challenge of pinning him down began already during his own lifetime, when everyone from British officials to local pandits tried to decide just who it was they were dealing with. Was he a pukka Brahmin, a renegade Hindu, a loyal government servant, or a disaffected Bengali intellectual? No sooner had he died than such disputes manifested themselves in the biographical record. When Chandicharan published his biography of Vidyasagar, Shambhuchandra immediately replied with a supplement to his own biography, entitled ‘The Eradication of Errors’ (Bhramnirasha), where he catalogued in great detail the many errors he felt Chandicharan had committed.8 During this same period, we find writers such as Biharilal who faulted Vidyasagar for going astray from his hallowed traditions while others including Tagore praised Vidyasagar for transcending tradition in order to think of higher things.9 The passage of time and the accumulation of greater quantities of evidence have changed very little. We are in no better a position today to offer a definitive statement of who he was. Instead, by making our peace with the inevitable enigma of his identity, we free ourselves to explore a range of vectors that help us think about his life — vectors of personal character and family history, public controversy and private regret, friendships and failed relationships, regional pride and national aspiration, enduring Indic traditions and the changing landscape of colonial Bengal. To the degree that we can accept, acknowledge and then begin to follow the trail of such vectors, we equip ourselves with new vocabularies and critical categories for thinking about both the man and his world. We may, for example, see in Vidyasagar a kind of paradoxical

Conclusion

163

subaltern elite. We may view him as a victim of almost systemic misrecognition, who was at once a privileged master of arcane textual knowledge and a skillful practitioner of irony and dissimulation. Such interpretations may, at times, seem over-determined or anachronistic, but in every case they help us conjure Vidyasagar’s particularity. Thus, to give one more example, we might follow the lead of Sudipto Kaviraj and detect in Vidyasagar the ineffable unhappiness of modernity. It scarcely diminishes Kaviraj’s analysis of Bankimchandra to suggest that Vidyasagar, in fact, manifested a similar degree of disease and unhappiness with the colonial world.10 Or we might go further and apply to both Bankimchandra and Vidyasagar the kind of interpretation Kaviraj provides for the life and writing of the Brahmo leader and social activist, Shibnath Shastri. The three men shared a great deal: a common heritage as Brahmins, a common social status as elite bhadralok, and a common orientation toward civic-minded engagement. Each of them struggled (as Kaviraj reveals in Shastri’s case) to reconcile emergent bourgeois norms of personal life with richly embedded and long-standing cultural codes. All was fluid and uncertain in their world, not least modes of conjugality, friendship and private ‘belief’.11 Each man responded differently to the ‘enigmas of identity’ associated with modern forms of selfhood, sociality and individualism, but in each case what we appear to witness is a characteristically modern search for the self.12 All of which is to say that in the case of someone like Vidyasagar, it helps very little to speak of a modern hero who marched inexorably toward freedom, reason and equality. We learn far more about him and his world if we can bring into view all the complexity of a man who loved the world, cherished a small child, scorned a friend, quit his job, wrote and published countless books, established schools, cared for the poor, argued for change, abandoned his home village, advised the young, renounced his son, and momentarily turned his back on the only city he knew. As Mahendralal Sarkar remarked in his diary after visiting Vidyasagar, ‘What a bundle of inconsistencies is man!’13 But then what would it mean to say we knew such a person? Vidyasagar himself seems to have appreciated the absurdity of the idea. No doubt he would have responded with a joke, which is what makes the following imaginative vignette by Sunil Gangopadhyay a fitting way to wrap up our quest to know Vidyasagar: Vidyasagar and his former student Haraprasad Sastri have both long since died and gone to heaven. One day Haraprasad is wandering in a garden and

164 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian he happens to come upon Vidyasagar with Marilyn Monroe sitting in his lap. Haraprasad is embarrassed and makes an attempt to sneak away, but Vidyasagar sees him and yells to him, ‘I say, Hara where are you sneaking off to? Come over here.’ Haraprasad comes over and says, ‘Revered teacher, you dedicated your entire life and all your wealth to helping others. Now having made it to heaven this must be your just reward. I should go away.’ Vidyasagar reached over and pinched Haraprasad’s belly and said with a smile, ‘Even now your intellect remains far from pure. Don’t you see, this is not my reward — this is the poor girl’s penance!’14

Gangopadhyay gives us a Vidyasagar that any Bengali will instantly recognise. This is the Vidyasagar who had his own penchant for storytelling, who was an incorrigible joker, and — yes, it’s true — had a pesky habit of belly pinching.15 Yet, even through all the right coded signals, pointing so clearly toward the one and only Vidyasagar, the story ends on a note of misrecognition. Vidyasagar’s own student fails to understand what is going on. In the end, we have to accept that we stand in the same place as Haraprasad in Gangopadhyay’s vignette. We have to endure the pesky pinch and the knowing smile of Vidyasagar, who winks at us and says, Can you say, for sure, who I am or what I’m doing? That is the single question that has motivated my research over the years. If nothing else, I hope that same question has echoed clearly through the pages of this book. Yet, I fear, the best I can do is pass the question on to others. The truth, as Vidyasagar was fond of saying, is shrouded in mystery.16 And his identity lurks in the mysterious space between the life and the after-life. We can’t help but miss him. Needless to say he is missed in other ways as well. Nearly two hundred years later there are countless Bengalis and many Indians who feel the sting of his absence. His picture is lovingly garlanded in bookshops, offices and homes; moving about a city like Kolkata, one comes across his face in countless unexpected places, be it on advertisements, hoardings, magazine covers or public monuments. His name has been affixed to everything from streets and bridges to colleges and sandals. And the very fact that he continues to be a subject of active inquiry and debate even today only underscores how much his influence is felt. As Benoy Ghosh has remarked, ‘his desires and ideas are perpetually . . . re-thought, re-considered and re-willed by every Indian in a free and progressive India’.17 To miss Vidyasagar, in this sense, is to long for the man whom many revere as an egalitarian humanist, ocean of compassion, proponent of

Conclusion

165

rational inquiry and careful interpreter of the Hindu legal tradition; it is to look in vain for a man with the acumen to succeed in business, the charity to give to those in need, and the courage to face down insult and injustice. The Vidyasagar who is missed today is the man with endless reserves of good humour, who could poke fun at hypocrisy and undermine pretension. None other than the historian Sumit Sarkar, who has consistently shown himself to be sceptical of nationalist myths and politicised history, cannot resist seeing in Vidyasagar a kind of antidote to the challenges confronting India today: We cannot afford to lose touch with Vidyasagar’s anger and guilt, directed primarily toward gender relations in his own society. For we live in times when wives are regularly burnt for dowry, a lower-caste woman activist is raped for campaigning against child marriage, and the murderers of Roop Kanwar, burnt as sati at Deorala in 1987, are acquitted in court.18

Losing touch with such a pathfinder, Sarkar suggests, would be tantamount to losing sight of key values shaping the emergence and persistence of modern India. To miss Vidyasagar, therefore, is to express a keen desire never to abandon the values of compassion and generosity that fire the moral consciousness of many Indians. To miss Vidyasagar is to remember that the journey charted by the pathfinder is far from over. It may be that nothing has shaped the after-life of Vidyasagar more than this profound sense that he continues to be missed. Vidyasagar, thou shouldst be living at this hour!

