Published: 11:44 PM, 28 July 2026
Vidyasagar’s Legacy Today: Commemorating His 135th Death Anniversary
Dr. Rashid Askari
How an orthodox high-caste Brahman and Sanskrit pandit wearing a dhoti at knee height and having a traditional tuft of hair on his half-bald head grows into an iconic liberal reformer is no small wonder. How he played the role of a catalyst for change in the 19th century Indian society plagued by dogmatic faiths and superstitious beliefs and became a progenitor of a new Renaissance in British India is really a million-dollar question. Yes, what I mean to say is best epitomized by Ishwar Chandra Bandyopadhyay, who earned the famous appellation “Vidyasagar”. Rising to numerous challenges of his times, he revolutionized British Indian society and replaced its cultural confines and old-fashioned attitudes with his own enlightened ideas and progressive philosophies.
In a tribute to Vidyasagar paid shortly after his death in 1891, Rabindranath wrote, “One wonders how God, in the process of producing forty million Bengalis, produced a man!” A great compliment from Kabiguru, the Master of Poets to ‘Vidyasagar’, the Ocean of Knowledge! A fitting tribute to a worthy man by a worthy man on worthy grounds! It precisely captures the true stature of Vidyasagar. Rabindranath wanted to ascribe far greater importance to him through his unique tribute. As a matter of fact, Rabindranath considered him as one who dared to venture into things that Rabindranath himself did not dare to do although his spirit was willing.
Rabindranath was fully aware of how to transcend the limitations of Bengali life physically and psychologically, but he himself did not try for it. The perennial conflict between what he thought he should do as a human being and what he had to do as a traditional Hindu Bengali wreaked havoc on his psyche. And he had to fall back on numerous compromises. However artistic the compromises may be, they were the expression of the bondage of Bengali life. And this prompted Nirad C. Chaudhuri to dub Tagore as “Atmoghati Rabindranath” (Suicidal Rabindranath). And because of these typical Bengali cultural characteristics, Chaudhuri branded Bengalis too as “Atmoghati Bengali” (Suicidal Bengali). However, Vidyasagar’s position is the opposite of Tagore’s. He was neither a ‘Suicidal Bengali’ nor a ‘Suicidal Vidyasagar’. Though he was born about four decades before Tagore, his contemporary Bengali poet, a progenitor of Bengali modernism, Michael Madhusudan Dutt considered him to be much “ahead of his time.”
Unlike Tagore, Vidyasagar was always tough and uncompromising and refused to conform to old orthodox cultures. He welcomed the joy of a free and vigorous life and fresh unfettered ideas and aspirations. He did not relish the typical Bengali laid-back attitude to life sitting idle at home and whining about the ironies of fate. Rather, he loved to face up to the fact head-on. He was Tagore’s hero. He was critical of Indian people’s retrogressive attitudes and reluctance to change their mindset. In a letter to the secretary of education council of India written on 7 September 1853, Vidyasagar wrote, "It appears to me to be a hopeless task to conciliate the learned folk of India to the acceptance of the advanced sciences of Europe. They are a body of men whose long-standing prejudices are unshakeable. Any idea when brought to their notice, either in the form of a new truth or in the form of expansion of known truths, they will not accept”, (The WEEK, May 16, 2019). Vidyasagar was worlds apart from these learned Indian folks.
Tagore also considered Vidyasagar as the most influential figure of his time who had exerted a strong influence on his later thinkers. In his essay called “Vidyasagarcharitra” Tagore tried to prove how dissimilar Vidyasagar was from his contemporary Bengalis. They were full of faith and promises that rang hollow and took pride in eulogizing their English masters. But Vidyasagar was the very antithesis of what his contemporaries preached and practiced. His actions always spoke louder than his words. He was a highly motivated individual governed by the sense of rationalism, humanism and altruism. Mahatma Gandhi too considered him as “the greatest among… many great men” (The Statesman, September 10, 2020). In 1905, Gandhi wrote in the Indian Opinion, “Vidyasagar was not an ocean of learning alone; he was an ocean of compassion, of generosity, as well as of many other virtues. He was a Hindu and a Brahmin too. But to him a Brahmin, a Sudra Hindu and a Muslim were alike. Michael Madhusudan Dutt once described him as a person with the genius and wisdom of an ancient sage, the energy of an Englishman and the heart of a Bengali mother. “There is none in Bengal,” says Vivekananda, "who has not in some way or other derived benefit from the multifarious activities of Vidyasagar".
