##Additions and Corrections
Pp. 12–13. For Dr. Lant Carpenter’s testimony regarding Rammohun’s early visit to Tibet, see his A Review of the Labours Opinions and Character of Rajah Rammohun Roy London and Bristol, 1833, pp. 101–102 and particularly the footnote on p. 102.
P. 15. Fresh light is shed on Rammohun’s stay at Benares by a piece of information kindly forwarded to the editors by Dr. Stephen N. Hay, Assistant Professor of History, University of Chicago, in a letter dated August 3, 1961. A friend of Dr. Hay is said to have turned up the following entry in the Miscellaneous Revenue Records of the Benares Commissioner’s Office (in the Allahabad Central Record Office): Banta (?) 100, Vol. 17, p. 20, “Memorandum of Writers’ Salary etc. for March, April, May, June and July 1803.” Of the nine names and salaries mentioned under this head, one is, “Ram Mohun Roy @ 100 = 500 Rs.” This probably shows that Rammohun was working in Benares in 1803.
P. 39. Mr. Brajendranath Banerji who had held that Rammohun settled permanently in Calcutta from the middle of 1814, finally corrects his mistake in a note added to the latest edition of the Sahitya Sadhak Charitmala, published by the Vangiya Sahitya Parishad. (Vol. I, Additions and Corrections, p. 50)
P. 50. For the original account of the strained relations between Rammohun and his mother and of Tarini Devi’s ultimate repentance, see Lant Carpenter A Review of the Labours Opinions and Character of Rajah Rammohun Roy p. 106 and footnote.
This document provides two sections of scholarly notes regarding Rajah Rammohun Roy and the opposition he faced.
Here is the extracted text, formatted in Markdown:
P. 102. The shaping influence of the Tantra philosophy on Rammohun’s thought has now been further discussed by Sj. Dilip Kumar Biswas in his Bengali article “Rammohan Rāyer Dharmamat O Tantra Śāstra” in the Viśvabhāratī Patrikā Vol. XVI, No. 4 (Vaiśākha-Āṣāḍh, 1882 Śaka), pp. 225–48.
Pp. 102–104. Two further pieces of evidence in favour of the hypothesis of the authoress that Rammohun had been prevented from becoming one of the Directors of the Hindu College as a result of orthodox Hindu opposition, may be cited:
(1) The following is an extract from a letter published in the Samācār Darpaṇ, October 15, 1831 (Āśvin 30, 1238 B. S.), by an orthodox opponent of Rammohun:
[Bengali Text:] তাঁহার আদ্য ব্যবহার হিন্দুর বারামত নহে ইতাও ব্যক্ত হইল। তকালবধি রাম্মোহন রায় হিন্দুদের তাঙ্কা হইলেন ইঁহারো এক প্রমাণ লিথি। অনেকের স্মরণ থাকিবে যে পূর্ব্বের চীফ, জুষ্টিশ সর এডুয়ার্ড হাইড ইষ্ট সাহেব যখন হিন্দু কলেজ স্থাপন করেন তখন নগরস্থ প্রায় সমস্ত ভাগ্যবন্ত লোক সাহেবদের অনুরোধে এবং দেশের মঙ্গল বোঝে অনেক টাকা চাঁদা দিলেন ইঁহাতে হাইড-ইষ্ট সাহেব তুই হইয়া কলেক্তর নিয়ম করিয়াছিলেন তাহাতে এতদ্দেশীয় মহাশয়দের মধ্যে উপযুক্ত পাত্র বিবেচনা করিয়া ঐ পাঠশালার কর্ত্তাব্যক্ত নিযুক্ত করিলেন তথ্যে রাম্মোহন রায় গ্রাহ্য হইলেন না যে হেতু তাঁহকে হিন্দুর মতে নহে।
(2) দ্বিতীয় প্রমাণ। রাম্মোহন রায় হিন্দুকরের সমাজে গ্রাহ্য হওয়া দূরে থাকুক তাঁহার সহিত সহবাস ছিল এই অপরাধে একজন অভিজাত লোক্কে সন্ধান বিহান এবং অনেকে ধনদানে বিরক্ষণ সক্ষম তিনিও তখাতে নিযুক্ত হইতে পারিলেন না তাঁহাকে অপ্রত্যাশিতকূ পঙ্গাপদে সর রেওয়ারদী দত্ত মে হেরিটেঙ্গ সাহেব বিশেষ অনুরোধ করিয়াছিলেন তাহা ও বৃথা হইল না।
(Quoted from Brajendranath Banerji’s Sambādpatre Sekāler Kathā Third Edition, Calcutta, 1356 B. S. Vol. II, p. 481.)
