THE

BENGAL
RENAISSANCE

Name – Yash Tambe

Roll No. – A037
Subject – Visual Communication
Semester – 1
Assignment – Minor
Topic – Bengal Renaissance
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Introduction
The Bengal Renaissance, also known as the Bengali
Renaissance, was a cultural, social, intellectual, and artistic
movement that took place in the Bengal region of the British Raj, from
the late 18th century to the early 20th century. Historians have traced
the beginnings of the movement to the victory of the British East India
Company at the 1757 Battle of Plassey, as well as the works of
reformer Raja Rammohan Roy, considered the "Father of the Bengal
Renaissance," born in 1772. Nitish Sengupta stated that the movement
"can be said to have … ended with Rabindranath Tagore," Asia's
first Nobel laureate.

For almost two centuries, the Bengal renaissance saw the radical The Bengal renaissance was predominantly led by Bengali Hindus. Sengupta attributes the movement
transformation of Indian society, and its ideas have been attributed to to the emergence and development of the "cultural characteristics of the Bengali people" beginning in
the rise of Indian anticolonialist and nationalist thought and activity the age of the late medieval Sultan of Bengal, Alauddin Husain Shah, but also notes that "it remained
during this period. The philosophical basis of the movement was its predominantly Hindu and only partially Muslim." There were, nevertheless, Muslim figures who had
unique version of liberalism and modernity. According to Sumit major influence on the movement, including Kazi Nazrul Islam and Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain.
Sarkar, the pioneers and works of this period were revered and
regarded with nostalgia throughout the 19th and 20th centuries,
however, due to a new focus on its colonialist origins, a more critical
view emerged in the 1970s.

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The Origins
The Bengali Renaissance originated in the Bengal Presidency of the
British Indian Empire, but more specifically, its capital city of Kolkata,
then known as Calcutta. This colonial metropolis was the first non-
Western city to use British methods of teaching in their school
system. In 1817, the urban elite led by Raja Ram Mohan
Roy cofounded the Hindu or Presidency College in Kolkata, now
known as the Presidency University, the only European-style
institution of higher learning in Asia at the time. The city was also
home to a public library, the Imperial Library, now the National
Library of India, and newspapers and books were being published THE IMPERIAL LIBRARY
regularly in both Bengali and English. "Print language and literature
played a vital role in shaping ideas and identities in colonial Bengal Many postcolonial historians source the origins of the Bengal Renaissance to these events, arguing that the
from the 18th century onwards," writes Anindita Ghosh, continuing movement was both a reaction to the violence and exploitation by the British Raj, as well as a product of the
that "… commercial print cultures that emanated from numerous Empire's promotion of English education in the region as part of its "civilising missions". For instance,
cheap presses in Calcutta and its suburbs disseminated wide-ranging Sivanath Sastri notes that Charles Grant, a British politician influential in Indian affairs who also served as
literary preferences that afforded a space to different sections of the Chairman of the East India Company, "moved "that a thorough education be given to the different races
Bengali middle classes to voice their own distinctive concerns.“ inhabiting the country, [and] that the Gospel be preached to them… ." Moreover, Arabinda Poddar contends
The Bengal Province was the base for British East India Company rule that the English education of Bengalis was intended to create "mere political slaves," arguing that, "the
until the overthrow of the Nawab of Bengal at the Battle of Plassey in civilising role of English education, stressed the need of creating a class of Anglophiles who would have a
1757, which marked the Crown's consolidation of power in India. somewhat in-between existence between the rulers and the ruled."

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 Other historians cite the works of "Father of the Bengal Renaissance," Raja Rammohun Roy, as the start of the Bengal Renaissance. Roy was the
cofounder of the Brahmo Sabha movement in 1828, which produced the Brahmo Samaj, an influential socioreligious reform movement that made
significant contributions to the renaissance, as well as the makings of modern Indian society. The Brahmo Samaj was also founded and developed
by Debendranath Tagore and Dwarkanath Tagore, the father and grandfather of Rabindranath Tagore, respectively.

