Ramtanu Lahiri, Brahman and Reformer: A History of the Renaissance in Bengal/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI.
LIFE FROM 1835 TO 1845
We now return to the appointment of Ramtanu Lahiri to the tutorial staff of the Hindu College. The modest salary of thirty rupees a month, which was all that he got at first from this appointment, enabled him not only to support his brothers in Calcutta, but also to receive as his guests several of his acquaintances in difficulty, who worked in the city on a very small salary, or were unemployed.
One of those whom he thus helped was Shama Charan Sirkar, afterwards known as the chief interpreter of the High Court, and a man of great talents. At the time of which we speak he was employed at Kidderpore under Mr Reid, at a salary of only ten rupees a month. In this state of poverty he often sought Ramtanu’s lodgings for help, and ultimately he became a permanent guest there, in the following circumstances:— One Manilal Khotta, cashier to Mr Reid, dismissed for certain misconduct, brought a suit against his employer for arrears of salary. The man had been paid his wages, but entered into litigation only to harass his former master. Mr Reid thought of citing Shama Charan as a witness for himself — a circumstance which filled the young man with the fear lest he might unintentionally slip into some falsehood, while giving his evidence, in spite of his determination firmly to stick to the truth. On account of this fear, he suddenly left Mr Reid’s service. From Kidderpore he came direct to Ramtanu Babu, and told him everything. Mr Lahiri was very much pleased by his guest’s scrupulous regard for truth, and invited him to become an inmate of his house. While here, Shama Charan Sirkar came to know Babu Ram Gopal Ghosh, already a man of influence, who got him appointed as tutor in Hindu to Mr Joseph, the head of the firm of Joseph & Co., and also to Mr Kelsall. But he felt that, in order to get on in the world, he ought to acquire a knowledge of English; and so, at the age of twenty-two, he began taking lessons in the language from Ramtanu Babu.
Another young man was afterwards received as a guest by the hospitable Mr Lahiri, our hero. It was Kartik Chandra Roy, with whose name the reader is familiar. This young man was admitted into the Medical College then recently established, and Ramtanu received him with a hearty welcome.
Though Ramtanu’s guests were happy in the enjoyment of one another’s company, yet often had they to rough it. They had by turns to cook, shop, draw water and do other household services; and we have been told that, owing to these hardships, Shama Charan Mitra left the house as soon as he could slightly better his condition, while Kartik Chandra’s health so gave way that he had to give up his studies and return home.
We need hardly say that Ramtanu was exceedingly kind to his brothers. In after years, Dr Kali Charan Lahiri was often heard to speak of the following incident with great emotion:— A few months before his examination he got some eye disease, and was told not to read. We can easily imagine his position then. On the one hand, his eyes were bad, and he was not to study, on the other hand the examination was pretty close. The poor lad was in a strait, when his loving brother, Ramtanu, solved the question for him. Every day, on returning from his duties in the college, he sat by his younger brother’s bed till late at night, and read to him the text-books, without showing any signs of fatigue. Kali Charan was much benefited in this way, and he passed the examination. Was not this a striking incident of love and self-denial?
While Ramtanu was happily passing his time with his brothers and friends, his attention was often drawn to the great public questions of the day. In 1834 Lord William Bentinck, desirous of placing English education within the reach of the natives of this country, entered the lists against the majority in the Committee of Public Instruction, organised in 1823. They were in favour of the exclusive culture of Oriental languages, which they thought would be more desirable for Indians than the study of English literature. He was fortunate to find help in this arduous work from Lord Macaulay, who had arrived in Calcutta as a legal member of his Council, and whom he asked to see if the grant the Court of Directors had made in 1813, for the revival and improvement of literature, could not be utilised in promoting the cause of English education. Macaulay, after a careful examination of the document placed in his hands, gave, on 2nd February 1835, his opinion in writing; and the last paragraph coming from his pen was: “To sum up what I have said, I think it is clear that we are not fettered by any pledge, expressed or implied; that we are free to employ our funds as we choose; that we ought to employ them in teaching what is best to know; that to know English is better than to know Sanskrit or Arabic; that the natives are desirous to be taught English and are not desirous to be taught Sanskrit or Arabic; that neither as the language of law, nor as the language of religion, have the Sanskrit or Arabic any peculiar claim to our encouragement; that it is possible to make natives of this country thoroughly good English scholars; and that to this end our efforts ought to be directed.”
