POETRY
Sweet madness!––when the youthful brain is seized
With that delicious phrenzy which it loves,
It raving reels, to very rapture pleased,––
And then through all creation wildly roves :
Now in the deep recesses of the sea,
And now to highest Himalay it mounts;
Now by the fragrant shores of Araby.
Or classic Greece, or sweet Italia’s founta,
Or through her wilderness of ruins;––now
Gazing on beauty’s lip, or valour’s brow;
Or rivalling the nightingale and dove
In pouring fourth its melody of love;
Or giving to the gale, in strains of fire,
Immortal harping––like a seraph’s lyre.
February, 1827.
ডিরোজিওর কবিতা
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পরিশিষ্ট – ক
কবি ডিরোজিও
ধর্মতলা অ্যাকাডেমির শিক্ষক ড্রামন্ড তাঁর স্কুলের ছাত্রদের জন্য একটি ছোটো থিয়েটারও প্রতিষ্ঠা করেছিলেন। ছাত্রদের রঙ্গমঞ্চের অভিনেতা তৈরি করা তাঁর উদ্দেশ্য ছিল না, তাদের মানসিক শক্তি ও অন্তর্নিহিত প্রতিভার বিকাশের পথ উন্মুক্ত করাই তাঁর লক্ষ্য ছিল। তিনি বলতেন যে, অভিনয়, আবৃত্তি ইত্যাদি বালকচিত্তের স্বতঃস্ফূর্তিকে সজীব ও সক্রিয় করে তোলে। ড্রামন্ডের স্কুলের এই থিয়েটার প্রসঙ্গে কোনো সমসাময়িক পত্রিকা মন্তব্য করেছিল : “Mr. Drummond… constructed a little theatre in the Academy, which, with its proscenium, scenery, accommodation, and all ‘appurtenances to boot’ is highly creditable to his taste and judgement,” ড্রামন্ড যে বেশ যত্ন ও অর্থব্যয় করে ছাত্রদের জন্য থিয়েটারটি প্রতিষ্ঠা করেছিলেন তা এই সংবাদ থেকে বোঝা যায়।
২০ জানুয়ারি, ১৮২৪ খ্রিস্টাব্দে ধর্মতলা অ্যাকাডেমির এই রঙ্গমঞ্চে ‘ডগলাস’ (Douglas) নামে একটি ট্র্যাজিডির অভিনয় হয়। নাটকটি তৎকালের সাহেবমহলে খুব ‘পপুলার’ হয়েছিল। ড্রামন্ডের ছাত্রদের দ্বারা নাটকটি অভিনীত হবার পর ‘ইন্ডিয়া গেজেট’ পত্রিকায় (২২ জানুয়ারি, ১৮২৪) একটি দীর্ঘ সমালোচনা প্রকাশিত হয়। বালক—অভিনেতাদের অভিনয়কুশলতায় মুগ্ধ হয়ে ‘ইন্ডিয়া গেজেট’ অকুণ্ঠচিত্তে প্রশংসা করে। প্রসঙ্গত, গেজেটে একজন বালক—অভিনেতার স্বরচিত প্রস্তাবনার কথা উল্লেখ করে বলা হয় : “a highly appropriate and neatly written Prologue” দর্শকদের অবাক করে দিয়েছে। ড্রামন্ডের স্কুলের ছাত্র ডিরোজিও এই প্রস্তাবটি কবিতাকারে রচনা করেছিলেন। তখন তাঁর বয়স চোদ্দো বছর। অভিনয় আরম্ভ হবার আগে মঞ্চের উপর দাঁড়িয়ে, দর্শকদের সম্বোধন করে বালক ডিরোজিও স্বরচিত প্রস্তাবনাটি পাঠ করেন—
As new fledg’d birds, while yet
Unus’d to soar,
Tremble the airy regions to
explore
Mistrust their pow’r, yet doubting.
dare to fly,
And brave the dazzling brilliance
of the sky––
So, the poor train who now are
to appear,
Shrink e’re they try-perplex’d
‘tween hope and fear––
And tho’ your smiles bespeak
indulgence certain,
Still, still they dread the rising
of the curtain,
No mighty Kemble here stalks
O’er the stage––
No Siddons all your feelings to
engage,
But a small band of young
aspirant boys
In faintest miniature the hour
employs.
