Raja Ram Mohan Roy

A Brief History of the Radically Different Nationalisms Vying To Shape the Indian Republic

The revolutionary idea sought to unite and liberate suppressed ethnic groups from external forces through anti-imperial movements in the colonies. The counter-revolutionary movement sought to repress minorities within society by linking the concept of nation to majoritarian social groupings.

Two radically different ideas of India informed the making of the modern Indian Republic, almost from its very beginning: one revolutionary and the other counter-revolutionary. The seeds lie in the emergence of Indian nationalism in the latter half of the 19th through the intellectual awakening of the Bengal Renaissance, and the political activism of a small, liberal, English-educated (middle class) elite.

The umbilical link between this intellectual awakening, and the political mobilisation through nationalism, was provided by the dissemination of Western ideas, both revolutionary and counter-revolutionary, following the colonial encounter during British Rule. The revolutionary ideas such as humanism, equality, fraternity, liberty, individual freedom, rationalism, and religious universalism, were those of the European Enlightenment which can be broadly put under the umbrella of liberalism that formed the basis of one idea of India, culminating with the constitution of the Republic after independence from British rule in 1947.

There was, from towards the end of the 19th century, also a counter-revolutionary rejection of these ideas that culminated during the inter-war period in Europe with the emergence of fascist ideas and regimes subscribing to these ideas. Nationalism lay at the junction of these two trends. It had both a forward-looking revolutionary face, as well as a counter-revolutionary one. The former sought to unite and liberate suppressed ethnic groups from external forces, manifest in the break-up of old-world empires in Europe and the attendant rise of nation-states, and the anti-imperial movements in the colonies, such as in British India. The backwards-looking counter-revolutionary face sought to repress and dominate minorities within society by linking the concept of nation to majoritarian social groupings such as race and religion. These radically different nationalisms also filtered down to India and lay at the roots of both ideas of India.

The two ideas

Ram Mohan Roy, 19th-century social reformer, is considered the father of Indian renaissance. Photo: Wikimedia, Public domain

The first idea of India began as a movement in the three presidency towns of Calcutta, Bombay, and later Madras, of a small professional upper caste and middle-class elite, such as Dadabhai Naoroji, Surendranath Bannerjee, Phirozshah Mehta, steeped in the constitutional liberal values of Western democracy that petitioned the colonial rule for greater Indian representation in government on the pattern prevailing in England. Social and religious reform led by thinkers such as Ram Mohan Roy, Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar and Keshub Chandra Sen, was also inextricably linked with this movement. This spread to other urban centres with the split within the national movement between the moderates and the extremists during the Swadeshi movement and the partition of Bengal towards the end of the 19th century. The urban middle class was far less liberal and more socially conservative, which was ultimately a barometer of the failure of the Bengal Renaissance to spread beyond a small upper-caste elite. A new set of ‘extremist’ nationalists such as Lala Lajpat Rai, Bipin Chandra Pal, and Bal Gangadhar Tilak deployed Hindu religious symbolism to deepen the mobilisation for the anti-imperial struggle. The seeds of communal divide and religious nationalisms, and the uneasy coexistence of two radically different ideas of India, that was to result – but by no means culminate with – the partition of India were sown during this phase.

During the Gandhian phase beginning around the end of the second decade of the 20th century, the national movement spread to villages even beyond urban centres. A complex dynamic was now at work, as peasant movements led by grassroots people like Baba Ramchandra and Sahajanand Saraswati, demands for zamindari abolition, and other forms of social reform such as the non-Brahmin and self-respect movements in the South, led by reformists such as Periyar and Jyotirao Phule, were drawn into the vortex of the national movement in an unstable love-hate relationship. The Congress itself became an uneasy alliance of its primarily conservative, especially middle-level, leadership and a few influential radical liberals such as Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose and even Rabindranath Tagore. An uneasy compromise was forged by Gandhi who kept the flock together despite the radical revolt by B.R. Ambedkar, and the far-right Hindu (the Hindu Mahasabha and RSS) and Muslim (Jinnah and the Muslim League) streams that aligned nationalism to imagined pasts based exclusively on religion.

Following the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi, the liberals within the Congress acquired ascendancy under Nehru’s leadership in independent India. The revolutionary ideas of the European Enlightenment informed the drafting of the constitution of Independent India. Its illiberal soft Hindutva – an uneasy compromise between liberalism and illiberal conservative and right-wing ideas persisted, however. It is possible that this stream within the Congress might have been even stronger but for the mass revulsion following the assassination of Gandhi. The anti-zamindari reforms were implemented only in states such as Kerala and West Bengal – where communist parties were elected. Nehru himself was constrained to cave in on issues such as cow slaughter and uniform civil code. India never became a truly secular country with full separation between Church and State, although the constitution mandated that the state treat all religions equally.

