Day 36 – Q 1.What was the Young Bengal Movement? What were its objectives?
1. What was the Young Bengal Movement? What were its objectives?
युवा बंगाल आंदोलन क्या था? इसके उद्देश्य क्या थे?
Approach:
- Introduction- About Young Bengal Movement
- Its objectives
- Analysis- Criticism and success
- Conclusion
Introduction:
The Young Bengal movement was a group of radical Bengali free thinkers emerging from Hindu College, Calcutta. They were also known as Derozians, after their firebrand teacher at Hindu College, Henry Louis Vivian Derozio.
Ideology:
- The Young Bengals were inspired and excited by the spirit of free thought and revolt against the existing social and religious structure of Hindu society.
- Young Bengal followed classical economics, and was composed of free traders who took inspiration from Jeremy Bentham, Adam Smith, and David Ricardo.
- The movement was inspired by French revolution.
Objectives:
- They wanted to promote radical ideas through teachings and by organizing debates and discussions on Literature, History, Philosophy and Science.
- The basic motto of Derozio was to spread intellectual revolution among young students. He was a great propounder of liberal thinking.
- Curbing social evils like child marriage, child labour, sati etc. Promoting women education.
- Spreading ideas of French revolution like liberty, fraternity and equality.
- They wanted to promote value based and rational thinking through scientific based knowledge rather than rote learning.
Analysis:
The Derozians failed to have a long term impact.
- Derozio was removed from the Hindu college in 1831 because of radicalism.
- The main reason for their limited success was social conditions prevailing at that time which were not ripe for adoption of radical ideas.
- Further they lacked to link masses like peasant cause.
Conclusion:
Despite the failures, the movement was not a failure in totality. Derozian’s ideas had a profound influence on the social movement that came to be known as the Bengal Renaissance in the early 19th century Bengal.
Best answer: Shweta
