Ram Mohun Roy, was an Indian religious, social, and educational reformer who challenged traditional Hindu culture and indicated the lines of progress for Indian society under British rule. He is also called the "Maker of Modern India"and"Father of Modern India". He, along with Dwarkanath Tagore and other Bengalis, founded the Brahmo Sabha in 1828, which engendered the Brahmo Samaj, an influential Indian socio-religious reform movement during the Bengal Renaissance. His influence was apparent in the fields of politics, public administration, and education, as well as religion. He is known for his efforts to abolish sati, the Hindu funeral practice in which the widow immolated herself on her husband's funeral pyre, and child marriage.
Ram Mohun Roy was an Indian philosopher, religious leader and educational reformer who challenged traditional Hindu culture in the early 1800's. He was a strong opponent of sati, the Hindu funeral practice in which the widow immolated herself on her husband's funeral pyre. Roy also denounced the caste system, polygamy and child marriages and wrote about these issues self-published newspapers.
Early life and education (1772–1792)
Roy was born in a Bengali Hindu family in Radhangore, Hooghly, Bengal (now Best Bengal), in 22 May 1772, into the Rarhi Brahmin caste of Sandilya Gotra (family name Bandyopadhyay). His family background displayed religious diversity; his father Ramkanto Roy was a Vaishnavite, while his mother Tarinidevi was from a Shaivite family. This was unusual for Vaishanavites did not commonly marry Shaivites at that time. Thus, one parent wanted him to be a scholar, a sastrin, while the other wanted him to have a career dedicated to the laukik, which was secular public administration. He wandered around the Himalayas and went toTibet.
Early political and religious career (1792–1820)
Raja Rammohan Roy's impact on modern Indian history concerned a revival of the ethics principles of the Vedanta school of philosophy as found in the Upanishads. He preached about the unity of God, made early translations of Vedic scriptures into English, co-founded the Calcutta Unitarian Society, founded the Brahmo Samaj, and campaigned against sati. He sought to integrate Western culture with features of his own country's traditions. He established schools to modernise a system of education in India.
During these overlapping periods Ram Mohan Roy acted as a political agitator and agent, while being employed by the East India Company and simultaneously pursuing his vocation as a Pandit.
In 1792, the British Baptist shoemaker William Carey published his missionary tract An Enquiry of the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of Heathens. In the following year, William Carey landed in India to settle. His objective was to translate, publish and distribute the Bible in Indian languages and propagate Christianity to the Indian peoples. He realised the "mobile" (i.e. service classes) Brahmins and Pundits were most able to help him in this endeavour, and he began gathering them. He learned the Buddhist and Jain religious works as a means to improve his argument in promotion for Christianity in the cultural context. In 1795, Carey made contact with a Sanskrit scholar, the Tantric Hariharananda Vidyabagish, who later introduced him to Ram Mohan Roy; Roy wished to learn English.
Between 1796 and 1797 the trio of Carey, Vidyavagish and Roy fabricated a spurious religious work known as the Maha Nirvana Tantra (or "Book of the Great Liberation") and attempted to portray it as an ancient religious text to "the One True God". The document's judicial sections were used in the law courts of the English Settlement in Bengal as Hindu Law for adjudicating upon property disputes of the zamindari. However, British magistrates and collectors began to suspect it as a forgery; its usage, as well as the reliance on pundits as sources of Hindu Law, was quickly deprecated. Vidyavagish has a brief falling out with Carey and separated from the group but maintained ties with Ram Mohan Roy. The Maha Nirvana Tantra's significance for Brahmoism lay in the wealth that accumulated to Rammohan Roy and Dwarkanath Tagore by its judicial use, and not due to any religious wisdom within.
In 1799, Carey was joined by missionary Joshua Marshman and the printer William Ward at the Danish settlement of Serampore.
From 1803 to 1815, Rammohan served the East India Company's "Writing Service", commencing as private clerk "munshi" to Thomas Woodforde, Registrar of the Appellate Court at Murshidabad, whose distant nephew, also a Magistrate, later made a living off the spurious Maha Nirvana Tantra under the pseudonym Arthur Avalon. In 1815, Raja Ram Mohan Roy formed "Atmiya Sabhan", and spent many years at Rangpur and elsewhere with Digby, where he renewed his contacts with Hariharananda. William Carey had, by this time, settled at Serampore and the trio renewed their association with one another. William Carey was also aligned with the English Company, then headquartered at Fort William, and his religious and political ambitions were increasingly intertwined.
The East India Company was taking money from India at a rate of three million pounds a year in 1838. Ram Mohan Roy estimated how much money was being driven out of India and where it was headed towards. He predicted that around half of the total revenue collected in India was sent out to England, leaving India to fill taxes with the remaining money.
At the turn of the 19th century, the Muslims, although considerably decreased after the battles of Plassey and Buxar, still posed a political threat to the Company. Rammohan was now chosen by Carey to be the agitator among them.
Under Carey's secret tutelage in the next two decades, Rammohan launched his attack against the bastions of Hinduism of Bengal, namely his own Kulin Brahmin priestly clan (then in control of the many temples of Bengal) and their priestly excesses. The social and theological issues Carey chose for Rammohan were calculated to weaken the hold of the dominant Kulin class, especially their younger disinherited sons forced into service who constituted the mobile gentry or "bhadralok" of Bengal, from the Mughal zamindari system and align them to their new overlords of Company. The Kulin excesses targeted included child marriage and dowry. In fact, Carey tried to convert Raja to Christianity and appointed a religious priest to try to convert Raja, although the priest later accepted Hinduism.
Life in England and death (1830–1833)
In 1830, Ram Mohan Roy travelled to the United Kingdom from the Khejuri Port, which was then the sea port of Bengal and is currently in East Midnapore, West Bengal. He was the first person amongst the educated Indians, to sail to England in 1830. At the time, Roy was an ambassador of the Mughal emperor Akbar II, who conferred on him the title of Raja to convince the British government for welfare of India and to ensure that the Lord Bentick's regulation banning the practice of Sati was not overturned. Roy also visited France.
Roy died in Britain at Stapleton, Bristol, on 27 September 1833. The cause of his death was meningitis; he was buried in Arnos Vale Cemetery in southern Bristol.