Shall then as first, we spread
our ardent sails,
Like the thin Nautilus to catch
the gales!
By stormy frowns our feeble
bark to tost,
And having fondly
poorly lost?
No––we will trust tho’ rude be
our display,
You’ll not forget, it is the first
essay
Of schoolboy effort, in the rolls
of time,
Yet ever witnessed in this
Orient clime––
We ask but this–and surely
’twill be granted––
Praise, if ‘tis due––indulgence
when ’tis wanted
চোদ্দোবছরের যে কিশোর বালক এই স্বচ্ছন্দগতি ছন্দবদ্ধ কবিতা রচনা করতে পারেন, মধুর কৌতুকরস মিশ্রিত করে, তাঁর স্বাভাবিক কবিত্বশক্তি নিন্দুকের পক্ষেও অস্বীকার করা কঠিন।*
জুলাই, ১৮২৯ খ্রিস্টাব্দে Oriental Herald পত্রিকায় ডিরোজিওর কবিতাবলির একটি দীর্ঘ সমালোচনা প্রকাশিত হয়। ২৩ নভেম্বর ১৮২৯ তারিখের Calcutta Gazette পত্রিকায় সমালোচনাটি পুনর্মুদ্রিত হয়। সমালোচনায় ব্যবহৃত কবিতাগুলি উল্লেখ না করে সমালোচনার মূল বক্তব্য আমরা উদ্ধৃত করে দিচ্ছি :
Derozio’s poems
These volumes possess claims to our attention of a very unusual description. They contain the first production of a young poet, a Native of British India, educated entirely in that country, and whose character, feelings, and associations, have been exclusively developed their, under circumstances apparently the most unfavourable to poetic excellence. These circumstances are thus intimated, in a letter which accompanied a copy of the poems, recently forwarded by an intelligent friend at Calcutta, to Mr. Buckingham :
“The writer was born in India, has never been out of it; and is now under twenty years of age. You know this country, will be able duly to appreciate the difficulties against which he has had to contend. The total absence of almost all objects of natural beauty; the still more complete want of all noble and exalted feelings amongst those with whom the poet must have associated; the very language, which can hardly be called English, that they speak; taking all these things into fair consideration, which you are well able to do from actual experience, we cannot but admit that production of such a poem as the ‘Fakeer of jungheera’ is very extraordinary.” “It is”, he adds, “as if a Briton of the time of Severus, had suddenly written a poem in good Latin.”
In this opinion, after a careful perusla of Mr. Derozio’s two volumes, we very cordially concur. These volumes contain much that, under any circumstances, would have been interesting; and which, under those above mentioned, is really extraordinary. Taken as a whole, it is true, his poetry is marked by great faults and blemishes, but he is nevertheless, a poet; and with better models in his eye than those on which he has obviously formed himself, he may, we conceive, one day produce something which neither India nor England ‘would willingly let die.’ He has much to learn, and more perhaps to unlearn, before he can hope to produce a poem of thorough excellence; but he is still very young, and he has real poetic power; much therefore, may be hoped from him, if he will be rigid critic to himself. But without further introduction, we will now exhibit what this Indian poet can do, and then we shall talk of what he may do…
The ‘Fakeer of Jungheera’, which gives a little to Mr. Derozio’s last and principal volume, and which seems to be the composition on which he chiefly rests his young reputation, is, we must candidly confess, inspite of many reducing passage, a production not all to our liking. It is altogether upon the strained and extravagant model of Lord Byron’s poetic ramances of love and murder; and to like the exaggerated imitation of the worst Byronic style, with which we have been overflowed in this country, even to nausea… Mr. Derozio has had the misfortune, like some other aspirants of no mean promise, to be carried away by the pegasian hyppography of this Byronic school, high into the perilous regions of exaggerated passion, and false to sentiment; and we wish we could assist in leading him back to the pleasant paths of simplicity, in the salubrious land of genuine nature, where we are convinced he might yet attain poetic distinction of no mean order.
