Young Bengal

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Young Bengal is the name attributed to a group of radical free thinkers emerging from Hindu College, Calcutta in the early 19th century. They were also known as Derozians, after their firebrand teacher at Hindu College, Henry Louis Vivian Derozio.

According to Nitish Sengupta in his History of Bengali-speaking People, prominent Derozians and Young Bengal group members who left a distinct mark in Calcutta society of the 1830s and 1840s were: Tarachand Chakraborti (1805-55) who was prominent in the Brahmo Sabha and Young Bengal; Krishna Mohan Banerjee (1813-85), whose conversion to Christianity raised a great storm; Ramgopal Ghosh (1815-68), a successful businessman and public speaker whose attacks on the Black Acts (1850) and criticism of the European protests against a well-intentioned government move to bring Europeans on a par with the natives in judicial treatment were landmarks; Rasik Krishna Mallik (1810-1858) who, among other things, refused to swear by the holy Ganges water and ran away from his orthodox home; Peary Chand Mitra (1814-83) who founded the Monthly Magazine in Bengali that set a non-journalistic style of writing intelligibly to all, including average women, and also took part in establishing the Calcutta Public Library in 1831 which became an intellectual forum; Radhanath Sikdar (1813-70) who caused a sensation by refusing to marry a child bride and thereafter rose to be a surveyor, mathematician, diarist, writer and public speaker; Ramtanu Lahiri (1813-98) who publicly removed his sacred thread in 1851 and as a teacher became a centre of progressive thoughts; Dakshinaranjan Mukherjee (1818-87) who donated the site for the Bethune College for women; Sib Chandra Deb (1811-90), a prominent Brahmo Samaj leader of Konnagar; and Harachandra Ghosh(1808-68). All of them made significant contribution to the history of the 19th-century Bengal.

The Young Bengal group were inspired and excited by the spirit of free thought and revolt against the existing social and religious structure of Hindu society. A number of Derozians were attracted to the Brahmo Samaj movement much later in life when they had lost their youthful fire and excitement. Prof. Nemai Sadhan Bose says,

"The Young Bengal movement was like a mighty storm that tried to sweep away everything before it. It was a storm that lashed society with violence causing some good, and perhaps naturally, some discomfort and distress." (Indian Awakening and Bengal)

Apart from the above, other people partly associated with the Young Bengal Movement (in their part acceptance of rationality, as a means of criticizing orthodox Hindu dogma and as long as the radicalism of the Young Bengal Movement did not come in conflict with the basic tenets of Christianity) were Reverend Alexander Duff (1806-1878), who founded the General Assembly's Institution, and his students like Lal Behari Dey (1824-1892), who went on to renounce Hinduism. Later day inheritors of the legacy of the Young Bengal Movement would include scholars like Brajendra Nath Seal (1864-1938), who went on to be one of the leading theologians and thinkers of the Brahmo Samaj.

[edit] See also

• Banglapedia Article

[edit] References

• Chattopadhyay, G. 1965. Awakening in Bengal in Early Nineteenth Century, Progressive Publishers, Calcutta.
• Chaudhuri, R. 2000. Young India: A Bengal Eclogue: Or Meat-eating, Race, and Reform in a Colonial Poem, Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, Routledge, Volume 2, Number 3, 424 - 441.