Indian Settlement in Bristol before and after the Second World War

Dr Rohit Barot

Department of Sociology

University of Bristol

This chapter is divided into two parts. The first part of the chapter explores 19th

and 20th century presence of Indians in Bristol till 1947 when India becameindependent. The second part outlines the Indian migration to Britain broughtabout by the process of decolonisatiion that marked the gradual and steadydecline of the British imperial domain and stimualted migration from formercolonial territories to Britain. Madge Dresser explores this theme after RohitBarot’s narrative on 19th and 20th century Indians in Bristol.

A visitor to Bristol City Council and College Green will notice that there isstatue of Queen Victoria that looks towards the Centre. Close to BristolCathedral and looking in the opposite direction is Niranjan Sarkar’smagnificent statue of Raja Rammohan Roy unveiled in 1997. If the visitor wasto enter the magnificent Council building, he would also see a beautiful bust ofRaja Rammohan Roy by Niranjan Sarkar and presented to Lord Mayor ofBristol in 1995. Queen Victoria's statue can be seen to symbolise British rule inIndia and great transformation that it created. Roy's statue faces a directionopposite to Victoria's statue as an icon of unique Indian modernity linking bothBritain and India in a close and often uneasy colonial and postcolonialrelationhship that forms the basis of Indian presence in Bristol.

The British Rule and Bengal

British rule created a new social and political order in Bengal and also created abhijat bhdralok or respectable middle class. Permanent land settlement hadalready helped to create a class of landlords, the zamindars. Ramakant Roy,Ramohan’s father was one such a landlord whose property ownership andincome played an important part in enabling Rammohan to undertake variousactivities leading him to emerge great reformer who was to end his life inBristol in 1833. As a person coming from the bhadralok stratum of Bengali

society, like many good and respectable people of the time, the Indians began todebate reforming the Hindu society on the questions of caste, pollution and sati1

and under the influence of English liberalism accepted rational scientificattitude towards Indian life. Tension between emergent modernity and pasttradition and convention have remained an aspect of South Asian life eversince. Although Roy was a unique dignitary to come to Britain in 1830, underthe colonial regime, Indians appear in England from 18th century onwards asdomestic servants, sailors and soldiers2. Initially they did not form communitiesas most of them were repatriated to India after they had fulfilled their contracts.

Raja Rammohan Roy’s Biography

Raja Rammohan Roy was born to Tarini Devi and Ramakant Roy in aprosperous Rahri Brahmin landlord family in Radhanagar in the Burdwandistrict of Bengal on May 22, 1772. Ramakant was also married to SubhdraDevi who did not have any child and later to Rammani Devi who had givenbirth to Ramlocan, Rammohan & Jaganmkhan’s half brother. As childmarriages were common among the Kulin Brahmins of Bengal at the time,Rammohan was married three times before he was nine years old. His secondwife gave birth to his two sons Radhaprasad and Ramprasad in 1800 and 1812respectively.

Socio-economic status and Education of Rammohan Roy

As Ramakant Roy was a wealthy landlord, he was able to afford best education

for his child both in traditional Hindu pathshala, giving him proficiency inBengali. Rammohan also studied under an Islamic Moulvi from whom helearned Persian, the language of the court.3 This phase of his study exposed himto Islam and left a lasting influence that stimulated his interest in monotheism.Besides his education in Bengali, he had mastered Persian and Arabic.Knowledge of these languages had brought him in close contact with Islamicthought. As D. S. Sarma has suggested, the Islamic influence made him critical

1 S.N. Mukherjee, ‘Class, Caste and Politics in Calcutta 1815-38’ in Edmund Leach and S. N. Mukherjee’s (ed.)Elites in South Asia, 1970 Cambridge, p. 35.2 Rozina Visram, Ayahs, Lascars and Princes: Indians in Britain 1700-1947, 1986 London: Pluto Press.3 S. Cromwell Crawford, Rammohan Roy: Social, Political and Religious Reform in 19th Century India, 1987New York: Paragon House Publishers, pp.5-6.