…Byron’s points of excellence were peculiar, and not capable of being attained by imitation; but all that was overcharged in his delineation of character, outrageous or untrue in passion and sentiment, tinselly in description, or turgid, abrupt, and harsh in versification,––could be imitated, and has accordingly found numerous imitators.
In this class we are reluctantly constrained to rank Mr. Derozio; or perhaps, it would be more correct to say, that his style and manner, though borrowed in a great degree from Byron, are characterized also, by frequent resemblances to the other fashionable poetry of the day, to which his reading seems to have been unfortunately almost exclusively confined. Thus, we are continually reminded of Moore’s ‘Lallah Rookh’, and Miss Saunder’s ‘Troubadour’, and other things of the same sven-times-diluted sort, which have lain in ladies boudoirs, and been sighed over by drawing-room sentimentalists, during the last seven years, and which have no doubt, had their admirers in India, as well as England. It is in all likelihood more Mr. Derozio’s misfortune than his fault, that such flimsy volumes have, in addition to Byron’s works formed almost exclusively his poetic pabulum; but it is great misfortune, not-withstanding; and it has infected his whole style of compositions to such an extent, as almost to destroy with gaudy verbiage the really beautiful and fragrant flowers poetic fancy, which are genuine offspring of his ardent and elegant mind…
Scattered throughout this ‘Metrical Tale’, as well as in other parts of Mr. Derozio’s two volumes, are many brilliant little gems of poetry––somewhat too much in the fanciful style of Moore perhaps,––but still very pleassing and felicitous.
ডিরোজিওর কবিতার এরকম বিস্তৃত সমালোচনা সমসাময়িক আর কোনো পত্রিকায় বা লেখকের রচনায় করা হয়েছে বলে আমরা জানি না। উদ্ধৃত সমালোচনাটি তাই দীর্ঘ ও বেশ কিছুটা দুর্মর হলেও কৌতূহলী পাঠকদের কাছে উপস্থিত করা সংগত বলে মনে করেছি। এ কথা ঠিক যে, ডিরোজিওর অধিকাংশ কবিতায় বায়রন, স্কট, মুর ও অন্যান্য উনিশ শতকের ইংরেজি রোমান্টিক কবিদের প্রভাব খুব বেশি। ডিরোজিওর তরুণ বয়সের কথা মনে রাখলে তাঁর উপর ইংরেজি রোমান্টিক কাব্যের এই প্রভাব অস্বাভাবিক মনে হয় না। কিন্তু এই প্রভাব সত্ত্বেও এ কথা অতিবড়ো নিন্দুক স্বীকার করতে কুণ্ঠিত হবেন না যে, তাঁর স্বকীয় কবিত্বশক্তি যথেষ্ট ছিল এবং পরিণত বয়সে অভিজ্ঞতা ও মানসিক সমন্বয়শক্তি বাড়লে, অধীত বিদ্যা স্বাভাবিক বৃদ্ধি ও হৃদয়াবেগের রাসায়নিক সংমিশ্রণ ঘটলে, তিনি নিঃসন্দেহে সেকালের একজন শ্রেষ্ঠ ভারতীয় কবি হতে পারবেন।
……..
* শ্রীঅমল মিত্র ডিরোজিওর এই কবিতাটির প্রতি আমার দৃষ্টি আকর্ষণ করেছেন। উনিশ শতকে কলকাতা শহরে বালকদের থিয়েটার প্রসঙ্গে ১০ এপ্রিল, ১৯৫৫ তারিখের ‘স্টেটসম্যান’ পত্রিকায় প্রকাশিত তাঁর একটি প্রবন্ধে ‘Little Actors of 19th Century Bengal’———কবিতাটি মুদ্রিত হয়েছে।
.
