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On the Origins of the Indian National Congress: A Case Study of Cross-Cultural SynthesisAuthor(s): W. Travis Hanes IIISource: Journal of World History, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Spring, 1993), pp. 69-98Published by: University of Hawai'i PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20078547Accessed: 21/05/2010 13:52

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On the Origins of the Indian National

Congress: A Case Study of Cross-Cultural Synthesis*

W. TRAVIS HANES III

Southwestern University

We must at present do our best to form a class who may be

interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and color, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect.

Thomas Babington Macaulay, Minute on Indian Education

The

concept of cultural interaction as a major force in the

emergence of a modern global civilization should by now be axiomatic. The free flow of ideas across cultural and geographic boundaries has long been recognized as a fundamental pattern of

world history, and a significant factor in the growth and expan sion of "civilization." The spectacular expansion of Europe after the fifteenth century greatly accelerated this process and has led to even more extreme examples of cultural cross-fertilization. The results have often seemed strange, even bizarre, to the original cultures. One thinks of the curious transformation of Christianity and Confucianism that resulted in the Taiping movement of the

early nineteenth century in China?a consequence (at least in

part) of European infiltration of the Manchu empire. Or again, the

Ethiopian, African Methodist Episcopal, and Watch Tower reli

gious movements in southern Africa, in which Christian and

* I am belatedly indebted to Professor Gail Minault of the University of Texas,

who encouraged me to pursue the idea for this article more than a decade ago.

Journal of World History, Vol. 4, No. 1 ? 1993 by University of Hawaii Press

69

7o JOURNAL OF WORLD HISTORY, SPRING 1993

indigenous traditions were combined within a framework of Afri can resistance to European dominance. Nor has the process been confined to the obvious realm of orthodox missionary activity. Freemasonry, a European esoteric movement of considerable syn cretic capacity with an underlying doctrine that draws on both Christian and non-Christian traditions, has played a role in the

emergence of modern nationalist elites in countries like Iran and

Turkey. As the last two examples might suggest, with the extension of

direct European control over so much of the non-European world in the past two and a half centuries, the process of cultural inter

action has taken on an increasingly significant political dimen sion. Consequently, perhaps the most significant theme of world

history in the modern era has been the emergence of nonwestern

nationalism and modern state-building as a response to European

imperialism. The synthetic arguments of Ronald Robinson and John Gallagher, combining as they do various strands of diplo

matic, strategic, and economic interpretations, have provided a

useful theory with which to evaluate the complexities of the impe rialist-nationalist equation. At the heart of this approach lies

Robinson's concept of "collaboration," the mechanism by which

imperialists sought to extend their control and extract power from "colonial" territories as cheaply as possible, and by which

indigenous "collaborators" made the best bargains possible with

imperial overlords in pursuit of their own goals of individual or

group interest. Such collaborators, Robinson suggests, did not

"betray" their own people, but rather through collaboration

gained enough knowledge and power eventually to turn the tables on the imperialists. So far, however, the argument has been cast

solely in political and economic terms, with little appreciation of

the intellectual and cultural implications. Yet even at such practi cal levels the collaborative process was a complex one, often

involving a mingling of European and indigenous cultural and

intellectual traditions and the emergence of new, syncretic politi cal cultures and elites.1

1 For the Robinson and Gallagher thesis as it bears upon this discussion, see

especially Robinson's seminal article, "Non-European Foundations of European

Imperialism: Sketch for a Theory of Collaboration," in Edward R. J. Owen and Bob

Sutcliffe, eds., Studies in the Theory of Imperialism (London, 1972). Useful sources

for the themes of this essay are Anil Seal, The Emergence of Indian Nationalism

(Cambridge, 1968); T. R. McLane, Indian Nationalism and the Early Congress (Princeton, 1977); Briton Martin, New India: 1885 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1969);

Hanes: Origins of the Indian National Congress 71

This article is designed as a case study to explore the particu lar process of intellectual and cultural synthesis that resulted in

the formation of the Indian National Congress, one of the earliest

and most successful non-European nationalist movements. Such a study, by identifying the basic elements of the Indian case, may

point the way toward future investigations into processes of cul

tural syncretism that have provided the bases for other nonwest

ern nationalist movements. Such studies in turn may provide sufficient grounds for developing a larger theory of how cross-cul

tural developments arising from the imposition of colonial rule

have been crucial to the emergence of modern indigenous nation

alisms. They may also reveal the extent to which such national

isms are neither wholly indigenous nor wholly European, but

reflect instead the emergence of new syncretizing elites whose

principal function has been to mediate between the competing world views of "modernist" imperialists and "traditionalist" colo

nial peoples. The focal point of this study is the role of the western-educated

Indian (primarily Hindu) elite that emerged in the nineteenth cen

tury as collaborators of the British raj, and specifically their rela

tionship with three movements critical to the syncretic process in

India: the Brahmo Samaj, the Arya Samaj, and the Theosophical

Society. The first two developed principally as indigenous Hindu

responses to the religious and cultural impact of British rule in

the subcontinent; the latter was of western origin, imported to

India in 1879. Although the Brahmo and Arya Samajes tried in dif

ferent ways to appeal to western-educated Hindus by advocating the reform of Indian culture and its synthesis with western educa

tion, neither was able adequately to integrate the two and at the same time to provide western-educated Indians with the self-con

fidence and the necessary organizational structure for political

development. The Theosophical Society provided both, and at the same time demonstrated that cultural synthesis was a two-way street by attracting prominent Europeans as well as western-edu

and S. R. Mehrotra, The Emergence of the Indian National Congress (Delhi, 1971). See also R. C. Majumdar, History of the Freedom Movement in India (Calcutta,

1962); Tara Chand, History of the Freedom Movement in India, 4 vols. (New Delhi,

1961-67), vol. 2; R. Suntharalingham, Indian Nationalism: An Historical Analysis (New Delhi, 1983); Girija K. Mookerjee, History of Indian National Congress (1832

1947) (Meerut and Delhi, 1974); Jim Masselos, Indian Nationalism: An History (New Delhi, 1985); and the Government of India, Source Material for a History of the Free

dom Movement in India, vol. 2 (Bombay, 1958).

72 JOURNAL OF WORLD HISTORY, SPRING I993

cated Indians. Straddling the religious and intellectual gulf sepa

rating Hindus, Buddhists, Parsees, Sikhs, Christians, and even some Muslims, the Theosophical Society brought together a re

markable group of Indians and Europeans who would go on to

launch the Indian National Congress, the first all-India national ist political movement.

The Dilemma of the Western-Educated Elite in India

Under early nineteenth-century administrators, such as Thomas

Babington Macaulay, the British in India deliberately created a

class of western-educated Hindus, who would act as an intermedi

ary cadre of civil servants between the white raj and the Indian masses. After the trauma of the Indian Mutiny of 1857, however,

these western-educated Indians fell under suspicion in the eyes of the British authorities. Their prospects were considerably less

ened, as was their status in the official social hierarchy of the raj. Having been trained as the preeminent collaborators, western

educated Indians were nevertheless cast adrift by their imperial overlords, condemned to a perpetual twilight existence between two worlds, no longer wholly Indian nor yet fully British. As a

consequence, in the latter half of the nineteenth century this

small, western-educated elite confronted a crisis of identity, brought on by the strains of reconciling the heritage and limita tions of their birth with those of their education and training.

In the course of producing the new class of "brown English men," the British in India had set in motion a process of cultural

interaction that involved several stages. First, western-educated

Indians were largely subject to disengagement or detachment from their traditional society and culture. In the aftermath of the

Enlightenment, Western values had grown increasingly secular and materialistic. Under the influence of an emerging "scientific"

paradigm, the European world view had become predominantly rational and mechanistic. Such a conception of reality was com

pletely at odds with the traditional "spiritual" paradigm that pre vailed in India. Yet to assimilate their education successfully, the new Indian elite had to accept, at least in some fashion, the Euro

pean world view. This in turn meant largely rejecting their own

heritage as "superstitious" and "unenlightened." Second, the

increasing racial discrimination that marked British rule in India after the Mutiny also meant that western-educated Indians were

not accepted as full members of British or European society. In


short, having been forced to give up their traditional cultural

identity, they were not allowed to replace it with the same cul

tural identity that had provided the foundation for their educa

tion.

