seductive orientalism: english education and modern science in colonial india

Social Scientist

Seductive Orientalism: English Education and Modern Science in Colonial IndiaAuthor(s): Rajesh KochharSource: Social Scientist, Vol. 36, No. 3/4 (Mar. - Apr., 2008), pp. 45-63Published by: Social ScientistStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27644269 .

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Seductive Orientalism: English Education and

Modern Science in Colonial India

7> n>" CO ZT

7^ O n

British rule over India lasted about two centuries. And when the ZT

British left, they did so with tremendous goodwill. (Contrast the jd British exit from India with, say, that of the French from Algeria.)

"^

Indian nationalist struggle was not a resistance movement. It

depended on the sense of noblesse oblige of and within the Empire. It was relatively a simple matter for the East India Company to

gain control of the land, but its governance required thought. The

British Parliament took first notice of the Indian possessions in 1773

with the grant of a Charter to the Company. The Charter would come

up for review and renewal every twenty years, preceded by intense

lobbying. The last Charter was issued in 1853. Thus all major initiatives on India.occurred in the years 1773+20n, where n ranged

from zero to four. India was taken over by the Crown in 1858,

bringing to an end the most bizarre experiment in governance the

world had ever seen. (The Company itself was wound up in 1873.) There was no real alternative to employing the natives at lower

levels in the administration of their country. In addition, there was

this desire to civilize them. But the timing was important. In 1793, when the proposal for English education for the natives was put before the Parliament, the Court of Directors held wide consultaions

before shooting down the proposal. R?ndle Jackson brazenly blamed

the secession of the American Colonies to the English folly in opening schools and colleges there and warned the Directors "to avoid and

steer clear of the rock we had split on in America". (Hampton 1947:15) Twenty years later, the Parliament did pass a resolution

saying that "such measures ought to be adopted, as may tend to the

introduction among them [natives of India ] of useful knowledge, and

of religious and moral improvement" (Ingleby2000:l). The

Parliament further ordered that the Company must spend the sum of

10000 pound sterling on the education of the natives, The Company however was in no hurry to comply. It is only in 1817 when the

Mahrattas were crushed that the Governor-General, Lord Hastings,

could loftily declare "that the Government of India did not consider it

necessary to keep the Natives in a state of ignorance, in order to retain

its own power". "[Consequent on this announcement, the Calcutta

School Book Society and the Hindu College were immediately 45



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? founded" (John Clarke Marshman 1853 quoted in Mahmood 1895:2-3). It is

rs noteworthy that the Book Society was founded "with a view to the promotion

^ of the moral and intellectual improvement of the natives". (Sharp 1920:186),

< while the Hindu College was established for "the tuition of sons of respectable ~5 Hindoos", respectability being measured in term of the ability of the parents

^ to pay a monthly fee of then princely sum five rupees. (Mittra 1878:127).

t^- How high the fee was can be gauged from the following. About the same time, 00 Thakurdas, better known as Iswarchandra Vidyasagar's father, who had then o hardly reached his teens came to Calcutta and took up a job at a monthly pay

^ of two rupees. "His meritorious service soon earned him a rise in pay to Rs 5

^2 Per month. But in those days a rupee would go very far. Thus ended the days

> of misery of the family [comprising Thakurdas's mother and five siblings]."

(Banerjee 1994:170) The catchment area for English education for Hindu

boys was soon expanded through the efforts of David Hare (1775-1842) and

others.

It is interesting to note that of the total amount spent on education in the

18 year period 1813-1830, as much as 76% was spend in the Bengal

Presidency, 19% in Bombay and 5% in Madras (based on Mahmood

1895:47). This pre-eminence of Bengal, more specifically Calcutta, as

recipient of government educational grant would continue throughout.

Although the founding of Madras and acquisition of Bombay by the

Company occurred earlier, Calcutta (founded 1690) was more important. Both Madras and Bombay lay outside the Indian mainstream; that is how the

Company could own them. With Calcutta, the Company entered the thick of

Indian economy and politics. Starting with the petty zamindari of three

desolate villages, under the Mughal administration, the Company worked its

way up ending with owning the country itself. The Company's own

administration began in Bengal where it enjoyed a number of advantages. First, since the Company was replacing Muslim rulers, Hindus were

favourably inclined towards it. (In western India, the British would face the

odium of deposing Brahmin rulers.) Secondly, in Calcutta, the British were

dealing with a social class they did not exist before. This class owed its wealth, social status and leadership position to its association with the British.

(Everywhere else after Bengal, the British would be coming to terms with pre

existing social elites with their own notions of prestige and self-importance.)

Thirdly, the British were able to acquire legitimacy at the very beginning of

their rule.

New social class

Thanks to the business opportunities and the security it offered, Calcutta

j, grew rapidly, but in layers and stages. Quite obviously, the first ones into the



Seductive Orientalism:

English Education and Modern Science in Colonial India

Company's orbit were those who were on the margin in the traditional jj society. We shall examine the phenomenon, keeping in mind the later lead $

players on the Calcutta scene. ~J

1) The first newly wealthy natives were drawn from the weaver caste, with o surnames such as Basack and Sett, who acted as dadni merchants. In

^ spite of their wealth they did not come to play a major leadership role ^

because of their caste status.