of the worship of many gods and goddesses amongst the Hindus4. When hisfather Ramakant Roy learned that Rammohan was writing a pamphlet inPersian against idol worship among the Hindus, in the argument between thetwo, Rammohan left home. He travelled and studied widely. In his biographicalaccount of Rev. Alexander Duff's life in 19th century Calcutta, George Smithrefers to Raja Rammohan Roy and his life5. According to this account,Rammohan Roy did visit Tibet to study Buddhism but found the idea ofdivinity in Dalai Lama unacceptable. He studied Sanskrit at Benares to masterthe main principles of the Hindu belief and later on to outline its basicmonotheistic propositions. Under Persian and Islamic influence, his work

Tuhfatul Muwahhidin advocated his belief in one Supreme Being as a basis ofreligion. Rammohan was exposed to a variety of modern influences through hiscontact with the English Society in Calcutta. As for his vital interaction with theEnglish, he worked as a secretary to John Digby, the East India Companycollector of Rangpur (1804-1814). Through his employment and later throughinheritance of landed estate, as William Theodore de Barry notes,

Roy acquired a remarkable fluency in English language, and roseas high as a non-British could in the Bengal Civil Service. Hissuccess as an administrator and an assured income from landedestates enabled him to retire at forty two and settle permanently inCalcutta, then the political and intellectual capital of India" 6.

The new spirit of liberalism and traditional orthodoxy were distinctive features

of new middle class bhadralok Hindus in Calcutta. When Rammohan used

Vedanta to criticise traditional idol worshipping, orthodox Hindus wereopposed to him. Roy had a deep concern about the position of Hindu women.In the earlier part of 19th century, there were numerous instances of Hindu

women who were required to perform the rite of sati. They were expected toimmolate themselves on their husbands' funeral pyre. As D. S. Sarma informs

us, Rammohan had experienced sati in his own family7. When his brother4D. S. Sarma, Studies in the Renaissance of Hinduism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, 1944, BenaresHindu University. See Chapter 2,, Ram Mohun Roy and Brahmo Samaj, pp.71-116.5 . George Smith, The Life of Alexander Duff D.D.L.L.D. 2 Volumes, London 1879, Hodder &Stoughton. See pp. 111-120 for interesting observations on Raja Rammohan Roy. 6 . William Theodore de Barry, Sources of Indian Tradition, Volume 2, New York, 1958, ColumbiaUniversity Press.7 . D.S. Sarma, op.cit. Pp. 74-75.

Jugmohan died, his widow became a sati. This deeply shocked Rammohan andhe resolved to fight against this custom until it was abolished. With the help of

his Bengali and British friends, he mounted a vigorous campaign against sati.

He argued that the custom did not have any foundation in ancient Hinduscriptures. He mobilised public opinion against self-immolation and Lord

William Bentinck abolished sati legally in 1829.

Although Rammohan Roy is most remembered as a reformer who

successfully opposed sati, like many of his bhadralok contemporaries, he was

keenly interested in science and education from the West. As S. N. Mukherjeenotes, Rammohan Roy implored the East India Company to ‘instruct natives ofIndia in Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, Chemistry and other usefulsciences’8. He actively supported the establishment of the Hindu College in1817 and founded an English School of his own which trained many children of

middle class Bengalis. Some of these bhadralok children were going to becomeleading dignitaries in Bengal and India. As a publisher of a Bengali and aPersian weekly, Roy also vigorously campaigned against a Press Ordinance.This measure was introduced by the imperial authority after the editor of

Calcutta Journal had criticised a government appointment. The editor wasasked to leave India and the Privy Council rejected Roy's petition on this issuein 18289.

British and European missionaries in 19th century India were keen tobring the message of the Christian gospel to the Indian masses. They werespecially interested in young, educated and English speaking upper casteIndians whose conversion to Christianity could pave the way for conversion ofthe masses. For instance, George Smith clearly implies this when he talks aboutRammohan Roy and Alexander Duff. As he says,

Had the truth seeking Bengalee and the Scottish apostle [referringto Alexander Duff] met when the former was young, Eastern andNorthern India might have been brought about to Christ by aBengalee Luther.

8S.N. Mukherjee, op.cit. p.61.9D. S. Sarma, op.cit. p.86 et.el.