Prevented from returning to a traditional Indian identity by the world view they had imbibed with their education, and

equally prevented from being fully assimilated into British soci

ety by their heritage and the color of their skins, western-edu

cated Indians could only resolve their dilemma by achieving some

sort of synthesis between the two extremes. This effort at synthe sis marked the third and most complex stage of the process of cul

tural interaction. Fitting in well with a long-standing Indian tradi

tion of religious reform movements, this stage initially involved

indigenous efforts to reconcile traditional Hindu culture with the most striking features of the new Western culture?science and

technology. As the expectations raised by their education contin

ued to be denied by the British, however, in the best traditions of

their intellectual training, western-educated Hindus also increas

ingly viewed cultural and intellectual synthesis in political terms.

The result was the emergence in the 1880s of a nascent nationalist movement that strove not for revolution nor even for indepen dence from the British, but simply for adequate reforms that

would permit western-educated Indians to take what they re

garded as their rightful place, under the raj, in the government of

their country. In short, Indian nationalism initially represented a

kind of political attempt at cultural reconciliation. In accepting the beneficence and superiority of the British

educational system, western-educated Indians came to regard themselves as the natural indigenous leaders and spokesmen of

India. If British methods were superior, then they, as the only

indigenous practitioners of those methods, must also be superior. Predictably, they began to seek appropriate outlets for their tal ents and training. Yet even with a western education, the field of

professional opportunities in India for holders of advanced de

grees was extremely limited. Crucially, the most important pro fession?as well as the most potentially lucrative?open to West

ern-educated Indians was the law.2

2 The most firmly entrenched of the indigenous professions was medicine. Western medical practice, however, to which the western-educated elite would have had access, gained comparatively few Indian adherents, and Europeans in India would have been loath to patronize an Indian physician. As for traditional

74 JOURNAL OF WORLD HISTORY, SPRING 1993

Not only did the majority of western-educated Indians pursue law as a career, but many even went to England for their training.

Whether in India or in Britain, an education in English law inevi

tably meant exposure to the principles of the English constitu tion. By the mid-nineteenth century, English constitutional law and its history were already imbued with a mythology of the

advance and triumph of liberty over bondage, justice over tyr anny. To the western-educated Indian such a philosophy promised great things. "When in the inscrutable dispensations of Provi

dence, India was assigned to the care of England," wrote one

English-trained lawyer, Pherozeshah Mehta, "she decided that India was to be governed on the principles of justice, equality, and

righteousness without distinctions of color, caste, or creed." It was but a short step to the application of English legal principles to political reform. Dadabhai Naoroji, a major figure in early Indian nationalism who gave up a career in mathematics to

become a Liberal member of the British Parliament, wrote early in his career, "We have only to persevere, and I am satisfied that

the English are both willing and desirous to do India justice." Years later, in the face of continuing British intransigence, he

reiterated that through the law his own generation of western

educated Indians "had their eyes first opened to the high charac ter of British institutions and they have become attached to them.

They cannot now readily throw aside their first love." Thus the

early leadership of western-educated Indian politicians found

themselves oriented completely toward ideals propagated by the

British themselves.3

The product of western education and indoctrination, the new

elite could only find a natural expression for their talents in West ern institutions, and in India this meant above all the government of India itself. As they sought fuller participation in the govern

medicine, this was primarily Ayurvedic, and required a commitment to traditional Hindu customs and beliefs. Prospects in the engineering field were even worse.

The (British) Government of India was the principal employer, and the major source of engineers was Thomason College in the Northwestern Provinces, where

Anglo-Indians held a virtual monopoly over the department. For the development of Indian professional opportunities see Seal, Emergence, and B. T. McCully, English Education and the Origins of Indian Nationalism (Gloucester, Mass., 1966). The term Anglo-Indian has several meanings; throughout this paper I have used its

nineteenth-century sense to refer to those British who made their lives and careers

in India. 3 Mehta is quoted in Majumdar, History, p. 381; Dadabhai Naoroji is quoted in

Seal, Emergence, p. 254.


ment, however, they soon ran up against two major elements of

resistance: the color bar that separated British rulers from the

ruled, and the existence of alternative collaborators for the raj, in the persons of traditional religious leaders and the Indian

princes. The traditional Indian aristocracy, and religious leaders in particular, provided a constant reminder to western-educated

Indians that there were those with a greater "cultural legitimacy" who might more plausibly claim to speak for the vast majority of

Indians untouched by western values and training. Moreover, as the politically articulate western-educated elite increasingly

sought to break the British monopoly of power, the government itself supported the Indian aristocracy as a counterbalance to

"half-educated" Indians in the administration of the country. The

British sahib-logs much preferred traditional "national leaders," with whom they might hunt a tiger, to the western-educated

arrivistes who had the temerity to quote Blackstone's Commenta

ries and Magna Carta to them.4

The new Indian elites thus found themselves in a dilemma.

Their education and intellectual modes of personal self-identifica tion denigrated the cultural inheritance that the British imperial ists now identified as essential to any claims of indigenous leader

ship. Moreover, in adopting what was virtually a new cultural

identity, many had cut themselves adrift from those bases of

Indian support on which a successful indigenous nationalist movement would have to depend. Traditional caste laws, for

example, prohibited Hindus from crossing the sea or from eating with people outside their caste. Those who opted for educational

opportunities in British schools therefore had to break caste, sep

arating themselves from their traditional society, often even from their families, until elaborate rites of purification had been per formed?rites that seemed absurd according to the Western para

digm they had learned in school. At the same time, government

policy prevented them from developing a professional identity based on their education by restricting career prospects. Many western-educated Indians responded to both problems, attempt

ing to resolve their cultural identity crisis through Hindu reform

movements, and their career dilemma through political reform movements. Yet with their new Western perspective, they also

began to think about India as the British themselves did?not as a

4 For British officials' attitudes, see especially Seal, Emergence, p. 134.


hodge-podge of separate provinces and local states, but as a sin

gle, vast imperial entity. Cultural and political movements that

remained strictly provincial would no longer satisfy their needs:

through education, their vision had been raised to the all-India

level.

Beginnings of Synthesis: The Brahmo Samaj in Bengal

Indian cultural and religious movements provided the back

ground against which the politicization of the western-educated

Indian elite took shape. By the mid-nineteenth century, the chal

lenge of both Christianity, as preached by increasing numbers of

missionaries, and the scientific paradigm embodied in Western

education had forced indigenous Indian intellectual leaders to

reexamine the bases of their traditional modes of thought. Many

interpreted the triumph of British imperialism throughout the

subcontinent as a failure of indigenous institutions, particularly Hinduism, to provide the kind of moral as well as technical base

necessary for Indian unity against imperial aggression. Given the

West's technological superiority, there were only two possible solutions if they were to regain control over their own destinies:

they could either repudiate their indigenous heritage and adopt Western culture wholesale, or they could try to absorb Western

ideas and technology without losing India's unique identity.

Unwilling to repudiate their own culture, most opted for the lat ter course. The result was the emergence of reform movements

designed to purge Indian civilization of its "backwards," "super stitious" elements and to find in Hinduism a fundamental set of

moral and philosophical principles that would not be inconsistent

with Western science and technology.5 That such a cultural synthesis could be achieved without los

ing touch with the indigenous Indian inheritance was the primary

message of the Bengali Hindu reformer, Raja Rammohun Roy.