2) The next to gravitate to the new city were the social riff-raff from the

hinterland. The Tagore progenitor Panchanan came to the Calcutta in

the closing years of the 17th century and made himself useful to the

English merchants. Back home in Jessore, he was a degraded Pirali

Brahmin, but for the fishermen among whom he now lived he was a

high caste, worthy of being addressed as Thakur (lord), later anglicised to Tagore. (Kripalani 1980:12-13) Uckrur [Akrur] Dutt (1722-1809)

was a restless Kayastha young man in the Hughli district who ran away from home on being reprimanded by his poor family for his

waywardness. En route to Calcutta, it is said, he cleverly saved the life a

rich zamindar's widow during a raid by the lawless "Maratha Bargis". The grateful widow in. turn presented him with "a Five-faced conch

shell, a number of guineas of Emperor Akbar's period, seven golden bricks and the Salgram Shila of Lord Raj-Rajeswar". The last-named "is

still being worshipped with devotion as the presiding deity in the old

ancestral house of the Dutt family". (Dutt 1915:2-4) He began his career

in Calcutta by supplying "odd articles like bamboos and ropes to the

foreign ship-owners", and rose to found the Wellington Square Dutt

family. (Dutt 1995:5)

3) Then their were the lucky ones who had the good fortune of attaching themselves to the Company officials before they struck gold. Nubkissen

was the steward to Robert Clive and was with him when the Nawab's

treasury was raided after the Plassey victory. Overnight he was

transformed from Moonshee to Maharaja. (His grandson, Raja Sir

Radhaknta Deb Bahadur (1784-1867) was a great Sanskrit scholar and a

conservative community leader.) The social and political change that

was taking place can be gauged from the entirely different trajectory of

life of Nubkissen's contemporary and a fellow Moonshee Itesamuddin, who in 1765 became the first documented Indian to visit Britain. He

spent much time defending Islamic theology and customs against the

barbs of his European superiors and complained bitterly (about 1784): "I spent the prime of my life in the service of Englishmen; and now ,in

my old age, I am subjected to every kind of trouble, which is my misfortune". (Itesamuddin 1827:4) Krishna Kanta Nandi alias Canto 47



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o Baboo (or Kanta Babu) was a petty trader in Kasim Bazar

rs (Cossimbazar) near Murshidabad, where he made acquaintance with

^ the Company's commercial resident, Warren Hastings. Nandi saved

< Hastings' life in the pre-Plassey turmoil and was more than amply ~5 rewarded when Hastings became the Governor-General. Favour to

^ Nandi was in fact an unsuccessful charge against Hastings in his

t4- impeachment. (Calcutta Review 1873:93) Canto Baboo was with 00

Hastings when the latter raided Raja Chait Singh of Benaras. When o Hastings' men threatened to invade the Ranis' privacy, Canto Baboo

successfully interceded with Hastings on their behalf. "Grateful for this

act, the Ranis took off jewels from their persons, and presented Kanta

> Babu with the same. He also obtained from the Ranis, Lakshmi

Narayan, Sila, Ekmukh, Rudrashi, Dakshinabratta, Sankha, and other

idols. These objects of Hindu worship may still be seen at the

Kasimbazar Rajbari." (Calcutta Review 1873:93). The transfer of Hindu

idols from the old landed class to the likes of Uckroor Dutt and Canto

Baboo in a way sums up the formation of the new leadership class.

4) The next stage of accrual onto the mid-18th century Calcutta is

represented by those who made a successful transition from the old

administration to the new, that is from Persian to English. This class

includes Kayasthas like Dr Rajendralala Mitra's ancestors who had

served the Nawab of Murshidabad; and Kayasthized Brahmins like

Rammohun Roy whose family had moved from a revenue job to petty zamindari.

5) The transition from Sanskrit to English, that is the entry of the higher caste Brahmins into the British fold, was a later phenomenon. They included zamindars like Joykissen Mukherjee of Uttarpara (1808-1888)

who along with his father served a Company regiment in its military

expansion phase. Both got their share of the booty from the 1826

capture of the Bharatpur fort, i Mukherjee 1975: 32) Kulin Brahmins

from the Shastric background (Iswarchandra Vidyasagar) were the last

to enter.

The Company connection produced social churning. Nubkissen

scrumptiously moved up the caste ladder. He was born a Subarna Banik (wkh the caste surname Kundu) but became a Kayastha! (S.N. Mukherjee 1977:98)

Canto Baboo moved up his caste segment from the lowly Teli (oil-presser) to

the middling Tilli (trader) by spending lavishly on funerals, building temples and persuading the Pandits to grant a higher ritual status as a prerequisite for

a higher social status. The Pandits obliged him by indulging in clever word

play involving the Sanskrit words tula (trader's weighing balance) and tel

40 (oil). "It is said that in the time of Kanta Babu the not [nath] or nose-ring was





n

used by only Brahmans and Kayasthas, but he introduced it amongst the jj female members of his own caste." (Calcutta Review 1873 : 95) $

Rajendra Lala Mitra moved from the hereditary business of Persian book- =3"

keeping to personal Sanskrit scholarship via the English. Apart from Canto o

Baboo, another native who participated in the raid on Raja Chait Singh of

Benaras was Mitra's great-grandfather, Pitambar, who took charge of Chait

Singh's vast collection of Sanskrit manuscripts. This inheritance became the

"prime spring" for Mitra. (Mitra 1978:ii)

