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Henri de Saint-Simon [Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon]
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/26/20


Henri de Saint-Simon
Born: 17 October 1760, Paris, France
Died: 19 May 1825 (aged 64), Paris, France
Era: 19th-century philosophy
Region: Western philosophy
School: Utopian socialism; Saint-Simonianism
Main interests: Political philosophy
Notable ideas: The industrial class/idling class distinction
Influences: Francis Bacon,[1] René Descartes,[1] John Locke,[1] Isaac Newton,[1] Adam Smith,[2] Augustin Thierry, Anne Robert Jacques Turgot,[3] Emmanuel Sieyès,[3] Joseph de Maistre,[4] Charles Dunoyer, Marquis de Condorcet,[3] Jean-Baptiste Say, Nicolas-Edme Rétif[5]
Influenced: Auguste Comte, Prosper Enfantin, John Stuart Mill,[6] Pierre-Joseph Proudhon,[7] Karl Marx, Pierre Leroux, Michel Chevalier, Péreire brothers, Lorenz von Stein,[8] Thorstein Veblen[9]

Claude Henri de Rouvroy, comte de Saint-Simon, often referred to as Henri de Saint-Simon (French: [ɑ̃ʁi də sɛ̃ simɔ̃]; 17 October 1760 – 19 May 1825), was a French political and economic theorist and businessman whose thought had a substantial influence on politics, economics, sociology and the philosophy of science.

He created a political and economic ideology known as Saint-Simonianism that claimed that the needs of an industrial class, which he also referred to as the working class, needed to be recognized and fulfilled to have an effective society and an efficient economy.[10] Unlike conceptions within industrializing societies of a working class being manual labourers alone, Saint-Simon's late-18th century conception of this class included all people engaged in productive work that contributed to society, that included businesspeople, managers, scientists, bankers, along with manual labourers amongst others.[11] He said the primary threat to the needs of the industrial class was another class he referred to as the idling class, that included able people who preferred to be parasitic and benefit from the work of others while seeking to avoid doing work.[10] Saint-Simon stressed the need for recognition of the merit of the individual and the need for hierarchy of merit in society and in the economy, such as society having hierarchical merit-based organizations of managers and scientists to be the decision-makers in government.[11] He strongly criticized any expansion of government intervention into the economy beyond ensuring no hindrances to productive work and reducing idleness in society, regarding intervention beyond these as too intrusive.[10]

Saint Simon's conceptual recognition of broad socio-economic contribution, and his Enlightenment valorization of scientific knowledge, soon inspired and influenced utopian socialism,[11] liberal political theorist John Stuart Mill,[6] anarchism through its founder Pierre-Joseph Proudhon who was inspired by Saint-Simon's thought[7] and Marxism with Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels identifying Saint-Simon as an inspiration to their ideas and classifying him among the utopian socialists.[11]

Utopian socialism is the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet, Robert Owen and Henry George.[1][2] Utopian socialism is often described as the presentation of visions and outlines for imaginary or futuristic ideal societies, with positive ideals being the main reason for moving society in such a direction. Later socialists and critics of utopian socialism viewed utopian socialism as not being grounded in actual material conditions of existing society and in some cases as reactionary. These visions of ideal societies competed with Marxist-inspired revolutionary social democratic movements.

As a term or label, utopian socialism is most often applied to, or used to define, those socialists who lived in the first quarter of the 19th century who were ascribed the label utopian by later socialists as a pejorative in order to imply naiveté and to dismiss their ideas as fanciful and unrealistic. A similar school of thought that emerged in the early 20th century which makes the case for socialism on moral grounds is ethical socialism.

One key difference between utopian socialists and other socialists such as most anarchists and Marxists is that utopian socialists generally do not believe any form of class struggle or social revolution is necessary for socialism to emerge. Utopian socialists believe that people of all classes can voluntarily adopt their plan for society if it is presented convincingly. They feel their form of cooperative socialism can be established among like-minded people within the existing society and that their small communities can demonstrate the feasibility of their plan for society.

-- Utopian socialism, by Wikipedia

Saint-Simon's views also influenced 20th century sociologist and economist Thorstein Veblen, including Veblen's creation of institutional economics that has included prominent economists as adherents.[12]

Biography

Early years

Henri de Saint-Simon was born in Paris as a French aristocrat. His grandfather's cousin had been the Duke of Saint-Simon.[13] "When he was a young man, being of a restless disposition ... he went to America where he entered into American service and took part in the siege of Yorktown under General Washington."[14]

From his youth, Saint-Simon was highly ambitious. He ordered his valet to wake him every morning with, "Remember, monsieur le comte, that you have great things to do."[15] Among his early schemes was one to connect the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans by a canal, and another to construct a canal from Madrid to the sea.[16]

During the American Revolution, Saint-Simon joined the Americans, and believed that their revolution signaled the beginning of a new era.[17] He fought alongside the Marquis de Lafayette between 1779 and 1783, and was imprisoned by British forces. After his release, he returned to France to study engineering and hydraulics at the Ecole de Mézières.[18]

At the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789, Saint-Simon quickly endorsed the revolutionary ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity. In the early years of the revolution, Saint-Simon devoted himself to organizing a large industrial structure in order to found a scientific school of improvement. He needed to raise some funds to achieve his objectives, which he did by land speculation. This was only possible in the first few years of the revolution because of the growing instability of the political situation in France, which prevented him from continuing his financial activities and indeed put his life at risk. Saint-Simon and Talleyrand planned to profiteer during the Terror by buying the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, stripping its roof of metal, and selling the metal for scrap. Saint-Simon was imprisoned on suspicion of engaging in counter-revolutionary activities. He was released in 1794 at the end of the Terror.[17] After he recovered his freedom, Saint-Simon found himself immensely rich due to currency depreciation, but his fortune was subsequently stolen by his business partner. Thenceforth he decided to devote himself to political studies and research. After the establishment of the Ecole Polytechnique in 1794, a school established to train young men in the arts of sciences and industry and funded by the state, Saint-Simon became involved with the new school.[19]

Life as a working adult


Henri de Saint-Simon, portrait from the first quarter of the 19th century

When he was nearly 40 he went through a varied course of study and experiment to enlarge and clarify his view of things. One of these experiments was an unhappy marriage in 1801 to Alexandrine-Sophie Goury de Champgrand, undertaken so that he might have a literary salon. After a year, the marriage was dissolved by mutual consent. The result of his experiments was that he found himself completely impoverished, and lived in penury for the remainder of his life. The first of his numerous writings, mostly scientific and political, was Lettres d'un habitant de Genève, which appeared in 1802. In this first work, he called for the creation of a religion of science with Isaac Newton as a saint.[19] Around 1814 he wrote the essay "On Reconstruction of the European Community" and sent it to the Congress of Vienna. He proposed a European kingdom, building on France and the United Kingdom.[20]

In 1817, in a treatise entitled L'Industrie, he began to propound his socialist views, which he developed further in L'Organisateur (1819), a periodical on which Augustin Thierry and Auguste Comte collaborated. One of Saint-Simon's major beliefs was that the world should be linked with canals.[19]

L'Industrie caused a sensation, but brought few converts. A couple of years later in his writing career, Saint-Simon found himself ruined, and was forced to work for a living. After a few attempts to recover his money from his former partner, he received financial support from Diard, a former employee, and was able to publish in 1807 his second book, Introduction aux travaux scientifiques du XIX siècle. Diard died in 1810 and Saint-Simon found himself poor again, and this time also in poor health. He was sent to a sanatorium in 1813, but with financial help from relatives he had time to recover his health and gain some intellectual recognition in Europe. In February 1821 Du système industriel appeared, and in 1823–1824 Catéchisme des industriels.[21]

Death and legacy


Saint-Simon's grave in Père Lachaise Cemetery, Paris

On March 9, 1823, disappointed by the lack of results of his writing (he had hoped they would guide society towards social improvement), he attempted suicide in despair.[22] Remarkably, he shot himself in the head six times without succeeding, losing his sight in one eye.[23]

Finally, very late in his career, he did link up with a few ardent disciples. The last and most important expression of his views is Nouveau Christianisme (1825), which he left unfinished.

He was buried in Le Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, France.

Ideas

Industrialism

In 1817 Saint-Simon published a manifesto called the "Declaration of Principles" in his work titled L'Industrie ("Industry").[10] The Declaration was about the principles of an ideology called industrialism that called for the creation of an industrial society led by people within what he defined as the industrial class.[10] The industrial class, also referred to as the working class, was defined as including all people engaged in productive work that contributed to society, emphasizing scientists and industrialists, but including engineers, businesspeople, managers, bankers, manual workers, and others.[11]

Saint-Simon said the primary threat to the needs of the industrial class was another class he referred to as the idling class, that included able people who preferred to be parasitic and benefit from the work of others while seeking to avoid doing work.[10] He saw the origins of this parasitic activity by idlers in what he regarded as the natural laziness of humanity.[10] He believed the principal economic roles of government were to insure that productive activity in the economy is unhindered and to reduce idleness in society.[10]

In the Declaration Saint-Simon strongly criticized any expansion of government intervention into the economy beyond these two principal economic roles, saying that when the government goes beyond these roles, it becomes a "tyrannical enemy of industry" and that the industrial economy will decline as a consequence of such excessive government intervention.[10] Saint-Simon stressed the need for recognition of the merit of the individual and the need for hierarchy of merit in society and in the economy, such as society having hierarchical merit-based organizations of managers and scientists to be the decision-makers in government.[11] His views were radical for his time. He built on Enlightenment ideas which challenged church doctrine and the older regime with the idea of progress from industry and science[19]

Heavily influenced by the absence of social privilege he saw in the early United States, Saint-Simon renounced his aristocratic title and came to favor a form of meritocracy, becoming convinced that science was the key to progress and that it would be possible to develop a society based on objective scientific principles.[24] He claimed that feudal society in France and elsewhere needed to be dissolved and transformed into an industrial society.[25] As such, he invented the conception of the industrial society.[25]

Saint-Simon's economic views and ideas were influenced by Adam Smith whom Saint-Simon deeply admired, and referred to him in praise as "the immortal Adam Smith".[2] He shared with Smith the belief that taxes needed to be much reduced from what they were then in order to have a more just industrial system.[2] Saint-Simon desired the minimization of government intervention into the economy to prevent disruption of productive work.[2] He emphasized more emphatically than Smith that state administration of the economy was generally parasitic and hostile to the needs of production.[25] Like Adam Smith, Saint-Simon's model of society emulated the scientific methods of astronomy, and said "The astronomers only accepted those facts which were verified by observation; they chose the system which linked them best, and since that time, they have never led science astray."[26]

Saint-Simon reviewed the French Revolution and regarded it as an upheaval driven by economic change and class conflict. In his analysis he believed that the solution to the problems that led to the French Revolution would be the creation of an industrial society where hierarchy of merit and respect for productive work would be the basis of society, while ranks of hereditary and military hierarchy would lessen in importance in society because they were not capable to lead a productive society.[11]

Karl Marx identified Saint-Simon as being among whom he called the "utopian socialists", though historian Alan Ryan regards certain followers of Saint-Simon, rather than Saint-Simon himself, as being responsible for the rise of utopian socialism that based itself upon Saint-Simon's ideas.[11] Ryan also distinguishes between Saint-Simon's conceptions and Marxism's, as Saint-Simon did not promote independent working-class organization and leadership as a solution to capitalist societal problems, nor did he adhere to the Marxist definition of the working class as excluded by fundamental private property law from control over the means of production.[11] Unlike Marx, Saint-Simon did not regard class relations, vis the means of production, to be an engine of socio-economic dynamics but rather the form of management.[11] Furthermore, Saint-Simon was not critical of capitalists as exclusive owners, collaborators, controllers, and decision-makers. Rather, he regarded capitalists as an important component of the "industrial class."[27] Ryan further suggests that by the 1950s it was clear that Saint-Simon had presaged the "modern" understanding of industrial society.[11]

Feudalism and aristocracy

In opposition to the feudal and military system—the former aspect of which had been strengthened by the restoration—he advocated a form of technocratic socialism, an arrangement whereby industrial chiefs should control society - similar to Plato's philosopher kings. In place of the medieval church, spiritual direction of society should fall to the men of science. Men who are fitted to organize society for productive labour are entitled to rule it. The conflict between labour and capital emphasized by later socialism is not present in Saint-Simon's work, but it is assumed that the industrial chiefs, to whom the control of production is to fall, shall rule in the interest of society. [SOURCE] Later on, the cause of the poor receives greater attention until, in his greatest work, Nouveau Christianisme (The New Christianity), it takes on the form of a religion. This development of his ideas occasioned his final quarrel with Comte.

Religious views

Prior to the publication of the Nouveau Christianisme, Saint-Simon had not concerned himself with theology. In this work he starts from a belief in God, and his object in the treatise is to reduce Christianity to its simple and essential elements. He does this by clearing it of the dogmas and other excrescences and defects that he says gathered round the Catholic and Protestant forms of it. He propounds as the comprehensive formula of the new Christianity this precept: "The whole of society ought to strive towards the amelioration of the moral and physical existence of the poorest class; society ought to organize itself in the way best adapted for attaining this end."[28] This principle became the watchword of the entire Saint-Simon school of thought.

Influence

See also: Saint-Simonianism

During his lifetime the views of Saint-Simon had very little influence; he left only a few devoted disciples who continued to advocate the doctrines of their master, whom they revered as a prophet. The most acclaimed disciple of Saint-Simon was Auguste Comte.[29] Others included Olinde Rodrigues, the favoured disciple of Saint-Simon, and Barthélemy Prosper Enfantin who together had received Saint-Simon's last instructions. Their first step was to establish a journal, Le Producteur, but it was discontinued in 1826. The sect had begun to grow, and before the end of 1828 had meetings not only in Paris but in many provincial towns.

An important departure was made in 1828 by Amand Bazard, who gave a "complete exposition of the Saint-Simonian faith" in a long course of lectures in Paris, which was well attended. His Exposition de la doctrine de St Simon (2 vols., 1828–1830), which is by far the best account of it, won more adherents. The second volume was chiefly by Enfantin, who along with Bazard stood at the head of the society, but who was superior in philosophical acumen and was prone to push his deductions to extremities. The revolution of July (1830) brought a new freedom to the socialist reformers. A proclamation was issued demanding community of goods, abolition of the right of inheritance and enfranchisement of women.

Early next year the school obtained possession of Le Globe through Pierre Leroux, who had joined the school. The school now counted among its number some of the ablest and most promising young men in France, many of the pupils of the École Polytechnique having caught its enthusiasm. The members formed themselves into an association arranged in three grades, and constituting a society or family, which lived out of a common purse in the Rue Monsigny. Before long dissensions began to arise in the sect. Bazard, a man of stolid temperament, could no longer work in harmony with Enfantin, who desired to establish an arrogant and fantastic sacerdotalism with lax notions as to marriage and the relations between the sexes. In the name of progress, Enfantin announced that the gulf between the sexes was too wide and this social inequality would impede rapid growth of society. Enfantin called for the abolition of prostitution and for the ability for women to divorce and obtain legal rights. This was considered radical for the time.[30]

After a time Bazard seceded and many of the strongest supporters of the school followed his example. A series of extravagant entertainments given by the society during the winter of 1832 reduced its financial resources and greatly discredited it in character. They moved to Ménilmontant, to a property of Enfantin, where they lived in a communalistic society, distinguished by a peculiar dress. Although the monks of Enfantin's school were required to be celibate, rumors were spread that they engaged in orgies.[31] Shortly after, the chiefs were tried and condemned for proceedings prejudicial to the social order and the sect was entirely broken up in 1832. Many of its members became famous as engineers, economists and men of business. Enfantin would go on to organize an expedition of the disciples to Constantinople, and then to Egypt, where he influenced the creation of the Suez Canal.[32]

French feminist and socialist writer Flora Tristan (1803–1844) claimed that Mary Wollstonecraft, author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, anticipated Saint-Simon's ideas by a generation.[33][dubious – discuss]

In Fyodor Dostoyevsky's novel The Possessed, 'Saint-Simonist' and 'Fourierist' are used as derogatory insults of others by many of the politically active characters.

Works

Saint-Simon wrote various accounts of his views:

• Lettres d'un habitant de Genève à ses contemporains (1803),
• L'Industrie (1816-1817),
• Le Politique (1819),
• L'Organisateur (1819-1820),
• Du système industriel, 1822
• Catéchisme des industriels (1823-1824),
• Nouveau Christianisme (1825).
• An edition of the works of Saint-Simon and Enfantin was published by the survivors of the sect (47 vols., Paris, 1865–1878).