Roy was one of the most important Hindu reformers of the early nineteenth century. Heavily influenced by Unitarianism, he iden

5 On Rammohun Roy and the Brahmo Samaj, see especially David Kopf, The

Brahmo Samaj (Princeton, 1979). Reform movements have a long history in Hindu

ism, from the emergence of the forest schools and the Upanishads to the present. What was distinctive about those of the nineteenth century was precisely their

effort to assimilate Western ideas by purifying the religion of its "superstitious"

elements, as embodied in the Puranas.


tified himself as a "universalist." His primary interest was in

comparative religions, and especially in practical efforts to iden

tify their commonalities through a process of synthesis. Roy believed that Hinduism, at least in its original Vedic form, was

uncompromisingly monotheistic. Puranic, or popular, Hinduism he believed to be a perversion of the original religion, which he aimed to restore to its original purity. Consequently, he preached a return to the Vedanta in particular as the true foundation of

Hinduism. Since he was a universalist, however, Roy's efforts to reform Hinduism were neither solely theological nor even predi cated on a conception of Vedantic Hinduism itself as the ultimate

religious expression of humanity. Just as the universalism of Uni tarianism appealed to Roy, so too did its emphasis on social reform. During the 1820s, at a time when Unitarians focused on the plight of industrial workers in England, Rammohun Roy took

up the cause of Indian women in Bengal. He preached the aboli tion of sati and child marriage, and he condemned the traditional bans on remarriage of widows. To carry out his program, in 1828

Roy founded the Brahmo Sabha in Calcutta.6 Rammohun Roy's reforms were expressions of his own ration

alism, the fruits of his labor to achieve a religious and cultural

synthesis of East and West. Although he fully endorsed Western education as a move toward this synthesis, Roy was not an Angli cist like Macaulay. He never assumed the superiority of the West.

Both his ideas and their presentation reflected the influence of the Orientalists, who preferred to see India retain its unique cul tural identity and evolve along its own path of development. Indeed, he analytically and systematically defended the theology contained in the Vedas against all Christian attacks. Focusing on the principle of the unity of God, in his "Reply to Certain Queries

Directed Against the Vedanta" Roy demonstrated not only that the doctrine existed in the Vedas, but also that its presentation in the Hindu scriptures was actually superior to that of the Bible. The

Bible, he argued, was prone to anthropomorphism?in his view a

particularly egregious error for self-proclaimed monotheists like Christians and Jews to make. Nor did he appreciate the nuances of Trinitarian doctrine. Thus Roy used the methods of the Orien talists to uphold the legitimacy of "true" or "pure" Hinduism,

6 Ibid., especially pp. 12-13; see also Tara Chand, History, pp. 180-81.


while at the same time calling for an infusion of Western modern

ism to reform the corrupt popular version.7

After Rammohun Roy's death in 1833, the Brahmo movement

lost touch with the wider world of Unitarianism. Under Roy's suc

cessor, Ram Chandra Vidyabagish, the Brahmo Sabha backed

away from the more universal implications of the founder's

thought; until 1843 it essentially became simply another Hindu

sect preaching the "purification" of the religion by a return to the

original, unadulterated Vedic doctrines. In that year, however, Debendranath Tagore (father of the Indian nationalist, Rabin

dranath Tagore) became the guiding force of the movement, which

he renamed the Brahmo Samaj. Tagore's principal goal was to

revitalize Brahmoism as a vehicle for theological and social

renewal. Although Tagore reinstated some of Roy's universalism, in the face of increasing Christian propaganda he also reasserted

both the cultural and theological primacy of Vedantic Hinduism.

Where Rammohun Roy had advocated cultural as well as reli

gious synthesis, Tagore presented Brahmoism as an indigenous cultural alternative to both "superstitious," "unenlightened" Pu

ranic Hinduism and Unitarian and Trinitarian forms of Christi

anity.8

Tagore used the Brahmo Samaj as a religious and cultural

base, but in fact he was primarily a social reformer. Through the

Tattvabodhini Sabha, a group organized before his revitalization

of the Brahmo Sabha, he had attracted progressives of all types, men like Akkhoy Kumar Dutt, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Har

ish Chandra Mukerji, and Rajendra Lai Mitra. Many of these

adherents had little or no interest in religion, being almost exclu

sively interested in social reform; all were members of the west

ern-educated elite. Yet despite his efforts at general Hindu

reform, Tagore never carried the message of the Brahmo Samaj

beyond the boundaries of Bengal. The heart of the movement

remained Calcutta, and though both the Brahmo Samaj and the

Tattvabodhini Sabha were decisively influential in the develop ment of western-educated Bengali Hindus, the so-called bhadra

lok, they had little impact on the rest of the western-educated

Indian elite.

7 Ibid. The following sections are drawn from Kopf, The Brahmo Samaj, unless

otherwise specified. 8 K. W. Jones, Arya Dharm (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1976).


In 1855, the arrival in Calcutta of an American Unitarian mis

sionary, Charles Dall, revived much of the earlier interest in Uni

tarianism among some members of the Brahmo Samaj. Tagore and Dall never achieved a very friendly relationship, but the

Unitarian minister did befriend Keshub Chandra Sen, one of the

most popular and influential younger Brahmos. Sen became the

leading proponent of Unitarian precepts within the movement.

As Tagore increasingly emphasized his commitment to Hindu

culture, and Sen pursued Unitarian universalism, a split be came inevitable. In 1866 Sen and his followers broke with the

original movement to establish the Brahmo Samaj of India, com

mitting themselves for the first time to creating an all-India move

ment.

The message of the new Brahmo Samaj of India was that Truth was to be found in all religions and philosophies, though never in a pure form. Although Sen's path did lead to an all-India evangel ism, by deemphasizing the Hindu component and overemphasiz

ing the Unitarian the new organization lost much of its cultural

legitimacy in the eyes of the western-educated elite. Its universal ism undermined its usefulness as a viable cultural vehicle for

reassimilating the western-educated elite with their indigenous

heritage. Indeed, by 1878 Sen had traveled so far toward his Naba

Vidhan, or New Dispensation, that he seemed beyond the pale of

both Hinduism and Unitarianism?a remarkable feat given the

all-encompassing nature of both. Thus, while the Adi Brahmo

Samaj of Debendranath Tagore pursued a course of cultural nationalism effectively confined to Calcutta and Bengal, the

Brahmo Samaj of India carried a message of cultural antina

tionalism to the rest of India. Both movements profoundly affected the cultural identity of the western-educated Hindu

elite; neither provided a viable cultural base on which an all-India

political expression for that elite might develop. The factional ism and fragmentation that weakened the Brahmo movement

and prevented its emergence as the principal cultural foun

dation of western-educated Indians became especially appar ent in the Punjab in the 1870s, when it was challenged by yet another reform movement, the Arya Samaj of Dayananda Sara swat i.9

9 On developments in the Punjab, see Seal, Emergence, chap. i.

8o JOURNAL OF WORLD HISTORY, SPRING I993

Efforts at Synthesis in the Punjab: The Case of the Arya Samaj

The case of the Arya Samaj and Hindu reform in the Punjab pro vides a useful contrast with Brahmoism in Bengal. As one of the

first points of contact between Western and Indian cultures,

Bengal had seen the emergence of a western-educated Indian

elite, the bhadralok, much earlier and much faster than the rest of

India. Consequently, by the 1870s Bengali responses to Western

challenges were far advanced along the road of cultural reform

and synthesis. In the Punjab, on the other hand, British influence

and cultural interaction with Hinduism were complicated by two

factors: first, the existence of a Muslim majority in the province; and second, the initial importation of western-educated Bengali administrators to help establish British rule. While Hindu-Mus

lim rivalry tended to dilute reformist energies, the existence of an

already educated administrative class delayed the development of

a western-educated Punjabi group. Not until the late 1870s and

early 1880s did the first generation of western-educated Punjabis

begin to emerge from the colleges. At the same time, however, due

to their late appearance, these western-educated Punjabis were

less detached and isolated from their cultural heritage than their

Bengali counterparts. Moreover, the ever-present Muslim chal

lenge reinforced their Hindu identity. Consequently, the new Pun

jabi Hindu elite repudiated the eclectic approach of Brahmoism,

declaring it a non-Hindu movement, and flocked instead to

Saraswati and the Arya Samaj: under Saraswati's influence, the

movement for reform in the Punjab remained firmly within the

bounds of traditional Hinduism.10

Dayananda Saraswati is rightly recognized as the greatest Pun

jabi Hindu reformer of the nineteenth century, but he was not in

fact a Punjabi by birth. He was born the son of a Shaivite Brahmin

in the state of Gujarat in 1824. Like Rammohun Roy, he early

rejected many aspects of orthodox Hinduism, and at the age of

twenty-one he left his home and family to become sannyasi, a spir itual mendicant. After wandering the roads of India for nearly fif

teen years, in i860 he became a follower of Swami Virajanand Saraswati, a Punjabi ascetic. Under his guidance, Dayananda soon