Notes 1. Vidyasagar, Vidyasagar Charita, p. 1. For a socio-economic portrait of Birsingha (under the alias Ranjana) from the 1960s, see Gouranga Chattopadhyay. 1964. Ranjana: A Village in West Bengal. Calcutta: Bookland. 2. He had established a school there in the 1850s, but by this time it had ‘disappeared’, according to Mitra, Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, p. 648. The original family home was destroyed by fire in 1869 (Vidyaratna, Vidyasagar Jivancharita, p. 200). Today there is a small memorial museum dedicated to Vidyasagar not far from the school. 3. See Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, pp. 351–406. On Bhranti Bilash in relation to the original, see Vidyasagar. 1968. Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, ed. by Muhammad Abdul Hai and Anisuzzaman. Dhaka: Studentways, pp. 31–33. 4. ‘Bhranti Bilash’, directed by Manu Sen. Calcutta: Angel Video DVD, 2004.

166 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian 5. See Bandyopadhyay, Vidyasagar, p. 467. In Rabidas Saharay’s account, the ship has become the Lusitania, which inconveniently was torpedoed over twenty years after Vidyasagar’s death; see Rabidas Saharay. 1985. Amader Vidyasagar. Calcutta: Dev Sahitya Kutir, p. 100. 6. See the foreword to Haldar, Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, p. xxxi. 7. Tripathi, Vidyasagar, p. 92. 8. Vidyaratna, Bhramnirash, Preface. Shambhuchandra says Chandicharan relied too heavily on information from Vidyasagar’s son. 9. Sumit Sarkar sees Biharilal’s biography as an attempt to ‘sanitise’ Vidyasagar during a period of revivalist Hinduism, whereas he views Tagore’s portrait of Vidyasagar as a rejection of this sanitising process (see his Writing Social History, p. 238). 10. See Chapter Five for a discussion of Kaviraj, The Unhappy Consciousness. 11. See Kaviraj, ‘The Invention of Private Life, p. 114. 12. See Brooks, Enigmas of Identity. 13. In Biswas, Gleanings of the Past and the Science Movement, p. 82. 14. Gangopadhyay, ‘O Vidyasagar, Amar Panch Ganda Paysa Darkar’, Ananda Bajar Patrika. For the original prototype of this story as told by Haraprasad Shastri, see Mitra, Karunasagar Vidyasagar, pp. 423–25. 15. On belly pinching, see Shastri, Atmacharita, p. 498. 16. See Sarkar, Vidyasagar, p. 360. 17. Ghosh, Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar, p. 167. 18. Sarkar, Writing Social History, p. 281.

Bibliography Bengali Print Sources Bagal, Jogeshchandra. 1960. Vidyasagar Parichay. Calcutta: Ranjan Publishing House. Bandyopadhyay, Asit Kumar. 1984. ‘Unish Shatake Bangla Sahitye Dharmachetana’, in his Bahuvichitra. Calcutta: Sahityaloka, pp. 51–80. ———. 1991. Bangla Sahitye Vidyasagar. Calcutta: De’s Publishing. Bandyopadhyay, Brajendranath. 1948. ‘Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar’, in Sahitya Sadhaka Charitamala, Vol. 2. Calcutta: Bangiya Sahitya Parisat, pp. 5–134. Bandyopadhyay, Chandicharan. 1895 [1987]. Vidyasagar. Reprint ed. Calcutta: De Book Store. ———. 1896. Vidyasagar Chatrajivan. Calcutta: np. Bandyopadhyay, Hiranmay. 1983. ‘Vidyasagar Ki Nastika Chilen?’, Vidyasagar Patrika, (Feb.): pp. 13–19. Basu, S. K. 1981. Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar: Rashtriya Jivana Charitamala. New Delhi: National Book Trust. Basu, Samarendrakrishna. 1972. ‘Vidyasagarer Nastikata’, in Ramakanta Chakravarti (ed.), Satavarsha Smaranika, Vidyasagar Kalej, 1872–1972. Calcutta: Vidyasagar Kalej Satavarsha Smaranika Samiti, pp. 320–24. Basu, Shankariprasad. 1991. Rasasagar Vidyasagar. Calcutta: De’s Publishing. Basu, Shashibhushan. 1936. ‘Vidyasagar Smriti’, Prabashi (Shravan): pp. 547–49. Bhattacharya, Bijanbihari. 1940. Banglar Manishi. Calcutta: Ashutosh Library. Bhattacharya, Devendranath. 1929. Vidyasagar. 6th ed. Calcutta: Bhattacharya and Son. Chakravarti, Chintaharan. 2001. Hindur Achara Anushthana. Calcutta: Papyrus. Chakravarti, Ramakanta, (ed.). 1972. Satavarsha Smaranika, Vidyasagar Kalej, 1872–1972. Calcutta: Vidyasagar Kalej Satavarsha Smaranika Samiti. Chattopadhyay, Bankimchandra. 1985. Bankim Rachanavali. Two parts. Calcutta: Sahitya Samsad. Chattopadhyay, Jnanendrachandra. 1899. Vidyasagar. Hooghly: Yatindramohan Bandyopadhyay. Chattopadhyay, Sunitikumar. 1972. ‘Isvarchandra Vidyasagar Prashasti’, in Ramakanta Chakravarti, (ed.), Satavarsha Smaranika, Vidyasagar Kalej, 1872– 1972. Calcutta: Vidyasagar Kalej Satavarsha Smaranika Samiti, pp. 244–45. Datta, Akshaykumar. 1990. Bharatvarshiya Upasak Sampraday. Two Volumes, ed. by Baridbaran Ghosh. Calcutta: Karuna Prakashani. Datta, Bijitkumar. 1998. Apurba Itihasa. Calcutta: Pashchim Banga Akademi. De, Vishvanath, (ed.). 1985. Vidyasagar Smriti. Calcutta: Sahityam.

