Raja Ram Mohan Roy
By Ravi Valluri
The comatose Indian society came alive as people of sterling character and calibre such as Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar, Keshubchandra Sen, and Dwarakanath Tagore, among others, populated the landscape of Bengal. This period is justifiably called the Bengal Renaissance. The body of their work in social, economic, political and religious spheres dramatically altered the thought process of a moribund society. Raja Ram Mohan Roy was to establish the Brahma Sabha, a precursor to the Brahmo Samaj. Keshubchandra Sen and Dwarakanath Tagore carried the movement further.
He was born to Ramakanto Roy and Tarini Devi on May 22, 1772 at Radhanagar and left for his heavenly abode on September 27, 1833 at Bristol.
Raja Ram Mohan Roy did not find religious or spiritual succour in the orthodoxy, ritualism and traditions of Hinduism. He was opposed to idolatry. Thus, he embarked upon an arduous journey to Tibet in order to seek sanctuary in Buddhism. But he discovered that Tibetan Buddhism merely mimicked Hinduism, in particular idolatry and ritualism. He disapproved and was critical of their modus-vivendi. This frustrated the febrile mind.
When a group of Tibetan women saved his life from a group of marauding Tibetan monks and people, this had an anatomic impact on his mind. This great escape left an indelible impression on his ingenious mind. Raja Ram Mohan Roy began to revere the feminine form of this extraordinary creation and the emancipation of agonised women was to become the leitmotif of his crusade.
This became a struggle against the unjust practice of Sati– the cruel practice that forced the widow to immolate herself on the funeral pyre of her husband –which victimised womanhood, education of women and the restoration of property rights of women. These causes were later championed by Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar. The high noon in the liberation of women was the passage of the Widow Remarriage Act in 1856. This was truly a momentous achievement. Mutiny for women a year before the first freedom struggle launched in India!
He established the Brahma Sabha, which later metamorphosed into the Brahmo Samaj, in order to discover the quintessential and pristine tenets of Hinduism and Christianity.
He went on to say, “There is only one God. No one equalises him. He has no end. He is present in all his beings.” This clearly is indicative of an evolved soul who eschewed negativity in his mind and was willing to embrace the modern and contemporary.
Raja Ram Mohan Roy’s admiration of the Christian faith resulted in his publishing the ‘Precepts of Jesus’, wherein he wrote, “Christianity admirably calculated to elevate man’s ideas to high and liberal notions of one God.”
In order to grasp the nuances of Hinduism and Christianity he learnt Hebrew and Greek languages. He went on to understand the various dimensions and strands of Christian thought and Hinduism. This convinced him that people view Hinduism through blinkered eyes and that pure theism in Hinduism was laden by the dust of superstition.
The intrepid social reformer pioneered the vision of a resurgent India and laid emphasis on the unity of India, unshackling the caste system, breaking through the rigidities which divided Indians and developing a feeling of patriotism among the denizens of this land. He strove for the unity of India and purity of all religions. In one stroke he deftly championed social, political and religious reforms in the country. This mindset certainly was epochal for that period of time.
A man blessed with enormous intellectual rigour, he learnt ten languages and thus calling him a polyglot would not be unfair. He also studied several religious texts in depth, such as those of Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. He mastered Bengali and wrote a primer in his mother tongue.
Raja Ram Mohan Roy steadfastly opposed the imparting of Sanskrit, though he venerated our scriptures. This may appear contradictory on the surface. But at the subaltern level his philosophy can be appreciated. He hypothesised by stating that this would act as a deterrent in the dissipation of knowledge among the masses. He succinctly described the opposition by stating, “The learning concealed under its most impervious veil is far from sufficient to reward the labour of acquiring it.” His interest in spreading awareness, knowledge and education acted as a pivot in the establishment of the Presidency College and the Hindu College of Calcutta, the English School of Calcutta and the Vedanta College. He petitioned to the East India Company advocating the spread of the English language and education. This reflects the imagination and farsightedness in the mind of a quintessential social reformer.
Raja Ram Mohan Roy also donned the avatar of a trailblazer in journalism, as journals were brought out in Bengali, Persian, Hindi and English. These journals spread scientific, literary and political knowledge of the period. They also ventilated the grievances of the people against the potentate.
While censorship was abolished by Lord Hastings in 1817, a variety of restrictions were enforced on the publication of certain subjects. He launched a strident struggle against these encroachments by appealing to the Supreme Court and the King-in-Council, among others. Though he did not live to see the landmark changes, Charles Metcalfe removed the tyrannical prohibitions on the media in the year 1835.This is emblematic of a robust mind, always in pursuit of reforming various mores and shackles which enveloped society. It makes us ponder how far-sighted these luminaries were who laid the foundations of a robust democracy in the country.
The fertile mind of Raja Ram Mohan Roy launched a three-pointed grapple on the following issues:
1. The Jury Act of 1827, which denied permission for Hindus and Muslims to be part of the proceedings if the trial was against a native.
2. Petitioned against renewal of the Company Charter. He toured England in this connection in 1831.
3. Path breaking changes, such as urging greater representation of Indians in the army, the separation of executive and judiciary, codification of civil and criminal laws.
Raja Ram Mohan Roy, though an internationalist, empathised deeply with the impoverished peasantry in India, the indiscriminate manner in which the landlords and Zamindars were acquiring wealth by exploiting the hapless farmer, and the heavy duties imposed on our exports.
He was a man far ahead of his times – a precursor to what the Indian National Congress led by Mahatma Gandhi and other leaders advocated. Raja Ram Mohan Roy represented a new defining spirit of inquiry, a thirst for knowledge, and embodied a critical appraisal of our halcyon days with a mind in search of something new, in order to be a true harbinger of change.
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