10 For Dayananda Saraswati, in addition to Jones, see especially J. T. F. Jor

dens, Dayananda Sarasvati (Oxford, 1978). It should also be noted that differences

between Brahmoism and Aryanism reflected not only a geographic distance but

also a temporal one?the former emerged before the Mutiny, the latter after it.


developed the basis and goals of his future teaching. Like many reformers before him, he became convinced that true Hinduism, the Hinduism of the Vedas, had been corrupted by "false texts," such as the Puranas. His goal was a complete Hindu reform

through a return to the pure Aryan faith of the Vedas. This did not

mean, however, that he rejected all elements of Western culture?

quite the contrary. Ironically, perhaps, Dayananda owed much of

his success to his greatest rival, the Brahmo Samaj.

Although in the end Brahmoism in the Punjab found support

only among the Bengali immigrants of the province's cities, the

movement did act as a catalyst for reform in the province. In par

ticular, it seems to have influenced Dayananda Saraswati's meth

ods, if not his overall theology. At first, Dayananda tried to reform

Hinduism from the top down. He retained the dress and manners

of the sannyasi and concentrated almost exclusively on convert

ing his fellow Brahmins. In 1872, however, he accepted an invita

tion from Debendranath Tagore to visit the leaders of the Brahmo

Samaj in Calcutta. The visit resulted in a complete transforma

tion of his external methods: he adopted contemporary dress,

exchanged Sanskrit for Hindi, and aimed his message at educated

non-Brahmin Hindus. In 1875, he formed the first Arya Samaj in

Bombay, but it was not a success. In 1877, after visiting Delhi for

the great Durbar proclaiming Victoria as empress of India, he was

invited by several Punjabi devotees to visit Lahore, where his lec

tures soon created a sensation. He attacked idol worship, child

marriage, traditional death rites, and even food prohibitions. Par

ticularly controversial was his assertion of Vedic infallibility. In

July 1877 the Lahore branch of the Arya Samaj held its first offi

cial meeting, and the movement was fully under way. In addition to emphasizing purification of the Hindu religion

on "Aryan" (by which Saraswati meant Vedic) principles, the Arya

Samaj explicitly called for social action:

The primary aim of the Aryasamaj is to do good to mankind, i.e. to ameliorate the physical, spiritual, and social condition of all men.

No one ought to remain satisfied with his own welfare. The welfare of the individual should be regarded as included in the welfare of all.

Even more important, the new society increasingly emphasized

application of modern scientific insights to reaffirm the "puri fied," "original" Hinduism:


Thus the highest speculations of modern science dovetail very

wonderfully with the ancient Aryan belief which asserted that all

[the] universe has come into existence out of one primal element, the akas. True, this theory of our ancient rishis when first known to the western world was ridiculed and set down as another exam

ple of the diseased imagination of the Asiatics. But the arguments . . . show that far from being a subject of contempt, this ancient

theory of evolution of matter is amply justified by the researches of modern science.

The Arya Samaj thus presented western-educated Punjabi Hindus

with a culturally legitimate modern ideology that would not nec

essarily alienate them from their religion or families. Where

Brahmoism had led the bhadralok further away from even a

reformed Hinduism, in its effort to reconcile Hindu culture with

Western training, "Aryanism" provided an alternative solution: "a

chance to acquire English education without fear of conversion, of the loss of one's soul to Christianity or godless materialism."11

Dayananda Saraswati's death in 1883 marked a transition in the movement he had founded. As a memorial to their founder, the

various branches of the Arya Samaj decided to establish an educa

tional program of their own designed to provide an English educa tion as well as a firm grounding in the tenets of "Aryan" Hindu ism and associated subjects. In the process, however, they simply exposed the structural weaknesses in the movement's organiza tion: practically speaking, there was no coherent organization at

all. Dayananda himself had increasingly retreated during the last

years of his life from the daily demands of leadership of the Arya

Samaj. As a result, each local organization had become virtually independent and reliant on its own resources. The Lahore branch

was the largest and wealthiest, but it had no authority over the

others. Despite general agreement among the branches on major questions of direction, there was no apparatus for developing and

implementing a unified policy. Consequently, three years passed before the Dayanand Anglo-Vedic Trust and Management Society

emerged as the central organizational structure to oversee the educational program of the Samaj as a whole. Moreover, as the trust finally succeeded in establishing first the Dayanand Anglo

Vedic High School and then the Anglo-Vedic College (1889), its P?li cies raised dissent within the movement.12

11 Jones, Arya Dharm, pp. 34-35.

12 Ibid., p. 32; Sankai Ghose, The Western Impact on Indian Politics (Bombay,

1967), p. 174; and Jones, Arya Dharm, p. 31.


As the Samaj confronted the needs of its new schools, a rift

occurred between those who saw their task in primarily religious terms and those who emphasized the practical (that is, Western)

aspects of the educational program. In 1894, the religionists seceded from the Samaj. Once again, the attempt to reconcile

Western education with Indian cultural reform had failed to sus

tain both a culturally legitimate synthesis and an organizational structure that might serve as a platform for an all-India political

movement.

Although the education movement provided a useful demon

stration of the possibilities in Indian cultural adaptations of West ern educational methods, it also diverted the energies of the new

Punjabi elite away from all-India political expressions into purely

provincial solutions of their cultural dilemma. At the same time, the involvement of Dayananda and the Arya Samaj in militant

defense of "Aryan" Hinduism, including ideological attacks on

the Christian, Sikh, and especially Muslim creeds (exemplified by the development of cow-protection societies) served to polarize these elements of Indian society. Where the Brahmo Samaj had

compromised its cultural usefulness by straying too close to West

ernization, the Arya Samaj, by its intransigent ideological devo

tion to Vedantic Hinduism, undermined the entire concept of an

Indian cultural (and much more so, political) unity. Indeed, one

result of the Punjabi Arya Samaj program was intense competi tion between newly educated Punjabis and the older Bengali elite

for administrative posts. Neither the Bengalis' eclectic, synthetic reformism nor the Punjabis' traditionalist reform could provide the necessary cultural underpinning for a political consciousness

for western-educated Indians. In 1879 this requirement was filled

by yet another movement, this time from outside India altogether ?the Theosophical Society.

The Synthesis Achieved: The Theosophical Society

Founded in 1875 in New York by Col. Henry S. Olcott, a New Eng land veteran of the U.S. Civil War, and Madame Helena Petrovna

Blavatsky, a Russian ?migr?e and cousin of Count Witte (Czar Nicholas II's great minister), the Theosophical Society developed out of the spiritualist movement in Europe and the United States.

