“Every educated man is bound to think for himself and while condemning all that is opposed to his sense of right and reason he should hold fast to those that commend themselves to him. We do not forget that there are many beliefs in regard to which a calm suspense of judgment is the wisest attitude of mind. But to uphold and justify institutions and usages which are condemned by the plainest reason but which happen to be upheld or justified in a book of a bygone age is neither reason nor faith. We quite approve of Mr. Ranganadham deprecating the tendency to accept our shastras as an infallible guide to social conduct in these days”.
APRIL 1, 1890
Professor Ranganadham on social reform
IN AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF CALCUTTA in 1866, the late Sir Henry Maine expressed sentiments similar to those of Professor Ranganadham’s in regard to social reform. “There are native usages”, Sir Henry said, “not in themselves open to heavy moral blame, which every educated man can see to be strongly protective of ignorance and prejudice. I perceive a tendency to defend these, sometimes on the ground that occasionally and incidentally they serve some slight practical use, sometimes because an imaginative explanation of them can be given, sometimes and more often for the reason that something superficially like them can be detected in European society… There is no greater delusion than to suppose that you weaken an error by giving it a colour of truth. On the contrary, you give it pertinacity and vitality and greater power for evil…. They (the graduates) may be safely persuaded that in spite of discouragements which do not all come from themselves or their countrymen, their real affinities are with Europe and the future not with India and the past. They would do well once for all to acquiesce in it and accept, with all its consequences, the marvellous destiny which has brought one of the youngest branches of the greatest family of mankind from the uttermost ends of the earth to renovate and educate the eldest.” The guidance which these sentiments were intended to furnish to the graduates of the Calcutta University nearly fourteen years ago is exactly, it appears to us, what Mr. Ranganadham wants the graduates of the present day to follow. The affinities of modern India are undoubtedly with Europe, that is, with reason, science and progress, but not with dogmas, with superstitions and deterioration. The education that is imparted in our schools and colleges, with all its defects, develops a wholesome spirit of inquiry, and every graduate worth the honour of that name can be persuaded to feel the absurdity of “assuming that all our thinking has been done for us by our ancestors.” Every educated man is bound to think for himself and while condemning all that is opposed to his sense of right and reason he should hold fast to those that commend themselves to him. We do not forget that there are many beliefs in regard to which a calm suspense of judgment is the wisest attitude of mind. But to uphold and justify institutions and usages which are condemned by the plainest reason but which happen to be upheld or justified in a book of a bygone age is neither reason or faith. We quite approve of Mr. Ranganadham deprecating the tendency to accept our Shastras as an infallible guide to social conduct in these days. We think that in the following lines the sentiments which we have so often expressed in these columns are columns are reproduced. “The Shastras are worthy of all reverence as handing down to us the traditions of a by-gone civilisation. No social reformer can afford to despise them, or to neglect their study. But it is abundantly manifest that rules and observances and institutions that suited the men of a by-gone age can hardly suit us, who live under a very different environment. The method of finding in the Shastras chapter and verse in support of this or that reform may carry us some little way forward and that only after a long struggle over texts and interpretation, but I feel convinced that such a re-casting and reconstruction as would eliminate from our social life the elements that have for so long held an iron sway and paralysed our intellectual and moral energies, could be achieved only by modifying the shastraic injunctions and not by a tacit conformity to them. I have said that the method under criticism is injurious and my reason for saying so is that what might be gained by placing reform on a false basis is nothing as weighed in the scales against what must be lost. This wrong method will and must stand in the way of many important reforms that every true friend of India would wish to see accomplished and I would, therefore, impress upon your minds the necessity for giving this subject your most earnest consideration.” Our evening contemporary has condemned this part of Mr. Ranganadham’s speech as an infringement of the principle of religious neutrality which the University is bound to follow. We however see nothing of this infringement. Mr. Ranganadham did not refer to the Shastras as the spiritual guide of the Hindus. If he had condemned the Shastras as failing to satisfy the curiosity and needs of a cultured man in his spiritual yearnings, he would certainly have been guilty of a breach of religious neutrality. He did nothing of the kind. He referred to them as the authority which some Hindus rely upon in defending and following certain social and domestic usages most obnoxious to reason. And unless the University altogether prohibits its annual speakers from referring to social questions at all – a procedure which we are confident that that body will never adopt – no enlightened Hindu seeking to edify his countrymen in the principles of their conduct as individuals and citizens can avoid all reference to the Shastras. Like Sir Henry Maine. Mr. Ranganadham also might have so worded his admonitions as to avoid all mention of them by word. But we are not sure that such avoidance will improve his position from the point of view adopted by our contemporary. Nothing can be more valuable in the present unsettled condition of many of our social and political problems than distinct and unambiguous advice. It will be absurd to tell our young men that they ought to venerate the Shastras in the same spirit in which an illiterate boor, or an uneducated priest venerates them. No nobler and no safer guide can be recommended than one’s reason and conscience and every dogma and every authority not consistent with the directions of this guide ought to be summarily discarded. This is what Mr. Ranganadham said and for saying that he has earned the thanks of all thoughtful well-wishers of the country.
Reference:
The First 100
A Selection of Editorials, 1878-1978, THE HINDU, VOLUME I