See also

• French Revolution
• Meritocracy
• Positivism
• Scientism
• Society of the Friends of Truth
• Utopian socialism

Notes

1. Jeremy Jennings. Revolution and the Republic: A History of Political Thought in France Since the Eighteenth Century. Oxford University Press, 2011. p. 347.
2. Gregory Claeys. Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-century Thought. Oxon, UK: Routledge, 2005. p. 136.
3. Pilbeam, Pamela M. (2014). Saint-Simonians in Nineteenth-Century France: From Free Love to Algeria. Springer. p. 5.
4. John Powell, Derek W. Blakeley, Tessa Powell. Biographical Dictionary of Literary Influences: The Nineteenth Century, 1800-1914. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2001. p. 267.
5. Jean-René Suratteau, "Restif (de la Bretonne) Nicolas Edme", in: Albert Soboul (ed.), Dictionnaire historique de la Révolution française, Paris, PUF, 1989, 2nd ed. Quadrige, 2005, pp. 897–898.
6. Nicholas Capaldi. John Stuart Mill: A Biography. Cambridge University Press, 2004. pp. 77–80.
7. Rob Knowles. Political Economy from Below: Economic Thought in Communitarian Anarchism 1840-1914: Economic Thought in Communitarian Anarchism, 1840-1914. Routledge, 2013. p. 342.
8. Koslowski, Stefan (2017). "Lorenz von Stein as a disciple of Saint-Simon and the French Utopians". Revista europea de historia de las ideas políticas y de las instituciones públicas. 11.
9. Horowitz, Irving Louis, Veblen's Century: A Collective Portrait (2002), p. 142
10. Keith Taylor (ed, tr.). Henri de Saint Simon, 1760-1825: Selected writings on science, industry and social organization. New York, USA: Holmes and Meier Publishers, Inc, 1975. pp. 158–161.
11. Alan Ryan. On Politics. Book II. 2012. pp. 647–651.
12. Vincent Mosco. The Political Economy of Communication. SAGE, 2009. p. 53.
13. "Britannica".
14. Isaiah Berlin, Freedom and Its Betrayal, Princeton University Press, 2002, p. 109
15. Busky, Donald F.: "Communism in History and Theory: From Utopian Socialism to the Fall of the Soviet Union"
16. Manuel, Frank E.: "The Prophets of Paris", Harper & Row 1962
17. Karabell, Zachary (2003). Parting the desert: the creation of the Suez Canal. Alfred A. Knopf. p. 25. ISBN 0-375-40883-5.
18. Hasan, Samiul; Crocker, Ruth; Rousseliere, Damien; Dumont, Georgette; Hale, Sharilyn; Srinivas, Hari; Hamilton, Mark; Kumar, Sunil; Maclean, Charles (2010), "Saint-Simon, Claude-Henri de Rouvroy (Comte de)", in Anheier, Helmut K.; Toepler, Stefan (eds.), International Encyclopedia of Civil Society, Springer US, pp. 1341–1342, doi:10.1007/978-0-387-93996-4_811, ISBN 9780387939940
19. Karabell, Zachary (2003). Parting the desert: the creation of the Suez Canal. Alfred A. Knopf. p. 26. ISBN 0-375-40883-5.
20. Dosenrode, Søren (1998). Danske EUropavisioner. Århus: Systime. p. 11. ISBN 87-7783-959-5.
21. Saint-Simon, Henri (2012-11-14). Œuvres complètes de Saint-Simon: 4 volumes (in French). Presses Universitaires de France. ISBN 978-2-13-062090-7.
22. Pickering, Mary (2006-04-20). Auguste Comte: Volume 1: An Intellectual Biography. Cambridge University Press. p. 231. ISBN 978-0-521-02574-4.
23. Trombley, Stephen (2012-11-01). Fifty Thinkers Who Shaped the Modern World. Atlantic Books. ISBN 978-1-78239-038-1.
24. Newman, Michael. (2005) Socialism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-280431-6
25. Murray E. G. Smith. Early Modern Social Theory: Selected Interpretive Readings. Toronto, Canada: Canadian Scholars Press, Inc, 1998. p. 80.
26. Murray E. G. Smith. Early Modern Social Theory: Selected Interpretive Readings. Toronto, Canada: Canadian Scholars Press, Inc, 1998. pp. 80–81.
27. Arthur Bernie. An Economic History of Europe 1760-1930. Routledge, 1930 (original), 2010. p. 113.
28. Saint-Simon (1825). Nouveau christianisme (New Christianity). Paris, France.
29. Karabell, Zachary (2003). Parting the desert: the creation of the Suez Canal. Alfred A. Knopf. p. 27. ISBN 0-375-40883-5.
30. Karabell, Zachary (2003). Parting the desert: the creation of the Suez Canal. Alfred A. Knopf. p. 29. ISBN 0-375-40883-5.
31. Karabell, Zachary (2003). Parting the desert: the creation of the Suez Canal. Alfred A. Knopf. p. 30. ISBN 0-375-40883-5.
32. * Karabell, Zachary (2003). Parting the desert: the creation of the Suez Canal. Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 28, 31–37. ISBN 0-375-40883-5.
33. Promenades dans Londres, first published 1840. Page 276, Broché edition (2003) from La Découverte.

References

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Kirkup, Thomas; Shotwell, James (1911). "Saint-Simon, Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. 24 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 45–47.

External links

• Saint-Simon and Saint-Simonism Catholic Encyclopedia article
• Saint-Simon and Saint-Simonism: A Chapter in the History of Socialism in France by Arthur John Booth
• 'Henri de Saint-Simon: The Great Synthesist by Caspar Hewett
• New Christianity, 1825, Henri de Saint-Simon

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Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/26/20

Anquetil-Duperron starts out by insisting that theology is "a science like philosophy" but must, unlike philosophy, stay within the limits circumscribed by "a genuine revelation, the mysteries of religion, and several dogmas transmitted to us by apostolic tradition," which form the bedrock that no one is allowed to question...the proper realm of theology is that of revelation... a theologian must be almost universal" and argues that, faced with many pretended revelations, a theologian must be equipped to judge their claims. This indicates the need for knowledge of several languages in order to read the original texts; of history to understand their context; of geography to understand their setting; and of poetry to appreciate their style. "All such knowledge thus forms part of theology" (p. 373v). Furthermore, a real theologian should know not only the Old and New Testaments and all related languages but everything ever divinely revealed and transmitted...

his search for genuine ancient records of God's earliest revelations was to carry him far beyond the Middle East and become a drawn-out quest for the Indian Vedas that lasted from his youth to his death in 1805. His last publication -- a posthumously published annotated translation of Father Paulinus a Sancto Bartholomaeo's Viaggio alle Indie orientali (Voyage to the East Indies, 1796) that appeared in 1808 -- shows the end point of Anquetil-Duperron's theological journey of a lifetime. Taking issue with Paulinus's statement that the Ezour-vedam was "composed by a missionary and falsely attributed to the brahmins" and that the Indians' conception of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva clearly shows "the materialism of the Indians" and their pagan philosophy (Paulinus a Sancto Bartholomaeo 1796:66), Anquetil-Duperron vigorously defended the Ezour-vedam's genuineness ("a donkey can deny more than a philosopher can prove"3) as well as the orthodoxy of the Indian trinity...

How did Anquetil-Duperron come to regard the Ezour-vedam as genuine; and why could he, an ardent Christian, call Vedic texts "orthodox"?...

For people in search of the world's oldest books, India's mysterious Vedas had a particular attraction, even though -- or perhaps because -- information about them often consisted of little more than the names of its four parts and the assertion of great antiquity. Agostinho de Azevedo's report about the Vedas and Shastras of India found its way into Johannes Lucena's Historia da Vida do Padre Francisco de Xavier (1600) and Diogo do Couto's Decada Quinta da Asia (1612), and from there into other works including Holwell's (see Chapter 6)...However, both Fenicio's and Azevedo's data were based not on the Vedas but on other texts....

Johann Joachim MULLER'S (1661-1733) (in)famous De tribus impostoribus contained a passage about them. The false date of 1598 on the original printed edition of these Three Impostors led some researchers6 to conclude that this book contained the earliest Western mention of the four Vedas; but Winfried Schroder has proved that the book is by Muller and was written almost a century later, in 1688 (Muller 1999; Mulsow 2002:119). Muller had been involved in oriental studies, and his Veda passage shows beautifully how competition by alternative revelations and older texts could be used to destabilize Christianity, whether in jest -- as seems to have been his intention -- or in earnest, as his readers understood it. Muller's passage about the Vedas occurs in the context of an attack on Christianity on the basis of competing revelations that form the basis of the sacred scriptures of the "three impostors" Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed.

-- Chapter 7. Anquetil-Duperron's Search for the True Vedas, by Urs App

-- The Birth of Orientalism, by Urs App

Abraham Hyacinthe
Anquetil-Duperron
Born: 7 December 1731, Paris, France
Died: 17 January 1805 (aged 73)
Occupation: Orientalist

Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron (7 December 1731 – 17 January 1805) was the first[1] professional French Indologist. He conceived the institutional framework for the new profession. He inspired the founding of the École française d'Extrême-Orient a century after his death. The library of the Institut français de Pondichéry is named after him.

Early life

Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil was born in Paris on 7 December 1731[2] as the fourth of seven children of Pierre Anquetil, a spice importer.[3] As was the custom of the time, the name of one of his father's estates, 'Duperron', was added to his name to distinguish him from his brothers.[3] Anquetil-Duperron initially distinguished himself in the study of theology at Paris[2] and Utrecht with the intention of becoming a priest like his elder brother Louis-Pierre Anquetil.[4] In the course of his studies, however, he acquired such an interest in Latin, Hebrew, and Greek that he chose to devote himself entirely to philology [study of language] and classical studies and discontinued his clerical training.[2] He travelled to Amersfoort near Utrecht to study oriental languages, especially Arabic, with the Jansenites who were exiled there.[3]

Jansenism was a theological movement within Catholicism, primarily active in France, that emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace and predestination. The movement originated from the posthumously published work of the Dutch theologian Cornelius Jansen, who died in 1638. It was first popularized by Jansen's friend Abbot Jean du Vergier de Hauranne, of Saint-Cyran-en-Brenne Abbey, and, after du Vergier's death in 1643, was led by Antoine Arnauld. Through the 17th and into the 18th centuries, Jansenism was a distinct movement away from the Catholic Church. The theological centre of the movement was the convent of Port-Royal-des-Champs Abbey, which was a haven for writers including du Vergier, Arnauld, Pierre Nicole, Blaise Pascal and Jean Racine.

Jansenism was opposed by many in the Catholic hierarchy, especially the Jesuits. Although the Jansenists identified themselves only as rigorous followers of Augustine of Hippo's teachings, Jesuits coined the term Jansenism to identify them as having Calvinist affinities. The apostolic constitution, Cum occasione promulgated by Pope Innocent X in 1653, condemned five cardinal doctrines of Jansenism as heresy—especially the relationship between human free will and efficacious grace, wherein the teachings of Augustine, as presented by the Jansenists, contradicted the teachings of the Jesuit School. Jansenist leaders endeavored to accommodate the pope's pronouncements while retaining their uniqueness, and enjoyed a measure of peace in the late 17th century under Pope Clement IX. However, further controversy led to the apostolic constitution Unigenitus Dei Filius, promulgated by Pope Clement XI in 1713.

-- Jansenism, by Wikipedia

On returning to Paris, his attendance at the Royal Library (Bibliothèque du Roi, now the National Library) attracted the attention of the keeper of the manuscripts, Abbé Sallier, who hired Anquetil-Duperron as an assistant on a small salary.[2]

Early interest in Indian manuscripts

In 1754, Michelangelo-André Le Roux Deshauterayes who at the time was professor for Arabic at the Collège Royal, showed Anquetil a facsimile of four leaves of a Vendidad Sade[n 1] that had been sent to Deshauterayes's uncle Michel Fourmont in the 1730s in the hope that someone might be able to decipher it. The original was at Oxford's Bodleian Library, but the script was not recognized, and so the manuscript was placed in a box chained to a wall near the library's entrance and shown to everyone who might be able to identify the curiosity.[5] Also at the Bodelian was the manuscript collection of James Fraser (1713–1754), who had lived in Surat (present-day Gujarat, India) for over sixteen years, where he had been a Factor of the British East India Company and later Member of Council. Fraser had returned to Britain with some 200 Sanskrit and Avestan manuscripts, which he intended to translate, but he died prematurely on 21 January 1754.

FRASER, JAMES (1713–1754), author and collector of oriental manuscripts, born in 1713, was the son of Alexander Fraser (d. 1733) of Reelick, near Inverness. He paid two visits to India, where he resided at Surat. During his first stay (1730-40) he acquired a working knowledge of Zend from Parsi teachers and of Sanskrit from a learned Brahman. He also collected materials for an account of Nadir Shah, who invaded India in 1737-8. Coming home for about two years, he published his book. He then went out again as a factor in the East India Company's service, and became a member of the council at Surat, where he remained for six years. After his return in 1749 he expressed the intention of compiling an ancient Persian (Zend) lexicon, and of translating the Zendavesta from the original. He also spoke of translating the 'Vedh' (Veda) of the Brahmans; he seems, however, to have had no direct knowledge of the Vedas, but to have been acquainted with post-Vedic works only. Nothing came of these plans owing to his premature death, which took place at his own house, Easter Moniack, Inverness-shire, on 21 Jan. 1754 (Scots Mag. 1754, p. 51).

Fraser married in London, in 1742, Mary, only daughter of Edward Satchwell of Warwickshire, by whom he had issue one son and three daughters. A portrait of him is still in the possession of his descendants at Reelick House. James Baillie Fraser [q. v.] and William Fraser (1784?-1835) [q. v.] were his grandsons.

Fraser's book is entitled 'The History of Nadir Shah, formerly called Thamas Kuli Khan, the present Emperor of Persia; to which is prefixed a short History of the Moghol Emperors' (London, 1742). It contains a map of the Moghul empire and part of Tartary. It was the first book in English treating of Nadir Shah, 'the scourge of God.' It is important not only as a first-hand contribution to the history of contemporary events, but also for the number of original documents which it alone has preserved.

At the end of his book the author gives a list of about two hundred oriental manuscripts, including Zend and Sanskrit, which he had purchased at Surat, Cambay, and Ahmedabad. His claim that his 'Sanskerrit' manuscripts formed 'the first collection of that kind ever brought into Europe' appears to be valid, though single Sanskrit manuscripts had reached England and France even earlier. After his death his oriental manuscripts were bought from his widow for the Radclifte Library at Oxford; they were transferred to the Bodleian on 10 May 1872. One of Fraser's manuscripts, containing 178 portraits of Indian kings down to Aurengzebe, found its way directly into the Bodleian as early as 1737, in which year it was presented to the library by the poet Alexander Pope, its then possessor. Fraser's Sanskrit manuscripts, forty-one in number and all post-Vedic, were the earliest collection in that language which came into the possession of Oxford University: the first Sanskrit manuscript, however, which the Bodleian acquired was given to it in 1666 by John Ken, an East India merchant of London. It was in order to inspect Fraser's Zend manuscripts that the famous French orientalist, Anquetil Duperron, visited Oxford in 1702, when brought a prisoner of war to England.

-- Preface and appendix to Fraser's History of Nadir Shah; manuscript notes, written about 1754 by S. Smalbroke (son of Dr. Richard Smalbroke [q. v.], bishop of Lichfield and Coventry) in a copy of that work now in the possession of W. Irvine, esq.; Note on James Fraser in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1899, pp. 214-20, by W. Irvine; Burke's Landed Gentry; Macray's Annals of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, 1890, pp. 216, 372, note 1; Aufrecht's Bodleian Sanskrit Catalogue, pp. 358, 403-4.

In his later travelogue, Anquetil is sharply critical of the English, both of Fraser's "failure"[5] to accomplish what he intended, and of the Bodelian's failure to realize that Thomas Hyde's manuscripts, which the Bodelian also had in its possession, included a transliteration table for Avestan script.[5] Playing on the French antipathy towards the English, in his travelogue he later claimed that after seeing the facsimile pages of the Oxford manuscript, he resolved to "enrich [his] country with that singular work" and the translation of it.apud [6] There was a government interest in obtaining eastern manuscripts;[n 2] Anquetil-Duperron obtained a mission from the government to do so but, unable to afford his own passage to India, he enlisted as a common soldier for the French East India Company on 2[3] or 7[2] November 1754. He marched with the company of recruits from the Parisian prisons to the Atlantic port of L'Orient, where an expedition was preparing to depart.[3] His friends secured his discharge and, on 7 February 1755, the minister, touched by his romantic zeal for knowledge, granted him free passage, a seat at the captain's table, an allowance of 500 livres from the library, and a letter of introduction to the French governor in India which would entitle him to a small salary while there.[2] Anquetil-Duperron left France as a free passenger on 24 February 1755.

