Vedantic Hinduism in Colonial Bengal: Reformed Hinduism and Western Protestantism

253 Pages·2021·1.548 MB·English

by  Victor A. van Bijlert

Vedantic Hinduism
in Colonial Bengal
This book explores the ways in which modern Hindu identities were
constructed in the early nineteenth century. It draws parallels between
sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Protestantism and the rise of modernity
in the West, and the Hindu reformation in the nineteenth century which
contributed to the rise of Vedantic Hindu modernity discourse in India.
The nineteenth-century Hindu modernity, it is argued, sought both
individual flourishing and collective emancipation from Western domination.
For the first time Hinduism began to be constructed as a religion of sacred
texts. In particular, texts belonging to what could be loosely called Vedanta:
Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita. In this way, the main protagonists
of this Vedantist modernity were imitating Western Protestantism, but at
the same time also inventing totally novel interpretations of what it meant
to be Hindu. The book traces the major ideological paths taken in this
cultural-religious reformation from its originator Rammohun Roy up to its
last major influence, Rabindranath Tagore.
Bringing these two versions of modernity into conversation brings a
unique view on the formation of modern Hindu identities. It will, therefore,
be of great interest to scholars of religious, Hindu and South Asian studies,
as well as religious history and interreligious dialogue.
Victor A. van Bijlert is Lecturer in the Department of Beliefs and Practices,
Faculty of Religion and Theology, at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
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Vedantic Hinduism in Colonial Bengal
Reformed Hinduism and Western Protestantism
Victor A. van Bijlert
For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/
religion/series/SE0669
Vedantic Hinduism
in Colonial Bengal
Reformed Hinduism and
Western Protestantism
Victor A. van Bijlert
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa
business
© 2021 Victor A. van Bijlert
The right of Victor A. van Bijlert to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and
78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Contents
Preface vi
1 Introducing modernity and Vedantic Hinduism 1
2 Western modernity and religious ethic 22
3 The beginning of the Hindu reformation:
Rammohun Roy 41
4 The ‘Further Reformation’ of Hinduism:
Debendranath and Keshub 75
5 The narrator of militant modernity: Bankimchandra
Chatterjee 101
6 Propagating and fighting: Swami Vivekananda and
Sri Aurobindo 132
7 Rabindranath Tagore: the reluctant Hindu nationalist 174
Concluding remarks 225
Bibliography 231
Index 242
Preface
The present work is the tentative result of a long-standing thought experi-
ment. This experiment proceeds along the following assumptions and
hypotheses: modernity is primarily a state of mind conducive to individual
self-realisation and autonomy. For this to have tangible effects on the sur-
rounding physical and social world, this mentality needs to be internalised
by large groups of people. The process of internalisation requires the pro-
duction and dissemination of discourse (ideology, ideas, vistas, broad men-
tal horizons). Historically such discourse, in order to appeal to the inner
consciousness of its recipients, assumed forms that could be called religious;
in other words, this type of discourse addressed questions of ultimate con-
cern about life and death, but from the perspective of the actual daily life
of ordinary people. The modernity discourse was intended to change the
thinking and acting of ordinary people in their social setting. And in this
way the mentality of modernity would effect irreversible social and political
changes. The producers of this type of discourse hoped to change people by
exposing them to a constant stream of mostly written texts meant to be read
and internalised. In this way people would be enabled to form their own
opinions. This, in sum, seems to describe what happened in Europe from
the sixteenth century onwards. The physical elements of the invention of
the printing press, the constant production of literature and the growth of a
habit of reading, provided the material basis of what is known as the Protes-
tant Reformation, the pan-European movement that provided the religious
inspiration to this production of the printed word. Western modernity, in
short, seems to be the outcome of the Reformation that began in the six-
teenth century as a protest against, and innovation of, the existing Roman
Catholic Church that had culturally dominated Europe for more than a
millennium. The Reformation caused people to become more individually
self-aware, to act independently of tradition, to strive for individual self-
development and ultimately to reorganise society and politics in irreversible
ways away from the past into an unknown future. The Reformation led
to collective emancipation from traditional political and religious power-
structures. But this is not the end of the present thought experiment, because
these things are known (if highly contested).
Preface vii
The real thought experiment in this work centres around the question:
if this mechanism of individual self-realisation and collective emancipation
‘worked’ in Europe and was spawned as it were by Christian Protestantism,
can one imagine something comparable to what happened in India on the
basis of a totally different religion like Hinduism, and if so, how did this
take place? Thus the emphasis in this work is on the sort-of-reformation of
Hinduism that took place in the nineteenth century in colonial Bengal. The
situation in Bengal was somewhat similar to Europe in the sixteenth cen-
tury. The Indian printing presses that were just introduced produced works
written both in English and in vernacular languages as well as Sanskrit.
The printing press in India produced the necessary momentum to cater to a
growing readership and thus a growing demand for reading materials. The
growing supply also stimulated the demand for education. Indian readers
began to read about basic texts of Hinduism and this caused something akin
