The Raja similarly drew up petitions against the Jury Act of 1827. The provisions of the Act and the grounds of the Raja’s objection thereto may be gathered from the following extract:
“In his famous Jury Bill, Mr. Wynn, the late President of the Board of Control, has, by introducing religious distinctions into the judicial system of this country, not only afforded just grounds for dissatisfaction among the natives in general, but has excited much alarm in the breast of every one conversant with political principles. Any natives, either Hindu or Muhammadan, are rendered by this Bill subject to judicial trial by Christians either European or native, while Christians, including native converts, are exempted from the degradation of being tried either by a Hindu or Mussulman juror, however high he may stand in the estimation of society. This Bill also denies both to Hindus and Muhammadans the honour of a seat on the Grand Jury even in the trial of fellow Hindus or Mussulnans. This is the sum total of Mr. Wynn’s late Jury Bill, of which we bitterly complain.”
The Raja had a clear grasp of the political machinery by which India was ruled and fully realised the importance of presenting India’s case before the Home authorities when the question of the renewal of the Company’s Charter in 1833 was being considered by Parliament. This was one of his main objects in undertaking the voyage to England. He was invited to give evidence before the Select Committee of the House of Commons, and although he declined to appear in person, he submitted his considered views in the form of several “communications to the Board of Control”. These documents enable us to gather the view-point of Raja Rammohan and of the advanced Indian thinkers of his time, on the burning questions of the day.
The Raja strongly championed the cause of the peasants. He pointed out that under the Permanent Settlement, the zamindars had increased their wealth, but the exorbitantly high rents exacted from their tenants had made the lot of the ryots a miserable one. He advocated a reduction of the rent to be paid by the tenants by means of a corresponding reduction in the revenue payable by the zamindars. The consequent loss of revenue, he suggested, should be met by a tax upon luxuries or by employing low-salaried Indians as collectors, instead of high-salaried Europeans. The Raja favoured the Permanent Settlement but he rightly urged that the Government should fix the maximum rent to be paid by each cultivator.
Among the other measures advocated by the Raja, may be mentioned the Indianisation of the British-Indian army, trial by jury, separation of the office of judge and magistrate, codification of civil and criminal laws, consultation with the Indian leaders before enactment of new laws, and the substitution of English for Persian as the official language of the courts of law.
A careful perusal of the above fully justifies the claim that “Rammohan Roy laid the foundation of all the principal move- ments for the elevation of the Indians ” which characterise the nineteenth century. His English biographer truly remarks that the Raja “presents a most instructive and inspiring study for the new India of which he is the type and pioneer. . . . He embodies the new spirit . . . its freedom of enquiry, its thirst for science, its large human sympathy, its pure and sifted ethics, along with its reverent but not uncritical regard for the past and prudent disinclination towards revolt”.
Introduction of English Education
While the British took over the administration of Bengal, all higher
education was confined to a study ofmarasa classical Sanskrit, Arabic and Persian in tols and madrasas. Vernaculars were sadly neglected, and neither natural science nor subjects like Mathematics, History, Political Philosophy, Economics or Geography formed part of the curriculum. Grammar, Classic Literature, Logic, Philosophy, Law and Religious Texts formed the main elements of higher study, while elementary education, imparted in pathsalas and maktabs, consisted of the three R’s and religious myths and legends. As to the world outside India, and the great strides Europe had made since the Renaissance, Indians had little knowledge and less interest. In matters of education and intellectual progress India was passing through a period analogous to the Middle Ages of Europe.
The British Government at first took but little interest in the development of education. Warren Hastings encouraged the revival of Indian learning and to him we owe the foundation of the Calcutta Madrasa (1781). Inspired by the same spirit, Sir William Jones founded the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Calcutta, in 1784, and a Sanskrit College was established at Benares by the Resident Jonathan Duncan in 1792. But there was no proposal or even a remote suggestion of establishing a system of education under Government supervision or control.
The idea of setting up a network of schools for teaching English was first mooted by Charles Grant, a Civil Servant of the Company. He rightly held that the social abuses and the moral degradation of the people were “the results of dense and widespread ignorance, and could be removed only by education, first of all by education in English”. Grant, on his return to England, tried to persuade the House of Commons and the Court of Directors to his view, but without success.
What Grant failed to do through Government, the Christian missionaries undertook to accomplish in Madras and Bengal. Among these noble bands of workers to whom India owes the beginning of English education, one name stands foremost, that of William Carey. Originally a shoe-maker by profession, he became a Baptist Missionary in later life, and came to Calcutta in 1793. Missionary schools had already been established in Madras with Government support, but Carey and his friends, although denied any such help in the beginning, set up schools and published Bengali translations of the Bible. Thus they laid the foundations of English education and Bengali prose literature. It is along lines laid down by them that intellectual development has taken place in subsequent times.
Carey’s example was followed by other missionaries and liberal Indians, the most notable among them being David Hare and Raja Rammohan Roy. These two were mainly instrumental in establishing several English schools, including the Hindu College (1817) which afterwards developed into the Presidency College.