পরিশিষ্ট – খ
ডিরোজিওর The East Indian পত্রিকার এই Prospectus ১৬ মে, ১৮৩১ ‘ক্যালকাটা গেজেট’ পত্রিকায় প্রকাশিত হয় :
PROSPECTUS OF THE EAST INDIAN, a Daily Newspaper, to be published at Calcutta from the 1st of June, 1831, Subscription : Five Rupees per month. This paper which will be composed of as good materials and possess as extensive resources as the morning journals of this presidency is offered to the notice of the public at the cheap rate of Five Rupees per month. It will be published daily on a large royal sheet of fine paper and will be despatched with punctuality to all parts of the country. Arrangements having been made to secure for it the earliest intelligence from Europe, South Africa, the Eastern Island, Madras, Bombay, and the upper Provinces the patronage of this Community is respectfully solicited for an undertaking which depends upon encouragement for success. To prevent any misconception to which the name of the paper may give rise the Proprietor begs to state that his Journal will not be exclusively devoted to any particular interest, but that it will advocate the just rights of all classes of the community.
References and applications could be made to Mr. H.L.V. DEROZIO, Circular Road, Calcutta.
লক্ষণীয় হল, পত্রিকার নাম ‘ইস্ট ইন্ডিয়ান’ বলে যাতে পাঠকরা ফিরিঙ্গি—সমাজে মুখপত্র বলে তাকে মনে না করেন, তার জন্য প্রসপেক্টাসে বলা হয়েছে যে এই পত্রিকা “will advocate the just rights of all classes of the community.”
পরিশিষ্ট – গ
Extracts from the Proceedings of the Hindu College
committee relating to the dismissal of
Henry Louis Vivian Derozio.
February 5, 1831
No. 17. Read a Letter from Mr. De Rozio preferring a charge against Mr. D’anselme and Requesting the Committee to investigate the matter.
Mr. D’anselme and Mr. Derozio being called upon and required to state the circumstances before the Committee upon which they respectively authorized the Committee in the following manner.
No. 18 “Mr. D’anselme assured the Committee that he deeply regrets having suffered his feelings to get the better of his judgement and under an impression of an insult from Mr. De Rozio which he is satisfied was not intended to use objectionable language and gestures towards that gentleman; he also express his regrets for having addressed unbecoming language to Mr. Hare and pledges himself to the Committee that a Repetition of the offence shall not occur.
Signed I.I.(?) D’anselme
No. 19. “Mr Derozio declares that in denying the assertion made by Mr. D’anselme of his frequently obtaining permission at an earlier hour to leave the College for the purpose of preparing for his lectures he is not conscious of having used language or gestures calculated to offened Mr. D’anselme that it was far from his intention to have failed in his respect towards Mr. D’anselme and that he regrets that Mr. D’anselme should have supposed he had any intention to treat him with insult or disrespect.
Signed H.L.V Derozio
Ordered that Mr. D’ anselme and Mr. Derozio resume their respective duties.
Ordered that no holiday or half-holiday (the fixed holidays excepted) shall be granted to the College on any account whatever without a written order from one of the Managers.
Saturday, April 23, 1831
At a Special Meeting of the Directors of the Hindoo College held at the College house on Saturday the 23rd April 1831.
Present
Baboo Chundro Coomar Tagore-Governor H.H. Wilson Esqr. –Vice Presdt.
Baboo Radhamadub Banerjea
,, Radha Canto Deb
,, Ram Comul Sen
Da Hare Esqr.
Baboo Russomoy Dutt
„ Prasonno Coomar Tagore
,, Sri Kishen Sinh
Luckynarayan Mookerjea–Secretary
Read the following Memorandum on the occasion of calling the present Meeting.
The object of convening this meeting is the necessity of checking the growing evil and the Public alarm arising from the very unwarranted arrangement and misconduct of a certain Teacher in whom great many children have been interested who it appears have materially injured their Morals and introduced some strange system the tendency of which is destruction to their moral character and to the peace in Society.
The affair is well-known to almost everyone and need not require to be stated.
In consequence of his misunderstanding no less than 25 Pupils of respectable families have been withdrawn from the College a list of which is submitted. There are no less than 160 boys absent some of whom are supposed to be sick but many have purposed to remove unless proper remedies are adopted a list of them if also submitted. There have been much said and heard in the business but from the substance of the letters received and the opinion of the several directors obtained the following rules and arrangements are submitted for the consideration and order of the Meeting.