Joykissen could combine the advantage of the English - period riches with

his traditional Kulin Brahmin status to claim social leadership. In other cases

old taints were removed or diluted. Rammohun Roy in his letters to the

Europeans described himself as a Kulin Brahmin, even though his mother was

a bhagna (tainted) Kulin whom his father's brothers one by one had refused

to marry. One wonders how Rammohun and his siblings would have been

matrimonially treated by Kulin Brahmins in the pre-British milieu. (The decision of Rammohun's grandfather to marry off Rammohun's father

beneath the caste was later sought to be explained away by saying that he had

unwittingly given his word for the (mis)alliance. And yet Joykissen

Mukherjee enjoyed high Brahmin status precisely because his ancestors had

chosen to flee their village rather than marry a girl from a powerful yet tainted

Brahmin family, namely Maharaja Krishna Chandra Ray of Nadia(

Mukheerjee 1975:2) For the Pirali Brahmins, the Tagores, the taint was too

strong to be removed; it could only be diluted. (It may be relevant that Pirali

figures as one of the four groups among the Ajlaf, that is lowly, Muslims.) In

spite of the Tagore wealth and position, the more rigid Brahmins would not

eat with them. In 1852, when "the nephew of a leading Kulin Brahmin

married the grand-daughter of Dwarkanath, the boy was expelled from his

family". (Kling 1976:11) It is said that the Tagores unsuccessfully "

tried to

bribe the Maharaja of Krishnagar and the Nawadwip Samaj with a lac [a hundred thousand] of rupees, so that they could be received as a high Kulin

Brahmin". Both Krishnagar and Nawadwip were located in the Nadia district

well known as an ancient centre of learning. The Nawadwip Samaj (social

group) comprising Vaidic Brahmins of the Bharadvaja gotra was considered

to be an authority on matters of ritual hierarchy (S. N. Mukherjee 1977

:66;75). The British-induced rise in stature and status of the Vaidya and Kayastha

castes was sought to be rationalised through the scriptures. In the closing years of the nineteenth century, Pramatha Nath Bose (1855-1934), the

London-trained geologist and himself a Kayastha wrote a well-regarded

three-volume History of the Hindu Civilization during British Rule. The first

volume was "gratefully" dedicated to the Oxford Professor Friedrich Max 49



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00 o cm ancient literature and history of my country and has awakened in my

M?ller (1823-1900)," who has nobly devoted his life to the elucidation of the

CL countrymen a living interest in their past". < The work was reviewed in 1895 by the author's better-known father-in

-5 law, Romesh Chunder Dutt (1848-1909), a brilliant ICS officer who later

S worked as a history lecturer in London and presided over the 1899 session of

^- the Indian National Congress. Dutt wrote among others Civilization in 00 Ancient India, and a two-volume definitive Economic History of India. Bose CO

o discusses at length the question of the origin of the caste, making use of the

^ father mischievous 1891 census classification of caste groups into "The

^2 Aryan"; "Doubtfully Vaisya, or Sudra, or Mixed"; and "Non-Aryan or Sudra".

> In his review essay, Dutt talks of "the pardonable pride" with which a "Hindu

student" looks back "to the bright annals of thirty centuries of progress and

Hindu civilization which preceded the rise of Muslim power in India". He

then goes on to summarize for wider dissemination his son-in-law's

treatment of "the Socio-Religious condition of the Hindus". A rational and

impartial enquiry into the history of the caste-system leads him [Bose] to the

conclusions which are generally admitted at the present day, namely:

( 1 ) That during the Rig Vedic period there were two great ethnic castes, the

fair Arya and the dark-skinned Dasa.

(2) That, in a subsequent age, the two great functional castes, the Brahman

and the Kshatriya, were differentiated out of the Aryan caste, while the

body of the Aryan people formed the Vaisya caste; the aborigines formed the Sudra caste.

(3) That, since then the Sudra caste has increased and multiplied by fresh

accession of aborginal tribes and by the degeneracy of the Vaisyas.

(4) And, lastly, That the disintegration of the great Vaisya and Kshatriya castes has formed the respectable functional castes of modern times, like

the Kayasthas and the Vaidyas". (Dutt 1895:125)

Zamindari-related litigation acted as a great social leveller. When Jadulal

Mullick won an election for the vice presidentship of the British Indian

Association, in spite of the opposition of Raja Peary Mohan Mukherjee, the

latter asked tauntingly: "Shall we be guided by a Banik class?". Jadulal's reply was biting: "Is this the word of a son of a convict?" ( Mukherjee 1975:524,

n.82) The reference was to the fact that Mukherjee's father Joykissen had been

to jail on a criminal charge. Rev. Krishna Mohan Banerjee (1813-1885) whose conversion to

Christianity had caused a great commotion, "made it a point not to marry his

daughters except to Brahmin converts, or to English Revered gentlemen who

are the Brahmins of their community". (Sanyal 1894:13) At a social gathering,

50 he was reluctant to pass on his hookah to Rev. Lall Behari Dey, exclaiming that





"a sonarbania should not smoke the hookah of a Brahmin". (Sanyal 1894:17) gj3 That the old caste hierarchical rigidities were replaced by public banter, light- $ hearted or not, was a significant social development.

I=r

The Brahmins who had largely kept aloof from the Muslim rule happily o

availed of the new opportunities the British dispensation offered. Brahmin ^ boys had no difficulty in studying modern medicine which involved touching ^ a dead body. They declared that they were not bound by the "medical

shastras" which "are in the keeping of Vaidya caste".