Initially concentrating on psychic phenomena, or "scientific

mysticism" as they called it, Theosophy claimed its roots in the

Western occult tradition of neo-Platonism, the Kabbala, Rosicru

cianism, and Freemasonry. From its inception, the Society de


voted itself to bridging the gap between religion and modern sci ence. At the same time, it sought to free religion itself from

"superstition" and sectarianism: "What we desire to prove is that

underlying every ancient popular religion was the same ancient

wisdom-doctrine, one and identical, professed and practiced by the initiates of every country, who alone were aware of its exis

tence and importance." Early in its development the Society

began to distance itself from Christianity (at least the exoteric

varieties), moving instead toward the "purer" doctrines of the

East. In Olcott's inaugural address on 17 November 1875, he spoke of the "primeval source of all religions, the books of Hermes [Tris

megistus] and the Vedas," and promised that the Society would

demonstrate to Christians "the pagan origins of many of their

most sacred idols and most cherished dogmas."13

Perhaps because of its increasingly anti-Christian bias, by 1878 interest in the Theosophical Society had begun to wane. Olcott

and Blavatsky responded by establishing contact with other West ern esoteric groups, such as Freemasonry. Early in the year, how

ever, a chance meeting between Olcott and Moolji Thackersay of

Bombay, a devotee of Dayananda Saraswati and the Arya Samaj,

provided an even better object for the Theosophists' interest. A

brief correspondence resulted in the mistaken impression (on both sides) that the goals of the two societies were the same. Next, the Theosophical Society council voted to merge with Dayanan da's organization. In May 1878, the group officially changed its

name to the Theosophical Society of the Arya Samaj. The merger, and the subsequent break it engendered, were to have significant ramifications not only for the Theosophical Society, but also for

the future of Indian nationalism.14

Amalgamation with the Arya Samaj reinforced the Theosophi cal Society's move away from Christianity. "A number of Ameri

13 For a brief scholarly account of the Theosophical Society, see B. F. Camp bell, A History of the Theosophical Movement (Los Angeles, 1980). The most impor tant published source for the period under discussion is Col. Henry Steele Olcott,

Old Diary Leaves: The History of the Theosophical Society, 6 vols. (Adyar, 1972-75). There is an extensive literature on Blavatsky. See especially John Symonds, The

Lady with the Magic Eyes: Madame Blavatsky?Medium and Magician (New York,

i960); for a contemporary view, V. S. Solovyoff, A Modern Priestess of Isis (London,

1895). Blavatsky was suspected by the Indian government of being a Russian agent. The quotations are from H. P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled (Pasadena, 1972), 2:99; and

"Inaugural Address by H. S. Olcott," The Theosophist 53 (August 1932): 502-516. 14 For the relationship between the Theosophical Society and the Arya Samaj,

see both Campbell, A History, and especially Jordens, Dayananda.


cans and other students who earnestly seek after spiritual knowl

edge," Olcott wrote in his first letter to Saraswati,

place themselves at your feet and pray you to enlighten them.

They are of various professions and callings, of several different countries, but all united in the one object of gaining wisdom and

becoming better. For this purpose, they ...

organized themselves

into a body called the Theosophical Society. Finding in ... Christi

anity nothing that satisfied their reason or intuition ... they stood apart from the world, turned to the East for light, and

openly proclaimed themselves the foes of Christianity. . . . For this reason, we come to your feet as children to a parent, and say

"look at us, our teacher: tell us what we ought to do.... We place ourselves under your instruction."

The anti-Christian sentiments could hardly have failed to appeal to Dayananda. (Even later, after meeting the Theosophists, he was

convinced of their compatibility and willingness to follow the rules of the Samaj.)15

Shortly after amalgamation of the two societies, the New York branch of the Theosophical Society received the rules of the Arya Samaj. As Saraswati's sectarianism became apparent, many with in the Theosophical Society's ranks began to have doubts about the merger. Eventually these doubts led to dissolution of the for

mal association and creation of yet another society, allied with the Arya Samaj, to which Theosophists were encouraged but not

required to subscribe. When their followers proved less adven turesome in pursuit of knowledge and wisdom, however, Blavat

sky and Olcott themselves decided the time had come to forsake Manhattan for the "Mother of religions"; in February 1879 they arrived in Bombay.

The Theosophists were warmly greeted by the Aryas. Indeed,

they were soon taken up by the local Indian press as celebrities. Olcott's first act upon disembarkation had struck a chord in the

indigenous imagination: "The first thing I did on touching land was to stoop down and kiss the granite step; my instinctive act of

'pooja'! For here we were at last upon sacred soil." The symbolism of this act, combined with a plethora of public statements from the two Europeans portraying India as "the cradle of the race,"

had an electrifying impact on educated Indian society. This was

15 Quoted in Jordens, Dayananda, p. 209.


not just another exhibition of Orientalism, extolling the past vir

tues of Indian civilization, but a testimony to the present-day worth and vitality of India and its indigenous culture.16

Blavatsky and Olcott reinforced their new-found popularity by

taking up residence in the Indian section of Bombay, where they lectured and actively promoted the development of associations

for the study of Sanskrit. Their public correspondence grew to

such proportions that they finally established a magazine, The

Theosophist, to propagate their ideas. Drawing on their associa

tion with the Arya Samaj, by 1884 they had chartered over 100

branches of the Theosophical Society across the Indian subconti nent. The society attracted western-educated Indians and also

liberal Anglo-Indians, many of whom were prominent and re

spectable members of the British community. (One of the most

important was A. P. Sinnett, the influential editor of The Pioneer, who later became a leading proponent, not to say propagandist, for the movement.) The very success of the movement, however, soon resulted in strains between the Theosophical Society and the

Arya Samaj itself. Although Blavatsky and Olcott tended to gloss over the differences between their creed and that of Dayananda, after a trip to Ceylon, during which they publicly announced their

conversion to Buddhism, a break was inevitable.17

The final break between the Theosophists and the Aryas came

in 1882, amid recriminations on both sides. Dayananda charged the Theosophists with having deliberately misled him, in order to use the Arya Samaj for their own publicity. For their part,

Blavatsky and Olcott accused the Arya leader of trying to become a "Hindu pope." During the exchange, however, Blavatsky was

very careful not to attack Hinduism itself. "We have not changed our opinion of God," she wrote publicly at the time, "as the cause

of all things visible . . . and of the Vedas as the fountain-head of all

religions." But the Theosophical Society itself, she asserted, was

16 H. S. Olcott, Old Diary Leaves, 2:13-14 (also quoted in Campbell, pp. 78-79). 17 For the trip to Ceylon and Dayananda's growing disillusionment, see both

Campbell, A History, and Jordens, Dayananda. The Theosophist was apparently begun with considerable financial help from prominent Anglo-Indians, notably Allan Octavian Hume, discussed below. In August 1882 Hume apparently controlled

the journal's finances sufficiently to force Blavatsky into publishing an article

implicitly criticizing herself. See Martin, New Indian, p. 64 and n., quoting

Blavatsky to A. P. Sinnett, 21 July 1882. On the society's expansion, see also McLane, Indian Nationalism, p. 46.


"not a religious body, but an organization for the study of old sci ences and religions."18

As the two organizations drew apart, Blavatsky and Olcott for

malized and publicized the basic objectives of their society: "To

form a nucleus of the Universal Brotherhood of Humanity, with out distinction of race, creed, sex, caste, or color; to encourage the study of comparative religion, philosophy, and science; and to

investigate the unexplained laws of Nature and the powers latent in man." The effect of publicizing all their correspondence was to cast the Theosophical Society into precisely that role of cultural

synthesis which Indian reform movements had been unable to fill for the western-educated Indian elite.19

Despite Blavatsky's insistence that Theosophy was not a reli

gion, she herself provided the basic scripture of the movement, Isis Unveiled, complete with its own highly complex cosmological system. The basis of the doctrine was that Humanity was only one

stage of the Divine Consciousness evolving through matter on its

way back to the Godhead from which it had emerged. The van

guard of Humanity were the Mahatmas, the Masters of the

Himalayas, perfected human adepts of many ethnic origins who

through eons of spiritual evolution, physical birth, and rebirth, had at last mastered their passions and broken free of the wheel of karma. Together they constituted the Great White Brotherhood

(the term white referred not to race but to white light, which "is made up of and encompasses all the colors of the spectrum"), a universal spiritual organization working on both "inner planes" and in the outer world to assist the evolution of those who came after them.20

The esoteric doctrines of the Theosophical Society may strike the modern reader as rather bizarre, but it is important to remem ber that occultism, which in its broadest sense was quite compati ble with Hinduism and Buddhism, remained a part of the main stream of European intellectual life well into the seventeenth

century. Even after the beginning of the Enlightenment, it contin ued to hover in one form or another on the fringes of European culture, periodically breaking out in some mystical literary, artis

