Context: Recently, 22 May 2022 marked the 250th birth anniversary of Raja Ram Mohan Roy, One of the most influential social and religious reformers of the 19th century.

About Raja Ram Mohan Roy

• He was an Indian reformer.
• He was given the title of Raja by Akbar II, the Mughal emperor.
• Raja Ram Mohan Roy was the first educated Indian to travel to England and went on to become an ambassador of the Mughal emperor, Akbar II.
• His influence was apparent in the fields of politics, public administration, education and religion.

Early Life and Education

• He was born in 1774, in the Bengal Presidency.
• He was well versed in Arabic, Persian, Sanskrit and English.

Journalistic Contributions

• Ram Mohan Roy was a staunch supporter of free speech and expression and fought for the rights of vernacular press.
• He also brought out a newspaper in Persian called 'Miratul- Akhbar' (the Mirror of News) and a Bengali weekly called 'Sambad Kaumudi' (the Moon of Intelligence).
• His 'Gaudiya Byakaran' in Bengali is the best of his prose works.
• Brahmanical magazine was one of the noticeable magazines published by him.
• Raja Ram Mohan Roy is a pioneer in the field of Indian Journalism.
• It was because of its efforts that in 1835 all the restrictions imposed on Press were removed by Charles Metcalfe.
• For his honorary work as a journalist, every year ‘Raja Ram Mohan Roy National Award for excellence in Journalism’ is given to a journalist for their contributions in the field of journalism.

Religious Reforms

• He founded the Brahmo Samaj in 1828.
• The religious reforms of Roy were contained in the beliefs of the Brahmo Samaj.
• Having studied the Qur’an, the Vedas and the Upanishads, Roy's beliefs were derived from a combination of monastic elements of Hinduism, Islam, eighteenth-century Deism, Unitarianism, and the ideas of the Freemasons.
• He vehemently opposed the unnecessary ceremonialism and the idolatry advocate by priests.

Social Reforms

• Roy founded the Atmiya Sabha and the Unitarian Community to fight the social evils, and to propagate social and educational reforms in India.
• He fought against superstitions, was a pioneer in Indian education, and a trend setter in Bengali Prose and Indian press.
• He crusaded against Hindu customs such as sati, polygamy, child marriage and the caste system.
• He also demanded property inheritance rights for women.
• The Brahmo Sabha became a movement of reformist Bengali Brahmins to fight against social evils.

Educational Reforms

• In 1817, in collaboration with David Hare, he set up the Hindu College at Calcutta.
• In 1822, Roy found the Anglo-Hindu school, where he insisted that his teachings of monotheistic doctrines be incorporated with modern and western curriculum.
• He supported induction of western learning into Indian education.
• He also set up the Vedanta College in 1826, offering courses as a synthesis of Western and Indian learning.
• He co-founded the Calcutta Unitarian Society.

Faced criticism due to his views

• He was among the first Indians to gain recognition in the UK and in America for his radical thoughts. But, he was often attacked by his own countrymen who felt threatened by his reformist agenda, and by British reformers and functionaries, whose views differed from his.

Conclusion

• Roy’s work in the sphere of women’s emancipation, modernising education and seeking changes to religious orthodoxy finds new relevance in this time.
• Roy was unquestionably the first person on the subcontinent to seriously engage with the challenges posed by modernity to traditional social structures and ways of being.
• Rabindranath Tagore called him a ‘Bharatpathik’ by which he meant to say that Rammohun combined in his person the underlying spirit of Indic civilisation, its spirit of pluralism, tolerance and a cosmic respect for all forms of life.