Tirthankar Mitra
One can enter into a civilized debate or a heated altercation about whether Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar should be remembered for his erudition or his everflowing kindness. It would not be out of place as his 203rd birth anniversary is being widely observed on September 26 but there ought not to be any war of words about whether his erudition outstripped his kindness and vice versa.
For there are no cut off points demarcating any of the qualities which made him a reformer, author, academic and entrepreneur. The multifaceted man who is better known simply as Vidyasagar, the title he earned for his erudition, remains relevant more than two centuries after he was born.
One of the leading figures of Bengal Renaissance which gave Bengal a head start over all the other states of the country, Vidyasagar continues to evoke mixed feelings long after his passing away. Successive dispensations have honoured him. Addresses are made recalling his life and times while calling upon the youth to follow his footsteps.
Yet when in late ’60s and early ’70s radical naxalism raised it head in West Bengal threatening to overthrow the ruling dispensation and every symbol of the establishment associated with a democratic order, statues of this man were the targets of wrath of those who wanted to uproot a system without having devised one to replace the former. The statues were in danger but not the memory of the man who lives in his deeds till this day.
Indeed the young men and women who promised to usher in a better world were sent packing. A few years earlier, a similar act of vandalism damaged a statue of the great man within the premises of a college past which an election procession was passing by. The vandals were not identified in this incident. But the party to which the processionists belonged got the boot in the subsequent election.
Vidyasagar belongs to Bengal and it’s residents are loath to let gather cobwebs around the statues, signs and symbols honouring him. It seems that the man who became a legend in his lifetime continues to inspire a generation whose outward appearance has little to do with the lessons which made this man from Midnapur into a polymath.
Vidyasagar’s educational career and his life is made up of a long series of odds and acts of overcoming them. Learning English numerals from the milestones during his journey on foot to what was then known as Calcutta and studying in the light of street lamps as his home could not afford gas light, are part of the lore surrounding him.
Democracy was decades away and so were electoral politics and vote banks when Vidyasagar opened the gates of Sanskrit College to all students. Education in this institution was confined to only Brahmins then, but though he belonged to that caste exclusion of others from education was never a part of his mindset.
Vidyasagar’s coexistence with controversy had started from his early career and it continued all through. He was an uncompromising fighter against all religious bigotry, superstitions and prejudice against the downtrodden. It was to last for decades till he left the city to settle down at Karmatar away from the cat calls and calumny unleashed against him. Vidyasagar’s efforts to spread education all over India was an uphill task. It was all the more so since he championed the cause of female education at a time when few women folk had access to rudimentary education.
Inarguably, one of Vidyasagar’s most notable contribution to the world of letters was dividing the Bengali alphabet into 12 vowels and 40 consonants. This contribution was something unprecedented which revolutionised the way of writing in Bengali.
Having championed the cause of female education, widow remarriage was the next item in Vidyasagar’s plan of action. The man of action and learning within him surfaced simultaneously burning the candle at both ends to find out the points in the scriptures which supported his cause.
If it earned him the gratitude of innumerable women as also the umbrage of the men who were self proclaimed guardians of the then society.. Society in Calcutta was divided into two camps, one in his support and another opposing him in words and deeds.
Slander campaigns and death threats became a part of the daily existence of the scholar reformer. Vidyasagar was unmoved. Like the other peaks he had sought to scale, this too was a task Vidyasagar finished. The tales of piety and uprightness do the rounds to this day.
Vidyasagar had no qualms in putting his foot up on a table when a superior officer and a Englishman came to see him in his chamber. He was only reciprocating a similar act on the part of the visitor when Vidyasagar called on him earlier.
A great source of support to Michael Madhusudan Dutt, known for his poetry and profligacy, Vidyasagar’s persona was expressed by Dutt in the following words.”He had the genius and wisdom of an ancient sage, the energy of an Englishman and the heart of a Bengali mother.”
When he was no more, Vidyasagar’s demise was described as the passing of “one of the most ardent advocates of social reform” by the leading English daily of Calcutta of the day. Small wonder, the news item was captioned “The Sea is Dry”, a fitting tribute to his erudition and piety. (IPA )
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