Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, a story of his life and work/Chapter 29
CHAPTER XXIX.
Polygamy.
On this subject, we have to fall back to a period some years prior to the time we have now arrived at. Contemporaneously with the widow marriage movement, Vidyasagar had set on foot an agitation on another subject of social reform, namely, the prevention of the practice of polygamy among the Hindus, particularly the Kulin Brahmans of Bengal. It is said, that his attention was first drawn to the subject by the pitiful cries of a female relative of his, who had been married to a Kulin Brahman that had taken to him many other wives besides her, and consequently never had the fortune to enjoy the happiness of her husband's company for any considerable time. She knew that Vidyasagar had originated the widow marriage movement with a view to ameliorate the miseries of widows, which led her to believe that he would espouse the cause of the Kulin girls and would try his best to mitigate their sufferings. With this hope, she urgently requested him to see if he could do anything for them also. Vidyasagar promised to her that he would leave no stone unturned to uproot this evil practice from Hindu Society.
He applied himself heart and soul to the cause, and on the 37th December 1855, he submitted to Government a petition subscribed by 25,000 persons, among whom there were Maharaja Mahatap Chand Bahadur of Burdwan and a number of influential and leading personages, praying for a legislation for the prevention of the practice of polygamy among the Hindus. We have not space to quote at length the long petition. We will, therefore, content ourselves with giving space to only a small portion of it:— **** "The Coolins marry solely for money and with no intention to fulfil any of the duties which marriage involves. The women who are thus nominally married without the hope of ever enjoying the happiness which marriage is calculated to confer particularly on them, either pine away for want of objects on which to place the affections which spontaneously arise in the heart or are betrayed by the violence of their passions and their defective education into immorality. **** "That the remedy, though obvious and perfectly consistent with the Hindu Law, cannot, in the present disorganised state of Hindu Society, be applied by the force of public opinion, or any other power than that derived by Legislature."
In the course of one year, a number of similar petitions were submitted to Government by Maharaja Satis Chandra Ray Bahadur of Nuddea, the Raja of Dinajpur, and some influential bodies of the several districts of Bengal proper. Among these, the one submitted on the 22nd July, 1856, by Babu Raj Mohan Ray, a Zemindar of Dacca, was subscribed by many Pandits and professors of Sanskrit, besides a great number of laymen. We cannot forbear quoting a small extract from this petition:— **** "The female children married under the circumstances commonly continue after the marriage to live with their parents, their nominal husbands generally taking no notice of them and having no communication with them; but that, in the event of the death of their husbands, they are subject to all the disabilities which law and custom impose upon Hindu widows."
But the attempts of the petitioners failed. The Government had already passed the Widow Marriage Act in spite of the opposition of the majority of the Hindus, and they thought inadvisable and unsafe to force upon the subjects another such Law against their will. Moreover, the great Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, which shook the foundation of the British Empire in India, having broken out shortly after the legislation on widow marriage, the authorities were too deeply engrossed with the thoughts of suppressing the rebellion to attend to anything else of this nature.
But Vidyasagar was a man of great strength of mind, fixedness of purpose, and perseverance. He was not a man to lose heart and give up all attempts on one failure. After the lapse of nearly nine years, he again took up the subject, and requested his playmates to give one more lift to his kite. On the 1st February, 1866, he again submitted to Government a petition, for the prevention of polygamy, subscribed by nearly 21,000. persons, among whom there were such influential and leading members, such as Maharaja Satis Chandra Ray Bahadur of Nuddea, Raja Satya Saran Ghoshal of Bhukailas, Raja Pratap Chandra Sinha of Kandi, and others. The petition ran as follows:—.
"Petition against Polygamy.
"To the Honorable Sir Cecil Beadon,
"Lieutenant Governor of Bengal.
"The humble petition of the undersigned Hindu inhabitants of the Province of Bengal.
