Ramtanu Lahiri, Brahman and Reformer: A History of the Renaissance in Bengal/Introduction
INTRODUCTION BY THE EDITOR.
When I came out to India in 1868, as a young Professor in the Bengal Education Service straight from Oxford, one of the earliest friendships I formed on joining the Krishnagar College was that of the revered Ramtanu Lahiri, a gentleman of high Kulin Brahman birth, whose saintly life and lofty patriotism had already marked him out as a leader of men in the cultured Bengali society of Calcutta and Krishnagar. From that date until his lamented death thirty years later in 1898, I had the privilege of retaining his warm and sincere friendship — a friendship reciprocated on my part with the deep reverence which was felt for him by every one who knew him well. Outside Bengal, he was never so well known as his predecessor, the Raja Rammohan Roy, nor as his successor, Keshava Chandra Sen (Kishub Chander Sen); though his character and his teaching had very much in common with those two great men, his gentle, unassuming temperament always prevented him from taking so prominent a part in public affairs as they were able rightfully to assume. But I am inclined to think that his influence, in bringing out all that was best in the minds and hearts of the young Bengal of his day, was not inferior to theirs. And, however that may be, I am confident that a very large number of Bengali scholars and thinkers of the elder generation would gladly acknowledge that they drew from his teaching and example many of the best lessons of their lives. That example and that teaching seemed to me to possess this especial value, that while he stood up for everything that is good and true in national life as valiantly as any of the roughest and rudest of Radical reformers, his conception of “the gentle life,” the same for Bengalis as for Englishmen, was full of “the milk of human kindness,” and led him to take the truly Conservative line of reform without wanton destruction, and of criticism without rudeness or vulgarity.
It is, therefore, with great pleasure that I have received the warmly appreciative biography of this modest-minded but truly great man, that has been written by his friend and distinguished follower, the Pandit Sivanath Sastri, M.A., — and published in excellent form by the filial piety and love of the reformer’s son, Mr S.K. Lahiri. And I have been so greatly interested by the perusal of Mr Sastri’s admirable work in its Bengali form that, with the efficient collaboration of Mr Lahiri, I now venture to submit to the judgment of the Western world, and of that large class of Indian-born readers who are more familiar with English than with Bengali, an English translation of this remarkable biography.
The learned Pandit writes evidently from a heart full of affection for the subject of his Memoir; for his grandfather had been the “Guru” (a spiritual pastor) of Ramtanu in early youth, and the Pandit himself had been his friend and associate up to the end of his long life, not only in Krishnagar, but also in Calcutta and in Uttarpara.
Lahiri Mahashai, as he was always reverentially called in his later years, was by birth a Brahman of the Brahmans, a Kulin of very high descent. His ancestors for generations occupied important positions as Diwans or some other responsible position, closely associated with the princely family of the Maharajas of Nadia near Krishnagar. His father, Ramkrishna Lahiri, was the Dewan of two of the younger scions of the Nadia family; and was married to Srimati Jagaddhatri Devi, the only daughter of another great Kulin family, that of Radhakanta Rai. Ramtanu was the fifth son; and, as the circumstances of the Dewan were by no means commensurate with his high birth, the early education of the eager young Brahman was a matter of difficulty for his father. Up to the age of eleven Ramtanu attended the village patshala. Then his eldest brother, Kesava Chandra Lahiri, took him away to Calcutta, and himself taught him something of English, Persian, and Arabic; and ultimately, by the kind patronage of the famous David Hare, he obtained a free scholarship in the Society’s School, whence in 1828 he obtained promotion to the old Hindu College. Here he came under the influence of Derozio, one of the most remarkable of the giants of the pre-University era in Bengal educational history. Of Mr Derozio, Mr Thomas Edwards writes:
“Neither before nor since his day has any teacher within the walls of any native educational establishment in India ever exercised such an influence over his pupils. It was not alone in the class-rooms and during the hours of teaching that the genial manner, the buoyant spirit, the ready humour, the wide reading, the readiness to impart knowledge, and the patience and courtesy of Derozio won the hearts and the high reverence of his pupils. In the intervals of teaching he was ever ready in conversation to aid his pupils in their studies, to draw them out to give free and full expression to their opinions on topics naturally arising from the course of their work. ... Mr Derozio acquired such an ascendancy over the minds of his pupils that they would not move even in their private concerns without his counsel. Such was the force of his instructions that the conduct of the students out of the College was most exemplary ... and their reverence for truth was proverbial.”
