social reform

Swami Vivekananda

About: 

Swami Vivekananda was a charismatic Indian spiritual leader, founder of the Ramakrishna Mission in Calcutta, and a primary interpreter of Vedantic thought (non-dualist Hinduism) to the West. Though it was never his primary intention, he became a forerunner in opening the spiritual channels of connection between Britain and India that would draw disciples in both directions in the interests of further religious study, pilgrimage, fund raising, and proselytising the guru Sri Ramakrishna’s message. Margaret Noble, or Sister Nivedita, and the American Josephine Bull were among his foremost followers. His vigorous opposition to caste oppression probably exerted some influence on the development of M. K. Gandhi’s thought.

Born into a middle-class Bengali family, Narendra Dutta’s education initially took him on a secular path. An anti-orthodox thinker from an early age, though a spiritual seeker, he studied western philosophy and European history first at Presidency College, Calcutta (from 1879), and then at the Scottish Church College. Already at this stage he believed that India required scientific and technological modernization in order to achieve self-realization and escape the social stagnation of generations. Later, this belief in national masculinization through science would assume a spiritual aspect: modernization would represent the rediscovery of India’s soul in all its fullness.

As a student Narendra Dutta expressed some interest in Keshub Chunder Sen’s Brahmo Samaj, but in 1881 he fell under the powerful influence of the Swami Ramakrishna Paramahamsa of the Kali temple, Calcutta, whose successor he became after the latter’s death in 1886. In 1890 he set out on a journey across India, in order to come to know his country, and it was while engaged in this quest that the name Vivekananda was bestowed upon him.

International acclaim followed his dynamic lecture on Hinduism at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. His theme, the Unity of the Divine, chimed in with and stimulated the growing interest in the West in what was now increasingly termed world religion. His many talks, speeches, and seminars given in England and America on his 1895-6 tour were significant to many in pointing a way beyond the social and cultural borderlines which colonial times had embedded.

In 1897 Vivekananda founded the Ramakrishna Mission at Belur. In 1893 he had met the industrialist Sir Jamshetji Tata, who now tried to persuade him to head the Research Institute of Science he had founded, but Vivekananda declined on religious grounds and because his tireless travel had taken a toll on his health (he suffered from diabetes and asthma). He had long predicted, accurately as it turned out, that he would die before the age of forty. His followers believed he achieved mahasamadi, conscious departure from the body at the time of death.
 

Published works: 

Raja Yoga (1896)

Swami Vivekananda’s Complete Works, 9 vols. (Advaita Ashrama, 2001)

Example: 

From ‘The Ideal of a Universal Religion’, talk given in New York, 12 January 1896, and London 4 June 1896

Date of birth: 
12 Jan 1863
Content: 

A discussion of the Vedantic principle that ‘the Many and the One are the same Reality’.

Connections: 

Max Müller (met in 1896), Margaret Noble (Sister Nivedita), Sri Ramakrishna, Jamshetji Tata.

British Theosophists

Extract: 

What then do I mean by the ideal of a universal religion? I do not mean any one universal philosophy, or any one universal mythology, or any one universal ritual held alike by all; for I know that this world must go on working, wheel within wheel, this intricate mass of machinery, most complex, most wonderful. What can we do then? We can make it run smoothly, we can lessen the friction, we can grease the wheels, as it were. How? By recognising the natural necessity of variation … We must learn that truth may be expressed in a hundred thousand ways.
 

Secondary works: 

Boehmer, Elleke, Empire, the National and the Postcolonial: Resistance in Interaction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002)

Nandy, Ashis, The Intimate Enemy (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1983)

Noble, Margaret, The Master as I Saw Him (London: Longman’s, 1910)

Roy, Parama, Indian Traffic: Identities in Question in Colonial and Postcolonial India (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998)

Relevance: 

The Vedantic principle that ‘the Many and the One are the same Reality’ contained for some observers a political subtext.

Involved in events: 

World Parliament of Religions, Chicago, 1893

City of birth: 
Calcutta
Country of birth: 
India
Current name city of birth: 
Kolkata
Current name country of birth: 
India
Other names: 

Narendranath Dutta

Date of death: 
04 Jul 1902
Location of death: 
Calcutta, India
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1895, 1896

Tags for Making Britain: 

Keshub Chunder Sen

About: 

Keshub Chunder Sen was a Brahmo Samaj reformer. He visited Britain for six months in 1870. During this trip, Sen toured Britain to deliver sermons and met with a variety of political leaders, including W. E. Gladstone. Sen met Queen Victoria, who later presented him with two books.

On a visit to Bristol. Sen stayed at the house of Mary Carpenter. It was during this meeting that they decided to form the National Indian Association in aid of Social Progress, which was run by Carpenter in Britain.