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 Distribution of Century Old Libraries
04
In West Bengal
Kolkata Hooghly Howrah 24 Parganas (N)
24 Parganas (S) Murshidabad Others

11%

5%
29%

11%

11%

19%

15%

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 Distribution of Century Old Libraries
05
Based on Year Establishment
Before 1901 After 1900

44%

56%

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 Distribution of Century Old Libraries
05
Management Type
Privately Managed Library Govt. Sponsered Library
Govt. Aided Library Govt. Library

4%
2%

30%

64%

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Education
Among the many changes brought about by the Bengal Renaissance in
India was the development of education, both in the Bengali language
and in English. Colonial provisions at the time consisted mainly of
village schools teaching literacy and numeracy, Arabic and Islamic
studies being taught to Muslims in madrasas, and tolls, where pandits
instructed Sanskrit texts to Brahmins, which were supported by
endowments. These institutions were exclusively male, and in the rare
cases where girls could get an education, it was in the home. The work
of Christian missions also had more of an influence on Indian
students than the initiatives of the government. While the East India DERMOT KILLINGLEY

Company Act of 1813 allotted 100,000 rupees from the government's

surplus to be "applied to the revival and improvement of literature,
and the encouragement of the learned natives of India, and for the
introduction and promotion of a knowledge of the sciences," it did not
lead to any coherent provision of public education.
According to Dermot Killingley, the surplus mentioned in this Charter
Act was “an aspiration, not a budget item,” and even if the money had
been provided for, there was uncertainty about how it should be spent.
Recurring questions arose over whether to invest on a few advanced institutions or to promote widespread
elementary education, what language to use, and particularly whether to support traditional methods of
learning in India, which had declined due to the loss of patronage, or to introduce a new system based on
Western education. Rammohan Roy contributed to this last debate by writing to the Governor-General in 1823
expressing his opposition to the establishment of a Sanskrit College that would foster traditional learning and
advocating for Western scientific education; this effort failed without effect. Missionaries began teaching young
women in 1816, but a systematic education policy was not established until 1854. However, Sengupta and
Purkayastha point out that even during the 1860s and 1870s, “the project of female education was wholly tied
to the purpose of enabling women to better discharge their domestic duties.”

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 CULCUTTA SCHOOL BOOK SOCIETY

Despite the East India Company's initial hostility to missionaries, the colonial government later saw the advantages of their contribution to educating and training the local population. This
was especially because, as Killingley noted, “in the innovations of the early nineteenth century, government initiative had less impact than the work of Christian missions, and of individuals
who responded to the demand for literacy, numeracy and related skills created by growing commercial and administrative activity.” In 1800, the Baptist Missionary Society established a
center in Srirampur, West Bengal, from which it ran a network of schools that taught literacy, mathematics, physics, geography and other so-called “useful knowledge.” Other missionary
societies followed soon after, working along similar lines. These missionaries, which were largely dependent on local, indigenous teachers and families, and the colonial government, which
sometimes supported them with grants, were also cautious about introducing Christian teachings or the Bible.

Education was also believed to be necessary in reversing the apparent moral decline many colonial administrators saw in Bengal society. To give an example, a British judge in Bengal
recommended the London Missionary Society's schools, “for the dissemination of morality and general improvement of society among natives of all persuasion without interfering with
their religious prejudices.” Missionaries, however, were not the only channels through which education was promoted. For instance, individuals in Calcutta such as Rammohan Roy, the
conservative Hindu scholar, Radhakanta Deb to the atheist philanthropist, David Hare, and other British officials often collaborated in the Calcutta School Book Society and the Calcutta
School Society. Some of the other institutions of learning established during this period include the Chittagong College; Indian Statistical Institute; the Hindu School, the oldest modern
educational institution in Asia; Jadavpur University; Presidency University, Kolkata; the University of Calcutta, the University of Dhaka, the oldest university in Bangladesh; and Visva-
Bharati University.
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 07
Science
During the Bengal Renaissance science was also advanced by
several Bengali scientists such as Satyendra Nath Bose, Anil
Kumar Gain, Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, Prafulla Chandra
Ray, Debendra Mohan Bose, Jagadish Chandra Bose, Jnan
Chandra Ghosh, Gopal Chandra Bhattacharya, Kishori Mohan
Bandyopadhyay, Jnanendra Nath Mukherjee, Sisir Kumar
Mitra, Upendranath Brahmachari and Meghnad Saha. Jagadish
Chandra Bose (1858–1937) was a polymath:
a physicist, biologist, botanist, archaeologist, and writer of science
fiction. He pioneered the investigation
of radio and microwave optics, made very significant contributions
to botany, and laid the foundations of experimental science in
the Indian subcontinent. He is considered one of the fathers of
radio science, and is also considered the father of Bengali science
fiction. He also invented the crescograph.