168 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian Gangopadhyay, Manomohan. 1927. Shruti Smriti. Part One. Calcutta: Avanimohan Gangopadhyay. Ghosh, Benoy, (ed.). 1981. Samayikapatre Banglar Samajchitra. Vol. 5. Calcutta: Papyrus. ———. 1984. Vidyasagar o Bangali Samaj. Calcutta: Orient Longman. Gupta, Bipin Bihari. 1966. Puratan Prasanga. Calcutta: Vidyabharati. Gupta, Rajanikanta. 1896. Pratibha. Calcutta: Np. Haldar, Priyadarshan. 1983. Vidyasagar Janani Bhagavati Devi. Calcutta: Prajnabharati. Kaviratna, Harishchandra. 1925. ‘Sekaler Sanskrit College’, Prabasi, 25(1): 644–52; 890–97. Maitra, Kalidas. 1855. Paunarbhava Khandanam. Serampore: Tamohar Press, Mitra, Indra. 2000. Karunasagar Vidyasagar. Calcutta: Ananda Publishers. Mitra, Radharaman. 1977. Kalikatay Vidyasagar. Calcutta: Jijnasa. Mukhopadhyay, Bhudev. 1962. Bhudev Rachanasambhar, ed. by Pramathanath Bishi. Calcutta: Mitra and Ghosh. Nyayaratna, Ramgati. 1991[1872]. Bangala Bhasha O Bangala Sahityavishayaka Prastava, ed. by Asit Kumar Bandyopadhyay. Calcutta: Supreme Book Distributors. Radhi, Kantichandra. 1937. Navadvipa Mahima. Calcutta: The Book Co. Ramakrishna, Shri. 1993. Shri Shri Ramakrishna Kathamrita, ed. by ‘M’ [Mahendranath Gupta]. Five Volumes. Calcutta: Kathamrita Bhavan. Ramakrishnaswami. 1894. Panditakulatilakasya Taranathatarkavachaspateh Jivanacharitam. Calcutta: Siddheshvara Press. Ray, Gaurishankar. 1988. Sagar Pranam. Calcutta: Vidyasagar Research Centre. Ray, Sarat Kumar. 1934. Vidyasagar Charita. Calcutta: Ray and Co. Raymandal, Prathama, (ed.). 2000. Bangladeshe Vidyasagar Charcha. Calcutta: Vishvakosh Parishad. Saharay, Rabidas. 1985. Amader Vidyasagar. Calcutta: Dev Sahitya Kutir. Samad, Abdus, (ed.). 1982. Vamanakhyanam. Calcutta: Pustak Bipani. Sariph, Ahmad. 2000. ‘Vidyasagar: Droha o Manavatavad’, in Prathama Raymandal (ed.), Bangladeshe Vidyasagar Charcha. Calcutta: Vishvakosh Parishad. pp. 47–69. Sarkar, Biharilal. 1986[1895]. Vidyasagar: Ishvarchandra Vidyasagarer Jivani, ed. by Prahladakumar Pramanik. Calcutta: Orient Book Co. Sarkar, Pulkesh De. 1986. Pathak Vidyasagar. Calcutta: Pulkesh De Sarkar. Sengupta, Satyaprasad. 1974. Vidyasagar Smriti. Calcutta: Calcutta Book House. Shastri, Haraprasad. 1959. ‘Vidyasagar Prasanga’, in S. K. Chattopadhyay (ed.), Haraprasad Rachanavali. Vol. 2. Calcutta: Eastern Trading Co. Shastri, Shibnath. 1921. Atmacharita. 2nd ed. Calcutta: Prabasi. ———. 1983. Ramtanu Lahiri o Tatkalin Bangasamaj. Calcutta: New Age Publications. Tagore, Debendranath. 1980. Maharshi Debendranath Thakurer Atmajivani, ed. by Arabinda Mitra and Asim Ahmed. Calcutta: Chariot International.

Bibliography

169

Tagore, Rabindranath. 1995. Vidyasagar Charita, in Rabindra Rachanavali. Vol. 2. Calcutta: Visvabharati Press. Tarkabhushan, Taradhan. 1893. Taranath Tarkavachaspatir Jivani Evam Samskrita Vidyar Unnati. Calcutta: Brahmo Misssion Press. Tarkavachaspati, Taranath. 1872. Bahuvivaha Vada. Calcutta: Kavyaprakasha Press. Trivedi, Ramendrasundar. 1913. Charita Katha. Calcutta: Navavibhakara Press. Umar, Badruddin. 1979. Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar o Unis Sataker Bangla Samaj. Calcutta: Chariot. Vidyabhushan, Yogendranath. n.d. ‘Vira Puja’, in Yogendra Granthavali. Part 2. Calcutta: Basumati Sahitya Mandir. pp. 244–48. Vidyaratna, Shambhuchandra. 1891. Vidyasagar Jivancharita. Calcutta: English– Sanskrit Press. ———. 1893. Panditakulatilaka Mahatma Taranath Tarkavachaspatir Jivancharita. Calcutta. ———. 1895. Bhramnirash Arthat Shriyukta Chandicharan Bandyopadhyay Pranita ‘Vidyasagar’ Namak Nutan Jivanchariter Bhramnirakarana. Calcutta: English– Sanskrit Press. Vidyasagar, Ishvarchandra. 1893. Vidyasagar Charita (Svarachita), ed. by Narayanchandra Bandyopadhyay. 2nd ed. Calcutta: Calcutta Library. ———. 1937–39. Vidyasagar Granthavali, ed. by Suniti Kumar Chattopadhyay, Brajendranath Bandyopadhyay and Sajanikanta Das. Three Volumes. Calcutta: Ranjan Publishing House. ———. 1966. Vidyasagar Rachanavali, ed. by Dev Kumar Basu. Three Volumes. Calcutta: Mandal Book House. ———. 1968. Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, ed. by Muhammad Abdul Hai and Anisuzzaman. Dhaka: Studentways. ———. 1972. Vidyasagar Rachanasamgraha, ed. by Gopal Haldar. Three Volumes. Calcutta: Saksharata Prakashan. ———. 1982. Vidyasagar Rachanasambhar, ed. by Pramathanath Bishi. Calcutta: Mitra and Ghosh. ———. 1993. Vidyasagarer Chithipatra o Anyanya Prasanga, ed. by Sudin Chattopadhyay. Calcutta: De Book Store.

English-language Print Sources Adhikari, Santosh Kumar. 1980. Vidyasagar and the Regeneration of Bengal. Calcutta: Subarnarekha. ———. 1990. Vidyasagar and the New National Consciousness. Calcutta: Vidyasagar Research Centre. Amin, Shahid. 1988. ‘Gandhi as Mahatma: Gorakhpur District, Eastern U.P., 1921–22’, in Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (eds), Selected Subaltern Studies, New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 288–348.

170 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian Arnold, David and Sumit Sarkar. 2002. ‘In Search of Rational Remedies: Homeopathy in Nineteenth-Century Bengal’, in Waltraud Ernst (ed.), Plural Medicine, Tradition and Modernity, 1800–2000. New York: Routledge, pp. 40–57. Ballantyne, J. and Pramadadas Mitra, (trans.). 1875. The Mirror of Composition: A Treatise on Poetical Composition. Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press. Bandyopadhyay, Asit Kumar. 1986. History of Modern Bengali Literature: Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Calcutta: Modern Book Agency. Banerjee, Hiranmay. 1968. Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar. Delhi: Sahitya Akademi. Banerji, Brajendranath. 1927. ‘Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar as an Educationist, Part I’. Modern Review, 42(3): pp. 256–62 and 42(4): pp. 399–406. Bharadwaj, Surinder M. 1981. ‘Homeopathy in India’, in Giri Raj Gupta (ed.), The Social and Cultural Context of Medicine in India. Delhi: Vikas, pp. 31–54. Bhattacharya, Tithi. 2005. Sentinels of Culture: Class, Education, and the Colonial Intellectual in Bengal (1848–85). New York: Oxford University Press. Biswas, Arun Kumar, (ed.). 2000. Gleanings of the Past and the Science Movement in the Diaries of Drs Mahendralal and Amritalal Sircar. Calcutta: Asiatic Society. Bose, Sugata and Ayesha Jalal. 2011. Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy. 3rd Ed. New York: Routledge. Brockhaus, F. A. 1865. ‘Bengalische Literatur: Die Werke des Iswarchandra Vidyasagara.’ Zeitschrift der Deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft, (18): pp. 642–47. Bronkhorst, Johannes. 2007. ‘Modes of Debate and Refutation of Adversaries in Classical and Medieval India: A Preliminary Investigation’, Antiquorum Philosophia, (1): pp. 268–80. Brooks, Peter. 2011. Enigmas of Identity. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Capwell, Charles. 1974. ‘The Esoteric Beliefs of the Bauls of Bengal’, Journal of Asian Studies, 33(2): pp. 255–64. Chakravarti, Sricharan. 1896. Life of Pandit Isvarchandra Vidyasagara. Calcutta: A. K. Chakravarti. Chatterjee, Partha. 1986. Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: A Derivative Discourse. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ———. 1992. ‘A Religion of Urban Domesticity: Sri Ramakrishna and the Calcutta Middle Class’, in Partha Chatterjee and Gyanendra Pandey (eds), Subaltern Studies, VII. Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 40–68. ———. 1993. The Nation and its Fragments: Colonial and Postcolonial Histories. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ———. 2002. A Princely Impostor? The Strange and Universal History of the Kumar of Bhawal. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Chattopadhyay, Gouranga. 1964. Ranjana: A Village in West Bengal. Calcutta: Bookland.

