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Rammohan Roy

Rammohun’s mind was set at a synthesis of the best in the East and the West in the Indian setting. 

Rammohan’s Role in Modernization of India

Social reform

  • His great objective was to get better treatment for women in society. 
  • The efforts he made for the abolition of the barbarous and inhuman custom of sati are too well known to be detailed here. 
  • He defended women’s rights to remarriage and pleaded for change in the law of inheritance of property in favour of women. 
  • He advocated prohibition of polygamous marriages and child marriages. 
  • Roy became a strong supporter of women education.
  • Rammohan launched a frontal attack on another evil of Hindu society-casteism. Roy suggested the adoption of the Saiva form of marriage to remove all discrimination of caste and race.

Religion

  • In 1815 Rammohan founded the Atmiya Sabha to propagate the monotheistic doctrines of Hinduism.
  • His emphasis was on the ethico-religious thought common to all religions of the world. That is why he emphasised the unity underlying all religions. 
  • His practical mind found expression in the foundation of the Brahmo Samaj.

Education 

  • Roy emphasised the growth of English education in India. Here Roy’s view was that liberal education of the Wesern type alone could help remove the darkness of ignorance and help in the progress of society.
  • Further he emphasised that English education alone could enable Indians to take part in the administration of the country and public activities for the benefit of the people. 

Polity

  • Roy did not ask for responsible government, but did demand wide-ranging administrative reforms like a better judicial system, separation of executive from judicial functions, wider share for Indians in the services and, above all, liberty of the press.

He is truly remembered as the modernizer of India because his multifarious activities-his efforts towards social and religious reforms, his zeal for the spread of Western system of education, his advocacy of civil rights, liberty of the press, support for constitutional movements in the world all played a part in promoting in India a liberal, cosmopolitan and modern outlook.

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