Read also various letters withdrawing boys from the College.
Read the following Memorandum.
Memoranda of the proposed rules and arrangements.
1. Mr. Derozio being the root of all evils and cause of Public alarm, should be discharged from the College, and all communications between him and the Pupils be cut off.
2. Such of the students of the higher class whose bad habits and practices are known and who were at the dining party should be removed.
3. All those Students who are publicily hostile to Hindooism and the established custom of the Country and who have proved themselves as such by their conduct, should be turned out.
4. The age of admission and the time of the College Study to be fixed 10 to 12 and 18 to 20.
5. Corporal punishment to be introduced when admonition fails for all crimes committed by the boys. This should be left at the discretion of the head Teacher.
6. Boys should not be admitted indiscriminately without previous enquiry regarding their character.
7. Whenever Europeans are procurable a preference shall be given to them in future their character and religion being ascertained before admission.
8. (sic) Boys arc not to be allowed to remain in the College after school hours.
9. If any of the boys go to see or attend private lectures or meetings, to be admissed.
10. Books to be read and time for each study to be fixed.
11 Such books as may injure the morals should not be allowed to be brought, taught or read in the College.
12. More time for studying Persian and Bengally should be allowed to the boys.
13. The Sanskrit should be studied by the Senior Classes.
14. Monthly Stipends be granted only to those who have good character, respectable Proficiency and whose further stay in the College be considered beneficial.
15. The student wishing to get allowance must have respectable proficiency in Sanskrit and Arabic.
16. The boys transferred from the School Society’s Establishment to be admitted in the usual way and not as hitherto and their posting class to be left to the head Teacher.
17. The practice of leaching boys in a doorshut room should be discontinued.
18. A separate place be fitted for the teachers for their dining and the practice of eating upon the schools Table be discontinued.
With reference to the I article of the above the following propositions was submitted to the meeting and put to the vote.
Whether the managers had any just ground to conclude that the moral and religious tenets of Mr. Derozio as far as ascertainable from the effects they have produces upon his Scholars are such as to render him an improper person to be intrusted with the education of youth.
Baboo Chandra Coomar stated that he knew nothing of the ill effects of Mr. Derozio’s instruction except from report.
Mr. Wilson stated that he had never observed any ill effects from them and that he considered Mr. Derozio to be a teacher of superior ability.
Baboo Radha Canto Deb stated that he considered Mr. Derozio a very improper person to be intrusted with the education of youth.
Baboo Russomoy Dutt stated that he knew nothing to Mr. Derozio’s prejudice except from report.
Baboo Prosonno Coomar Tagore acquitted Mr. Derozio of all blame for want of proof to his disadvantage.
Baboo Radhamadub Banerjee believed him to be an improper person from the report he heard.
Baboo Ram Comul Sen concurred with Baboo Radha Canto Deb in considering him a very improper person as the teacher of youth.
Baboo Sri Kishen Sinh was firmly convinced that he was far from being an improper person and Mr. Hare was of opinion that Mr. Derozio was a highly competent teacher and that his instructions have always been most beneficial.
The majority of the managers being unable from their own knowledge to pronounce upon Mr. Derozio’s disqualifications as a teacher the committee proceeded to the consideration of the negative question.
Whether it was expedient in the present state of public feeling amongst the Hindoo Community of Calcutta to dismiss Mr. Derozio from the College.
Baboos Chandra Coomar Tagore, Radha Canto Deb, Ram Camul Sen, and Radhamadub Banerjea (sic) voted that it was necessary.
Baboos Russomoy Dutt and Prasonna Coomar Tagore that is was expedient and Baboo Sri Kishen Sinh that it was unnecessary.
Mr, Wilson and Mr. Hare declined voting on a subject affecting the state of native feeling alone.
Resolved that the measure of Mr. Derozio’s dismissal be carried into effect with due consideration for his merits and services.
Proceeded to consider the rest of the proposed rules.
Resolved that rule 2 was unnecessary the Committee having already the power of dismissing any boy from the College by Rule of the printed Regulations.
Resolved with regard to rule 3 that the Regulation of the conduct of the boys in this respect is best left to the Parents themselves who if they have reason to think that the College is the of cause of hostility to Hindoism in their children can at any time withdraw them from it.
