The Young Bengal Movement
The Young Bengal Movement was launched in Calcutta by a group of radical Bengali free-thinkers who emerged from Hindu College and came to be called Derozians, after their teacher Henry Louis Vivian Derozio. Posing a direct intellectual challenge to the religious and social orthodoxy of Hinduism, the movement is an important early current within the Bengal Renaissance.
Henry Louis Vivian Derozio: Life and Teaching at Hindu College
- Henry Louis Vivian Derozio was a poet and teacher at Hindu College, Calcutta — a radical thinker and one of the first Indian educators to disseminate Western learning and science among young Bengali men.
- Anglo-Indian by birth, the son of an Indian father and an English mother.
- In 1826, at the age of 17, was appointed teacher of English literature and history at Hindu College.
- Through his reportedly brilliant teaching, developed among his pupils a spirit of free thinking and won their deep loyalty; his zeal and close engagement with students created a sensation at Hindu College.
- Organised debates in which ideas and social norms were freely questioned — his students, who came to be known as Derozians, were inspired by this spirit of free thought and revolt against the existing social and religious order.
- Constantly urged students to think freely, to question, and never to accept anything blindly.
- His teaching inspired in them the ideals of liberty, equality, and freedom, and brought about what has been called an intellectual revolution in Bengal.
- Drawing on the spirit of English rationalism and the French Revolution, Derozio openly criticised the social practices and religious beliefs of orthodox Hinduism.
- Around him rallied College boys who ridiculed old traditions, defied social and religious rites, demanded education for women, and, to flaunt their independence, indulged in acts of social rebellion such as wine-drinking and beef-eating — behaviour for which this group, known as Young Bengal, became notorious in their own time.
- Accused of irreverence by the orthodox Hindu parents of his students, Derozio was forced to resign by the directors of Hindu College in 1831 over his radical teaching.
- He died of cholera shortly after, in 1831, at the young age of 22.
- Long after his death, his influence lived on among his former students — the Young Bengal group — many of whom went on to prominence in social reform, law, and journalism.
Ideology and Social Rebellion of the Young Bengal Group
- In economic outlook, Young Bengal followed classical economics and free trade, drawing inspiration from Jeremy Bentham, Adam Smith, and David Ricardo.
- They were passionate advocates of women’s rights and demanded education for women.
- Their social rebellion — most visibly, the deliberate flouting of caste and dietary taboos through wine-drinking and beef-eating — was as much a symbolic assertion of independence from orthodoxy as an ideological position.
Organisations Founded by the Young Bengal Group
Derozio and the Young Bengal group founded several institutions and journals that fed into the wider Bengal Renaissance. Two of the most significant were the Academic Association and the Society for the Acquisition of General Knowledge.
Academic Association (1828)
- Founded in 1828 under Derozio’s guidance, shortly after he joined Hindu College, the Academic Association quickly attracted a following among students.
- Hosted discussions on subjects such as free will and free ordination; fate, faith, and the sacredness of truth; the duty of cultivating virtue and the meanness of vice; the nobility of patriotism; arguments for and against the existence of the deity; and the hollowness of idolatry and the shames of priesthood.
- Drew both Britons and Indians into its discussions of religion and philosophy.
- After changing venues a few times, it settled at Maniktala.
- Derozio served as its president, with his student Uma Charan Basu as secretary.
- Regular attendees included figures such as David Hare and Col. Benson, private secretary to Lord William Bentinck.
- Kept alive by the Derozians until about 1839; the influence of radical politics in England around this time led the group to establish the Society for the Acquisition of General Knowledge (1838), followed by a Mechanics’ Institute (1839).
Society for the Acquisition of General Knowledge (1838)
- Established on 20 February 1838 by the Young Bengal group to discuss aspects of Western science, and to advocate social reforms such as the prohibition of caste taboos, child marriage, Kulin polygamy, and the ban on widow remarriage.
- Tarachand Chakrabarti was its president and Ramgopal Ghosh its vice-president; the Society elected David Hare as honorary visitor.
