Reading this fascinating account on Shyamji Krishnavarma's life & work. A graduate of Balliol College, he founded the IHRS, India House, and The Indian Sociologist in London.
He believed in Spencer's dictum: "Resistance to aggression is not simply justified, but imperative".
He believed in Spencer's dictum: "Resistance to aggression is not simply justified, but imperative".
Krishnavarma founded India House as a hostel for Indian students to help Indian students who were facing racist attacks in Britain. It was inaugurated in presence of Dadabhai Naoroji, Lala Lajpat Rai, Madam Cama, etc.
Despite Krishnavarma being one of the first activists to organize militant anticolonial resistance outside India, his name does not figure among the celebrities of the official versions of the Indian independence struggle. His scholarly contributions have been forgotten, too.
He fell victim to the profound historical amnesia of both professional historians as well as the representatives of the postcolonial Indian state. Significantly, a short Hindi biography published in 2002 was titled ajñān Deśbhakt, i.e., ‘the unknown patriot’.
The British press of those days described Krishnavarma as the head of an 'international terror network which filled many a young Hindu student with the poison of hate and murder’, and his residence was declared as 'the chief center of the cult of the bomb'.
Krishnavarma was one of the rarest Indian scholar-activists who could successfully integrate his socialist leanings to his dharmic worldview. He could, simultaneously, admire Swami Dayanand Saraswati's work, and be in close contact with all hardcore socialists of those days.
Shyamji was not only ‘singled out' by Swami Dayanand for his brilliance in Sanskrit’, but also for his adeptness at defending his positions. Though Shyamji was much more diplomatic in his approach than what Swami Dayanand believed him to be.
Interestingly, when Henry Steel Olcott and Helena Blavatsky, the two founders of the Theosophical Society, first arrived in India they tried to coax Swami Dayanand to be guru and figurehead for their syncretic spiritual endeavor.
(i) Even his long assistance, in editing and translating ancient Hindu texts, could not dissuade Monier-Willams from reporting his arrival in Oxford almost like that of a rare animal in a zoo.
(ii) This is how Helena Blavatsky of Theosophical society described Monier-Williams
(ii) This is how Helena Blavatsky of Theosophical society described Monier-Williams
His mastering of Greek-Latin, & other subjects of humanities, facilitated his entry into the prestigious Empire Club where ex-viceroys/governors dined. He also met King Edward VII & Prime Minister, Gladstone. Though all this had little impact on his anti-imperial worldview.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