to the dissemination of the Bible translations in European languages during
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The present work does not go into
wider details of economy, and the social stratifications of colonial Bengal
and the rest of India. What it does is highlight the production of the ideol-
ogy or ideologies of modernity that were intended to change the minds of
the readers. It devotes attention to those writers cum activists that exerted
the greatest charismatic influence over their readership and the Indian public
at large. The main burden of this thought experiment is whether modernity
emerging from a religious reformation could also work outside its origi-
nally Christian habitat in Europe: thus, can one posit something akin to the
European Reformation also for Hinduism in nineteenth century Bengal and
what were its creators and what was its written discourse like and how did
it influence its audiences?
Such line of questioning also entails some general discussion of the main
terms that are being used like modernity itself, Protestantisation, scripture,
Hinduism, individual and collective emancipation. This work will be found
to be full of discussions of individual thinkers and their influence. Also their
writings are being discussed but only to the extent that they discussed these
grand issues themselves. A careful reader will probably miss much or feel
disappointed at the lack of deeper theoretical discussion. Some may even
regard the whole exercise as futile or outdated. However, I have always
suspected that the well-known authors whose writings and actions I discuss
in this book are multifaceted enough to invite the kind of analysis they have
received in this work. The intentions and meanings of great authors and
thinkers are not exhausted by a few interpretations only.
What I hope to accomplish with this work is a deeper appreciation of
the Vedantic reformation, the Hindu Protestantism, that these authors have
contributed to, and indeed almost created from scratch. I am quite con-
vinced of the ultimate value in life of the idea of modernity as a personal
quest for social emancipation from traditional constraints, and full self-
actualisation, and I am also convinced of the beauty and brilliance of the
viii Preface
Vedantic reform discourse that has shown (to me at least) that modernity is
emphatically not something exclusively Western (even though it may have
started in the West). I was always struck by the eminently modern character
of even the ancient source-texts of the Vedanta, the Upanishads. Apparently,
nineteenth-century Bengali Hindu humanists also thought so and tried their
best to bring out this modern character of Vedantic scriptures that belong to
the more ancient layers of Sanskrit sacred literature. One could perhaps call
the authors I have discussed in this work modern Hindu theologians and
ideologues, or Hindu theologians and promulgators of modernity.
A work like this is not the result of my own exertions alone. Count-
less institutions and their staffs as well as friends both in Europe and India
have helped me in numerous ways. As there are so many, it is not possible
to thank them all in great detail. A few institutions and their staffs I will
mention: the Leiden University Library; the library of the Kern Institute
in Leiden; the National Library of Calcutta (Kolkata); the Ramakrishna
Mission Institute of Culture; Calcutta University; Visva Bharati University,
Santiniketan; Nordic Institute of Asian Studies, Copenhagen; Indian Insti-
tute of Management, Calcutta; Asian Studies department of the University
of Amsterdam; the Faculty of Religion and Theology, Vrije Universiteit
Amsterdam; and lastly my wife, Dr. Bhaswati Bhattacharya, who is also
my informant and teacher; and the warm nest that is the ancestral house in
Kharagpur where her family lives.
1 Introducing modernity
and Vedantic Hinduism
Modernity as state of mind
Modernity as a global normative mentality is characterised by respect for
the autonomy of the individual person, the physical inviolability of the per-
son’s body, and freedom for the individual to develop his or her talents and
be able to flourish. All these can also be demanded for groups of individu-
als, for peoples, and for nations. Thus modernity has an individual and a
collective aspect. But the flourishing of the collective is predicated upon
the freedom and autonomy of the individual. This presupposes the collec-
tive acceptance of the liberty and equality of the individuals that make up
the collectivity. Ideally a modern emancipated collectivity (be it region or
state) consists of emancipated self-conscious and autonomous individual
members of the collectivity and these members have put in place systems
of decision-making in which everyone has an equal say. This normative
mentality of modernity we may regard as strong moral beliefs held by many.
Thus modernity is not primarily about tremendous technological advance-
ments, new architecture, the instalment of rapid forms of transport or the
mass production of consumption goods, not even about institutions like
the nation-state or general elections. Modernity is primarily a mentality
that informs the creation of these visible phenomena. It starts in the human
mind, in the mind that is fundamentally changed and opened up to new
unprecedented forms of thinking, to imagining novel possibilities of living.
Modernity is the moral belief in the equal worth of all human beings, the
belief that all human beings must be treated with the same respect and that
they all have the right to fully flourish in freedom.
To many such ideas may seem self-evident truths, but they are by no means
held universally and they certainly were not held at all times. That they are
widespread is the result of historical processes. Nowadays, these ideas and
moral beliefs would be considered to be secular in nature. They are deemed
progressive and therefore are probably unrelated to religious traditions, for
the latter are often seen as conservative and even oppressive. Secular moral
beliefs and practices like treating everyone equally may not be what conserv-
ative religions and politics would endorse. Hence, searching for the lineage