After Nehru’s death, the Congress’s soft Hindutva culture hamstrung its efforts at keeping the resurgence of the Hindu far right at bay. The latter expanded its network and influence through civil society outreach and the activities of the RSS, and political mobilisation on religious issues such as Ram Janmabhoomi. The Congress’s liberal credentials were further damaged by a brief brush with authoritarianism under Indira Gandhi and attempts to create ‘committed institutions’. But when the Hindu right first came to power (under A.B. Vajpayee), it did not feel confident of its mandate to change the secular and democratic fabric of the polity and society either.

But just as it seemed that the uneasy alliance was leading to political convergence, the political evolution of the Indian republic turned 180 degrees with the rise of Narendra Modi at the helm of the Hindu right. Although Modi’s original mandate in 2014 was developmental and anti-corruption, he used social media and civil society, organisations supported by state power, to turn it into a hard Hindutva agenda.

The uneasy alliance between the Hindu Right, liberal English-speaking elite and the radical movements from below was severed. The liberal elite and social and religious minorities, such as Dalits and Muslims, were marginalised and excluded from the Republic and the State structure moved from soft to hard Hindutva. It now appears to be fast jettisoning democracy and constitutional values by taking the concept of committed institutions to their logical conclusion seeking legitimacy through the demagoguery of the people’s will articulated through electoral institutions at a reducing arms’ length from the government. This form of governance has been classified as fascistic or ethnonationalism. The second idea of India has now gained ascendancy.

The Indian flag. Photo: Pixabay

The battle in India

How is this battle of two ideas of India playing out in India currently? Antonio Gramsci, an influential Italian political thinker, described political battles as comprising two separate components: the war of movement and the war of position. The war of movement is the capture of political power, either through force or through the ballot box, as the case may be. The war of position, on the other hand, is a war of ideas, such as between the two ideas of India. The war of movement is a political see-saw, with some party winning at one point in time, and some other at another point. Permanent victory can be achieved only through the war of position, through the hegemony of ideas in civil society. When the latter war is won, all the strong political parties operate within a broad ideological consensus. Thus in the West, the hegemony of liberal ideas is evident from the fact that all major political parties are wedded to basic liberal ideas despite political differences.

If one were to analyse Indian politics within such a Gramscian framework, one could possibly argue that despite recent major reverses in the war of movement in West Bengal and Karnataka, the BJP (representing the counter-revolutionary idea of India) nevertheless appears to be gaining in the war of position. In West Bengal, it enhanced its vote share, while in Karnataka it held on to its vote share. In Karnataka, the BJP didn’t lose Lingayat votes despite their grievance against the BJP, and it also gained some Vokkaliga votes. It also gained ground in the communal hotspots in the state. This is unlike the occasion in the past, when Virendra Patil was summarily dismissed by Rajiv Gandhi, and Lingayats deserted the Congress. The campaign also revealed a possible soft or creeping saffronisation of the Congress party as it did not take a forthright stand on some divisive issues raised by the BJP for electoral purposes.

How might the two wars play out going forward? It is foolhardy to try and predict the future, especially the war of movement, such as the outcome of next year’s general elections. On the future of wars of position, however, we can learn something from the past, from lessons of history. The world has been becoming increasingly globalised. This has by no means been a linear trend. Following the global financial crisis about 15 years ago, there is a growing anti-globalisation and illiberal trend such as “America First” and “MAGA“. There was a similar short-term reversal in Europe between the two World Wars. Nevertheless, a long-term trend is discernible. In such a globalised world, where ideas tend to flow freely, can the Western liberal enlightenment, on which the successful Western model rests, be rolled back permanently? As the Greek philosopher Plato, and more recently the sociologist Max Weber, argued demagogues or ‘charismatic authorities’ emerge from time to time to destabilise long-term trends. This destabilisation could involve tragedy of varying, including unimaginable (the Nazi holocaust) magnitude, such as the kind we see in Kashmir and Manipur presently, but yet there is hope. Hitler’s Third Reich did not last a 1000 years and self-destructed within a decade. There are more recent examples. The Communist Revolution in Russia, and the Islamic Revolution in Iran. The former came apart, and the latter is coming apart. Gresham’s law might hold for the market for money, but not when it comes to the market for ideas.