As he acquired more English, Rammohan Roy read the Bible. As George Smithinforms us further, he also studied both Hebrew and Greek in order to read theBible in these languages. Subsequently, Rammohan was to enter into manyarguments with Christian missionaries about Unitarian and Trinitarianconception of god. He believed that distinctiveness of the Trinity wasinconsistent with the conception of one god. As Rammohan had accepted aUnitarian concept of god, he found himself in the company of ChristianUnitarians with whom he came into close contact - a relationship which wasgoing to bring him to Bristol later in his life. In his interaction with Seramporemissionaries, Rammohan was deeply involved in a controversial debate aboutUnitarian and Trinitarian nature of the divine. As explained before, he had beencritical of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity according to which God as afather is distinguished from the son and the Holy Ghost. The missionaries heknew disagreed with him and did not accept his arguments and rejected hisinterpretation. Thereafter, Rammohan Roy, along with a number of Indians andsix Europeans 10 formed a short-lived Unitarian Committee which paved wayfor his progressive, rationalist religious organisation, Brahmo Samaj, acceptinga Vedantic conception of godhead that appealed so much to the elites of modernIndia. When Raja Rammohan Roy decided with some of his Indian associates tohold an Indian service, Brahmo Samaj was born on 20 August 182811. This was

modern religious association of bhadralok individuals who were prepared to

break away from the constraints of their orthodox Hindu faith. Brahmo Samajretained the Vedantic conception of god as a formless supreme being and amodified version of love from the tradition of devotional worship. However, itrejected traditional forms of idol worship, caste and associated notions of purityand pollution as well as hierarchical and hereditary distinctions betweengroups. Brahmo Samaj was breaking away from centuries-old traditions in thisrevolutionary challenge. In proclaiming equality in a rigid and highly stratifiedsociety on the basis of universality and rationality, it invited a great deal ofhostility from Hindus steeped in their own old ways.

10In colonial India as well as in other parts of the British empire, native inhabitants often used the word"European" to describe any white man or woman.11For a detailed account of Brahmo Samaj, see J.N. Farquhar's `Brahmo Samaj' in James Hastings'Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, Volume 2, 1909 Edinburgh, T & T Clark, pp.813-324. Also SivnathSastri, The Brahmo Samaj : Religious Principles and Brief History, Calcutta 1958, Sadharan Brahmo Samaj andHem Chandra Sarkar's The Religion of the Brahmo Samaj, 1911 (1931 Third Edition) Calcutta.

After the controversial period of his reforming campaigns against sati,caste and idol worship, Rammohan stated in a letter to Mr. Gordon,

I now felt a strong wish to visit Europe and obtain, by personalobservation, a more thorough insight into its manners, customs,religion and political institutions12.

Apart from his general curiosity, he further explained that he had three reasonsto visit England in 1830. First, the Honourable East India Company's charterwas going to come up for discussion and renewal. Rammohan wanted toinfluence this discussion as the new charter was going to have long-term effectson the people of India and their future government. Secondly, orthodox Hindus

had opposed the law abolishing sati in 1829 and their appeal against it was

going to be heard before the Privy Council, so Rammohan was keen to ensurethat the appeal would be turned down. Thirdly, the titular Mogul Emperor Abu-nasar Muinuddin Akbar had asked Rammohan Roy to press the directors ofEast India Company for an increase in his annual emolument. To pursue these aims, Rammohan sailed from Calcutta on 19th November 1830 on a ship bound forLiverpool. He reached England on 8 April 1831. During his long stay in thecountry, he met many dignitaries, including the King at whose coronationRammohan was assigned a seat. When the renewal of the charter of East IndiaCompany came up, Rammohan was invited to appear before the SelectCommittee to present his views on India. He also witnessed the Privy Council

rejecting the appeal against the abolition of the sati. The East India Companyraised the annual allowance of the Mogul Emperor. Rammohan had beensuccessful in fulfilling his aims.

On the basis of his Calcutta connection with Unitarian Christians,Rammohan Roy came to Bristol in early September 1833 to visit Dr. LantCarpenter, the educationist whom he had known through correspondence.Although his visit to Bristol was to see the end of his life, during his stay hemade a deep impression on Lant Carpenter's daughter Mary Carpenter, a well-known 19th century reformer in Bristol. As a consequence of her contact with

12See Appendix A in Mary Carpenter's ed. The Last Days in England of the Rajah Rammohun Roy, 1866.Trubner and Company, pp.246-255.