"Respectfully sheweth—That about nine years ago no less than 32 petitions signed by nearly twenty-five thousand Hindus of Bengal, were presented to the late Legislative Council of India, ringing to the notice of the Council, the grievous and revolting abuses of the practice of polygamy in Bengal and praying for a legislative enactment for the prevention thereof.
'It is superfluous for your petitioners to dilate on the evils which result from the pernicious custom under notice, or to reiterate the reasons and considerations which require the interference of the Legislature in this vitally important subject. They have been described and stated at length in the petitions, referred to above, and your petitioners, many of whom had signed the said petitions, desire to mention that they fully subscribe to the allegations, suggestions, and prayers therein contained.
"Occupying the position which the British Government does in India, it is, your petitioners respectfully submit, its manifest duty to meet the wants and wishes of the people by such legislative and administrative measures as may be deemed necessary for the suppression of any social abuses, which are the remnants of customs neither founded on abstract reason nor on the national religions. And this obligation, it is needless to add, becomes the more imperative, when the people, as in the present instance, are themselves the most forward in seeking the aid of the Legislature.
"Your petitioners are not aware of the reasons which influenced the late Legislative Council in not responding to such a large, influential and earnest appeal on an admittedly momentous question of social reformation; but they believe that the disastrous events, which shook the foundation of the empire in 1857, over-shadowed, for the time being, all considerations of internal progress.
"The empire has, however, under the benign dispensation of Providence, entered upon a new era of peace, progress and prosperity, and your Honor's Administration has been distinguished by not a few measures connected with the material and social improvement of the people. It is the fervent hope and prayer of your petitioners that before your Honor laid down the responsibilities of your office, your Honor might signalize the close of your long and successful career by emancipating the females of Bengal from the pains, cruelties and attendant crimes of the debasing custom of Polygamy.
"And your petitioners, as in duty bound, shall ever pray.
(Sd.) "Maharaja Satish Chandra Ray Bahadur of Nadia,
- "Pratap Chandra Sing of Kandi,
- "Joykisssen Mukharji of Uttarpara,
- "Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, &c. &c. &c.
On the 19th March, 1866, a deputation consisting of Raja Satya Saran Ghoshal of Bhukailas, Pandits Bharat Chandra Siromani and Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, Babus Dwarka Nath Mitter, Jagadananda Mukharji, Peary Churn Sircar, Prasanna Kumar Sarwadhikari, Kristo Das Pal, Durga Charan Laha, and fifteen other respectable personages waited upon Sir Cecil Beadon, the then Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, as representatives of the petitioners. Raja Satya Saran Ghoshal, as foreman of the delegates, read out the petition, and presented it in the hands of the Lieutenant Governor, who said in reply:—
"Rajah,—I have great pleasure in receiving this numerously signed memorial, and in assuring you and the other highly respectable gentlemen who compose this deputation, that I shall gladly use my best endeavours to procure the enactment of a law to restrain the abuses attending, the practice of Polygamy among Hindus, and to impose upon a custom, which I cannot but regard as altogether demoralizing, the utmost degree of restriction consistent with the reasonable opinions and wishes of the intelligent Hindu public.
"I have taken a deep interest in the question since it was first seriously agitated by our late lamented friend, Babu Rama Prosad Ray, in February, 1857, when a great number of petitions on the subject had been presented to the Legislative Council. Sir John Peter Grant promised very shortly to introduce a Bill for the abolition of Hindu Polygamy, and he would no doubt have fulfilled his promise but for the mutiny of the native army, which broke out soon afterwards. Three years ago my honourable friend, Raja Deonarayan Sing of Benares, essayed to bring a Bill for this purpose into the Viceroy's Council, and was, I believe, prevented from doing so only by a suggestion from Lord Elgin, that some further expression of public opinion was desirable before having recourse to legislation. On both these occasions, I did all that I prudently could, to advance a measure of social reformation, of which the importance is, in my opinion, second only to the abolition of infant marriage.