First travels

After a passage of six months, Anquetil-Duperron landed on 10 August 1755 at the French colony at Pondicherry, on the coast in south-eastern India.[4] From his private correspondence it appears that he intended to become "master of the religious institutions of all Asia", which in the 18th-century were still imagined to all derive from the Indian Vedas.[6] For that, Anquetil-Duperron knew he would need to learn Sanskrit.[6] He initially studied Persian[2] (the lingua franca of Moghul India), which Europeans in the 18th century still presumed to have descended from Sanskrit. His plan was then to visit the Brahmins in Benares to learn Sanskrit "at some famous pagoda."apud [6] Half a year later, he was living on rice and vegetables and saving his money so that he might "find some Brahmin" to become the disciple of. As he also wanted to "study the Indian books", he decided to travel to the French colony at Chandannagar also known in French as Chandernagor in Bengal, where he arrived in April 1756.[6] He promptly fell sick; by coincidence, he landed in the hospital of the Jesuit missionary Antoine Mozac, who some years earlier had copied the "Pondicherry Vedas".[6] Anquetil-Duperron remained in the hospital until September or October 1756 and began to wonder whether he should not instead become a priest as he had intended years earlier.[6] Meanwhile, the outbreak of the Seven Years' War in Europe had renewed hostilities between French and British forces in India, where the conflict is known as the Third Carnatic War. The British East India Companyunder Robert Clive and the British Navy under Charles Watson bombarded and captured Chandannagar on 23 March 1757 and Anquetil-Duperron resolved to leave the territory.[2] Unable to gain access to the Vedas, Anquetil-Duperron planned to travel to Tibet and China to find the ancient Indian texts there.[6] Discouraged by news that there were no texts to be found there, Anquetil-Duperron returned overland to Pondicherry over the course of a hundred-day trek.[2] There, he found his brother Etienne Anquetil de Briancourt, who had been named consul at Surat.[3][6]

As Etienne assured Abraham that the Zoroastrian priests of Surat would teach him their sacred texts as well as the languages in which they were written,[7] he resolved to accompany his brother. Wanting to explore the country, however, he disembarked from his brother's ship at Mahé and travelled overland the rest of the way on foot[2] and on horseback.[3] He arrived in Surat on 1 March 1758, at a time when the Indian Zoroastrians (Parsis) were embroiled in a bitter dispute over intercalation, what is now called the "Kabiseh controversy".[7] Each side cultivated ties with competing European traders. The one faction (the shahenshahis, led by a certain Muncherji Seth) had ties to the Dutch East India Company. The other (the kadmis, led by a certain Darab Kumana) maintained ties to the British and Armenians. In the travelogue, Darab's co-operation with Anquetil-Duperron is attributed to a need for assurance of French protection.[7] It seems that Darab (and another priest, a certain Kaus) attempted to provide Anquetil-Duperron with an education similar to that given to priests.[7] His essay Exposition du Systeme Theologique aligns itself with the texts and provides only glimpses of what the Parsis actually believed at the time.[7] Anquetil complains of the priests' interest with law and ritual rather than philosophy or abstract ideas.[7] Anquetil grew impatient with the methodical methods of the priests and with his inability to obtain manuscripts. According to his travelogue, the priests also had no desire to teach him Avestan and no expectations that he would master it well enough to translate their texts.[7] Also according to Anquetil, the priests were committing a great sacrilege in acquainting him with the texts and lessons were conducted in Persian so that the priest's Zoroastrian servant would not be aware of what was transpiring.[7] Kaus's anxiety increased when Anquetil demanded proper interpretation and not just translation.[7] Via Persian, the two priests taught him what they knew of Avestan (which was not much)[3] and of Zoroastrian theology (which was even less).[7] In June 1759, 16 months after his arrival in Surat, he sent news to Paris that he had completed (in three months) a translation of the "Vendidad".[3][n 3] The same June, the priest Darab arranged for Anquetil-Duperron to attend—in disguise but armed with a sword and pistol—a ceremony in a fire temple "in exchange for a small present and the hope of promenading the city in my palanquin".apud [7] Anquetil also suggests that Darab attempted to convert him, but that he "courageously refused to waver".apud [7] Two centuries later, J. J. Modi would explain Anquetil's invitation into a temple as only possible if the sacred fire had been temporarily removed because the temple was being renovated.cf. [3] On the other hand, Anquetil states that he was given a sudra and kusti and he may have been formally invested with them, which would have made him a Zoroastrian in the priest's view, and thus would have been acceptable in a functioning temple.[7]

Duel and legal problems

In late 1759, Anquetil-Duperron killed a fellow countryman in a duel, was badly wounded himself, and was forced to take refuge with the British. Anquetil's own brother demanded that he be handed over, but the British refused. In April 1760, the French authorities dropped the charges and allowed him to return to the French sector. In the meantime, Anquetil had travelled all over Gujarat. At Surat and in his travels, he collected 180 manuscripts, which not only included almost all known Avestan language texts and many of the 9th/10th-century works of Zoroastrian tradition, but also other texts in a multitude of Indian languages.[3] Anquetil-Duperron finished his translation in September 1760, and decided to leave Surat. From Surat, he intended again to travel to Benares[2][6] but the widow of the Frenchman he had killed was bringing charges against him, which Anquetil then used as an excuse to seek refuge again with the British and obtain passage on one of the English ships destined for Europe. He paid for his journey by calling in debts that others had made to his brother.[7] Just before his departure, the priest Kaus lodged a complaint with the British that Anquetil had failed to pay for all the manuscripts that he had purchased. The British seized his goods, but released them when Anquetil's brother guaranteed payment.[7] Anquetil-Duperron left Surat on 15 March 1761. He arrived at Portsmouth eight months later, where was interned but allowed to continue working.[3] After his release, he traveled to Oxford to check his copies of the Avestan language texts against those of the Bodelian. He then set out for France and arrived in Paris on 14 March 1762. He deposited his manuscripts in the Royal Library the next day.[3][6]

Report and fame

In June 1762, his report was published in the Journal des Scavans, and Anquetil-Duperron became an instant celebrity.[6] The title of his report indicated that he had gone to India to "discover and translate the works attributed to Zoroaster."[6] It appears that this mischaracterization of his objective was in order to be seen as having achieved what he intended.[6] The librarian Jean-Jacques Barthélemy procured a pension for him and appointed him interpreter of oriental languages at the Royal Library.[2] In 1763, he was elected an associate of the Academy of Inscriptions and began to arrange for the publication of the materials he had collected during his travels.[2] In 1771, he published his three-part Zend Avesta of works ascribed to Zoroaster, which included not only a re-translation of what the priests had translated into Persian for him but also a travelogue (Journal du voyage de l’Auteur aux Indes orientates), a summary of the manuscripts that he collected (Notice des manuscrits), a biography of Zoroaster (Vie de Zoroastre), a translation of the Bundahishn, and two essays (Exposition des usages civils etreligieux des Parses and Système cérémonial et moral des livres zends et pehlvis).

Controversy

A heated dispute broke out at once, in which Duperron was accused of perpetrating (or having been duped in) an elaborate fraud. At the fore in this dispute was William Jones, at the time still a student at Oxford. The future founder of the Royal Asiatic Society and future discoverer of the Indo-European language group was deeply wounded by Duperron's scornful treatment of Jones's countrymen and, in a pamphlet written in French, Jones dismissed Duperron's manuscripts as the rhapsody of some mindless Hindu. For the contemporaries of Voltaire, the silly tales of gods and demons and outlandish laws and rules seemed impossible to relate to the idealized Enlightenment-era view of Zoroaster or to a religion which they associated with simplicity and wisdom.[8] Other scholars attacked Duperron on philological grounds. Duperron was vindicated by Rasmus Rask in 1820, 15 years after Duperron's death. The debate would rage for another 30 years after that. Anquetil's "attempt at a translation was, of course, premature",[3] and, as Eugène Burnouf demonstrated sixty years later, translating the Avesta via a previous translation was prone to errors. However, Anquetil was the first to bring an ancient oriental sacred text other than the Bible to the attention of European scholars.[3]

Later years

Following his Zend-Avesta and until his death in 1805, Anquetil was occupied with studying the laws, history, and geography of India.[3] He was greatly affected by the Revolution.[2] "In his youth a kind of Don Juan, he now led the life of a poor, ascetic bachelor, combining Christian virtue with the wisdom of a Brahmin."[3] During that period he abandoned society, and lived in voluntary poverty on a few pence a day. In 1778, he published at Amsterdam his Legislation orientale, in which he endeavored to prove that the nature of oriental despotism had been greatly misrepresented by Montesquieu and others.[2] His Recherches historiques et géographiques sur l'Inde appeared in 1786 and formed part of Thieffenthaler's Geography of India.[2] In 1798, he published L'Inde en rapport avec l'Europe (Hamburg, 2 vols.), a work considered notable by the British for its "remarkable" invectives against them and for its "numerous misrepresentations".[2] His most valuable achievement[3] was a two-volume Latin retranslation and commentary of a Persian translation of fifty Upanishads received from India in 1775, which Anquetil had translated by 1796. Called the "Oupnek'hat or Upanischada" by Anquetil, these were subsequently published in Strasbourg in 1801-1802 and represent the first European language translation of a Hindu text, albeit in an approximate rendering.[3] Anquetil's commentaries make up half the work. A 108-page French paraphrase of Anquetil's Oupnek'hats by Jean-Denis Lanjuinais appeared in Millin's Magasin Encyclopédique of 1805. Arthur Schopenhauer encountered Anquetil's Oupnek'hats in the spring of 1814 and repeatedly called it not only his favorite book but the work of the entire world literature that is most worthy of being read.[n 4] In India, Anquetil's Oupnek'hats precipitated a revival in the study of the Upanishads.[3]

Political and institutional activity

When the Institut de France was reorganized, Anquetil was voted in as a member but soon resigned. In 1804, Anquetil refused to swear allegiance to Napoleon, stating that "his obeisance [was] to the laws of the government under which he lived and which protected him."apud [3]

Death

Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron died in Paris on 17 January 1805.[2] His work became one of the most important references for nineteenth century spiritualists and occultists in France.

Notes

1. A Vendidad Sade is a particular variant of a Yasna text into which sections of the Visperad and Vendidad are interleaved. A Vendidad Sade contains only Avestan text, without exegetical commentary. The pages that Anquetil-Duperron were shown were a copy of part of a manuscript that had been purchased in Surat, India by George Boucher in 1719 and brought to England by Richard Cobbe in 1723. Cobbe presented it to Oxford's Bodleian Library, where it became known by the misnomer 'Oxford Vendidad'.
2. Fifty years earlier, J. F. Pétis de la Croix had been ordered to bring back manuscripts from Iran, but had not been successful.[3]
3. Anquetil referred here to the Vendidad Sade (see note above) from which he had previously seen a copy of four leaves and not to the Vendidad proper.
4. See the book-length study of the Oupnek'hat’s influence on the genesis of Schopenhauer's philosophy by App[9]

References

1. T. K. John, "Research and Studies by Western Missionaries and Scholars in Sanskrit Language and Literature," in the St. Thomas Christian Encyclopaedia of India, Vol. III, Ollur[Trichur] 2010 Ed. George Menachery, pp.79 - 83
2. "Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil du Perron" , Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th ed., Vol. II, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1878, pp. 90–91.
3. Duchesne-Guillemin, Jaques (1985), "Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron", Encyclopedia Iranica, vol. II, Cosa Mesa: Mazda, pp. 100–101.
4. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Anquetil Duperron, Abraham Hyacinthe" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 80–81.
5. Deloche, Jean; Filliozat, Manonmani; Filliozat, Pierre-Sylvain, eds. (1997), Voyage en Inde, 1754-1762: Anquetil-Duperron: Relation de voyage en preliminaire a la traduction du Zend-Avesta, Collection Peregrinations asiatiques, Paris: École française d'Extrême-Orient / Maisonneuve & Larose / Royer, pp. 15–32, ISBN 2-7068-1278-8.
6. App, Urs (2010), "Anquetil-Duperron's Search for the True Vedas", The Birth of Orientalism, Philadelphia: UP Press, pp. 363–439, ISBN 978-0-8122-4261-4.
7. Stiles Manek, Susan (1997), The Death of Ahriman, Bombay: K.R. Cama Oriental Institute, pp. 134–142.
8. Darmesteter, James (1880), Introduction. Zend-Avesta, part I: Vendidad (SBE, vol. IV), Oxford: Clarendon, pp. I.xiv-I.xii.
9. App, Urs (2014), Schopenhauer's Compass. An Introduction to Schopenhauer's Philosophy and its Origins, Wil: UniversityMedia, ISBN 978-3-906000-03-9.
• Stuurman, Siep (2007), "Cosmopolitan Egalitarianism in the Enlightenment: Anquetil Duperron on India and America", Journal of the History of Ideas, 68: 255–278.
• Abbattista, Guido (1993), Anquetil-Duperron, Considérations philosophiques, historiques et géographiques sur les deux mondes, edizione critica con Introduzione e annotazione di Guido Abbattista, Pisa: Edizioni della Scuola Normale Superiore, 1993.

External links

• Works by or about Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Anquetil-Duperron, Abraham Hyacinthe (1771), Zend-Avesta, (3 vols.), Paris: N. M. Tilliard, at the Internet Archive.
• "Anquetil Duperron, Abraham Hyacinthe" . New International Encyclopedia. 1905.
• Filliozat, Pierre-Sylvain (2005). "Anquetil Duperron, un pionnier du voyage scientifique en Inde". Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. 149 (4): 1261–1280.

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James Fraser (1713-1754)
by Wikisource
Accessed: 8/26/20

[from Preface and appendix to Fraser's History of Nadir Shah; manuscript notes, written about 1754 by S. Smalbroke (son of Dr. Richard Smalbroke [q. v.], bishop of Lichfield and Coventry) in a copy of that work now in the possession of W. Irvine, esq.; Note on James Fraser in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1899, pp. 214-20, by W. Irvine; Burke's Landed Gentry; Macray's Annals of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, 1890, pp. 216, 372, note 1; Aufrecht's Bodleian Sanskrit Catalogue, pp. 358, 403-4.]

FRASER, JAMES (1713–1754), author and collector of oriental manuscripts, born in 1713, was the son of Alexander Fraser (d. 1733) of Reelick, near Inverness. He paid two visits to India, where he resided at Surat. During his first stay (1730-40) he acquired a working knowledge of Zend from Parsi teachers and of Sanskrit from a learned Brahman. He also collected materials for an account of Nadir Shah, who invaded India in 1737-8. Coming home for about two years, he published his book. He then went out again as a factor in the East India Company's service, and became a member of the council at Surat, where he remained for six years. After his return in 1749 he expressed the intention of compiling an ancient Persian (Zend) lexicon, and of translating the Zendavesta from the original. He also spoke of translating the 'Vedh' (Veda) of the Brahmans; he seems, however, to have had no direct knowledge of the Vedas, but to have been acquainted with post-Vedic works only. Nothing came of these plans owing to his premature death, which took place at his own house, Easter Moniack, Inverness-shire, on 21 Jan. 1754 (Scots Mag. 1754, p. 51).

Fraser married in London, in 1742, Mary, only daughter of Edward Satchwell of Warwickshire, by whom he had issue one son and three daughters. A portrait of him is still in the possession of his descendants at Reelick House. James Baillie Fraser [q. v.] and William Fraser (1784?-1835) [q. v.] were his grandsons.

Fraser's book is entitled 'The History of Nadir Shah, formerly called Thamas Kuli Khan, the present Emperor of Persia; to which is prefixed a short History of the Moghol Emperors' (London, 1742). It contains a map of the Moghul empire and part of Tartary. It was the first book in English treating of Nadir Shah, 'the scourge of God.' It is important not only as a first-hand contribution to the history of contemporary events, but also for the number of original documents which it alone has preserved.

At the end of his book the author gives a list of about two hundred oriental manuscripts, including Zend and Sanskrit, which he had purchased at Surat, Cambay, and Ahmedabad. His claim that his 'Sanskerrit' manuscripts formed 'the first collection of that kind ever brought into Europe' appears to be valid, though single Sanskrit manuscripts had reached England and France even earlier. After his death his oriental manuscripts were bought from his widow for the Radclifte Library at Oxford; they were transferred to the Bodleian on 10 May 1872. One of Fraser's manuscripts, containing 178 portraits of Indian kings down to Aurengzebe, found its way directly into the Bodleian as early as 1737, in which year it was presented to the library by the poet Alexander Pope, its then possessor. Fraser's Sanskrit manuscripts, forty-one in number and all post-Vedic, were the earliest collection in that language which came into the possession of Oxford University: the first Sanskrit manuscript, however, which the Bodleian acquired was given to it in 1666 by John Ken, an East India merchant of London. It was in order to inspect Fraser's Zend manuscripts that the famous French orientalist, Anquetil Duperron, visited Oxford in 1702, when brought a prisoner of war to England.

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Utopian socialism
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/26/20

Utopian socialism is the first current of modern socialism and socialist thought as exemplified by the work of Henri de Saint-Simon, Charles Fourier, Étienne Cabet,...

Étienne Cabet (French: [kabɛ]; January 1, 1788 – November 9, 1856) was a French philosopher and utopian socialist who founded the Icarian movement. Cabet became the most popular socialist advocate of his day, with a special appeal to artisans who were being undercut by factories. Cabet published Voyage en Icarie in French in 1839 (and in English in 1840 as Travels in Icaria), in which he proposed replacing capitalist production with workers' cooperatives. Recurrent problems with French officials (a treason conviction in 1834 resulted in five years' exile in England), led him to emigrate to the United States in 1848. Cabet founded utopian communities in Texas and Illinois, but was again undercut, this time by recurring feuds with his followers.

