Make a assessment of raja rammohan roy as the father of modern India
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Considered to be the Father of Indian Renaissance, this multifaceted social, religious and educational reformer is renowned for his pioneering role in opposing practices like Sati, child marriage and social divisions and for advocating education.
Raja Ram Mohan Roy is considered to be the father of modern Indian renaissance. He was born in an orthodox and well-to-do Brahmana family in a village in the Burdwan district of West Bengal in 1772, and died in 1833. Besides English and Bengali, Ram Mohan Roy acquired knowledge of Sanskrit, Persian and Arabic.
He also knew Hebrew, Latin and Greek. He made a deep study of Hindu and Muslim laws, literature and philosophy. He believed in the progressive reform of religion and a society with a liberal outlook. Ram Mohan Roy did not believe in worshipping the images of God. Monotheism was his main slogan.
Ram Mohan Roy thought that without sacrificing or discarding the genuine spiritual and cultural heritage, India could not have a new philosophy, absorbing and assimilating the modernism imported from the west. He strongly advocated use of modern science and technology in education and also use of the English language. Ram Mohan Roy was, in fact, a rationalist and a pioneer of English education and enlightened journalism.
He championed the cause of the exploited peasantry. His main aim was to relate religion to all aspects of life – individual, social and national. Universal theism was his message. He, however, used the Vedas and the Upanishads, in worship, sermons and devotional music, with emphasis on the universality of their contents.
Ram Mohan Roy worked against irrational institutions like sati and child marriage. He was champion of the cause of women. Through the Brahmo Samaj, he advocated widow remarriage, divorce, civil marriage, and education for women. Inheritance of property for women, and inter-caste marriages were special programmes undertaken by the Brahmo Samaj. He was against the caste system, as it put barriers in the ways of growth of Indian society. Ram Mohan Roy was essentially a democrat and humanist.
He did not hesitate in borrowing good from the British Raj and western culture. The Brahmo Samaj was an institution for all sorts of people, without distinction, for the worship of the one Supreme God, without idolatory. However, the historians – R.C. Majumdar, H.C. Roychaudhuri and Kalikinker Datta are of the view that Ram Mohan Roy never regarded himself as anything but a Hindu. He stoutly denied that he had founded a different sect. He always entertained the recital of the Vedas even by orthodox Brahmanas. No non-Brahmana was allowed in the Brahmo Sabha room.