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| Introduction: contextual introduction. Body: Write in brief about the modern thoughts of Raja Ram Mohan Roy with respect to traditional social structures. Way forward: Brief conclusion. |
Raja Ram Mohan Roy was the father of Modern India’s Renaissance and a social reformer who inaugurated the age of enlightenment and liberal reformist modernisation in India. He was greatly influenced by western modern thought and stressed on rationalism and modern scientific approach.
Some of his modern ideas that led to modernisation of old orthodox structures are as follows:
- He believed that religious orthodoxies have become causes of injury and detrimental to social life and sources of trouble to the people.
- In 1814, he founded Atmiya Sabha in Calcutta to campaign against idolatry, caste rigidities, meaningless rituals and other social ills.
- He was well known for his pioneering thought and action on the emancipation of women and especially on the abolition of sati and widow remarriage. He attacked child marriage, illiteracy of women and the degraded state of widows and demanded the right of inheritance and property for women.
- Roy was impressed and admired the British system of constitutional government for the civil liberties it gave to the people. He wanted to extend the benefits of that system of government to Indian people.
- He campaigned for the modernization of education, in particular the introduction of a Western curriculum, and started several educational institutions in the city.
- Through his writings and activities, he supported the movement for free press in India.
- He demanded the Indianization of superior services and separation of the executive from judiciary. He demanded equality between Indians and Europeans.
Raja Ram Mohan Roy was one of the few people in his time to realize completely the significance of modern age. His attempt was to establish Indian people in the full consciousness of their own cultural personality, to make them comprehend the reality that was unique in their civilisations in the spirit of sympathetic cooperation.