Bibliography

171

Chaudhuri, Rosinka. 2012. ‘Three Poets in Search of History’, in Michael S. Dodson and Brian A. Hatcher (eds), Trans-colonial Modernities in South Asia, New York: Routledge, pp. 189–207. Clark, T. W. 1956. ‘The Languages of Calcutta, 1760–1840’. Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 18(3): pp. 453–74. Darnton, Robert. 2010. The Devil in the Holy Water or the Art of Slander from Louis XIV to Napoleon. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Dasgupta, Uma. 2004. Rabindranath Tagore: A Biography. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Delillo, Don. 2009. White Noise. New York: Penguin Classics. Dodson, Michael S. and Brian A. Hatcher (eds). 2012. Trans-colonial Modernities in South Asia. New York: Routledge. Flood, Finnbar B. 2009. Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval ‘HinduMuslim’ Encounter. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Gandhi, M. K. 1993. Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth. Boston: Beacon Press. ———. 1961. The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi. Vol. 5: 1905–06. Delhi: Government of India. Ghosh, Ajoy Kumar. 2010. ‘A Short History of the Development of Homeopathy in India’, Homeopathy, 99: pp. 130–36. Ghosh, Benoy. 1965. Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar. Builders of Modern India Series. New Delhi: Govt. of India Publications Division. Gupta, Ranjan Kumar. 1984. The Economic Life of a Bengal District: Birbhum 1770– 1857. Burdwan: University of Burdwan. Haldar, Gopal. 1972. Vidyasagar: A Reassessment. New Delhi: People’s Publishing House. Harding, H. Jane. n.d. The Exile of Sita, Translated from the Elegant Bengali of the Learned Pundit, Iswarachundra Vidyasagara. London: Henry Drane. Hatcher, Brian A. 1988. ‘Vidyasagar’s Sakuntala.’ Bulletin of the Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University, 14(1): pp. 52–62. ———. 1992. ‘Yatna-dharma: The Religious Worldview of Isvaracandra Vidyasagara’, unpublished PhD Dissertation, Harvard University. ———. 1993. ‘No Slave to Custom’, in Manik Mukhopadhyay (ed.), The Golden Book of Vidyasagar. Calcutta: Vidyasagar Death Centenary Committee. pp. 127–34. ———. 1996. Idioms of Improvement: Vidyasagar and Cultural Encounter in Bengal. Delhi: Oxford University Press. ———. 2001. ‘Great Men Waking: Paradigms in the Historiography of the Bengal Renaissance’, in Sekhar Bandyopadhyay (ed.), Bengal, Rethinking History: Essays in Historiography. New Delhi: Manohar, pp. 135–63. ———. 2001. ‘Sanskrit Pandits Recall Their Youth: Two Autobiographies from Nineteenth-Century Bengal’, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 121(4): pp. 580–92.

172 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian Hatcher, Brian A. 2005. ‘What’s become of the Pandit? Rethinking the History of Sanskrit Scholars in Colonial Bengal’, Modern Asian Studies, 39(3): pp. 683–723. ———. 2008. Bourgeois Hinduism, or the Faith of the Modern Vedantists: Rare Discourses from Early Colonial Bengal. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 2010. ‘Sastric Modernity: Mediating Sanskrit Knowledge in Colonial Bengal’, in Kausik Bandyopadhyay (ed.), Modernities in Asian Perspective: Polity, Society, Culture, Economy. Kolkata: Setu Prakashani. Pp. 117–51. ———. 2011. ‘Better a Rebel than a Beggar: Tagore and the Quest for Freedom’, in Amalendu Biswas, Christine Marsh and Kalyan Kundu (eds), Rabindranath Tagore: A Timeless Mind. London: Tagore Centre, pp. 135–43. ———. 2011. ‘Pandita.’ Encyclopedia of Hinduism. Vol. 3. Leiden: Brill, pp. 245–51. ———. 2012. ‘Pandits at Work: The Modern Sastric Imaginary in Early Colonial Bengal’, in Michael S. Dodson and Brian A. Hatcher (eds), Trans-Colonial Modernities in South Asia. New York: Routledge, pp. 45–67. Haynes, Douglas E. 1987. ‘From Tribute to Philanthropy: The Politics of Gift Giving in a Western Indian City’. Journal of Asian Studies, 46(2): pp. 339–60. Ho, Engseng. 2006. The Graves of Tarim: Genealogy and Mobility across the Indian Ocean. Berkeley: University of California Press. Inden, Ronald B. 1976. Marriage and Rank in Bengali Culture. Berkeley: University of California Press. Kaviraj, Sudipto. 1998. The Unhappy Consciousness: Bankimchandra Chattopadhyay and the Formation of Nationalist Discourse in India. Delhi: Oxford University Press. ———. 2004. ‘The Invention of Private Life: A Reading of Shibnath Shastri’s Autobiography’, in David Arnold and Stuart Blackburn (eds), Telling Lives in India: Biography, Autobiography, and Life History. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, pp. 83–115. Kierkegaard, Soren. 1962. The Point of View for My Work as an Author, trans. by W. Lowrie. New York: Harper Torchbooks. Knight, Lisa I. 2011. Contradictory Lives: Baul Women in India and Bangladesh. New York: Oxford University Press. Lefebvre, Henri. 2011. Introduction to Modernity: Twelve Preludes September 1959– May 1961, trans. by John Moore. New York: Verso. Markovitz, Claude, Jacques Pouchepadass and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, (eds). 2006. Society and Circulation: Mobile People and Itinerant Cultures in South Asia, 1750–1950. New York: Anthem Press. Miller, Barbara Stoler. 1984. Theater of Memory: The Plays of Kalidasa. New York: Columbia University Press. Mitra, Subal Chandra. 1975[1902]. Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar: A Story of His Life and Work. Delhi: Ashis Publishing. Nandy, Ashis. 1983. The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Bibliography