In matters of social reform, the Brahmins were more progressive than the

non-Brahmins. Half-hearted attempts have been made to correlate this

difference to occupational divide (trade versus land), but this cannot stand

closer scrutiny. (Ahmad 1965: 27-31, quoted in. Mukherjee 1977:2,n.2). The

explanation may well simply lie in the caste psychology. The Brahmins

considered themselves the living repositories of tradition which they had a

right to preserve, interpret and modify if need be. For the non-Brahmins

tradition was a fossil that had come their way and which needed to be preserved as it was. In 1910, the perceptive British civil servant James Kennedy, who

lectured on India at the University College London, noted, unaware of the term

Sanskritization, that "the present tendency among the lower castes is to rise in

the social scale by a strict observance of the rules of purity". (Kennedy 1910:310) Not only did the British create a new social class, they also invented a

new India (the indologist's India) for it to dwell in and dwell on.

Indo-Europeanism

In earlier times, capture of power had been its own justification, but the

colonial powers had to justify their foreign conquests to the natives as well as

to their own people. As the colonial power increased so did the arrogance. As

authors of the powerful knowledge system of modern science, the Europeans came to claim cultural and racial superiority over the rest of the world and

therefore the right to rule. The extended exercises in ideological justifications have since been named Orientalism.

Edward Said has discussed this question in his seminal and influential

work (Said 1978). His work however is area-specific; it only applies to what is

now commonly known as the Middle East. Furthermore, he overstates his

case as well as back-dates it. I would like to give a formal definition of

(imperialist) Orientalism, which is based on Edward Said thesis, but is more

general (Kochhar 1997): Orientalism is an operational and ideological

framework consciously created by the West to describe and define the East in such a manner as to facilitate and legitimize the West's control of and domination

over the East

All knowledge generated by the West about the East is not orientalist by ,-.



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o definition. Allowance must be made for natural curiosity and genuine cm scholarship. The imperialist West has selectively made use of extant

^ knowledge; commissioned new knowledge for its use; and encouraged <? independent generation of usable knowledge. We thus use the term

5 orientalism as an abbreviation for imperialist orientalism.

^ Orientalism was not a monolith. It took different forms in different parts

tj- of the East depending on the local characteristics, and nature of past 00 encounters with Europe. Orientalism would become confrontational in the CO o Muslim world, but in India, from where it all began, it was persuasive and

seductive. In India, Orientalism took the form of Indo-Europeanism.

Fortunately for the British at the very beginning of their rule over India

> there came the discovery of Indo-European linguistic commonality, then

interpreted in purely racial terms. It was famously enunciated in 1786 by the

founder president of the Asiatick Society (old spellings advisedly used), Sir

William Jones (1746-1794). Jones declared that Sanskrit, Greek and Latin

"sprung from some common source, which, perhaps, no longer exists". He

went on to assert that "there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Gothick and the Celtick, though blended with a

very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanscrit".

Indo-Europeanism "placed in the hands of the British Government a

powerful instrument of connexion and conciliation" with the (upper-caste) Hindus. The thesis went like this. Both the Europeans and the upper-caste Hindus belonged to the Aryan race, while the Muslims were the other. The

British rule set up by defeating the Muslims was therefore a restoration. The

Hindus had had their period of glory in the ancient past when the Europeans were still barbarians; now it was the turn of their European brethren to rule.

Implicit in this thesis was the assumption that the Muslims forfeited their

ethnic identity by virtue of being Muslim. The basic premise of the thesis

could not have withstood closer scrutiny. Most Indian Muslims, including some

upper-class ones, were local converts. The celebrated Muslim general

commonly known as Saladin, who fought against the European Christian

crusaders, was a Kurd and thus an Aryan. This fact was not mentioned. In his

1786 address, Jones stated that "the Old Persian might be added to the same

family", but added a qualifier, "if this were the place for discussing any

question concerning the antiquities of Persia". Old Persian was defunct. But

Pushto was a living Indo-Iranian language. It was declared to have Chaldean

affinity by Jones in 1790. A 100 years later, the error was lightly dismissed as

"unfortunate but excusable" (Hoernle 1885:174), but one wonders what

course Indo-Europeanism would have taken if it were known at the outset

that the Muslim Pakhtuns (Pathans), residing in the contiguous areas of

52 Afghanistan and India, were also Aryan.





The Aryan race theory not only gave legitimacy to European domination jj over India but also to the upper-caste domination within India. For later $ reference we may note that just as the English-knowing class raised itself in "*

the social scale within India with British help, it next wanted British help in o

raising India in the scale of nations under its leadership. ^ The Europeans were very conscious about their civilizing role. Whenever ^

an Indian made a good impression on the Europeans, his ethnicity and the

civilizing influence of the West were credited. In 1824, Bishop Heber,

referring to the famous letter written by Rajah Rammohun Roy to the

Governor-General, drew attention to "its good English, good sense, and

forcible arguments", and went on to declare it "a real curiosity, as coming

form an Asiatic". Max M?ller paid a tribute to Rajendralala Mitra by

declaring him to be "a scholar and critic in our sense of the word", who "has

proved himself above the prejudices of his class". In the closing years of the

19th century when the Indian physicist Jagadis Chunder Bose won acclaim in

Europe for his pioneering work in radio science, he was described in the

London press as "a Bengalee of the purist descent" and therefore by

implication one of "us"! Such patronizing remarks may appear jarring to

sensitive ears today but in their time they were lapped up by the natives who

quoted them approvingly.

