Vada in Theory and Practice: Studies in Debates, Dialogues and Discussions in Indian Intellectual Discourses c11.s2.12

c11.s2.12

It was at Bengal that the East India Company first settled and it was in Calcutta that the Asiatic Society was founded by Sir William Jones. Bengal and particularly the city of Calcutta provided platforms for the new dialogues between the traditional scholarship and the Western scientific orientations. There was a section of Sanskit *paṇḍits* who wanted a new educational institution to be established at Calcutta for providing teaching in English and sciences. They held a meeting at the house of Hyde East, magistrate of the Supreme Court of Calcutta on 14 May 1816 for establishing this kind of institution “conceived by the orthodox Hindus and established by the orthodox Hindus, for the orthodox Hindus”. R.C. Majumdar has shown that Raja Rammohun Roy had least to do with the establishment of Hindu College which came into inception as a consequence of this meeting. Rather, the persons assembled in the meeting insisted that the Raja will not be involved in starting this institution and no donation from him will be accepted. The participants of the meeting started collecting donations on the spot itself and were able to raise a handsome amount of one lakh rupees then and there. Majumdar concludes that associating Raja Rammohun Roy with the inception of this college was a fabrication and a part of the sustained process of making him a mythical figure.²¹