Despite his training as a Sanskritist, he embraced the western Enlightenment ideas of secularism, agnosticism, rationalism, and liberty. He hated fundamentalism, orthodoxy, superstition and fanaticism. Objective reality was an important aspect of his materialistic outlook. He included History, Geography, Economics, Mathematics, Astronomy, Natural Science, Physiology, and biographies of famous scientists in the syllabuses schools he founded. He regarded most of the teachings of the ancient Hindu scriptures as incongruous in the context of the modern age. The most striking aspects of his character were his indomitable passion for pursuit and dissemination of knowledge, unswerving reforming zeal, liberal attitudes and what Michael Madhusudan Dutt called “non-spiritual, secular and materialistic humanism” (The Statesman. 10 September 2020).
Ishwar Chandra Bandyopadhyay was given the appellation ‘Vidyasagar’ at Sanskrit College, Calcutta for his insatiable thirst and pursuit of knowledge and deservedly so. Even he received genuine admiration from the spiritual giant Sri Ramakrishna for his great depth of knowledge and wisdom. Vidyasagar made a valuable contribution towards reforming Bengali education. He was a practical educationist, the creator of Bengali prose, a teacher, educator, translator, text-book writer and a radical reformer. His contributions to Calcutta Fort William College and Sanskrit College, vernacular education, mass education, journalism education and women education in the 19th Century Bengal are immensely significant. The main objective of his educational reform, as he himself stated, was to facilitate “the acquirement of the largest store of sound Sanskrit and English learning combined, under the impression that such a training' is likely to produce men who will be highly useful in the work of imbuing our vernacular dialects with the science and civilization of the western world” (Encyclopedia Britannica). This synthesis of the East and the West, of the traditional and the modern values constituted the core of Vidyasagar’s educational philosophy and opened up a brave new world of academic enlightenment in British India and also helped promote the ideals of Bengal/ Indian Renaissance originated by Raja Ram Mohan Roy. Vidyasagar’s philosophy of education still works as the basic principles of our educational policies.
Ram Mohan Roy revolutionized Hindu religion by creating the Brahma Samaj, Michael Madhusudan Dutt revolutionized Bengali literature by introducing the blank verse and Vidyasagar revolutionized the Bengali society by introducing widow remarriage and fighting against child marriage, polygamy, superstition and many other social ills. He championed the cause for women rights in patriarchal society dominated by male chauvinist pigs. The historian Sarmila Bose opined that this Sanskrit scholar battled to end child marriage and high-caste polygamy, and to enable Hindu widows to re-marry. Indian philosopher, yogi, poet and nationalist, Sri Aurobindo considered Vidyasagar as a scholar, sage and intellectual dictator [who] laboured hugely like the Titan he was, to create a new Bengali society. Though Raja Rammohan Roy is considered as the father of Modern India, his attitude towards modernity is essentially different from that of Vidyasagar. While Rammohan’s view was theocentric and rooted in the dissemination of Vedanta, Vidyasagar's was manifestly secular. Indian jurist and former Supreme Court judge Markandey Katju rightly remarks, “Though Raja Ram Mohan Roy is often called the father of the Indian Renaissance, that appellation truly belongs to Vidyasagar.
However, regardless of all debates, Vidyasagar is the lighthouse of the Bengali people and society by all accounts. The social, cultural and educational awakening in the 19th century Bengal is but a tribute to Vidyasagar’s contribution. And his contribution to Bengali society is priceless and timeless. He possesses tremendous relevance to our times. His importance as an educator and social reformer can be viewed in the broader context of South Asia and even beyond. He is pertinent globally in the present social and cultural environment too, when the human situation is deteriorating fast, hatred rules the roost, and culture suffers at the hands of intolerance, sectarianism, fundamentalism, orthodoxy and fanaticism. Vidyasagar’s legacy today stands against ignorance, superstition, and dogmatism and invites people to involve their own reasoning faculty in it.
Dr. Rashid Askari is a bilingual
author, translator and former
Vice Chancellor of Islamic University, Kushtia and President of Vidyasagar Society, Bangladesh. He can be
reached at [email protected]
