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The Seavoyage Controversy and the Kayasthas of North India, 1901—1909

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Lucy Carroll
Lucy Carroll
Affiliation:
Lucy Cavendish College, University of Cambridge
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Extract

Seavoyage was a social reform issue of some concern to the Hindus of Upper India in the latter part of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. Clearly there were compelling incentives for seavoyage; equally clearly there was a convention which prohibited such travel in the belief that it contravened the law laid down in ancient texts. But social conflict is seldom as one-dimensional as these statements imply.

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Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , April 1979 , pp. 265 - 299
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1979

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References

The author is Calouste Gulbenkian Research Fellow, Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. I am indebted to the American Institute of Indian Studies and Dean Juan Martinez, Office of the Dean of the Graduate Division, University of California, Berkeley, for grants which supported the research and writing of this essay; and also to Dr C. A. Bayly and J. B. Harrison for reading and commenting helpfully on an earlier draft of this essay.

1In Selections from the Vernacular Newspapers Published in the Punjab, North-Western Provinces, Oudh, Central Provinces and Berar, 1881, pp. 160–1.Google Scholar

2Pp. 467–8.Google Scholar

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7Lahore, Tribune, January 10, 1894.Google Scholar

8Ibid., January 1, 1896.

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11Kayastha Samachar, IV, 12 1901, p. 461.Google Scholar

12Quoted in Hindustan Review and Kayastha Samachar, IX, 04 1904, pp. 405–6.Google Scholar

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22Hindustan Review and Kayastha Samachar, IX, January 1904, p. 88; XI, January 1905, p. 83.Google Scholar

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24Ibid., December 1903, p. 612.

25Ibid., IX, January 1904, p. 90.

26Ibid., pp. 91–2.

27Ibid., pp. 86–7.

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29Quoted in Indian People, January 13, 1904.Google Scholar

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31 His work was highly praised by the Pioneer, which went on to comment: ‘Those who complain that Indian students do not produce original work have never reflected how completely they are excluded from all means of research. Consider books alone. Dr Prasad had occasion to refer to works…which are, as far as we know, not to be found in any library in these provinces, probably not anywhere in India. What original work can be done without an adequate library?’ (Quoted in Hindustan Review and Kayastha Samachar, VIII, 11 1903, p. 466.)Google Scholar

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33Quoted in Hindustan Review and Kayastha Samachar, IX, 03 1904, p. 307.Google Scholar

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37 Braj Kishore Prasad had been largely responsible for the commitment made by the (1903) Motihari Conference session a few months previously to sponsor Ambika Charan during a course of advanced training in Japan (Hindustan Review and Kayastha Samachar, IX, 01 1904, p. 90;Google ScholarHindustan Review, XVI, 09 1907, p. 290). He worked closely with Ghandi during the Champaran investigations and satyagraha.Google Scholar

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46Ibid., p. 37.

47Ibid., pp. 37–8; Hindustan Review and Kayastha Samachar, IX, May–June 1904, p. 559.

48Prasad, Rajendra, Autobiography, p. 38;Google ScholarHindustan Review and Kayastha Samachar, IX, 05–06 1904, p. 560.Google Scholar

49Prasad, Rajendra, Autobiography, p. 38.Google Scholar

50Hindustan Review and Kayastha Samachar, IX, May–June 1904, p. 560.Google Scholar

51E.g., Bankipur meeting reported in Indian People, June 5, 1904.Google Scholar

52 E.g., report that the leading Kayasthas of Muzaffarpur, including the president of the local Kayastha Sabha, had signed the declaration.(Ibid., June 23, 1904.)

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55Ibid., July 7, 1904.

56Both Rajiva Narayan Sahay's letter and Ganesh Prasad's reply are to be found in the Hindustan Review and Kayastha Samachar, X, 08 1904, pp. 208–9. Questions 1 and 4 related to whether Ganesh Prasad desired to be re-admitted into the Hindu community.Google Scholar

57Indian People, March 16, 1904;Google ScholarHindustan Review and Kayastha Samachar, IX, 03 1904, p. 306;Google ScholarKayastha Samachar, April 1935, p. 14.Google Scholar

58Kayastha Samachar, April 1935, p. 12. He served at Queen's for eight years and then was persuaded by Sir Asutosh Mukerji to resign government service and join the Calcutta University. With the establishment of Benares Hindu University, Madan Mohan Malaviya brought him back to Benares as professor of mathematics and honorary principal of the new institution. He served five years before returning to Calcutta University. He represented Allahabad University on the United Provinces Legislative Council, 1924–27, and was instrumental in the creation of Agra University. (ibid).

