250th birth anniversary of Raja Rammohan Roy

The Departments of Bengali and History, of The Bhawanipur Education Society, had arranged a national webinar on 6th July, 2021 entitled ‘Revisiting Modernity in 19th Century Bengal: Rammohan Roy and Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar’ to commemorate the 250th Birth Anniversary of Raja Rammohan Roy. 

The programme commenced at 11 a.m. with an inaugural song by Miss Raktima Ghosh following which the host of the event Ms. Nidhi Shukla everyone to the webinar. A welcome address by Professor Debjani Ganguly (Vice-Principal of the Arts Section) followed where she highlighted the lives and achievements of the extraordinary reformers of the nineteenth century – Rammohan Roy and Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar. 

The first speaker of the webinar was Prof. Shaktisadhan Mukhopadhay, who has specialised in the history of nineteenth Century Bengal and Derozio. In his enlightening speech he elaborated upon the crisis in nineteenth century Bengal which resulted from the conflict between eastern and western cultures. Coming into close contact with western culture, nineteenth century Bengali society faced this dilemma – whether they should retain their own cultural traditions or follow liberal cultural practices of the west in its entirety. The important task of making a synthesis between the two divergent cultures was done by Raja Rammohan Roy. On the one hand he laid the foundation of a modern society by exposing the ineffectiveness of irrational religious rites and rituals of Hindu religion and establishing the superiority of Upanishidic monotheism over polytheistic cults. On the other, he searched  throughout the pages of the Hindu scriptures to find scriptural sanction in support of his campaign to abolish  the inhuman practice of Sati. He did not reject everything that was associated with Hindu religion and culture, but reassessed them on the light of western enlightened and rational ideas. He was an ardent supporter of western education and was intimately associated with the campaign for the introduction of western education. His footsteps were followed by Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar and Rabindranath Tagore in transforming the Bengalis from regionalism to internationalism.

Professor Anindya Sen introduced the second speaker of the webinar. 

The second speaker of the webinar was Professor Amiya Sen, Retired Professor of History in Jamia Millia and an Honorary Fellow of Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, Oxford. Urging his listeners to study the luminaries of the nineteenth century in a critical light, Professor Sen structured his talk in three parts where he began by explaining the concept of modernity and the ideology and concept behind it. He moved on to explore the similarities and dissimilarities between Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar in the final two sections. 

Elaborating on the nature of reforms in the nineteenth century, Prof. Sen discussed how it was premised on rationality, humanism, utility, and deism. It was on these four grounds that the nineteenth century reformers launched their attacks on the inhuman and discriminatory traditions imposed on the women and sought legislative intervention to bring an end to these practices. He moved on to the similarities between the reformers which was how both strategically utilised their situational advantage on belonging to an upper caste background to leverage their position with English East India Company officials. Endowed with a sense of mission, courage, sensitivity and argumentative nature, Rammohan and Vidyasagar truly appeared to modernise tradition and make it compassionate and rational. And finally Prof. Sen argued how both led the question on two major women related reforms in the nineteenth century which went to transform social relations and have a transformative impact on the society. In his final section, Prof. Sen highlighted the dissimilarities between both reformers including their familial and economic backgrounds and sartorial styles despite belonging to higher castes. He concluded his speech provoking students to think about his lectures and come up with new research questions in future. 

An invigorating forty five question and answer session followed where students put up excellent and relevant questions to the speakers. The webinar ended after two hours and forty five minutes with a vote of thanks by Professor Mili Samaddar from the Bengali department. Close to sixty students had joined the webinar.