-- Étienne Cabet, by Wikipedia

Robert Owen and Henry George.[1][2] Utopian socialism is often described as the presentation of visions and outlines for imaginary or futuristic ideal societies, with positive ideals being the main reason for moving society in such a direction. Later socialists and critics of utopian socialism viewed utopian socialism as not being grounded in actual material conditions of existing society and in some cases as reactionary. These visions of ideal societies competed with Marxist-inspired revolutionary social democratic movements.[3]

As a term or label, utopian socialism is most often applied to, or used to define, those socialists who lived in the first quarter of the 19th century who were ascribed the label utopian by later socialists as a pejorative in order to imply naiveté and to dismiss their ideas as fanciful and unrealistic.[4] A similar school of thought that emerged in the early 20th century which makes the case for socialism on moral grounds is ethical socialism.[5]

One key difference between utopian socialists and other socialists such as most anarchists and Marxists is that utopian socialists generally do not believe any form of class struggle or social revolution is necessary for socialism to emerge. Utopian socialists believe that people of all classes can voluntarily adopt their plan for society if it is presented convincingly.[3] They feel their form of cooperative socialism can be established among like-minded people within the existing society and that their small communities can demonstrate the feasibility of their plan for society.[3]

Definition

See also: Utopia

The thinkers identified as utopian socialist did not use the term utopian to refer to their ideas. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were the first thinkers to refer to them as utopian, referring to all socialist ideas that simply presented a vision and distant goal of an ethically just society as utopian. This utopian mindset which held an integrated conception of the goal, the means to produce said goal and an understanding of the way that those means would inevitably be produced through examining social and economic phenomena can be contrasted with scientific socialism which has been likened to Taylorism.[citation needed]

This distinction was made clear in Engels' work Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (1892, part of an earlier publication, the Anti-Dühring from 1878). Utopian socialists were seen as wanting to expand the principles of the French revolution in order to create a more rational society. Despite being labeled as utopian by later socialists, their aims were not always utopian and their values often included rigid support for the scientific method and the creation of a society based upon scientific understanding.[6]

Development

The term utopian socialism was introduced by Karl Marx in "For a Ruthless Criticism of Everything" in 1843 and then developed in The Communist Manifesto in 1848, although shortly before its publication Marx had already attacked the ideas of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon in The Poverty of Philosophy (originally written in French, 1847). The term was used by later socialist thinkers to describe early socialist or quasi-socialist intellectuals who created hypothetical visions of egalitarian, communalist, meritocratic, or other notions of perfect societies without considering how these societies could be created or sustained.

In The Poverty of Philosophy, Marx criticized the economic and philosophical arguments of Proudhon set forth in The System of Economic Contradictions, or The Philosophy of Poverty. Marx accused Proudhon of wanting to rise above the bourgeoisie. In the history of Marx's thought and Marxism, this work is pivotal in the distinction between the concepts of utopian socialism and what Marx and the Marxists claimed as scientific socialism. Although utopian socialists shared few political, social, or economic perspectives, Marx and Engels argued that they shared certain intellectual characteristics. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote: "The undeveloped state of the class struggle, as well as their own surroundings, causes Socialists of this kind to consider themselves far superior to all class antagonisms. They want to improve the condition of every member of society, even that of the most favored. Hence, they habitually appeal to society at large, without distinction of class; nay, by preference, to the ruling class. For how can people, when once they understand their system, fail to see it in the best possible plan of the best possible state of society? Hence, they reject all political, and especially all revolutionary, action; they wish to attain their ends by peaceful means, and endeavor, by small experiments, necessarily doomed to failure, and by the force of example, to pave the way for the new social Gospel".[7]

Marx and Engels associated utopian socialism with communitarian socialism which similarly sees the establishment of small intentional communities as both a strategy for achieving and the final form of a socialist society.[8] Marx and Engels used the term scientific socialism to describe the type of socialism they saw themselves developing. According to Engels, socialism was not "an accidental discovery of this or that ingenious brain, but the necessary outcome of the struggle between two historically developed classes, namely the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Its task was no longer to manufacture a system of society as perfect as possible, but to examine the historical-economic succession of events from which these classes and their antagonism had of necessity sprung, and to discover in the economic conditions thus created the means of ending the conflict". Critics have argued that utopian socialists who established experimental communities were in fact trying to apply the scientific method to human social organization and were therefore not utopian. On the basis of Karl Popper's definition of science as "the practice of experimentation, of hypothesis and test", Joshua Muravchik argued that "Owen and Fourier and their followers were the real 'scientific socialists.' They hit upon the idea of socialism, and they tested it by attempting to form socialist communities". By contrast, Muravchik further argued that Marx made untestable predictions about the future and that Marx's view that socialism would be created by impersonal historical forces may lead one to conclude that it is unnecessary to strive for socialism because it will happen anyway.[9]

Since the mid-19th century, Marxism and Marxism–Leninism overtook utopian socialism in terms of intellectual development and number of adherents. At one time almost half the population of the world lived under regimes that claimed to be Marxist.[10] Currents such as Saint-Simonianism and Fourierism attracted the interest of numerous later authors but failed to compete with the now dominant Marxist, Proudhonist, or Leninist schools on a political level. It has been noted that they exerted a significant influence on the emergence of new religious movements such as spiritualism and occultism.[11][12]

In literature and in practice

Perhaps the first utopian socialist was Thomas More (1478–1535), who wrote about an imaginary socialist society in his book Utopia, published in 1516. The contemporary definition of the English word utopia derives from this work and many aspects of More's description of Utopia were influenced by life in monasteries.[13]

Saint-Simonianism was a French political and social movement of the first half of the 19th century, inspired by the ideas of Henri de Saint-Simon (1760–1825). His ideas influenced Auguste Comte (who was for a time Saint-Simon's secretary), Karl Marx, John Stuart Mill and many other thinkers and social theorists.


Robert Owen was one of the founders of utopian socialism

Robert Owen (1771–1858) was a successful Welsh businessman who devoted much of his profits to improving the lives of his employees. His reputation grew when he set up a textile factory in New Lanark, Scotland, co-funded by his teacher, the utilitarian Jeremy Bentham and introduced shorter working hours, schools for children and renovated housing. He wrote about his ideas in his book A New View of Society which was published in 1813 and An Explanation of the Cause of Distress which pervades the civilized parts of the world in 1823. He also set up an Owenite commune called New Harmony in Indiana. This collapsed when one of his business partners ran off with all the profits. Owen's main contribution to socialist thought was the view that human social behavior is not fixed or absolute and that humans have the free will to organize themselves into any kind of society they wished.

Charles Fourier (1772–1837) rejected the Industrial Revolution altogether and thus the problems that arose with it. Fourier made various fanciful claims about the ideal world he envisioned. Despite some clearly non-socialist inclinations,[clarification needed] he contributed significantly even if indirectly to the socialist movement. His writings about turning work into play influenced the young Karl Marx and helped him devise his theory of alienation. Also a contributor to feminism, Fourier invented the concept of phalanstère, units of people based on a theory of passions and of their combination. Several colonies based on Fourier's ideas were founded in the United States by Albert Brisbane and Horace Greeley.

Many Romantic authors, most notably William Godwin and Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote anti-capitalist works and supported peasant revolutions across early 19th century Europe. Étienne Cabet (1788–1856), influenced by Robert Owen, published a book in 1840 entitled Travel and adventures of Lord William Carisdall in Icaria in which he described an ideal communalist society. His attempts to form real socialist communities based on his ideas through the Icarian movement did not survive, but one such community was the precursor of Corning, Iowa. Possibly inspired by Christianity, he coined the word communism and influenced other thinkers, including Marx and Engels.


Utopian socialist pamphlet of Swiss social medical doctor Rudolf Sutermeister (1802–1868)

Edward Bellamy (1850–1898) published Looking Backward in 1888, a utopian romance novel about a future socialist society. In Bellamy's utopia, property was held in common and money replaced with a system of equal credit for all. Valid for a year and non-transferable between individuals, credit expenditure was to be tracked via "credit-cards" (which bear no resemblance to modern credit cards which are tools of debt-finance). Labour was compulsory from age 21 to 40 and organised via various departments of an Industrial Army to which most citizens belonged. Working hours were to be cut drastically due to technological advances (including organisational). People were expected to be motivated by a Religion of Solidarity and criminal behavior was treated as a form of mental illness or "atavism". The book ranked as second or third best seller of its time (after Uncle Tom's Cabin and Ben Hur). In 1897, Bellamy published a sequel entitled Equality as a reply to his critics and which lacked the Industrial Army and other authoritarian aspects.

William Morris (1834–1896) published News from Nowhere in 1890, partly as a response to Bellamy's Looking Backwards, which he equated with the socialism of Fabians such as Sydney Webb. Morris' vision of the future socialist society was centred around his concept of useful work as opposed to useless toil and the redemption of human labour. Morris believed that all work should be artistic, in the sense that the worker should find it both pleasurable and an outlet for creativity. Morris' conception of labour thus bears strong resemblance to Fourier's, while Bellamy's (the reduction of labour) is more akin to that of Saint-Simon or in aspects Marx.

The Brotherhood Church in Britain and the Life and Labor Commune in Russia were based on the Christian anarchist ideas of Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910).

Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809–1865) and Peter Kropotkin (1842–1921) wrote about anarchist forms of socialism in their books. Proudhon wrote What is Property? (1840) and The System of Economic Contradictions, or The Philosophy of Poverty (1847). Kropotkin wrote The Conquest of Bread (1892) and Fields, Factories and Workshops (1912). Many of the anarchist collectives formed in Spain, especially in Aragon and Catalonia, during the Spanish Civil War were based on their ideas. While linking to different topics is always useful to maximize exposure, anarchism does not derive itself from utopian socialism and most anarchists would consider the association to essentially be a marxist slur designed to reduce the credibility of anarchism amongst socialists.[14]

Many participants in the historical kibbutz movement in Israel were motivated by utopian socialist ideas.[15]

Augustin Souchy (1892–1984) spent most of his life investigating and participating in many kinds of socialist communities. Souchy wrote about his experiences in his autobiography Beware! Anarchist!

Behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner (1904–1990) published Walden Two in 1948. The Twin Oaks Community was originally based on his ideas.

Ursula K. Le Guin (1929-2018) wrote about an impoverished anarchist society in her book The Dispossessed, published in 1974, in which the anarchists agree to leave their home planet and colonize a barely habitable moon in order to avoid a bloody revolution.

Related concepts

Some communities of the modern intentional community movement such as kibbutzim could be categorized as utopian socialist.

Some religious communities such as the Hutterites are categorized as utopian religious socialists.[16]

Classless modes of production in hunter-gatherer societies are referred to as primitive communism by Marxists to stress their classless nature.[17]

A related concept is that of a socialist utopia, usually depicted in works of fiction as possible ways society can turn out to be in the future and often combined with notions of a technologically revolutionized economy.

Notable utopian socialists

• Edward Bellamy
• Tommaso Campanella
• Etienne Cabet
o Icarians
• Victor Considérant
• David Dale
• Charles Fourier
o North American Phalanx
o The Phalanx
• Henry George
• Jean-Baptiste Godin
• Laurence Gronlund
• Matti Kurikka
• John Lennon
• Thomas Moore
• John Humphrey Noyes
• Robert Owen
• Vaso Pelagić
• Henri de Saint-Simon
• William Thompson
• Wilhelm Weitling
• Gerrard Winstanley

Notable utopian communities

Utopian communities have existed all over the world. In various forms and locations, they have existed continuously in the United States since the 1730s, beginning with Ephrata Cloister, a religious community in what is now Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.[18]

Owenite communities

• New Lanark
• New Harmony, Indiana

Fourierist communities

• Brook Farm
• La Reunion (Dallas)
• North American Phalanx
• Silkville
• Utopia, Ohio

Icarian communities

• Corning, Iowa

Anarchist communities

• Home, Washington
• Life and Labor Commune
• Socialist Community of Modern Times
• Whiteway Colony

Others

• Kaweah Colony
• Llano del Rio
• Los Mochis
• Nevada City, Nevada
• New Australia
• Oneida Community
• Ruskin Colony
• Rugby, Tennessee
• Sointula

See also

• Christian socialism
• Communist utopia
• Diggers
• Ethical socialism
• Futurism
• History of socialism
• Ideal (ethics)
• Intentional communities
• Kibbutz
• List of anarchist communities
• Marxism
• Nanosocialism
• Post-capitalism
• Post-scarcity
• Ricardian socialism
• Scientific socialism
• Socialism
• Socialist economics
• Syndicalism
• Utopia for Realists
• Yellow socialism
• Zero waste

References

1. "Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism". Public Broadcasting System. Retrieved December 15, 2011.
2. "Utopian socialism". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved July 12, 2020.
3. Draper, Hal (1990). Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution, Volume IV: Critique of Other Socialisms. New York: Monthly Review Press. pp. 1–21. ISBN 978-0853457985.
4. Newman, Michael. (2005) Socialism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-
19-280431-6.
5. Thompson, Noel W. (2006). Political Economy and the Labour Party: The Economics of Democratic Socialism, 1884–2005 (2nd ed.). Abingdon, England: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-32880-7.
6. Frederick Engels. "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (Chpt. 1)". Marxists.org. Retrieved July 3,2013.
7. Engels, Friedrich and Marx, Karl Heinrich. Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei. Edited by Sálvio M. Soares. MetaLibri, October 31, 2008, v1.0s.
8. Leopold, David (2018). "Marx, Engels and Some (Non-Foundational) Arguments Against Utopian Socialism". In Kandiyali, Jan (ed.). Reassessing Marx's Social and Political Philosophy: Freedom, Recognition and Human Flourishing. Routledge. p. 73.
9. Muravchik, Joshua (8 February 1999). "The Rise and Fall of Socialism". Bradley Lecture Series. American Enterprise Institute. Archived 3 May 1999 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 21 August 2020.
10. Steven Kreis (January 30, 2008). "Karl Marx, 1818-1883". The History Guide.
11. Strube, Julian (2016). "Socialist religion and the emergence of occultism: a genealogical approach to socialism and secularization in 19th-century France". Religion. 46 (3): 359–388. doi:10.1080/0048721X.2016.1146926.
12. Cyranka, Daniel (2016). "Religious Revolutionaries and Spiritualism in Germany around 1848". Aries. 16 (1): 13–48. doi:10.1163/15700593-01601002.
13. J. C. Davis (28 July 1983). Utopia and the Ideal Society: A Study of English Utopian Writing 1516-1700. Cambridge University Press. p. 58. ISBN 978-0-521-27551-4.
14. Sam Dolgoff (1990). The Anarchist Collectives: Workers' Self-Management in the Spanish Revolution, 1936–1939. Black Rose Books.
15. Sheldon Goldenberg and Gerda R. Wekerle (September 1972). "From utopia to total institution in a single generation: the kibbutz and Bruderhof". International Review of Modern Sociology. 2 (2): 224–232. JSTOR 41420450.
16. Donald E. Frey (2009). America's Economic Moralists: A History of Rival Ethics and Economics. SUNY Press. p. 61. ISBN 9780791493663.
17. "Primitive communism: life before class and oppression". Socialist Worker. May 28, 2013. Retrieved December 27, 2019.
18. Yaacov Oved (1988). Two Hundred Years of American Communes. Transaction Publishers. pp. 3, 19.
Further reading[edit]
• Taylor, Keith (1992). The political ideas of Utopian socialists. London: Cass. ISBN 0714630896.

External links

• Media related to Utopian socialism at Wikimedia Commons
• Be Utopian: Demand the Realistic by Robert Pollin, The Nation, March 9, 2009.

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Étienne Cabet
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/26/20


Étienne Cabet
Born: January 1, 1788, Dijon, Côte-d'Or
Died: November 9, 1856 (aged 68), St. Louis, Missouri, United States
Occupation: philosopher
Known for: founder of the Icarian movement
Notable work: "Travel and Adventures of Lord William Carisdall in Icaria" (1840)

Étienne Cabet (French: [kabɛ]; January 1, 1788 – November 9, 1856) was a French philosopher and utopian socialist who founded the Icarian movement. Cabet became the most popular socialist advocate of his day, with a special appeal to artisans who were being undercut by factories. Cabet published Voyage en Icarie in French in 1839 (and in English in 1840 as Travels in Icaria), in which he proposed replacing capitalist production with workers' cooperatives. Recurrent problems with French officials (a treason conviction in 1834 resulted in five years' exile in England), led him to emigrate to the United States in 1848. Cabet founded utopian communities in Texas and Illinois, but was again undercut, this time by recurring feuds with his followers.