Upon his return to India, Sen was involved in controversy when he arranged the marriage of his daughter (Sunity Devee) to the son of the Maharaja of Cooch Behar, despite the fact that she was only thirteen years old and violated the reforms that he and the Brahmo Samaj had been campaigning for.

Published works: 

Diary in England (Calcutta: Brahmo Tract Society, 1886)

Date of birth: 
19 Nov 1838
Connections: 

Annette Beveridge (née Akroyd), Mary Carpenter, Frances Cobbe, Sophia Dobson Collett, Sunity Devee, John Stuart Mill, Friedrich Max Müller, Hodgson Pratt, Reverend Robert Spears.

 

Secondary works: 

Mozoomdar, P. C., Life and Teachings of Keshub Chunder Sen (Calcutta: J. W. Thomas, Baptist Mission Press, 1887)

Kopf, David, The Brahmo Samaj and the Shaping of the Modern Indian Mind (New Delhi: Archives Publishers, 1988)

Carpenter, J. Estlin, The Life and Work of Mary Carpenter (London: Macmillan, 1881)

Raychaudhury, Tapan, 'Sen, Keshub Chunder Sen (1838-1884)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford University Press, 2004)  [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/47672]  

Archive source: 

Photo, National Portrait Gallery

Letter to Rev. Robert Spears, Unitarian Minister, 1872, Mss Eur A159, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras

City of birth: 
Calcutta
Country of birth: 
India
Current name city of birth: 
Kolkata
Date of death: 
08 Jan 1884
Location of death: 
Calcutta, India
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
21 Mar 1870
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

21 March 1870 - 17 September 1870

Syed Ameer Ali

About: 

Syed Ameer Ali was a lawyer, a judge, a political and social reformer, and a scholar of Islam. He wrote a number of books on Islamic law. He first arrived in the UK in 1869 initially to compete for the ICS. He was friends with the Fawcetts and attended female suffrage meetings in 1870. He was called to the Bar through the Inner Temple and returned to India to serve in the Calcutta High Court.

Syed Ameer Ali made frequent returns to Britain after 1873. In 1880 he met James Knowles, editor of The Nineteenth Century, and thereafter wrote a number of articles for the journal. On another visit back to the UK, he married Isabelle Konstam.

Syed Ameer Ali retired in 1904 and settled in the UK. His first task was to launch the London Muslim League (1908) and he took up the issue of Muslim representation. However, he resigned from the Muslim League in 1913 regarding it as too extreme. In 1910, he launched a project to build a mosque in London. And then in 1911 he formed the British Red Crescent Society because the British Red Cross was not helping injured Turks and Arabs in Italian attacks, addressing the need for an independent society to help the sick and wounded irrespective of race or religion. In 1909 he was appointed to the Privy Council, the first Indian member on the Council.

He died on 3 August 1928 at his home, Pollingfold Manor, near Rudgwick, Sussex and was buried in Brockwood Cemetery, Surrey. He had two sons who both studied at Oxford and both eventually retired to settle in Britain with their British wives.

Published works: 

A Critical Examination of the Life and Teachings of Mohammed (London: Williams and Norgate, 1873)

The Ethics of Islam (Calcutta: Thacker & Spink, 1893)

Islam (London: Archibald Constable & Co., 1906)

The Legal Position of Women in Islam (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1912)

The Life and Teachings of Mohammed, or the Spirit of Islam (London: W. H. Allen & Co., 1891)

Mahommedan Law (Calcutta: Thacker, Spink, 1892)

Persian Culture (London: Pub. for the [Persia] Society by John Hogg, 1913)

The Personal Law of the Mahommedans (London: W.H. Allen, 1880)

A Short History of the Saracens (London: Macmillan, 1899)

Students’ Handbook of Mahommedan Law (Calcutta: Thacker, Spink and Co., 1892)

Date of birth: 
06 Apr 1849
Connections: 

Torick Ameer Ali (son), John Bryce, Henry Fawcett, Millicent Fawcett, Lord Hobhouse, James Knowles (editor of Nineteenth Century), Dadabhai Naoroji, Lord Northbrook, Oscar Wilde.

Contributions to periodicals: 

The Nineteenth Century; The Nineteenth Century and After

Contemporary Review

Edinburgh Review

Islamic Culture

The Times

Westminster Gazette

Reviews: 

‘Speech at London Muslim League Inaugural Meeting’, The Times, 7 May 1908

Civil and Military Gazette

Secondary works: 

Aziz, K. K., Ameer Ali: His Life and Work (Lahore: Publishers United, 1968)

Ansari, Humayun, 'The Infidel Within': Muslims in Britain since 1800 (London: Husrt & Co., 2004)

FitzGerald, S. V., ‘Ameer Ali, Saiyid (1849–1928)’, rev. Roger T. Stearn, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford University Press, 2008) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/30400]