Backlash in England The late 18th century enthusiasm about ancient India the Indologists (then known as Orientalists) sought to create in Britain was effectively curbed by Charles Grant (1746-1823), Company's servant and later its chairman, and a

member of the Clapham sect. Grant came to Bengal in 1767 and remained

there till 1790, with a short break, mostly in the interior rather than in

Calcutta. In his early days, "he led a life of extravagance and folly of which he was afterwards ashamed". Death of his younger brother who had come to

India for employment and his own two little daughters in a short span of time

he regarded as "divine punishment for his past ungodly life". "Henceforth he

lived as a sincere and devout Christian", who made evangelization of India as

his life's mission. (Hampton 1947:1-27)' Two years after his return from India, in 1782, he wrote a policy tract,

awkwardly titled "Observations on the State of Society among the Asiatic

Subjects of Great Britain, particularly with respect to Morals; and the Means

of Improving It. The privately circulated tract was timed to influence the 1793

Charter. In 1797,.when Grant was a Director, the tract with some extra

material, was taken on the Company records. It was reprinted as a House of

Commons document in 1813 and then again 20 years later. The tract

remained a very influential document Grant refused to concede any greatness r >



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? to India at any time in the past. He warned that those Europeans who "exalted

cm the natives of the East, and of other pagan regions, into models of goodness

^ and innocence" were out "to subvert, together with revealed religion, all ideas

< of the moral government of the Deity, and of man's responsibility to

~5 him".While in India Grant had joined the newly formed Asiatick Society, but

S was not a very regular attendee, nor did he read any paper. He did not think

^j- much of William Jones who is assigned to the footnotes, here and there. Grant 00 did credit Jones with having "proved" the "identity" between "the idolatory CO o of the Hindus" and "the "superstitions" of "ancient Pagan Europe", implying

that the Hindoo improvement could come only through conversions.

The Hindu leadership partially accepted the diagnosis but rejected the

> suggested cure. Rammohun Roy conceded the role of climate and

vegetarianism in making Bengalees weak, although Grant had considered

these to be superficial reasons. The natives agreed that they needed to be

improved, but insisted that improvement should come from within and not

through conversion. Charles Grant's argument that romanticization of

ancient India would weaken Christianity and make governance of colonies

difficult was widely accepted. That is how in the 1813 Charter "the door to

missionary activity in India was set ajar". (Ingleby 2000:1)

Indology was still useful for India. Lt-Col. Joseph Boden (d. 1811) who

had served in the Bombay army left a large sum of money to found a Sanskrit

professorship at Oxford. His aim was to promote the translation of the

[Christian] Scriptures into Sanskrit to "enable his countrymen to proceed to

the conversion of the natives of India to the Christian religion". The first

Boden professor was Dr Horace Hayman Wilson (1786-1860), appointed in

1832. While proposing himself for the Chair, Wilson laid stress on what he

had done for "rendering of Scripture Terms into the Sanskrit language". On

Wilson's suggestion, Monier Monier-Williams compiled an English-Sanskrit

dictionary, which was published in 1851 by the East India Company. His

Sanskrit-English dictionary was published with support from Secretary of

State for India. (Monier-Williams 1899:Introduction) On Wilson's death in

1860, the appointment was offered by vote of convocation to Monier

Williams, and not to Max M?ller, for whom "The thesis of the Aryan brotherhood of Britons and Indians was far more than a proposition of

science: it was also an ethic". (Trautman 1997:178) He was consoled with a

newly created professorship of comparative philology. Thus Max M?ller

never taught Sanskrit at Oxford. Max Muller's endeavours at Oxford were

funded by the East India Company. Oxford professors may have had their

own reasons for their assessment of him, but the Company and the natives

both found him very relevant.

54 It is significant that there are probably no major British-born Britain





based Indologists. The first crop of Indologists comprised the British officials

who were seduced by India (Jones, Colebrooke, H.H.Wilson). After this

initial phase, Indology was outsourced especially to Germany, which had

nocolonial stake, and which used Indo-Europeanism to build a national

identity for itself.

Indo-Europeanism had two important facets. The British projected themselves as patrons of ancient India and introduced the natives to

archivalism.

Archivalism

The British believed that great advantage would be derivable "to the British

name and nation in its tendency towards endearing our Government to the

native Hindus; by our exceeding in our attention towards them and their

systems, the care shewn even by their own native princes". (Sharp 1920:10) a

Hindu prince from any time in the past would have been surprised at the

vengeance with which the British went out to discover and invent Hindu

sensitivities and nurture them. The students at the Sanskrit College at Benaras

("centre of their faith, and the common resort of all their tribes") were to be

examined in the presence of the British Resident but "only in all such parts of

knowledge as are not held too sacred to be discussed in the presence of any but Brahmins." Also "The Brahmin teachers to have a preference over

strangers in succeeding to the headship and the students in succeeding to

professorships, if they shall on examination be found qualified" (Sharp

1920:12) This was in 1792. In 1821 the prize giving ceremony was organized as a public occasion to which distinguished natives were invited. Rajas of