Roy, Mary Carpenter became interested in India and Indians and was to attractmany Indian visitors to Bristol during her life time. In Bristol, Rammohanstayed at the Beech House, Stapleton Grove now Purdown Hospital, with MissCastle and her aunt Miss Kiddell13. He worshipped at Lewins Mead Chapelwhere a plaque commemorates the fact that he had preached there.

Mary Carpenter provides a detailed and touching account of RajaRammohan Roy's last days in Bristol. When he became ill, Dr. Estlin of ParkStreet diagnosed meningitis. Ten days later on 27th September 1833, RajaRammohan Roy died. His Unitarian friends, his two Hindu servants RamhurryDas and Ramrotun Mukerjah and his adopted son Rajah Ram Roy buried him atStapleton Grove. The association between Rammohan Roy and Bristol in hisfinal days is permanently enshrined in the city. Miss Castle had commissionedH. P. Briggs in 1832 to do a full-size portrait of Raja Rammohan Roy. Later in1841 Miss Kiddell presented it to the City of Bristol. This magnificent portraitof Roy is currently on display in City of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery14. Anassociate of Raja Rammohan Roy and his strong supporter was DwarkanathTagore whose grandson Rabindranath Tagore was going to become a famousNobel Prize winning poet and a well-known educationist. A wealthy landlord

among the abhijat bhadralok (the adjective abhijat referring to aristocratic

families) visited Bristol in 1843 and arranged to have the remains of his gurutransferred from Stapleton Grove to Arnos Vale cemetery in Bristol.Dwarkanath Tagore then commissioned William Prinsep to erect a monument

in the style of a small Hindu chatri, a temple shaped memorial as a permanentmemorial to Raja Rammohan Roy with a following inscription:

Beneath this stone rest the remains of Raja Rammohun Bhadoor, aconscientious and steadfast believer in the unity of godhead. Heconsecrated his life with entire devotion to the worship of thedivine spirit alone. To great natural talents he united throughmastery of many languages and early distinguished himself as oneof the greatest scholars of his day. His unwearied labour topromote the social, moral and physical condition of the people of

13 Ibid. p. 113 et.el.14Mr. Peter Hardie who was the Oriental curator at the City of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery has kindlyinformed me that this portrait was one of the earliest acquisitions of the Museum and registered as K.13.

India, his earnest endeavours to suppress idolatry and the rite ofsuttee and his constant zealous advocacy of whatever tended toadvance the glory of God and welfare of man live in the gratefulremembrance of his countrymen. This tablet records the sorrowand pride with which his memory is cherished by his descendants.He was born at Radhanagar in Bengal in 1774 and died at BristolSeptember 27th 183315.

In describing, Roy as the ‘greatest creative personality of nineteenth centuryIndia’ Percival Spear argues that Roy's public activities from 1813 to 1830 laiddown the main lines of advance for what was to become the Indian nationalmovement. As for his response to the West, Percival Spear adds,

‘His attitude towards the West was neither that of surrender,withdrawal or conflict. It was one of comprehension. The newworld from the West was not to be a substitute but a supplement tothe old. Synthesis, which is different from syncretism, was hisremedy for Hinduism. The instrument of synthesis was reason, the

principle he found enshrined in the Upanishads. A Hindu could

accept the moral rationalism of the West because real Hinduismwas both moral and rational’.

This process of synthesis, as Percival Spear explains, ‘provided the risingwesternised class with just that bridge between their new and old mental worldswhich they needed’16.

After Raja Rammohan Roy's death in 1833, Bristol attracted many youngBengali visitors. Several of them, like, Dwarkanath Tagore, were followers ofRoy in the Brahmo Samaj movement. Bristol Unitarians, Mary Carpenter inparticular, invited educated Bengalis to Bristol. They often assumed thatChristian influence on the Indian elite might pave the way for the spread ofChristianity among the Indian masses.