Resolved that article 4 is unnecessary.
Resolved that Rules 5 & 6 be adopted.
Resolved that Rules 7 be adopted in the following form.
“In future a preference shall be given to qualified European Teachers whenever procurable and after due investigation of their moral and religions character.”
Resolved that Rule 9 be adopted with the addition—without some satisfactory reason.
Resolved that the Managers have not the power not the right to inforce the prohibition prescribed by Rule 10 and the conduct of the boys in those respects must be left to the regulation of their friends and relations.
Resolved that Rules 11 and 12 be adopted also Rule 13 with the addition “whose friends are desirous they should learn those language.”
Resolved that Sanskrit and Persian are actually studied by the first class but that little progress has been made or can be expected under the present system of teaching and that the best method of improving these branches of study remain for further consideration.
Resolved that the provisions of Rules 15 alre already in force and that it is not in the Competency of the Committee to adopt the 16 Rule, the scholarships being established by the Committee of Public Instruction for proficiency in English.
Resolved that Rule 18 be left for further consideration and that Rule 19 be adopted.
Read the following correspondence with the Sambad Prabhakar.
To
The Proprietor of the Sambad Prabhakar
Sir,
Having observed a letter in your paper of the 15 (?) April No. 12 reflecting in very unbecoming language upon the character of the teachers of the Hindoo College—I have to request your informing me of the writers name that legal measures may be adopted for his punishment.
I am etc.
Luckynaron Mookerji
Secy. H. College.
Hindoo College
the 19 April 1831
To
The Secretary to the Hindoo College
Sir,
In acknowledging the receipt of your letter dated 19 instant requesting me to furnish you with the name of the author of a certain article appeared in the 12th No. of the publication, I am authorised in the name of the writer to inform you that he neither had the least intention nor did he mean by the language of his letter to bring the Colleges institution or the characters of its teachers and Members as a body into hatred and contempt or ridicule. You will under this consideration see how far I should be justified as an Editor of a Public journal.to meet your calls as Secretary of the College, when the writer positively denys any intension to have offered any unbecoming language either towards the institution or its members as a body which assertion he denys will be manifested by referring to the article in question.
I am etc.
(Signed) Ishcr Chunder Gopto
Edilor Proprietor of Probhakar
23rd April 1831
Resolved that the following letter be written to the Editor.
To
The Editor of the Sumbad Probhakar
Sir,
I am desired by the Managing Committee of the Hindoo College to inform you that having laid before them your letter of the 23d Inst it has not been considered as altogether satisfactory. They expect therefore that in your next number you will express your regret for having admitted into your paper a letter containing such inproper and unfounded imputation against the teachers of the Hindoo College.
I am etc.
May 7, 1831
– – –The following letters were submitted relative to the boys who
have left College since the Special Meeting.
(13 letters of withdrawal)
– – – No. 30. Letter from Mr. Derozio communicating his resignation and commenting on the Resolution of the committee passed at the Special Meeting to dismiss him without examining the circumstances thereof and affording him time to vindicate his character from those accusations which have been fixed upon it.
25 April
No. 31 Letter from Ditto furnishing replies to the Querties put on him by the Vice-President as to have inculcated the following reasons. Firstly Denying the existence of God. Secondly to Parents & thirdly marriage with sisters.
26 April
Resolved that these letters be circulated to the Committee of Management.
.
পরিশিষ্ট – ঘ
H. L. V. DEROZIO
For Oxford University Press Talk 25 April, 1980
Henri Louis Vivian Derozio died in 1831, and he was only born in 1809. And yet this young teacher of the Hindu College (now Presidency College), who hardly crossed his teens, and was an Anglo-Indian, produced a generation of talented English-educated Bengali youth, who imbibed some of the best elements of European civilization and culture, and disturbed the tranquility of the Hindu Society, by trying to introduce those elements into it. The disturbance was peripheral, but it was historic.