"After this public expression of Hindu opinion, I feel myself at liberty to revive the subject. It is one which must, I think, be dealt with by the Imperial Legislature, and I may be permitted to say how glad I should have been to support the Maharaja of Burdwan if he had felt himself in a position to press it upon the attention of the Council. As it is, I shall lose no time in submitting your memorial to the Governor-General in Council, and I shall be prepared, with the permission of His Excellency, to introduce a Bill next session, which I trust may be accepted by the Council and prove satisfactory to the large bodies of Hindus, whose opinions are expressed in this memorial."
Maharaja Mahatap Chand Bahadur of Burdwan also presented another petition to the same effect as the former. But the movement was again destined to end in failure.
On this subject, the following appeared in the Hindoo Patriot of the 26th March, 1866:— "Koolin Polygamy.—After the lapse of a decade a fresh agitation has been organised under the auspices of that ardent advocate of social reform, Pundit Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar, for the restriction of the abuses of the Koolin Polygamy. The appeal which he has initiated has been endorsed by all sections of Hindu community of Bengal, the wealthy, the learned, the orthodox, as well as the enlightened. The petition, which we publish in another column, it will be observed, bears the signatures of representatives of all classes of the community and all shades of opinions. We notice in it the names of the great Zemindars of Bengal, men who in the aggregate may be said to own half the country, of the most eminent Pundits of Nadia, Calcutta and other places, the expounders of the Sastras, and the custodians of our ancient learning, of the representatives of the strongholds of orthodoxy in town and in the Mufussil, of the acknowledged leaders of the educated class, and last, though, not the least, of the head and other members of the reformed party of the Brahmic faith. The petition does not attempt to argue the question of the abuses of Polygamy in Bengal; it avoids a discussion of the subject, simply because the thirty-two petitions, which have been presented in 1866, were replete with it. But a repetition of the arguments and considerations, which led to the movement ten years ago, would not have come amiss at the present time. There are now many able to form an independent opinion, who were in schools ten years ago, while there might be others who might have forgotten what they had subscribed to in former petitions. Such being the case, we do not wonder that the brevity of the petition has been misunderstood in certain quarters, that it has been construed to be a prayer for the total abolition of Polygamy, while it only seeks to correct the abuses of that custom."
The Hon'ble C. E. Buckland, in his 'Bengal under the Lieutenant Governors', says:—
"In 1855, the Maharaja of Burdwan presented a petition to the Legislative Council setting forth the monstrous evils arising from the practice of unrestricted polygamy, and Sir J. P. Grant promised in 1857 to introduce a Bill on the subject: but the Mutiny stopped all further action. Several petitions having in 1863 been presented to Government by nearly 21,000 Hindus in Bengal for the enactment of a law to restrain the abuses attending the practice of polygamy among certain classes of Hindus, and it appearing from these and from the notices taken of them by the native Press that the greater proportion of the more advanced section of the native community were anxious to have some check placed on a social abuse which had become intolerable, an application was made to His Excellency the Governor-General, under section 43 of the Indian Councils Act, for permission to introduce into the Bengal Council a Bill for the prevention of polygamy among the Hindus in Bengal, except under certain specified circumstances. The Government of India, however, doubted whether the popular feeling in Bengal was sufficiently prepared for legislation on this subject, and also remarked that the proposed measure, while it would restrain the excesses of polygamy, would have the effect of giving legal sanction to its adoption within the prescribed limits, an objection which, in the opinion of the Government of India, was entitled to greater weight than the Lieutenant-Governor appeared inclined to concede to it. On these considerations the Governor-General in Council desired that no Bill should be at once introduced, but that further inquiries should be prosecuted. Acting under these directions the Lieutenant-Governor appointed a Committee consisting of some of the leading members of the native community in Calcutta, associated with Messrs. C. Hobhouse and H. T. Prinsep, with instructions to mature a scheme which would put a stop to the evils complained of, without, on the one hand, affecting the general liberty possessed by all Hindus of taking more than one wife, or on the other giving express sanction to that liberty by a legislative enactment. The report of the Committee was submitted in February 1867. The Kulin Brahmins being the class to whom the excesses complained of were almost exclusively confined, (and chiefly to the Bhongo Kulins), the Committee gave a sketch of the origin of this denomination of Brahmins and of the various classes of Kulins existing at the time. They also enumerated the customs prevalent, from which the alleged abuses (which they believed to be exaggerated and on the decline) took their rise. They further proved very clearly that these customs had for the most part no warrant among the approved authorities of Hindu Theology. Thus far, in the opinion of the Committee, the path for the legislation was smooth enough, as a declaratory Act might be passed setting forth the law on the subject of polygamy and making infraction of it penal. But the report further showed that although the chief abuses of polygamy would be condemned by a reference to the authorized Hindu law, this law at the same time warranted the suppression of one wife and the contraction of subsequent marriages on many grounds which in the eye of English law were frivolous or untenable. They therefore printed out that, owing to the restriction imposed upon them that legal sanction to polygamy was not to be conveyed, they were unable to recommend even the passing of a declaratory Act of the kind stated above.