(2) Addressing the first memorial meeting of Rammohun Roy held on the 5th April, 1834, at the Town Hall of Calcutta, Rasik Krishna Mallik, one of the most brilliant of the early batch of students of the Hindu College and a prominent member of the group of radical young men known as “Young Bengal” in contemporary circles, said:
“…Not being held in that respect that he should have been by his bigotted countrymen, he was prevented from doing all the good that he would have done. I allude to his not being allowed to join an institution in which he might have been of the greatest service to his country. If he had been admitted his benevolent mind might have suggested many measures which might have done more benefit to the country” (vide his speech as reported in the Calcutta Monthly Journal Vol. V, New Series May to August, 1834, p. 258)
It is thus not difficult to see that, the contemporaries of Rammohun knew very well that the intrigues of his orthodox opponents had kept him out of the Managing Committee of the Hindu College. In the first letter a bitter conservative critic of the reformer is found to express malicious delight at the “victory” of the orthodox Hindu clique that ‘succeeded in preventing Rammohun from being associated with the Hindu College. In the second extract one of the most prominent students of contemporary Hindu College is seen to regret the same event deeply.
Pp. 149 (footnote 27), 236 (footnote). The editorial comments made on these pages regarding the date of the final judgment in the cases between Rammohun and the Mahārājā of Burdwan, are apparently wrong. The Mahārājā of Burdwan had instituted three law-suits against Rammohun all of which (Nos. 3004, 3005 and 3006) had been disposed of in the favour of the latter by the Sadar Dewani Adalat. The last case in the series (No. 3006) was decided on November 10, 1831, nearly a year after Rammohun had left India for England. The judgment in the first (No. 3004) had been delivered on November 10, 1830 (the 26th Kartik, …)
1237 B. S., Āghran 10, 1238 Fāsil, Wednesday). The date mentioned in the text is therefore perfectly correct and the editors had been misled by the striking coincidence of the dates of the delivery of the respective judgments of the first and the third suits in the series (i.e. November 10).
P. 189 n. “How completely…was Rammohun vindicated in his advocacy of Western education, along modern lines, will be borne out by the very deserved tribute that was paid to him in the Report of the Education Commission, appointed by Lord Ripon in 1882, which said : ‘It took twelve years of controversy, the advocacy of Macaulay, and the decisive action of a new Governor-General, before the Committee could as a body acquiesce in the policy urged by him [Rammohun]’.” (The Father of Modern India : Rammohun Centenary Commemoration Volume Part II pp. 45–46).
Pp. 204–05. In connection with Rammohun Roy’s labours in the cause of Indian journalism we should remember the following tribute of R. Montgomery Martin: “…to no individuals is the Indian Press under greater obligations than to the lamented Rammohun Roy and munificent Dwarkanath Tagore.” (Cf. his History of the British Colonies Vol. I p. 254).
Pp. 206–07. Rammohun’s earnest endeavours to secure the liberty of the Press in this country came to be gratefully recognized by his contemporaries after his death. On the occasion of the Free Press Dinner given in honour of Sir Charles T. Metcalf on February 9, 1838, to celebrate the latter’s restoration of the freedom of the Indian Press, at the Town Hall, Calcutta, a toast was proposed to the memory of Rammohun Roy for the Raja’s great services in the cause of the emancipation of the Press in India, by Mr. J. F. Leith. From the rank of the Indian guests Prasanna Kumar Tagore spoke feelingly on the Rammohun’s contributions to the cause of the Liberty of the Press. (Cf. “Free Press Dinner” in the…)
The Calcutta Monthly Journal Third Series, Vol IV, 1838, Asiatic News, p. 87. Rammohun was again remembered on the occasion of the fourth Free Press Anniversary Dinner held at the Town Hall on December 15, 1838. This time eloquent tributes were paid to him as a champion of civil and religious liberty by the chief Indian guest Dwarkanath Tagore (Cf. The Calcutta Monthly Journal No. XLIX, December, 1838, p. 615).