Ultimately, better ideas, with all their shortcomings and flaws, drive out worse ideas. Try as one might, it is not possible to return to the past. The second idea of India is a backwards-looking counter-revolutionary one. It cannot forever push back the Renaissance paradigm.

Only another revolutionary paradigm can.

Alok Sheel is a former civil servant and writer.

19th Century’s Hindu Nationalism Was Flawed But Had Purpose. Now, We Have Only Hate

Two projects of yoking ancient India to nationalism and national identity have been attempted. One carried the seeds of self-critique within it, the second one, that has Indians in thrall now, refuses to look at the ravages wreaked upon the people by so-called Hindus.

For the past few years, the political discourse that has emerged from the corridors of power is dominated by Hinduism and yet more Hinduism. Our power holders have restored temples, called into question the existence of mosques, catapulted environmental disaster in the Himalayan region to facilitate pilgrimages, and terrorised minorities. Now they are trying to rewrite history to focus on the glories of ancient India without verification and sans methodology.

At the same time there is uneasiness and insecurity in the corridors of power. Scholars with debatable credentials are on the selection committees of prestigious universities. Their task is to ensure that no one, but no one, who possesses the gift of critical scholarship is appointed to faculties. Dissenters are jailed. Above all we have begun to hear the chant that India is the ‘mother of democracy’.

The last claim is bound to evoke ridicule among democrats across the world. History shows us that democracy was first invented in ancient Athens. The etymological basis of democracy is the demos, which is a Greek word for populace. But democracy in Athens had nothing to do with modern forms of democracy that were hammered into shape through revolutions in the 18th century, notably in France. These introduced the belief that power emanates from the people, and that the people have rights independent of the government.

The nation is also an invention of the 18th century. Both these concepts belong to political modernity based on individualism, or the primacy of the individual and his capacity to think and act rationally [it was always a ‘he’ in those days].

Individualism is, of course, a progeny of capitalism: the consumer in the marketplace. Standing above all concepts of political modernity is the nation state, which is now seen as one of the greatest blunders of history. The historian Eric Hobsbawm told us that when history is yoked to the cause of nationalism it causes more deaths than those wrought by irresponsible builders. Tired of ethnic wars, towards the end of the 20th century and the cessation of the Cold War, scholars began to conceive regional and global organisations and their attendant ideology of cosmopolitanism and global justice.

Today we are, once against caught up in an era of hyper-nationalism based on the presumed glories of ancient India. This is, of course, not the first time that ancient India has been yoked to the creation of a national identity. The leaders of our national movement skipped 500 years of history; a history marked by a remarkable fusion of ideas, language, architecture, painting, and music, and went back to Vedic India. This was a historical mistake because it laid the seeds of animus and exclusion against minorities.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi along with UP Governor Anandiben Patel, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat and others perform Bhoomi Pujan rituals for the construction of the Ram Mandir, at Ayodhya on August 5. Photo: PTI

The two nationalist projects

But this is not the point I wish to labour on. I wish to argue that there is a vital difference between the way ancient India was yoked to the project of creating a national identity in the 19th century, and today’s project of controlling the country through invocations of Hinduism that took shape in ancient times.

In the 19th century, public intellectuals positioning themselves against colonial officials and missionaries invoked the ancient past to create a unique identity for India, but also to critique contemporary practices of Hinduism as violative of the essence of the religion. The past served to criticise the present. If an ancient leader of the time of the Upanishads, the Buddhist period or later classical age were to be set down in modern India, wrote Aurobindo Ghose in The Foundations of Indian Culture, he would “see his race clinging to forms and shells and rags of the past and missing nine-tenths of its nobler values…he would be amazed by the extent of its later degeneracy, its mental poverty, immobility, static repetition, the comparative feebleness of the creative institution, the long sterility of art, the cessation of science.”

Earlier, this despondency had been expressed by Ram Mohan Roy, popularly hailed as the father of the Indian Renaissance.

Roy [1772-1833] was among the first to ask the question – who are we? His response catapulted the thorny issue of how Indians could recover self-respect and forge a collective self, into a nascent public sphere. Given the context of his times, he launched the project of understanding the past to speak to western audiences, and to counter attacks by Christian missionaries on what they considered an inferior form of religion.

He began his exposition by accepting that the Hinduism of his day was sadly wanting. Writing in a deeply regretful tone to a friend, John Digby, in England on January 18, 1928, Roy complained that the Hindu community was immersed in ‘gross idolatry’ and peculiar beliefs.

