NEWS: Union Home Minister paid tribute to Raja Rammohan Roy on his birth anniversary

CONTEXT

•        Raja Rammohan Royà regarded as the “Father of Modern India” and the “Father of the Bengal Renaissance.”

•        Pioneered India’s socio-religious reform movement and introduced modern rational thought into Indian society.

•        Rabindranath Tagore described him as the “Inaugurator of the Modern Age in India.”

ABOUT RAJA RAMMOHAN ROY

•       Born on 22 May 1772 in Radhanagar village, Hooghly district, Bengal Presidency.

•        Died on 27 September 1833 in Bristol, England.

•        Scholar, philosopher, journalist, linguist, social reformer, and nationalist thinker.

•        Known for combining:

o   Indian philosophical traditions

o   Western liberal thought

o   Rationalism and humanism

Contributions

• Launched a relentless crusade against the practice of Sati (widow burning)
• Strongly opposed polygamy, child marriage, and the degradation of widows, while aggressively campaigning for women’s literacy
• Attacked the rigidities of the Hindu caste system, untouchability etc
• Aadvocated for a single, unitarian God as a corrective to orthodox polytheism and Christian trinitarianism.
• Established the Atmiya Sabha (1814) to campain against idolatry and meaningless rituals
• Founded the Brahmo Sabha (later Brahmo Samaj) to practice the worship of an eternal, abstract God