The Early Extremist: Bipin Chandra Pal’s Synthesis of Modernity and Tradition

Abstract

While there is general agreement about the meaning of tradition, there is no consensus regarding the definition of modernity. In this article, for simplicity’s sake, modernity will be equated with a rational, scientific and secular view of life.¹ This view was dominant in the West from the middle of the nineteenth century on. It was most clearly expressed by those whom Carlton Hayes categorized as the “Generation of Materialism” (1871-1900).² Man was certain that reason was the arbiter of all questions. He was confident that he could solve all of his problems and bring about a millennium. He strictly limited reality to those data which were subject to verification by the senses and he considered a transcendental view of life fanciful and outmoded. Towards the turn of the century, however, man’s self-assuredness began to diminish. The more the frontiers of science advanced, the less certain were the scientist that they could fathom the universe. The cosmos seemed no longer a limited mass of matter of fact, one of the greatest astronomers, Sir James Jeans, concluded that the universe was more akin to a thought than a machine.