Derozio’s student-friends were collectively known as ‘Young Bengal’, some called the group ‘Young Calcutta.’ As the activities of the group were mainly localised in the city of Calcutta, it is better to call it ‘Young Calcutta’, or simply ‘the Derozians’. In fact, inebriated with the ideas of the West, the Derozians of the 1830s, could not think about Bengal and her people in all dimensions and in depth. That is one of the reasons, why their thought, with all its Western embellishn ents, could not touch the heart of the common people. It gushed out suddenly in the late twenties of the 19th century, rushed through the thirties, and ebbed away after the midforties. But whatever might be the achievements and failures of the Derozians, there is no doubt that their teacher, Philosopher and guide Derozio is one of the most fascinating figures in the history of the 19th century Bengal.
One wonders, how could a Calcutta Eusasian, before he had ended his teens, rouse a generation of Bengali Youngmen to such an emotional pitch as to create consternation among the most solidly entrenched orthodox Hindus of Calcutta. The explanation has to be sought in his ability as a teacher. Derozio will be remembered in the history of Bengal, and of India, as one of our great educators and teachers, who taught his students in the best tradition of all great teachers, of the world—as a direct mediator of knowledge, of living thoughts and ideas. As a poet and a journalist we can afford to forget him, but as a teacher and an educator we cannot.
What was the impact of this direct mediation between the teacher and the students, upon the Directors of the Hindu college, the majority of whom were wealthy uppcrcaste Hindus? At a special meeting of the Directors held at the College on the 23rd April 1831, the following Memorandum was read :
“The object of convening this meeting is the necessite of checking the growing evil and the public alarm arising form the very unwarranted arrangement and misconduct of a certain teacher in whom great many children have been interested, who it appears has materially injured their morals and introduced some strange system, the tendency of which is destruction to their moral character and to the peace in society.”
In the proposed rules and arrangement, No. I item reads : Mr. Derozio being the root of all evils and cause of public alarm, should be discharged from the college, and all communications between him and the pupils be cut off.
No. 3 : All those students who are publicly hostile to Hinduism and the established custom of the country, and who have proved themselves as such by their conduct, should be turned out.
No. 10 : If any of the boys go to see or attend private lectures or Meetings, to be dismissed.
No. 12 : Such books as may intjure the morals, should not be brought, taught or read in the College.
All these fulminations are against Derozio, and for the crime of his being an effective teacher. The Hindu College therefore needed fumigation, first by discharging Derozio as a teacher, then by turning out the students infected by his thoughts, and then by banning the books which could spread infection. It is indeed a wonder that a 22-year old Anglo-Indian teacher could communicate with such tremendous force his ideas and ideals—might be of the French Revolution and English Radicalism—to a group of Young Bengali students, in their teens, who could shake the veteran leaders of the orthodox Hindu Community to their shoes.
What was Derozio’s method of teaching? This is the most important Question, which we should try to answer if we are to place Derozio in our history. Derozio’s students have written about it. We need not quote them. Those who had seen Derozio and his students from a little distance, and were foreigners, could get a perspective. We mention two of them, Victor Jacqucment. a young French scholar of Natural History, came to Calcutta in May 1829, stayed for about seven months, met Rammohan in his Manicktola garden-house, and Derozio and his students in the Hindu College. He wrote in his journal on June 7, 1829 : “I have seen the students engaged in study and also disengaged, and it has seemed to me that there is among them the same freedom and brotherly comradeship which exist in the Colleges of France, founded on principles of equality. One of the professors is a young half-caste Portuguese, who has distinguished himself among natives by publishing an English poem and who is also the editor of a small literary magazine. His pupils are 14 to 16 years old. Yesterday each of them brought an essay on a question which had been treated before them by their professor the day before. It was about ‘Is duel justifiable?’ The professor had told them the consideration for and against duelling.”
One thing is clear from Jacquement’s observation. Derozio did not impose his own opinion on any subject upon his students, but allowed them to arrive at one through debate and discussion. Although Alexander Duff was personally involved in more than one affair of the Derozians in the 1830s, his observation is also valuable. In June 1830, he wrote. “We fairly came in contact with a rising body of natives, who had learnt to think and to discuss all subjects with unshackled freedom.” Duff felt it to be at once a duty and a privilege constantly to attend the debating societies of the Young Derozians. He also noticed their peculiar modes of thinking on all subjects, literary and philosophical, political and religious.” According to Duff, the most striking feature in the whole was the freedom with which all the subjects were discussed.