“I regret to say that the present system of religion adhered to by the Hindus is not well calculated to promote their political interest. The distinction of castes, introducing innumerable divisions and sub-divisions among them has entirely deprived them of patriotic feeling, and the multitude of religious rites and ceremonies and laws of purification have totally disqualified them from undertaking any difficult enterprise…It is, I think, necessary that some change should take place in their religion, at least for the sake of their political advantage and social comfort.” said The English Works of Raja Rammohun Roy. He concluded with the observation that there was nothing to equal the sublime principles of Christ.

Raja Rammohan Roy. Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty

Roy was influenced by one strain of Christianity: Unitarianism, which posed a challenge to Christian orthodoxy, particularly the belief in the Trinity. The universal precepts of Unitarianism hold that the principles of Christ’s teachings are separate from the culturally specific and institutional trappings of the religion. In a similar fashion, Roy had, at a fairly young age, abstracted the original teachings of Hinduism from contemporary social practices that he found degenerate and a departure from the tenets of Hinduism, and held them up as a mirror to contemporary practices.

Christianity was not the only system of thought to impact his ideas. Having received a traditional education, Roy was familiar with Persian and Arabic theology that were influenced by Aristotelian thought. His beliefs in theism, and on the nature of the divine, were significantly impacted by inductive reason, and requirement of empirical proof by rationalist schools of thought in Islam. His first published work at a fairly young age was Tuhfat-ul-Muwahhidin or A Gift to Deists (1803-04).

He wrote this work in Persian, and the preface was authored in Arabic. He exposed and chastised dogmas that focussed on revelation, in miracle-inducing acts such as worshipping at shrines and bathing in rivers, and on the widely held belief in prophets. And above all, he castigated the many rituals, such as fasts and imposition of privations that defined the sort of lives people should live, notions of what is or is not propitious, and rank superstition.

In 1816, Roy translated the Vedanta into Bengali, Hindustani and English. The translation was accompanied by a comprehensive introduction and an equally comprehensive commentary. In the introduction, he launched a critique of extant Hindu practices. He wished to prove that “the superstitious practices which deform the Hindu religion have nothing to do with the pure spirit of its dictates”. He also wanted to establish that the temples that had been erected to many gods and goddesses, and the rituals that were performed to propitiate them, had deviated from the norms of Hinduism. It is my design to prove, he wrote, that “every rite has its derivation from the allegorical adoration of the true deity; but at the present day all this is forgotten, and among many it is even heresy to mention it.”

Today’s temple builders and destroyers of mosques should heed this critique of deviations from what is regarded as the most perfect form of Hinduism.

Also read: A Mosque Can’t Be Turned Into a Hindu Temple. Period. The Law Says So.

Roy was a pragmatic thinker and he intended that his interpretation of Hinduism as theism could catalyse social transformation. His early discomfort with western criticism of idolatry and superstition inspired an investigation into Hinduism through recovery of the meaning of the Vedanta. The retrieval of meaning was deployed to attack what, in his view, were irrelevant and useless rituals that inexorably led society into irrationality and delusions. He belonged to the great tradition of social reformers who engaged with current practices through the prism of the wisdom of the ancients.

Though he was certainly influenced by the liberal tradition, there was much more to Roy’s intellectualism. He brought together worlds that technically belonged to different religious traditions, because they converged on theism which formed the essence of the Vedanta. He was undoubtedly inspired by the essentially modern conviction that persons should be able to critically evaluate the religion they subscribe to. He chose to do so by ‘stepping back’ from current practices, and by reclaiming the original formulations of Hindu texts.

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, public intellectuals, riled by criticism of Hinduism by missionaries and administrative officials, took on the task of social reform. They invoked a Golden Age to critique present day practices. Their criticism of religious practices was unsparing, even though their attempts to resurrect the intellectual disposition of the classics remained confined to the urban intelligentsia, at least till the arrival of M.K. Gandhi onto the scene.

Keshub Chandra Sen (1838-1884), a leader of the Brahmo Samaj, established by Ram Mohan Roy, captured the spirit of this endeavour when he said, somewhat, baldly that India was a fallen nation, a “nation whose primitive greatness lies buried in ruins… As we survey the mournful and dismal scene of desolation – spiritual, social and intellectual – which spreads around us, we in vain try to recognise therein the land of Kalidas – the land of poetry, of science, and of civilisation,” in Charles Heimsath’s (1964) Indian Nationalism and Hindu Social Reform.

