Raja Ram Mohan Roy Biography and Works.

Born in a famous family of Bengal in 1772, Raja Ram Mohan Roy was a great scholar of Sanskrit, Persian and English and knew Arabic, Latin and Greek.

He was one of the greatest social reformers that India has produced. He was instrumental in eradicating social evils like Sati, Purdah and Child Marriage from the Indian soil and therefore, rightly called the ‘Father of Modern India’.

He also advocated equal rights of widows to remarry, rights for women, and right of women to property but his fight to eradicate Sati is a landmark in Indian history.

Having a rational and scientific approach, he believed in the principle of human dignity and social equality. He read the Hindu scriptures and other books of other religions.

He joined the service of the East India Company in 1805 and gradually rose to high offices.

He, along with Dwarkanath Tagore and others, founded the Brahmo Sabha in 1828, which engendered the Brahmo Samaj, which was an influential Indian socio-religious reform movement during the “Bengal Renaissance”.

Roy wrote a book in Persian the ‘Gift of Monotheists’ in 1809. He preached that ‘God in one’ and believed in universal brotherhood. In one of his books, ‘Precepts of Jesus’, published in 1820, he tried to clear the difference between the moral and philosophic message of the ‘New Testament”.

Raja Ram Mohan Roy died at Bristol in England in 1833 due to meningitis.

Trivia

Roy married thrice in his lifetime. His third wife, Uma devi outlived him. Mughal emperor Akbar shah II conferred on him the title of “Raja”.