173

O’Flaherty, Wendy D. (trans.). 1981. The Rig Veda. London: Penguin Classics Books. Oldenburg, Veena Talwar. 1990. ‘Lifestyle as Resistance: The Case of the Courtesans of Lucknow’, Feminist Studies, 16(2): pp. 259–87. Openshaw, Jeanne. 2002. Seeking Bauls of Bengal. New York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2010. Writing the Self: The Life and Philosophy of a Dissenting Bengali Baul Guru. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Pillai, G. Parameswaran. 1897. Representative Indians. London: Routledge and Sons. Prakash, Gyan. 2000. Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli. 1927. The Hindu View of Life. London: George Allen and Unwin. Ramakrishna, Shri. 1966. The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, trans. by Swami Nikhilananda. Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math. Rao, Velcheru Narayana and Sanjay Subrahmanyam. 2006. ‘Circulation, Piety and Innovation: Recounting Travels in Early Nineteenth-century South India’, in Claude Markovitz et al. (eds), Society and Circulation: Mobile People and Itinerant Cultures in South Asia, 1750–1950. New York: Anthem Press, pp. 306–55. Sanyal, Rajat. 1980. Voluntary Associations and the Urban Public Life in Bengal. Calcutta: Riddhi–India. Sarkar, Sumit. 1985. ‘The Kathamrita as Text: Towards an Understanding of Ramakrishna Paramahamsa’, Occasional Papers on History and Society. 12. New Delhi: Nehru Memorial Museum and Library, pp. 115–42. ———. 1997. Writing Social History. Delhi: Oxford University Press. Sartori, Andrew. 2008. Bengal in Global Concept History: Culturalism in the Age of Capitalism. Chicago: University of Chicago. Scott, James C. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press. ———. 1990. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts. New Haven: Yale University. Sen, Asok. 1977. Vidyasagar and his Elusive Milestones. Calcutta: Riddhi–India. Sen, Dinesh Chandra. 1921. Bengali Prose Style: 1800–57. Calcutta: University of Calcutta. Shastri, Shibnath. 1919. Men I Have Seen: Being the Author’s Personal Reminiscences of Seven Great Bengalis. Calcutta: Modern Review Office. Sinha, Nitin. 2008. ‘Mobility, Control, and Criminality in Early Colonial India, 1760s–1850s’, Indian Economic and Social History Review, 45(1): pp. 1–33. Sircar, Mahendralal. 1880. The Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science. Calcutta: Anglo-Sanskrit Press. Tagore, Rabindranath. 1931. Religion of Man. London: Macmillan.

174 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian Thomas, Chantal. 1999. The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of MarieAntoinette. New York: Zone Books. Tripathi, Amales. 1974. Vidyasagar: The Traditional Moderniser. Delhi: Orient Longman. Tubb, Gary A. and Emery R. Boose. 2007. Scholastic Sanskrit: A Handbook for Students. New York: American Institute for Buddhist Studies. Vaidya, N. K. (ed.). 1974[1885]. Collection Containing the Proceedings which led to the Passing of Act XV of 1856. Bombay: Mazagaon Printing Press. Vidyasagar, Ishvarchandra. 1971. The Unpublished Letters of Vidyasagar, ed. By Arabinda Guha. Calcutta: Reba Guha. ———. 1976. Marriage of Hindu Widows. Reprint. Calcutta: K. P. Bagchi. ———. 1993. ‘My Life, Iswarchandra Sarma’, in Manik Mukhopadhyay (ed.), The Golden Book of Vidyasagar. Calcutta: Vidyasagar Death Centenary Committee, pp. 25–38. ———. 2003. ‘The Evils of Child Marriage: Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar’, translated by Brian A. Hatcher, Critical Asian Studies, 35(3): pp. 476–84. ———. 2011. Hindu Widow Marriage: An Epochal Work on Social Reform from Colonial India, trans. from Bengali and annot. by Brian A. Hatcher. New York: Columbia University Press. Woodrow, Henry. 1859. Report on the Sanskrit College. National Archives of India, Home Department: Education, (20 May 1859), No. 18. Zelliot, Eleanor. 2004. ‘Caste in Contemporary India’, in Robin Rinehart (ed.), Contemporary Hinduism. New York: ABC CLIO, pp. 243–72.

About the Author Brian A. Hatcher is Professor and Packard Chair of Theology, Department of Religion, Tufts University, Medford, USA. His research addresses modern and contemporary Hinduism, religious change in colonial South Asia, modern Bengali intellectual and cultural history, and the transformation of Sanskrit intellectual practice in colonial Bengal. He is the author of Idioms of Improvement (1996), Eclecticism and Modern Hindu Discourse (1999), Bourgeois Hinduism (2008), and most recently a complete, annotated translation of Ishvarchandra Vidyasagar’s Hindu Widow Marriage (2011). He is co-editor with Michael S. Dodson of Transcolonial Modernities in South Asia (2012).

Index Abar Ati Alpa Haila (‘Once again, it wasn’t much’) 142, 145, 147 Abhijnanashakuntalam 80–84, 159 Act XV (Hindu Widow’s Remarriage Act, 1856) 7, 22n11 adhikara-bheda 40–42, 45–46, 49, 52n58, 73, 101, 144 after-life xxi–xxii, 11, 14, 21, 28 see also Vidyasagar, Ishvarchandra: ‘afterlife’ of; life and, xix, 1, 28, 35, 158, 161, 163 Akhiladdin 28–35, 38–40, 48–49, 50n17 Amar Chitra Katha xxii Apurba Itihasa (‘An Unprecedented History’) 16 Arnold, David 47, 98 astrology or astronomy 5, 70–71 atheism (nastikata) 3, 25, 27–28 Ati Alpa Haila (‘It wasn’t much’) 142–45, 147 Auls 28 Ayurveda 97 Bahuvivaha Rahita . . . (‘Proposal Concerning the Prohibition of Polygamy’) 8, 135–38, 140, 142, 144, 152n30 Bahuvivaha Vada (‘The Doctrine of Polygamy’) 137, 139–41, 145 Bandyopadhyay, Asit Kumar 146–47, 149, 153n58, 154n73 Bandyopadhyay, Chandicharan 9–10, 16, 25, 28–41, 50n17, 57, 150n5, 162, 166n8 Bandyopadhyay, Narayanchandra (Vidyasagar’s son) 7, 56, 131, 135, 151n6, 158, 161 Bandyopadhyay, Rajkrishna 85–86 Bandyopadhyay, Thakurdas (Vidyasagar’s father) 5, 56, 58–60, 62–70

Bangalar Itihas (History of Bengal) 6 Bauls 28–41, 49 Beadon, Cecil 136 Bengal 4–5, 27–28, 33–34, 40, 42, 72, 88, 90, 130, 135, 144; colonial 2, 68,162; modern 28, 56, 150; western or West xv, xxivn6, 38, 61, 99 Bengali (language or literature) xvi, xxii, 4–5, 8–10, 20, 25, 32, 34, 37, 56, 80, 83–85, 138, 143, 152n34, 158–59 Bethune, John Eliot Drinkwater 6 bhadralok 32–34, 37, 43, 47, 50n26, 72, 101, 113, 131, 158, 163 Bhagavad Gita 40 Bhagavati Devi (Vidyasagar’s mother) xvii, 5, 46, 56, 64–65, 68–71, 76n31, 76n35, 157–58 Bhagavati Vidyalaya: in Birsingha 157; in Karmatar xvii? 157 Bhattacharya, Krishnakamal 73 Bhattacharya, Tithi 32 Bhranti Bilash (‘Comedy of Errors’) 158–59 Bihar Bengali Association xxivn6, xxivn7 biography (jivana charita) 4, 12, 16, 161; construction or writing of 14–15, 21; as moral pedagogy 18 Birsingha 5, 14, 61–64, 66, 69–70, 72, 76n30, 76n49, 90, 104n29, 137, 156–59, 165n1 Bodhoday (‘Rudiments of Knowledge’) 6, 92 Bradbury, Malcolm xix, xxii Brahmins 4, 10–11, 46, 66–67, 76n42, 81, 108, 120, 126, 136, 163; caricatures of 138, 144; ideal (of) or pukka xvi, 38, 40–42, 66, 91, 94, 105n33, 141,

