Sunday, February 2, 2003		Books

Short takes
Portrait of a religious radical
Jaswant Singh

Raja Rammohun Roy, the Renaissance Man
by H. D. Sharma Rupa and Co, Delhi. Pages 72. Rs 95.

THE man who campaigned against the custom of "sati" and had this heinous practice abolished. The man who founded the Brahmo Samaj, which preached against idol worship and caste distinctions and believed in one universal God. Beyond this, not much is known in this part of the country about this social rebel who made a valiant effort to spread new religious tenets which he believed would reconstruct Indian life on rational lines.

But the Brahmo Samaj remained primarily a body of the elite and became defunct even in his lifetime after his departure for England. But his pioneering effort did show the way to reformers who followed him. Closest to him was Swami Dayanand, the founder of the Arya Samaj, who shared his rationalism and his great respect for the Vedas.

Even in Bengal, which was the scene of all his social work, there is little authentic record about the early life of this crusader for religious rationalism. Even his date of birth remains in dispute. But no one disputes the greatness of this 19th century thinker. Son of an affluent zamindar, Rammohun had his education first in Patna where he learnt Persian and Arabic and then at Benaras (now Varanasi) where he studied Sanskrit and the Vedas.

Drawn towards monotheism as a result of his study of the Quran and the Vedas and Upnishads, he became a strong opponent of idol worship and that strained his relations with his family. The tension became so intense that after his father’s death his mother even tried, though unsuccessfully, to disinherit him. One of the lesser known facts about his life is that in his young age he did money-lending business mainly among the ill-paid European employees of the East India Company in Calcutta. He also took employment with the Company. During this period he wrote a tract on monotheism which made him unpopular with the Muslim clerics as well as the Hindu orthodoxy. He also translated the Upanishads into English, Bengali and Hindi. But his European tastes, his Mughal style of dress and manners prevented him from being recognised as a Vedantic scholar.

If sati abolition was his cardinal success, he had several other reforms to his credit. One of these was his advocacy of English education in India. He believed that the main cause of this country’s backwardness was its outmoded system of education. Rammohun won his point, though he did not live to see his ideas being implemented. He had found in this a strange ally in T. B. Macaulay. Both held similar views but for different reasons and purposes.

When the last of the Mughals, Akbar-II, appointed Rammohun his envoy, the East India Company refused to recognise his status as well as the title of Raja conferred on him by the Mughal. He visited England as an ordinary citizen but the visit proved fruitful in that he was able to secure a satisfactory settlement for the last Mughal. Besides, he was able to persuade the authorities to reject the petition filed by some orthodox Hindus against the Sati Abolition Act. But he never returned to his country. He died in England on September 27, 1833.

The 72 pages of this book that contain these and some other facts about the life of this social rebel and religious reformer are enough to make the reader want to know more about this remarkable man.

Positive Imaging
by Norman Vincent Peale. Orient Paperbacks, Delhi. Pages 237. Rs 70.

Several people have suggested several ways of self-improvement and transforming one’s personality. But Norman Vincent Peale whom the blurb describes as "the greatest inspirational author of our times" has the simplest of all suggestions. According to him, you can change your life simply by positive thinking.

"Imaging," he says, is a coinage derived from "imagination." You imagine yourself to be what you think you should be and if your imagination is strong enough to penetrate into your unconscious mind and if the unconscious mind accepts the image, you become just that. Image firmly that you are destined to succeed, and you will ultimately have success. If you are convinced that you will fail, failure is what you will get.

Peale describes imaging as positive thinking taken a step further. According to him imaging is a shaft of mental energy in which your goal is pictured by the conscious mind so vividly that the unconscious mind accepts it. Then are released powerful internal forces that bring about astonishing changes in you.

At the end he lists eight simple ways to a better self-image. But his most important suggestion is: Stay close to God, always.

Maybe someone will get inspired enough to practise the concept of imaging and see what Peale’s formula results in.