18 Quoted in Jordens, Dayananda, p. 212.

19 Quoted in Campbell, A History, p. 78.

20 For the original formulation of Theosophical doctrine, see Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled, and The Keys to Theosophy (Pasadena, 1972).


tic, philosophical, or even theological form, not to mention esoter

ically oriented movements such as Freemasonry and Rosicru

cianism. In the last half of the nineteenth century occultism expe rienced a considerable vogue and drew the interest of leading statesmen and scientists. Indeed, spiritualism, the immediate pro

genitor of the Theosophical Society, had also spawned the per

fectly respectable Society for Psychical Research, which engaged the interest of such eminent Victorian political families as the

Gladstones, the Balfours, and the Cecils, as well as scientists like

Sir Oliver Lodge and Lord Kelvin, not to mention popular writers

like Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.21

Perhaps just as important for Indians as Theosophical doc

trine, however, was the Society's organization. Through its annual

conventions, first begun in December 1881, the Society soon pro vided the organizational catalyst necessary for an all-India politi cal movement. These yearly Theosophical conferences were the

first gatherings to bring together members of the western-edu

cated Indian elite and liberal Britons from the entire subconti nent. The topics for formal discussion ranged from highly specific elements of Indian language and culture to religious ideas and

their compatibility with modern Western civilization. A major theme that recurred frequently was the growing materialism of

the West and the innate spirituality of the East. Articles in The

Theosophist suggest a general consensus in the Society that

India's heritage was essential to the "evolution" and "salvation"

of the increasingly "decadent," "materialistic" West. As might be

expected, it was not long before many members made the leap from such cultural questions to politics.

At the 1884 Theosophical conference in Madras, Raghunath Rao, former diwan of Indore state, suggested that the annual

"conventions" should openly concern themselves with the politi cal and social advancement of India. Although Blavatsky refused

to countenance the idea, insisting that the Society must publicly "eschew all questions relating to politics and sociology," Rao per sisted and convened a meeting in his own home of those Theo

sophists interested in political questions. After considerable dis

cussion, the local members established a new provincial society,

21 On occultism generally and the Society for Psychical Research, see Janet

Oppenheim, The Other World: Spiritualism and Psychical Research in England, 1850-1914 (Cambridge, 1986).


the Madras Mahajana Sabha, and then drew up a detailed

program calling for the establishment of an all-India polit ical organization.22 The following month, under the influence

of Nurendranath Sen, proprietor of the Indian Daily Mirror and a leading Bengali Theosophist who had been present at the meeting in Madras, the Indian Association of Calcutta under Surendranath Banerjea also began to plan for an all India political conference, to convene in Calcutta the follow

ing December. Clearly, despite Blavatsky's reticence, the Theo

sophical Society had become a hothouse for Indian political growth.23

Yet if the annual Theosophical conferences provided the set

ting for the development of all-India political schemes, they were

not the only contribution made by the movement to Indian nation alism. Indeed, although the Society later claimed that through the

work of the Theosophists in the Madras Mahajana Sabha and the Indian Association of Calcutta it had been "the parent of the Indian National Congress," neither organization was the immedi ate predecessor of the congress. Even as Rao and his associates

were planning another meeting to coincide with the Theosophical conference of December 1885, and Sen and Banerjea were develop ing their scheme for a national conference to be held in Calcutta

shortly thereafter, a rival plan for Indian political organization was being given definite shape by a retired English member of the Indian Civil Service, Allan Octavian Hume. It was Hume's Indian

National Union?based largely on the Bombay Presidency Associ

ation, later supported by the Madras and Poona groups, as well as others throughout the subcontinent?that convened in December

1885 as the Indian National Congress. Hume too, however, was

heavily influenced by the Theosophical Society in his efforts to advance the cause of Indian nationalism?perhaps even more pro

foundly than his Indian colleagues in Madras and Calcutta. Cul tural synthesis worked both ways.24

22 See note i above. I have drawn most heavily in the following sections on Mar

tin, New India, and Mehrotra, Emergence. For Rao's suggestion and Blavatsky's response, see an article reporting his speech at Indore, 24 February 1888, Times of India, 6 March 1888 (quoted in Mehrotra, Emergence, p. 309).

23 Martin, New India, and Mehrotra, Emergence. Sen was probably the author

of the plan for an all-India political association. 24 Ibid.


The Synthesis Incarnate: A. O. Hume and the Indian National

Congress

Allan Octavian Hume was by all accounts a remarkable man.

Apart from his reputation as the "father" of the Indian National

Congress, he was an ornithologist of international reputation. Reform came to him naturally: his father was Joseph Hume, a

radical social reformer in Britain and the man who had moved the

repeal of the Corn Laws in Parliament. The younger Hume

decided early in life to make his career in India, and he first

enlisted under the banner of the East India Company in 1849. He

soon broke from the traditional mold of an Englishman in India,

however, and became an outspoken supporter of Indian social

reform and political aspirations. During the Mutiny of 1857 he was

district magistrate at Etawah, on the Grand Trunk Road between

Delhi and Cawnpore, and was later decorated for his bravery dur

ing the fighting. In the aftermath, he gained a rather unfortunate

reputation (at least as far as his fellow Anglo-Indians were con

cerned) for leniency toward the mutineers, particularly when it

came to imposing the death penalty. He later served in the upper levels of the Indian Civil Service, but was passed over for the high est offices (notably a seat on the viceroy's council) during Lord

Lytton's viceroyalty, primarily because of his liberal notions. In

1882 he retired from the Service to Simla. In 1883, however, Hume

gained both the ear and the respect of the new Liberal viceroy, Lord Ripon, who soon began to employ him as an adviser on

"native" affairs.25

Hume's main advantage as an adviser to the viceroy on "na

tive" affairs was his ability to stand in both camps, British and

Indian. This ability had been greatly enhanced in 1880, when he

joined the Theosophical Society. Since the color bar governing relations between rulers and subjects effectively prohibited con

tacts outside the office, Hume found the Theosophical Society an

ideal place to socialize with prominent western-educated Indians

as well as Anglo-Indians like A. P. Sinnett. Quickly appreciating the possibilities, by 1881 he had become president of a Simla

25 The only biography of Hume, William Wedderburn's Allan Octavian Hume, "Father of the Indian National Congress," 1829-1912 (New Delhi, 1913), is not very

satisfactory. Wedderburn was a friend and colleague and glosses over the esoteric

elements of Hume's life and thought. Other important evaluations are in Martin, New India, and Mehrotra, Emergence. See also Vidhya Dhar Mahajan, Leaders of

the Nationalist Movement (New Delhi, 1975), chap. 3.


branch of the Society. Hume brought to his work with the Theo

sophical Society the same liberal convictions and passions that

had effectively stunted the growth of his career in the Govern

ment of India. Particularly during the annual conferences, he

established ties with men like Raghunath Rao, Nurendranath

Sen, Ananda Charlu, Kashinath Telang, and Subramania Iyar from all over India.26

Apart from the Society's social opportunities, equally impor tant to Hume was the Theosophical doctrine. He was fully con

vinced of the existence and influence of the Mahatmas. It was

these spiritual adepts, Hume believed, who inspired the Theo

sophical Society and also inspired his plans for social and politi cal reform in India. In a letter to Lord Ripon, Hume claimed to

have been initiated into this Brotherhood, or "Association" as he

called it, in Paris in 1848, although he had strayed from it shortly thereafter and was only reintroduced to it by Blavatsky in 1880.