With Macaulay to support him, Lord William Bentinck boldly took action. On the 7th of March 1835 he made known, by a formal order, that the annual grant of the lakh of rupees, which the directors had sanctioned in 1813 for the education of the natives, and which up to that time had been applied to the encouragement of Oriental learning, should thenceforth be utilised in imparting instruction in European languages and sciences through the medium of English.
This decided step of the Governor-General angered those in the Public Instruction Committee who differed from him in opinion. Dissension on a public question became changed into individual hostility, and Macaulay became the bugbear of the supporters of Oriental learning. But he was never a man to give up his point; or even argue it in a lukewarm way. Whatever appeared right was urged by him with great force and vehemence.
He showed this spirit all through the discussion; and as an example we quote the following passage from the written opinion he had given about expending the Company’s yearly grant:—
“I have no knowledge of either Sanskrit or Arabic. But I have done what I could to form a correct estimate of their values. I have read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanskrit works. I have conversed both here and at home with men distinguished by their proficiency in Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take the Oriental learning at the valuation of the Orientalists themselves. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia.”
The last sentence set Macaulay’s antagonists in a frenzy. Mr Shakespeare, the president of the Instruction Committee, and Mr Prinsep, its secretary, resigned. The Governor-General put Macaulay into the president’s chair, and from that time the latter reigned supreme in the Committee.
Krishna Mohan Banerji and Ramtanu Lahiri, who had at the time drunk deep at the fountain of English literature, and who were anxious to see their views accepted all through the country, hailed Macaulay as the harbinger of light. True these young men showed an extreme partiality to what was English; but one thing must be said in their favour: they were candid and they conscientiously used the light they had received from their late teacher, Mr Derozio, and from Ram Mohan Roy. Lord Macaulay sowed his seeds on the prepared soil, and rich was the harvest reaped. The cry they had long since raised for the demolition of everything Oriental to make room for what was Occidental became louder as he infused into them a fresh spirit of reformation.
One of the foremost among these young Bengalis was Ram Gopal Ghosh. In his house all his former college mates met almost every evening. One notable and noble feature of his character was that he heartily loved them. At the time of which we are speaking he was a man of position and influence; and though he had much to do, in the shape of mercantile business, he, far from regarding the attendance of his friends as an interruption, felt uneasy if they ever failed to give him the usual call. For Ramtanu he had a great affection. He gave him the pet name of Tanu. The party present in Ram Gopal’s parlour consisted of the elite of Bengal, who made the best use of the time by conversing on useful subjects. Glasses full of sherry and champagne went round, but, far from muddling their brains, these potations enabled them to discuss with keener intellects and greater zest the important questions of the day. The young men were all actuated by an ardent desire for knowledge, and Ram Gopal Ghosh’s sitting-room was invariably their reading-room. Nor were they unmindful of the intellectual needs of others. They edited for some time two journals, called the Gyananameshum (Search after knowledge) and The Bengal Spectator, which contained columns both in English and Bengali, and established a circulating library and an Epistolary Association. The former consisted of good books bought with the money raised among themselves, and according to the rules of the latter they communicated to one another by letters the gist of what they had read during any particular period.
Not content with these arrangements, they started a club, in 1838, the object of which was the acquisition of knowledge and the promotion of brotherly feelings among themselves. This club intended to work in a more general and comprehensive way than the “Academic Association,” still extant under the presidency of David Hare. We here mention one of its rules which shows how earnest the young men were. It was that a member, nominated as the leading speaker in any future meeting, but failing to keep the appointment, without sufficient cause, should be subject to a fine. The club was named the “Society for the Acquisition of General Knowledge”; and, the inaugural meeting was held on the 12th of March, in the Sanskrit College hall, lent by Babu Ram Kamal Sen, then secretary to the college, with Babu Tara Chand Chakravartti in the chair. To give the reader a fair idea of the subjects generally discussed in the association we place before him the following list of the topics at different times handled by some of the leading speakers:— 
Dina Bandhu Mitra, Rai Bahadur.
