Iswarchandra Vidyasagar

Abstract

Iswarchandra Bandopadhyay (b. 1820–d. 1891), commonly known as Pundit Iswarchandra Vidyasagar, was a prominent polymath of 19th-century Bengal, emblematic of the flowering of new ideas and values during that period. The Pundit felicitously combined the roles of an educator, creative writer, and social reformer in ways that were unique. The man was an exemplary student, highly meritorious and painstakingly diligent, notwithstanding the poverty and hardships he had to face in his early life. His prodigious scholarship earned him the title “Vidyasagar” (literally, the “ocean of learning”), conferred upon him by his teachers. Though groomed in the Sanskrit knowledge systems, Vidyasagar differed from the traditional Hindu scholar and teacher in two meaningful respects. First, he viewed his educational schemes as experiments in bridging indigenous knowledge and the European. This endeavor persuaded him to critique his own tradition and introduce innovative changes within existing courses of study. Second, he devoted much energy and attention to the production of a new genre of textbooks that simplified the processes of learning and employed a moral pedagogy, which he believed would help build character in young schoolboys. His primers for the study of the Bengali language are still in use in contemporary Bengal, more than a century after they were first produced. As a social reformer, Vidyasagar took up issues that were both daunting and deeply problematic. He was a pioneer in the field of female education and persuaded the government to pass a law enabling Hindu widows to marry. However, he was less successful with some related issues, such as prohibiting Hindu polygamy. All the same, his work demonstrates the importance of creating an enlightened public opinion, as well as the practical necessity for social legislation. Vidyasagar was also an accomplished writer and contributed to the modernization of the Bengali language. He wrote in elegant Bengali prose, freed of both older pedantic influences and vulgar colloquialism. In his own province, Vidyasagar is also still remembered as a great philanthropist and a compassionate soul, always ready to rescue those in distress, and often at the risk of incurring personal debts. In his mental constitution, he was an activist, pledged to improving everyday life in the world, and the traditional Hindu concerns with renunciation or afterlife utterly failed to move him. Sadly, Vidyasagar also remains the only iconic figure from renascent Bengal whose memory has been thoughtlessly tarnished by posterity. Both the political Left and the political Right in India have taken turns in publicly vandalizing his image without just cause.