The point is well illustrated in his correspondence with Ripon, which is replete with Theosophical references. For example, Hume once replied to the viceroy's compliment on his under

standing of the "native mind" in the following vein:

What you say about my knowledge of the natives shows me that

you altogether overrate me. ... I generally can learn . . . the out

come of cogitations of the native mind, but not from any superior acumen or knowledge of my own, but simply because a body of

men, mostly of Asiatic origin, who for a variety of causes are

deeply and especially interested in the welfare and progress of

India, and who possess faculties which no other man or body of

men living do, for gauging the feelings of the natives, have seen fit,

knowing how thoroughly I also have the good of Aryavartha at

heart, to give me their confidence to a certain limited extent.

Hume was referring to the Great White Brotherhood. Clearly, his

conviction that he was engaged in the work of the spiritual guides of humanity, who had apparently decreed that India must move

forward politically as well as socially and culturally, significantly influenced his efforts to organize a national congress. In fact, this

was probably the most direct Theosophical influence on the

emerging Indian nationalist movement.27

26 See the literature cited in note 25. 27 Hume to Ripon, 25 December 1883, quoted in Martin, New India, p. 68. The

Hume-Ripon correspondence in the Ripon Papers is perhaps the most important


There is considerable controversy, even now, about the actual

origins of the Indian National Congress. The meeting at Raghu nath Rao's house in Madras in December 1884 has been claimed by some scholars (not to mention the participants themselves) as the

immediate predecessor of the Congress. Hume himself was not at

this meeting, however, primarily because he had fallen out with

the founders of the Theosophical Society and had largely with

drawn from active participation in its organizational structure.

Instead, he was in Bombay working with western Indian leaders,

particularly Dadabhai Naoroji and B. M. Malabari, toward the

creation of what he hoped would be a truly national Indian politi cal movement. The immediate result was the creation of yet another provincial organization, the Bombay Presidency Associa

tion, which fell far short of his aspirations for an all-India organi zation. Undaunted, Hume continued to work throughout 1885,

wooing his former Theosophist colleagues and friends around

India, as well as other leaders among the western-educated

Indian elite, to join in an all-India political conference to be held

at Poona in December 1885. The one group with which he does not seem to have coordinated his efforts (although, despite later spec

ulation, the two movements were certainly aware of each others'

existence) was the Indian National Conference in Calcutta. The reasons for this apparent oversight have elicited considerable

speculation from Indian scholars over the years: the most plausi ble explanation lies in Hume's strained relations with the Theo

sophical Society, especially Madame Blavatsky.28 To a considerable extent, Blavatsky had based her leadership

of the Theosophical Society on her ability to communicate with

the so-called Mahatmas, or Masters, of the Himalayas. This com

munication was carried on primarily by a curious correspon

dence, in which Blavatsky would place letters in a carved wooden

shrine, from which they would "de-materialize," apparently hav

ing been teleported to the Masters. Sometime later, the Mahat

mas' answers would appear in the shrine or come falling from the

sky (occasionally they appeared on the recipient's pillow during

source for reconstructing Hume's entanglement of Theosophy with Indian nation

alism. For the same points, see also Seal, Emergence, p. 251; McLane, Indian

Nationalism, p. 46; Martin, New India, p. 65; and B. C. Pal, Memories of My Life and

Times, 2d ed. (Calcutta, 1973), vol. 2. 28

See, for example, Suntharalingham, Indian Nationalism; Masselos, Indian

Nationalism; Majumdar, History; and Tara Chand, History. Both Martin, New India, and Mehrotra, Emergence, implicitly make the Theosophical connection.


the night), "precipitated," according to Blavatsky, from thin air.

With Blavatsky thus acting as intermediary, several Theosophists, of whom Hume and A. P. Sinnett were the most prominent, had

sent letters to the Mahatmas and in return received "precipi tated" responses?all of which praised the Theosophical Society founders and discouraged any questioning of their abilities or

motives. After a year of this indirect communication, however, in

1881 Hume did indeed begin to doubt Blavatsky's sincerity and

tried to develop his own direct channels to the Mahatmas. By 1882, his appeals to the Masters to develop his personal occult abilities

(presumably so that he might bypass Blavatsky) had resulted in

violent outbursts by the temperamental Russian.29

As others also began to question the honesty, if not the occult

abilities, of the Theosophical leader, a major controversy soon

developed that threatened to discredit the whole Society. Eventu

ally, on the testimony of an estranged maid and her husband,

Blavatsksy was accused of fraud by Christian missionaries in

what became known as the scandal of the Mahatma letters. In the

meantime, Hume himself gave up his official status in the Simla

branch of the Society in 1883 as the entire membership began to

divide over the question of supporting or opposing Madame

Blavatsky. Most supported the founder, and only a few, like Hume, distanced themselves from her administration. The internal divi

sion was not made public, however, so a formal split was avoided.

Indeed, despite the controversy, the overall unity of the Society remained intact, and the annual conferences continued without

interruption. Hume himself apparently never questioned the

29 See especially Martin, New India, pp. 64-65, 67-69. In a letter to Ripon of 11

January 1884, Hume explained the problem in esoteric terms: "Col. O. and Madame B. are not quite honest; they have been . .. aided by our people [i.e., the Mahat

mas], and they began work unquestionably in the purest spirit of self-devotion to

the cause of India, but.. . have drifted away into a maze of falsehoods .. . exagger ations and deceptions, and have been gradually left almost wholly to their own

devices." As a result of their "mingling falsehood with truth," Hume believed,

Blavatsky and Olcott were no longer in touch with the Brotherhood itself, but with

"a lower association of kindred origin"?the implication being that only those who

remained "rigidly pure" in motivation could remain "in tune" with the highest Masters. Hume himself of course continued to claim association "with men who,

tho' never seen by the masses ... are yet reverenced by them as Gods." "Peace,

order, brotherly love, freedom and progress are the keynotes of our people." He even went so far as to claim that the Brotherhood had somehow intervened behind the scenes (spiritually, one assumes) to mitigate the violence of the 1848 revolutions in Europe and the 1857 Mutiny in India. Since the Mutiny, they had been working in

India to prevent such a calamity from recurring?most recently through Ripon's own reform policies.


reality of the Masters as a result of his disillusionment with

Blavatsky, and he continued to believe that his political efforts were under their guidance. Eventually, Blavatsky gave up her con

trol of the Society's external affairs and left India, never to

return. Even so, the political ramifications of the scandal were

significant.30 In his plans for the political organization of the Indian intelli

gentsia, Hume had counted heavily on the support of two fellow

Theosophists, B. M. Malabari in Bombay and Nurendranath Sen

in Calcutta, both of whom were opinion leaders of western-edu

cated Indians. Unfortunately for Hume, however, his split with

Blavatsky seemed to have alienated him from Sen. Like most of the Bengali Theosophists, Sen and his friends in Calcutta contin

ued to support Blavatsky despite increasing evidence of fraudu

lent misrepresentation of her supposedly mystical powers. "I can

not now trust him," Hume wrote about Sen to Ripon in January

1884, "as entirely as B.M.M[alabari]. He is entirely in the hands of

Colonel Olcott and Madame Blavatsky . . . his mind is not his own, and he is, I fear, prejudiced against me ... he is one of the very

men mentioned to me as likely to give us trouble in a quiet way (he will never be extreme)." Later, Hume increasingly leaned toward

Malabari and his Bombay associates and away from Sen and his

Calcutta connections. Since Sen had close relations with Suren

dranath Banerjea, head of the Indian Association of Calcutta and

the primary organizer of the Indian National Conference, this

internal Theosophical dispute probably explains why Hume did not initially coordinate his activities with the leading Indian polit ical organization in Calcutta.31

Despite these internal Theosophical differences, Hume made a

concerted effort throughout 1885 to smooth the waters with his

former colleagues in the Society. In the early spring he went to

Madras, where he discussed his plans with Raghunath Rao and

Rao's associates in the Madras Mahajana Sabha. He may even

have visited Adyar: at least he seems to have tried to mitigate the

30 For the scandal, see Campbell, A History, pp. 58-59, 80-81. There is a consid

erable Theosophical literature on the subject. An interesting account of Hume's

disillusionment and Blavatsky's reaction, based on the Mahatma letters and other

correspondence, is Virginia Hansen's Masters and Men: The Human Story in the

Mahatma Letters (Adyar, 1980). See also The Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett (Lon

don, 1923). The Mahatma letters themselves, with ancillary correspondence, are in

the Mahatma Papers collection of the British Museum, London. 31

Martin, New India, pp. 67-68, quoting Hume to Ripon, 11 January 1884.


