Raja Ram Mohan Roy was born on May 22, 1772, in the village of Radhanagar in the Hooghly district of Bengal. His father, Ramkanto Roy, was a Vaishnavite and his mother, Tarini, came from a vegetarian background.
Although his father was an orthodox Hindu Brahmin, he was opposed to idolatry and orthodox Hindu rites. And stood firm against all forms of social bigotry, conservatism, and superstition. This led to disagreements between him and his father. Because of these series of differences, he left home. He wandered aimlessly in the Himalayas and went to Tibet.
Raja Ram Mohan Roy | Biography, Importance, & Facts | Britannica
When he returned home, his parents married him. But, this did not affect him in any way. After marriage he went to Varanasi and studied the Vedas, Upanishads and Hindu philosophy very deeply. In 1803, shortly after his father’s death, he returned to Murshidabad. Later, he worked in a pawn shop in Kolkata. From 1809 to 1814, he worked in the revenue department of the East India Company.
Outraged at the abuses taking place in the community, he formed an organization in 1814 called the ‘Spiritual Lok Sabha’ in an effort to bring about social and religious reforms in the society. Later, she campaigned for women’s rights, widows’ remarriage rights, and women’s property rights. He strongly opposed practices such as cohabitation and polygamy, which were mandatory for women at the time.
He was a staunch supporter of the compulsory education system for girls, believing that English language education was superior to the traditional Indian education system, and strongly opposed the use of government funds in schools that taught Sanskrit. He also founded a school in 1822 based on English education.
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Final Words
In November 1830, Raja Ram Mohan Roy traveled to the United Kingdom as an envoy of the Mughal emperor to receive his pensions and allowances. He later died of meningitis on September 27, 1833, at Stapleton, near Bristol.
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