By the end of the 19th century, the Vedanta was tailored to suit contemporary times as neo-Vedanta. We find the fullest articulation of this philosophy in Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) when he addressed the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. Orthodox Hindu organisations, such as the ‘Arya Dharma Pracharni Sabha’ and ‘Prathna Sabhas’ had stressed the universal nature of Hinduism. But when Vivekananda, well-versed in western philosophy, the sacred texts, and Bengali literature, presented the Vedanta to the world, he gave to Hinduism the status of not only a world religion, but of a supra religion that could teach other belief systems how to live with each other in tolerance and harmony. Those who have appropriated Vivekanand should heed his words.

Attacking the infirmities of Hinduism of his day, he spoke of an ancient religion that taught acceptance and understanding of each other. “I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance.” These precepts are integral to Hinduism.

“Oh Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various thoughts though they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to thee.” [The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, volume one]. He spoke of a universal religion that had no limits of time or space, and of a religion that united the whole credo of the human spirit, from the fetishism of the savage to the liberal creative affirmations of modern science.

Having provided the emerging national movement with a political identity, which was no longer a source of embarrassment but one of pride, Vivekananda made it very clear that Hinduism needed to be cleansed of all contradictions and schisms that led to poverty and misery. His Vedanta did not tolerate the existing gap between its commitment to human liberation and material deprivation. Material well-being was an essential precondition of individual liberation or moksha.

In the early years of the 19th century, Roy had retrieved the essential teachings of the Vedas, to restore the glories of Hinduism that had been subjected to critique and dismissal. For him sacred texts were a touchstone to evaluate extant practices. By the closing years of the 19th century, the intellectual wheel had turned full circle. Vivekananda pronounced the superiority of Hinduism as a universal religion. The wisdom of this universal religion transcended identities of specific religious groups and respected all of them. We believe, he said, not only in universal toleration but we accept all religions as true. There could be no more damming critique of contemporary religious nationalism.

Also read: What History Really Tells Us About Hindu-Muslim Relations

The trajectory of modern Indian political thought was succinctly described by Aurobindo Ghosh in his The Renaissance in India. He wrote that the first effect of the European entry into the country was the destruction of much that had no longer the power to live. A new activity was at first crudely and confusedly imitative of foreign culture. But whatever temporary rotting and destruction this crude impact of European life and culture has caused, it revived the dormant intellectual and critical impulse, it rehabilitated life and awakened the desire of new creation.

“The national mind turned a new eye on its past culture, reawoke to its sense and import, but also at the same time saw it in relation to modern knowledge and ideas. Out of this awakening vision and impulse the Indian renaissance is arising, and that must determine its future tendency.”

Today, once again, ancient India is used to legitimise the hyper-nationalist project, but not as a Renaissance, and as self-critique of our ‘godmen’, superstitions, caste-based and religion-based discrimination, and murderous intent. It does not question the disabilities of Hinduism, untouchability, patriarchy, indifference to poverty, want and misery, and violence against people on the basis of their identity.

Newspapers regularly disburse mind-numbing incidents of enormous brutality wrought on Dalits, on manual scavengers, of the homeless, of little children begging at traffic lights, of the vulnerability of women. We see photographs of ‘upper caste’ men mercilessly dragging a Dalit woman out of a temple; we find that temples have not given up their belief that women should not enter because of this reason or that; we read of incredible brutality etched on the bodies of co-citizens, and of institutionalised violence against women.

‘Kahan hai, kahan hai muhafiz khudi ke, jine naaz hai Hind par woh kahan hai?’ These lines penned by Sahir Ludhianvi for Guru Dutt’s Pyaasa equally apply to the custodians of Hinduism.

Which of our leaders, either from the right-wing or even from the liberal left, or whatever is left of it, today, have criticised the caste system, the discrimination against people from the Dalit community, adherence to superstition, patriarchy, fascism and attacks on minorities from the vantage point of a Hinduism they espouse, and hold forth as the primary means of control of India?

The stereotyping of the Indian society as gloriously Hindu from time immemorial has not helped us forge an equitable future. India, with all its material inequities, communalism, and casteism, is now accepted as an inevitable byproduct of oligarchy. Our rulers invoke the ancient past, but fail to accept the infirmities of a Hinduism wielded like a sceptre by saffron clad [so-called] renouncers who call for the destruction of our own people. What kind of Hinduism is this?