Benaras, Vizianagaram and others attended these ceremonies. (Dalmia

2007:34-35) In 1825 when a Sanskrit College was opened at Calcutta, originally

admission "was restricted exclusively to the highest castes of the Hindus,

namely, Brahmins and Vaidyas" Also, it "used to remain closed on the first

and the eighth day of the full and the new moon in conformity with the

convention obtaining in indigenous educational institutions." It was left to a

kulin Shastric Brahmin, Iswarchandra Vidyasagar, as the Principal to make

admission open to all Hindus and to declare Sunday as a fixed weekly holiday, as elsewhere (Banerjee 1994:22). No one except a man of Vidyasagar's credentials could have admonished the British for emphasizing the teaching of Vedanta and Sankhya by declaring that their being "false systems of

philosophy is no more a matter of dispute." (P. C. Ray) It was understandable that the foreign rulers should insist that if any

social reform was to be introduced through legislation the move must have

wide-spread community support. But it was ordained that the move should

70

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o also have support from the scriptures. Now, the Hindu scriptures are rarely if

cni ever unanimous on any point, and for good reason. They represent diverse

^ and theoretical interpretative points of view of independent schools of

< thought spread over a period of time. (That is why there are so many

~5 scriptures.) The Hindus were thus introduced to what we may call

j$ archivalism. Even when a measure was considered to be the need of the hour,

^j- its justification must come from the times gone by. 00

Interestingly, both the conservative and the progressive elements in the o native society concurred on western education, the differences came on

^ questions of the ritual. Before a medical college student could "plunge the

^2 scalpel into the dead body" as part of his studies, society leaders were asked to

> find an appropriate "text in your shaster [shastras]". (Mittra 1878:116) In his

campaign to get the practice of widow burning banned, Rammohan Roy had

to selectively enlist the support of ancient authorities like Manu and

Yajnavalkya as against Angira, Gotama and others. When Iswaechandra

Vidyasagar drafted a multiply-signed petition to the Government for

permitting widow remarriage, he made it a point to mention the important fact that "this custom is not in accordance with the Shastras ,or with true

interpretation of Hindu Law". Note the qualifier true." Vidyasagar also took

the additional precaution of asking Jaykrishna Mukherji, a zamindar, to be

the first signatory, "whose own status as a high-caste Brahmin was

unassailable." He was preferred over, for example, Debendranath Tagore who

"was a universally respected personality, but his caste status as Brahmin was

not flawless" or Hiralal Sil and Durga Charan Law who "were much wealthier

than Jaykrishna but they were not high-caste Hindus..." (Mukherjee

1973:143) "As was anticipated by Vidyasagar, once the fact that widow remarriage

was approved in the Shastras was brought home to the members of the ruling

community, the representation met with a very sympathetic reception."

Indeed, while introducing the bill in the legislature, the Honourable J.P. Grant made it a point to mention that the bill "will interfere with the tenets of

no human being". (Banerjee 1994:44).

Significantly, Vidyasagar's earlier mass petition against polygamy had not

been successful, even though it was supported by as many as 21000

signatures". (Banerjee 1994:30). The petition was referred to a Committee

which comprised, apart from the official members, non-official ones drawn

from the "Calcutta Hindu Society". The native members "opposed the

project almost unanimously", which effectively killed the petition. (Sanyal

1894:27)

56





Native use of the race theory ^ The more perceptive of the British officers in India could foresee the "75"

consequences of introduction of English education in India. Mountstuart Ir

Elphinstone (1779-1859), who annexed the Peshva territory and was the ^ Governor of the Bombay Presidency during 1819-1827, had "a pile of printed 9" Mahratta books" in his tent. When asked about them, he said that they were p?

"To educate the natives", adding that, "but it is our high road back to

Europe". When asked why he then insisted on the native education,

Elphinstone's reply was that "We are bound, under all circumstances, to do our duty to them".

The same point was placed in a broader context by Sir Charles Edwards

Trevelyan (1807-1886) in his 1838 On the Education of the People of India.

Trevelyan noticed two "sets of ideas" prevailing among the natives. In parts of

India, "where, owing to the comparative novelty of our rule and in the

absence of any attempt to alter the current of native feeling", people wanted

"the sudden and absolute expulsion of the British". In contrast , in Bengal "Instead of thinking of cutting the throats of the English, they were aspiring to sit with them on the grand jury, or on the bench of the Magistrates", "all of them being fully sensible that these plans of improvement could only be

worked out with the aid and protection of the British Government by the

gradual improvement of their countrymen in knowledge and morality",

requiring "a long continuation of our administration, and the gradual withdrawal of it as people became fit to govern themselves". (Mahmoos

1895:236) In the 1820s the British set out to improve the natives. In two

generations' time the natives were sufficiently improved. But the British were

seemingly not happy with the success of their mission.

Indo-Europeanism had provided the British with legitimacy for their

rule. It would also provide the natives with mild courage to challenge the one

sidedness of the rule. The lead came in the 1870s from Dr. Mahendralal

Sircar, a Calcutta University MD-turned homeopath. A member of the

British Association for the Advancement of Science since 1864, he was the

first Indian to acquaint himself with the scientific developments taking place in Europe.

In a* pamphlet issued in December 1869 Sircar argued that the Hindu

mind had lost "much of its original Aiyan vigor" because of the Muslim rule

and "a most de-energizing religion". "The best method... the only method...

by which the Hindu mind can be developed to its full proportion is... by the

cultivation of the Physical Sciences". The British had "a duty to perform towards us", that is their "brethren, now fallen and degraded". The true glory

of England "should consist not in simply holding under subjection the people of India, but in elevating them in the scale of nations, in taking them by hand ^ 7



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vO CO

>

o and reconciling them to their long alienated brethren, her own children (i.e., oi the English people themselves).

