Bring down India's first anti-Hindu nationalist poet

On April 10, 1809 a poet was born in Calcutta. One of the poems that he wrote was "To My Native Land"... a poem that was patriotic and dwelt on the lost glory of his land... his native land.

• To My Native Land
• My country! In thy days of glory past
• A beauteous halo circled round thy brow
• and worshipped as a deity thou wast—
• Where is thy glory, where the reverence now?
• Thy eagle pinion is chained down at last,
• And grovelling in the lowly dust art thou,
• Thy minstrel hath no wreath to weave for thee
• Save the sad story of thy misery!
• Well — let me dive into the depths of time
• And bring from out the ages, that have rolled
• A few small fragments of these wrecks sublime
• Which human eye may never more behold
• And let the guerdon of my labour be,
• My fallen country! One kind wish for thee!

He was what you would call today a true patriot... right? WRONG, because there were things that he also did that were grossly unpatriotic.

Firstly, he was not even truly Indian – he was an Anglo for Christ’s sake – his mother was ENGLISH! And secondly, he was an ATHEIST! He had no god, not even the Christian one, he worshipped reason – how unreasonable of him.

The signs of his mischievous nature were apparent from very early on... At the teenage - age of 17 - he got himself appointed, through merit, as a teacher of English literature and history at the Hindu College in Calcutta. And then began what some of his contemporaries reportedly termed, a brilliant teaching spree, most probably aimed at influencing his students and winning their loyalty. He encouraged students to read Thomas Paine's "Rights of Man" and other free-thinking texts. He infused in his students the spirit of free expression, the yearning for knowledge and a passion to live up to their identity, while questioning irrational religious and cultural practices.

Sounds familiar does it not? He must have been what we call a liberalist today.

He wrote of his students, who were mostly in his own age group, “Expanding like the petals of young flowers, I watch the gentle opening of your minds..."

His interactions with students created a sensation at Hindu College, he organised debates where ideas and social norms were freely debated. His students got inspired and excited by the spirit of free thought and revolt against the existing social and religious structure of the Hindu society. He constantly encouraged his students to question and not to accept anything blindly. His activities must have been aimed at bringing about an intellectual revolution. His students began to openly drink wine and eat beef as a sign of protest against closed minds.

If refrigerators had been available in the 1820s, there was sure to have been beef in it, but refrigeration or no refrigeration, thankfully even in those days there were no dearth of conscientious citizens who would not allow such goings on. Orthodox Hindu parents forced him to resign from his post at Hindu College in 1831. Good riddance then that he died of cholera within a few months... there be no vengeance swifter than that of the wrath of gods scorned. But it took many, many years to remove his influence from the land and people he loved. Long after his death, his former students, who came to be known as "Young Bengal", became prominent in social reform, law, and journalism. It was with some difficulty that the erosion of his ideals now seems to be peaking.

This man... this poet who died at the age of 22, wrote nationalistic poetry that was openly rebellious, some of his lines can sound true even two centuries later...

• "Oh! when our country writhes in galling chains
• When her proud masters scourge her like a dog;
• If her wild cry be borne upon the gale,
• Our bosoms to the melancholy sound
• Should swell, and we should rush to her relief,
• Like some, at an unhappy parent's wail!
• And when we know the flash of patriot swords
• Is unto spirits longing to be free,
• Like Hope'e returning light; we should not pause
• Till every tyrant dread our feet, or till we find
• Graves... "

(Excerpt from The Golden Vase)

Many believe that that young man, Henry Louis Vivian Derozio, from 200 years ago was perhaps the first nationalist poet of modern India... but that can’t be true because he ate beef and so did his students.

May he not rest in peace, for this land that he cried for would not cry for him anymore. How poignant are these lines that he wrote - "He who will not reason is a bigot, he who cannot reason is a fool, and he who does not reason is a slave."