59Hindustan Review and Kayastha Samachar, XI, 01 1905, pp. 83–4. (Italics deleted.)Google Scholar

60Ibid., p. 79.

61Ibid., p. 82.

62Ibid., p. 84.

63Hindustan Review, XII, 09 1905, p. 295.Google Scholar

64Quoted in Hindustan Review and Kayastha Samachar, IX, 04 1904, p. 405.Google Scholar

65Amrita Bazar Patrika, October 8, 1907; Lahore Tribune, October 9, 1907.Google Scholar

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67Amrita Bazar Patrika, October 8, 1907.Google Scholar

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See also Nand Kishore Lal, ‘A Plea for Social Reform,’ ibid., XIX, February 1909, pp. 198–200.

70 Quoted in ibid., XVI, October–November 1907, p. 448.

71 Quoted in ibid., September 1907, p. 293.

72India, quoted in ibid., XV, June 1907, p. 641.

73India, quoted in ibid., pp. 641–2.

74 Text of speech reproduced in India and quoted in ibid., XVI, September 1907, p. 296.

75Advocate, quoted in ibid., October–November 1907, p. 442.

76Amrita Bazar Patrika, October 7, 1907.Google Scholar

77Hindustan Review, XVI, 10–11 1907, p. 443.Google Scholar

78 Quoted in ibid., p. 446.

79May 1, 1903.Google Scholar

80May 22, 1903.Google Scholar

81Carroll, Lucy, ‘Caste, Social Change, and the Social Scientist: A Note on the Ahistorical Approach to Indian Social History,’ Journal of Asian Studies, XXXV (1975), 63–84.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

82Chaudhary, Vijay Chandra Prasad, The Creation of Modern Bihar (Darbhanga: Krishna Chandra Chaudhary, 1964), p. 99.Google Scholar

83 See ibid., pp. 49–59. Sinha, Bageshwar Prasad, Sachchidananda Sinha (New Delhi: Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, 1969), pp. 40–4.Google Scholar

84 Letter from Shanker, Gauri, published in Kayastha Messenger and quoted in Hindustan Review, XX, 08 1909, p. 260.Google Scholar

85 While Parmeshwar Lal had earned an M.A., Sachchidananda Sinha, for instance, had received no university degree and Lakshmi Narayan of Lahore had failed the entrance examination more than once before his wealthy father had packed him off to London to be made a barrister. M. K. Gandhi had been sent to England by his ‘despairing family … in the hope that an English legal qualification would salvage some future for this diligent but unsuccessful student who had to leave an Indian college because his English was not fluent enough to follow the lectures.’ (Brown, Judith M., Gandhi's Rise to Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1972), p. 2.)Google Scholar

86 The Beharee, quoted in Hindustan Review, XVI, October–November 1907, p. 450. It appears probable that ‘a family grudge’ against Nand Kishore Lal's family may have also played a part in inspiring the opposition to Parmeshwar Lal. (Letter from Bhawani Sahai, appearing in the Englishman and quoted in ibid., XVII, May–June 1908, p. 532.)

87Indian People, August 7, 1903.Google Scholar

88Lahore, Tribune, December 6, 1907.Google Scholar

89Amrita Bazar Patrika, November 18, 1907; Lahore Tribune, December 6, 1907; letter from Bhawani Sahai (denying the charge) appearing in the Englishman and quoted inGoogle ScholarHindustan Review, XVII, 05–06 1908, p. 532.Google Scholar

90Lahore, Tribune, 11 29, 1907. See also the newspaper report quoted in Hindustan Review, XVI, 10–11 1907, p. 449.Google Scholar The wording of the resolution may have been an attempt to get around the Kayastha Conference resolution passed in 1904 in reference to Ganesh Prasad. By all accounts Parmeshwar Lal was a non-Anglicized Indian in terms of dress and life style; the reference to his failure to adhere to dwij dharm probably derived from his criticism of the caste system and his social reform proposals.