And this was the reason for which Derozio was dismissed, this was the ‘strange system’, introduced by Derozio, mentioned by the Directors of the Hindu college in their Memorandum. Why this was a ‘strange system’?
Derozio invited the hitherto silent students to a rediscovery of the world and society in which they lived, and of their vocation in that society, in lively dialogue with him as their teacher. That his invitation did not fall on deaf ears, was demonstrated by the enthusiastic response of students. The specific historical situation which engendered this Dcrozian approach to education in 1828-29-30-31, was the sudden revival of Hindu orthodoxy, with all its fangs of casteism and obscurantism, during the antio-Suttee and anti-idolatry movements launched by Rammohan. In this situation, in a somewhat different way, Derozio was led to believe, what some radical pedagogists believe in the present socio-historical situation, that ‘there is no neutral education.’
Education is cither for domestication, or for freedom. It may be called, in their language ‘problematizatioir, which means both asking questions and calling into Questions and is therefore a challenging attitude. It is, at the same time, the beginning of an authentic act of knowing, and the beginning of an act of deconditioning as well Derozio’s teaching became an instrument for deconditioning his students, who were all Hindus, and mainly uppcrcaste middle class Hindus, from the age-old superstitions and customs of orthodox Hinduism, in which they were all conditioned.
This deconditioning led to a spurt of ultra-radicalism in thought and action, of the Derozians, which reached its climax in the year 1831. A series of incidents happened after Derozio’s dismissal in April 1831. In May and June two periodicals were launched by two Derozians, Krishnamohan Banerjee and Dakshinaranjan Mukherjee, the English Enquirer, and the Bengali জ্ঞানান্বেষণ, with the motto on the mast-head; ‘Having thus launched our bark, we set sail in quest of truth! In August 1831, in the family-house of Krishnamohan in Central Calcutta the beefeating and beef-throwing incident happened.
Krishnamohan thundered in his Enquirer in August 1881 : “Persecution is high for we have deserted the shrine of Hinduism. The bigots are violent because we obey not the calls of superstition. A people can never be reformed without noise and confusion; the absured prejudices of the Hindus can never be eradicated without violent persecution against the reformers.”
In the midst of this blowing of trumpet, this confusion and noise, Derozio was perhaps recollecting the lines he wrote about his young students, in the twilight and tranquility of his deathbed, in December 1831–
Expanding like the petals of young flowers,
I watch the gentle opening of your minds,
And the sweet loosening of the spell that binds
Your intellectual energies and power.
The spell that bound the intellectual energies and power of the Derozians was loosened, and their minds opened—but for a very short period after Derozio’s death.
But Derozio had not lived in vain, nor his young flower-like students who were expanding their petals, and flapping their wings like young birds in the 1830s. It is tnie that without noise and confusion, a people can never be reformed. But it is not true that the syndrome of a dangerous disease which eats deep into the vitals of a society, can be eradicated without eliminating the social system in which it originates and thrives. This truth was neither realised by Rammohan and his associates, nor by Derozio and ‘Young Calcutta.’ They fought against some outward symptoms, without delving deep into the roots of the disease, producing those symptoms. That is why all their efforts at reform foundered on the rock of the Hindu Social system, which fosters casteism and all sorts of religious cultism. After one hundred and fifty years of Rammohan and Derozio, we therefore find today in 1980 that casteism is being elevated to the new status of political ideology, and idolatry, avatarism and obscure religious cults of sorts are rearing their ugly heads in our society. Not only our reformers, but also our professed revolutionaries, have miserably failed to fight the menace out. We are witnessing today far more organized and serious youth-revolts, all over India, than those in the days of Derozio, against economic-social and political inequalities and injustices. It is therefore incumbent upon us to reintegrate, revitalize and readapt Derozio’s ideals and his new method of education, in the most critical sociopolitical situation of today.
–Benoy Ghosh
25 April, 1980