Keshub Chandra Sen's Bombay Visit (1864) and the Response of ‘Young Bombay’: Contours of Reform Movement in Western India

Abstract

This article, for the first time, attempts to give details about Keshub Chandra Sen's visit to Bombay in March-April 1864 and his interactions with the ‘Young Bombay’ reformers and also the missionaries, as reflected in reports and letters that appeared in contemporary newspapers and other writings. It seeks to shed light on the differences in the method of reform as perceived by the Bombay reformers during the early days of renaissance movement vis-à-vis the Bengal reformers. The records also reveal the trials and tribulations these reformers had to undergo in the form of social ostracism on the one hand, and on the other the general ridicule faced by them for lassitude and lack of courage. The Bombay reformers declined to follow the radical approach suggested by Keshub Chandra, namely, to make a different sect of the reformers. Instead, they believed in moderation and cautious approach, and offered reasons for their preference for making reformism a general or social movement rather than an individual or a personal one. In their opinion, if that phase of Hindu religion—namely, the social conditions created by the medieval Maharashtrian saints—can be accepted as the base ground, and new improvements engrafted on it, without doubt, people would come in more readily with the change than in any other manner since the method would not spring any surprise or novelty. For them, the reforms ought to encompass all religions and, like the Brahmo Samaj, not confined to Hindu religion alone. The debate also unfolds how much before the establishment of Prarthana Samaj on 31 March 1867, the idea of a ‘Prayer Society’ was afoot in 1864 itself