DEROZIO AND DEROZIAN’S

Derozio a young brilliant anglo-indian youth of Calcutta joined the Hindu College as a teacher.He electrified the students during his short and memorable stay,with his teachings based on rationalism and it revolutionised their ideas.He encouraged free thinking and urged on his students to remove all obstacles that lay on the path of freedomto pursue the truth and to evolve a way of life within a short time to leave the college as the Orthodox opinion demanded his blood. He was dismissed from his service and died a premature death but the impressins he left on the minds of his students created upsurge among themwhich helped in starting a new atmosphere in bourgeois society.

                                                                           Derozio’s band of students were later known as ‘YOUNG BENGAL’ but they took pride in styling themselves as ‘DEROZIANS’.During the whole period of ‘BENGAL RENAISSANCE’ they were the only men who developed a secular outlook,free of any religious bias.Materialistic philosophy,Bentham’s teachings and Thomas Paine’s ‘AGE OF REASON’ created a deep impression in them.Dr. Alexander Buff said at that time one shipment alone brought one thousand copies of ‘AGE OF REASON’ to Calcutta.They were first sold at one rupee per copy but its price went up as its price increased.Within a short period cheap editions of all the writings of Thomas Paine’s were published.

                                                It is a fact that many of them revolted against Orthodox and superstitious Hindu religious practices and indulged in taking wine and prohibited food openly.It has been said that Rammohun Roy and the Young Bengal,both tried to crave out a new life for the people and bright future for the land they lived in.But Rammohun had sound grounding in hindu philosophy and hindu traditons which produced a balanced synthesis in them,while the Derozian’s were a wonderful combinations of revolutionary radicalism,humanisn,rationalism and also scepticism.They therefore broke a way from the old mornings a moved between two worlds, one dead and another full of dazzling possibilities.

                        Their critics say that they were confused between the fundamentals and externals and so some of them indulged in excess and embraced christianity also.But the critics do not appear to be either impartial or well founded.The Derozian’s may be termed as ‘Radicals’ while Rammohun’s disciples were ‘Moderates’.But both had great faiths in the “benefits” of British rule.

                                                If Renaissance was something that gave regeneration,these stalwarts  of ‘Young Bengal’ fought courageously to regenerate the society as well as the prevailing ideas.They believed that unless old traditions and beliefs could be pulled down new ideas could not be built up.They, therefore, invoked new ways of life and had the courage to follow them with determination and vigour.There might have been excesses and deviations but the revolutionary struggle that they waged against the old-superstitious, socio-religious beliefs and practices had no parallel in contemporary history.They should therefore be regarded as high priests of the social upsurge that came over urban Bengal.