The extraordinary influence of this remarkable man remained with Ramtanu, and to a great extent determined the character of his active life. He became a reformer after the school of Raja Rammohan Roy, and a leader in New Bengal; but he was never a violent or extreme man — and except on the subject of his own Brahmanical caste, which he threw off as his own personal sacrifice to a great cause, and one or two other points of a like nature, he was never willing to exacerbate the differences between himself and his more orthodox relations and friends.
In 1833 he became a teacher in the Hindu College, and soon became widely known as the friend of the friendless and the deserving. Many pleasant stories are told of his benevolence and philanthropy — one must here suffice. One of his students had the misfortune, in the midst of his preparation for examination, to lose for a time the use of his eyes — Lahiri Mahashai himself read and re-read to him the whole course with all the necessary commentary, and actually enabled him in this way to pass the examination. This quiet useful life went on for thirteen years, and many interesting incidents of it are recorded by the Pandit Sivanath. His opportunity came in 1846. On New Year’s day in that year the Krishnagar College (of which I was subsequently a Professor, and ultimately Principal) was opened with great ceremony. It was built and endowed partly by Government, partly by private subscriptions — and among the latter, the munificence of the then Maharaja of Nadia, the Maharaja Siris Chandra Rai Bahadur, was conspicuous. The Maharaja was himself an active member of the College Committee, and set the good example of sending his two sons to be educated with the other boys of less distinguished rank and caste. And the strength of the school department attached to this College at its foundation will be appreciated by those who know anything of the early history of education in Bengal, when I mention that the second master was Ramtanu Lahiri, and the head master the famous D.L. Richardson, at one time editor of The Englishman, almost the father of English education in Bengal.
Krishnagar was always Ramtanu’s home — though he held appointments at various times at Burdwan and also at Uttarpara, and he lived also a long time in Calcutta. At all these centres of educational life he was looked upon as “the Arnold of Bengal,” which was the honourable title by which he was commonly known. While at Uttarpara and Calcutta he was the intimate friend of all the most eminent Bengali gentlemen of the time — notably the Pandit Iswara Chandra Vidyasagara, the Maharaja Satis Chandra Rai of Nadia, Radhakanta Deb, K.M. Banerji, Ram Gopal Ghosh, Siva Chandra Deb, Peari Chand Mitra, Tarachand Chakravartti, Devendranath Tagore, Rajendra Datta, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Kesava Chandra Sen, Bankim Chandra Chatterji, Dinabandhu Mitra, Raja Peary Mohan Mukerji, Manomohan Ghosh, Professor Peary Charan Sarkar, Mahendra Lal Sarkar, and many others whose association with Lahiri Mahashai is commemorated by his biographer. With some of the younger members of this brilliant circle I had the pleasure of being on terms of personal friendship at a somewhat later period. For instance, with Professor Peary Charan Sarkar, who was first introduced to me, I think by Ramtanu Lahiri, I subsequently worked for some years in a sort of literary partnership, in the task of preparing English text-books for young Bengali boys; and I am therefore entitled, by some personal knowledge, to speak of the influence that had been exercised by Lahiri Mahashai, in guiding the thoughts and aspirations of these representative Bengali gentlemen, and of their disciples in Bengali society. That influence was altogether a wholesome one. It taught men to become, not merely reformers in the ordinary sense of the term — not merely teachers of a destructive creed that is only critical without being sympathetic — but also better citizens and better men, with earnest longings for intellectual and moral progress, yet not without full appreciation of all that was best in the past, and a Conservative desire to retain and improve it.