The case of the lost rebels

AN INTELLECTUAL HISTORY

- Uttaran Das Gupta

India's First Radicals

In 1838, a scandal broke out in the then princely state of Burdwan (now, Bardhaman in West Bengal) when Basantakumari, one of the widows of the deceased king Tejchandra, eloped with Dakshinaranjan Mukhopadhyay, a Calcuttabased lawyer. Basantakumari had hired Dakshinaranjan to represent her in a property dispute. When the two of later married, they challenged multiple social and religious taboos.

Hindu widows getting married was almost unheard of in the 1830s; it would find legal sanction only in 1856, under the Hindu Widows’ Remarriage Act of the British East India Company. The sole credit for this reform is often assigned to Ishwar Chandra “Vidyasagar”, while Dakshinaranjan and his comrades in the radical Young Bengal party, are ignored at best.

“The tendency to deify Vidyasagar and vilify Young Bengal has little basis in history,” writes Rosinka Chaudhuri, in her latest book,