Early and family life

Cabet was born in Dijon, Côte-d'Or, the youngest son of a cooper from Burgundy, Claude Cabet, and his wife Francoise Berthier. He was educated as a lawyer.[1] Cabet married Delphine Lasage on March 25, 1839 at Marylebone, London, during his exile in England, who bore a child.[2][3]

Career in France

Cabet secured an appointment as attorney-general in Corsica. He represented the government of Louis Philippe, despite having headed an insurrectionary committee during the July Revolution of 1830 which led to the ouster of the "Republican Monarch" King Charles X (and the ascent of Louis Philippe). However, Cabet lost this position for his attack upon the conservatism of the government in his Histoire de la révolution de 1830.[4] Nonetheless, in 1831, Cabet was elected to the Chamber of Deputies in France as the representative of Côte d'Or, and sat with the extreme radicals.[5] Accused of treason in 1834 because of his bitter attacks on the government both in the history book and subsequently, Cabet was convicted and sentenced to five years' exile.[6] He fled to England and sought political asylum. Influenced by Robert Owen, Thomas More and Charles Fourier, Cabet wrote Voyage et aventures de lord William Carisdall en Icarie ("Travel and Adventures of Lord William Carisdall in Icaria", 1840), which depicted a utopia in which a democratically elected governing body controlled all economic activity and closely supervised social life. "Icaria" is the name of his fictional country and ideal society. The nuclear family remained the only other independent unit. The book's success prompted Cabet to take steps to realize his Utopia.[5]

In 1839, Cabet returned to France to advocate a communitarian social movement, for which he invented the term communisme.[7] Some writers ignored Cabet's Christian influences, as described in his book Le vrai christianisme suivant Jésus Christ ("The real Christianity according to Jesus Christ", in five volumes, 1846). This book described Christ's mission to be to establish social equality, and contrasted primitive Christianity with the ecclesiasticism of Cabet's time to the disparagement of the latter. In it, Cabet argued that the kingdom of God announced by Jesus was nothing other than a communist society.[8] The book also contained a popular history of the French Revolutions from 1789 to 1830.[5]

In 1841 Cabet revived the Populaire (founded by him in 1833), which was widely read by French workingmen, and from 1843 to 1847 he printed an Icarian almanac, a number of controversial pamphlets as well as the above-mentioned book on Christianity. There were probably 400,000 adherents of the Icarian school.[5]

Emigration to the United States of America

In 1847, after realizing the economic hardship caused by the depression of 1846, Cabet gave up on the notion of reforming French society.[9] Instead, after conversations with Robert Owen and Owen's attempts to found a commune in Texas, Cabet gathered a group of followers from across France and traveled to the United States to organize an Icarian community.[10] They entered into a social contract, making Cabet the director-in-chief for the first ten years, and embarked from Le Havre, February 3, 1848, for New Orleans, Louisiana. They expected to settle in the Red River valley in Texas. However, the Peters Land Company gave them deeds to only 320 acres of land in Denton County, Texas near what became Dallas, Texas rather than the million acres of land in the Red River Valley they expected (more than 200 miles away).[9] The first group of emigrants ultimately returned to New Orleans; Cabet came later at the head of a second and smaller band. Neither Texas nor Louisiana proved the looked-for Utopia, and, ravaged by disease, about one-third of the colonists returned to France.[5]

The remainder (142 men, 74 women and 64 children, although 20 died of cholera en route), moved northward along the Mississippi River to Nauvoo, Illinois, where they purchased twelve acres recently vacated by the Mormons in 1849.[11][9] Cabet was unanimously elected leader, for a one-year term. The improved location enabled the experiment to develop into a successful agricultural community. Education and culture were highly valued by members. By 1855, the Nauvoo Icarian community had expanded to about 500 members with a solid agricultural base, as well as shops, three schools, flour and sawmills, a whiskey distillery, English and French newspapers, a 39 piece orchestra, choir, theater, hospital and the state's largest library (4000 volumes).[11] Members met on Saturdays to discuss community affairs and problems, with universal male suffrage; women were allowed to speak but not vote. On Sundays members talked about ethical and moral issues, but there were no denominational religious services, only members had espoused Christianity before joining the community. Based on this success, some even considered expanding the community 200 miles west to Adair County, Iowa.[12]

However, Cabet was forced to return to France in May 1851 to settle charges of fraud brought up by his previous followers in Europe.[11][13] Although found not guilty by a French jury in July 1851, when Cabet returned to Nauvoo in July 1852, the community had changed. Some men were using tobacco and abusing alcohol, many women were adorning themselves with fancy dresses and jewelry, and families claimed land as private property. Cabet responded by issuing "Forty-Eight Rules of Conduct" on November 23, 1853, forbidding "tobacco, hard liquor, complaints about the food, and hunting and fishing 'for pleasure'" as well as demanding absolute silence in workshops and submission to him.[13] Some described him as authoritarian or emotionally unstable; internal problems arose and worsened.[14]

In the spring of 1855, Cabet tried to revise the colony's constitution to make him president for life, but was instead relieved of the presidency, so his followers went out on strike, and were in turn temporarily barred from the communal dining hall.[14] Although the colony by then had 526 members and 57 more across the Mississippi River at Montrose, Iowa, it was suffering economically—dependent upon money brought by new members and subsidies from the "Le Populaire" home office in France.[13][14]

Moreover, split regarding the work division and food distribution worsened during the summer and following year.[11] Cabet published his final book, Colonie icarienne aux États-Unis d'Amérique (1856), but that failed to solve the internal problems. In October 1856, about 180 supporters and Cabet left Nauvoo in three groups for New Bremen, Missouri near St. Louis, Missouri.

Death and legacy

Cabet suffered a stroke on November 8, 1856, a few days after moving to Missouri with the last group of his followers, and soon died.[15] He was buried at the Old Picker's Cemetery, but his remains were moved during construction of a high school on the site, and now rest at New Saint Marcus Cemetery and Mausoleum in Affton, St. Louis County, Missouri, with a gravestone funded by the French Embassy.[2]

On February 15, 1858, the remaining Icarians settled in Cheltenham on the western edge of St. Louis, under the leadership of a lawyer named Mercadier, whom Cabet had designated as his successor. That colony would disband in 1864 (with several young men fighting in the American Civil War) and two families rejoined the Icarians in Corning, Iowa discussed below (the Cheltenham area became a neighborhood within St. Louis).[16] Before his death, Cabet sued the Nauvoo Icarians in a local court, as well as petitioned the Illinois legislature to repeal the act that incorporated the community.[11][17] The Nauvoo colony relocated to Corning, Adams County, Iowa, about 80 miles southwest of Des Moines, Iowa between 1858 and 1860, because of Illinois crop failures as well as the end of financial support from France following the Panic of 1857. The Corning Icarians prospered until another factional split in 1878, prompted by new emigrants from France, who left to establish a community in Cloverdale, California in 1883 (but "Icaria Speranza" lasted only four years). The colony at Corning disbanded in 1898, but by that time it had existed for 46 years, making it the longest non-religious communal living experiment in American history.[16]

The library at Western Illinois University has a Center for Icarian Studies, as well as Icarian archives and papers. The Nauvoo Historical Society also has some papers and artifacts on display, and some in the town remember the Icarians during the Labor Day Grape Festival, through a historical play. Although the growing of Concord grapes in the Nauvoo area began in the 1830s based on the efforts of a French Catholic priest and expanded in 1846 when a Swiss vintner named John Tanner brought the Norton grape to the area, Baxter's Vineyards and Winery (founded Icarians Emile and Annette Baxter in 1857) continues as a 5-generation old family business and is Illinois' oldest winery.[16]

References

1. Soland 2017, p. 57.
2. "Etienne Cabet (1788-1856) Find A Grave-herdenking".
3. British parish records on ancestry.com; the child may have been Gentilly Cabet, who married Eugene Dagousset in Paris in 1891 according to another ancestry.com database
4. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Cabet, Étienne" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
5. Gilman, D. C.; Peck, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (1905). "Cabet, Etienne" . New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead.
6. Soland 2017, p. 58.
7. "CABET, Etienne (1788-1856) Fondateur du communisme en France". Recherches sur l’anarchisme. Retrieved 2007-02-27.
8. Paul Bénichou, Le Sacre de l'écrivain : Doctrines de l'âge romantique (Paris: Gallimard, 1977), p. 402 n.63.
9. Soland 2017, p. 59.
10. Friesen, John W.; Friesen, Virginia Lyons (2004). The Palgrave Companion to North American Utopias. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 137.
11. Friesen, John W.; Friesen, Virginia Lyons (2004). The Palgrave Companion to North American Utopias. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. p. 139.
12. Soland 2017, p. 63.
13. Pitzer, Donald (1997). America's Communal Utopias. Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press. p. 283.
14. Soland 2017, p. 64.
15. Ancestry.com's Missouri Registry of Deaths for the week of November 10, 1856, p. 122
16. Soland 2017, p. 65.
17. Some miscellaneous handwritten records of the Hancock County, Illinois court relative to "E. Cabbett" are available in ancestry.com's library edition, images 1117-1119 of 1825-1858 records

Further reading

• Johnson, Christopher H (1974). Utopian communism in France : Cabet and the Icarians, 1839-1851. Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780801408953. OCLC 1223569.
• Soland, Randall (2017). Utopian communities of Illinois : heaven on the prairie. Charleston, SC: History Press. ISBN 9781439661666. OCLC 1004538134.
• Sutton, Robert P. (1994). Les Icariens : the utopian dream in Europe and America. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252020674. OCLC 28215643.

External links

• Étienne Cabet from the Handbook of Texas Online
• Encyclopædia Britannica Etienne Cabet
• Archive of Etienne Cabet Papers at the International Institute of Social History

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Young Men's Indian Association
by Theosophy Wiki
Accessed: 8/27/20


Entrance to YMIA Building, Chennai

The Young Men's Indian Association (YMIA) is a youth organization that was founded by Annie Besant in 1914 in support of the Indian independence movement. It continues to be a prominent institution in Chennai, offering Indian youth opportunities to improve in body, mind, moral character, and citizenship.[1][2] It offers recreational facilities, lectures, library and reading room, and residences. The YMIA has a web page and a presence in Facebook.

Early history

By 1914, Annie Besant had already been working for some years on establishment of schools and organizations to support Indian education and nationalism. In a 1908 address at Central Hindu College, she said, "Our work is the training of thousands of India's sons into noble manhood into worthiness to become free citizens in a free land." [3] Her political activity reached greatest intensity in the years 1914-1917. She worked with several other nationalist leaders to demand home rule for India, and formation of the YMIA was one aspect of this movement.

Mrs. Besant sponsored the construction of a building in Madras (now Chennai) for the YMIA, which was completed in 1915. A large public meeting hall in the building, designed to seat 1500 people, was given the name Gopal Krishna Gokhale Hall after the Indian leader. When she announced the formation of the Home Rule League in 1916, it was at Gokhale Hall. Many other nationalistic events took place there. The Indian Society of Oriental Art held an exhibition at the YMIA building in 1916, organized by Theosophist James Cousins.[4]

In his introduction to The Besant Spirit, George S. Arundale wrote of Dr. Besant's daily routine in Adyar during the time of her great activism in the Indian independence movement. Each evening at 5:30,

She would be seen having a cup of coffee at the Young Men's Indian Association, a fine building in Armenian Street given by herself to the youth of the city. It would have to be very important business which could cause her to forego this solemn and happy ritual. But often there was very important business. So many people had to be seen, committees to be attended, and above all those wonderful meetings in the Gokhale Hall, itself part of the Association premises. Most young people of to-day [note that this was written in 1939] are too young to remember those meetings of twenty years ago. The Hall packed to the brim with youth and a sprinkling of the older generation sedately seated on the platform. Enters the white-robed figure of the Editor of New India, almost gorgeously arrayed in silken sari, with an H. R. pendant in green and gold enamel – green and gold being the then Home Rule colours... A torrent of applause. A cheery smile... Wave upon wave of cheers. A bow to the audience with folded hands. A rustle of chairs and a general fussification as the entourage settled itself down. And then a Hall-wide hush of expectancy, with everybody impatient to hear the world's greatest orator demand freedom for India in language that no one could possibly mistake.[5]

Objects of the Association

According to its web page, the Association has these objects:

• To provide a building or buildings as a Young Men’s Club, with gymnasium, lecture hall, library, reading-room, recreation-rooms and residential quarters, mainly for students.
• To draw together students of all classes and creeds under a common roof so that they may recognize their common interests as citizens, to enable them to have lectures discussions and classes, and so to train and develop their bodies that they may grow into strong and healthy men.
• To do all such things as are incidental or conducive to the attainment of the above objects or any of them.
• To promote the physical, social, intellectual and well being of young people of all classes, creeds and communities, to undertake and conduct social service schemes, to provide, equip, conduct and maintain residential, educational and social institution, activities facilities and amenities for its members and others, to co-operate with other organizations working with similar objects for the welfare of humanity and to stimulate the development of movements for the higher advancement of society.
• To establish, equip maintain and conduct branches, departments, center, offices refreshment rooms, hostels boarding houses, tourist homes, homes for destitute children, libraries, reading and lecture rooms, congresses, conferences, study classes, canteen, gymnasium swimming pool, social service centers, educational or social institutions activities, functions works facilities and amenities which may be necessary or convenient for the advancement of the purpose or objects of the Association or for the advantage or convenient of its members and others connected with the Association but no intoxicants of any whatsoever shall be provided, used, sold kept or allowed in or upon any premises belonging to or in the occupation of the Association.
• To establish, provide, organize, maintain, supervise, control and conduct institution for the study and appreciation of indigenous and foreign languages and literature, are and science, studies research centers, laboratories, conferences and lecture halls, scientific, industrial and art exhibition, demonstrations, congresses and exchanges, art galleries, music and halls, television and dramatic performances, debates, symposia, concerts, sports and competitions and generally any undertaking, scheme work or activity whatsoever for the mental, moral or physical improve or benefit of the members or other connected with the Association.
• To provide, organize, equip maintain and conduct premises holding classes and competitions to arrange for and give prizes in respect thereof, delivery of lectures, giving of demonstrations and holding of other functions in connection with scientific and artistic subjects and for examinations and awards of diplomas and certificates and to institute, administer and undertake grants scholarships, rewards and other beneficiaries.
• To investigate, collect and circulate any knowledge or information on any subject deemed desirable to the purposes of the Association and to print, publish and issue journals, periodicals, books, leaflets, advertisements, reports, lectures and other reading matter which may be deemed useful or expedient for any such purpose.
• To solicit accept, hold and d\administer any donations, gifts legacies grants, subscription contributions or funds from members the public institutions, public trusts, universities, municipalities governments and other persons or bodies and whether subjects to any trust or otherwise for the furtherance of the objects of the Association.
• To promote education, research training and development on habit and human settlement, environment and other related issues of human value.

Governance

YMIA is a society registered under the provisions of Act 21 of 1860. Mr. R. Nataraj serves as President of the Governing body, which includes three Vice Presidents, Honorary Secretary, Honorary Treasurer, Honorary Join Secretary, and 17 members. In addition to an Executive Committee, there are committees for International YMIA Affiliation; Library and Internet; Gym and Sports; Students and Youth Activities; and Legal matters.

Facilities

YMIA has two locations in Chennai: the registered office at New India Buildings at No.49 Moore Street, and the administrative office at 54-57/2 Royapettah High Road in Mylapore. Gokhale Hall was partially demolished, but is now being renovated. Two hostels are now serving about 150 youth. Over the years additional hostels were operated in George town, Triplicane, Mylapore, and Nungambakkam, but these had to be closed despite their popularity.[6]


YMIA celebrating Annie Besant's birthday, October 1, 2014.

Activities

The organization has established a Facebook page and is developing a member page with individual photos and email addresses. YMIA is seeking to launch affiliated branches in all major cities of India, with each having a lecture hall, gymnasium, library, reading room, recreation, and residences. Internships are offered to students who would like to develop a career in services and development of youth programs.[7]

These are some recent activities and services of the YMIA:

• Sports, boxing, karate, and body building
• Fine arts competitions
• Carrom (a tabletop game) and chess
• Oratorical contests in 4 languages ( English, Tamil, Hindi, Telugu)
• Blood drive
• Republic Day celebrations
• Celebration of Swami Vivekananda's 150th birthday
• Memorial lectures and elocution contests honoring Dr. Annie Besant
• CDs of Annie Besant’s speeches

Notes

1. YMIA web page
2. Madras High Court document. 1962. Citation: AIR 1964 Mad 63, 1963 14 STC 1030 Mad Available at IndianKanoon.org.
3. Annie Besant, The Besant Spirit Volume 7: The India that Shall Be: Articles from New India.
4. Kathleen Taylor, Sir John Woodroffe Tantra and Bengal: 'An Indian Soul in a European Body?' (Surrey: Routledge, 2012), 70.
5. George S. Arundale, Introduction to The Besant Spirit: Volume III Indian Problems (Adyar, Madras, India: Theosophical Publishing House, 1939), 13-14. The Besant Spirit is a compilation of writings by Annie Besant.
6. Young Men's Indian Association web page.
7. Young Men's Indian Association web page.

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Gopal Krishna Gokhale
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/27/20


Gopal Krishna Gokhale CIE
Gokhale in 1909
Born: 9 May 1866, Kotluk, Dist. Ratnagiri, Bombay Presidency, British India
Died: 19 February 1915 (aged 48), Bombay, Bombay Presidency, British India
Alma mater: Elphinstone College
Occupation: Professor, Politician
Political party: Indian National Congress
Movement: Indian Independence movement
Spouse(s): Savitri Bai (1880-1887); Rishibama (1887-1899)
Children: Kashi Bai, Godhu Bai
Parent(s): Father: Krishna Rao Gokhale; Mother: Sathyabama Bai

Gopal Krishna Gokhale CIE (9 May 1866 – 19 February 1915)[1][2][3][4] was an Indian liberal political leader and a social reformer during the Indian Independence Movement. Gokhale was a senior leader of the Indian National Congress and the founder of the Servants of India Society.