Index 162; ritual, religion, or ideology and 25–26, 40–41, 48; social status of 38, 40, 73; Vidyasagar as see Vidyasagar, Ishvarchandra: as Brahmin Brahmo Samaj 32, 36, 89, 92, 114–15, 131, 163 British 2–3, 5, 21, 31, 75n10, 91, 97, 110, 131, 147, 149, 162 Brooks, Peter 11–13, 21 Buddhists 25, 28, 84 Burdwan 72, 92, 103, 132 Calcutta xiv–xv, xxi, 5, 32, 43, 46, 64– 69, 74, 92, 97–98, 130, 133. See also Kolkata caste 17, 19, 37–42, 46, 52n60, 66, 91, 101, 115, 144, 165 Chambers, William and Robert 6 Chandidas, Baru 30, 36–37 Charitavali (‘Exemplary and Instructive Biography’) 7 Chatterjee, Bankimchandra 23n32, 103n8, 104n15, 123–24, 129n57, 152n28, 163 Chatterjee, Partha 13, 34, 46–48 chatushpathi 2 child marriage. See marriage: child children xv, 8, 55, 61–63, 82, 85–87, 90 Christians 26–27, 90, 114, 119, 121 College of Fort William 5–6, 133 colonialism 13, 17, 21, 54, 91, 123, 125, 127n22 ‘Comedy of Errors’ 158–59 Competent Nephew (upayukta bhaipo; Vidyasagar pseudonym) 118–19, 122, 142–47, 149, 153n65, 154n71, 154n83 Dakshineshwar 42–44 Darnton, Robert 3 Datta, Akshay Kumar (Dutt, Akshay kumar) 32, 94, 131 Datta, Michael Madhusudan 32 Datta, Rajendralal 97–98 Datta, Rasamay 6

177

decolonisation 13, 17 devotion 30, 41, 43, 45–48, 88, 119 dharma 96, 115, 117, 119, 135; sva-40 Dinamayi Devi (Vidyasagar’s wife) 19, 90, 94, 99 dislocation xvi, 54, 56–58, 61, 64–65, 69, 72, 74, 100, 130 Durga Devi (Vidyasagar’s grandmother) 56, 61–65 Durvasas 73, 81 Dushyanta 80–83 Dutt, Romesh Chunder 76n42 education 9, 31, 34, 93; English 90; female 6, 19, 90, 104n26; Sanskrit 6, 130; vernacular 8, 92; Vidyasagar’s (see Vidyasagar, Ishvarchandra: early life and education of; Vidyasagar, Ishvarchandra: at Sanskrit College) English (language or literature) 5, 58, 60, 66, 49n12 essence or essential 12, 18, 26–28, 34, 107 Fakirs 28 fasting 95, 100 Gandhi, Mahatma xvi, xxi–xxii, xxvn15, 10, 15, 18, 19, 41, 52n54, 112–13 Gangopadhyay, Sunil 19, 163–64 Gaudadeshiya Samaj (‘Bengali Society’) 92 gender 37–41, 165 Ghosh, Aurobindo 33 Ghosh, Benoy 27, 49n12, 73, 164 Ghosh, Gopalchandra 67 Ghosh, Ramgopal 94 giving (dana) 91, 93, 101, 105n33 God 25–26, 29–30, 32, 36, 42, 45, 88; formless (nirakara) 36–37 government, British/colonial 2, 5–8, 97, 130, 134–35, 151n23, 152n24 grammar 5–6, 62, 132, 145–46, 152n33, 153n65

178 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian Gramsci, Antonio 124 Grey, William 97 Gupta, Ishvarchandra 108 Gupta, Mahendranath (‘M’) 44–45 Haldar, Gopal 17–18, 27, 38, 68, 161 Halliday, F. J. 7, 131 Hare, David 92, 94 Haynes, Douglas 91 Hindi xvi, xxivn9 Hindu Family Annuity Fund 96, 105n46 Hindu Theophilanthropic Society 92 Hindu Widow Marriage See Vidhava Vivaha Hinduism 25–27, 33, 38, 40–43, 46, 166n9 Hindus, bourgeois 32, 43 history 3, 17, 123–24 homeopathy xv, 47–48, 95, 97–101, 158 Hooghly District 61, 100 Hooghly River 132, 156 householders 32, 35–37 humanism 27, 30, 37–38, 41 See also Vidyasagar, Ishvarchandra: humanism or humanitarianism of hunger 66–67, 102, 133 identity xxiii, 11–14, 27, 37, 163; authentic 31; Bengali 19, 30, 34, 48; Brooks on 11–12, 21; P. Chatterjee on 13; Indian 14, 17, 30; local 33–34; national 33, 48; paradigm 12–13, 21; Vidyasagar’s xxiii, 2, 12–14, 16, 21, 28, 31, 48, 57, 67–68, 78 imaginary 56; Indian national xxi India: colonial 89, 98; modern xxii, 4, 11, 14, 19, 31, 38, 98, 162, 165; postcolonial 15, 17, 19 individualism 19, 39, 41, 146, 163 intellectuals 32–34, 38, 43, 114, 123, 131, 143, 149–50, 162 Jamshedpur xxivn6 Jamtara xv, xxivn6

jati 41, 52n60. See also caste Jharkhand xv, xviii, xx, 15, 148. See also Karmatar Jivana-charita (‘Biography’) 6; for genre, see biography Kalidasa 80–81, 83, 103n9, 159 Kanva 80–81, 84 Karmatar xv–xvi, xviii–xxi, xxivn6, 14–15, 72, 100–1, 147–48, 156–58 Karunasagar Vidyasagar 10, 15, 29 Kathamala (‘Select Fables of Aesop’) 7 Kathamrita (Shri Shri Ramakrishna Kathamrita) 44–46, 52n65 Kaviraj, Sudipto 89, 110, 123–25, 163 Kayasthas 42, 136 Kerr, James (principal, Hindu College) 111–13, 127n13 Khyepa, Raj 49 Kierkegaard, Soren 121–22, 125 Kolkata xiv–xv, 20, 156, 163 Krishna 6, 71, 88, 118–19 Krishnanagar 100, 136 Kulins 91, 105n33, 135–36, 143–44 Lahiri, Ramtanu 92 Lala Lajpat Rai 33 law 5, 41, 64, 94, 120, 137, 165 Lefebvre, Henri 123, 125 lila 87–88, 118 Logic (nyaya) 5, 54, 115–16, 132 ‘M’ (Mahendranath Gupta) 44–45 Madhavacharya (commentator on Parashara Samhita) 115 madness 36–37, 39, 64, 69–71, 124, 129n56, 144–45, 159–60 Maitra, Kalidas 2–4, 21n1 malaria 92, 97, 99 Mandal, Nathuram 72 manliness xvii, 16–18, 87 Manu, Laws of 40, 95 manusha 30, 36–37, 49 Marie-Antoinette 27–28