^ The phrase Aryan brethren, coined by Max M?ller, profoundly

< influenced the thinking of Indian leadership throughout the nineteenth

"5 century. The charismatic Brahmo Samaj leader, Keshub Chunder Sen (1838

^ 1884) declared at a public meeting in Calcutta in 1877: "Gentlemen, in the

^r advent of British nation in India we see a reunion of parted cousins, the 00 descendents of two different families of the ancient Aryan race" (quoted in CO o Kochhar 2000:10). In far-off South Africa, Mohandas Gandhi addressed an

open letter (1894) to the members of the legislature protesting against the ill

treatment of the Indians, and circulated it among the Europeans in Natal. In

it Gandhi pointed out "that both the English and the Indians sprang from a

common stock, called the Indo-aryan [should be Aryan] "

(Kochhar 2000:228, n. 29). In fact, Mohandas Gandhi becomes Mahatma Gandhi only when he

jettisons this historiography. But that came later.

Sircar wanted his institution to be like the Royal Institution and the

British Association. But the type of support he had envisaged was not

forthcoming. It is easy to see why. Sircar's project was not driven by any historical necessity. It did not fulfill any felt need. There were neither

improving landlords nor men of science in India. There were no counterpart in India of the strains caused in Europe by the industrial and the French

revolutions. Since the wealthy in India owed nothing to science, there was no

reason for them to support science.

And yet, Sircar was able to muster support to survive if not flourish.

There were two reasons for this. Sircar was a highly successful physician. His

rich patients would indulge him. More importantly, his project enjoyed

support from the high officials, including the Viceroys. The relationship between the colonial government and the native leadership had already become quite complex. The government was wary of opposing

a cause that

seemed to command native support. Native support in turn was forthcoming if the government seemed to be positively inclined.

From the start of the campaign till 1874 end, Sircar's proposal met with

tepid response from the community. His fortunes changed when early 1875, the Bengal Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Richard Temple, called him for a

meeting. Sircar declared that he had Temple's support. This was true only to

the extent that Temple did not reject the proposal outright. He did try to

subvert the proposal. It may appear ironical, but it would have better for

India if the colonial Lieutenant-Governor's subversion plans against a

nationalist campaign had succeeded.

On the one hand, half century of English education produced a band of

5g bright, articulate professionals who wanted a greater share in administration





of their own country and could accuse the English of un-English conduct. On ?J the other there emerged a horde of unemployed and unemployable educated $ youth. It is the quasi-disloyal discontent of the latter that worried the British. -J

Temple had a solution to the problem which he spelt out quite explicitly in a o

letter to the Viceroy on 18 February 1875. ^

"No doubt the alumni of our schools and colleges do become as a class ^ discontented. But this arises from our higher education being too much in the

direction of law, public administration, and prose literature, where they may

possibly imagine... that they may approach to competition with us. But we

shall do more and more to direct their thought towards practical science, where they must inevitably feel their utter inferiority to us."

In 1875 an act was passed providing for a partially elective corporation for Calcutta. The self-made professional class now saw a bigger role for itself.

Only it was not quite clear within its own ranks as to what was to be done with

the past baggage as represented by the landed class. One section wanted a

clear break with the past elitist leadership. It was led by Sisir Kumar Ghose of

Amrita Bazar Patrika, who had moved to Calcutta in 1871, and Shambhu

Chandra Mookerjee, editor of the Mookerjee Magazine. It came to be known

by the name of the organization, Indian League founded on 25 September 1875. On the other hand, the other section, which had old family and social

ties with the old guard, was more accommodative. (It included Anand Mohan

Bose, Surendra Nath Banerjee and others.) It is this latter section which was

by the side of Sircar. It eventually prevailed politically with the founding of

the more representative Indian Association, on 26 July 1876.

Since the Indian Association leadership was supporting Sircar's proposal for an Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Temple decided to

enlist the support of the rival Indian League to further his polytechnic plan. The

conflict between the Indian League and the Indian Association leadership was a

factional fight, untainted by any economic ideology. Indian League leaders may have been upstarts compared to those of the Indian Association (Furedi 1979), but the former's support for Temple's polytechnic was certainly not driven by

any commitment to the cause of the artisans. India League was supporting the

Lieutenant-Governor, not technical education. It was opposing the people

behind Indian Association; it was not supporting the polytechnic.

Temple tried to convince the native leadership about the advisability of

setting up of a polytechnic; "Science also may be made to add immeasurably to the national wealth and so to afford lucrative employment to numberless

persons according to their qualifications and acquirements... Moreover by

these means not only will many new industries be introduced into Bengal, but

almost every one of the old established arts and manufacturers of the country

may be rendered more useful and remunerative than at present." co



Social Scientist

o If the Indians drawn from artisan castes had been consulted, they would

es not have minded their utter inferiority to the foreign rulers for one or two

^ generations as a price for upgradation of their traditional skills. But the native

< leadership was in the hands of upper castes well known for their disdain of

~5 manual work. It had taken them two generations of study of western law and

?2 literature to claim equality with the rulers. They wanted science to be

^ cultivated at the same level. Interestingly, Christian missionaries, like the 00 Jesuit professor Father Eugene Lafont, acted as a bridge between the colonial CO o

government and the upper class native interests. "In 1886,there was a

^ suggestion afoot from Mr. Tawney of the Calcutta University, backed by the

22 Government that technical education should be introduced at the school level

> and the institutions which would not technical education would cease to

receive Government aid. Father H. Neut, the Rector and other Jesuit teachers,

of the St. Xavier's College opposed this imposition". (Biswas 1969:60-61) Sircar and his supporters remained unconvinced of Temple's arguments

in favour of technical education. They wanted science speculation, not

science application. The editorial comment in the influential Hindoo Patriot

on the technical schools was on predictable lines: "This will of course improve the condition of the masses, but will not affect the educated classes".