Two projects of yoking ancient India to nationalism and national identity have been attempted in India. One carried the seeds of self-critique within it, the second one, that has Indians in thrall, refuses to look at the ravages wreaked upon the people by so-called Hindus. The former phase in 19th century India might have been flawed. Which phase in history is not? The present phase is flawed because it refuses to recognise the deep-rooted rot in society sanctioned or even set by the custodians of Hinduism.

Raja Rammohan Roy Was Very Much a Hindu

‘Sahapedia’ looks at how Roy was perhaps a Hindu of a kind different from those now claiming to more authentically represent Hinduism.

We are witnessing a cultural revolution in the country which, in its breadth and implications, may prove larger and more far-reaching than the political. This revolution appears to be based on the premise that anything ‘not Hindu’ in origin or practice is suspect and ought to be wrenched off the Indian public mind.

Recently, sinister charges were levelled against Raja Ram Mohan Roy – of playing a ‘stooge’, more colloquially, a ‘chamcha’ to the British and of subverting Hindu culture by aiding the legal abolition of Sati. A tweet from a well-known scholar even hints at the title of Raja being conferred on Roy for unthinkingly playing up to the machinations of the British. The author of this message also found Roy guilty of misleading the Bengalis as a community, now allegedly ‘going down the slope’.

Though a Hindu Bengali by birth, my own penchant is to see Roy not as a Hindu, not even as a Bengali, but as a truly cosmopolitan figure, a global citizen, who argued for political liberty, civic freedom and social justice for all humanity using the Enlightenment tool of universal reason. When travelling to France in 1832, he was puzzled by the official requirement for a visa and argued instead for a world without borders, for free trade in men and ideas.

Some ten years earlier, he had hosted a party in Kolkata upon hearing of Neapolitan rebels wresting control from Austrian rule. Roy was against press censorship, also protesting against the East India Company’s Juries Bill in 1826 (which came into effect in 1827), which unjustly precluded the recruitment of Indian jurors when trying European offenders. In 1809, he petitioned the then Governor General of India for redressal against a high-ranking British official, Sir Frederick Hamilton, who had subjected him to indignity using a racial slur.

Also read: How Cultural Nationalism and Women’s Rights Locked Horns in the 19th Century

Roy was a fearless and self-respecting man, but he had greater respect for women, making it a point to stand up whenever a lady entered the room. He also advocated for a woman’s share in ancestral property. He was, perhaps, the first feminist in India. This quality, I dare say, arrived neither from his exposure to the West nor from his alleged kowtowing to the English ruling class. It came very largely from his training as a tantrik, a tradition hinging on revering the ‘female principle and her manifestation’ in every woman. This was subsequently bolstered by his copious reading of monistic Vedanta and his larger interest in world-historical events.

The trouble with recent tweets calling to question Roy’s anti-Sati campaign is that they are not even based on established historical facts. There is a reference to the practice of Sati even in the Mahabharata; to call it an institution meant to counter ‘Mughal’ maltreatment of Hindu women is utterly baseless.

Likewise, so is the allegation of Roy being an anti-Hindu reformer and a champion of Unitarian Christianity. Together with some Christian evangelists, Roy was perhaps among the first to confer upon a loose collective of religious ideas and practices the label of ‘Hinduism’. In colonial India, this eventually made possible – at least in theory – a unified Hindu identity.

Also read: What the Women’s Movement Today Can Learn From 19th-Century Social Reformers

His siding with Unitarianism had two important dimensions: his doctrinal critique of Trinitarianism represented by the Baptists of Serampore and acknowledging Unitarianism as a more rational and responsible religion with its active involvement in social reform issues. Rather than side with orthodox Christians, Roy produced three tracts (1820-22) which portrayed Christ more as a moral figure than the religious. This so angered the Serampore Baptists that they stopped publishing Roy’s tracts. An interest in Christ and Christianity, one has to say, proved to be quite pervasive among the modern Hindu intelligentsia. Vivekananda translated Thomas à Kempis’ Imitation of Christ and M.K. Gandhi had a life-long interest in the ethical discourse of Christ.

Roy was very much a Hindu but a Hindu of a kind different from those now claiming to more authentically represent Hinduism.

This is article is part of Saha Sutra on www.sahapedia.org, an open online resource on the arts, cultures and heritage of India.

Amiya P. Sen is a historian with an interest in the intellectual and cultural history of modern India, and has written extensively on figures from colonial Bengal, including Rammohun Roy: A Critical Biography (Penguin, 2012).