The premises that dominate Rammohun’s English writings are precisely those that had earlier dominated the Tuhfat. Still pairing monotheism and social utility,[61] his later publications repetitively champion reason and sensory experience as grounds for discrediting institutionalised traditions and furthering his own brand of sacred writ in a manner wholly conforming to the Tuhfat’s argumentation. Accordingly, while regularly citing Hindu authorities in support of his contentions, he is careful to establish that the doctrines which he associates with these authorities are both rationally sound and socially beneficial:
I agree in the first assertion, that certain writings received by the Hindus as sacred, are the origins of the Hindu law of inheritance, but with this modification, that the writings supposed sacred are only, when consistent with sound reasoning, considered as imperative.[62]
As in the Tuhfat, distortions of scripture are promoted by leaders of religion, who prey on the ignorance of the populace.[63] Institutions sponsored by leaders of religion foster division and war between people, ‘everlasting dissensions’ being occasioned by their conflicting interpretations of original truths.[64] Not only do the leaders of religions remain the first class of deceivers, but the Tuhfat’s positive formula for the attainment of true belief remains the same. Thus the induction from nature whereby the Tuhfat argued that God’s existence was inferrable by everyone is ascribed to Vyasa’s position in the Vedanta, which explains ‘the Supreme Being by his effects and works, without attempting to define his essence’.[65] Accordingly, divine truth is not the preserve of any single creed.[66] That this rules out miracles is presupposed in the selection criteria of the Precepts of Jesus and explicated in the Appeals in their defence: ‘Had his doctrines of themselves made that due impression, the aid of miracles would not have been requisite, nor had recourse to.’[67]
To substantiate his claim that all religions are monotheistic, the later Rammohun returns to the Tuhfat’s empirical premise:
...in China, in Tartary, in Europe and in all other countries, where so many sects exist, all believe the object whom they adore to be the Author and Governor of the Universe; consequently, they must also acknowledge, according to their own faith, that this our worship is their own.[68]
Rationally unsustainable eschatologies are excused in the English writings on grounds that are familiar from the Tuhfat:
The virtues of this class [i.e. peasants or villagers] however rests chiefly upon their primitive simplicity, and a strong religious feeling which leads them to expect reward or punishment for their good or bad conduct, not only in the next world, but like the ancient Jews, also in this.[69]
Similarly, Rammohun’s regard for Christian ethics, the single issue around which the allegation of Western models is strongest, is expressed in the Introduction to the Precepts of Jesus in terms which are pure Tuhfat:
a notion of the existence of a supreme superintending power, the Author and Preserver of this harmonious system ... and a due estimation of that law which teaches that man should do unto others as he would wish to be done by ... The former of these sources of satisfaction, viz, a belief in God, prevails generally; being derived either from tradition and instruction, or from attentive survey of the wonderful skill and contrivance displayed in the works of nature ... [the latter] ... moral doctrines, tending evidently to the maintenance of the peace and harmony of mankind at large, are beyond the reach of metaphysical perversion, and intelligible alike to the learned and to the unlearned.[70]
Where Christianity is concerned, though Rammohun values the connection between religion and good works, he is not prepared to overlook offences for which he criticised other religions in the Tuhfat .[71] Thus he condemns Christian sectarianism as well as its miracles and paradoxes.[72] In common with Muslim theologians, he asserts that Trinitarianism is a later corruption of an originally monotheistic creed, in one place attributing the origin of Islam to this corruption.[73] He compares the Inquisition and witch-burning to sati. In short, he holds Christianity to account on its own terms – a tactic which, as I contended above, was formative for Indian nationalism.
In this light, we need to consider why Rammohun should have chosen Christianity as a vehicle for his ideals in his English writings, especially since Islam was equally compatible with them. He testified to studying Euclid and Aristotle from Arabic sources.[74] Moreover, not only did he dress (see illustration), eat and even, it seems, marry in a Muslim manner.[75] He commended Muslims, along with Sikhs, Christians and the Kabir Panth, as renouncers of idolatry,[76] he characterised the idea that Christ personified the mercy of God as a Muslim concept,[77] he acknowledged the monotheistic purity of Islam,[78] he noted that, in contrast to the divisions within Hinduism, Muslims observed one homogeneous and harmonious social order,[79] and, in evidence to a select committee of the British House of Commons, even suggested that there were more honest Muslim lawyers than Hindu ones.[80] In these connections, though, he was addressing a predominantly English audience, so Christianity was the appropriate strategic idiom for him to adopt. Furthermore, given the effective eclipse of Mughal rule, Islamic discourse was marginal to colonial power. In Muslim dress, Rammohun’s universalism might have appealed to munshis, but no-one else would have noticed. Since this is precisely the fate that had befallen the Tuhfat, it is no accident that he should have started to learn English a short time after its publication.[81]
Raja Rammohun Roy
After a painting by H. P. Briggs, Bristol Museum. Blocks lent by the Prabasi, Calcutta.
One could go on producing examples of the concordance between Rammohun’s English writings and the Tuhfat but it hardly seems necessary. A difficulty in presenting this argument is that a reading of Rammohun’s corpus bears it out so consistently that substantiation becomes a labouring of the obvious. Thus we turn now to the historiography, considering some salient examples of a pervasive cross-factional consensus whereby Rammohun’s career has served to effect a rupture between Indian Islam and the enunciation of Indian nationalism.