The Servants of India Society was formed in Pune, Maharashtra, on June 12, 1905 by Gopal Krishna Gokhale, who left the Deccan Education Society to form this association. Along with him were a small group of educated Indians, as Natesh Appaji Dravid, Gopal Krishna Deodhar and Anant Patwardhan who wanted to promote social and human development and overthrow the British rule in India. The Society organized many campaigns to promote education, sanitation, health care and fight the social evils of untouchability and discrimination, alcoholism, poverty, oppression of women and domestic abuse. The publication of The Hitavada, the organ of the Society in English from Nagpur commenced in 1911.

Prominent Indians were its members and leaders. It chose to remain away from political activities and organizations like the Indian National Congress.

The base of the Society shrank after Gokhale's death in 1915, and in the 1920s with the rise of Mahatma Gandhi as president of Congress, who launched social reform campaigns on a mass scale throughout the nation and attracted young Indians to the cause. However, it still continues its activities albeit with a small membership. It has its H.Q. in the city of Pune, Maharashtra. It has its branches in various other states like Uttar Pradesh, Odisha and Uttarakhand. It has its Branch office at Allahabad, U.P.. It runs Primary Schools, Residential Hostel for Tribal Boys, Ashram Type Schools for tribal girls, creche centres etc. in U.P.Shri Atma Nand Mishra is the Member Taking Care of all the schemes under U.P branch. Shri Atma Nand Mishra is also the Ex-President of the Servants of India Society and the former Chairman of the Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics, Pune. Shri Mishra devoted his almost 45 years of life as a social worker in the service of poor, weak and struggling people. Shri Mishra helped to overcome from many of challenging issue which society faced earlier and still contributing actively.

In Uttarakhand the affairs of the Servants of India Society is managed by Shri P.K Dwivedi, who is a senior member and former president of the society. Primary Schools, Ashram Type School for girls, Buxa Boys Hostel for tribal boys, a Secondary School, a Senior Secondary School, creche centres etc. is run by the society in the area. In Uttarakhand its central office is in the town of Bazpur, in the Udham Singh Nagar District.

In Odisha it has its centres at Cuttak, Choudwar and Rayagada. It runs an orphanage in Odisha.

-- Servants of India Society, by Wikipedia

Through the Society as well as the Congress and other legislative bodies he served in, Gokhale campaigned for Indian self-rule and for social reforms. He was the leader of the moderate faction of the Congress party that advocated reforms by working with existing government institutions.

Early life

Gopal Krishna Gokhale was born on 9 May 1866 in Kotluk village of Guhagar taluka in Ratnagiri district, in present-day Maharashtra (then part of the Bombay Presidency) in a Chitpavan Brahmin family. Despite being relatively poor, his family members ensured that Gokhale received an English education, which would place Gokhale in a position to obtain employment as a clerk or minor official in the British Raj. He studied in Rajaram College in Kolhapur. Being one of the first generations of Indians to receive a university education, Gokhale graduated from Elphinstone College in 1884. Gokhale's education tremendously influenced the course of his future career – in addition to learning English, he was exposed to Western political thought and became a great admirer of theorists such as John Stuart Mill and Edmund Burke.[1][3][4]

Indian National Congress, Tilak and the Split at Surat


Portrait

Gokhale became a member of the Indian National Congress in 1889, as a protégé of social reformer Mahadev Govind Ranade.

Mahadev Govind Ranade (18 January 1842 – 16 January 1901) was an Indian scholar, social reformer, judge and author. He was one of the founding members of the Indian National Congress party and owned several designations as member of the Bombay legislative council, member of the finance committee at the centre, and judge of the Bombay High Court, Maharashtra.

As a well known public figure, his personality as a calm and patient optimist influenced his attitude towards dealings with Britain as well as reform in India. During his life he helped to establish the Vaktruttvottejak Sabha, the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha, Maharashtra Granthottejak Sabha, and the Prarthana Samaj, and edited a Bombay Anglo-Marathi daily paper, the Induprakash, founded on his ideology of social and religious reform.

He was given the title of Rao Bahadur...

His efforts to "Spiritualize" Indian society flowed from his reading that the Hindu religion laid too much stress on rituals and on the performance of family and social duties, rather than on what he called 'Spiritualism.' He viewed the reformed Christian religion of the British as being more focused on the spiritual. Towards making the Hindu religion more akin to the reformed Protestant church, he co-founded and championed the activities of the Prarthana Samaj, a religious society which, while upholding the devotional aspect of Hinduism, denounced and decried many important Hindu social structures and customs, including the Brahmin clergy. Critics of Ranade's activities as relating to religion point out that he missed the insight that Hindu religion, prolific of sects, is nevertheless free from all sectarian strife because it is accepting of diversity of belief while insisting on conformity with social norms. In other words, Hinduism is a way of life rather than a narrow religion because it emphasises orthopraxy over orthodoxy; what matters is not what you believe about God but rather what you do as a good parent, child or spouse. Salient in this paradigm is the inherent liberalism and tolerance of Hinduism.

-- Mahadev Govind Ranade, by Wikipedia

Along with other contemporary leaders like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Dadabhai Naoroji, Bipin Chandra Pal, Lala Lajpat Rai and Annie Besant, Gokhale fought for decades to obtain greater political representation and power over public affairs for common Indians. He was moderate in his views and attitudes, and sought to petition the British authorities by cultivating a process of dialogue and discussion which would yield greater British respect for Indian rights.[1][2][3][4] Gokhale had visited Ireland[1][3][4] and had arranged for an Irish nationalist, Alfred Webb, to serve as President of the Indian National Congress in 1894.

Alfred John Webb (1834–1908) was an Irish Quaker from a family of activist printers. He became an Irish Parliamentary Party politician and Member of Parliament (MP), as well as a participant in nationalist movements around the world. He supported Butt's Home Government Association and the United Irish League. At Madras in 1894, he became the third non-Indian (after George Yule and William Wedderburn) to preside over the Indian National Congress...

He was inspired by the Fenians, although he believed in non-violence and the Fenians of that time believed that Ireland could only gain independence through an armed revolution...

His family had taken an interest in the welfare of British colonies and had been outspoken opponents of the opium traffic into China. Webb was a close friend of Dadabhai Naoroji, a key member of the Indian National Congress, who was also a friend of other Irish nationalists including Michael Davitt and Frank Hugh O’Donnell. He was elected, as a member of the Liberal party, in 1892, the year of the Liberal landslide to the Finsbury Central Westminster seat. While O'Donnell attempted to involve Naoroji in Irish politics, Webb was invited by Naoroji to preside over the Indian National Congress in 1894...

Webb and Dadabhai Naoroji co-signed a letter with others to request support for a new association: ‘The Society for the Furtherance of Human Brotherhood’.

-- Alfred Webb, by Wikipedia

The following year, Gokhale became the Congress's joint secretary along with Tilak. In many ways, Tilak and Gokhale's early careers paralleled – both were Chitpavan Brahmin, both attended Elphinstone College, both became mathematics professors and both were important members of the Deccan Education Society. However, differences in their views concerning how best to improve the lives of Indians became increasingly apparent.[1][3][4][5]

Both Gokhale and Tilak were the front-ranking political leaders in the early 20th century. However, they differed a lot in their ideologies. Gokhale was viewed as a well-meaning man of moderate disposition, while Tilak was a radical who would not resist using force for the attainment of freedom.[1][3][4] Gokhale believed that the right course for India to give self-government was to adopt constitutional means and cooperate with the British Government. On the contrary, Tilak's messages were protest, boycott and agitation.[3][1][4]

The fight between the moderates and extremists came out openly at Surat in 1907, which adversely affected political developments in the country. Both sides were fighting to capture the Congress organisation due to ideological differences. Tilak wanted to put Lala Lajpat Rai in the presidential chair, but Gokhale's candidate was Rash Behari Ghosh. The tussle begun and there was no hope for compromise. Tilak was not allowed to move an amendment to the resolution in support of the new president-elect. At this the pandal was strewn with broken chairs and shoes were flung by Aurobindo Ghosh and his friends. Sticks and umbrellas were thrown on the platform. There was a physical scuffle. When people came running to attack Tilak on the dais, Gokhale went and stood next to Tilak to protect him. The session ended and the Congress split.[1][3][4] The eyewitness account was written by the Manchester Guardian's reporter Nevison.[1][3][4][6]

In January 1908, Tilak was arrested on charge of sedition and sentenced to six years imprisonment and dispatched to Mandalay. This left the whole political field open for the moderates. When Tilak was arrested, Gokhale was in England. Lord Morley, the Secretary of State for India, was opposed to Tilak's arrest. However, the Viceroy Lord Minto did not listen to him and considered Tilak's activities as seditious and his arrest necessary for the maintenance of law and order.[1][3][4][6]

Gokhale’s one major difference with Tilak centred around one of his pet issues, the Age of Consent Bill introduced by the British Imperial Government, in 1891–92. Gokhale and his fellow liberal reformers, wishing to purge what they saw as superstitions and abuses in their native Hinduism, supported the Consent Bill to curb child marriage abuses. Though the Bill was not extreme, only raising the age of consent from ten to twelve, Tilak took issue with it; he did not object to the idea of moving towards the elimination of child marriage, but rather to the idea of British interference with Hindu tradition. For Tilak, such reform movements were not to be sought under imperial rule when they would be enforced by the British, but rather after independence was achieved, when Indians would enforce it on themselves. The bill however became law in the Bombay Presidency.[1][3][4][7] The two leaders also vied for the control of the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha and the founding of the Deccan Sabha by Gokhale in 1896 was the consequence of Tilak coming out ahead.[1][3][4][8]

Gokhale was deeply concerned with the future of Congress after the split in Surat. He thought it necessary to unite the rival groups, and in this connection he sought the advice of Annie Besant. Gokhale died on 19February 1915. On his deathbed, he reportedly expressed to his friend Sethur a wish to see the Congress united.[1][3][4][6] Despite their differences, Gokhale and Tilak had great respect for each other's patriotism, intelligence, work and sacrifice. Following Gokhale's death, Tilak wrote an editorial in Kesari paying glowing tributes to Gokhale.[1][3][4]

Economist with liberal policy

Gokhale's mentor, justice M.G. Ranade started the Sarvajanik Sabha Journal. Gokhale assisted him.[1][3][4] Gokhale's deposition before the Welby Commission on the financial condition of India won him accolades. His speeches on the budget in the Central Legislative Council were unique, with thorough statistical analysis. He appealed to the reason. He played a leading role in bringing about Morley-Minto Reforms, the beginning of constitutional reforms in India.[1][3][4] A comprehensive biography of Gopal Krishna Gokhale by Govind Talwalkar portrays Gokhale's work in the context of his time, giving the historical background in the 19th century.[1][9][10] Gokhale was a scholar, social reformer, and a statesman, arguably the greatest Indian liberal.[1][3][4]. VG Kale has provided an account of the economic reforms pursued by Gokhale in the Vicerory's Legislative Council and outside till 1916.[11]

Servants of India Society


Statue of Gokhale in Churchgate

In 1905, when Gokhale was elected president of the Indian National Congress and was at the height of his political power, he founded the Servants of India Society to specifically further one of the causes dearest to his heart: the expansion of Indian education. For Gokhale, true political change in India would only be possible when a new generation of Indians became educated as to their civil and patriotic duty to their country and to each other. Believing existing educational institutions and the Indian Civil Service did not do enough to provide Indians with opportunities to gain this political education, Gokhale hoped the Servants of India Society would fill this need. In his preamble to the SIS's constitution, Gokhale wrote that "The Servants of India Society will train men prepared to devote their lives to the cause of country in a religious spirit, and will seek to promote, by all constitutional means, the national interests of the Indian people."[1][2][3][4][12] The Society took up the cause of promoting Indian education in earnest, and among its many projects organised mobile libraries, founded schools, and provided night classes for factory workers.[13] Although the Society lost much of its vigour following Gokhale’s death, it still exists to this day, though its membership is small.

Involvement with British Imperial Government


Gokhale on a 1966 stamp of India

Gokhale, though now widely viewed as a leader of the Indian nationalist movement, was not primarily concerned with independence but rather with social reforms; he believed such reforms would be best achieved by working within existing British government institutions, a position which earned him the enmity of more aggressive nationalists such as Tilak. Undeterred by such opposition, Gokhale would work directly with the British throughout his political career to further his reform goals.

In 1899, Gokhale was elected to the Bombay Legislative Council. He was elected to the Imperial Council of the Governor-General of India on 20 December 1901,[1][3][4][14] and again on 22 May 1903 as non-officiating member representing Bombay Province.[1][3][15][4][16]

The empirical knowledge coupled with the experience of the representative institutions made Gokhale an outstanding political leader, moderate in ideology and advocacy, a model for the people's representatives.[1][3][15][4] His contribution was monumental in shaping the Indian freedom struggle into a quest for building an open society and egalitarian nation.[1][3][15][4] Gokhale's achievement must be studied in the context of predominant ideologies and social, economic and political situation at that time, particularly in reference to the famines, revenue policies, wars, partition of Bengal, Muslim League and the split in the Congress at Surat.[1][3][15][4]

Mentor to Gandhi


Gokhale and Gandhi in Durban, South Africa, 1912

Gokhale was famously a mentor to Mahatma Gandhi in the latter's formative years.[1][2][3][15][4] In 1912, Gokhale visited South Africa at Gandhi's invitation. As a young barrister, Gandhi returned from his struggles against the Empire in South Africa and received personal guidance from Gokhale, including a knowledge and understanding of India and the issues confronting common Indians. By 1931 , Gandhi emerged as the leader of the Indian Independence Movement. In his autobiography, Gandhi calls Gokhale his mentor and guide. Gandhi also recognised Gokhale as an admirable leader and master politician, describing him as "pure as crystal, gentle as a lamb, brave as a lion and chivalrous to a fault and the most perfect man in the political field".[17][15] Despite his deep respect for Gokhale, however, Gandhi would reject Gokhale's faith in western institutions as a means of achieving political reform and ultimately chose not to become a member of Gokhale's Servants of India Society.[1][3][15][4][18]

Family

Gokhale married twice. His first marriage took place in 1880 when he was in his teens to Savitribai, who suffered from an incurable ailment. He married a second time in 1887 while Rishibama was still alive. His second wife died after giving birth to two daughters in 1899. Gokhale did not marry again and his children were looked after by his relatives.[1][3][15][4][19][20]

His eldest daughter, Kashi (Anandibai), married Justice S.B. Dhavle ICS. She had three children – Gopal Shankar Dhavle, Balwant Shankar Dhavle and Meena Rajwade. Out of these three children, two of them had children. Balwant Shankar Dhavle and Nalini Dhavle (née Sathe) have three children: Shridhar Balwant Dhavle FCA, Vidyadhar Balwant Dhavle IFS and Jyotsna Balwant Dhavle. Vidyadhar Balwant Dhavle and Aabha Dixit have two sons Abhishek Vidyadhar Dhavle and Jaidev Vidyadhar Dhavle, who are the most recent direct descendants of Gopal Krishna Gokhale.[citation needed] The ancestral house was constructed by Gopal Krishna Gokhale for his family in Pune, and it continues to be the residence of the Gokhale-Dhavle descendants to this day. Also, the native village of G.K Gokhale, Tamhanmala, a remote village in Ratnagiri, has his paternal house even today. It is located 25 km away from Chiplun, Ratnagiri. Other paternal relatives of Gokhale still reside at the same.[citation needed]

Works

• English weekly newspaper, The Hitavad (The people's paper)

References

1. Talwalkar, Govind (2015). Gopal Krishna Gokhale : Gandhi's political guru. New Delhi: Pentagon Press. ISBN 9788182748330. OCLC 913778097.
2. Sastri, Srinivas. My Master Gokhale.
3. Talwalkar, Govind (2006). Gopal Krishna Gokhale: His Life and Times. Rupa & Co,.
4. Talwalkar, Govind (2003). Nek Namdar Gokhale (in Marathi). Pune, India: Prestige Prakashan.
5. Masselos, Jim (1991). Indian Nationalism: An History. Sterling Publishers. p. 95. ISBN 978-81-207-1405-2.
6. Datta, V.N. (6 August 2006). "A Gentle Colossus". Tribune India.com.
7. Brown, D. Mackenzie (1961) Indian Political Thought from Ranade to Bhave, Los Angeles: University of California Press, p. 77.
8. Bandyopadhyay, Sekhar (2015). From Plassey to Partition and After. Orient Blackswan Private Limited. p. 248. ISBN 978-81-250-5723-9.
9. Guha, Ramchandra (24 March 2018). "In Praise of Govind Talwalkar". Hindustan Times.
10. Narasiah, K. R. A. (1 August 2015). "A reformer's life". The Hindu. ISSN 0971-751X. Retrieved 9 August 2019.
11. Gokhale and Economic Reforms, 1916, Aryabhushan Press, Poona
12. Wolpert, Stanley (1962) Tilak and Gokhale: Revolution and Reform in the Making of Modem India, Berkeley, U. California, pp. 158–160.
13. Watt, Carey A. (1997). "Education for National Efficiency: Constructive Nationalism in North India, 1909-1916". Modern Asian Studies. 31 (2): 339–374. doi:10.1017/S0026749X00014335. JSTOR 313033.
14. Nanda, Bal Ram (8 March 2015). Gokhale: The Indian Moderates and the British Raj. Princeton University Press. p. 133. ISBN 978-1-4008-7049-3.
15. Talwalkar, Govind (2015) Gopal Krishna Gokhale:Gandhi's Political Guru, Pentagon Press. p. 22. ISBN 818274833X
16. India List and India Office List for 1905. Harrison and Sons, London. 1905. p. 213.
17. Cite error: The named reference :69 was invoked but never defined (see thehelp page).
18. Masselos, Jim (1991). Indian Nationalism: An History. Sterling Publishers. p. 157. ISBN 978-81-207-1405-2.
19. Hoyland, John S. (1933). Gopal Krishna Gokhale: His life and Speeches (PDF). Calcutta: Y.M.C.A. Publishing House. p. 29. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 December 2013. Retrieved 13 December 2013.
20. Sastri, V.S. Srinivasa (1937). Life of Gopal Krishna Gokhale (PDF). Bangalore India: The Bangalore Press. Archived from the original (PDF) on 13 December 2013. Retrieved 13 December2013.