There is an excellent discussion of Rammohun’s great work in the cause of journalism and the freedom of the Press in supplementary notes 34 to 39, added by Sj Amal Home to the brief Sketch of Rammohun’s life in the Rammohun Centenary Publicity Booklet No 1 incorporated in The Father of Modern India : Rammohun Centenary Commemoration Volume Part II pp. 47–53.
P. 221. It seems that the real name of the gentleman whose house had originally been rented to hold sessions of the Brahmo Samaj, is Ramkamal Basu. This was first pointed out by Sj Amal Home (Rammohun Centenary Commemoration Volume Part II p. 39). Recently Sj. Debipada Bhattacharya has come to the same conclusion on the authority of Sj. Harihar Seth of Chandernagore (Ananda Bazar Patrika, Sunday, May 22, 1960). This is house No. 48. Upper Chitpore Road, Jorasanko.
P. 221, footnote 5. A few corrections will have to be made in the reference to Moncure Daniel Conway’s article. The name of the journal is The Open Court, not Chicago Open Court. Conway’s article entitled “Story of an Old London Society” appeared serially in the said journal in 1893, not in 1894. The excerpt given in The Father of Modern India Part II pp. 166–67 is found in The Open Court, Vol. VIII. No. 4, pp. 3777–78, which is dated “Chicago, August 24, 1893.” The editors are indebted for these corrections to Dr. Stephen N. Hay who has kindly checked the reference for them. The articles were published in book form as Centenary History of the South Place Society by Conway from London in 1894.
In this connection Dr. Hay has also drawn our attention to the following passage from another book of Conway, My Pilgrimage to the Wise Men of the East (Boston and New York : Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1906), p. 332:
“It was in my South Place Chapel that Rammohun Roy was welcome to England by its eloquent minister, W. J. Fox, in 1834 (sic). That was a dawn of the new interest of cultured England in Hindu religion. Mr. Fox was surrounded by the best men and women,—Harriet Martineau, Leigh Hunt, J. S. Mill, Eliza and Sarah Flower (who wrote “Nearer, my God, to Thee !”) and all the leading Unitarian Ministers. It was in that homage to the Indian orator who had begun the work of emancipating his countrymen from “idolatry”, as it is called, that the Unitarian Association dropped the title “Christian” and called itself “The British and Foreign Unitarian Association”.
P. 231. The identity of Mr. G. N. Tagore who is said to have given Miss Collet a detailed description of the daily habits of Rammohun, has remained a puzzle till now. One cannot in the present context recall any one with the same initials belonging to the Tagore family of Jorasanko, except perhaps Girindra Nath Tagore, the second son of Dwarakanath Tagore, Rammohun’s trusted friend and collaborator. But Girindra Nath Tagore died in 1854 and would not fit in chronologically. We can also rule out Gaganendra Nath Tagore, the artist, who belongs to the modern generation and would not be expected to possess intimate details of Rammohun’s daily life.
Is it possible that the reference is to Jnānendra Mohan Tagore, the son of Rammohun’s close associate, Prasanna Kumar Tagore? Jnānendra Mohun, it should be remembered, embraced Christianity and later in life settled in England. He had good opportunity of establishing contact with Miss Collet and there is just a chance that he might have heard stories of Rammohun’s personal life from his father. His correct initials however would be J. M., not G. N. But the Sanskrit word “Jnān” was sometimes popularly transcribed as “Gyan” (Cf. “Gyān Chandrikā”, p. 27 above.)
So it would not be unnatural to see the first part of the name being written as “Gyānendra” instead of “Jnānendra”. The second letter ‘N’ can be imagined as a possible misprint for “M”. All this however is nothing more than pure conjecture.
P. 257. There was a basic difference between the respective attitudes of H. H. Wilson and Rammohun Roy towards the question of the abolition of Suttee (Sati).