"One member of the Committee, the Pandit Ishwar Chandra Surma (Vidyasagar) maintained his opinion that the evils were not greatly exaggerated, and that the decrease of these evils was not sufficient to do away with the necessity of legislation. His opinion also was that a Declaratory Law might be passed without interfering with that liberty which the Hindus possessed in the matter of marriage. Sir C. Beadon regarded the report of the Committee as showing the impossibility of legislating under the conditions imposed by the Government of India, while it gave a deplorable picture of the state of the Hindu marriage law, to which sooner or later a remedy must be applied. He did not share the sanguine anticipations entertained by the native members of the Committee that the Kulin Brahmins would settle into a monogamous habit only by the force of education and social opinion. He received with satisfaction their testimony that the opinion of Hindus had undergone a remarkable change within the last few years, and that the custom of taking a plurality of wives as a means of subsistence had come to be marked with strong disapprobation, and he hoped that, with the further progress of these enlightened ideas, the necessity for legislation as the effectual means of giving them full effect would at no distant time be realized.
"In the meantime a despatch was received from the Secretary of State in which he objected to any measure of a legislative character being adopted at present, as it did not appear that a large majority of people even in Bengal were against the practice of polygamy, apart from the special abuses practised by the Kulin Brahmins."
We have already said, that Vidyasagar was not the man to be put back by one or two failures. When he saw that he had nothing to expect from Government in this matter, he fell to thinking of some other means to remedy the evil. He decided upon persuading his fellow-countrymen of the impropriety and unlawfulness of the practice, and thus leaving the matter in their own hands.
In July, 1871, he issued a paper on Polygamy, the subject of discussion being whether Polygamy was consonant to the Hindu Sastras. In the first portion of the pamphlet, Vidyasagar has admitted that in certain cases the taking of more wives than one is canonical. Maharaja Dasaratha, Rama's father, had many wives. Vidyasagar has said, that Dasaratha married so many wives for the procreation of a male issue, and that what he did was, therefore, not uncanonical. Vidyasagar's arguments were based mainly on the two following passages of Manu:—
(1) "মদ্যপাসাধুবৃত্তাচ প্রতিকূলা চ যা ভবেৎ।
- ব্যাধিতা ব্যাধিবত্তেব্যা হিংস্রার্থঘ্নীচ সর্ব্বদা॥" i.e.
(2) "বন্ধ্যাষ্টমেধিবেদ্যাব্দে দশমে তু মৃতপ্রজা।
- একাদশে স্ত্রীজননী সদ্যস্ত্বপ্রিয়বাদিনী॥" i.e.,
'If the wife is sterile, then at the eighth year, if her male issue dies, then at the tenth year, if she gives birth only to female issues, then at the eleventh year, and if she is given to speaking unpleasant things, then without loss of time, the husband may marry another wife.'