JAGDHISH CHANDRA BOSE SATYENDRA NATH BOSE

One of the Father of One of the Pioneers of
Radio Sciences
Quantum Mechanics

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 08
Arts
The Bengal School of Art was an art movement and a style
of Indian painting that originated in Bengal and flourished
throughout British India in the early 20th century. Also
known as 'Indian style of painting' in its early days, it was
associated with Indian nationalism (swadeshi) and led
by Abanindranath Tagore.

Following the influence of Indian spiritual ideas in the West,

the British art teacher Ernest Binfield Havell attempted to
reform the teaching methods at the Calcutta School of
Art by encouraging students to imitate Mughal miniatures.
This caused controversy, leading to a strike by students and
complaints from the local press, including from nationalists
who considered it to be a retrogressive move. Havell was
supported by the artist Abanindranath Tagore.

ABANINDRANATH TAGORE

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 09
Literature
According to Historian Romesh Chandra Dutt –

The conquest of Bengal by the English was not only a political

revolution, but ushered in a greater revolution in thoughts and
ideas, in religion and society ... From the stories of gods and
goddesses, kings and queens, princes and princesses, we have
learnt to descend to the humble walks of life, to sympathies
with the common citizen or even common peasant … Every
revolution is attended with vigor, and the present one is no
exception to the rule. Nowhere in the annals of Bengali
literature are so many or so bright names found crowded
together in the limited space of one century as those of Ram
Mohan Roy, Akshay Kumar Dutt, Isvar Chandra Vidyasagar,
Isvar Chandra Gupta, Michael Madhusudan Dutt, Hem
Chandra Banerjee, Bankim Chandra Chatterjee and Dina
Bandhu Mitra. Within the three quarters of the present century,
prose, blank verse, historical fiction and drama have been
RABINDRANATH TAGORE KAZI NAZRUL ISLAM
introduced for the first time in the Bengali literature.
A Poet and Artist The National Poet
Of Bangladesh

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Religion
The Renaissance also embraced the religious sphere, bringing forward
spiritual figures such as Ram Mohan Roy, Debendranath
Tagore, Ramakrishna, Swami Vivekananda, Swami
Paramananda, Aurobindo, Paramahansa Yogananda, Mahanambrata
Brahmachari, as well as related new reformatted movements and
organization.

• Brahmoism (Brahmo Samaj)

• Adi Brahmo Samaj

• Sadharan Brahmo Samaj

• Gaudiya Math

• Mahanam Sampraday

• Ramakrishna Mission

• Ramakrishna Math

• Ananda Ashrama

• Sri Aurobindo Ashram

• Yogoda Satsanga Society of India

• Self-Realization Fellowship SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

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Concluding Remarks

• Public Library was considered as the most appropriate public space for engagement with local communities and to attract them in public discourses.

• Newly emerged educated liberal and empowered Bengali intellectuals had started establishment of scholar societies, youth associations and public libraries

across the undivided Bengal Province.

• Many renowned public libraries were founded during the period of Bengal Renaissance.

• In every district, public libraries got established with support from the local communities

• Public libraries also helped in development of literacy of local communities, inculcating reading habits to first generation learners, inculcating scientific temper

and overall transformation of character of Bengali-speaking communities.

• The legacy of Bengal Renaissance has overarching impact on lives of billions of people beyond the 19th and 20th Century timeframes.

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Attributions

• Wikipedia

• A Scribd Company

• Various News Articles

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