91Newspaper reports quoted in Hindustan Review, XVI, 10–11 1907, pp. 449–50.Google Scholar

92Lahore, Tribune, December 6, 1907. See also Amrita Bazar Patrika, November 18, 1907.Google Scholar

93 Reviewed by Saran, Iswar in Hindustan Review, XIII, 05–06 1906, pp. 464–5.Google Scholar

94Amrita Bazar Patrika, November 19, 1907.Google Scholar

95Ibid., December 3, 1907.

96ibid.

97Newspaper reports quoted in Hindustan Review, XVI, 10–11 1907, p. 450; Amrita Bazar Patrika, October 31, 1907.Google Scholar

98Amrita Bazar Patrika, November 20, 1907.Google Scholar

99Ibid., December 3, 24, 1907.

100E.g., Bengalee quoted in Hindustan Review, XVI, 12 1907, p. 597.Google Scholar

101Amrita Bazar Patrika, 12 24, 1907; Hindustan Review, XVII, Jan. 1908, p. 109.Google Scholar

102The Kayastha Messenger quoted in Hindustan Review, XVI, 10–11 1907, p. 445Google Scholar; ibid., p. 450.

103Newspaper report quoted in Hindustan Review, XVII, 01 1908, p. 109; Amrita Bazar Patrika, December 24, 1907.Google Scholar

104Newspaper report quoted in Hindustan Review, XVII, 01 1908, p. 108. (Italics deleted). Amrita Bazar Patrika, December 24, 1907; Lahore Tribune, December 28, 1907.Google Scholar

105Hindustan Review, XVI, 12 1907, p. 594.Google Scholar

106Ibid., XVII, January 1908, pp. 101–2.

107Ibid., p. 98.

108Ibid., XX, July 1909, p. 130.

109Ibid., August 1909, p. 258.

110Ibid., XXIV, July 1911, p. 140.

111Indian People, July 3, 1903; February 19, 1905.Google Scholar

112Ibid., February 19, 1905.

113Hindustan Review and Kayastha Samachar, X, 08 1904, pp. 203–5.Google Scholar

114Ibid., pp. 205–6. Indian People, August 28, 1904.

115Hindustan Review and Kayastha Samachar, X, 08 1904, p. 206.Google Scholar

116Hindustan Review, XIV, 07 1906, pp. 98–100; October–November 1906, pp. 404–7.Google Scholar

117Ibid., XV, March 1907, pp. 304–5.

118Ibid., XVI, August 1907, pp. 195–6; Indian People, August 15, 25, 1907.

119Hindustan Review and Kayastha Samachar, X, 11–12 1904, p. 591; letters from Kismat Rai Jagdhari in Indian People, February 19, 1905; April 23, 1905.Google Scholar

120Lal, S. M. in Kayastha, II, 08 1896, p. 16.Google Scholar

121Hindustan Review, XVIII, 10 1908, pp. 407–8; XIX, April 1909, pp. 457–9; XXII, August 1910, p. 251; XXIII, February 1911, p. 230.Google Scholar

122Hindustan Review and Kayastha Samachar, IX, 01 1904, pp. 89–90.Google Scholar

123Ibid., X, August 1904, p. 208.

124Indian People, December 15, 1904; January 26, 1905.Google Scholar

125Hindustan Review, XVI, 09 1907, pp. 290–2; Indian People, September 19, 1907.Google Scholar

126Indian Mirror quoted in Lahore Tribune, October 27, 1907; Lahore Tribune, December 6, 1907.Google Scholar

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128Hindustan Review, XVII, 02 1908, p. 219.Google Scholar

129Kayastha, I, 01 1896, p. 2; A Short Account …, p. 7.Google Scholar

130Kayastha Samachar, I, 12 1899, p. 94.Google Scholar

131Hindustan Review, XVII, 01 1908, pp. 108–9.Google Scholar

132Lahore, Tribune, October 10, 1901;Google ScholarHindustan Review and Kayastha Samachar, VII, 01 1903, p. 100.Google Scholar