■ Emerged a radical, intellectual trend among the youth in Bengal, which came to be known as the ‘Young Bengal Movement’.
■ An Anglo-Indian, Henry Vivian Derozio (1809-31), who taught at the Hindu College from 1826 to 1831, was the leader of ‘Young Bengal Movement’.
■ Inspired from French Revolution, Derozio inspired his pupils to think freely and rationally, question all authority, love liberty, equality and freedom, and oppose decadent customs and traditions.
■ The Derozians also supported women’s rights and education
■ Derozio was perhaps the first nationalist poet of modern India.
■ Derozians carried forward Rammohan Roy’s tradition of public education on social, economic and political questions.
■ They demanded induction of Indians in higher grades of services, protection of ryots from oppressive zamindars, better treatment to Indian labour abroad in British colonies, revision of the Company’s charter, freedom of press and trial by jury.
■ Describe the Derozians as “the pioneers of the modern civilisation of Bengal, the conscript fathers of our race whose virtues will excite veneration and whose failings will be treated with gentlest consideration”.
