Renaissance started with the Young Bengal movemnent which(Hey! BJP are you listening ?) was spearheaded by the famous indo-portugese professor Derozio against all societal norms of Hindu strictures.This movement had many converts and at the end of vituperative invectives against Hinduism it stabilized itself down to being a considerably strong movement against the social evils , A more moderate and comprehensive movement was the Brahmo movement that started and more or less completed the cycle of reformations .
In the midst of these reformist movements there was a section which fell out with the Catholicization of Hinduism (this exactly is being tried on by BJP now ) . The Goverment started I should say by Bhudeb Mukherjee (a rule abiding orthodox Brahmin ) and later spearheaded by Bankim . These two are often cited as peioneers in BJP literatures. I just want to mention that a couple of counterpointers to show that even though they were the leaders of the Hindu revivalism from within the renaissance movement ,their opinions were highly different from the present BJP statements . Bhudebbabu was never anti muslim and never said anything that Islam or the Muslims are aliens ,he studied thoroughly Arabic and Farsi along with of course Sanskrit and English , and he from his strong sense of Brahminical fairness fought against the different anti-people measures of the British.To him Muslims were definitely Indian , he did not believe in European belief system much and went on asserting his senses . His was the first attempt to prove it through his activites that the Indian value system is more fair than the European ones (Vide Partho Chatterjee's book on Bhudev,Bankim & Vivekananda) . As for Bankim , yes he was the author of Anandamath , but it was him who indicated that "THE PATHAN AGE WAS THE GOLDEN PERIOD OF BENGAL" , to him development and freedom had economic connotations much more than the emotional part and thus he opined that it was only in the Pathan period that the wealth of Bengal never went out .His concept of equality of anti-british and anti-Muslim was from the point of view of Bengal as a unit and any regime that takes the wealth out of Bengal is alien and the culprit (in this consideration BJP is alien as it's nature in Bengal is very much anti-bengal and pro-hindi, pro-central India) . There is even an inconclusive debate going on as to whether he was a muslim hater , if we go through his characters we would find many upright muslim characters as heros . Yes anandamath has created some confusion and it deserves its position in the balance sheet of positive and negative , we must not forget that the fundamentalist movement that was going on among them was Wahabi and Faraizi movement which tried to Arabize Bengal and wanted a separate identity for the Muslims saying that they are not Bengalees. The reaction to that sort of a movement set the alarm bells ringing in Bankim. But the problem of BJP is quoting BAnkim out-of-context only from Anandamath and never going through the life and works of Bankim as a whole . There were different phases in Bankim's life and we need to look at it phase wise as tugs-of-war going on with his reactions of the then going on social-movements . The other dignitaries of the renaissance movements could by no streachable imagination be connected to Hindu chauvinism ,least of all Vivekananda , the personality which tok an adventurous plunge in uniting all the religions and was always in practically all his works tried for syncretization . To note that he non-bengali Hindus do not consider Budha to tbe the tenth Avatar of Krishno (do the BJP know that we do that) and there was a consorted effort to even extend that to Mohammed as an 11th. Abortive attempt though the endeavour shows the strong inclination of syncretization that Vivekananda started. The whole of renaissance went on in the same spirit of syncretization and internalization of the European culture within the Bengalee culture but keeping the independance and sovereignity of our Culture high above . Now these processes may have had some lacunae or incompleteness (as viewed presently ) in a strive to catholicize or regimentize and institutionalize Hinduism .But definitely Bengal renaissance is not Hindu revivalist , it had an offshoot and got buttressed in the intense anti-british struggle as a nationalist philosophy and weapon against the government propaganda of the supremacy of the British culture .
THE PRESENT CONSTRUCTS OF BJP COMMUNALISM BEING ANTI-INDIAN AND ANTI-BENGALI.
The constructs that BJP are trying to popularize all are connected to regimentalize the the free flowing Hinduism and the sense of Indianness, to catholicize to the extent of going upto fixing up oe common church and one institution of authority . This is an anathema to the Bengali culture in specific and Indian culture in general. India never knew "us" and "they" , or separating a group of people from the inner group , least of all through ages (other than the aberration in the Gupta regime) India rejected vehemently separating people according to the BIRTH MARK . Starting from the Vedas never we accepted this indecent and uncouth separation . Now that we are enlightened by the Post colonial discourse throughout the world , it is easily identifiable that this trend is the undesired effect of the unfinished struggle of decolonisation from the British . The concept of "Nationalism " was inimical and anathematic to the culture and civilization of India and Bengal . Our sense of Nationalism was to assert our identity and self-righteous ness against a cultural invasion not intrusion , against a hate campaign that Indian culture is lower or less developed . But any intrusions or assimilation of different cultures were always accepted with open ovation and taken in inside the body-culture . This is the beauty of Indianness and Bengaliness .THe Hindutva brigade is actively working against this beauty We are I guess the only civilization of including and internalizing , we in India have rejected since 5 milleniums (and are still doing so)any attempt of Zionisation or Semitisation of Inidan culture . Semite civilization (coming out of Jerusalem) with all its poisitive points carries along the most henious venom along with it, the concept of "God chosen" people and "we-above-all-others".It would be a great joy on part of the Semites to see India change to tread their gutters . And that is why between Israel and the countries like Saudi Arabia they are funding the opposing fundamentalist groups in the sub-continent . Bengal and bengalee culture was defined in a syncretic way and has come to stay. If it could whether so much oddities in 500 years we would go on steadfast .This BJP aberration is just a "Goshpad".