1829-1873.
Page:Ramtanu Lahiri, Brahman and Reformer - A History of the Renaissance in Bengal.djvu/151 Tara Chand Chakravartti. The young reformers for years afterwards passed under this nickname. Tara Chand was understood by Government to be hostile to it on account of the Liberal views he expressed in a newspaper called The Quill. We have omitted to notice certain events of general interest in which this band of educated Bengalis had taken a more or less prominent part; and we will notice them here in chronological order.
First.— In 1834 the leaders of the European and native communities in Calcutta held a meeting in the town hall to consider how to perpetuate the memory of Raja Rammohan Roy. Rupi Krishna Mullick, one of the young reformers, took a prominent part in the proceedings of the meeting.
Second.— The establishment of the Calcutta Medical College in June 1835. The want of an institution like this had long been felt by the Europeans residing in the country, as well as by the intelligent portion of the native community. There had been in existence an apology for a medical school in Calcutta, called the Medical Institution to train Native Hospital Assistants. All that these men were required to know was the nature of a few English medicines, their qualities, and their use; and the lectures were delivered in Hindustani. In 1834 Dr Tyler was the superintendent of the institution, and Dr Ross lecturer on chemistry. There is a funny account of the latter’s method of teaching. He began and ended every lecture with an enumeration of the qualities of soda; and the students were so worried by his harping on the many uses of this substance that they called him Mr Soda. Young Bengali would often associate his name with the ludicrous; and K. M. Banerji once wrote an article in one of the newspapers of the day headed “Mr Soda.”
There was a class for medical students in the Sanskrit and the Madrasah Colleges; but they were taught the Hindu and the Muhammadan mode of treatment. With the extension of the British dominions, and the greater influx of Europeans into the country, the Government saw the necessity of preparing from among the natives a number of efficient doctors familiar with English medicine and surgery. Lord William Bentinck, in 1834, appointed a commission to report on the existing methods of treatment in the country. The members of the commission submitted their reports, with the opinion that it was full time for Government to establish an institution in Calcutta for giving natives such a knowledge of the medical science, as taught in Europe, as would qualify them to cope with diseases that defy the native physician’s skill. The Governor-General no longer hesitated to take the step which prudence and benevolence had suggested, and the Medical College was founded, with Mr Brambley as its principal. The institution had at first to meet with an obstinate opposition from orthodox Hindus, on the ground that students would have to touch and dissect human bodies. A corpse is an abomination to the Hindu, and the more so if it be one of a lower caste. So the opening of the Medical College was dreaded by the bigoted followers of Hinduism as a surreptitious attempt to destroy it, and make the people atheists, or, what was worse, Christians.
Here again the old pupils of Derozio came to the front. They entered into a crusade on behalf of the new college, and went about persuading whomsoever they met to join it.
Third.— An act conferring full liberty on the Press was drawn up in April, 1835, and made known to the public on the 15th of September that very year. New light now dawned on the horizon of India. Not only did new journals come into existence, but the rise of a new independent spirit in the people became evident. Mr Derozio’s pupils, who had in the preceding year called a meeting with the purpose of petitioning Government for the privilege, were transported with joy at the new power that the public voice gained, and the new opportunity they thus had for ventilating their political opinions freely was used by them in different directions — viz. introduction of trial by jury, removal of the grievances of coolies working in Mauritius, and the supersession of Persian by English in the pleadings in Mufasal courts.