15Inscription on Tomb of Rajah Rammohun Roy in Arnos Vale Cemetery, City of Bristol Council ReferenceLibrary; Bristol Pictorial Survey, No. L98.8.3870 (n.d.).16Percival Spear, The Oxford History of Modern India 1740-1975, 1978 Delhi, Oxford University Press, p.289

As Bishop Norman Sargant notes in his study of Mary Carpenter and herassociation with India17, Mary attracted several Indian visitors to Bristol. ABengali Brahmin, Joguth Chunder Gungooly, who had been ordained at Bostonon 16 June 1860 by American Unitarians, spent six months in England andvisited Mary Carpenter at the Red Lodge at Christmas18. A member of BrahmoSamaj, Rakhas Das Haldar, also visited her. When the British allowed Indiansto hold higher positions in the colonial administration under the Indian CivilService Act of 1861, Manmohan Ghosh, one of the first batches of studentswho appeared for competitive examination in London, was able to accompanyMary Carpenter on her voyage to India. Mary spent three years in India andtirelessly campaigned for education of women in Bengal and India. As RubySaywell notes in her account of Mary's biography,

The Mary Carpenter Hall attached to the Brahmo Girls School inCalcutta was a memorial to her support for the education ofwomen in India19.

Mary met numerous Indians in Bengal. One of them was Keshub Chunder Senwho, as a follower of Rammohan Roy, had become a prominent leader of

Brahmo Samaj. Keshub Chunder Sen was a bhadralok dignitary of Vaidya

caste. Once in England, he was bound to pay a visit to the monumentDwarkanath Tagore had erected in memory of Rammohan Roy. As he hadalready met Mary Carpenter in India, his visit to Bristol was most likely. Hecame to Bristol twice, once in June 1870 and then in September of the sameyear. When Keshub Chunder Sen came to Bristol in June 1870, Mary Carpenterreceived him at the Red Lodge. He preached a sermon at Lewins Mead MeetingHouse and visited Rammohan's grave at Arnos Vale. Mary also arranged forhim to present his views on Brahmo Samaj and Christianity at a meetingarranged at the Red Lodge, a Tudor house now a branch of the City of BristolMuseum and Art Gallery. The meeting was attended by 150 Bristolians. It wasproposed at this meeting that an association, with which Keshub Chunder Sen

17Bishop Norman Carr Sargant, Mary Carpenter in India, 1985 Bristol. An unpublished manuscript at BristolRecords Office. Also see his `Mary Carpenter of Bristol 1807-1877 and her connection with India through RamMohan Roy, K.C. Sen and the National Indian Association' in Church History Review Volume XII, No 2, 1978,pp.121-133.18 Ibid. p. 39.19Ruby J. Saywell, Mary Carpenter of Bristol, 1964 Bristol, University of Bristol Historical Association, p.19.

should co-operate, should be formed to help the Indians to better their lot20. Senagreed to assist such an association and also urged his audience to support theeducation of women in India21. Visitors like Sen and others who were closelyassociated with the formation of Brahmo Samaj kept Raja Rammohan Roy’smemory alive in Bristol.

After settling in Bristol before the First World War, Dr Sukhsagar Dattafounded the Bristol Indian Association on 15th August 1947 on India’sIndependence day22 The Indian population in Bristol gradually began toincrease between 1950s and 1980s. Indians from India and East Africa were toplay a leading part in bringing Raja Rammohan Roy into focus to mobilisesupport that would cut across boundaries of class and ethnicity and create acivic space that would bring together Indians and non-Indians who wanted torecall the kind of progressive and universal ideals Raja Rammohan Roy stoodfor.

Postcolonial Indian settlement in Bristol saw a revival of memory of RajaRammohan Roy. In 1980s, in collaboration with Communities Organised forGreater Bristol, Indians united to mount a campaign for installation of a statueof Raja Rammohan Roy in a prominent position. Supported by L.M Singhvi,then the Indian High Commissioner, they were successful in installing a bust ofRaja Rammohan Roy in the foyer of Bristol City Council House in 1995followed by installation of Roy’s statue between the Council House and theBristol Cathedral, marking their own settlement in Bristol that revived thememory of Raja Rammohan Roy.

20Prem Sunder Basu, Keshub Chunder Sen in England, 1871 Calcutta 1980 Reprint p. 277.21 Ibid. p. 277.22Rohit Barot, Bristol and the Indian Independence Movement, 1988 Bristol, Bristol Branch of the HistoricalAssociation, The University, Bristol University of Bristol Historical Association.