Visram, Rozina, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History (London: Pluto, 2002)

Wasti, Syed Razi (ed.), Memoirs and other Writings of Syed Ameer Ali (Lahore: People’s Publishing House, 1968)

Archive source: 

Private papers in possession of family

Involved in events: 
City of birth: 
Cuttack, Orissa
Country of birth: 
India
Other names: 

Saiyid Ameer Ali
Sayyid Ameer Ali
Rt Hon Ameer Ali
 

Location

Pollingfold Manor RH12 3AS
United Kingdom
51° 3' 41.0652" N, 0° 20' 19.644" W
Date of death: 
03 Aug 1928
Location of death: 
Pollingfold Manor, near Rudgwick, Sussex, England
Date of 1st arrival in Britain: 
01 Jan 1869
Precise 1st arrival date unknown: 
Y
Dates of time spent in Britain: 

1869-73, 1875, 1877, 1879-80, 1884, 1895, 1904-28

Location: 

London, Sussex.

Tags for Making Britain: 

National Indian Association

About: 

The National Indian Association (NIA) was founded in 1870 by Mary Carpenter in Bristol, with the assistance of Keshub Chunder Sen. The organization's full name was originally ‘National Indian Association in Aid of Social Progress in India’.

In 1871, Mrs Manning and her step-daughter Elizabeth Adelaide Manning started a London branch. Mary Carpenter died in 1877 and the London branch became the headquarters for the Association. The NIA also has branches in other cities in the UK and in India. After the death of Manning in 1905, E. J. Beck, sister of Theodore Beck, became honorary secretary until her retirement in 1932.

The initial aim of the association was to encourage female education in India. They also sought to educate and inform the British about Indian affairs. As the number of Indians in Britain grew, an increasingly important function was to facilitate social intercourse between Indian visitors and the British. The association held soirees, conversaziones, lectures and meetings and often organized guided tours of sights. The NIA produced a monthly journal from 1871, providing information about their activities. In 1880, a sub-committee, the Northbrook Indian Club, was formed, to look after a reading room for Indian students. This became a separate society in 1881, called the Northbrook Indian Society.

In 1910, the offices were moved to 21 Cromwell Road in South Kensington, to be housed alongside the Bureau of Education for Indian students. The Association began to decline after its jubilee year in 1920. Few of its original members remained alive and an increasing array of different organizations arose in London to cater for Indian interests. The Association stayed alive in a residual form after Indian independence, merged with the East India Association in 1949, and was incorporated into the Royal Society for India, Pakistan and Ceylon in 1966.

Published works: 

Journal of the National Indian Association, from 1871

Handbook of Information Relating to University and Professional Studies for Indian Students (London: Archibald Constable, 1893), reprinted in 1904.

Other names: 

NIA

Secondary works: 

Apart from works on Mary Carpenter, Keshub Chunder Sen and E. A. Manning (see their entries), other works that give insight into the NIA include

Khalidi, Omar (ed.), An Indian Passage to Europe: The Travels of Fath Nawaj Jang (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2006)

Robinson, Andrew , ‘Selected Letters of Sukumar Ray’, South Asia Research 7 (1987), pp. 169-236

Burton, Antoinette, At the Heart of the Empire: Indians and the Colonial Encounter in Late-Victorian Britain (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998)

Lahiri, Shompa, Indians in Britain: Anglo-Indian Encounters, Race and Identity, 1880-1930 (London: Frank Cass, 2000)

Date began: 
01 Jan 1870
Precise date began unknown: 
Y
Key Individuals' Details: 

Emma Josephine Beck (secretary), Mary Carpenter (founder), Lord Hobhouse (president), Lady Hobhouse, Elizabeth Adelaide Manning (secretary), Keshub Chunder Sen (founder)

Date ended: 
01 Jan 1948
Archive source: 

Mss Eur 147, minute books of National Indian Association, financial papers and other miscellaneous papers, Asian and African Studies Reading Room, British Library, St Pancras.

Liverpool Mercury, 22 December 1874

Pall Mall Gazette, 6 February 1888

The Times, 17 March 1886, 19 November 1886, 30 April 1891, 2 April 1892, 4 May 1897, 18 July 1898, 26 March 1901, 30 May 1903, 19 June 1906, 24 May 1907, 1 September 1908.

Western Daily Press, 10 September 1870

Precise date ended unknown: 
Y
Organization location: 
Varied. Member's houses. Imperial Institute. In 1910, their offices were housed in 21 Cromwell Road, London, along with the Northbrook Society and the Bureau for Information for Indian Students.

Location

21 Cromwell Road
London, SW5 0SD
United Kingdom
Involved in events details: 

Murder of Sir Curzon Wyllie by Madan Lal Dhingra at an 'At Home' held at the Imperial Institute, 1 July 1909

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