To show what a valuable acquisition the liberty of the Press was to the people of the country we deem it necessary to dwell on the indignities to which journalists before the passing of the Act had been subjected, and the steady and fruitless contest that Rammohan Roy and Dwarkanath Tagore had carried on against the policy of the Government. The first English newspaper published was Hickey’s Gazette, started in 1780. Then followed The Bengal Journal. The editors criticised each other in the strongest language. On one occasion Mr Dane, editor of The Bengal Journal, was so vulgar, that the authorities sent him to England under arrest. Then, when the East India Company became involved in war with Tipu Sultan, and the English in India were divided into factions. Lord Wellesley, to exercise proper control on the journals of the day, made it a law that every article before being published must be approved by the censor, or the officer appointed to sanction or disallow any publication, before its appearance in print. This rule was made still more stringent in 1813. But in 1818 it was in a manner set aside by the Marquis of Hastings; and the result was that several journals made their appearance, of which The Calcutta Journal, with Mr Buckingham as editor and Mr Arnot as sub-editor, was one. When, on the departure of the Marquis, Mr John Adam officiated as Governor-General, it was a bad time again for journalists. Buckingham, having wielded his pen against Dr Bryce, a Government official, was ordered by the Governor-General to quit India within two months; and after his embarkation Arnot was shipped off in the next vessel leaving for England. To be sent home then was the punishment inflicted on Anglo-Indians if they conducted any newspapers in a way to offend Government; and the question that puzzled the authorities was, how to deal with Eurasians and English-speaking natives if found guilty of a similar offence. To send them to England at the expense of the East India Company was not to be thought of. Mr Adam met the difficulty by passing the Press Act, and getting it approved by the Supreme Court. Rammohan Roy, backed by Dwarkanath Tagore and some clever barristers, tried to prove that the Act was illegal. But the judges remained firm in their decision. An appeal was then made to the Sovereign, but it was of no effect.
Lord William Bentinck had a desire to give the Press its liberty; but, through ill-health, he had to leave India before conferring on it the boon intended, and it was reserved for his successor, Lord Metcalfe, to repeal, with the assistance of Lord Macaulay, the obnoxious Act that had been passed against the Press by Mr John Adam.
Fourth.— The Calcutta Public Library was established through the joint endeavours of European and native gentlemen. This was a godsend to the young men of the “new school.” They went to the library regularly, and read to their hearts’ content. One of them, Peari Chand Mitra, got employed there; and his connection with this institution helped him afterwards to higher positions. The library was, on the completion of Metcalfe Hall in 1842, removed there, and Metcalfe Hall or the Public Library has since meant the same thing.
Let us now return to the point at which we left the young reformers of Bengal in 1838. In spite of the strong opposition they had to meet, they firmly held to the career they had marked out for themselves. They espoused the cause of every beneficial movement, no matter if it had been projected by the party hostile to them. For example, when the Hindu College Committee, most of the members of which were conservative Hindus of the first water, and unfriendly to them, proposed to change the infant class in the Collegiate School into a Vernacular School, they put their shoulders to the wheel, and the project owed its success chiefly to their endeavours. The foundation of the schoolhouse was laid on 14th July 1838.
Their activity was not circumscribed within the bounds of their native country. To enlist in its cause the sympathies of the English public at home they made their voices heard on the banks of the Thames.
Retaining the favourable impressions they had made on him, Mr Adam, the Unitarian friend of late Raja Rammohan Roy, of whom we have already spoken, on his return to England, organised, in July 1839, an association called the “British Indian Association,” with the object of making Englishmen familiar with the experiences of the Indians under British rule, and of pointing out to them their duties to the so-called “Gentoos.” After two years’ useful existence, in 1841, the association commenced publishing a monthly journal, named The British Indian Advocate, under the editorship of Mr Adam. Speeches were also delivered by the members of the association in different parts of England. Ram Gopal Ghosh and some of his friends used to send telling articles to The British Indian Advocate, and large sums of money to help their champions in England.
Events have brought us at length to 1842. It was in this year that Babu Dwarkanath Tagore, who ranked among the nobility of the country, and who was one of the foremost in intellectual gifts, embarked for England. He was noted for his munificence. He did not hesitate to make very large donations to such useful projects as the founding of the District Charitable Society and the construction of the Medical College Hospital. There was no distinction of race, creed, or colour in the gifts he made. It is said that he allowed a lifelong maintenance to Sherbourne, the Eurasian whose school he had attended when young. When in England, he was as much honoured as in his own country. Our late Empress, her Consort, and the King and Queen of France, were among his friends. The East India Company, too, was not backward in honouring him.