Further reading

• Govind Talwalkar, Gopal Krishna Gokhale: Gandhi's Political Guru, Pentagon Press, New Delhi, 2015
• Govind Talwalkar, Gopal Krishna Gokhale: his Life and Times , Rupa Publication, Delhi, 2005
• Govind Talwalkar, Nek Namdar Gokhale (In Marathi Language), Prestige Prakashan, Pune, 2003
• J. S. Hoyland, Gopal Krishna Gokhale (1933)

External links

• "Gokhale, Gopal Krishna" . Encyclopædia Britannica (12th ed.). 1922.

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Mahadev Govind Ranade
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/27/20


Mahadev Govind Ranade
Born: 18 January 1842, Nashik district, Bombay Presidency, British India
Died: 16 January 1901 (aged 58)
Citizenship: British Raj
Alma mater: University of Bombay
Occupation: Scholar, social reformer, author
Known for: Co-founder of Indian National Congress
Political party: Indian National Congress
Spouse(s): Ramabai Ranade

Mahadev Govind Ranade (18 January 1842 – 16 January 1901) was an Indian scholar, social reformer, judge and author. He was one of the founding members of the Indian National Congress party[1][2] and owned several designations as member of the Bombay legislative council, member of the finance committee[1] at the centre, and judge of the Bombay High Court, Maharashtra.[3]

As a well known public figure, his personality as a calm and patient optimist influenced his attitude towards dealings with Britain as well as reform in India. During his life he helped to establish the Vaktruttvottejak Sabha, the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha, Maharashtra Granthottejak Sabha, and the Prarthana Samaj, and edited a Bombay Anglo-Marathi daily paper, the Induprakash, founded on his ideology of social and religious reform.

He was given the title of Rao Bahadur.[4]

Early life and family


Statue of Justice Ranade in Mumbai

Mahadev Govind Ranade was born into a Chitpavan Brahmin family in Niphad, a taluka town in Nashik district.[5] He studied in a Marathi school in Kolhapur and later shifted to an English-medium school. At age 14, he went to study at Elphinstone College, Bombay. He belonged to the first batch of students at the University of Bombay. He obtained a BA degree in 1862 and four years later, obtained his LLB.

Career

Judge

After getting his law degree (LLB) in 1866, Ranade became a subordinate judge in Pune in 1871. Given his political activities, the British colonial authorities delayed his promotion to the Bombay high court until 1895.[6]

Social activism

Ranade was a social activist whose activities were deeply influenced by western culture and the colonial state. His activities ranged from religious reform to public education to reform within the Indian family, and in every area, he was prone to see little virtue in Indian custom and tradition and to strive for re-forming the subject into the mould of what prevailed in the west. He himself summarized the mission of the Indian Social Reform Movement as being to "Humanize, Equalize and Spiritualize," the implication being that existing Indian society lacked these qualities.[7]

Prarthana Samaj

His efforts to "Spiritualize" Indian society flowed from his reading that the Hindu religion laid too much stress on rituals and on the performance of family and social duties, rather than on what he called 'Spiritualism.' He viewed the reformed Christian religion of the British as being more focused on the spiritual. Towards making the Hindu religion more akin to the reformed Protestant church, he co-founded and championed the activities of the Prarthana Samaj, a religious society which, while upholding the devotional aspect of Hinduism, denounced and decried many important Hindu social structures and customs, including the Brahmin clergy. Critics of Ranade's activities as relating to religion point out that he missed the insight that Hindu religion, prolific of sects, is nevertheless free from all sectarian strife because it is accepting of diversity of belief while insisting on conformity with social norms. In other words, Hinduism is a way of life rather than a narrow religion because it emphasises orthopraxy over orthodoxy; what matters is not what you believe about God but rather what you do as a good parent, child or spouse. Salient in this paradigm is the inherent liberalism and tolerance of Hinduism.

Female Emancipation

His efforts to "Humanize and Equalize" Indian society found its primary focus in women. He campaigned against the 'purdah' system (keeping women behind the veil).He was a founder of the Social Conference movement, which he supported till his death,[1] directing his social reform efforts against child marriage, the tonsure of Brahmin widows, the heavy cost of weddings and other social functions, and the caste restrictions on traveling abroad, and he strenuously advocated widow remarriage and female education.[1] In 1861, when he was still a teenager, Ranade co-founded the 'Widow Marriage Association' which promoted marriage for Hindu widows and acted as native compradors for the colonial government's project of passing a law permitting such marriages, which were forbidden in Hinduism.[8] He chose to take prayaschitta (religious penance) in the Panch-houd Mission Case rather than insisting on his opinions.[9][10]

Girls' education

In 1885 Ranade, Vaman Abaji Modak, and historian Dr. R. G. Bhandarkar established the Maharashtra Girls Education Society and Huzurpaga, the oldest girls' high school in Maharashtra.[11][12][13]

Politics

Personal life

Ranade was already into his 30s when his first wife died. His family wanted him to marry again, especially since he had no children. His reform-minded friends expected that Ranade, who had co-founded the 'Widow Marriage Association' as far back as 1861, would certainly act in accordance with his own sermons and marry a widow. This did not happen. Ranade yielded to his family's wishes and confirmed with convention to marry Ramabai, a girl who was barely, ten years old and who was fully twenty-one years younger than him. Indeed, Ramabai was born in 1863, while Ranade had founded his 'Widow Marriage Association' in 1861. Ranade did what he did because he knew the realities of his society: he knew that if he married an already married woman, any children born to her would be treated like illegitimate outcasts by his society. The really poignant thing about the whole affair is that, after facing so much ridicule and so many accusations of hypocrisy, Ranade was not fated to receive the blessing he craved so ardently: his second marriage also remained childless.

In any case, the wedding was held in full compliance with tradition and the marriage was certainly a happy one. Ramabai was a daughter of the Kurlekar family, which belonged to the same caste and social strata as Ranade.[14] The couple had an entirely harmonious and conventional marriage. Ranade ensured that his wife receive a high education, something about which she herself was initially not keen. However, like all Indian women of that era, she complied with her husband's wishes and grew into her new life. Indeed, after Ranade's death, Ramabai Ranade continued the social and educational reform work initiated by him.

Published Works

• Ranade, Mahadev Govind (1900). Rise of the Maráthá Power. Bombay: Punalekar & Co. OL 24128770M.; reprinted in 1999 as ISBN 81-7117-181-8
• Ranade, Mahadev Govind (1990). Bipan Chandra (ed.). Ranade’s Economic Writings. New Delhi: Gyan Books Pvt. Ltd. ISBN 81-212-0328-7. OL 364195W..
• Ranade, Mahadev Govind (1899). Essays on Indian Economics. Bombay: Thacker & Company. OL 11994445W.
• Ranade, Mahadev Govind (1900). Introduction to the Peishwa's Diaries: A Paper Read Before the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society. Poona: the Civil Military Orphanage Press. OL 14015196M.; reprinted by CHIZINE PUBN as ISBN 9781340345037

In popular culture

A television series on Zee Marathi named Unch Maaza Zoka (roughly translated as 'I have leapt high in Life') based on Ramabai's and Mahadevrao's life and their development as a 'women's rights' activist was broadcast in March 2012. It was based on a book by Ramabai Ranade titled Amachyaa Aayushyaatil Kaahi Aathavani. In the book, Justice Ranade is called "Madhav" rather than Mahadev[note 1].

See also

• Revolutionary movement for Indian independence
• List of Indian independence activists

Footnotes

1. He himself is quoted as saying that "I am Vishnu (Madhav) and not Shiva (Mahadev)" (see pages 12, 121). This anomaly was discovered by Ms. Vibhuti V. Dave, while translating the book into Gujarati, under the title Amaaraa naa Sambhaaranaa[15]"

References

1. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Ranade, Mahadeo Govind" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 22 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 884.
2. "Mahadev Govinde Ranade". Retrieved 22 August 2015.
3. "Encyclopaedia Eminent Thinkers (Vol. 22 : The Political Thought of Mahadev Govind Ranade)", p. 19
4. Mahadev Govind Ranade (Rao Bahadur) (1992). The Miscellaneous Writings of the Late Hon'ble Mr. Justice M.G. Ranade. Sahitya Akademi.
5. Wolpert, Stanley A. (April 1991). Tilak and Gokhale: Revolution and Reform in the Making of Modern India By. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 302. ISBN 978-0195623925.
6. Stanley A. Wolpert (1962). Tilak and Gokhale: Revolution and Reform in the Making of Modern India. University of California Press. p. 12. GGKEY:49PR049CPBX.
7. Hulas Singh (25 September 2015). Rise of Reason: Intellectual history of 19th-century Maharashtra. Routledge. pp. 303–. ISBN 978-1-317-39874-5.
8. "THE GROWTH OF NEW INDIA, 1858-1905". Astrojyoti.com. 17 May 2012. Retrieved 7 July 2012.
9. Bakshi, SR (1993). Mahadev Govind Ranade. p. 42. ISBN 978-81-7041-605-0.
10. "Loss of Caste". Retrieved 22 August 2015. He and a few other notables including Bal Gangadhar Tilak attended a meeting with the missionaries of the Panch Houd Mission, which still exists in Pune. Tea was offered to them. Some of them drank it and others did not. Poona in those days - late 19th century - was a very orthodox place and the bastion of Brahminism. Gopalrao Joshi made the affair public and all offenders were ordered to undergo prayashchitta for their offense of drinking the tea of Christian missionaries.
11. Bhattacharya, edited by Sabyasachi (2002). Education and the disprivileged : nineteenth and twentieth century India (1. publ. ed.). Hyderabad: Orient Longman. p. 239. ISBN 978-8125021926. Retrieved 12 September 2016.
12. "Huzurpaga". Huzurpaga.
13. Ghurye, G. S. (1954). Social Change in Maharashtra, II. Sociological Bulletin, page 51.
14. Mukherjee, M., 1993. Story, history and her story. Studies in History, 9(1), pp.71-85.
15. Dave, Vibhuti (6 December 2014). Amaaraa Sahajivan naa Sambhaaranaa. Vadodara, Gujarat, India: Self. pp. 12, 121.
• Brown, D. Mackenzie. Indian Political Thought: From Ranade to Bhave. (Berkeley: University of California, 1961).
• Mansingh, Surjit. Historical Dictionary of India. vol. 20, Asian Historical Dictionaries. s.v. "Shivaji". (London: Scarecrow Press, 1996).
• Masselos, Jim. Indian Nationalism: A History. (New Delhi: Sterling Publishers, 1985).
• Wolpert, Stanley. India. (Berkeley: University of California, 1991). 57.
• Wolpert, Stanley. Tilak and Gokhale: Revolutions and Reform in the Making of Modern India. (Berkeley: University of California, 1962). 12.

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Alfred Webb
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/27/20



Alfred John Webb (1834–1908) was an Irish Quaker from a family of activist printers. He became an Irish Parliamentary Party politician and Member of Parliament (MP), as well as a participant in nationalist movements around the world. He supported Butt's Home Government Association and the United Irish League. At Madras in 1894, he became the third non-Indian (after George Yule and William Wedderburn) to preside over the Indian National Congress.[1]

George Yule (1829–1892) was a Scottish merchant in England and India who served as the fourth President of the Indian National Congress in 1888 at Allahabad, the first non-Indian to hold that office. He was founder of George Yule & Co. of London,...

Synthomer plc (LSE: SYNT), formerly known as Yule Catto & Co, is a British-based chemicals business. It is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index.

The company traces its roots back to 1863, when Andrew Yule founded a trading house known as Andrew Yule & Co. in Calcutta. At the same time Andrew's brother, George Yule, set up George Yule & Co. in London, which acted as British agency arm of Andrew Yule & Co.

When in 1919 Andrew Yule & Co. and George Yule & Co. were sold to the US banking group J.P. Morgan & Co. and its British merchant banking affiliate Morgan Grenfell & Co., both were turned from a partnership into a private limited company. That same year Thomas Catto (1879–1959) was sent to India to take over the management of the firm from Sir David Yule (1858–1928), a nephew of Andrew Yule. David Yule continued to hold the title of Chairman but had no active part in the operations of the business.

-- Synthomer [Yule Catto & Co.] [Andrew Yule & Co.], by Wikipedia

and headed Andrew Yule & Co., of Calcutta. He served as Sheriff of Calcutta and as President of the Indian Chamber of Commerce.

He killed almost 400 tigers during his tenure as Administrator.

-- George Yule (businessman), by Wikipedia

Sir William Wedderburn, 4th Baronet, JP DL (25 March 1838 – 25 January 1918) was a Scottish civil servant and politician who was a Liberal Party member of Parliament (MP). Wedderburn was one of the founding members of the Indian National Congress. He was also the president of Congress in 1889 and 1910, Allahabad session.

Sir William Wedderburn
President: 1838-1918 (Bombay, 1889, Allahabad, 1910)
by Indian National Congress
Accessed: 8/27/20

Sir William Wedderburn was born in March 1838 in Edinburgh, Scotland. The Wedderburns of the Scottish Border were a family of great antiquity. In 1859 Weddeburn appeared for the Indian Civil Service examination.

He left for India in 1860 and began official duty at Dharwar as an Assistant Collector. He was appointed Acting Judicial Commissioner in Sind and Judge of the Sadar Court in 1874. In 1882 he became the District and Sessions Judge of Poona. At the time of his retirement in 1887, he was the Chief Secretary to the Government of Bombay.

During his service in India, Wedderburn's attention was focussed on famine, the poverty of the Indian peasantry, the problem of agricultural indebtedness and the question of reviving the ancient village system. His concern with these problems brought him in touch with the Indian National Congress.

After his retirement, Wedderburn threw his heart and soul into it. He presided over the fourth Congress held in Bombay in 1889. Meanwhile, after the death of his brother David, Sir William succeeded to the baronetcy in 1879.

He entered Parliament in 1893 as a Liberal member and sought to voice India's grievances in the House. He formed the Indian Parliamentary Committee with which he was associated as Chairman from 1893 to 1900.

In 1895, Wedderburn represented India on the Welby Commission (i.e. Royal Commission) on Indian Expenditure. He also began participating in the activities of the Indian Famine Union set up in June 1901, for investigation into famines and proposing preventive measures.

He came to India in 1904 to attend the 20th session of the Indian National Congress in Bombay, which was presided over by Sir Henry Cotton. He was again invited in 1910 to preside over the 25th session.

He remained the Chairman of the British Committee of the Congress from July 1889 until his death. As a liberal, William Wedderburn believed in the principle of self-government. Along with the founders of the Indian National Congress, he believed in the future of India in partnership with the British Commonwealth and welcomed the formal proclamation made by the British Government on 20 August 1917, that the goal of British policy in India was the progressive establishment of self-government.

Some members of the old order condemned him as a disloyal officer, for his continual tirades against the bureaucracy, his incessant pleading for the Indian peasant and for his stand on constitutional reforms for India. Wedderburn's main contribution to the promotion of national consciousness was his life -- long labour on behalf of the Indian Reform Movement. The Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms were regarded by him as the crowning glory of his life's work.

“What are the practical objects of the Congress movement? They are, to revive the national life, and to increase the material prosperity of country; and what better objects could we have before us? Lastly, as regards our methods, they are open and constitutional, and based solely on India's reliance upon British justice and love of fair play.”

--From the Presidential Address - William Wedderburn I.N.C. Session, 1889, Bombay

Born in Edinburgh, the fourth and youngest son of Sir John Wedderburn, 2nd Baronet and Henrietta Louise Milburn, he was educated at Hofwyl Workshop, then Loretto School and finally at Edinburgh University. He joined the Indian Civil Service as his father and an older brother had done. His older brother John had been killed in the 1857 uprising and William joined the service in 1860 after ranking third (of 160 applicants) in the entrance exam of 1859. His elder brother David was the 3rd baronet.