effects of the Mahatma letters scandal, suggesting to Rao and

other leading Theosophists a plan (later rejected) for reorganizing the Society in order to restore its credibility. He then sailed for

Calcutta, where there is evidence that he tried unsuccessfully to

interest the Bengali nationalists in his plans for an all-India politi cal conference. Banerjea remained aloof, however, and the two

conferences proceeded separately. Nevertheless, Hume's efforts

were not entirely wasted, for Sen himself decided that Banerjea's

plans were too narrowly provincial, and he came out instead in

support of Hume's proposed meeting. Although the Poona ar

rangements had to be changed at the last minute due to an out

break of cholera, Hume's Indian National Union finally convened

in Bombay in December 1885, immediately renaming itself the

Indian National Congress (perhaps in deference to Sen's prefer ence of terminology). In 1886 the Congress convened in Calcutta,

where it absorbed Banerjea's National Conference. Thus, largely

through the medium of the Theosophical Society, the Indian

National Congress became the all-India political expression of the

western-educated Indian elite.32

Conclusion

The Theosophical Society had clearly provided what neither the

Brahmo Samaj nor the Arya Samaj could?a cultural "neutral

zone" in which reformist Hindu, syncretic Brahmo, and liberal

Anglo-Indian could meet and agree on certain cultural principles without the divisiveness of dogma. It appealed to both Indians

and Britons for a variety of reasons. Though its doctrine avowedly and demonstrably favored Eastern religions and philosophies,

particularly Vedantic Hinduism and Buddhism, the Society re

fused to be drawn into sectarian disputes. It emphasized the need

to reconcile the great spiritual truths, especially those of the

Vedas, with modern Western science. With its facilitation of inter

Indian communications and a rhetoric constantly propounding ideals of "freedom and progress" as well as the "sacred nature" of

India as the "cradle of civilization," the organizational structure

fostered a sense of unity, both of form and purpose, among

Theosophists throughout the subcontinent. This organizational

unity reached fruition in the yearly national meetings instituted

32 This paragraph is drawn primarily from Mehrotra, Emergence, p. 34.


in 1881, and was stable enough to withstand even the pressures of

the Blavatsky scandal.

Above all, the Theosophical Society provided the psychological confidence necessary for the western-educated elite to organize

politically on an all-India scale. As one leading Indian nationalist, B. C. Pal, observed in his memoirs:

The Theosophical Society . . . was perhaps the most powerful of

the forces that brought in this movement of Hindu religious revival and social reaction. This Society told our people that instead of having any reason to be ashamed of their past or of the

legacies left to them by it, they had every reason to feel justly proud

. . . because their ancient seers and saints had been the

spokesmen of the highest truths and their old books, so woefully misunderstood today, had been the repositories of the highest human illumination and wisdom. Our people had hitherto felt per

petually humiliated at the sense of their degradation. This new

message, coming from the representatives of the most advanced

peoples of the modern world, the inheritors of the most advanced culture and civilization the world has yet known, at once raised us

in our own estimation and created a self-confidence in us.

Cultural interaction was a double-edged blade, however: the mes

sage affected not only western-educated Indians, but also Anglo Indians like Hume. Having spent his career maintaining an open and even sympathetic mind toward Indian culture, Hume was

fully prepared to believe that the Theosophical Society had been

expressly created by the spiritual guides of humanity, the Mahat mas of the Himalayas, to forward the political aspirations of

India. And so he set in motion plans that led to the creation of the

Indian National Congress.33 Thus, the Theosophical Society became the seedbed for mod

ern Indian political development. The connection lasted for some

time. In 1917, for example, the president of the Theosophical Soci

ety, Annie Besant, an outspoken advocate of Indian nationalism as

well as women's rights, was also elected president of the Indian

National Congress; she later founded the Indian Home Rule

League. As late as the 1920s, most leading advocates of political reform in India were also Theosophists.34 Even with its cross-cul

33 See B. C. Pal, Memories, p. 344. 34 For Annie Besant, see A. H. Nethercot, The First Five Lives of Annie Besant

(London, i960), and The Last Four Lives of Annie Besant (Chicago, 1963).


tural base, however, the Congress initially failed in its efforts to

achieve greater Indian participation in either policy making or

the administration of the Government of India. It remained pri

marily an expression of the western-educated Indian intelligent sia, and consequently continued to reflect the cultural and psy

chological anomalies inherent in the mixed loyalties and

identities of its founders.

In the end, of course, the Congress did provide a political movement that would eventually mobilize the masses of India to

achieve independence. Yet given the unequal nature of the impe rial relationship between Britain and its Indian empire, it was

perhaps inevitable that a movement largely organized by a Euro

pean, through the medium of an originally Western cultural soci

ety, must first transform itself into a more thoroughly Indian phe nomenon before it could become a fit vehicle for the political

expression of a cultural reconciliation between Indians and Brit

ons, between East and West, between India's history and its

future. Such integration was most fully achieved in the person of

yet another Mahatma, Mohandas K. Gandhi?himself an English trained lawyer who only rediscovered his Indian heritage in mid

dle age. Fittingly, perhaps, it was largely through the medium of

the Theosophical Society that the future spiritual and "national"

leader of India came back to his roots and achieved the critical

reconciliation of his training with his birth. "Even as a student in

London," writes one of Gandhi's biographers, "he read carefully . . . The Key to Theosophy?which he counted among the few cru

cial influences in his life." In 1947, Gandhi reportedly told Louis

Fischer, "In the beginning, the leading Congressmen were Theoso

phists. Mrs. Annie Besant attracted me very much. Theosophy is

the teaching of Madame Blavatsky. It is Hinduism at its best.

Theosophy is the brotherhood of man." Nor was Gandhi alone in

his interest: Jawaharlal Nehru was tutored by a Theosophist on

the instructions of his father, and while still a young man he was

actually initiated into the movement by Annie Besant herself.35

By Gandhi's and Nehru's time, however, the Theosophical

Society was no longer crucial to the Indian nationalist movement:

once organized, the impetus toward freedom and independence took on a life of its own. Nor, indeed, despite the bright light this

article has tried to throw on the Society's early role, should its

35 See Raghavan Iyer, The Moral and Political Thought of Mahatma Gandhi, 2d

ed. (London, Santa Barbara, and New York, 1983).


overall influence be overestimated. It was preeminently a cata

lyst, a bridging mechanism that appeared at a unique moment in

the history of Indo-British relations. Having fulfilled its purpose in the larger scheme of things, it gradually moved off center stage,

or more accurately, it was left behind as Indian nationalism

gained enough experience and self-confidence in its own right to

challenge the raj on its own terms. Indeed, in these latter days the

European origins of the movement, and its early European spon sors, have seemed something of an embarrassment to many Indian nationalists (and their historians) anxious to emphasize the overwhelming importance of the indigenous peoples them

selves in their struggle against colonial rule.

The fact remains, however, that modern nationalism in India, as elsewhere, was itself initially a principally European concept

transplanted to the subcontinent through Western education; and

without understanding the mechanisms by which such European

concepts were translated into indigenous expression, the recent

history of the non-European world would be difficult if not impos sible to understand. Most important, perhaps, the story of the ori

gins of the Indian National Congress suggests that the ultimate

resolution of the confrontation brought on by "modernizing"

Europe's expansion into a still primarily "traditionalist" world? a confrontation of economics, politics, military force, and per

haps above all of ideas and utterly different world views?will not

be achieved in an either/or fashion, but rather through a process of creative synthesis that gives hope for the future of interper sonal, as well as international, relations. Whether such mecha

nisms can indeed be found in other cases must be the subject of

ongoing research into the emergence of what appears to be a new

global civilization.

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