- Published notable papers, including Nature of Historical Studies and Civil and Social Reform by Krishna Mohan Banerjee, and Interests of the Female Sex and The State of Hindustan by Peary Chand Mitra.
- Along with the Academic Association, this Society was a forerunner of later bodies such as the Landholders’ Society, the British India Society, and the British Indian Association, with all of which the Young Bengal group maintained links.
Impact of the Young Bengal Movement
- Derozian ideas had a profound influence on the broader social movement that came to be known as the Bengal Renaissance in early 19th-century Bengal.
- Their relationship with Christian missionaries was ambivalent: figures such as Alexander Duff and other evangelical missionaries viewed Derozio as something of an iconoclast, and his rationalism was accepted by them only insofar as it did not conflict with the basic tenets of Christianity and continued to critique orthodox Hinduism.
- The Derozians carried forward Raja Rammohan Roy’s tradition of educating the public on social, economic, and political questions through newspapers, pamphlets, and public associations.
- They led public agitation on issues such as the revision of the Company’s Charter, freedom of the press, better treatment of Indian labour in British colonies abroad, trial by jury, protection of ryots from oppressive zamindars, and the employment of Indians in the higher grades of government service.
- Though Derozio himself was an atheist, his ideas are generally believed to have partly influenced the conversion of upper-caste Hindus such as Krishna Mohan Banerjee and Lal Behari Dey to Christianity.
- Christianity also claimed converts such as Madhusudan Dutt (another promising student of the College, who left his ancestral faith in 1843) and Jnanendra Mohan Tagore (the only son of Prasanna Kumar Tagore).
- Drinking, which the Derozians had introduced as a symbol of emancipation, spread in an alarming manner even among people untouched by the nobler aspects of Derozian free thought.
- Derozio is regarded as perhaps the first nationalist poet of modern India; his best-known poem is To India – My Native Land.
Why the Young Bengal Movement Did Not Last Long
Despite their intellectual brilliance, the Derozians could not usher in the age of reform they envisioned, and the movement faded within a generation. The reasons are usually grouped as follows:
- Disconnect from the Indian masses:
- Their total faith in British rule and English education, combined with a rationalism and scientism derived wholly from the West, set them apart from ordinary Indians.
- Their radicalism remained largely bookish and never came to grips with Indian social reality; they did not take up the cause of the peasantry, and no other class or group in Indian society at the time existed to support their advanced ideas.
- As a result, they failed to maintain their links with the wider people.
- Weak organisational and ideological foundation:
- They never succeeded in organising a genuine social movement in support of their proposed reforms.
- Their stand lacked substantial positive content, and they failed to develop a coherent, progressive ideology — the concept of the rights of the people, drawn from the Western bourgeois-democratic revolutions that had inspired them, never took concrete shape in their thinking.
- Though brilliant individually, and bound to one another and to Derozio’s memory by real bonds of affection, they never grew into a school of thought capable of attracting adherents from a wider circle.
- Lack of broader social support:
- The movement failed to gather support from other Bengali literati and academics.
- Raja Rammohan Roy himself was out of sympathy with the Derozians — their free thought, rooted in the traditions of the French Revolution and English radicalism, offended his sense of decency and theistic idealism.
- Ordinary people, unfamiliar with Derozian ideas, saw the group as arrogant extremists waging a kind of war on religion and custom, and social conditions of the time were not yet ripe for such ideas to take hold.
- Decline over time:
- Their professed “atheism,” strongly avowed in the movement’s early years, receded over time, and their social radicalism showed clear signs of backsliding as the Derozians grew older and became established in society.
- A number of them were later drawn toward the Brahmo Samaj movement, by which point they had lost their youthful fire and excitement.
The Young Bengal Movement has been likened to a mighty storm that swept through Bengali society — doing some good, but also causing discomfort and distress — before the Derozians faded out like, in the words of one nationalist leader, “a generation without fathers and children.” The same leader nonetheless credited them as:
“The pioneers of the modern civilization of Bengal, the conscript fathers of our race whose virtues will excite veneration and whose failings will be treated with gentlest consideration.”