Bowing to the wishes of the educated classes, the government agreed to

support the formation of the Science Association (29 July 1876) and provided

premises for it to operate from in return for overseeing by the government.

Interestingly, Sircar bought the building to prevent any control or inspection

by the government and ran it like a private club.

Science Association succeeded in getting science introduced into the

higher education system and motivating better-quality students for a career in

science rather than in law or government service. It however failed in its

avowed goal to create an intrinsic interest in scientific topics in public at large. Nor could it initiate scientific research under purely Indian auspices. It would

be UK-trained professors employed in a government college (Presidency

College, Calcutta), Jagadis Chunder Bose (1858-1937) and Prafulla Chandra

Ray (1861-1944), who would place India on the world science map twenty

years later.

Sircar remained at the helm of affairs for almost three decades till his

death in 1904. He bitterly complained about the failure of the native

community to shell out enough funds for instituting professorships. The

upper classes were ready to financially support Sircar in his pursuits because

he was one of them. But they were not ready to give money for creating

employment for others. It is curious that Sircar did not become a researcher

himself. He was eminently qualified to do so. His Association was well

60 equipped with the state-of-art instruments from Europe. He could easily have





become a discoverer. But he preferred to be a high-profile demonstrator. For

the high colonial functionaries he was their window to scientific

developments in Europe. The high point of Sircar's social life was an

invitation to display the spectacle of the newly invented Crooke's tube.

(Ghose 1935:253) Father Lafont assisted by a Tagore boy took the X-ray

image of the Viceroy's hand decorated with a ring and won a photography

prize for the effort. (Biswas 200:296) India may have begun its flirtation with et modern science in the last

quarter of the nineteenth century itself, it was not yet ready for a serious

affair. The empire was still in full glory .Invitation to the Viceroy's residence

ranked higher than that to a scientific conference.

Things changed as the nineteenth century'was coming to a close. Pursuit

of science became an extension of the nationalist movement, even though British recognition was still sought and flaunted Since the Indians knew

Shakespeare as well as if not better than the English themselves, they believed

that their edifice of science should be supported by and an extension of the

British effort. Because of the class composition of the dominant Indian

classes, the wealth-generation aspects of science have never really been

appreciated.

I would like to close with a contemporary comment.

Like an uncured illness, seductive orientalism seems to be making a

come-back. Currently a large number of bright young Indians are working beneath their intellect and training in the software-driven sector in India. To

encourage them to continue doing so and in increasing numbers, it has been

said that Indians have a natural flair for crunching numbers.

India's share in the world IT sector is 2-3%. As against this India has a

whopping 30% share in the business of breaking ships and dismantling electronic waste. India taken as a whole appears to have a far greater flair for

handling obsolete computers <han the state-of-art ones.

Rajesh Kochhar is Professor of Pharmaceutical Heritage, NIPER, Mohali and

Former Director, NISTADS, New Delhi.

References

(In case of old texts, the year of original publication is given to help place the workin

context. The pagination is from a reprint edition (at times a facsimile edition), details of which are given. Names have often been spelt variously in published

sources).

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Banerjee, Hiranmay (1994) Iswarchandra Vidyasagar (New Delhi: Sahitya Akademi)

Biswas, Arun Kumar (1969) Science in India (Calcutta: Firma KL Mukhopadhyay)

Biswas, Arun Kumar (2000) Gleanings of the Past and the Science Movemei

(Calcutta: Asiatic Society)

Calcutta Review (1873) The territorial aristocracy of Bengal: The Kasimbazar

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Dalmia, Vasudha (2007) Orienting India (Gurgaon: Three Essays Collective)

Dutt, Haradan (1995) Dutt Family of Wellington Square (Calcutta: Haradhan Dutt)

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tion during British Rule by Pramatha Nath Bose, Calcutta Review, Nos. 199-200:

121-131.

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colonial mix of self-interest and ideology. Indian Journal of Politics, 13:63-73.

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Publishing)

Hampton, H.V. (1947) Biographical Studies in Modern Indian Education (Claredon:

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Ingleby, J.C. (2000) Missionaries, Education and India (Delhi: ISPCK)

Itesamuddin, Mirza (1827) Shigruf Namah-I-Velayat. (tr. by James Edward

Alexander) (London: Parbury, Allen & Co.). See also Syed A.S.M. Taifoor (1935)

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Kennedy, James (1910) English education and Indian ethics.. Asian Quarterly

Review, 30: 290-313.

Kling, Blair B. (1976) Partner in Empire (Berkeley: University of California Press)

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Kripalani, Krishna (1980) Dwarkanath Tagore (New Delhi: National Book Trust)

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East India Association, 2:103-127.

Mitra, Dilip Kumar (1978) In: Rajendralala Mitra (Calcutta: Asiatic Society)

Mittra, Peary Chand (1878) A Biographical Sketch of David Hare (Reprint Calcutta:

Jijnasa, 1979)

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Monier-Williams, Monier (1899) A Sanskrit - English Dictionary (Reprint Delhi:

Motilal Banarasidass, 2005)

Mukherjee (1975) A Bengal Zamindar (Calcutta: Firma KL Mukhopadhyay)

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Nandy, Somendra Chandra (1978) Life and Times of Cantoo Baboo (Calcutta: Allied

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seductive orientalism: english education and modern science in colonial india

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