Another important though very sad event happened in this year — the death of David Hare. He died of cholera on the evening of the 1st of June. We shall notice more particularly the circumstances attending his illness and death in the short account of his life we intend giving in the Appendix. We here give only the scene before his burial. The morning after his death, when the sun rose and shone on his dead body, the whole city of Calcutta was in mourning. Voices of lamentation were in almost every house. Old or young, rich or poor, all went in crowds to the house where their friend had died. Even Raja Radhakanta Deb, the leader of the Hindu Society, stood by his coffin. His funeral procession consisted of thousands and thousands of men, women, and children, some following his body in carriages, and others on foot. The street now known as College Street was thronged. The corpse at length reached the spot fixed on for its interment, in the plot of ground in front of the Hindu College, and Hare’s bones lie there, under the monument that still draws everybody’s attention. He was buried there because the gates of the cemetery were shut against him, he having lived as a professed non-Christian. To add to the sad awfulness of the scene a terrible storm, attended with a fearful downpour of rain, convulsed Calcutta when his body found its last home.
Language fails to describe Ramtanu’s grief at this sad loss of his friend. It was terrible for him to realise that Hare, who had been a father to him, had helped him in hours of affliction, had put him and his brothers in the way of acquiring that knowledge that ever afterwards stood them in good stead, and who had nursed him when ill, was no more. To the last moment of his life the mere mention of his benefactor’s name caused tears to roll down his cheeks. And as long as he had strength to do so he called a meeting on the 1st of June every year, at his friend’s tomb, to render unto the departed the tribute of love and gratitude.
Ram Gopal Ghosh and other alumni of the Hindu College were as much grieved as Ramtanu. In The Spectator, which they edited, they put in a circular recommending that something should be done to commemorate their departed friend. Raja Krishna Nath Roy of Kassimbazar called a meeting in the Medical College Hall on the 18th of June, the result of which was the formation of an Executive Committee, of which Ram Gopal Ghosh was a member. Influenced by his zeal and example the other admirers of the late David Hare contributed considerable sums, and the marble statue now in front of Hare’s School and Presidency College was erected.
David Hare’s death was not the only bereavement which Ramtanu had to suffer at this time. His brother, Radhabilash, had died about four or five years before, and Kesava, the chief breadwinner of the family, was carried off about the time of which we write. His death took place either in 1841 or 1842. He had been ailing for about four years, and was quite prepared to meet his death. His father, too, met the calamity with admirable fortitude and resignation. Knowing that in a few hours, his eldest son, his only prop in old age, was to leave him, he, for the sake of his soul’s welfare, had him carried to the banks of the Ganges. Kesava was in full possession of his senses on his way to the river, and asked that the dust of his father’s feet might be put on his head. The father, unmoved and calm, walked up to the litter and complied with his son’s request. We can easily conceive how the poor old man’s heart bled at the thought that the son in whom all his hopes had been centred was soon to quit the world. But Hindus are fatalists, and Ramkrishna Lahiri bowed before the decree of fate without a murmur.
Both Radhabilash and Kesava died of the malarious fever they had caught in Jessore, the former after suffering only a few months, and the latter after a prolonged illness of four or five years. We must here say a few words about the origin and progress of this fell disease as it broke out in the Jessore district. In the cold season of 1835 and 1836 some 300 inmates of the criminal jail in Jessore were employed in the construction of a road from Jessore to Dacca. For about three months the work went on without anything especial happening, but in March fever of a very virulent kind broke out among the coolies, and, in a day, carried off about 150 of them. It spread so great a dread that the labourers and their overseers refused to remain on the spot any longer. The fever raged far and wide, and having almost depopulated Jessore it entered Nadia, and there did its work of havoc.
On Kesava’s death Ramtanu’s responsibilities greatly increased. On him fell the duty of maintaining the whole family — a duty very onerous to a man of his means; but nevertheless he was fully alive to it, and determined that, to support his old parents and younger brothers, he would himself, if necessary, forgo every comfort.