Index marriage: child 68, 78, 89–91, 95, 165; widow (vidhava vivaha) 1–3, 19–20, 21n1, 25, 68, 108, 135, 139–40, 150n5 (see also reform campaigns: widow marriage; Vidhava Vivaha (Hindu Widow Marriage)); Vidyasagar’s 90 Marshall, G. T. 5–7, 131, 133 Marshman, J. C. 6 Marx, Karl 123–25 Metropolitan Institution 20, 44 middle class xv, 32, 38, 98, 129n57 Midnapur 76n49, 92, 100, 156 milestones 58–60, 75n10, 75n12, 156; ‘story of the milestones’ (Mail Stoner Upakhyana) 58 misrecognition 113, 158–60, 163–64 missions, Christian 27, 95 Mitra, Indra (aka Arabinda Guha) 10, 15, 29, 33 Mitra, Subal Chandra 9–10, 22n18, 38, 57, 77n62, 90–91, 96, 112, 128n41, 142 modernity 17, 31, 146–47; Bengali 48; colonial 31, 43, 123, 125, 129n57; Indian 31, 47; Sudipto Kaviraj on 89, 123, 163; Vidyasagar’s 25, 56, 74, 89, 92, 122–25, 146–47, 163; western 123 Mouat, F. J. 6, 111–12, 127n17 movement 55–57, 160 (see also dislocation); metaphors of 54; narrative 57; perils of 55; spatial 54–58, 65, 68, 72, 74; temporal 57 Muslims 28, 35, 97 Nandan Kanan (Grove of Delights) xvvii, xix, xxivn6, 14, 16, 100–1, 148, 160 Nandy, Ashish 125 nastika 3, 25, 28, 47 nationalism 13, 19, 31, 93, 165; cultural 33, 38, 41; proto- or quasi- 31, 34, 110, 158 nationalists 27, 38, 41, 52n54 Nehru, Jawaharlal 10

179

Nyayalankar, Jaganmohan 66 Nyayaratna, Chaturbhuj 66 Nyayaratna, Ramgati 4–9 Openshaw, Jeanne 33, 35–36, 39 orientalism 13, 27 pandits 5, 54–55, 61–64, 66, 68, 73, 75n15, 108, 114–15, 118, 120, 125, 128n42, 130–32, 136, 138, 141, 143, 146, 149–50, 150n2, 154n79 paradigms, identifactory or identity 12–13, 21 Parashara Samhita 2, 7, 115 paropakara 91, 94 pilgrimage 54, 57, 63, 69–70, 91 polygamy (bahuvivaha) 8, 23n32, 68, 95, 108, 116, 131–32, 135–44. See also reform campaigns: anti-polygamy Prabhavati 85–88, 160 Prabhavati Sambhashan (‘Conversation with Prabhavati’) 85–88, 103 Prakash, Gyan 98 prose xxii, 8, 20, 83, 85 publishing 2, 8, 141 Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli 41 Raimani 67–68 Ramakrishna, Shri 4, 42–48, 98, 107–8 rationalism 27, 33, 44, 46–49 Rebellion of 1857, 7, 151n23 reform campaigns: anti-polygamy 8, 116, 131–32, 137, 141–42, 146–47, 151n21, 152n28, 155n85,158; widow marriage xxiii, 7, 25–26, 50n17, 87, 99, 108, 115, 118, 128n46, 130, 134, 143, 147, 151n16, 154n85 religion 26–27, 36, 39 renouncers 32, 35–37, 42, 72, 84 retroactivity 27–28, 72 rhetoric (alamkara) 5, 132 Rijupath (‘Simple Lessons’) 6 rituals, 25–26, 38, 41, 49n6, 52n58, 55 Roy, Rammohan 4, 32, 73

180 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian sadhus 32, 42 Samajpati, Gopal Chandra 100 Samkhya 5, 49n10 sannyasis 32, 35, 42, 63 Sanskrit College (Calcutta) xvii, 1, 4–6, 11, 20–21, 42, 73, 97, 100, 111, 120, 127n17, 132, 134, 136, 146 Sanskrit Press and Depository 7 Sanskrit Vyakaraner Upakramanika (‘Introduction to Sanskrit Grammar’) 6, 152n33 Santhal Parganas xv Santhalis xv–vi, 72, 101–3, 106n60, 107–8, 158 Sarkar, Biharilal 9–10, 22n18, 25, 27, 38, 49n6, 57, 71, 90–91, 105n39, 105n44, 120, 142, 162, 166n9 Sarkar (or Sircar), Mahendralal 46–48, 98–99, 161, 163 Sarkar, Sumit 22n7, 34, 43–44, 47, 98, 147, 154n83, 165, 166n9 Sartre, Jean-Paul 11–12 schools xvii, 2, 5–7, 11, 58, 92, 100, 132–33, 157, 163, 165n2 Scott, James C. 110–11 Sen, Asok 17, 49n10, 123–25 Sen, Keshub Chunder 4, 94 Shakespeare 158 Shakuntala (story of) 73, 80–84 Shakuntala of Vidyasagar 80–85, 88, 94, 103, 103n9, 123, 159 shastras 7, 25–26, 84, 95, 115–17, 122, 125, 135–36, 138–43, 151n21 Shastri, Shibnath 56, 89–91, 94, 114, 163 shoes 109–13 Shudras 41–42, 66, 68 Sita 83, 89, 104n15 Sitar Vanavasa (‘The Exile of Sita’) 83, 103n8 Socrates 123, 125 subalternity 110, 124 suttee 130, 165 svadeshi (indigenous) 17, 34

Tagore, Debendranath 32, 36, 56, 131 Tagore, Rabindranath xvii, 8, 10, 16–19, 34, 37–38, 83, 87, 162, 166n9 Tantra 28, 64 Tarkabhushan, Ramjay (Vidyasagar’s grandfather) 56, 61–65, 69–74, 76n30, 96, 99, 122, 159 Tarkabhushan, Taradhan 134, 141–43, 145, 149 Tarkalankar, Madanmohan 7, 161 Tarkavachaspati, Taranath 120–21, 130– 47, 149–50, 151n16, 152n24, 153n49, 153n58, 154n85, 158, 160–61 Tattvabodhini Sabha 32, 105n41, 117, 131, 151n7 Thomas, Chantal 27–28 Tilak, B. G. 33 traditionalism 13, 17, 46, 146 tragedy 8, 16–18, 53n82, 110, 123–24 trees xvii, xix–xx, xxivn9, 14, 21 Tripathi, Amales 16–17, 27, 38, 104n26, 120, 126 Trivedi, Ramendrasundar 39 Vaishnavism 87–88, 119 Vamanakhyanam (‘Tale of the Dwarf’) 16 Vanamalipur 61–63, 65 Varanasi 72, 98–99, 132 varna 40–42, 52n60 See also caste Varnaparichay (‘Introduction to the Alphabet’) 7, 92 Vedanta 5, 26, 49n10, 132 Vedas 25, 40–41 Vetala Panchavimshati (‘Twenty-five Tales of the Vampire’) 6, 8 Vidhava Vivaha (Hindu Widow Marriage) 2–4, 7, 83, 85, 88, 104n16, 120, 139, 153n42 Vidyabhushan, Dwarkanath 116 Vidyabhushan, Radhamohan (Vidya sagar’s great-uncle) 64–65, 76n35, 76n36, 122 Vidyaratna, Shambhuchandra (Vidya sagar’s younger brother) 9–10, 18, 57,