Vidyasagar attempted to demonstrate that under any other circumstance, the taking of more wives than one was uncanonical according to the Hindu Sastras. The long and short of his arguments was that, when inter-marriage between couples of different classes had been interdicted in the Kali Yuga, the people were no more at liberty to contract marriages according to their arbitrary will. In the preface to this pamphlet, Vidyasagar has said;—
'The female sex being comparatively weaker, they are dependent on the male sex, the more so on account of the evil customs of Society. Owing to this weakness and dependence, they pass their days in a state of degradation and humiliation. The strong, authoritative male sex commit unlawful acts of violence on the other sex according to their sweet will. The females being quite helpless, put up with them patiently, and lead a miserable life. This is almost the case all over the world. But the sadly deplorable state, under which the females of this unfortunate land pine away on acaccount of the excessive inhumanity, selfishness, and thoughtlessness of our males, is to be found nowhere else. The stronger sex of this country have been cruelly persecuting the weaker one under pretexts of some evil customs and practices, of which Polygamy is, at present, the most pernicious of all. This very vile, inhuman practice has caused incalculable sufferings to the woman-kind. The hardships and miseries that the females undergo under the prevalence of this custom are really heart-rending. In fact, the violence has run to such excess, that those who have the least conscience and sense of right and wrong, have one and all stood up against this cruel practice. They heartily wish that it should be abolished this very moment. Under the present state of the country, it is quite impossible to prevent this wide-spread custom without the aid of legislation. For this reason, many have come forward eagerly to petition the Government praying for the prevention of the incalculably injurious practice of Polygamy. Protests have also been issued from some quarters. I will now try my best to refute these protests, one by one.'
In fact, after Vidyasagar's first paper on Polygamy had been out, protests were issued by Tara Nath Tarkavachaspati, Dvaraka Nath Vidyabhushan, Kshetranath Smritiratna, Gangadhar Kaviratna, the renowned native physician of Murshidabad, and some others. The whole of Bengal was in a perturbed state at the time. Tarkavachaspati's paper was composed in Sanskrit, and the rest were all in Bengali. To refute the objections of these opponents, Vidyasagar issued his second paper against Polygamy in March, 1872.
During the controversy on Polygamy, again appeared the "Competent Bhaipo" (nephew), mentioned of before, with a paper in support of Vidyasagar, which he named "Ati Alpai Haila" (only a very little is given). It was an attack on Taranath Tarkavachaspati. Its language is lowly satirical, and is not consonant to good taste. The paper begins with a most scurrile piece of poesy, very like those given utterance to by the fish-wives of Calcutta. Some attribute its authorship to Vidyasagar. But it is improbable that he should indulge in such foul language. Taranath Tarkavachaspati again issued a pamphlet of 20 pages in reply to the paper of the "Bhaipo"; but it is not so piercingly satirical. Shortly afterwards, appeared another anonymous paper of 25 pages, titled’ "Prerita Tentul" (Tamarind forwarded), attacking Vidyasagar most virulently. Besides these, many odes, songs, and short lays were also issued. In the correspondence columns of the Education Gazette, appeared a short poem, with the heading, "Kulin Kaminir Ukti" (the sayings of a Kulin woman).
The attacks of Tarkavachaspati and Vidyasagar against each other were quite unworthy of wise men of their standard, and were the generating cause of a great disagreement between the two, which ended only with their life. No doubt, Vidyasagar displayed his able powers of investigation, a great tact and ingenuity in arrangement of arguments and drawing up of conclusions, and his command of language in his papers, but in trying to attack Tarkavachaspati, he failed to keep his temper. It must be admitted, to the great credit of Vidyasagar, that the system of logical arguments and reasonings adopted by him was quite unprecedented in the annals of Bengal. Some vain and defiant writers of Bengali insinuate that Vidyasagar was devoid of originality, and sometimes ridicule his translated works. We have nothing to say against these meanly malicious self-arrogant people; they are mere objects of pity. Vidyasagar's papers on Polygamy are masterpieces of original composition.
Vidyasagar also wrote an English version of his papers on Polygamy, and commenced its publication. A portion of it was only printed, but he could not finish the printing.