It was at this time that he married for the third time. His matrimonial connections before this had not proved happy. His first wife, whom he had married when a boy, had died in childbed. His second marriage also had been broken by the hand of death three years after its consummation. This marriage had been the cause of much uneasiness to him, for his father-in-law, having a deep-rooted antipathy against his attitude towards the Hindu religion and its customs, had sedulously prevented all intercourse between the husband and the wife. It was this painful circumstance that Ram Gopal Ghosh thus alluded to in his diary: “4th April 1839. But our conversation did not take on a personal aspect till we touched the subject of women. We spoke of the peculiarities of each other’s wives. Poor Ramtanu appeared to be worried about his wife. But I should not indulge myself in writing the secrets of my friends in this book.”
Let us after this digression once more draw the reader’s attention to matters affecting the native society in Calcutta and its neighbourhood. Dwarkanath Tagore returned from England at the close of 1842. The famous Mr George Thomson came with him. This Mr Thomson was a great orator, and the stirring speeches delivered by him against slavery, both in England and America, have immortalised him.
Young Bengal gave him a hearty welcome. Ram Gopal Ghosh, Tarachand Chakravartti, and others of the new school, became in a short time his admirers. They often called meetings to be addressed by him. At length he delivered a series of lectures in a house in Calcutta, called Fauzdari Balakhana. The audience was charmed by his eloquence, the like of which they had never heard before. As a result of these lectures the “Bengal Indian Society” was established, on 20th April 1843, after the “British Indian Society” in England. The educated Bengalis were delighted, and Ramtanu Lahiri was behind them — we say behind, because, though equally fervent with his friends in such matters, he was too modest to come forward. It was through this modesty that he always remained silent unless his opinions were directly asked. We give here what Ram Gopal Ghosh writes in His diary showing his friend’s taciturn nature: “20th November 1839. In the evening Tarachand, Kalachand, Peari, Ramtanu, Ramchandra, and Haramohan, were here to make arrangements for conducting Gyananameshum. It appeared, from what the two latter said, that it was a losing concern. This they never before gave me to understand, which they should have done before calling the meeting. Everybody spoke freely on the subject with the exception of Tanu, who was silent.”
Though Ramtanu was associated in every movement his friends undertook, he loved not to obtrude upon them his individual opinions, unless he was especially called upon to do so. But his sympathies were always enlisted in their favour, and he heartily felt as they felt.
Another incident worthy of notice happened this year. Babu Debendranath Tagore publicly joined the Brahmo Samaj with about a score of friends — to which movement he afterwards gave new life and new vigour. A few years before this the Samaj had lost much of its former prestige, and the number of its adherents had considerably fallen away; so it may be said to have risen to new life on Debendranath’s joining it and taking up its cause. The Tatwabodhini Patrika was started, with the object of ventilating theistic Vedic doctrines. Babu Akhai Kumar Dutta was its editor, and Rajendralal Mitra, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagara, and others equally learned, were its regular contributors. Debendranath established the Tatwabodhini school for the purpose of initiating Brahmans into the mysteries of the four Vedas.
The year 1844 is memorable on one account — the sending of four of the students of the Medical College to complete their education in England. These were Bholanath Bose, Kanto Chakravartti, Dwarkanath Bose, and Gopal Lal Seal. Dwarkanath Tagore was the first to suggest the idea to Chakravartti of the Education Council, who selected the young men named above. Before they started it was settled that Mr Tagore would pay all the expenses of the first two and Government of the last two. They sailed in the same ship with him, in this the second voyage he made to England; and availed themselves also of the companionship and tutelage of Dr Goodeve. In this voyage Dwarkanath Tagore left India never to see it again; for when in the midst of strangers death snatched him away, in 1846.
In the midst of these social and political excitements Ramtanu was visited by another domestic affliction. His mother became seriously ill. She was brought to Calcutta for treatment, where her children were assiduous in their attentions to her. No wonder that the lady who had received divine honours from Kesava, whom the neighbours 
Bankim Chandra Chatterji, C.I.E., Rai Bahadur
1838-1894.
respected as the incarnation of the goddess of love and beauty, and who was admired by all for her firm devotion to truth, was loved by all that knew her; and all her acquaintances were deeply anxious for her recovery. But Fate determined otherwise. She was never to leave her sick-bed alive. She died surrounded by her children.