Index 63, 69–72, 77n55, 97, 131, 133, 150n5, 161–62, 166n8 Vidyaratna, Vrajanath 118–20, 124, 128n35, 139, 154n83 Vidyasagar Charita (Svarachita) (‘The Life Vidyasagar [as he composed it]’) 55–58 Vidyasagar Charitable Homeopathic Dispensary xvi–vii Vidyasagar College 20–21 Vidyasagar, Ishvarchandra: ‘after-life’ of xix, xxi–xxii, 11, 14, 21, 25, 28, 35, 74, 79, 132, 158, 165; anger at or opposition to xxii, 1–3, 21, 95, 115–18, 120–22, 128n46, 130, 138–40, 142, 154n77; apocrypha or stories about xxii–xxiii, 1–3, 11, 13, 28, 39, 58–60, 102, 107, 113; autobiography of xxi, xxiii–xxiv, 55–74, 78, 91, 122, 130–31, 160; Bengali literature, place in or impact on xxii, 5, 8, 20, 83; biographical details 5–8; biographies of xxxxiii, 3–14, 21, 26–27, 92, 100–1, 110, 133, 150; biographies of, early 4–5, 9, 16, 22n7, 27–28, 30–31, 33, 38, 51n52, 110, 142, 162; biographies of, Englishlanguage 9–10; birth of 5, 61, 69–71, 74, 156; as Brahmin xvi, 11, 20, 38, 42, 72–74, 91, 94, 101, 112, 114, 120, 122, 141, 144, 162–63; in Calcutta 1, 11, 28, 44, 58, 72, 75n13, 90, 97, 100–1, 110, 130, 141, 161; caste and xvi, 11, 38, 42, 46, 91, 101–2; children’s or comic books about xxii, 11; collected works of (rachanavali) xxi–xxii, 9; at College of Fort William, 5–6, 133; compassion or generosity of 11, 14, 18, 45, 65, 78, 88–89, 91–97, 101–3, 105n40, 156, 158, 160–61, 164–65; disciples, students, or followers of xxii, 2, 4, 9, 90, 163–64; dispensary of xv–vii, 97, 101; disputes over xxi, 19–21, 162, 164; early life and education of 5, 56, 58–61, 71, 156; as educator or school founder xv, 7,

181

9, 11, 78, 92, 163, 165n2; as eminent or representative Indian xxi, xxivn11, 17, 19, 21, 162; English language or literature and 5–6, 58, 60, 158–59; family of 5, 7, 17, 19, 49n6, 56, 60–65, 90, 95, 100, 104n29, 130–31 (see also Bandyopadhyay, Narayanchandra (son); Bandyopadhyay, Thakurdas (father); Bhagavati Devi (mother); Dinamayi Devi (wife); Durga Devi (grandmother); Tarkabhushan, Ramjay (grandfather); Vidyabhushan, Radhamohan (great-uncle); Vidya ratna, Shambhuchandra (brother)); films about xxii, 11, 105n43, 127n12; as friend of the weak/women (abala) 18, 68, 78, 89, 124; friends of xxiii, 6, 17, 32, 46, 67, 85, 96, 98, 100, 116, 131–32, 142; hagiography of xxiii, 68, 72, 78, 102–3, 132, 149; heroism of xxi, 11, 14, 16–17, 19, 124, 158, 163; as Hindu or nastika 3, 19, 25–29, 38, 46–48, 71, 162; humanism or humanitarianism of xxiii, 2, 13, 16, 27, 30–31, 37–39, 41–42, 74, 79, 93, 103, 147, 149, 158, 161, 164; humour or irony of xxiii, 14, 26, 48, 55, 57, 103, 107–26, 141–43, 147, 158, 160, 163–65; illnesses of 98, 100; manliness of xvii, 16–18, 87, 132; marriage or wife of 19, 90, 94, 99; memorials to or monuments of, xvi–xxi, xxivn7, 16, 20–21, 25, 38, 158, 160, 163, 165n2; modernity and (see modernity: Vidyasagar’s); name of 5, 71, 156; nation or nationalism and 18, 27, 31, 48, 110, 158, 162; as ocean of compassion (karuna-sagar), 68, 78–79, 85, 96, 156, 161, 164; as pandit xv–xvi, xxiii, 5, 8, 35, 55, 73–74, 122, 139–40, 143, 150; as patriot 18, 108; as philanthropist 8, 93; polemical writings by xxiv, 131, 135, 138–89, 156; popular image or opinion of xxii, 2–4, 7, 13; pseudonymous works by xxiv,

182 Vidyasagar: The Life and After-life of an Eminent Indian 118–20, 122, 137, 142–47, 154n83; published sources on/for xxi, xxiii, 4, 13, 15–16, 21; as publisher 7–8, 141; as reformer xv, xxi, xxiii, 6, 8–9, 11, 16–17, 19–20, 39, 46, 48, 73–74, 90, 94, 99, 114, 119, 149, 157–58 (see also reform campaigns); religious views or beliefs of 14, 25, 28–29, 33–34, 39–40, 49, 74, 93, 114, 119; reputation or legacy in Bengal xv, xxi–xxii, 8, 19–20, 45, 74, 133, 158; reputation or legacy in India xv, xxi–xxii, 10–11, 74; reputation or legacy outside India 4, 10; respect for or disrespect toward xxiii, 18, 31, 43, 101, 110–12, 120, 127n14, 134, 137, 142; at Sanskrit College 5–7, 11, 42, 73, 97, 100, 111, 120, 127n17, 133–34, 146, 156; Sanskrit grammars by 6, 152n33; schoolbooks by xxi, xxiii, 6–7, 11, 26, 92; shoes or

clothing of 109–13; temperament of 14, 48, 96, 114, 127n14, 160; theological writings by 16; translations by 6, 158; western, European, or colonial influences on 31, 34–35, 39, 52n53, 90, 93, 109 Vidyasagar, Jivananda 120–21, 134, 146, 154n71 Vivekananda, Swami 4, 33 Vrajavilasa (‘The Sports of Vraj’/‘The Follies of Vraja(nath)’) 118–20 Vyakarana Kaumudi (‘Moonlight of Grammar’) 6 widow marriage See marriage: widow; reform campaigns: widow marriage; Vidhava Vivaha widows 7, 38, 66–69, 76n42, 78, 83–85, 90, 95, 100, 108, 114–15, 131 women 11, 37, 39, 65–68, 85, 89, 95, 135