He entered the Indian Civil Service in Bombay in 1860, served as District Judge and Judicial Commissioner in Sind; acted as secretary to Bombay Government, Judicial and Political Departments; and from 1885 acted as Judge of the High Court, Bombay. He retired when acting Chief Secretary to the Government of Bombay in 1887. During his work he noted the troubles of peasantry arising from moneylending and he suggested that co-operative agricultural banks be established to provide credits at reasonable rates. The proposal was supported in India but was blocked by the India Office. Wedderburn supported reforms suggested by Lord Ripon to develop local self-government and equality to Indian judges. He was seen as supporting the aspirations of Indians and was denied a judge position in the Bombay high court. This led him to retire early in 1887. Along with Allan Octavian Hume he was a founder of the Indian National Congress and served as its president in 1889 and 1910. He worked along with influential Congress leaders in Bombay and in 1890 he chaired the British committee of the Indian National Congress, helped publish the journal India and attempted to support the movement through parliamentary action in Britain. He developed a close working relationship with G. K. Gokhale of the Congress. He was an unsuccessful parliamentary candidate in North Ayrshire in 1892 and served as Liberal Member of Parliament for Banffshire from 1893 to 1900.

He was a member of the Royal Commission on Indian Expenditure in 1895 and chairman of Indian Parliamentary Committee. He was considered a great friend of the Indian Progressive Movement and presided at the Indian National Congress, 1889, later Chairman, British Committee of the Indian National Congress. In 1910 he returned to India as Congress president and tried to solve the rift between Hindus and Muslims and attempted to reconcile the differences between those who wished to work constitutionally and those who wanted to use more militant actions. He wrote a biographical memoir of A. O. Hume who died in 1912.

-- William Wedderburn, by Wikipedia

Early life

Alfred Webb was the first child and only son of the three children of Richard Davis Webb and Hannah Waring Webb (1810–1862). The family ran a printing shop in Dublin and belonged to a Quaker group that supported reforms such as suffrage, the abolition of slavery and anti-imperialism. The family press printed booklets for many of these causes and, in turn, their regular customers grew to include other similar organisations, including the Irish Protestant Home Rule Association and the Ladies’ Land League, an organisation founded by Fanny and Anna Parnell in 1880 that advocated on behalf of poor tenant farmers.[2]

Besant would go on to make much of her Irish ancestry and supported the cause of Irish self-rule throughout her adult life. Her cousin Kitty O'Shea (born Katharine Wood) was noted for having an affair with Charles Stewart Parnell, leading to his downfall.

-- Annie Besant, by Wikipedia

Career

Alfred Webb was interested in literature and history and began to write A Compendium of Irish Biography. In 1865, he began to take a more active interest in Irish politics. He was inspired by the Fenians, although he believed in non-violence and the Fenians of that time believed that Ireland could only gain independence through an armed revolution.[3] He was first elected to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom on 24 February 1890, when he won a by-election for the West Waterford constituency. He was again returned for West Waterford in the 1892 general election, this time as an anti-Parnellite MP. In December, 1883, he resigned from the position of Land League treasurer, complaining of Parnell's 'autocratic management of funds'.[4]

His family had taken an interest in the welfare of British colonies and had been outspoken opponents of the opium traffic into China. Webb was a close friend of Dadabhai Naoroji, a key member of the Indian National Congress, who was also a friend of other Irish nationalists including Michael Davitt...

Michael Davitt (25 March 1846 – 30 May 1906) was an Irish republican activist for a variety of causes, especially Home Rule and land reform. Following an eviction when he was four years old, Davitt's family emigrated to England. He began his career as an organiser of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which resisted British rule in Ireland with violence. Convicted of treason felony for arms trafficking in 1870, he served seven years in prison. Upon his release, Davitt pioneered the New Departure strategy of cooperation between the physical-force and constitutional wings of Irish nationalism on the issue of land reform. With Charles Stewart Parnell, he co-founded the Irish National Land League in 1879, in which capacity he enjoyed the peak of his influence before being jailed again in 1881.

Davitt travelled widely, giving lectures around the world, supported himself through journalism, and served as Member of Parliament (MP) for the Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) during the 1890s. When the party split over Parnell's divorce, Davitt joined the anti-Parnellite Irish National Federation. His Georgist views on the land question put him on the left wing of Irish nationalism, and he was a vociferous advocate of alliance between the Radical faction of the Liberal Party and the IPP.

-- Michael Davitt, by Wikipedia

and Frank Hugh O’Donnell.

Frank Hugh O'Donnell (also Frank Hugh O'Cahan O'Donnell), born Francis Hugh MacDonald (9 October 1846 – 2 November 1916) was an Irish writer, journalist and nationalist politician...

Leaving Galway, O'Donnell moved to London, where he embarked on a career in journalism, following his college contemporary T. P. O'Connor. O'Connor's knowledge of modern European languages had helped him to establish himself as a correspondent on European affairs, and he assisted O'Donnell in developing a similar reputation; he spent a brief period on the staff of the London Morning Post...

In 1875, he was a founding member of the Constitutional Society of India, a group promoting political autonomy for India. In 1877, O'Donnell secured a more permanent election to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom as MP for Dungarvan, County Waterford; he held the seat until 1885, when the constituency was abolished. He struck a colourful and controversial figure in parliament and became renowned for his declamatory speech-making. He was a prominent obstructionist and claimed credit for inventing the tactic of obstructionism which was to yield such results for the Home Rule League under Charles Stewart Parnell. Indeed, O'Donnell saw himself as a natural leader and became disillusioned when Parnell was selected in May 1880 to succeed William Shaw as leader of the Irish Parliamentary Party. He called the British 'Imperial pirates' and inaugurated the Constitutional Society of India. Its aim was Home Rule for India, 'Mr O'Donnell's grand passion in politics was a confederation of all the discontented races of the Empire under the lead of the Irish party. He once brought down some scores of dusky students of all the races and creeds of Hindustan to the House of Commons.' [2]

-- Frank Hugh O'Donnell, by Wikipedia

He was elected, as a member of the Liberal party, in 1892, the year of the Liberal landslide to the Finsbury Central Westminster seat. While O'Donnell attempted to involve Naoroji in Irish politics, Webb was invited by Naoroji to preside over the Indian National Congress in 1894.[3]

Webb was a supporter of Anti-Caste, Britain's first anti-racism journal which fellow Quaker activist Catherine Impey founded in 1888. Webb was able to rally subscribers and activists for the journal around the world.[5] For example, although he was not a regular subscriber, Webb and Dadabhai Naoroji co-signed a letter with others to request support for a new association: ‘The Society for the Furtherance of Human Brotherhood’.

He was laid to rest in the Quaker burial ground in Temple Hill, Monkstown, Dublin.

See also

• Catherine Impey
• William Wedderburn

Notes

1. "Alfred Webb President - Madras, 1894". Past Presidents of Indian National Congress. Indian National Congress. Retrieved 5 April 2010.
2. Broderick, Marian. Wild Irish Women Extraordinary Lives from History. New York: O'Brien, 2002. ISBN 0-86278-703-3 (p.169)
3. Regan-Lefebvre, Jennifer (2009). Cosmopolitan Nationalism in the Victorian Empire Ireland, India and the Politics of Alfred Webb. Palgrave Macmillan.
4. Paul Bew, The Politics of Emnity, 1789-2006, Oxford, 2007, 347
5. Dr Caroline Bressey, Anti-Caste: Britain’s First Anti-racist Journal, synopsis on ESRC website Archived 2007-03-12 at the Wayback Machine (RES-000-22-0522). Retrieved 26 July 2006.

References

• Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs – Constituencies beginning with "W" (part 1)
Further reading[edit]
• A Compendium of Irish Biography (Dublin, 1878)
• Legg, Mary-Louise Alfred Webb: the Autobiography of a Quaker Nationalist, Cork University Press, 1999 ISBN 1-85918-202-X (See also information from publishers accessed at [1][permanent dead link] 26 July 2006)

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Alfred Webb

[admin]

James Cousins [Mac Oisín] [Jayaram]
by Wikipedia
Accessed: 8/27/20


James Henry Cousins
Born: 22 July 1873, 18, Kevor Street in Belfast, Ireland
Died: 20 February 1956 (aged 82), Madanapalle, Andhra Pradesh, India
Pen name: Mac Oisín, Jayaram
Spouse: Margaret Elizabeth Cousins

James Henry Cousins (22 July 1873 – 20 February 1956) was an Anglo-Irish writer, playwright, actor, critic, editor, teacher and poet. He used several pseudonyms including Mac Oisín and the Hindu name Jayaram.[1]

Life

Cousins was born at 18, Kevor Street in Belfast, Ireland, the descendant of Huguenot refugees. Largely self-educated at night schools, he worked some time as a clerk became private secretary and speechwriter to Sir Daniel Dixon, 1st Baronet, the Lord Mayor of Belfast.

Sir Daniel Dixon, 1st Baronet, PC (Ire), DL (28 March 1844 – 10 March 1907) was an Irish businessman and politician.

Dixon was born on 28 March 1844 the son of Thomas and Sarah Dixon of Larne, County Antrim, his father was a merchant and shipowner. He was educated at the Royal Belfast Academical Institution. He joined his father's timber business, Thomas Dixon and Sons, becoming a partner in 1864.

He served as Mayor of Belfast in 1892 and as Lord Mayor of Belfast in three terms; 1893, 1901 to 1903, and 1905 to 1906. He was also a Member of Parliament for Belfast North as an Irish Unionist from 1905 to 1907.

Dixon was appointed to the Privy Council of Ireland in the 1902 Coronation Honours list published on 26 June 1902, and was sworn in by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Earl Cadogan, at Dublin Castle on 11 August 1902. In October 1903 he was created a Baronet, of Ballymenock in the County of Antrim.

Dixon was head of one of the largest shipowning companies in Ireland.

-- Sir Daniel Dixon, 1st Baronet, by Wikipedia

In 1897 he moved to Dublin where he became part of a literary circle which included William Butler Yeats, George William Russell and James Joyce. He is believed to have served as a model for the Little Chandler character in Joyce's short story collection Dubliners. Cousins was significantly influenced by Russell's ability to reconcile mysticism with a pragmatic approach to social reforms and by the teachings of Madame Blavatsky.

George William Russell (10 April 1867 – 17 July 1935) who wrote with the pseudonym Æ (sometimes written AE or A.E.), was an Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, painter and Irish nationalist. He was also a writer on mysticism, and a central figure in the group of devotees of theosophy which met in Dublin for many years.

-- George William Russell, by Wikipedia

He had a lifelong interest in the paranormal and acted as reporter in several experiments carried out by William Fletcher Barrett, Professor of physics at Dublin University and one of the founders of the Society for Psychical Research.

Cousins produced several books of poetry whilst in Ireland as well as acting in the first production of Cathleen Ní Houlihan (under the stage name of H. Sproule) with the famous Irish revolutionary and beauty Maud Gonne in the title role. His plays were produced in the first years of the twentieth century in the Abbey Theatre, the most famous being "the Racing Lug". After a dispute with W.B. Yeats, who objected to 'too much Cousins' the Irish National Theatre movement split with two-thirds of the actors and writers siding with Cousins against Yeats. He also wrote widely on the subject of Theosophy and in 1915 travelled to India with the voyage fees paid for by Annie Besant the President of the Theosophical Society. He spent most of the rest of his life in the sub-continent, apart from a year as Professor of English Literature at Keio University in Tokyo and another lecturing in New York. Towards the end of his life he converted to Hinduism. At the core of Cousins's engagement with Indian culture was a firm belief in the "shared sensibilities between Celtic and Oriental peoples".

Whilst in India he became friendly with many key Indian personalities including poet Rabindranath Tagore, Indian classical dancer Rukmini Devi Arundale, painter Abdur Rahman Chughtai and Mahatma Gandhi. He was the person who brought change into the life of poetry of the Great Renowned Kannada Poet and Writer Kuvempu. He wrote a joint autobiography with his wife Margaret Elizabeth Cousins (formerly Gretta Gillespie), a suffragette and one of the co-founders of the Irish Women's Franchise League and All India Women's Conference (AIWC).

In his The Future Poetry Sri Aurobindo has acclaimed Cousins' New Ways in English Literature as "literary criticism which is of the first order, at once discerning and suggestive, criticism which forces us both to see and think." He has also acknowledged that he learnt to intuit deeper being alerted by Cousins' criticisms of his poems. In 1920 Cousins came to Pondicherry to meet the Mother and Sri Aurobindo. The appreciation is palpable in the following citations:

From The Future Poetry by Sri Aurobindo:

"It will be more fruitful to take the main substance of the matter for which the body of Mr.Cousins' criticism gives a good material. Taking the impression it creates for a starting-point and the trend of English poetry for our main text, but casting our view farther back into the past, we may try to sound what the future has to give us through the medium of the poetic mind and its power for creation and interpretation. The issues of recent activity are still doubtful and it would be rash to make any confident prediction; but there is one possibility which this book strongly suggests and which it is at least interesting and may be fruitful to search and consider. That possibility is the discovery of a closer approximation to what we might call the mantra in poetry that rhythmic speech which, as the Veda puts it, rises at once from the heart of the seer and from the distant home of the Truth, — the discovery of the word, the divine movement, the form of thought proper to the reality which, as Mr. Cousins excellently says,

" lies in the apprehension of a something stable behind the instability of word and deed, something that is reflection of the fundamental passion of humanity for something beyond itself, something that is a dim foreshadowing of the divine urge which is prompting all creation to unfold itself and to rise out of its limitations towards its Godlike possibilities. Poetry in the past has done that in moments of supreme elevation; in the future there seems to be some chance of its making it a more conscious aim and steadfast endeavour."

Works

• POEMS BY JAMES H. COUSINS
The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. Ed. Nicholson & Lee. Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1917.
Padraic Colum (1881–1972).
Anthology of Irish Verse. 1922.
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Legend of the Blemished King and Other Poems (1897)
The Quest (1906)
The Bell-Branch (1908)
The Wisdom of the West (1912)
Etain the Beloved and Other Poems (1912)
The Renaissance in India (1918)
The King's Wife (1919)
Sea-Change (1920)
The Cultural Unity of Asia (1922)
Work and Worship: Essays on Culture and Creative Art (1922)
The New Japan: Impressions and Reflections (with 74 illustrations) (1923)
Heathen Essays (1925)
A Tibetan Banner (1926)
Above the Rainbow and Other Poems (1926)
A Wandering Harp: Selected Poems (1932)
A Bardic Pilgrimage (1934)
Collected Poems (1940)
The Faith Of The Artist. (1941)
The Work Promethean (1970)
• BIOGRAPHIES/CRITICISM
A Wandering Harp: James H. Cousins, a Study. C.N. Mangala. (B.R. Publishing, 1995).
James Henry Cousins: A Study of His Works in the Light of Theosophical Movement. Dilip Kumar Chatterjee. (South Asia Books, 1994).
James Cousins. William A. Dumbleton. (Twayne Publishing, 1980).
• RELATED LINKS
James H. Cousins: Poems – An index of poems.[2]

See also

• Poetry portal
• List of Irish writers

References

1. Cousins at Ricorso
2. [1], [2]

External links

• Works by James Henry Cousins at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about James Cousins at Internet Archive
• Works by James Cousins at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• The Future Poetry by Sri Aurobindo
• Renaissance in India by Sri Aurobindo

****************************

James H. Cousins
by Theosophy Wiki
Accessed: 8/28/20

James Henry Cousins (July 22, 1873- February 20, 1956) was an Irish writer, poet, playwright, actor, critic, editor, and educator who with his wife Margaret Cousins was active in the Theosophical Society based in Adyar, India.

Cousins was significantly influenced by the teachings of Madame Blavatsky and G. S. [George William (AE)] Russell's ability to reconcile mysticism with a pragmatic approach to social reforms. He had a life-long interest in the paranormal and acted as reporter in several experiments carried out by William Fletcher Barrett, Professor of physics at Dublin University and one of the founders of the Society for Psychical Research. He also wrote widely on the subject of Theosophy and in 1915 Cousins travelled to India with the voyage fees paid for by Annie Besant the President of the Theosophical Society (Adyar).

Work in education

Indian friends called him by the high title "Kulapathi," a term used in ancient Indian educational systems to indicate a man who supervised 10,000 people.[1] G. Venkatachalam summarized his life:

My Irish teacher and friend Kulapathi James Cousins, is another good soul whom it has been my privilege to know for nearly a quarter of a century. He may not be a profound pundit in learning, a great classical scholar or even a master-poet, but he certainly is a man of sterling character, high-mindedness and pure life. His snow-white head, clear blue eyes, chubby round face of fine texture and Irish smiles, all proclaim the purity of his life and thoughts.

His other weaknesses—if weaknesses they be—pale into insignificance before this white radiance of his life. He is slightly pedantic, it is true (and most teachers are); he is egotistical in a way (and that most men cannot help being); a trifle selfish (a common factor in all men); but he has also, at other times, risen to heights of sacrifice and unselfishness, as when he deliberately chose to work in India and for Indians on a paltry pittance, refusing with scorn tempting offers from China and America. His claim to fame will rest not on what he has done for Indian art and culture but on his intuitive and synthetic wisdom, with which he has tried to mould his life and that of his students.[2]

Writings

• James H. Cousins and Margaret Cousins. We Two Together. Madras: Ganesh and Co, 1950. Joint autobiography.

Additional resources

1. Suvarna Nalapat, Education in Ancient India: Valabhi and Nalanda Universities Kottayam: D C Books, 2012. Electronic book available at Google.
2. G. Venkatachalam, My Contemporaries (Bangalore: Hosali Press, 1966), 323.
• James H. Cousins.