The former believed that the custom of burning widows had the authoritative sanction of the Hindu scriptures and an attempt at abolishing it, would amount to a direct interference on the part of the British Government in an essential religious rite of the Hindus. In his letter of November 25, 1828, to Captain R. Benson he states his position clearly: “They have therefore the weight of commands…and they cannot be directly opposed without violence to the conscientious belief of every order of Hindus.” (Cf. J. K. Majumdar Raja Rammohun Roy and Progressive Movements in India No. 75, p. 135). Wilson accordingly was “adverse to any authoritative interference with the practice”. (Ibid p. 133.) His above letter to Capt. Benson, Military Secretary to Government, contains a definite dig at Rammohun Roy: “One or two individuals who have signalised themselves by dissenting from many of the practises and principles of the religion, may hold a different persuasion, but the vast body of the population will concur in the same impression and the Government has to legislate not for a handful of sectaries but for the Hindus at large.” Rammohun however fought all his life for the abolition of the evil custom, published books to show that it was not an essential part of the Hindu religion, roamed about in the cremation grounds to prevent by personal appeal actual cases, risked his honour and even life in the struggle, congratulated the government publicly for promulgating the Regulation of December 4, 1829, which finally abolished the evil practice (Cf. Appendix III) and expressed righteous indignation at English advocates supporting the cause of the anti-abolitionists when the appeal against the abolition of this inhuman rite was finally heard before the Privy Council (Cf. his note of…) June 20, 1832, to The Marquis of Lansdowne, p. 346, footnote 22, above). To Bentinck his advice was “that the practice might be suppressed quietly and unobservedly by increasing the difficulties and by the indirect agency of the police,” and not by an open enactment. It was clearly an advice on the question of the ideal strategy to be adopted to secure the ultimate success of the anti-Suttee struggle. An open enactment in Rammohun’s opinion might harm the cause by generating popular resentment on too large a scale. The difference of his outlook from that of Wilson thus is fundamental.
P. 345. Though Rammohun Roy’s diplomatic mission from the King of Delhi had partially succeeded and the latter had been granted an increase of pension, Rammohun himself was not satisfied with it and he had written to the Moghul King not to agree to accept the offer of the British Government unless and until his claims were fully satisfied (Cf. “Letter from the Governor General’s Agent at Delhi to the Political Secretary to Government, July 18, 1833” in J. K. Majumdar Raja Rammohun Roy and the Last Moghuls, No. 142, p. 232.) Death however prevented Rammohun from proceeding with his efforts in this matter.
The news of the success of Rammohun’s mission had created a sensation in the Native Courts of India and the rage of sending ambassadors to England is said to be on the increase at the time. Besides Baiza Bai the widowed queen of Gwalior others who toyed with the idea of appealing directly to England included the ruler of Oudh, the Nawab Nazim of Murshidabad and the King of Mysore (Ibid, p. lviii). It is interesting also to find that after the death of Akbar II his son and successor Bahadur Shah, the last of the Moghuls, followed the tradition by sending Mr. George Thompson as his envoy to Britain in 1843 (Ibid pp. lxii–lxiii).
P. 351. Concerning Rammohun Roy’s part in gaining advantages for India in the East India Company’s Charter of 1833, Rasik Krishna Mallik made the following observations in… course of his speech in the first memorial meeting of the Raja held in the Town Hall of Calcutta on April 5, 1834:
“He went to England; to his going there we are in a great measure indebted for the best clauses in the Charter, bad and wretched as the Charter is. Though it contains few provisions for the comfort and happiness of millions that are subject to its sway…the few provisions that it contains for the good of our countrymen, we owe to Rammohun Roy.” (Cf. The Calcutta Monthly Journal Vol. V., New Series, May to August, 1834, p. 259).
P. 353 n. Regarding Rammohun’s plans for getting elected to the Parliament it is important to remember that “Bentham gave much thought to the affairs of India and when Rammohun Roy came to England……advocated his return to Parliament. Max Müller, Monier Williams, Campbell the poet, and Lord Brougham were others who befriended the prospective candidate…”. (Bengal Past and Present January to March 1927, p. 74, quoted by Brajendranath Banerji in the Modern Review October, 1929, p. 382 n).
P. 356. The censure on Rammohun’s sons for having neglected to send their father money in England during the latter’s last days is perhaps undeserved. Rammohun’s pecuniary difficulties in England were due mainly to the failure of the House of Messrs. Mackintosh & Co., his agents in Calcutta as well as that of Messrs. Rickards, Mackintosh & Co., his agents in England. He had appealed to the Court of Directors for a loan of £2000/− on personal security which he promised to repay within a year in England or within three years in India from the date of its receipt. But the Court of Directors refused to advance the sum on personal security (Cf. Brajendranath Banerji “The Last Days of Rajah Rammohun Roy” Modern Review October, 1929, pp. 381–88).
Pp. 364–65. The passage quoted is from Lant Carpenter’s A Review of the Labours Opinions and Character of Rajah Rammohun Roy (London and Bristol, 1833) pp. 122–23.