Raja Ram Mohan Roy - Maker of Modern India

An outstanding socio-religious reformer was Raja Ram Mohan Roy. On May 22, 1772, he was born into a Brahmin family in Radhanagar, in the Hoogly district of Bengal (now West Bengal).Ramkanto Roy, a Vaishnavite, was his father. His mother's name was Tarini was a Shaivite. For three generations, his family had been in the service of the Mughal emperors.

His birth occurred during the darkest epoch in India's history. Numerous political and socioeconomic issues beset the nation, and there was much mayhem caused in the name of several religions. After completing his foundational education in Bengali and Sanskrit at the village school, he was sent to a madrasa in Patna to study Persian and Arabic.On the other hand, the conventional wisdom is that at the age of nine, he was sent to Patna, then two years later, to Banaras.

In an effort to further his studies, he relocated to Kashi in order to study the complexities of Sanskrit and Hindu texts like the Vedas and Upanishads. It wasn't until he was 22 years old that he began learning English. After securing employment, he worked for the East India Company for a number of years, rising to the rank of revenue officer in 1809.

Ram Mohan Roy wed three times under the rigid confines of his caste and polygamous traditions. He lost his first wife when he was a little boy. With his second wife, who passed away in 1824, he created two sons, Radha Prasad in 1800 and Ramaprasad in 1812. Roy was outlived by his third wife.

Ram Mohan is credited with coining the word "Hinduism" and held a strong conviction in Lord Vishnu.After his brother passed away in 1812, his wife was made to burn herself at his funeral pyre. Young Ram Mohan made a pitiful attempt but was unable to stop the tragedy from happening. His psyche was profoundly affected by this experience.

He was a pivotal figure in the "Bengal Renaissance." The "Father of Indian Renaissance" is how people refer to him. He brought the Vedic philosophies—especially Vedanta, which is found in the ancient Hindu Upanishads—back into popular culture. He successfully attempted to bring Indian society up to date.

He was the founder of the "Brahmo Samaj".He is credited with creating modern India. He was largely responsible for the Sati role being eliminated. He was a brilliant scholar and a free-thinking individual. The Mughal Emperor Akbar gave him the title "Raja."

Major works:-

• In 1828, Brahmo Samaj was founded by Ram Mohan Roy. It developed into one of the biggest socioreligious movements at the time.The samaj was a powerful socio-religious reform movement that opposed many evils, including the caste system, dowries, mistreatment of women, and so forth..

• His greatest accomplishment was ending "sati pratha," a custom in ancient India where a widow was forced to burn herself alive at her husband's burial pyre. He battled for years to end this wickedness on a legal basis.

• His belief was that education was essential to the enlightenment of the common man, thus in 1816 he used his own money to establish an English school in Calcutta. The government used to solely open Sanskrit-only schools throughout his reign. He believed that in order for Indians to stay up with the rest of the world, they needed to be educated in other topics as well, such as geography, maths, and Latin, which is why he sought to modify this practice.

• In 1817, he founded the Hindu College with the aid of his friend David Hare. In addition, he founded the General Assembly's Institution in 1826 and the Anglo-Hindu School in 1822.

• Due to his diligent efforts against sati, Lord William Bentinck, the governor of the Bengal Presidency lands, was able to publicly outlaw the practice on December 4, 1829.

• He is also known as the “father of Bengali prose”.

While travelling across England, he became ill with meningitis and passed away on September 27, 1833. He was laid to rest at Bristol.Ram Mohan Roy was first buried on October 18, 1833, in the Stapleton Grove grounds, where he had passed away on September 27, 1833, from meningitis. He was reburied on May 29, 1843, nine and a half years later, in a grave in the newly constructed Arnos Vale Cemetery in Brislington, East Bristol.A comprehensive Ram Mohan Roy exhibition took place in Bristol's Museum and Art Gallery in 1983. His massive 1831 portrait by Henry Perronet Briggs is still hanging there, and Sir Max Muller spoke about it in 1873.